for someone to take care of me. If we’re in a relationship, we’re partners. We’ll have equal responsibility to care for each other. That’s how it works.”
“How do you know so much about relationships?”
Good question. I’d had very few in my life. “Honestly? From my parents, I think.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I know they weren’t perfect. I hated my father for lying to us, but look how he took care of my mother, always did what was best for her. And if she’d been able to, she’d have cared for him as well. I truly believe it.”
“I wish I’d had that kind of example.”
“You did,” I said, “or you wouldn’t feel so strongly about not getting into a relationship before you’re ready.”
He cocked his head. “You’re right, but that’s exactly what I’m fighting. Those good memories of my father. They’re killing me.”
“It’s okay to have good memories of a bad person.”
“No, it’s not. It can’t be.”
“But it is. That’s something else I learned from Melanie. I wanted to hate my father, but he was a good father to me until he”—air quotes—“died when I was eighteen. I was his baby girl. I have no memories at all of my mother, so everything I learned in life I learned from him. Well, him and my brothers. You don’t have to forget the good stuff just because there’s bad stuff.”
“You’re so strong.”
“No stronger than anyone else. I’ve obviously had my own issues.” I pointed to the scar on my thigh.
He touched it gently. “Does it hurt?”
“No. Not anymore.”
“Can you promise me you’ll never hurt yourself again?”
I swallowed, trying to think of the right words to say. They didn’t come.
“Please, sweetheart? I can’t stand the thought of you harming yourself in any way.”
“I’ll try,” I said. “I’ve made that promise to myself before, only to break it. I made the promise to Mel, only to break it. I don’t want to ever break a promise to you.”
“Then don’t.”
“Which is why I can’t make that promise. I will try. That’s the best I can do.”
He nodded. “That’s good enough. For now.”
I touched his cheek, his stubble scraping against my smooth fingertips. “I love you.”
He smiled. “I love you too. I’ve wanted to say that so many times.”
“Have you?”
He nodded. “Writing you that letter was torture. Pure torture.”
“Good. Because it was pure torture to read it. Believe me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I forgive you.”
“Do you? Really?”
I nodded. “Really.”
He looked around. “I really want to make love to you. Slowly and completely. But I don’t want to do it here. Not in either of those bedrooms, and not in this room either. It has to be perfect, and anything in this old cabin, where God only knows what went on, won’t be perfect.”
“The place doesn’t matter, Bryce.”
“It does to me.”
His eyes held such torment that I wanted to cradle him like a child and tell him everything would be all right.
But everything wasn’t all right.
We loved each other. We were going to do this.
But everything was far from all right.
Bryce had confided in me. Someone was watching him.
I flashed back to the night Jade and I had met with Colin at the main house. His obscure words.
I’m sorry for what I did. For what I allowed to happen. And for what’s to come.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Bryce
She was in it now. I’d brought Marjorie Steel into the ugliness of my life. I’d broken my promise to Joe. I’d told our secret, and he hadn’t even told his own wife.
I hoped I hadn’t just ended a lifetime friendship. Joe meant so much to me, and now that I was with his sister, we might be family someday.
Wow. Family. I could marry this woman. Have more kids with her, brothers and sisters for Henry.
I was getting ahead of myself, but the thought filled me with something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
Joy.
“We can go,” she said. “I understand. This place kind of gives me the creeps.”
I grabbed my jeans and began to dress, and she followed suit.
“What do you want to do with the stuff we found under the floor?”
“Put it in the trunk of my car for now.” The trunk of the car that had been my father’s. Why hadn’t I gotten rid of it yet? I thought about it every time I saw the damned thing, yet I still hadn’t dumped it. It was a cherried-out Mustang. I could easily sell it and buy my own cherried-out Mustang if I wanted to. Better yet, I could start a college fund for my son