“The golden dad who could do no wrong. That is who you miss.”
I shut up.
Judge spoke.
“I don’t know what went down, none of my business, and we can talk through why I’m gonna say this to you, but it’s none of yours either. What happened between the two of them can’t help but affect you, but the truth of it is, it’s theirs. And from what I know about both of them, if either of them knew you were struggling with it this way, it’d kill.”
He was so right.
It would.
“And I don’t mean just get over it,” he carried on. “I mean, if you’ll let me help, we’ll work to get you to a place of realizing they both love you like crazy, your brother and sister too. And what happened between them has no bearing on how they feel about you.”
He was so right about that too.
He also wasn’t done talking.
“Specifically, as for your dad, what you gotta get is, he is the same man to you as he always was. Steadfast. Loyal. Loving. You’ll never see this, but you need to know. When he heard you come through his back door, and he knew you were there, I swear to fuck, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man I’d describe as beautiful. Your dad knowing you were gonna be close and soon, that was beautiful.”
Oh my God.
Another sob ripped through me.
Judge moved his thumbs to catch the new onslaught of tears as they fell down my temples.
When I got a (kind of) lock on it, Judge said gently, “I would never let you fade away.”
My lips started quivering again.
“I don’t know what we got ahead of us, baby, but no matter what, I would never, ever let you fade away. The thing is, you wouldn’t let that happen either. You are a lot stronger than you think.”
“It’s a ruse,” I whispered.
“Horseshit,” he fired back. “You’re hurting right now because you lost your grandma, the foundation of your family, and Szabo all in blow after blow after blow. You instinctively turned your focus to making sure everyone else was all right, and you didn’t look after you.”
I did this.
I did as Uncle Corey told me to do.
But he was supposed to have my back.
Then he took himself away from me.
“No worries about that,” Judge continued. “You got me now, and we’ll see to that. But a warning, doll, as of now, that focus is shifting. They can sort their own shit, we’re gonna look after you.”
We’re gonna look after you.
Damn it, it was going to happen again.
I was right, it did, and I lifted my head and shoved it into the side of his neck to hide my latest assault of tears.
He pressed me back down to rest on the pillow and angled so I could have my hiding place and he could run his nose along the side of my neck.
That felt so nice, I could concentrate on it and eventually (again, but a lot faster this time), I got it together.
And when I did, I said dejectedly, “I miss him.”
He lifted his head and got it on the first guess.
“Szabo?”
I nodded.
“You miss him, and you miss who you thought he was, and found out he wasn’t when he did your mom and Duncan so dirty.”
I nodded again.
He got an odd look on his face before he asked, “Does it occur to you what you saw as grooming was something else?”
“Like what?”
He shook his head, like he was trying to figure something out, and he talked it through while he did it.
“I’ve heard a lot about Corey Szabo. Some of it wasn’t so good. But nothing negates the fact he wasn’t just a genius. He was canny. Loyal as fuck. To your mom, especially. And he had a will of steel.”
A will of steel.
“So maybe,” Judge went on, “he saw himself in you and like attracts like. So could it be he wasn’t grooming you? Could it be that he just admired you? Or more importantly, he saw those qualities in you, and the other ones besides, and he just really loved you?”
“He totally loved me,” I admitted softly, and Rhys Vaughan sprang to mind.
Only Uncle Corey, as a parting gift, would leave someone he loved a tool she could wield to do what she needed to do for those she loved.
The only thing she’d ever want that she couldn’t get herself.
That was what he’d left me.
I didn’t share that though.
That was for later.
(Maybe.)
But it occurred to me then, giving me Rhys, it was more than just a gift.
It was keeping his promise to me.
It was giving me back what I’d lost when he took himself from me.
It was giving me someone to take my back.
“He loved me a lot,” I finished huskily.
“Did you love him?”
“He was family.”