knew what happened when he didn’t get his way, except she didn’t know this Guy; she knew a different Guy. “And like I said, I do this for a living. You’d be surprised how many people are willing to pay for a life coach to do nothing more than organize closets and files. Then we’ll get him situated somewhere.”
He tilted his head, trying to understand. “What do you mean?” Except, deep in his heart, he knew exactly what she meant.
“In a home somewhere.”
Yep. Exactly. “He’s in a home. His home.”
She raised her chin, looking remarkably strong for such a petite woman. But she’d always been strong. Even at her weakest, most broken moments, Jocelyn had a backbone of pure titanium. It was one of the things he’d once loved about her. One of many.
“He can’t stay here,” she said simply. “And you can’t be expected to care for someone who isn’t your father, no matter how much he thinks he… likes you.”
Did she think he couldn’t still read every nuance in her tone and delivery? They’d known each other since they were ten. “He said he loved me.”
“Yes, well, I imagine he says a lot of strange things.” She bit her lip and crossed her arms so tight he could see each tendon straining in her hand. Man, she was wired for sound.
“That probably hurt your feelings, since he doesn’t even recognize you.”
She let out a dry laugh. “You’re assuming I have feelings where he’s concerned, Will. Or did you forget what kind of man he was?”
“I didn’t,” he said softly. “But he did.”
“And that makes everything okay?” Her voice rose with incredulity.
“I understand how you feel because I felt the same way when I first got here. But over time, shit, he kind of grows on you.”
Her eyes grew wide in shocked disbelief.
“Maybe you could…” Give him a chance. Was that even possible? “Think about this a little more.”
“I’ve thought about it enough.” She turned as if she were looking for something—or just couldn’t face him anymore.
“I just don’t think he needs to be put away like some kind of criminal.”
She whipped back around to flatten him with a dark glare. “He is a criminal and you might have gone all soft at the sight of him, but I didn’t. I won’t. I never will.”
“Maybe there’s another way,” Will said. “He’s old and out of it. He’s sick and demented. But this is his home. It would be cruel to—”
“Cruel?” She threw the word back in his face like a ninety-five-mile-an-hour fastball. “Are you serious? He wrote the book on cruel. He hit my mother, Will. He threatened to shoot you. He… he…” She clenched her jaw and drew in a shaky breath. “He is a very bad man.”
What was she about to tell him? What happened that last night? By the next day Jocelyn had left Mimosa Key; he never knew how she got away. And, shit, he’d been too scared to find out. Scared to lose his scholarship. Scared to lose everything he’d promised his own father. Scared of the recriminations of pursuing a girl he thought he—no, a girl he really did love.
He hadn’t been willing to pay the price, and he’d had to live with that. Had to pay it now, in a different way.
“Jocelyn.” He took one step closer, slowly taking his hands out of his pockets, that need to reach for her still strong. Instead he cracked his knuckles like he had a million times in the dugout during a tense inning. “I understand your position. Maybe you could… we could… find someone to live with him. Or stay with him during the day.”
“That’s—”
“Expensive, I know. God, I know exactly what it costs and he doesn’t have that much money left and neither do I, or I’d—”
She waved him quiet. “I would never expect you to pay for his care. He’s my problem and I’ll have a solution. That’s what I do, really. This is right in my wheelhouse.”
“In your wheelhouse?” He almost choked on a batting term he’d heard a hundred times on the field, the expression wrong right here in so many ways.
“Yes, this is what I do. I’m a life coach, Will. I put people’s lives back together. I help them find solutions to the problems of life. I organize, structure, prioritize, and master their everyday lives. Usually I teach them how to do that for themselves, but in this case, I’ll just skip that step.”
She sounded so clinical. “Actually,”