DEAD SEXY by Caitlin Falls

life had been a study in being tough, in being strong enough to take anything, and she had had to be that strong to survive. Her heart literally ached and her entire body felt like it had been hit with a giant hammer. She was terrified of what would happen when those walls came tumbling down, and they would, she knew it.
    To stave that off she adopted her business demeanor as soon as they were in Blake’s living room. She removed the file from her bag and they sat down with it. “This is crazy,” she said. “Denise had full access to everything. She could have taken the money long ago and left, why did she stay?”
    “She was waiting for her son to get out of prison, I think.”
    Jenna closed her eyes. She did not want to feel any sympathy for Denise, but she did. What had it been like to watch her child grow up with another woman as his mother? To see him but to not be able to hold him, to comfort him or rejoice with him on holidays?
    Jenna’s childhood had been bleak, and she had often fantasized about a ‘real’ family that would burst in and announce that they had been looking for her for years and were ecstatic that they had found her. In those childish daydreams the house was always big, the parents were faceless but nice, and there was always hugs and kisses instead of punishments and fear.
    What had Denise fantasized about as she watched her son grow into manhood, and what would she have been willing to overlook? Had she loved his father? How much had it hurt to stay there day after day knowing she had not only given away her son but that the man she loved did not want her?
    “I did not make a mistake; it was him that was the thief, not his father.” Was she saying that reassure him or herself, she wondered. What if she had made a mistake?
    “Look at all these accounts. This started right after Jason went to prison, and look at all the signatures. They were yours. She as setting you up for a long fall.”
    “She knew about my past, didn’t she?”
    “If I could find out, Kevin could have too.”
    Jenna laughed a harsh and broken laugh that turned into a sob. Before she knew what was happening the dam broke and she was sobbing like a child. Blake pulled her into his lap, holding her and rocking her gently. “Let it go,” he said softly, “Let it all go.”
    She did. A storm of grief, anger and loss poured out of her. Jenna wept for things she did not even know she had been holding onto: her parents and their wasted lives, the abuse she had suffered growing up, the long lonely nights in the detention center, her own loneliness—the loneliness she could no longer mask with success and material things.
    Blake sheltered her, his arms providing her a solid space and his shoulder took the brunt of her sadness, becoming soaked with her tears. When her sobs tapered off and became small lost sounds he picked her up and carried her to bed.
    Jenna looked up at him as he laid her gently across the mattress. Her eyes were swollen and gritty and her head pounded but still she wanted him. She raised a hand to her face, “I look awful. I probably have snot or something…”
    Blake laughed; a tender chuckle that melted the last bit of reserve in her heart and his knees pressed into the mattress as he knelt beside her. “You look beautiful.”
    “You probably say that to every woman who winds up in your bed.”
    “No, but I do always say it to my cat.”
    “That is not a cat; that is a moose.”
    “It would be illegal to keep a moose as a pet.”
    “Maybe I should turn you in then.”
    “Would you really want Freddy to live in a zoo?”
    “I would be more afraid they would release him into the wild, not because I would worry about Freddy, but I would certainly worry about the havoc he would create on the eco-system.”
    “He is a greedy thing.” He wiped away her tears with a gentle knuckle. “I love you Jenna.”
    Her heart bloomed and her smile was wide and genuine. “I love you too, as crazy as that