“So you have feelings for this Jade.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, first, the fact that you beat up her ex. Second, because you’ve got the arm of that chair in the devil’s clinch.”
I let out a breath and consciously relaxed my hand. Yeah, she was good.
“Tell me what you were feeling while you were beating him.”
“It was like I wasn’t myself. Almost like my arms and legs were acting on their own. The rage was so real. It took me over so that I wasn’t even there—just the rage was.”
“Why did you stop beating him?”
“Jade asked me to.”
“So Jade got through to you, through the fog.”
She had. Through the fog… The words Dr. Carmichael used resonated with me. It had been like a fog. A thick hazy fog. A red sickness that simmered within me.
“So is the man okay?”
“Yeah. I was pretty hard on him, broke his nose. He’ll have held a few bruises, but he’ll live.”
Dr. Carmichael nodded. For the first time, I noticed that no notepad sat on her lap. No pen. I was one patient of many.
“Why aren’t you taking any notes?” I asked.
She smiled. “I like to focus on the patient during the session. I’ll make notes afterward.”
“What if you forget something?”
She laughed. “I’ve been using this system for the ten years I’ve been in practice. Trust me, it works for me and for my patients.”
I nodded.
“So how are you and Jade now?”
“She’s pretty pissed.” Pissed enough to leave the ranch. A dagger jabbed me in the stomach.
“I can understand that.”
“After what he did to her, I don’t know why she didn’t want me to beat him to a pulp.”
“Part of her probably did. But she was being rational, Talon.”
Rational. The word hung in the air, ridiculing me. In other words, I had not been rational.
Couldn’t really argue there.
“So how did you leave things with Jade?”
And again, the dagger. “She doesn’t want to have anything to do with me. She says she’s moving out of the ranch house.”
“And how does that make you feel?”
How could answer that? I hardly knew Jade Roberts, but I had been more intimate with her in these last weeks that I had ever been with anyone in my life. I had a constant need for her, a constant ache…
A craving.
“Talon”—she leaned forward, her eyes serious—“this is only going to work if you open up and are honest with me.”
I nodded. She was right. Rationally, I knew she spoke the truth. I cleared my throat and looked down at my lap.
“Do you think you might be more comfortable with a male therapist? I have several colleagues who are excellent.”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with any therapist. But my brother Jonah says you come highly recommended.”
“That’s kind of him.”
I nodded. I was nodding a lot.
Her gaze turned serious again. “Talon, I know you didn’t drive all the way here into Grand Junction on a Saturday to not talk to me. Obviously, Jade and your feelings for her are what caused the issue this morning. Are you in love with her?”
My whole body tensed, and I stood and walked over to the desk and back. “How could I be in love with her? I’ve only known her a couple of weeks.”
“Then how do you feel about her leaving? Will you miss her?”
Miss her? Those words didn’t even begin to encompass how I would feel if she left. Not having Jade around would be like a Colorado summer without the sun, a meadow without columbine, the Rocky Mountains without Ponderosa Pines and Aspens.
“I will miss her.”
Dr. Carmichael nodded. “Why do you think it was so hard for you to voice that?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t that your job? To figure me out?”
“Talon, correct me if I’m wrong, but I think things inside you run a heck of a lot deeper than you’re letting on. These feelings for Jade that are troubling you—there’s a reason why you can’t admit them. Tell me, were you close to your mother?”
Christ, my mother. Time for a Freudian analysis. “My mother died when I was twelve.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that. Were you close to her before then?”
“When I was really little, yeah. But then she changed.”
“How did she change?”