A bolt of agony slanted through my spirit. I shifted so I could look at her better. “Is that all he said?”
Her head began to slowly shake, taken back to that time. I wanted to grab her and pull her out of it, tell her to stay with me, right here, in this moment, but I needed to know.
I kept my mouth shut and let her continue. “One night, he got up from the dinner table with the excuse that he needed to go back into the office. It was the same excuse he’d been making more and more. I’d finally called out after him—to his back as he was walkin’ out the door—and asked him to just tell me. Whatever it was, to just tell me.”
Insecurity bunched up in her shoulders. “I guess I’d figured he was cheatin’ on me. Maybe it makes me pathetic, but I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least since sex between us always seemed kind of . . . unfulfilling. Our relationship was . . . different, Jace. When we first got together . . .”
She trailed off, searching for what to say, her eyes blinking up at me for understanding. “He was there for me when you walked away. You have to know I had no idea where you’d gone or why. Had no idea you’d been sent to prison. I thought you left me. Joseph kept me company, being a friend and telling me one day I wouldn’t miss you so much.”
Sadness blanketed her spirit. “About nine months after you left, he kissed me. Right out by the roses. I started to cry because it felt so wrong. So off. I told him I was always goin’ to love you, that time wasn’t going to change that, and he told me that was okay. That he’d love me enough for the both of us.”
She winced. “In time, I did love him. Different from how I loved you. It was a comfortable kind of love.”
I wanted to claw my eyes out at the vision. Joseph with her. Touching her. I’d bet my ass for Joseph it hadn’t been unfulfilling at all. The fucker had no idea how to treat her right, and she’d taken that inadequacy on herself.
Or maybe . . . maybe she really just hadn’t ever felt a spark.
Regret filled her sweet gaze. Like any of this could ever possibly be her fault. “But things had started to change. He’d been acting different for about six months before he was killed.”
Her eyes narrowed, like she was trying to look into the past and figure out what she’d missed. “He was acting anxious. He had always been a little jittery. Watching over his shoulder. But something had changed. Something that kept him up at night. I tried to ignore it. To chalk it up to the fact that we all have different moods, and that we’re all going to go through different phases in our lives. I’d thought it would pass.”
She met my gaze. “That night? After I’d finally confronted him and told him to tell me what was wrong. He came back just before dawn. He’d been drinking . . . obviously upset. He’d said he wanted to erase you from my memory. He promised he was going to take care of us, that he was going to fix everything. Crying when he said everything was goin’ to be all right.”
Guilt blazed in her eyes when she looked up at me. “I ignored it, Jace. I ignored it and shoved it away as some drunken nonsense he’d been spoutin’. Ignored it because he’d said he wanted to erase you from me, and that was the last thing I wanted him to do. I ignored it harder when I got the call that he’d been killed.”
Her fingernails clawed into my skin. “I should have known. I should have said something.”
She choked over a cry. “How could he do somethin’ that would put Bailey in danger? I don’t understand, Jace. I don’t understand.”
I hugged her closer, desperately trying to release the confession, but the words were hanging on as tight as a man about to go overboard.
Nothing but death and darkness waiting below.
She’d hate me when she knew.
I toyed with a lock of her hair. Trying to find the nerve. My words were measured as I prepared to lay it all out. “How much did you know about what Joseph did for work?”
I always wondered how the slimy asshole had convinced her he was legit.
She blinked at me, stuttered a bit, “He . . . he’d started working down at the shippin’ yards right after you left. He got promoted quickly.”
I cringed and then gently prodded. “Do you remember how quickly?”
How he went from a minimum-wage job in the warehouse to claiming to own the cargo front in a handful of years?
But it was Joseph who had been owned.
Her brow squeezed. Like she was fighting the truth of everything that was written in front of her. “He said . . . he said he was working hard to give me the life that I deserved. So that, one day, we could buy this house and I’d be able to live out my own dream.”
Hate fisted my guts. So fucking tight.
She didn’t know. She didn’t know.
She blinked at me. “Did . . . did you know he was involved in something he shouldn’t have been? Did Mack? Oh God,” she whimpered, the pain I’d wanted to shield her from slid out. “How didn’t I know? How didn’t I know he was involved in somethin’ he shouldn’t have been?”
Horror filled her words. Grief clouding over her like an eclipse.
The love she had for him showing through. The care. Her own regret.
“It wasn’t your fault, Faith. There was nothing that you could have done that would have stopped what was coming.”
That was on me.
“What was comin’, Jace?” she pleaded. “Did you talk to him after you left? Did . . . did he tell you somethin’?”
My tongue soured with the confession that gathered there. Everything I knew. Unsure if either of us was prepared to take the blow.
I sucked in a deep breath, the words dying on my tongue when the little voice echoed through the wall. “Mommy?”
Chocolate eyes went wide, her guilt stripped away. In its place was a flustered panic. “Oh, goodness. Bailey.”
I brushed my thumb over her cheek. “Hey . . . it’s okay. I told you, I’m in this with you. For you. For her.”
Faith eased a little, and I sent her a soft smile before I rolled out of the bed and pulled on my jeans, quick to head out of the bedroom like it’d granted me a stay of execution.
A moment’s reprieve.
Reprieve that came in the form of the tiny thing that stood in the hall outside her door, rubbing one of those tiny fists in her eye as she clung to the Beast.
“Jacie,” she whispered in some kind of relief when she saw me there. “I’s had a bad dream.”
Like she found comfort in my presence. That just for the fact I was standing there, she was protected and safe.
A belt of emotion tightened around my chest.
Never had I known it stronger than right then.
I’d never allow anything to happen to her.
Not to Faith.
Not to us.
Joseph had left enough wreckage behind.
I was going to pick up the pieces.
Thirty-Five
Jace
Twenty-One Years Old
Jace didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to see his brother. Ian leaned against his car in the parking lot, looking like freedom and the road to Jace’s second chance.
He was going to take it.
Run with it.
Run home and to the one thing he never should have left behind.
It’d taken locks and bars and cells to finally figure out who he was and what she’d seen in him, and he was determined to become that man.
The lock buzzed, and the heavy metal gate slid open.
One second later, Jace was free.
Released two years earlier than his five-year sentence. Let’s just say, he’d been on his best behavior.
A little harder than he’d once been. Three years behind bars would do that to a man.
He’d thought he’d seen it all—the worst in people—but he hadn’t had the first clue.
He’d learned a lot of tough lessons, but he’d finally embraced a bunch of good shit, too.
His only worry was the letters. The letters he’d written over the years tha
t had never been answered. He guessed some things had to be confessed face-to-face.
He walked toward his brother, determined to never repeat what had gone down. He was reclaiming his life. Taking back what was his.
Ian straightened when he approached, and they measured each other for a second before Jace threw his arms around his brother and hugged him tight.
Ian hugged him just as fiercely. “Fuck, man, I missed you like crazy. Don’t ever leave me like that again.”
Jace squeezed him like his next breath depended on it. “I don’t plan on it.”
Ian nodded, pushing away, shaking himself off. He rounded to the other side of the car and hopped into the driver’s seat. Jace slipped into the passenger’s.
Ian turned over the ignition. “Where are we headed?”
“I need to get to Faith. Explain all this bullshit.”
They were more than a hundred miles from Broadshire Rim. Jace had been carted off to some dump penitentiary that was hidden in the mountains on the west side of the state.
Something passed through Ian’s expression. Worry and sorrow and pity.
Jace’s hands fisted on his thighs, and he stared across at his brother, who tried to busy himself by fiddling with something on the dash.
Dread spiraled through his system, and he heaved a breath, forced out the words. “Just tell me, Ian.”
Ian stilled his fiddling and inhaled deeply before he slowly looked back at Jace. “She’s married, man.”
“What?” Disbelief fisted his spirit, drenching his heart and mind.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
Not after he’d sent all those letters promising he’d be back.
Denial pulsed through his being. Ian had to be wrong. He’d made a mistake. That was it. A mistake.
“I’m sorry, Jace. I couldn’t tell you while you were in there. I just . . . couldn’t.”
Grief constricted Jace’s throat, so tight he was sure he was being strangled. Right as a fist punched into his chest and ripped out his heart.
“To who?” he barely managed.
Ian hesitated, wavered as he rocked in the seat, holding on to the steering wheel as if it might make delivering the blow easier. “To Joseph.”
Agony sliced him in two. It was a misery unlike anything he’d ever known.
Amplified by the blinding fury that beat within his broken heart.
Betrayal.
He couldn’t stop it. The way his mouth worked and moisture filled his eyes.
No.
Fuck no.
He couldn’t believe this shit.
Ian jerked his head away, shaking it, filled with turmoil. Then he cursed and jerked his gaze back to Jace, so much brutal sincerity in his voice that it rocked the car.
“I didn’t do it, Jace. Those drugs? I didn’t have anything to do with them. I promise you. I know you were trying to take the fall for me, but it wasn’t necessary. I know you didn’t believe me when I told you I wasn’t involved. But it’s the truth. I wouldn’t have done anything that piece of shit said. I didn’t fucking care if he’d killed me. Not after what he did to me, and sure as hell not after what he did to you.”
“I know.” I could barely manage to form the words.
His head dropped again. “Joseph was always jealous of you. Of everything you had. Of everything you stood for. He knew he could never compare to you.”
Ian looked back at Jace. “He’s been working for Steven since the day you got hauled away.”
Turmoil blistered through Jace’s body. So hot, he was sure he was being incinerated from the inside out.
Joseph had been responsible?
“Take me there,” he demanded. “I need to see it for myself.”
Ian’s eyes went wide. “Why would you want to go and do that?”
“I have to, Ian. I have to.”
Maybe Jace needed the confirmation. Or maybe he just needed the proof that dreams really didn’t last. That dreaming them was nothing but a waste of time.
Because three hours later, he and Ian were parked in a lot on the other side of the small apartment complex.
Jace was gutted all over again when Faith stepped out of the apartment door.
Joseph right behind her.
Heartache howled through his insides, seeping all the way to his bones, saturating to the marrow.
He fisted his hands on his thighs and squeezed his eyes closed against the sight. “Get me out of here. Take me to the old house where she and I used to meet.”
Ian looked at Jace like he’d lost his mind.
Jace guessed he had.
Thirty-Six
Faith
Shaking through the last button on my blouse, I took another glance around the room.
The bedroom that I’d always thought of as mine and Jace’s—locked away and hidden like a treasure that was right there.
Out of sight but not forgotten.
It’d felt as if he were inviting me to step back into that time. Back to when we’d lost each other. It eased so much and somehow only bred more questions.
Heaving out a breath, I slipped out the door, not sure how I was supposed to explain any of this to my innocent daughter.
How could I when I wasn’t sure myself?
When it still felt like there was a fog of confusion holding me hostage. This afternoon had been one of the most terrifying experiences of my entire life.
Joseph.
The loss of him still cut and marred. Especially with the way he’d been so violently taken.
He’d been there for me when I’d felt so utterly alone and abandoned. My friend who’d slowly grown to be something more.
My supporter.
My lover.
But reluctantly, I could almost admit that something had always been off.
Joseph, what did you do? You were always so sweet and devoted. Why didn’t you trust me enough to tell me you needed help?
I would have been there for him.
Helped him the way he’d always helped me. Regardless of the fact that we’d been little more than friends, living our lives the best way that we could, I’d been devoted to him.
Loyal to him.
Had he really not been loyal to me? Fed me lies by omission?
Or had they really been bold-faced lies? Every time he walked out the door, had it been under false pretenses?
No.
I couldn’t fathom it.
Maybe he’d gotten caught up in something he didn’t fully understand.
Had been as confused then as I was as I tried to ponder it all out.
I slipped out the door and took one step in the direction of my daughter’s room, only to stumble to a stop.
A bittersweet breath pulled deep into the well of my lungs.
Surety fell over me like I’d just been wrapped in the warmest blanket after I’d been left for dead out in the middle of a freezing snowstorm.
Comfort and security.
It was written right there.
In the way Jace knelt on one knee in front of her, his fingers gentle as he swept the unruly mass of her waves from her face.
In the tenderness of his voice as he murmured, “It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’m right here. You don’t have to be afraid.”
He pulled her into his arms, hugging her close to his chest. She wrapped her little arms around his neck. “Don’ts never leave me, Jacie.”
My heart twisted and pulsed. Just seeing it made it hard to breathe.
So much of this felt wrong. Seeing my daughter in Jace’s arms.
Because I felt like some kind of terrible person when my first thought was it was meant to be that way all along.
“I won’t, sweetheart. How could I ever leave my Unicorn Girl?”
“You sway aww the dragons?”
He squeezed her tight. “Always.”
My spirit soared. So high. So high.
I felt as if my feet might not be touching the ground as I followed them into her roo
m where he was tucking her back in.
Her sweet eyes found me from the doorway. She sent me a smile that shattered me a little.
The amount of love that continually burst from the middle of me when I looked at her still sometimes shocked me.
And to think I could very well have lost her today. How terrified I’d been when that car had hit us earlier.
I felt like I was being sucked from one direction to the other. Waves coming at me from every side.
Mercy and grief.
Mercy and grief.
Pulling and pushing. Both fighting for dominance.
Filling me with life and threatening to drown me in the midst of it.
She looked back up at Jace, who was still kneeling at the side of her bed. “Mommy and Bailey and Jacie.”
She said it with a wide, wide grin, though there was no missing the question behind it.
Jace turned that penetrating gaze on me. Copper eyes flashed. Filled with too much.
The most wistful kind of smile pulled up at the corner of my mouth.
Jace turned back to her and answered for all of us. “Yeah. Mommy and Bailey and Jacie.”
He tucked her under her covers, kissing her forehead, and I edged across the room so I could tell her good night again.
I peppered my love to her temple. To her nose. To her chin. “Good night, my sweet girl.”
“Night, Mommy.”
“We’re right here if you need us.”
“Oh-kay,” she said, sleepiness falling back over her.
Reluctantly, I moved back toward the hall. If I could stay right there, in the safe confines of that room, just the three of us?
Forever?
I would.
Jace seemed to be feeling the same way because a distinct wariness had taken him over when he pushed to his feet.
As if the stress of the day and the last few weeks had finally caught up to him.
As if, when he’d been sitting there at her side, he’d been struck with the same what-might-have-beens from this afternoon that had struck me.
More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel Page 29
