by Lori Foster
“Size doesn’t matter.”
He snorted. “Depends on who you ask.”
Catching on to his thoughts, she ducked her face. “You know what I mean.”
“I do.” He studied her. “The amazing part is that I think you really believe it.”
“Of course I do.” Carrying on a normal conversation wasn’t easy. Today Justice wore athletic shorts and sneakers. When he’d picked her up, she’d admired his white T-shirt, but as soon as they reached his house he’d peeled it off and she admired his bare chest so much more.
The sight of him was enough to make her breathless. Add in the stirring aroma of his skin, amplified by the bright morning sunshine, and it was a wonder she could string together two words.
When she saw his mouth curl into a smile, she realized she’d been staring and quickly cleared her throat. “Besides, if you recall, that’s my parents’ house, not mine.” She placed a cluster of daffodils into the prepared hole and gently pressed the rich soil around it.
Justice, too, got back to work and without looking at her, he said, “It’s the type of house you’re used to.”
Is that what he thought? That she expected a mansion throughout her life? Softly, she shared a confession. “I’ve stayed there because it meant so much to Mom and Dad. But when I imagine moving out—and I will, eventually—it isn’t into a mansion.”
“What do you imagine?” he asked.
She glanced up at his home. She really did love it and the neighborhood seemed nice. The houses weren’t too close together, but children would have friends to play with and that was a bonus.
But to be honest... “I’ve always thought about living someplace remote. Where I could step outside and there wouldn’t be anyone around to see me. I could come and go without being...noticed.”
He thought about that, nodded, and asked, “Why?”
With one plant done, she scooted down to work on another. The silence stretched out, but Justice didn’t press her.
He’d always been patient. Too patient.
Fallon really wished he’d prod her. Now, in the light of day, she dreaded the talk and needed the encouragement.
“I’m just private.” Liar. Being private was very different from hiding.
“Did your mom see your bruises?”
Glad for the temporary reprieve, Fallon shook her head. “She was asleep when I got home, and I was asleep when she left this morning. She peeked into my room long enough to tell me she wouldn’t be home until supper. My father will be home by then, too.” Using the back of her hand, she brushed perspiration from her brow. “Just as well that I tell them both together. They tend to flip out whenever I get injured.”
“You’ve been injured before?”
A perfect opening, but her courage fled. Putting all her concentration on carefully removing another flower from a plastic pot without damaging the roots, she said, “If I skin my toe, they carry on.”
He nodded. “Want me to stay with you when you explain?”
That was the nicest offer she’d ever gotten. Justice was her bodyguard, but he was also the most down-to-earth person she’d ever known. He’d kissed her. Repeatedly. And now he offered to face her disgruntled parents with her.
Her reticence melted away and she whispered, “Remember that talk I wanted to have?”
His head jerked up and he stared at her. “Yes.”
She hadn’t been prepared for that reaction. He’d seemed so relaxed about it, almost disinterested. But at the first mention he bit.
Because she couldn’t maintain eye contact, Fallon went back to planting. It’d be easier if she wasn’t looking at him when she bared her soul. “I had a sister who died in a fire.”
Very gently, he said, “I knew that.”
“You did?”
He nodded. “There weren’t many details to be found. I’m guessing your folks kept as much of it out of the news as they could.”
Fallon let a humorless laugh escape before she could stop it. Dig, she told herself. Plant. Focus on something other than his sympathy.
She moved on to a pansy. “It was five years ago. We were—”
“We?”
He’d jumped on that clarification pretty quickly. But then, she’d already noticed how he stayed so attuned to her.
A lump formed in her throat. “I was there.” Because she concentrated so closely on the plant, she didn’t realize Justice had stood and was now behind her, not until he caught her upper arms and pulled her to her feet.
He didn’t force her to face him, but he did caress her, his big hands warm on her shoulders. “Go on.”
Resisting the urge to lean back against him, she drew a breath and whispered her explanation. “It was five years ago. I was nineteen and Cindy was twenty-one. She was always a little...freer than me. Where I was shy, she was the life of the party.”
“Were you close?”
“Very.” Her smile hurt her heart and her voice cracked. “She wasn’t only my older sister. She was also my best friend and my hero.” It took several gulping breaths before she could admit the truth. “It’s my fault she’s dead.”
Justice stilled, his hot hands firm on her shoulders, before pulling her closer. In a low, soothing voice, he asked, “Will you tell me what happened?”
Giving herself time to regain her control, Fallon nodded. It felt odd to stand out in the open, in Justice’s small yard with other houses nearby and neighbors passing by, while talking about such a life-changing moment.
But she did it anyway—because he deserved to know.
“My parents had bought some new lakefront property. It came with a small fishing cabin. They planned to build a nice vacation home and figured the contractors could use the cabin until that was done, then they’d have it torn down. But since it was there, Cindy decided she and I should have a girls’ weekend away.”
“Just the two of you?”
“Yes.” A bee buzzed near Fallon’s face and she waved it away. The sun was so bright, almost blinding, giving her a good excuse to close her eyes. “We’d packed a bunch of junk food and our bathing suits and planned to just catch up. She’d been abroad and I’d missed her, so it sounded like a wonderful plan. Dad didn’t like the idea much but we convinced him. And Mom always thought we were safe together.”
Justice wrapped his arms around her, hugging her back to his chest, his chin on top of her head. “What happened?”
“Cindy brought a few joints and I was...shocked.”
He hesitated. “It’s not uncommon for someone her age—”
“I know. But Rebecca Rothschild Wade’s daughters did not smoke pot.” Another smile took Fallon by surprise. “That’s what Mom said whenever we did something she disapproved of. I once got a D on a paper because I hadn’t studied, and she gave me this look, then said, ‘The daughter of Rebecca Rothschild Wade always does her best—and, Fallon, this is not your best.’”
Justice nuzzled her temple. “I like your mom.”
“Me, too.”
“So you girls were cutting loose a little, having fun, and something went wrong?”
“I didn’t cut loose,” she protested, twisting to see him. “I’ve never in my life smoked pot.”
He smoothed back her bangs. “Such a good girl.”
“No,” she whispered. “I wasn’t.” A deep breath helped her to continue. “Cindy was teasing me, trying to egg me into trying it, calling me chicken and Goody Two-shoes. I decided to get even, so I went to the front window and pretended our parents had showed up. I acted all panicked, like we were caught.”
Justice kept her close. “But they weren’t there?”
“No. We were still very much alone on a deserted country road in an isolated area on a lake.”
Worry darkened his expr
ession. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” An understatement. “Cindy panicked, which cracked me up because she was twenty-one and usually did whatever she wanted. But like me, she didn’t want to upset Mom. So she tried to throw everything in the trash.”
Justice guessed, “Only the ash was still hot and the trash caught on fire?”
“It spread so fast.” Fallon hated to relive it all. She saw again the flames licking out from beneath the cabinet, the way Cindy tried to drag out the can but ended up tipping it over. “Everything was so old and brittle, it seemed one moment I was laughing at her, and then suddenly the fire went everywhere. To the cabinets and walls.” Her throat closed up. “On Cindy.”
Justice crushed her close. “God, babe, I’m so sorry.”
She fisted her hands against him. “I tried to help her, but I couldn’t get the flames out and then she wasn’t moving. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe!”
Justice rocked her, his hold tight. “Shh. I’m so sorry. It’s okay now.”
“I got hurt. Cindy died and I got hurt.”
He froze.
“I left her, Justice.” Tears ran down her face and she choked with shame and remembered pain. “I left her.”
“You escaped,” he insisted.
If she’d kept her head, they both might have lived. But instead, she’d left her poor sister behind in a shack engulfed in flames.
Justice gave her a small shake. “You survived.”
True, she had. And she didn’t know if she could ever forgive herself. “I got as far as the porch before the overhang caved in on me.” Memories flowed over her and she absently rubbed her shoulder. “I got pinned for a minute by burning wood.”
Horrified, Justice stared down at her. In a tortured rasp, he asked, “Burned?”
She pushed back from him, one step and then two. Making herself look him in the eyes, she nodded. “My shoulder and part of my chest.”
Breathing harshly, he listened, his gaze never leaving hers.
“In the car...when you touched me...” There was so much emotion in his face, but she didn’t know how to read it. “I didn’t want to take you by surprise.”
Very slowly, he inhaled, then reached out a hand to her.
Uncertain, wary, she accepted, twining her fingers with his.
He tugged her in close, pressed his mouth to her forehead, her bruised cheek, then briefly to her mouth. “Will you show me?”
* * *
HER HAND, SO SMALL in his, trembled just a little. The look on her face...so much devastation broke Justice’s heart. He wished for a way to change the past, to make it easier for her, but she’d so obviously suffered, not only the physical pain but the emotional torture she’d put herself through since then.
His heart beat heavily as he led Fallon into his house. He didn’t take her far, stopping just inside the closed front door. He’d given her a tour earlier, not that there was that much to see. But having her near his bedroom, even for those few minutes, had truly tested his resolve.
He sang a litany in his head: she wants to talk, she wants to talk.
If he’d known what she had to say, he’d have been better prepared. But he never would have guessed...
“Will the rest of the flowers be okay?” She shifted, crossed her arms and uncrossed them. “We should probably get them into the ground. Or at least set them in the shade. If you want, I could—”
By cupping her face and kissing her, Justice ended her nervous questions. It wasn’t a hungry kiss, but one that, maybe, showed her how much he cared.
Against her lips, he rasped, “It’s killing me, honey.”
She tentatively flattened her hands to his bare chest. “What?”
“Thinking about you hurt.” Closing his arms around her again, he pressed her head to his shoulder.
“Mother was hurt more.” Her fingers, cool against his feverish skin, idly stroked him. “She had to make funeral preparations from the hospital.”
When her voice broke, Justice damn near broke, too. He tangled a hand in her hair, squeezing her a bit more, needing the contact, wanting to get her as close to his heart as he could.
“She never left me. Every time I opened my eyes she was there. If she didn’t know I’d awakened, I’d catch her crying very, very quietly. But...but as soon as she’d see me, she’d smile and touch me and tell me she...loved me.”
Tears stung Justice’s eyes and he fucking couldn’t bear it. God, what her mother must have gone through. No one should ever have to be that strong. And her dad... Mr. Wade was so controlled, so dignified, but Justice knew the guy had to have broken down. How could he not?
As if she’d read his thoughts, Fallon whispered, “Dad was there a lot, too. He always looked so grim, so heartsick. But he, too, would smile at me—like somehow everything would be okay.”
Her voice had faded until Justice could barely hear her. “I respect your parents a lot.”
“They’re amazing.” She hesitated, drew a breath. “I was in the hospital for three weeks, so I missed the funeral. It was the only time I was there alone.”
And it was probably the worst time to be alone. Not that it could have been helped. His heart ached for her and for her parents.
Justice didn’t think about it. He just scooped her up and headed to the couch, then sat down with her in his lap.
Fallon didn’t complain. She settled against him with a sigh. “I haven’t talked about it much. Mom and Dad...it hurts them still. And not many other people know about it.”
“When Leese and I did research, we didn’t see anything about you being hurt.”
She lifted her head to look at him. “Leese?”
“Yeah, remember we bodyguards do some background checking before taking a case.” And going forward, Justice would remember how thorough that important step should be. “Leese is better at it than I am, but he didn’t see anything about you being hurt. If he had, he would have told me.”
“Money can buy a lot of privacy,” Fallon said. “Hired guards stood watch outside my room while I was in the hospital so no one could come up to ask me questions without Dad knowing. There was already too much about Cindy...dying.”
She had a hard time saying it, Justice noticed, as if the pain from the loss was still fresh.
“People speculated on how Mom and Dad might feel, and reporters constantly tried to get the inside scoop. Because of who he is and his financial influence, Dad had to make a statement, but he didn’t mention me. He didn’t want me put under the spotlight, too.”
“It was a very personal matter,” Justice agreed. “No one else had the right to prod any of you.”
She nodded, waiting a moment or two, then whispered, “I wanted out of that hospital so badly, but they couldn’t do the skin graft for seven days. Burns like mine require wound care first. Because of the damage...from the fire...”
Justice stroked her hair.
“The wounds can worsen for the first few days.”
So even after she was safe in a hospital, her injuries didn’t improve? As she talked, she seemed calmer about it and he wondered if she’d gotten to share with anyone. Getting things out in the open, his mom always said, was the best way to deal with them.
But if her involvement in the fire was kept secret, and her parents were so obviously grieving, had Fallon been given the chance to talk to anyone?
Somehow he didn’t think so. “Will you tell me about it?”
“Why?”
“Because it happened to you, and I care.”
She watched him, maybe gauging his sincerity, then nodded. “When they took the skin from the donor site, in a lot of ways that was more painful.”
“Worse than the burns?”
She nodded. “They take that whole top layer of skin,
down to the nerves. The nerves are alive and exposed—”
Jesus. He hugged her again.
Suddenly she skipped ahead, maybe sparing him some of the uglier details. “When I was finally able to go home, I still had a month of care, and I had to wear a compression vest and sleeve for what felt like forever.”
“How long?”
She wrinkled her nose and admitted, “More than a year.”
He whistled low.
Fallon surprised him with a half smile. “They weren’t very comfortable, but they supposedly helped with scarring.”
It wasn’t the physical scarring that concerned him. “You’re okay now?”
Her brows twitched, like maybe she thought he didn’t understand. “Yes, I’m fine.” Then she stressed, “But I’m scarred.”
Though Justice didn’t give a shit about any stupid scars, clearly Fallon did. “Where?”
She touched her shoulder and partially down her chest toward her breast. “Those are the worst ones.” Glancing at him, she smoothed a hand over her thigh, too. “I’ve got another one here, but not from being burned. It’s the donor site, where they took skin from my thigh to graft onto the burns.”
His big hand settled over her thigh. “I hate that you had so much pain.” Then, before she could say anything, he asked, “Will you show me?” To him, the best way to prove to her that it didn’t matter was to get it out in the open. After that, they could move on.
Her gaze clashed with his. She looked horrified by the idea of baring herself to him. Horrified, but also resigned.
Eventually she nodded. “If you really want to see.”
Oh, he wanted to see every single inch of her. And since the burn marks were such a problem for her, they’d start there. “I do.”
She warned, “I won’t drop my pants.”
“Spoilsport,” he teased, trying to lighten her fatalistic mood.
Her mouth opened, she paused, then closed it. It took her another second to say, “I can open my shirt.”
Justice nodded. “Yeah.” He had to be a heartless perv because even now, with such a sensitive concern for her, he felt himself stirring. Hell, he couldn’t joke with her about dropping pants and opening blouses without getting a little turned on. He wouldn’t do a damned thing about it, but it was happening all the same.
