She shook her head. “Of course not. I needed
to understand, and now so many things make so much more sense.” She paused for a moment. “You have to tell Jade.”
I shook my head. “I’m not ready to do that.”
“Do you love her? I mean truly love her? As in the forever kind of love?”
I let out a sigh. “Marj, you have to understand something. I want to answer that with a resounding ‘yes.’ I really do. But I have no frame of reference. I’ve never had a relationship before.”
“Talon—”
“Thirty-five fucking years old, and I’ve never been in a relationship with a woman in my life. And now I meet the most wonderful woman in the world.”
“You got that right. Jade’s the best.”
“So the truth is, I just don’t know if this is the forever kind of love.”
“Does it feel like a forever kind of love to you?”
“Yes,” I said honestly. “But like I said, I don’t have a frame—”
“Stop right there. If that’s what it feels like to you, that’s what it is. And if you want this to last with her, you’re going to have to come clean with her. She can help you. She won’t judge you. Believe me, she’s helped me through some hard times in my life.”
I didn’t want to belittle what “hard times” my sister might’ve endured during her college years, but I was pretty sure they weren’t nearly as bad as what I’d been through. “I’m afraid.”
“That’s understandable. But relationships can’t exist without honesty. Without trust.”
Trust.
Jade had shown me her trust. She had given me her trust without question, when I didn’t deserve it.
Could I give her that same gift?
“I will tell her, Marj. But in my own time, in my own way.”
“Have it your way.” My sister turned back to the counter and began to chop a head of broccoli.
Would I ever see her smile again? Only a few days had passed since we’d told her the truth. It was still very real and new to her. She would get through it. Hell, if we had gotten through it, she certainly could. But Marj’s smile—that toothless, innocent smile of my baby sister when I came home from hell—had helped get me through a lot of pain.
“Right now I’ve got to figure out a way to keep her from getting a tattoo.”
“That’s another thing I don’t understand, Talon. Why do you care so much about the tattoo?”
“You don’t understand. That tattoo she wanted to get…that exact image…”
Marj stopped chopping and turned to me. “What?”
“One of those awful guys who kidnapped me. He had that exact tattoo.”
Marj dropped her mouth into an O, the knife slipping from her hands and clattering to the floor, just missing her sandaled toe.
I picked up the knife quickly and set it on the counter. “Marj? What’s wrong?”
“Did Jade ever tell you where she found that image?”
I nodded. “Yeah, she said she found it in one of Toby’s books.”
“She did. But that’s not where she first saw it.”