things I can’t give to my own son right now.”
“Bryce…”
He held up his hand. “No. Let me finish. You do everything for others. You’re putting your life on hold—”
I interrupted him with a huff. “I’m not. I’m leaving.”
“Would you let me finish?” He shook his head. “You’re perfect, Marjorie. Absolutely perfect. Plus, you’re Joe’s baby sister. He’d never forgive me if I hurt you. Worse, I’d never forgive myself.”
He’d already hurt me, but now wasn’t the time to bring that up. He knew. It was written all over his face.
“This isn’t making any sense. If this is about your fa—”
“I’d be lying if I said that’s not a big part of it. But it’s more. I have responsibilities to my mom and to Henry.”
“I love Henry and your mom. You know that.”
“That’s not the issue. I’ve already let them down, and I feel like shit for it. I can’t let you down as well.”
“You haven’t let your mom and Henry down.”
He shook his head. “There are things you don’t know. Things I can’t tell you because of promises I’ve made.”
“You just swore you’d tell me the truth.”
“And I have. But I can’t breach a confidence.”
Chills spiked the back of my neck. “Exactly what is going on here?”
“Marjorie, I can’t be with you because I’m an empty shell. I feel like the Tin Man.”
“You don’t have a heart?”
He sighed. “My heart is fine. I feel, Marjorie. I…”
“What?”
“I…” He shoveled his fingers through his mass of dark-blond hair. “I love you, damn it. I love you so fucking much.”
My heart leaped, and warmth surged into me, filling the holes. “I love you too.”
“I know. You said it once.”
“I did?”
“The last time at the guesthouse. You were having a lot of orgasms.”
Try as I might, I couldn’t make myself embarrassed over the words during a climax. “Well, I meant it then, and I mean it now.”
“I mean it too.”
“Then what’s the problem? When two people love each other, everything can be worked out.”
“Not when one of them is the Tin Man.”
“Stop it with that reference, already. Your heart is fine. You just said you love me.”
He touched my cheek then, caressed it carefully as if it were made of porcelain. “It’s not my heart that’s the problem, sweetheart. It’s my soul.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bryce
My soul.
Yeah, my heart was fine. I wasn’t lying. I loved my mother and I loved my son as much as I always had. And I loved the woman before me. So damned much.
But where my soul once was lay only a black hole. I felt used up, empty, as if my physical body no longer housed something full of light. Now, only blackness lived inside me. The blackness of my father and the guilt he’d left me.
Marjorie took my hand, entwining her fingers with mine. Her flesh was warm and inviting. Loving.
Marjorie had a soul, a beautiful soul full of love and light. I couldn’t tarnish her. I just couldn’t.
“You’re being way too hard on yourself. You have a soul. You know you have a soul.”
“It’s an illusion,” I said.
“Maybe all souls are illusions. Maybe it’s something we’re taught so we can believe something continues to exist after our bodies die. No one knows, Bryce.”
“Semantics don’t matter, Marj. Whatever I once had inside me that made me feel full and happy—it’s gone now.”
“You’re feeling guilt,” she said. “That’s all.”
“Oh, yeah. I feel guilt. But this goes beyond guilt. It’s these memories of my father. They torture me. All the damned time.”
“What memories?”
“From my childhood. All that time, he was doing horrible, awful things to innocent people. Young people, Marjorie. And at the same time, he was teaching me things.”
“What things?”
“Things a father teaches a son. Things I’ll teach Henry someday. How to camp, fish, shoot a gun. How to be a man.” I raked my fingers through my hair. “I learned how to be a man from a monster.”
Finally, my guilt poured out of me and into this lovely woman. She’d walk away for sure.
Hell, I wouldn’t blame her if she ran away screaming bloody murder.
I was a fucked-up mess.
“That’s not your fault,” she said.
“But…he was a good father. To me. And at that same time…”
“Hey, it’s okay.”
“God. None of this is okay. Not even a tiny bit.”
“Your father was a monster. You’ll get no argument from anyone.”
“How can I have happy memories of him? It feels wrong.”
“You need to talk to someone.”
“I’m talking to you.”
“And I’m happy to listen, but I don’t have any training in any of this. Melanie