“Check,” I said with a shrug.
Narrowing her gaze, she picked up her phone from the bed where I’d set it. She scrolled through giving me suspicious glances as she did. Then she stopped, appeared to be reading and then raised disbelieving green eyes to lock on mine.
“What the hell?” she whispered. “How did you do this? It’s timestamped from this morning.”
“Pack,” I reiterated without answering her question. She jumped up and ran around the bed to grab my arm. I stopped short at the jolt the contact caused. Even through the fabric of my shirt, her touch sizzled.
“You have to agree to help Trace. That’s the only way I’m going with you. You help him with this… this… whatever it is.” I had to hand it to her. She was brave making demands after knowing what we were capable of.
My lips curled sardonically. “Why do you think I told you to pack?”
Without another word, I walked out.
The boys and I had plans to make.
“Heaven”—Blink182
My head was spinning with the events of the night. It was like a surreal, macabre dream that I was waiting to wake up from.
After Jude left the room, I sat on the edge of the bed staring at my beautiful little boy. For not the first time, I was blown away at how much he looked like Jude as a boy. He was around the age his father had been when I first met him.
“My beautiful boy,” I whispered as I sifted his hair off his brow through my fingers.
Jude’s mother had been full-blooded Native American, while his father carried the name from his paternal lines yet was only about an eighth. Like his father, Trace had a beautiful light golden tone to his skin. Dark hair. Warm mocha eyes. He was destined to be as devastatingly handsome as his father when he grew up.
“How are we going to explain the years away to you, baby boy?” I asked his sleeping form. He’d rarely asked about his father. When he did, I’d told him he was a war hero. Honestly, I hadn’t known if it was true, and I never said he was dead. I simply didn’t say much at all.
Like the old soul he’d always been, Trace never asked if his father was alive. Maybe deep down he knew more than I did. With a sigh, I stood up and went to do as Jude had said.
It didn’t take long to get my bag together.
The entire time I packed, I could hear the group of men quietly talking in my kitchen where they’d taken over my table as a meeting room of sorts. As I passed the doorway to go to Trace’s room, dark brown eyes rose to lock on mine. I hated how a simple look from him could send my heart into a tailspin.
He shouldn’t still have that effect on me. More importantly, I shouldn’tlethim have that effect on me.
Not after the past almost eight years of nothing from him. No phone calls, no emails, nothing. Even if he didn’t know about Trace, we’d had the reconnection after his mother’s funeral.
It wasn’t my imagination that the feelings had still been there. Unless it was all one-sided.
Telling myself I’d work on keeping myself in check where Jude was concerned, I quickly packed a bag for my son. At the top, I stuffed the velvety purple frog that had seen better days. Though in many ways he was an old soul, Trace was also still a little boy. He’d found the frog in one of my childhood boxes when he was about three and had latched on to it. He still slept with it if he didn’t have friends over.
I’d never told him his father had bought it for me.
Oh God. What am I doing? Taking him away from the only home he’s ever known in the middle of the night? His friends, everything that’s safe and familiar.
All to have a father who was a murderer teach him to control the insanely unbelievable gift he’d inherited from him. Talk about a seriously fucked-up situation.
Needing to get control of my shit, I sat on the edge of his bed with the airplanes all over the comforter. With my elbows resting on my knees, I buried my face in my hands.
How was I supposed to know if I was doing the right thing? How was I supposed to know what the right thing was?
“We have a lot to discuss, Korrie, but I’m not going to let anything hurt him.” The honey-rich sound of his voice both startled me and sent my insides through an emotional blender.
“I’m more worried about you hurting him,” I admitted, yet I didn’t speak the rest of my thoughts.And mewas the rest of that thought. Because I was afraid he still had the power to hurt me in an irreparable way.
The shock on his beautiful face sent a pang through my chest.
“I’d never hurt him!” he argued. Fire flashed in his eyes.