Pushing it out of her mind, she changed the topic. "You need another pillow?"
He covered his eyes with his arm. Something that caused his shirt to ride up and give her a glimpse of his rock-hard abs. Oh yeah, she could do laundry on that. "Nah, thanks. I'm good."
In more ways than one. He was definitely scrumptious, lying on the floor like that.
I have lost my mind. And then some. You can't possibly find him attractive. He killed your family.
Or had he? Could he have been telling her the truth earlier? If he really was a cold-blooded killer, why not murder her instead of bringing her back here? He could have abandoned her to the scorpions and coyotes.
Instead, he'd protected her.
He's a killer. You saw his face. You know his legend.
True. Her research of his human past had shown him to be the worst sort of humanity. Scum so foul that even bounty hunters and law enforcement had feared him.
But her personal experience with him refuted that.
What if she were wrong? She'd been so little at the time of her parents' deaths. Did she remember that night correctly? She could still see him so clearly in her mirror. And yet there were differences between the man on the floor and the one in her memory.
Why would he seem larger now than he had when she was a kid?
Even though she needed to sleep, she wanted answers.
Before she could stop herself, she asked the one that bothered her most. "What did you and my dad fight over the night they died?"
Jess fell quiet as her whispered question stirred old memories that cut him up deep inside. Things he'd tried not to think about. Things that had haunted him for years. As bad as those memories had been for him, he could only imagine how much harder they'd been for her. Damn shame for a mite to see such a thing as what had happened to her parents.
A part of him wanted to lie, but in the end, he spoke honestly. "Your mother."
She sat up in the bed to stare at him. "What?"
Lowering his arm, Jess sighed at the inevitable confession she deserved to hear. "Your pa thought I was trying to steal her affections away from him."
"Were you?"
"Hardly. Me and her were friends and nothing more."
"You're lying," she accused.
If only it'd been that simple. "No, sweet. I'm telling the truth. No need for me to lie about this."
"Why would my father think that unless you gave him reason to?"
'Cause he was fucking loco, but Jess would never say that to her. The man was her pa, and the last thing he wanted to do was taint her memory of him. The truth, though-her pa had been insanely jealous of any male in Laura's life who was over the age of five. He assumed every man was eat up with lust for her, and in his world someone couldn't just want to talk to her because she reminded him of someone else. Nah, and the worst of it was that he'd accused her of cheating on him. Something Laura would die before she did.
Since Jess couldn't say any of that, he went with the other simple truth. "'Cause I loved your mama, and there was nothing in the world I wouldn't have done for her or you."
Abigail felt tears sting her eyes as she remembered the beauty of her mother's face. She'd seen her as a wonderful angel with a smile that was filled with more warmth than the sun itself. Most of all, she remembered how safe and loved she'd felt every single time her mother wrapped her arms around her. God, to have one more second with her ...
"If you were in love with-"
"Not in love, Abby. That's what your pa couldn't get through his thick skull. What I felt for her wasn't that. I just wanted to make her happy and keep her safe."
"Why?"
Jess felt the tic start in his jaw as a wave of agony swelled inside him. Laura had been a perfect physical copy of Matilda. Even some of her mannerisms. But she wasn't Tilly, and he'd known it. "She reminded me of someone I used to know." Someone I once loved more than anything on this earth.
"I don't understand."