I genuinely didn’t mean it in any type of sexual way and I would have been perfectly fine with staying above the covers. I hated seeing the pain in her eyes. Even if she said she was fine, I could tell she was hurting.
“No, I think it’s best if we stay in our own rooms tonight.” Roxanne smiled slightly.
“All right, but maybe we should leave the doors unlocked, just in case you need something. I’m a pretty light sleeper. I can come in and help out again if you need me to.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’m going to sleep now. I’m exhausted.”
Roxanne shut the door, and I saw the lights turn off under the door. She seemed distant and sad, not at all like her regular feisty self. Although I had only known her for a couple days, so maybe I really didn’t know what her regular self was like.
I climbed back into bed and pulled my laptop out to email Chase and Jordan. I gave them an update on what we had found out so far and told them that Roxanne and I were getting along great.
I lied and said that we hadn’t run into any problems yet. There was no reason to get them worried by telling them about Roxanne being strangled outside the club.
Chase had a tendency to want to handle things when he felt like he could help. I didn’t want him rushing back down to Miami just because of the incident that had just happened. Roxanne and I could handle things. I was confident we were on the right path.
***
I always had dreams where I fought people off. It was a danger of my profession and past in the military. On that night, I replayed the scene of Roxanne being strangled. I found myself there again and fighting with her attacker. Kicking him, punching him, and nothing would get him to let go of her throat.
In my dream, as it turned to a nightmare, Roxanne slumped down limply as I stood there unable to save her. The assailant and I were in the midst of an all-out battle as I had to fight to save my own life and couldn’t come to Roxanne’s rescue. It was a nightmare to me because I always tried to protect the people I was around. If someone actually was able to hurt one of my loved ones or partners, I felt like that was the ultimate defeat.
I felt th
e helplessness as it overwhelmed me, that feeling of not being able to save someone I loved. The feelings of losing Rose in Qatar flooded over me throughout my dream. It was like Roxanne was Rose and I had lost her. Rose had been my sweet girlfriend and I felt the pain like it was real again.
My body wanted to wake up from the nightmare and I felt myself struggling to come out of it, but I just couldn’t. The sadness of losing Rose, or Roxanne, was too much and I stayed in the dream in hopes of getting a different outcome. I wanted to wake up and have everything be all right. I wanted to wake up and learn that the reality wasn’t the truth and Rose was still alive.
“Jackson,” I heard a woman’s voice call.
I grabbed her and pulled her into my bed with me. In a daze between a dream and sleep, I grabbed the woman I thought was Rose and held onto her tightly. Her skin felt so good next to mine, I had missed it for so long.
“Oh, Rose, I’m so glad you’re safe. I’ve missed you so much,” I said.
“Jackson, its Roxanne. Are you all right?”
I started to wake up and released my grip on Roxanne. It wasn’t Rose who I had been holding. As much as I wished she was still alive, it wasn’t her.
“I’m sorry. I was dreaming,” I said as I sat up in bed.
“Who’s Rose?” Roxanne asked as she sat next to me.
I didn’t really want to go into all the details with her. It wasn’t like we were friends or anything. She was just someone who was working with me on a case. She didn’t need to know all the details about my life and my past.
“Just a woman I once loved,” I said as I got up and went to the bathroom.
“I’m sorry. Is she dead?”
I pretended not to hear her as I used the bathroom and grabbed a drink out of the fridge. I really wasn’t in the mood to explain my entire past. I just wanted to go back to sleep. My past wasn’t something I shared with people. It was mine and it wasn’t public knowledge, there was no need for Roxanne to know about Rose.
On the other hand, I felt bad for what Roxanne had gone through and I didn’t want her to think I was being a jerk. I decided to tell her a little bit.
“She was just someone I once knew. I loved her and she died. Are you going to stay here all night or are you going back to your bed?”
“You don’t need to be an ass about it,” Roxanne said as she stormed off back to her room.
If there was one thing I was good at, it was getting a woman to leave me alone. Intimacy and feelings just weren’t in my DNA, and I was much better at being alone than I was at being around other people. Roxanne would just have to learn that I wasn’t the kind of touchy feely guy she thought I was. Even when I was trying to be nice, it often came off has jerky to the women in my life.
Roxanne slammed the door between our rooms, and instantly I felt the pang of guilt as it came over me. I didn’t purposely mean to be an ass. It’s just the only other way I had of dealing with women sometimes. I knew if I was a jerk, they would leave me alone. And I deserved to be alone for what happened with Rose in Qatar.