Jaimie: Fire and Ice (The Wilde Sisters 2)

“Well, she’s a woman,” Travis said. “We all know how they can get. You know. A little weird. Moody.”

“PMS,” Jake said glumly.

His brothers agreed.

Women. Hormones. PMS.

It made absolute sense.

* * * *

While the men were out riding, Sage, Addison and Jennie were in the kitchen.

They, too, were talking about Jaimie while Sage and Addison bathed their babes in big porcelain basins that had been used to bathe generations of Wilde infants.

They agreed that she wasn’t her usual self, but none of them knew the reason.

“Lissa might know,” Addison said.

“Lissa might know what?” Lissa said, as she stepped into the warm kitchen.

“What’s wrong with Jaimie.”

Lissa plucked a cookie from a huge platter. The women gave her pointed looks. Everyone had been told not to touch the cookies until tomorrow.

“I baked them,” Lissa said. “I can eat them. Oh, go on, have some if you must.”

For a few minutes, there was only the sound of women chewing and swallowing and oohing and ahhing. Then Lissa brushed crumbs off her jeans and said, “OK.”

“OK what?” Sage said.

“OK, I think I know what’s wrong with our James.” She took a deep breath. “There was this nut case. Steven Young. He was stalking her.”

“What did he do to her?”

“Why didn’t we know about it?”

“When did this happen?”

Lissa held up her hands. “He harassed her, but he never touched her. You didn’t know because I was sworn to secrecy. And it happened pretty recently. The main thing is that it’s over. It’ll be a long time before he sees daylight again.”

“And?”

Lissa sighed. “And,” she said, and told them the whole story. Everything, including the part about Zach Castelianos.

The women were silent when she’d finished, Sage and Addison sitting with their towel-wrapped babies in their arms, Jennie emptying and rinsing the basins.

Then Sage looked at Lissa.

“In other words, she’s still in love with him.”

“But what about him?” Addison said. “Did he love her? Does he still?”

“You know,” Jennie said slowly, “sometimes, guys who are the strong, silent type, guys who have trouble facing their feelings, you know, guys who are emotionally hurt, but—”

“But have more pride than brains,” Sage said.

“Sometimes,” Jennie said, “sometimes, they just don’t know how to handle things.”