minute,” he said. “Right now, while I’m catching my breath, I want you to tell me the truth.”
She stepped away from him. “The truth?”
“Yeah. As odd as it may seem, I’d like to know what really happened sixteen years ago.”
She turned her back on him. “I don’t want to talk about that, okay?”
“No. It’s not okay. The other day you said I needed to do a penance. I’m happy to get down on my knees if that’s what it takes. But to truly seek forgiveness, I need to understand how I specifically hurt you,” he said on a puff of air as he took one painful step toward her.
This time she didn’t move back. But her mouth opened a little, her lips round and seductive.
He brushed back a strand of wind-ravished hair with his finger, and then he couldn’t help himself. His hand cupped her cool cheek.
“I never intended to hurt anyone. And I goddamn don’t want to hurt you now. I’ve already told you; I think you were put in my path to save me.”
* * *
The warmth of his fingers against her skin stunned her for a moment. She stood rooted to the concrete and iron floor, unable to step away, while every nerve in her body jangled.
“Please don’t,” she said in a desperate voice, her heart shuddering in her chest. She pulled away from him and made a dash toward the ladder to the keeping room.
“Don’t run away,” he said. “Whatever it is you have to say, it won’t offend me.”
She stopped and turned. “This isn’t about you,” she said.
“Okay. I’d still like to hear the story.”
“No, you don’t want to hear it. And I don’t want to tell it.” She swung to the first step of the ladder, hoping he would have trouble following her. But he surprised her by moving with astonishing speed.
“Don’t run away. I get it. I know.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I do. I can see it in your eyes. You think you have to keep all those angry thoughts inside. You think if you let them out, no one would ever love you.”
His words were like arrows shot right into her heart. How could he possibly know? He was a man who wore his anger for all the world to see. And he was sometimes hard to like, much less love.
Whoa, that stopped her. She blinked up at him, her hands and lips going numb. She didn’t love him, but she found him attractive, despite the scars, despite the anger that sometimes raged on the outside.
And that was frightening. She couldn’t afford to—
“I’m not here for a bunch of bullshit. I want the truth. Unvarnished,” he said. “You owe it to me, especially since you’ve blamed me for some great harm. Telling me the truth is part of my penance.”
She almost laughed at the way he’d turned her words against her. “I forgave you.” She continued climbing down the ladder.
“No, you didn’t. You said a bunch of polite but meaningless words so I would stop provoking you. Tell me the truth.” His words followed her down to the keeping room. A moment later he came down the ladder, using the handrails to ease his left side.
“Just spit it out,” he said, turning toward her. He was out of breath.
She looked away.
“Jessica, look at me.”
It was the same tone of voice her father always used when he was angry. The same order. The same words.
She could remember that horrible day when Daddy had called her into his study. Colton hadn’t been arrested yet, but the gossip had started and Daddy had gotten wind of it. “How could you have been so stupid?” he’d asked, confirming in one short sentence that he’d believed the lies people were telling about her.
“I didn’t do any of those things they’re talking about,” she’d said, defiantly meeting her father’s angry gaze.
“Don’t you lie to me,” he’d said, and when she’d refused to back down, he’d locked her in her room for an entire day—the day Colton was arrested.
Enraged, Daddy had called Uncle Joe and told his brother-in-law, who was the chief of police at the time, to make Colton’s life miserable. And Uncle Joe had taken care of things, arresting Colton for possession of a couple of joints. The criminal justice system had taken care of the rest, sending him away for a year.
The next day, when Daddy told her what he’d done, she’d stood on Granny’s precious Persian rug studying the swirling patterns as a tidal wave of