"Tell me about it," he said softly. "If you want to."
For a long moment, she said nothing, but then she finally turned her head to look at him. He knew then that her past was a secret that she hid from the world just as he did with his own. He could see from the shadows in her eyes and the tenseness of her shoulders that she never talked about it with anybody. "You don't have to tell me," he said gently. "It's okay."
Gone from her eyes was the sparkle that he was used to seeing. Gone was the flirty smile on her lips. All that was left was the weight of the secrets that she held so tightly. He realized then that despite her exuberance and the effervescent nature of her inner spirit, it was window dressing over the pain that haunted her all the time.
He knew that, because that was how he lived as well, every single day.
Wordlessly, he turned that ninety degrees so he was facing her, and held out his arms.
Just like the other night at his cabin, she didn't hesitate. She just walked right into his embrace.
Chapter 11
When Blue's arms wrapped around Chloe, the protective walls that she kept so tightly bound around her heart suddenly shattered, falling apart and leaving her exposed and raw, unprotected from the memories that she had worked so hard to suppress for so long.
She pressed her face to the curve of his neck and tucked her hands under her chin as she leaned against his chest. His arms were strong and warm where they were wrapped around her, holding her tight, as if he could ward off all the memories coming back to grab her.
His body infused her with a solid strength that she simply couldn't summon on her own. When he pressed a kiss against the top of her head, sudden tears surged, fighting to get out. She scrunched her eyes tightly shut and pressed her face tighter against the curve of his neck, trying desperately not to fall apart.
She hated feeling weak. Being weak was a signal to others that the timing was right to attack. She had learned so many times in her life that tears, weakness, and vulnerability were the most dangerous things she could show the world, but in Blue's arms when he was holding her so tightly, suddenly she couldn't find that strength that had taken her through so much.
"You make me want to cry," she whispered. "You need to stop that."
He chuckled softly, a rumbling deep in his chest that she could feel vibrating against her own body. "Sweetheart, the last thing I want to do is make you cry. I'm really sorry that I brought up your past. It was insensitive, and I'm an ass."
His apology was so heartfelt that even more tears tried to come.
"How can you care? You don't even know me. How on earth can it bother you that you asked a question that I couldn't handle? It's not your problem. It's mine." She couldn't keep the edge out of her voice, and she knew she was trying to push him away, even though she was still buried against him.
Blue sighed, tightening his arms in a clear sign that her attempt to irritate him hadn't worked at all. "It bothers me because you're the most extraordinary woman I've ever met. Sitting with you tonight was the first time that I've been at peace since I was a little kid, and maybe ever. You gave me that gift, and the last thing I want to do is repay it by dragging you into a dark place." He pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, a kiss that made chills race down her spine, even though she could tell it was a kiss of reassurance, not a kiss designed to seduce.
Chloe held her breath, afraid to move as he pressed another kiss to the side of her neck. A part of her couldn't understand how this amazing man was standing here with her, holding her, not asking for anything from her as he offered her his support.
All evening she'd been on edge, afraid that at any moment he was going to say he was finished and heading home. She hadn't wanted him to leave. She had worked so hard, rattling off every entertaining story she could think of, trying to elicit another deep laugh from him. Each time he laughed, she felt her own heart sing. The pain Blue carried in his heart was evident in the intensity of his stare, and the tenseness of his shoulders. Each time she'd been able to make him laugh, she had felt a sense of triumph, as if she was bringing light into his darkness, the way she had always wanted someone to bring the light into hers.
The last thing she wanted was for this night to end with her crying on his shoulder. "I don't want to ruin the night," she said with a sigh. "I wanted to bring you happiness and laughter, not tears."
He sighed. "Sweetheart, tonight has been the best time I've had in a long time, and part of that has been watching the sparkle in your eyes as you told stories. But the truth is that there are a lot of people in this world that can crack jokes. The reason that I stayed so long was because you light up my soul, and you do it simply by sharing your own soul with every word you speak and every expression on your face." His arms squeezed her, and he laughed softly. "But I'm not going to lie. As much as I enjoyed the lighthearted banter, having you in my arms, leaning on me right now, and letting me give you support, is fucking awesome."
She laughed at his word choice, such a stark contrast to the content of his endearing speech. That summed up Blue: rough and rugged, and yet, also able to make her soft when no one else had. "You're so crass."
He swore under his breath, making her laugh even more. "Sorry. Does it offend you? Sometimes I forget how to be civilized. I would tell you that I'm going to work on it, but I'm not. I'm long past being able to fix anything about myself."
She laughed yet again, and pulled back enough to see his face. "I was in foster care the first eighteen years of my life. A few profanities don't begin to address what I've seen in my life."
His face softened as he searched hers. "So, that's why you do it. Because no one got you out of the foster system. You want to make a difference. You want to be that person that no one was able to be for you."
Her heart tightened at his nonjudgmental words. "You actually sound impressed."
"Of course I am." He smoothed her hair back from her face, tucking a strand behind her ear. "It had to have been hard as hell not to have a family, roots, or a home growing up. And yet here you are, choosing a life where you try to change the lives of the people that came after you. How could that not be impressive as hell?"
The genuine admiration in his words was a shock. She realized that he didn't see her as less because she hadn't grown up with a family. He didn't see her as less because she had that invisible sign on her chest saying "no one loved me as a kid."
She took a deep breath, suddenly able to breathe deeper than she had in a long time. "My mother never told anybody who my dad was. I don't think she even knew. She got in trouble with drugs when I was two months old. I was put into foster care, but she convinced them she would get better, so I was treated as a temporary foster kid, instead of one who could be adopted. She was in and out of jail and rehab constantly. Every once in a while they would put me back with her, but she was such a mess that it would last only a few weeks. By the time I was ten, the state decided to sever her maternal rights, and I was cleared for adoption." She managed to shrug. "I was long past that magic window of adoptability. No one wants a ten-year-old. As an infant, I would've had a chance, but my mom wasn't bad enough to free me from her. She was just bad enough to trap me in her world."
Chloe couldn't believe how the words were tumbling out of her. She never talked about her past. When she had turned eighteen and been able to walk away from foster care, she had never talked about it again. She had worked her way through college, and graduate school. She had pretended to be an altruistic do-gooder who wanted to help kids out of the goodness of her heart. She simply said that she didn't get along with her parents anymore, whenever anyone had asked.
Even her ex hadn't known the truth, because she had been unwilling to risk her relationship by letting him know what her past was. Emma was the only one she'd ever told, and that had been over too many drinks, one of those nights when she'd been feeling the emptiness of her relationship with Ronald, and the darkness of her past descending upon her.
She would have thought that admi
tting it to Blue would have made her body tighten, and that vice around her chest feel like it was strangling her. But for some reason, it didn't. She felt… She didn't know what she felt, but it wasn't as horrible as she would've thought it would be.
Blue ran his hands up and down her arms, gently stroking, clearly not shrinking away from physical contact now that he knew that she had been a nothing for the first eighteen years of her life. She searched his face, not sure he really understood. "Do you get it?" She asked. "I don't have a family. No one. My mom was estranged from her family, and I don't know anything about my dad's. I haven't seen my mom since I was ten, but I looked her up a few years ago, and found out she died of a drug overdose when I was seventeen." She shrugged, feeling like words were inadequate to explain to him exactly what her life had been…but the depth of kindness in his eyes made her feel like somehow, he understood.
Which made her want to cry, because the thought that someone else, that Blue in particular, could understand, suddenly made her feel not so alone.
"Hey." His voice was gentle and steady. "It doesn't matter what was going on with the other people in your life. It's not a reflection of you whether you had a mom who could pull it together enough to take care of you. And it sure as hell is no reflection of you that no one ever adopted you."
Instinct made her want to reject his words. She'd heard them plenty of times growing up, from social workers who did their best to convince her and the other kids that being stuck in foster care didn't mean they sucked and were losers, but she had learned quickly that they were the ones who were lying. The kids in school, teachers, and society in general had treated her as less because she lived in a different house every few months, and because she could fit all her belongings in a backpack. "I used to take everything that mattered with me everywhere I went. My backpack was always stuffed, because I was afraid if I left it behind, one of the other kids would destroy it or steal it, just because. Plus, I always needed to be ready in case, when I came home, there was a social worker there to take me to a new place." She gripped the front of his shirt, almost able to feel the ratty, denim backpack gripped so tightly in her fingers. "My home was that backpack. I kept it until I moved in with my ex, and he made me toss it because it was so gross and dirty."
"He made you toss it?" Blue sounded shocked. "Bastard."
Chloe jerked her gaze to Blue's face, startled by the vehemence of his words. "Really?"
He nodded, and pressed a kiss to her knuckle. "I have a bag that I keep packed," he said. "It has what I need to survive, if everything were to implode around me. I know what that's like to have a bag that's ready to go with you, that has everything you need." He jerked his head toward his truck, which was sitting in the driveway. "That bag is where I got the clean clothes tonight, and the stuff to shower with. It's always in my truck, or in my room where I'm sleeping, or in the jungle with me. The contents might change depending on what I'm doing, but the basics don't." He gave her a grim smile. "If someone tried to take it from me, I might have to shoot them. I try to avoid shooting people unless I have to, but that might be enough."
The corner of her mouth turned up ever so slightly at his attempt at humor, but her deeper response was a tightening of her throat, because she realized that he was speaking the truth. Somehow, he understood what that bag meant to her. He understood what she had meant when she said it was her home. "You have a home now? Or do you always live on the run?"
"I have a shoebox in New York City," he said. "I guess it's home. I don't really think of it that way. It's just a place where I can sleep."
Her heart tightened at the words that were an exact reflection of her own emotions. "That's how I always feel. Every place I've ever lived has simply been a place to sleep, even the condo I shared with my ex." She frowned, thinking back to how it felt each time she walked into the sterile condo. "Maybe it was because it was my ex's place. He owned it, and I just paid rent."
Blue frowned. "You paid rent to your ex while you were living with him? What kind of bullshit is that? He gets all the advantage of the mortgage and the investment, and he expects you to throw away your cash on rent? What the hell is that about?"
His outrage was so genuine that Chloe couldn't help but smile. Why didn't it surprise her that Blue would never think to make his woman pay rent to live with him in a house he already owned? She cocked her head, studying him, her grip on his shirt loosening from frantic desperation to a more relaxed feeling of connection. "You're a good guy, aren't you?"
He laughed softly and rubbed his knuckles through her hair, massaging the back of her neck. "No. We already went through that. You know I'm not." He studied her, his gaze thoughtful and intense. "So when you showed up the other night at Harlan's cabin, and you said you'd recently been kicked out of the place you'd been living for the last ten years, does that mean that your ex gave you the boot? Is that what you meant?"
Embarrassment flooded Chloe's cheeks, and she dropped her hands and turned away. She shrugged, suddenly feeling so stupid about what had happened and how blind she had been about what their relationship really was. "Yeah, he got engaged to some woman in LA. Apparently, he'd been dating her each time he went out there, and it got to the point that they wanted more than a bi-coastal relationship." She gripped the railing, staring blankly into the darkness. "He always said he wasn't the marrying type, and I accepted that. It turns out he was actually just a jerk who found me convenient entertainment while he was sowing his seeds on all his business trips."
As she said the words, her chest tightened, but she realized she had no urge to cry. The grief was not about having her heart broken, it was more about being embarrassed that she had spent over a decade in such a stupid relationship because she was too afraid to stand on her own. "I think I was just so desperate to feel like I belonged somewhere, that I was willing to take whatever I could get."
Blue moved behind her and set his hands on the railing beside hers. His arms were on either side of her, and his chest was against her back. He rested his chin on her shoulder, his pose both protective and nurturing, but not oppressive. "I get that," he said. "You were trying to find that stability that you never had as a kid."
"But I'm not a kid. I'm a grown woman who should've realized that a man who didn't ever want to even hug me was not worth my time." She took a deep breath, thinking back to what Emma had said. "You know, I would have stayed in that relationship forever. I never would have decided that I could have had more. I never would have looked right at it and acknowledged how lonely I was. Ronald made that choice for me. Yes, it rendered me temporarily homeless, but at the same time…" She took a shuddering breath. "He gave me a chance to start over. That's a good thing, right?"
"Damn right." Blue pressed a kiss to the side of her neck, and she closed her eyes so she could focus on the sensation.
His lips were warm and gentle against her skin. Nurturing, but also a sensual invitation that made her belly tighten. "We hadn't had sex in three years," she said softly. "Three years. Can you believe that?"
Blue laughed softly, a deep, masculine sound that made her heart turn over. "I don't want to sound crass, and I'm not belittling what you're sharing with me, but honestly, there's no fucking way I can imagine living with you, being in a relationship with you, and not doing my absolute best to take advantage of every single possible moment of naked time I could maneuver."
The raw honesty of his voice said more than any words he might choose. Words could be lies. Words could be empty. But the emotion in his voice spoke a truth that she felt in her heart. She moved her hand to the right, sliding it beneath his. He entangled his fingers with hers. For a long moment, neither of them said anything. They just stood there in the silence of the moment, breathing the same air, holding hands, and sharing the experience.
She'd never felt so connected to anyone in her life, and she realized she never wanted the moment to end.
Chapter 12
"Thank you," she whispered.
&nbs
p; "For what?"
"For not making me feel like I'm flawed." She looked down at their entwined hands, and smiled. "You make me feel like…" She couldn't think of how to explain it. It was too much to put into words.
"What do you want?" Blue put his chin back on her shoulder. "You told me this morning at Wright's that you weren't interested in dating anyone, or being in a relationship. You just said you wanted to rebuild your life. What is it that you're looking for?"
She smiled at his question. She could tell he'd meant it, and so very few people had ever been genuinely interested in what she did with her life. At her job, people had cared deeply about what she did, but it was for their own benefit. Aside from Emma, Chloe couldn't remember the last time anyone actually really cared what she wanted. "I want to get my job back. I want to help those kids that were like me. That's why I came to Birch Crossing, because I need to be available to leave and go wherever I can find a job. That's all that matters. I just want my job as a social worker back."
"Does it help?"
She frowned, pretty sure he wasn't asking whether she made a difference with the kids. "What do you mean?"
For a long moment, he didn't answer. But his breath changed, and she felt the tension in his body. She twisted around so she was facing him. He didn't move, which meant they were now face-to-face, and very close together. His hands were still on the railing by her hips, and his upper body was trapping her against the wood. With his size and bulk, she knew that it should feel unsafe to have her freedom limited like that, but it didn't. It just felt like where she was meant to be.
She tilted her head, searching his face. "What did you mean?" She asked again.
Blue met her gaze, his green eyes intense once again. "I wanted to know whether a job helping kids in the situation you were in when you were young makes the shadows from that time of your life go away. Or are they still there, just as strong as they ever were?"
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