Tobias: Book One of the Cantrell Brothers Series

Chapter Forty-Three

“So let me get this straight. You and Tobias were locked up in a motherfuckin' jail cell, and you're telling me it was the best night of your life?”

Jane looked at her friend closely, trying to gauge Karen's reactions appropriately. The wide eyes, cocked eyebrow, and crossed arms all led up to one result – a very amused and yet reproachful Karen. After having experienced the very same eight hours of tough work at the Clinic, she didn't blame her friend for looking so down. It was exactly three minutes past close, and she was starting to become restless.

Tobias's birthday was this weekend, but Jane still had no idea what to get him.

She finally nodded her head. "Yes, and it wasn't a jail cell, just a holding cell in the police department. We played cards with this druggie named Warren Mallis. C'mon, that is the definition of a good time! Please don't be mad.”

“For the last time,” Karen huffed, smacking Jane playfully over the head, “I am not mad. Alex and I actually had quite the pleasant dinner after you two left. Dessert was...mhm...” she smirked, her tone extremely suggestive.

“I'm going to be the godmother.”

“What?”

Jane cuffed Karen over the head, imitating her friend's past move. “That child that Alex impregnated you with on Saturday, he or she is my god child. There, I've said it. You don't get a choice in the matter.”

“Then I get to be the godmother of your and Tobias's love child.” Karen waggled her eyebrows.

Love, Jane thought that one, four-lettered word to herself. Repeating it over and over again in her head, she swooshed it around a little bit, thinking it over. Was that the emotion that always swamped her whenever she was with Tobias, or was it something else that had her floating on cloud nine?

Love certainly hadn't helped her father or mother during their troubled times. Love most certainly wasn't what had had her father pulling that trigger. No, it had been her father's hatred, anxiety disorder, and the complete absence of love.

To this very day, Jane had always wondered what her father had been feeling on their wedding day. How had her mother felt? Had she said that special, once in a lifetime word? Jane was born two years after their wedding, so her mother and father must have loved each other to have gotten married. It was strange, thinking about her future.

She was twenty-six for goodness sake; she shouldn't have to be wearing about such weighted things so soon in her short life. The feeling of all the pessimistic thoughts passing through her mind was strange. Even during her therapy sessions, nothing as insightful as this had ever been revealed to her, until now. What if, one day, she felt differently about Tobias?

What if she ended up hurting him, or worse, wrongfully taking away his life because of her disorder? Even though Dr. Froid had promised her that such things were very, very unlikely and that she was nothing like her father, the thought of hurting Tobias would not leave.

He was her everything, her all, anything that she could ever ask for in a man. That slightly crooked nose, those steely eyes that held so much emotion, the scar on the upper right side of his forehead, and even that little, square-shaped birthmark on his back; she had fallen for all of that. Be it from the way he talked or the easy-going manner in which he carried himself, she loved every, little detail.

So what was holding her back from saying that three-worded phrase?

Maybe it was the fact that for all her life she had faced the fact about her parents' tragedy every, single day. Even with the medications she had been on, there had been no reprieve from that awful memory. Her elderly aunt and uncle had avoided that topic like the plague, leaving her with nobody to talk to. But now, Dr. Froid and more importantly Tobias were here for her, and every day she felt the past's death grip loosening.