He had to be careful.
He gathered himself and forced himself to take a step back.
A needy, desperate sigh seeped from her mouth, though there was something confused and scared mixed up in it, too.
That sound alone nearly wrecked him.
Trying to compose himself, he took her hand and led her down the side steps to the patch of grass off to the side of the massive house.
Right to the garden of lavender and pink roses that grew like their own forest.
He stood in the middle of them.
Surrounded by beauty.
He shivered when fingers ran down his back. Slowly, he turned around to face her. Her expression was confused, eyes rich and dark, her lips still swollen from his kiss.
His chest clenched.
God. She didn’t get it. How perfect she was.
“Why do you always do that?” she finally whispered into the stilled night.
“Do what?” he asked just as quietly.
She almost smiled. “Treat me like you’re gonna break me.”
He reached out and played with an errant strand of hair at the side of her face, his head tilting to the side and the words coming so low.
“Because I’m afraid that I might.” He stared at her, his brows pinched. “Don’t you see it, Faith? You’re a good girl. I knew it the first time I saw you. And I’m not a good guy. I’m going nowhere, and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you.”
“What if I want to spend that life with you?” That was the way she always was. Honest. Her pretty heart tacked right on her sleeve. Hiding nothing.
His spirit thrashed, and he wanted to wrap her up.
Maybe run away with her.
Hide from all the bullshit in his life.
The way the people in this stupid town looked at him.
The way his mama talked to him.
The way the men through the years had beaten him, and when he’d started to fight back, had turned to beating his brother and his cousin instead.
The anger it’d bred inside him, not to mention all the things he’d had to do to survive those things.
He was terrified that the only thing he’d ever amount to was the title of trash.
It was grief that flooded from his mouth. “I’m not sure I’ll ever be good enough for you. I won’t ever be able to take care of you the way you deserve to be.”
“Who says?” she challenged.
He laughed a bitter sound. “Everyone.”
She turned away and lightly ran her fingertips over the petals of a rose. “Do you want to know why I love this rose garden so much?”
He was behind her, her hair a dark river that tumbled down her back.
She glanced back at him. “Because someone planted them and then left them to die. I bet they wilted good when whoever used to care for them left them to fend for themselves. Forgotten. But they fought through all of that, grew stronger in the midst of it, and now they flourish. Now, they’re probably the most beautiful thing on this whole property.”
She turned around to face him, her voice fierce and soft. “It doesn’t matter what anyone says, Jace. It’s what you believe. What you see in yourself. If you want it badly enough, you can have it. If you work hard enough? Fight for it? You’re going to come out stronger on the other side.”
Her brow pinched. “I see that in you. See how great you are. I can see all the amazin’ things you can achieve. It’s all right there, waitin’ for you to accept it.”
A feeling swept him.
Something so intense.
So full.
Love.
It was the most powerful, scariest emotion a person could experience.
It crawled all over him. Seeping into the crevices and the cracks.
He set his palm on her jaw. “You make me feel like maybe I can.”
Sending her a soft smile, he grabbed the small pocketknife he carried from his back pocket and stepped around her, cutting one of the roses at the base of its stem.
He rolled it between his fingers, could feel the weight of her gaze burning at the side of his face.
“I think you’re all wrong, Faith. You are the most beautiful thing in this place. I look at these flowers, and I think of you. Maybe it’s you who believed in them enough, you willed them to grow.”
Her teeth raked across her bottom lip, so much affection in her voice that Jace shook. “Would that be such a bad thing? Everyone needs someone to believe in them.”
Her face pinched, and the confession came out. “I love you, Jace. I believe in you. I trust you. Maybe that’s the only thing that matters.”
He nearly crumbled at her feet.
“You are beauty, Faith.”
The epitome of it.
Inside and out.
He couldn’t help the bitterness from filling his tone. “And I’m exactly like that beast in that story. Everyone saw she was too good for him, and he fell in love with her anyway.”