Silence spun between Faith and me as we watched them play.
Sophie Marie tottered around, trying to keep up, while the rest of the kids ran circles around her. Jace was holding their son again, so protectively, as if the man refused to let him go.
Faith finally broke our quiet bubble. “Ian is . . . complicated.”
I almost laughed, my gaze flitting to her before it was back on Ian, who’d swept Sophie back up into the strength of those arms. He ran with her, chasing after Bailey, soaring Sophie through the air as if she were flying since she now was “it.”
As if the man was her champion.
Her hero.
She kicked and flapped her arms and laughed.
“That much is plenty obvious,” I said, looking over at her, my lips pressing into a grim line. “But he also might be the most transparent man I’ve ever met. He’s so fundamentally good, but all the fear and regret he carries around makes him believe he’s someone bad.”
Faith nodded slightly, contemplating, not sure what she wanted to confide in me. Her voice dropped, so low I had to struggle to listen. “The first time I saw Ian, he was stuffing a sandwich into his mouth, crying because it hurt to eat since it’d been so long since the last time he had.”
Agony cut me right in two.
Physical.
This pain that took me over at the thought of this powerful man a boy.
Scared and hungry and afraid.
All those scars that covered his body.
I didn’t have the first idea of what he’d gone through. The only thing I knew was I wanted to go back and wrap him up and stop it from ever happening.
I wondered if he knew that was exactly what he was doing for my children.
Protecting them from torment.
Different than his, but the kind that would leave scars all the same.
“Jace had stolen it for him,” she mused quietly, rocking on the porch rocker, as if she’d been taken back to that time. She glanced over at me, tears shimmering in her dark eyes. “They took care of each other that way. Their childhood . . . it was a battle. A warzone. One they were forced to fight even though they’d never enlisted. The aftermath left them completely different and so intrinsically the same.”
Her throat bobbed when she swallowed. “Fearful. Scared. Thinking they have something to prove. And really the only proof they need is for someone to show them that they deserve to be loved. Not because they earned it, but because of who they are.”
Hesitation buzzed around her, and she glanced away, her words careful. “But I think Ian’s wounds go deeper than either Jace or I can see. The man’s terrified of loving or being loved in return, so that heart of his doesn’t know what to do. How to give or how to receive. It’s grown dark and bitter. That might be the greatest tragedy of all.”
Mallory’s squeal broke through the air, capturing our attention when she was tagged. “No fair! No fair! You’re a superhero, and I’m only a princess!”
“What are you talking about, Mal Pal? I thought you were a magic princess?” Ian bounced Sophie. “And your little sister is a magic princess, too. That’s how she caught you, isn’t it, Soph?”
Sophie clapped. “Sophie win!”
My heart went crazy. Shaking and shivering and stretching out. Because the risk I had wasn’t in not being able to love someone.
It was in how desperately I did.
I knew it from the start. Even being in his space was dangerous.
That I was going to fall.
Hard and fast and completely.
But none of that seemed to matter because I stood anyway when Ian gestured for me to come and join him.
Rays of wintery light streaked through the sky. But it was the light radiating from Ian that speared me. The man’s presence a force I didn’t know how to stand under.
It only shivered brighter the closer I came, and he tugged at my hand. “You’re it.”
God, just the rough cadence of his voice sent me into a swoon.
Somehow, I let myself laugh as we ran and played, darted and diverted and tagged.
I lost my breath when Ian tackled me. His big body pressed against mine where he had me pinned on the ground. The pants from his mouth rough and his heart racing. With my eyes, I silently begged him to kiss me. To show me why he’d run from me when we’d been in the bathroom.
Faith’s concerns remained fresh in my mind. Though they didn’t scare me. They felt like a buoy.
As if I’d gotten one step closer to this man when I already felt lost in the middle of him.
He froze for a moment, those eyes so tender yet confused as they flicked between my unwavering gaze and my mouth.
The air shivered and shook.
Kiss me.
Squeezing his eyes closed, he dipped his head before he peeled himself away, stretching out a hand, refusing to meet the silent questions rushing from me as he helped me to stand, though I could feel the torment in the squeeze of his hand.
“You’re it, Momma! Ian Zian caught you, you’re it!” Mallory shouted.
Oh, God, did he catch me.
I darted for my daughter. She squealed and ran.
We spent the day that way.
Together.
Faith and Bailey and Jace took us to their favorite stream at the back of the property where the kids splashed and played, and Thomas looked as if some of the weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
Only because Ian was holding some of it.
In the late afternoon, we returned to the house, and Mallory pulled out our big book so we could add a new chapter. The great escape that had turned into an adventure where we’d all been whisked away to a secret castle hidden in the sky, her little mind running wild as we continued our story and new characters were introduced.
Faith and I made dinner while the guys played a board game with the kids, and I was sure that my life had never felt so full.
So right.
As if I were coming up on eternity.
We ate and we laughed and we talked, and I quickly fell in love with the people at the table.
Ian’s family so fundamentally a part of him. The devotion between them all so distinct.
The kids had baths, and we tucked them in, and then Ian and I went back into the kitchen to do the dishes together, telling Faith and Jace to take the night for themselves.
It was the least we could do for their hospitality.
I got the stupid inclination that this was the way it was supposed to be. Ian and me, side-by-side.
Then my phone buzzed in my pocket at the same time Ian’s buzzed in his.
Still wearing a satisfied grin, I pulled it out and thumbed into the messages without giving it any thought.
That was right when my heart that had grown too big cracked right down the middle.
Speared.
Spliced and split into a million pieces.
Ian went pale when he looked at his screen. No question, his exhibited the same images.
Ones of Ian with a woman in a dark, depraved room. Those big hands were on her bare breasts as the woman straddled him on a chair.
A prostitute.
The same one I’d seen Reed with.
The tattoo on the back of her shoulder was exactly the same. A broken ring with the number 7 in the middle of it.
I could only see it from behind, but it was clear what they were doing.
But it was the time stamp on the bottom that sent me reeling. Hot knives driven into my flesh. Splaying me open wide.
I might as well have bled out right there on the floor.
Sickness twisted through my stomach. Speeding out to saturate every cell.
A cold, lonely disease.
It was the day I’d first gone to Ian to beg him for help. The very next day after I’d gone to his apartment and spent the night.
Where he’d fucked me, just like he was clearly doing here.
Reed: This is who you have my children with? I’d think you’d be smarter than that. I told you, you’d regret this. I expect you and my children on my doorstep within the hour. I’d advise you to have every dollar of that money, too. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Grief climbed into my throat, and I couldn’t even look at Ian.
Couldn’t meet his face.
Couldn’t fathom the pain that gripped and tore and shredded my insides.
So, I fled, not even saying a word when I pounded up the stairs and into the room where I was staying.
Because Faith was right.