Jamie leaned over the toilet, bracing himself with his hand on the wall until he was certain he wasn't going to puke. He didn't know what time it was. It felt early. But morning always came fast when he'd been drinking all night. It might be past noon for all he knew.
Shuffling into the bedroom, Jamie grabbed the bottle of water and the aspirin he'd recently taken to keeping on his bedside table for occasions such as this. Tossing the pills into his mouth, he swallowed them down with a few hard gulps of water. Jamie lowered himself down onto the edge of the bed, scrubbing his face with his hands. He looked down at his body, cringing when he noticed there was lipstick smeared on the side of his dick. His back twinged in protest as he turned, glancing across the bed at the lipstick's owner. Only her dark hair and one naked shoulder were visible above the rumple of fluffy blankets. But he could see enough to know that the dark tresses were not Rachel's thick wild curls but Sarah Atwood's professionally colored and perfectly tousled waves.
The one saving grace to his situation was that if Sarah was still asleep, that meant he must not have slept in too late. Either that or it was the weekend. He was having a hard time even remembering what day it was at the moment. Jamie stopped putting off the inevitable and reached for his phone. Over the last few months, he started his day the same way every morning. He checked his texts. Then his calls. And finally his email, hoping by some shred of a chance that Rachel might have attempted to contact him. Then he checked all Dakota's social media accounts for updates, looking for anything that might give him any clue as to where she and her mother were.
The only disconcernable location he'd ever seen on Dakota's videos was the Bozeman bakery. And Jamie already knew that was a dead end. The renovation workers Rachel hired didn't know any information about Rachel other than her name and the job she hired them to do. They had no idea when she might be in or whether or not she was staying in Bozeman. Not that any of that stopped Jamie from sitting outside the place more often than he should, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.
After the brief time he spent working as a prosecuting attorney, Jamie was good at finding people that didn't want to be found. But it seemed he'd met his match in Rachel. After years of running from her ex, she was practically a professional hider. When she left the ranch, Rachel shut her phone off almost immediately. Dakota's went next. Her car was ancient and had no form of trackable gps. And wherever she was staying, Rachel was paying cash or working out some other form payment. Because neither Jamie nor his private investigator could find a lease or rental agreement in her name anywhere in the state of Montana. Jamie checked every hotel in the area, coming up empty every time. No one under her name had checked in. And none of the desk clerks could remember seeing her when Jamie showed them a picture. It was like Rachel simply dropped off the face of the earth. Disappeared like she was only ever a figment of his imagination. He used every resource at his disposal to find her. But it was all to no avail. And as the days stretched into weeks and the weeks stretched into months, Jamie slowly fell into a state of drunken depression.
Jamie didn't feel that he was entirely to blame for Rachel's disappearance. But regardless of his opinion on the matter, Jamie's entire family was pissed off at him. Even Kayce was mad. Because Monica was upset. And because due to all the drama, Monica found out that he and Rip killed Rachel's ex husband. Since Kayce made it a point to keep his wife in the dark about all their more unsavory family business ventures, having her find out something like that went on made him mad enough to take Monica and Tate away from the ranch again. This, of course, was also being blamed on Jamie. His father was beyond irritated with him. Partly because of the rift in their family. And partly because he couldn't do as he was bid and find Rachel. Not only was his father mad, the man also made it clear that he thought Jamie was completely incompetent. A total embarrassment to the Dutton name. A name that he was often reminded, wasn't really even his.
If all that wasn't bad enough, Christina was being even more difficult than usual. She wasn't letting Jamie see his son. And this time, even the promise of money wasn't motivating her to change her mind. Jamie knew he was running out of options with her. He needed to claim paternal rights through family court. But in his present state, he didn't feel up to the lengthy court battle he knew would ensue the moment he submitted the paperwork to the local district courthouse.
After a particularly bad argument with Christina, Jamie was drowning his sorrows at a bar in Bozeman when he ran into Sarah Atwood. Somewhere in his mind, he knew that she'd been either paying someone to watch him or doing it herself. There was no way she simply ran into him by chance. But market equities stalker or not, Sarah was the only friendly face he'd seen in weeks. In Jamie's current state of self depreciation, it was easy for her to charm her way back home with him. And into his bed.
Like she did before he started seeing Rachel, Sarah went back to showing up at his house regularly. She would usually stop by sometime after dark, using every sexual trick in her vast repertoire to please him. And then she would start in with her not so subtle market equities manipulation. Deep down, Jamie knew it was all complete bullshit. But hearing that he was a god and the rest of his family was trash not to see that soothed his wounded ego. And to be fair, his dad was making bad decisions and abusing his gubernatorial power. Beth was, in fact, a wretched bitch. And he was smarter than the whole lot of them put together. That last part might have been a stretch. But Jamie still liked hearing it.
"What time is it," Sarah asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.
"Just past eight," Jamie said, fighting the urge to tell her it was time for her to go. He didn't like her sleeping over. But he was too drunk the night before to object. At least she would make herself scarce once she woke up instead of hanging around expecting him to make breakfast or play house with her. Jamie doubted the woman ate breakfast even if she wasn't at his house. He didn't think he'd ever seen Sarah consume anything other than alcohol or water.
"I'll stop by later," Sarah offered. "We can watch the replay of your speech on tv together."
Sarah was already up and dressed in the dress she'd shown up in the night before. She ran her fingers through his hair before she headed across the room. Pausing in the doorway, she glanced back at him with a look of satisfaction twisting the corners of her mouth up.
"Good luck today," she purred, smiling again before she disappeared from sight.
Jamie scrubbed his face with his hands. The only plus he could take from what Sarah just said was that at least he knew what day of the week it was now. It was Thursday. In a fit of anger a few days prior, Jamie requested to speak to the state legislature. And today, he was planning to request that they impeach his father. He had a whole speech prepared. One that Sarah helped him write, of course. But the closer Jamie got to actually having to present it, the worse he felt. It was to the point that he was actually feeling physically ill just from thinking about it.
Rising from his bed, Jamie headed for the shower. Turning the water as hot as he could stand it, he stepped under the near boiling shower. The water was a little too hot, but he figured he might as well practice for what it would feel like to burn in hell. Rachel's shampoo and razor were still on the little shelf in the corner of the large walk in shower. Sarah never showered at his house, so there was no reason for him to remove Rachel's things from his bathroom. And tossing out her things felt too final. Too real. Jamie knew he was still holding out some bit of hope that Rachel might come back. Not that she would be happy with him if she did. Even if she was willing to forgive him for lying to her and killing her husband, and that was a big if, he'd been sleeping with another woman while she was gone. Digging himself a deeper and deeper hole every day.
Jamie slid behind the wheel of his Durango, feeling another round of nausea wash over him as his eyes drifted towards the small stack of papers on the passenger seat. He fired up the engine, heading down the long driveway that led from his ranch onto the main road. When he reached it, he stopped the car. Despite there being no oncoming traffic, he didn't pull out of his drive right away. A right turn would send him in the direction he was supposed to go. That road led towards the capitol building and the legislative committee to present his speech. A left would take him home. That road would lead to his father's ranch. To Yellowstone. Jamie took a deep breath. Then he cranked the wheel of his SUV and hit the gas.
A nervous and nauseous drive later had Jamie pulling up in front of his childhood home. His stomach lurched when the first person he spotted was his sister. Beth was sitting on the porch with her laptop balanced on her thighs, tapping at it as she sipped on her morning coffee. He knew she must have seen him pull up and park. But she ignored him completely until he was standing directly in front of her.
"What do you want Jamie?," she asked, barely glancing up from her laptop. Like he wasn't even important enough to garner her full attention.
Jamie thrust the typed copy of his impeachment speech into his sister's face. She snapped the papers from his hand, glancing over them. And just like that, suddenly he had Beth's full attention. She sat up, snapping her laptop closed and setting it on the table next to her coffee. Starting at the top of the page, she read the text in its entirety. Her face grew darker as they flicked over the page.
"What the fuck is this?," Beth demanded, shoving the papers back at him as she rose from her seat.
"It's a copy of the speech I'm going to give in front of the state legislature today," Jamie admitted.
"What the hell are you showing it to me for?," Beth asked. "Did you come here just to fucking gloat?"
"No," Jamie said, gripping the now crumpled papers in his hand. "I came here to ask for your help." Beth's mouth dropped open. The sheer audacity of her brother to not only fuck over their father but to expect her to help him do it was totally unbelievable.
"I would never help you with that," Beth spat. Jamie shook his head. That's not what he wanted help with. "What the hell do you want Jamie?," Beth demanded. Her fingernails were already cutting into the meat of her palm. And if her idiot brother didn't start explaining himself real soon and real fast he was about to get her fist in his face and her boot up his ass.
"I want you to take this speech and fucking burn it," Jamie said, watching as Beth's eyes widened. "...and then I want you to help me get Rachel back."