One of the best things about the house was that it’d come with the furnishings. Every room was fully furnished, the ornate, handmade pieces that had been left behind by the previous owners teeming with history and charm, perfect accents already in place.
At one point, this room had been painted a dark blue, though it’d faded and chipped.
The wallpaper, which someone had to have put up sometime in the seventies, was peeling, and the worn wooden floors were in dire need of a good sanding and staining.
But other than that, it was in fairly good shape, which was the reason I’d picked it.
Well, that and as I’d nervously flitted from room to room, trying to picture where in the world I was supposed to put the man, my child had claimed, “Bwew is for boys. This room, Mommy.”
It’d been decided.
Now, I was questioning how in the world I’d agreed to let him stay in the room right next to mine.
That was nothing but a disaster waiting to happen.
I tipped the polish onto the rag and began to wipe down the aged, darkened wood, every stroke brightening the dresser to a gleaming sheen.
I quickly wiped down the bronze handles and tugged open the drawers to make sure they weren’t providing shelter to a dust bunny or two.
I made it through the top row and started on the lower, only to pause in surprise after I’d tugged one open.
Inside was a key.
An old, ornate, antique key.
But it was the thick piece of parchment paper folded in half underneath that sent nerves skittering across my flesh.
I could have sworn I’d been through these drawers before and this hadn’t been here. Was sure this wasn’t a relic left from centuries ago to tease us with a love that once was.
It was funny how it almost felt that way, though. As if I were reaching out to touch something in the distance.
Something lost.
A whisper of a memory.
My pulse beat a sluggish cadence of sorrow as I pulled the note free.
Our anniversary had only been a week away, and I was bettin’ he’d hidden this here.
I sank onto my bottom on the rug, hands shaking as I opened the note.
The words were drawn in pencil, sharp and choppy, the blocky handwriting one I would never forget. My heart fisted in my chest.
Faith,
The first time I saw you, I wanted you. I guessed I’d always chased after the things that weren’t mine. I’m so sorry for that. But I don’t regret it.
Do you remember the day we got married? Look at that picture, Faith. Look at me. It was the most honest day of my life. But even that honesty was tainted because you never really belonged to me.
I could never regret you. The only thing I wish is that I’d done it all differently.
Look at that picture, Faith. What you see there, it’s the truth.
Joseph
Uncertainty flooded into my broken heart, a river of it gushing in to fill the cracks and crevices, carving out a canyon of questions and confusion.
I’d never belonged to him?
What was he saying?
Frantic, I flipped the sheet over, looking for something else. For something more. Needing to know what it was he was trying to say.
But that was all that he’d left me.
I wanted to cling to the letter as if it offered some sort of comfort.
But there was something about the words that felt like a warning. As if something sickly crawled from the page and sank through my flesh, filling my consciousness with dread.
As if he were warning of what was to come.
Did he know he was gonna be taken from us? Did he know he was leaving Bailey and me in danger? Had he done something to make it that way?
Is that why he said I’d never really belonged to him?
Grief fisting my heart, I sat on the floor, having no idea what direction to go. So lost, I felt disoriented.
My spirit quivered within its confines, and I forced myself to shake off the thoughts that felt like some kind of morbid betrayal.
That was right when I heard the sound of a car engine turn up the drive.
I told myself to get it together. The last thing I needed was for Jace to find me this way.
Pushing to my feet, I edged toward the window and peered through the drape.
That fancy black Porsche pulled to a stop in the round drive.
I rushed into my bedroom next door, where I shoved the key and note into a drawer, finding the barest comfort in the fact Joseph had left behind a relic that he knew would speak to me.
An old key.
As if maybe he too had once wanted to be able to unlock a different world. One different than he’d been living. I was just terrified to know what kind of world he’d actually been involved in.
I edged back into the hall and popped my head into Bailey’s room where she was playing quietly on the floor. “I’m just going to let Jace in, Button. I’ll be right downstairs if you need me.”
“Oh-kay, Mommy,” she drawled, not even looking up from her dolls and blocks.
I bounded downstairs, not sure why I was running right toward the disturbance that rumbled in from out front.
But there I was, working through the locks, including the new one up high that he’d added, in a rush to open the door.
Once I had, though, I forced myself to slow as I stepped onto the porch, the breath leaving me without me giving it permission to.
Slowly, I moved over the unstained temporary boards, just watching as Jace stepped out of his car and rounded to the back to the hatch that slowly lifted.
He leaned forward and then pulled out a suitcase and a small overnight bag.
Emotion stretched tight. Tugging at all those places that I’d so long ago forgotten about.
The hope I’d had for this boy.
The belief that one day, things would be better.
“You did good for yourself, Jace,” I found myself calling, voice soft though filled with pride, wondering why I couldn’t stop myself from saying it.
Offering it.
But there were some things that were too important to ignore. It didn’t matter that the cost of him attaining them had been him leaving me behind.
An even softer huff left his nose as he pushed a button on his key and the hatch began to lower. He watched it go, not looking my way until it was secure. “I seem to remember someone telling me that I would if I wanted it badly enough.”
A chill of something flashed across my skin, cool in the muggy evening. I rushed my palms up my arms as if it might stand the chance to chase away the unease.
“I used to believe we could achieve anything if we wanted it badly enough. That we could close our eyes, and if we imagined it fiercely enough, we could will it to be,” I murmured, not even sure he could hear.
Jace started up the walk, slowly taking the porch steps, those coppery eyes on me. He leaned in when he got to me, his tone coarse. “It’d kill me if you stopped.”
He hesitated there. An inch away. Filling my senses.
Cloves and expensive leather and need.
I blinked, cleared my throat, tucked a strand of hair that’d gotten loose behind my ear. “Come on, I’ll show you to your room.”
Jace followed me inside.
I went right for the grand staircase, which was the centerpiece of the entire house. My hand slipped up the railing, holding tighter and tighter as we edged upward, his presence expanding with each step that we took.
If I let him, he’d fill this house. Take over everything.
I had to be careful. Guard myself from harboring the idea that this was anything but temporary.
Hitting the landing, we went left, and I stepped over the baby gate that blocked the end of the hall.
Jace chuckled a rumbly sound. “We might need to add a few extra inches to the top of that gate.”
I released an affectionate sigh. “She seems to figure things out when she needs to.”
“That’s because she knows she can, just like her mother.”
His words were fueled with his own belief, and my footsteps slowed until I was no longer moving, just standing two steps ahead of him facing away in the narrow hall. “Her mother’s older now, and she’s learned the hard way that’s not always the case.”
He was suddenly right there, so close he might as well have been touching me, his heart beating so loud I could feel the pound of it at my back. “Maybe she needs someone to remind her.”
My eyes slammed closed.
As if it could stop the wave of emotions from slamming me, so overwhelming, they almost knocked me from my feet.
Belief enveloped me, a shroud of the words we’d shared when we’d snuck out to meet in the middle of the night.
As if he’d captured them in the palms of his hands when I’d given them to him, carried them through all the years, and then softly blew them back my direction at the exact moment I needed them.
I cleared the roughness from my throat, shook myself off, and forced myself to keep moving. I stopped at the first door on the right and pushed it open.
Turning to face him, I stepped off to the side and gestured inside.
“This is you.”
He stood in the hall, unmoving, staring at me with all that potency. So big and enthralling. That mystery I’d always wanted to discover, his gaze almost too much to take.
He pointed to the room directly across from it. “Huh, I would have been sure it was that one.”
A sharp wheeze filled my lungs at the forwardness of his words.
Presumptuous and brash and cruel.
It was a room I’d scarcely been able to force myself into in all the years I’d owned this home.
I was suddenly assaulted by images that I’d tucked way down deep inside.
Of that night.
Our bodies in the shadows, a twist in the moonlight. Before the sun had broken and we’d lost everything.
Heat burned on my cheeks. “Jace. You can’t do that. Say things like that.”
“Why?”
Was that anger in the word?
As if it had been my fault?
As if I hadn’t begged him to stay?
“It’s not fair . . . you coming into my home and stirring up ghosts.”
His face pinched with frustration and remorse.
Severe and dark.
“You think I can come here and not think of it? Not think of you?”
I could feel the anger pulling across my features. “You did perfectly fine the last ten years.”
He flew forward a step, stealing my breath. “Is that what you think? That I was fine?”
My lungs squeezed, and my heart stampeded, the man in my face, eyes overpowering, soul shattering.
“Fuck.” He cursed so low that I could barely hear it before prying himself away and releasing me from the hold of his stare.
I lurched forward as if I’d been freed from an invisible force that’d held me pinned.
Strain radiated from him, and he moved into the room I’d prepared for him. I hovered at the doorway, watching him as he set his suitcase on the bench and let the strap of his bag slide from his shoulder.
Standing there? I didn’t have the first clue what the hell I was supposed to do.
How I was gonna deal with this kind of devastating presence in my home.
Day after day.
I jolted when the pound of tiny footsteps echoed from behind. Bailey suddenly squeezed past my legs. She scrambled right passed me and onto his bed before I had the chance to stop her.
“Bailey,” I scolded, starting for her.
I hadn’t even made it two steps when my little girl had jumped to her feet, singing, “One, two, three,” as she bounced, not even hesitating for a second before she leapt for Jace, who watched her with wide, shocked eyes.
My stomach nearly sank right to the floor, figuring that was exactly where she was gonna end up.
Right on the floor.
But Jace . . .
He snatched her from the air as if he’d been planning to do it all along.
Reflexively. Catching her in his arms.
“Whoa,” he said, a rough chuckle leaving him as he looked between the two of us in something between discomfort and awe. “Looks to me like someone really is a daredevil.”
Bailey was beaming at him, hungry for attention. “I jump high.”
“Really high. But next time, you need to give me a little warning, yeah?”
I finally shook myself out of the stupor and went for my daughter. “Bailey, you can’t just come in here like that.”
And she sure shouldn’t be jumping into his arms.
“She’s fine,” he said as if he was in some kind of pain as he awkwardly held her. Though he didn’t seem to be all that inclined to set her down. “I’m the one invading your home.”
Yeah, and I wondered if it weren’t an ambush.
“She needs to know boundaries, Jace,” I told him, a spit of anger making its way into my tone, because he sure didn’t have the right to tell me how to raise my daughter.
Or maybe it was the unsettling feeling of relief that he was there to catch her that worried me most of all.
That he was here, and for the first time in three months, I truly felt safe.
He nodded slowly. Almost sadly. “Okay.”
He set her onto her tiny feet, his fingertips sweeping through the very back of her curly hair.
I blinked through the burn that abruptly stung my eyes, my emotions everywhere. “I’m sorry. I’m just . . . I’m not used to anyone being here.”
“You don’t have to apologize to me, Faith. I get it. I keep pushing past the boundaries I should know better than to push against.”
From his stare, I could see clearly what he was referencing, referring to the tension that had bound the walls back out in the hall as he’d taken us back to that day—to that moment—all those years ago.
Unable to keep standing under his gaze, I stretched my hand out for Bailey. “Come on, Button. It’s time for bed.”
She swung her attention up to Jace. “Can you read me story?”
There was so much hope behind it that I nearly dropped to my knees.
Jace didn’t seem too steady, either, his attention swiveling between the two of us as if he were begging for help.
For direction.
“Bailey, honey, Mommy will read you a story.”
“But I’s want him to.” It was all a sweet plea as she peered up at him with that eager smile.
“It’s fine,” Jace said, looking at me as if he were asking for permission.
“Jace.” I guessed I’d regressed to begging it. Because I no longer knew where I stood.
He shook his head. “It’s fine,” he said again, this time resolute.
And I was terrified that it wasn’t ever going to be.
Fifteen
Jace
What the fuck was I doing? I felt like I was being led to the execution block. Or maybe I was standing at heaven’s door.
Because my heart rustled out an extra beat when the little girl looked up at me like I was some kind of hero.
This just from my agreeing to read her a story.
Headful of dark, dark curls and a smile so big I felt the magnitude of it like a swift kick to the gut.
Bailey.
I gulped as my spirit twisted around that name, the kid trotting along at my side with her tiny hand wrapped in mine, wearing this pajama set with unicorns printed all over the front.
She kept looking up at me.
Chocolate eyes so big and curious.
“I wike stories,” she told me, all kinds of eager.
“You do, huh?”
“Yep. You wike ’em?”
Unease moved through me. “Uh, sure I do.”
How the hell had I ended up having a conversation with this kid like it was the most natural thing in the world?
Okay, not natural.
&n
bsp; Because my damn heart felt like it was going to bang its way right out of my chest when she led me into her room.
She released my hand and ran straight for her tiny bed and hopped into it, grinning back at me.
But it was what was sitting on it that staggered my steps. Made me feel like the floor had been ripped right the hell out from under me.
Fucking falling.
Nothing below to catch me.
Ratty and worn, one of the arms hanging by a thread.
It was that cheap, stuffed Beast doll.
It was sitting right there on top of her bed.
My heart was back in my throat, doing stupid, stupid things.
She reached out and grabbed it like she felt my reaction to it.
Because she was hugging that damned doll to her chest, her teeth biting her bottom lip the same way her mother had always done.
Like she felt bad she was looking all the way to the center of me but didn’t know how to stop herself.
“You wike my room?”
She studied me. Wary and shy. Sweet and intrigued.
God, this kid really was getting under my skin. I was an idiot for letting her get there.
I glanced around, trying to find something to put my attention on rather than her.
“Yeah,” I managed to tell her through the clot of emotion in my throat.
But it didn’t matter how desperately I was trying to find a different focus.
Here was this kid that wasn’t more than a baby.
On her knees on her mattress.
Waiting on me.
“You paint it aww pink?”
She gazed at me like I might be her savior.
Her cheeks were about three times too big for her small face, rosy, almost chapped against her pale skin, her hair a mess of curls.
I had to wonder if her mom didn’t call her Button because of her nose.
The kid was adorable, so damned sweet as she waited.
But there was something deeper about her. Something that made me feel like she knew more than any little girl her age should.
I knelt down at the side of her bed. “If it’s okay with your mom, someday, I will. I think we need to get the porch fixed first.”
More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 10
