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Jesska slid out of her car and locked it. “Can we just have a bottle of wine and call it good?”
Cameron chuckled, stepping into the elevator, and hitting the button for the twelfth floor. She followed him into his gorgeous three-bedroom apartment overlooking the Willamette... one that he could never have afforded on a worship pastor’s salary, but what Cameron did outside of the church was sufficiently vague, highly confidential, and incredibly lucrative.
He’d been a pastor forever, but that had always been in tandem with his law enforcement duties, and after the police academy, he’d moved up the ranks quickly within the police force, until he was offered a position with the FBI. However, that was the only information Jesska and her family were privy to as “civilians.”
She dropped her purse on the granite island and slid her shoes off. Cameron’s place was her home away from home, and if she were being honest, she didn’t really want to go back to her tiny little duplex alone anyway.
Cameron poured her a glass of Merlot, and she took it to the windows overlooking the Steel Bridge. “So, what do you want me to say, Cam? Do you need a rundown of my life?”
“Not at all. I just want to see where you’re at. We haven’t talked in a while, and I miss my sister.” He smiled. “What’s new?”
Jesska rolled her eyes. “Nothing, really. I work eighty hours a week, I go home to my charming little duplex in a converted bungalow, I try not to drink several bottles of wine, and then I fall into bed, greatly looking forward to the morning so I can do it all again.”
Cameron sat on the sofa and patted his hand on the cushion beside him. “Have a seat.”
“Oh, my god, Cam. Are we really doing this?”
He smiled gently. “We’re really doing this.”
Jesska flopped onto the couch, managing not to spill her wine, and twisted her body so her back was against the armrest, and she was facing her brother. “Grill away.”
“Are you going to therapy?”
“Yep?” she lied.
“Jess.”
She sighed. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because it doesn’t help.”
Cameron squeezed her knee. “What happened was awful, Jess. No one’s saying it wasn’t... isn’t even still, but you need to be able to work out your feelings.”
“Tell ya what, Cam. When your fiancée is murdered in front of you, we can have this conversation, but you know nothing about pain and losing the only person you’ve ever loved.”
Cameron tilted his head and nodded. “What you’re feeling is all normal, Jess, but it’s been over ten years, and you need to let it go.”
“Fuck you, Cameron.”
“I’m not saying you need to forget. I’m just saying you need to forgive him... them, Jason and Seth, and then forgive yourself.”
“Why do I have to forgive Seth? All he did was die and leave me to live in the world without him... oh.” She wrinkled her nose. “Stop counseling me, Cameron. It’s annoying.”
He smiled and grasped her hand. “None of this was either of your faults.”
“I never said it was our fault.”
Cameron pulled her arm forward and slid her sleeve up.
“Stop it!” Jesska tried to pull her arm back, the evidence of her non-dealt-with pain etched in the scars.
Cameron tightened his hold. “This has to stop.”
“These are old,” she said as she shoved her sleeve back down her arm. “I’m fine. I haven’t cut myself in a long time.”
Cameron raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
