And the only thing happening was those thoughts were coming stronger.
Urges and ideas filling my mind.
Taking her. That body and her mind and that heart that was supposed to be mine.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s two levels of porch that wrap around the entire house.”
“I never said I wasn’t up for the challenge.”
Worry flooded her tone. “That will cost thousands and thousands of dollars, Jace.”
“So what?”
She took a floundering step forward. Like she was struck with a sudden bolt of anger. “So what? So what?” Her hands fisted at her sides.
Her little girl was still clinging to the backs of her legs. She came forward with the movement like she was an extension of her mother.
Faith’s voice lowered in an emphatic hiss. “So, I don’t have any money to pay for that, that’s what.”
“Didn’t ask you for any.”
“I’m no beggar.”
Yeah, well I was going to be in about five seconds if she didn’t stop worrying at that plump bottom lip with her teeth.
“Never said you were.”
“Jace.”
I stepped back, shaking my head. “This isn’t up for discussion, Faith. I told you I was going to fix your porch. You accepted. You can’t take that back now.”
Redness climbed to her face, something like shame and embarrassment written there. “It’s just . . . so much time. So much money. I don’t understand why you want to do this for me.”
Had she forgotten everything she’d done for me? The kindness she’d shown me when everyone else walked by and kicked me like I was a dog?
Couldn’t keep the softness from infiltrating my tone. “I want to do it.”
Something tender moved through her features. Something so familiar that it punched me in the gut.
“It’s going to be okay, Faith. It is.”
Her eyes pinched, and I cleared my throat. “Now . . . white or stain?” I asked, lifting the containers in each hand, because I needed to step back, get the hell away from her before I leaned in closer.
Ran my nose along the soft slope of her delicate neck.
Her little girl poked her head through her mother’s legs, hands clinging to the backs of her knees, the child grinning like crazy through a veil of soft brown curls. “Pink!”
Faith ran her fingers through the little girl’s hair. “I don’t think pink is the best color for outside, Bailey Anne.”
Bailey Anne.
The air jetted from my lungs.
Agony.
My body rocked forward, slammed by the shock, every cell constricting with excruciating pain.
Obliterating.
“Pink is the best cowar always,” she said, drawing out the words in a strait shot of sweetness.
I blinked and tried to see through the memories that were nothing but torment ringing in my ear.
Focus on what the little girl was saying rather than feeling like Faith hadn’t just driven a knife into my back.
Shit.
This was not good.
Not what I expected.
Definitely not what I signed up for.
“I want a room that’s aww pink.” She was peeking out again, acting shy while also staring at me, clearly trying to figure me out.
“Is that so?” I manage to ask around the thickness in my throat.
“Wif unicorns because they’re magic.” She whispered the last word like it was a secret. Chocolate eyes, just as genuine as Faith’s, widened at me in guileless awe. Like she was wondering if I believed in it, too.
Sadness slammed me so hard it nearly bowled me over. It got mixed up with this overwhelming feeling of possession. Of protection.
I was going to make sure these two were safe. No matter the cost. Even if being here was gutting me.
Faith would hate me in the end, but she’d always been worth the sacrifice. That hadn’t changed.
“How about we save the pink for your room then?” I offered.
It came out a promise. The stupidest thing I could say.
Because her smile went brilliant, filled with a mouthful of tiny teeth.
“Oh-kay.” She craned her head to peer up at her mother’s face, her words an amazed whisper. “He said he make my room pink, Mommy.”
Faith gulped, staring at me like I’d punched her.
Apparently, both of us were getting the fuck beat out of us.
Blow after blow.
But it was the wounds inflicted that couldn’t be seen that always scarred the worst.
I wanted to erase hers.
Soothe them and keep them.
Take them on as my own.
Just as I felt the scars written on me growing thicker.
“Jace—”
I knew what she was getting ready to say. I shook my head to cut her off and held the cans up higher, both of them swinging from the handles. “White or stain?”
She glowered at me, but there was something different in the depths of her gaze. Something close to amusement. An old kind of understanding.
The slightest smile pulled at her mouth. “Seems to me like you’d already know the answer to that.”
Satisfaction welled in my chest, and I laughed out a surprised sound, shocked Faith would give me that inch.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us, I need to shower.”
She leaned down and swept her little girl into her arms, spinning on her heel, and heading back through the door without another word.
Her daughter peeked back at me from over her mom’s shoulder, shy but still curious.
Bailey.
I gulped and then jerked when the door slammed shut, jarring me out of my stupidity.
Ten
Faith
The old pipes squealed as I shut off the showerhead. It sent the steamy bathroom into silence.
A dense, vacant kind of silence.
I peeked my head out from behind the shower curtain. “Bailey?” I called.
More of that silence echoed back.
Instantly, the paranoia set in. The horrible feeling that someone might be lurking, lying in wait.
I hated it.
I knew I was letting my mind run wild. But how could I not?
Still, it couldn’t have been five seconds ago when I’d glanced out to make sure she was still playing on the carpet in my bedroom, right outside the open bathroom door.
It was her spot while I showered. One she knew she wasn’t supposed to leave.
Her pile of toys was still there, a Barbie and a book and her favorite blocks scattered all over the floor.
Unease rippled, and I swallowed around the alarm that bleeped from somewhere deep in my consciousness.
“Bailey,” I called again, a little louder this time, panic rising to the surface.
Nothing.
Throat closing up, I squeezed my eyes and tried to refuse the instant fear that wanted to suffocate me.
Bleed me dry.
I hurried out of the shower, not taking the time to towel off before I grabbed my robe from where it was hanging on the wall and shrugged into it, tying the belt as I headed out my bedroom door.
I went straight for Bailey’s room.
The door was open.
She wasn’t there.
More of that unease slithered across my flesh. Scenarios I didn’t want to see flashing through my mind like a horror story.
But Jace was just outside. My rational mind told me that Bailey had only gone exploring.
That didn’t sit all that well with me, either. The trouble she could get herself into.
This house?
It was huge.
Which was why I tried to keep her corralled. It had been much easier when she’d been younger and the play gates kept her restricted. But it had started to get more and more difficult to keep her in one area.
She was curious and inquisitive. Smart in a way that made me incredibly proud and scared me a little too. The child so intuitive.
That also meant sometimes she wandered, roaming the house and playing through the little worlds that were so vivid in her head.
It hadn’t worried me so much until those notes had started coming. Until someone had been in our home.
I backed out of her room. “Bailey,” I called down the rambling hall, my voice bouncing off the wooden floorboards.
No answer.
Quickly, I started to search through the second-floor rooms where we were staying until the third-floor rooms were renovated.