Laying it out.
Not worried that he was poking the beast.
Or maybe that was exactly what he wanted to do.
I sucked in a shattered breath, cool slipping fast. “Some things just turn out the way they’re supposed to,” I grated.
“Is that right?” His voice was incredulous. Almost mocking.
Leaning forward, I dropped my elbows to my knees and my attention to the ground again, trying to keep my anger under control. I could feel it slipping, seeping from my pores.
“Never deserved her.”
Ian slammed his palm down on his desk. “Bullshit. I’m thinking it was the other way around.”
Startled, my head jerked up.
He pointed at me. “You saved my fucking life, time and again. I don’t care what happened in the past or what you’ve had to do. The only thing that matters is who you are. You’re the best guy I know . . . and the fact you think you don’t deserve to be happy? That’s every kind of wrong, Jace. Faith would be lucky to have you.”
He scraped a flustered hand through his hair, hidden emotion bleeding free. “Shit . . . I know you love her, man. But I’m not willing to lose you over her again.”
“It’s too late, anyway. There’s too much history between the two of us.”
Too much hurt.
Too many lies.
“Why’s that?”
“She hates me.”
And she only stood to hate me more when she found out what I’d done.
“Bullshit,” he said again. This time quieter, tone shifting in emphasis. “That girl has loved you since the day she first saw you.”
“Not so sure about that.”
I mean, God, she’d been married to Joseph before I could even explain to her why I had to go in the first place. If she’d loved me so much, how could she have done that?
Hooked up with him?
I hated not knowing, but I was pretty damned sure I couldn’t handle knowing, either.
Ian huffed a frustrated sound. “You’re an idiot, brother. You want to be miserable your whole goddamned life?”
Pointedly, I glanced up at him. “Guess I’d be in good company, wouldn’t I?”
“Fuck you, man. I’m as happy as can be.” He lifted his arms out to his sides, gesturing around him, like his expensive suit and expensive furnishings in his corner office was the giver of joy.
I knew better.
Firsthand.
But money sure as hell made things easier, and I’d gladly give up every dime of mine to make up for what I’d done. Make her life easier, too.
“Think Faith has had enough of being yanked around, yeah?” Mack almost challenged, glaring between the two of us. “Why don’t we focus on whoever this fucker is rather than quibbling over who deserves what, because I’m pretty sure what both of you deserve is to get your asses handed to you.”
I sighed and then chuckled. “Why don’t you tell us how you feel, man?”
He nearly rolled his eyes. “Want me to profess my love to the two of you? Keep dreamin’.”
“Oh, come on, Mack, know you’ve been dreaming of me,” Ian baited.
“Dreaming of squeezing the life out of you.”
“Ouch.” Ian threw his hand over his heart, so overdramatic that this time I was the one rolling my eyes. “You wound me, Mack. Wound me.”
“Keep it up, and I will,” Mack razzed.
I blew out a sigh, needing to get back on course, and I gestured to the reports Mack had brought with him. “Did you guys find anything?”
Mack rubbed a hand over the flop of hair on top of his head. “Nothing inside. Nothing out of place other than the tub. No fingerprints. Just one goddamned footprint out front. Size eleven and a half. Boot that could belong to a thousand people.”
Fear clamped down on my chest.
Heavy and hard.
Fury building into its own beat. Something that felt outside my heart. Bigger than me.
“Seems to me, we hunt down every asshole within a hundred-mile radius who wears a size eleven and a half.”
“Ah . . . guess that clears my name. Size thirteen, bitches.” Ian smirked, the smug bastard.
I cut him a glare.
Mack clapped me on the knee. “You aren’t going to do anything except fix that porch and call me if you see anything out of the ordinary.”
Mack pushed to his towering, hulking height. “Keep on the straight and narrow. Think you know well enough that you can’t afford to find yourself handcuffed in the back of a cruiser again. We clear?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He just rapped a fist on the wall as he strode out the door.
Nine
Jace
A rush of anxiousness rolled down my spine as I knocked on the front door, trying to keep my cool.
Wasn’t like I hadn’t spent the entire night staking out the front of her house. She’d been tucked safely inside, behind closed doors, which had made it a whole ton of a lot easier to focus on why I was there.
All those reasons scattered in the wind when the front door whipped open.
It took everything I had not to stumble back. I should have been prepared. It wasn’t like it was the first time I’d seen her since I’d gotten back. But every single time, it nearly knocked me from my feet.
My attention darted down to her bare legs. My heart slammed against my ribs. Faith was wearing nothing but a flimsy pair of tiny pajama bottoms and a white tank top.
Then my heart froze when my attention landed on the little girl who peeked out from between her mother’s long, slender legs. She stood behind Faith, holding the outside of her mom’s legs and was peering at me as if through the bars on a cage.
Faith this fortress in front of her.
Protective and perfect.
My insides tangled.
Yeah. That little thing was going to be a problem. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known they’d had a kid. But, fuck, seeing it was a whole different ball game.
Like that impossible piece of hope inside me had been written on a scrap of paper. Kept hidden away. And was then ripped up and torn to shreds.
I pinned a smile onto my face, hoping it didn’t come off as too fake, and lifted the two one-gallon paint cans up at my sides. “Stain or white?”
Not that I needed the answer yet.
I just needed a reason to talk to her.
See her face.
Honestly, I was weeks away from being ready to paint anything.
Yesterday, I’d managed to get a few solid planks secured between the front door and steps.
They’d have to be fully ripped out and replaced when I got to this section, but for the time being, someone could leave the house without the worry of falling and breaking their neck.
A frown pulled across Faith’s pretty face, and her gaze swept across the porch to the small patch off to the left where I’d started to pull out the old planks.
Her attention came back to me, worry on her brow. “You didn’t make it very far yesterday.”
I laughed out a feigned sound of offense. “Trying to get rid of me already?”
Chocolate eyes narrowed, and her full lips pursed, glistening in the sun, tendrils of hair sweeping down over her slender shoulders while the rest of it was piled in a restless mess on the top of her head.
Lust was such a bitch.
It came on at the most inopportune times.
Like when I was standing there with her little girl peeking out from behind her mother’s legs like the tiny thing was there to do the protecting rather than the other way around.
God. I was a sick fuck.
But this woman just about did me in.
She always had.
I gulped it down.
Pretended like my dick wasn’t straining in my jeans.
Pretended I didn’t wish I was waking up with those legs wrapped around me rather than alternating between spending the night sitting in the front seat of my car and pacing the property.
“You said you were gonna patch the porch.”
A smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. “No, I didn’t, Faith. I said I was going to fix the porch. The entire thing needs to be replaced. Top and bottom.”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted in shock.
My guts twisted.
I thought that each time I saw her, it might get easier, that I’d be able to lock down the need racing inside me.