Once she admitted it, urgency started to pour from her mouth. “How pathetic is that? His worth is now wrapped up in the little he left behind. What kind of person does that make me, Jace? Fighting for money I never even wanted? But I don’t know what else to do. It’s the only way I could ever get this place turned and profitable. With the case bein’ unsolved, it’s going to be tied up for a while, and we don’t have anything left. I’ve . . .”
She choked on the last, her head dropping between her shoulders. Like she needed to hide the expression on her face. “God, I shouldn’t be tellin’ you any of this.”
I reached out and took her by the chin. “Hey, look at me.”
Warily, she met my gaze.
I felt the weight of it strike right at the middle of me.
“What it makes you is strong. It makes you a fighter. It makes you a good mother who wants to take care of her child. It makes you brave. That’s the kind of person it makes you.”
The corner of her mouth trembled. “I just wish I could go back to that day and change it all.”
“You couldn’t, Faith.”
It was the truth.
There was nothing she could have done.
Changing it had been on me.
Silence moved around us. Comforting waves that ebbed and flowed, receding to reveal the hurt and gaping wounds oozing from underneath.
“Let me take care of you.” The words grated from my tongue.
She blinked at me. “Why did you really come here, Jace? After all this time? After all these years? What is it you want?”
You.
“I need to be here. I tri—”
The confession locked in my throat, and I swallowed hard, forcing it out between the constriction I could feel baring down on every cell in my body.
“I tried to stay away. But I couldn’t. Not knowing what’s happening. Not knowing what you’ve been through.”
Not knowing just how fucking deep Joseph had gotten. Not knowing the lengths those assholes might go to. I was getting a better and better idea of what that might be.
Protectiveness swelled.
An anger so intense I saw black curled through my muscles.
I could feel it, a wire tripping somewhere inside me, one of those pieces I’d been trying to keep contained, held back, ripped free.
No way in hell was I backing down from this. No way in hell was I walking away from her.
“I’m moving in.”
She reared back. “What?”
“You heard what I said.”
A heated anger rushed in to take over the helplessness. “Well, I thought I did . . . and what I think I just heard you say was you’re movin’ in here, and that’s not goin’ to happen.”
“You need someone here to look after you. Besides . . . there are what? Eight rooms here? You will hardly notice me, and someone needs to be here to watch over things.”
“And you think that job lands on you?” It was all a rushed horror as she pushed back her chair and stumbled to her feet.
Energy flashed.
So intense my chest tightened.
Painfully.
Protectiveness pulsing out. Filling everything.
“I think that’s exactly what it is.”
Harsh, hoarse laughter rocked from her, and she was biting at her lip like she wanted to bite back her words.
“You are the last person I want movin’ in here. I already told you, all of this is too hard. It feels too complicated. It’s hard enough you bein’ outside. You want to take up the inside, too?”
I edged closer, breathing in all that intensity.
Taking it on as my own.
Standing next to the girl felt like inhaling life.
Did she think this wasn’t going to be brutal for me, too?
My voice quieted, though it was hard as stone. “You aren’t safe here. You’re scared. You can’t deny that.”
I edged closer, and she edged back. She hit the wall behind her.
She was so close.
So damned close I wanted to take one step closer and feel all of her. What it was like to be against that skin.
Her words were so rough she could barely force them out. “Then I’ll call my daddy to come and stay.”
My fingers were back to toying with a lock of her hair, my head angled to the side. “Let me take care of you, Faith. Let me be the one.”
“Jace—”
“Please . . . let me do this for you. I’m your family, whether you like it or not.”
“This is a terrible idea,” she whispered. Like it was her last plea.
“It might be the only good one I’ve ever had.”
Twelve
Faith
“What am I gonna do?” I flew into the small realtor’s office like I was running from a rabid skunk.
Basically, that was what I was doing. It was the only way I’d been able to get away from him, the overbearing man not even wanting me to go into town to get groceries without him tagging along.