Jace raced up the bumpy trail, running through the night toward the one place he wanted to be. He didn’t slow until he was at the base of the porch, staring up at the girl who stood at the door.
His own definition of a dream.
A fantasy.
Wearing this flowy dress, her hair a chocolate river, rolling over her shoulders, her skin glowing in the traces of moonlight.
She curtsied as if she had stepped out of the eighteen fifties. “Why, sir, welcome to the BBB.”
Jace felt the smile twitching all over his mouth, and he did his best to play along. “It’s a pleasure to be here, ma’am. It’s been a long trek, and I’m eager for a comfortable place to rest.”
“Oh, I plan on making you comfortable, all right,” she drawled, sweet seduction on her tongue.
Unable to stay still for a second longer, Jace started up the porch steps, his breaths coming shorter and shorter with each one he took, until he had the girl backed against the wall in their spot.
She grinned up at him. Jace’s heart clanged in the confines of his chest.
She threaded her fingers through his. “Let’s go inside,” she whispered like a secret.
Confusion pulled a frown to Jace’s forehead. “You mean . . . inside, inside?”
She only grinned wider. “Come on, Jace. Dream with me. Follow me.”
She was giggling as she moved around the house to one of the smaller side windows, glancing back at him as she pushed it up.
He choked out a laugh. “Did you know that was unlocked this whole time?”
“Yep,” she said. “I’ve gone in before. This time, I want you to come with me.”
He roughed a hand through his hair and looked around the property. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
Faith slipped through the window, her hand outstretched through the frame. “Follow me, Jace. Let’s dance with the ghosts. Introduce ourselves. Let them know we’ll be stayin’.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “You’re insane, Faith Linbrock.”
“Insane for you.” She edged back, her gaze sweeping the room where she stood. “This is our place, Jace. Our castle. Let’s claim it.”
How was he gonna resist that? He didn’t want to.
He slipped through the window and into the shadowy, hazy light, watching the way the tender smile ridged her lips.
She backed farther into the darkened silhouettes that danced and played on the walls.
“Can you imagine what it will be like? Living here? People coming in and out the way they used to do? Can you imagine all the people who’ve been inside these walls before us? All their experiences? Their loves and their losses?”
“Would you really want to know all those things?” he asked, following her through the rooms on the first floor, watching her wistful expression as she explored.
She looked back at him. “You can’t know the full goodness of someone without being able to see the bad. Otherwise that vision is distorted. Then we’d never understand what they might have endured. Their hardships and their blessings.”
He stepped forward and ran his fingers through her hair. “You have an astonishing soul, Faith.”
The most beautiful soul.
He was terrified he was going to tarnish it.
The things he’d been forced into the last few weeks made him sick.
Physically ill.
But Steven had warned him that, if he didn’t do as he was told, he’d make what he’d done to Ian look like a walk in the park.
And Joseph would be next.
What else was he supposed to do?
God, Jace had never wanted to be different more than he did right then. Had never wished he’d come from a different world than the one he had more than when he was standing in front of Faith.
She suddenly pulled away, giggling as she raced for the main big room, looking over her shoulder as she went. “I dare you to come find me, Beast.”
Jace froze right there, wrapped in the sound of her laughter ricocheting from the walls as she disappeared at the end of the hall, his heart thundering harder with the echo of her footsteps as she moved upstairs.
Or maybe it was just the howl of the ghosts.
And right then, he couldn’t remember his ghosts. Who he was and what was holding him back. None of the reasons he could never be good enough for this girl.
The only thing he could process was that she was his and he was hers.
He believed.
Believed in the way he loved her. In the things he would sacrifice for her happiness and her joy. The way he would always take care of her.
Right then, that was the only thing that mattered.
That and the fact she was somewhere upstairs waiting for him.
His stomach tight and his pulse a thunder in the darkness, he edged up the sweeping staircase he’d only ever seen through the window.
Inside, it appeared even more massive than the mere picture he’d gotten, the entire place worn from disuse and age, and still screaming with all the possibilities Faith had in it.
He got to the landing and looked down two long halls. Instantly, he went left, drawn that direction as if he could feel her life force bleeding through the walls.
Her energy alive.
That feeling he had been terrified to feel taking over every part of him.
His heart and his mind and his body.
He stopped at the first door on the left. It was open a crack, and he nudged it farther, the old hinges creaking as it slowly swept open.
That feeling radiated back.
Real and alive.
Intoxicating.
He stepped inside.
Faith’s back was to him, and she stood looking out the window. She peeked back at him. “I was gonna hide, but I got distracted.”
He inched up behind her. Her fingertips traced the window. “Look at that. I bet this is the best view in the house. I call this as our room.”
The only thing visible from the window was the garden of roses, the expanse of them seeming to go on forever before they disappeared in the distance toward the trailer where he lived.
“So much beauty in the middle of something so ugly,” he said, words a soft gruff from his chest.
She slowly turned around to face him.
“That’s funny, because I only see the beauty.”
He ran his knuckles down the side of her face. “That’s because that’s what you are.”
“Let’s make more of it,” she whispered, a tremble in her needy voice.
And he wondered if she was as nervous as he was. If she understood he was holding something so precious in his hands.
That she was offering it to him.
Trusting him with it.
She was holding his hand when she knelt, and he sank to his knees in front of her.
He let the backpack slide off his shoulder, and he opened it so he could pull out the blanket he’d washed and packed for them. He spread it out on the floor and helped her lay down on it.
Moonlight poured across her face, and he wondered if he’d ever witness anything so perfect again.
“I love you,” he said, carefully climbing over her.
“I love you more than anything,” she murmured back, letting those fingers trace his face, nothing but fire to his body.
He slipped the little straps of her dress from her shoulders, kissed her softly.
Carefully.
As carefully as he loved her.
They slowly undressed each other. Like both of them were memorizing every second.
He watched her through the shadows as her eyes went wide and her lips parted. As she whimpered his name and he groaned hers.
He loved her in the shadows.
With the howl of the ghosts whipping around them. With the promise of what this place might be one day.
After, he held her tenderly, Faith snuggled up in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder as she played her fingers across his bare stomach. “
Are you goin’ to marry me, Jace?”
“The second you’ll let me.”
He could feel the force of her smile against the thrumming beat of his heart.
“How many babies are we goin’ to have?” she all but whispered, her mind racing into the future. He wanted to be right there, catch up, pray he could maybe be the father he’d never had.
“How many do you want?”
“Two,” she immediately said. “A boy and girl. Bailey and Benton.”
Jace laughed lightly, leaning up to kiss the top of her head. “You just want to add them to all those B’s.”
She was grinning wide when she looked up at him. “Oh, come on, Jace, this has to happen,” she teased so quietly, with so much love, parroting his words from the beginning of the summer.
Somehow that seemed so long ago.
“It does have to happen,” he whispered.
Like his own prayer.
He had to find a way to make this happen. Find a way to get himself out of the scary shit he’d somehow fallen into.
They stayed like that for the longest time, Jace just holding her and not wanting to let go before he finally sighed. “We should get you home.”
“I want to stay right here. Forever.”
“Me, too. Someday. Someday,” he promised.
They dressed and he stuffed the blanket back into his pack, held tight to her hand as he led her down the stairs and back to the window where they’d slipped inside.
He stepped out first, reaching back into help Faith through, when a streak of light hit him on the side of the face.
The blinding glare of a flashlight. “Freeze, right there.”
Jace froze, every inch of him going cold.
* * *
Jace sat at the cold metal chair at the cold metal table, cold cuffs around his wrists. He pressed his palms to his face, shook his head again. “I told you, it’s not mine.”
The sheriff frowned in disbelief. “Really? It was in the bottom of your bag.”
Jace pressed his eyes tighter, trying to believe. To believe that he could somehow get out of this. “It’s not mine,” he begged.
He’d already gotten rid of everything Steven had forced on him earlier that day.
Three goddamned stops where his heart had been in his throat, dread coating his skin in a slick of sweat as he’d slinked into three rotten apartments.
“Then who’s is it?”
Ian’s or Joseph’s. Ian’s or Joseph’s.
It’d had to be.
Somehow . . . somehow one of them had gotten wrapped up in this mess, too.
Besides, Steven had been giving him large, wrapped bundles. What they’d found in his backpack were little packets of coke already ready to sell on the street.
“I don’t know,” he said.
The sheriff laughed. As cold as the rest of the room. “Seems to me that you’ve got a problem. You had enough coke in there that we have you on intent to distribute. Not to mention the breaking and entering with that girl.”
That girl.
That girl.
She was the only thing he cared about right then. Her and his brother and Joseph.
Oh, God.
What was he going to do?
The problem was that Jace knew there was no getting himself out of this.
Not without getting his brother or cousin in trouble.
That, or he could give Steven’s name, which would more than likely do nothing but get Jace killed.
Either him or Ian and Joseph.
That was not a result he could contemplate.
And there was no chance he could talk his way out of the breaking and entering.
There was no way he was letting Faith take the fall for that, and he knew she was in the next room over, trying to do exactly that.
Convince them that it was her fault.
Her idea.
Jace swallowed hard, searched inside himself for courage, for the determination to do whatever it took to protect his brother and his cousin.
To protect Faith.
He lifted his head and looked the officer head on. “I’ll plead whatever you want. I just need two things from you.”
* * *
“I need to talk to you.”
Joseph immediately shot to his feet when Jace banged into the trailer.
Jace had sent Ian to run an errand for their mother, telling him he needed him to do him the favor. Really, he’d just wanted Ian out of the house so he could talk with Joseph in private.
Guilt was written across Joseph like it was written in a book, all mixed up with the hostility that continued to bleed from him.
Jace wanted to take it out on him. Demand a confession. Make Joseph give him confirmation that either he or Ian had been the ones who’d stuffed those drugs in Jace’s backpack, surely finding the quickest place to hide it when Jace had come out of his room.
He’d bet a million bucks Steven had shown up and coerced one of them into it, just the same as he’d done to Jace. The threat too great to resist.
How could Jace blame either Ian or Joseph for the same thing that he’d cowarded to? It wasn’t as if it was a negligible risk.
No question, Steven would stand on his word.
None of these guys were to be toyed with.
So instead of railing on Joseph, Jace swallowed down all his anger that he felt toward the world, and he made a plea. “I know things have been weird between us lately, and I know you’re younger than Ian, but I need you to step up. Take care of him the way I’ve been taking care of you.”
Jace sucked in the heated air. Feeling as if he were being consumed.
Incinerated.
Then he begged, “I don’t know what either of you have gotten into, but I need you to promise me, Joseph, promise me, whatever it is, it ends now. Or you’re going to end up just like me. Maybe worse.”
Joseph stared at him. Appearing dumbfounded. Maybe shocked. “You want me to take care of your brother?”
Grief clawed at his throat. “And Faith. Watch out for Faith. You and Ian have to promise not to tell her that I’m getting sent away. She’ll be devastated. Riddled with guilt. Let her think I left her. That’s all I’m asking of you. Here’s the key to the little safe I have under my bed. It’s all the money I’ve saved working at the store. Can I trust you to do this?”
Joseph took the key and rolled it around his fingers. “Of course, you can trust me.”
* * *
Rays of blinding light streaked through the moss-covered branches that stretched across the old dirt road like a living canopy.
It was a road they’d walked together what seemed a thousand times.
Their secret spot.
Their sacred spot.
He stared at her from where he stood five feet away.
His hands stuffed in the pockets of his ripped jeans, rocking with the guilt and the grief, trying to keep from rushing her. Holding her.
“I don’t care what anyone thinks.”
The pleas poured from her mouth, every single one like a knife driven right into his heart.
“I don’t know what kind of trouble we’re in. The only thing that matters to me is that you’re standing right here, in front of me.”
Sadness rippled through her features. The only thing he wanted was to reach out. Take it away. Promise her that it would all be okay.
But it wouldn’t be.
He had to embrace his circumstances.
He was going to prison.
He had to cut himself off from her. He couldn’t ask her to wait. He knew she would.
By doing it this way, he was giving her a choice.
Like a caged bird, he was letting her go.
He’d find out if she really belonged to him if she still loved him when he returned.
Only he’d be the one in the cell.
It was the only way he’d ever really know if she was his or if it was all a fantasy. A dream he could never live.
“It doesn�
��t matter, Faith? How can you say that?” His voice was bitter and hard, every bit of disgust cast at himself.
She took a pleading step forward. “It doesn’t. The only thing that matters is you and me.”
He took a weary step back, trying to put distance between them. To ignore the energy that blasted and raged. His voice twisted in emphatic sincerity. Praying she’d get it. Finally understand. “You matter, Faith. Who you are and who you’re going to be. And I won’t stand in the way of that any longer.”
He nearly buckled and told her the truth when he saw the tears gather in her eyes. “No,” she whispered.
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. The last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt you, but that seems to be the only thing I can do. What happened last night is proof of that. It ends right now.”
Jace forced himself to turn around, to move, to leave.
He felt her panic slamming him from behind. “Jace . . . please, don’t do this. Don’t leave me.”
Fingertips brushed down his back. Fire crackled from the connection. The way it’d always been. Since the second he’d seen her.
He tried to ignore it, to run, but he whirled around and grabbed her face in both of his hands. His eyes traced every line.
Every inch.
Memorizing.
But it wasn’t enough. And he was nothing but a thief. Needing one more taste.
He dipped down and captured her mouth.
Fighting his own tears.
Wishing he could tell her how much he loved her.
Cherished her.
That last night had meant more to him than any other moment in his entire life.
Feeling like he might collapse, he dropped his forehead against hers, his eyes tightly closed as he breathed her in.
Vanilla and roses.
As if she’d been dancing in a bed of them.
That was the way he would remember her.
Blowing her belief on the wilting petals. Breathing new life into them. Praying it would be enough to sustain him.
Then he gripped her by the shoulders, physically having to pry himself away.
Then he turned, and he left her standing there.
In their spot.
Hoping he wasn’t a fool to believe when he returned she might still belong to him.
More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 26
