I should have known.
Jace was standing on the other side of the hall, his back pressed to the wall as if he’d been listening all along.
I froze in the hazy shadows the old house had fallen into, his profile still strong in the suggestion of night.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” he said, though I could see him flinch, the jerk of his muscles in his arms. “About that room.”
Hurt fisted my heart at the thought of what he’d implied about the room that he’d thought should be his.
I shoved it down, said, “It’s okay.”
I got stuck there, staring out at him, wishing I didn’t find comfort in the fact he was there. Wishing it didn’t feel as if he was supposed to be. These walls forever echoing with his presence.
With the remnants of his ghost.
I’d ignored it for so long. Pretended I couldn’t hear his whispers trapped in the grain of the wood.
“She’s beautiful, Faith.”
Emotion swam.
Old love that tried to claw out of the rubble of demolished dreams.
“She’s the best thing I have ever been given.”
“You named her Bailey,” he murmured, hurt and regret wound with the pained taunt.
“I guess some dreams don’t die, after all, do they?” I whispered.
His lips twisted, and he cast his face toward the floor. “And sometimes those dreams are stolen from us.”
I had the urge to move across the hall, force him to look at me, and demand he tell me what he was really thinking, what he was really feeling. To demand to know how he could have walked away from me the way he had.
But I couldn’t regret our history. My direction ripped out from under me before I was set on another.
My daughter at its end.
I’d never, ever wish for that to turn out differently.
“I think I’m going to call it a night,” I forced myself to say before I did something stupid. “There’s a casserole in the refrigerator you can heat up if you’d like something to eat. Make yourself at home.”
It was only eight, but I wasn’t prepared for this. For the moments when he would actually be here and not just working.
Telling the man to make himself at home was a foolish statement in and of itself.
I knew I needed some space. Time to think and clear out the muddle of thoughts clouding my brain.
“Yeah,” he agreed, pushing off the wall and heading for his room.
He paused at the doorway and peered back out. “I’m going to hire a few guys to help me work on the house, Faith. I might be able to do it myself, but Bailey would probably be grown by then, and I’m thinking that’s not exactly what you had in mind.”
There was a sadness mixed in with the amusement he tried to inject into his tone, and there was a really stupid part of me that wanted to tell him that was fine, he could stay for as long as it took.
There I was again, playing the fool.
“I’ll never be able to fully repay you, Jace, for doin’ this for me. For doin’ it for Bailey. For being here for us.”
There was no question some of this was about the money. After all, it was what made the world go round.
It might not buy happiness, but it sure was the solution to some dire situations.
But it was more than that. He’d returned, put a hold on his own life to come here and make sure ours was safe.
Whatever the reason, I couldn’t find anger in that anymore.
He offered a short nod. “The only repayment I need is that one day I might see a real smile on your face.”
He rapped his knuckles on the doorframe after he said it, not giving me a chance to respond before he disappeared inside the room, quick to snap the door shut behind him.
Leaving me staring there at the vacant space.
Space that had never felt so alive.
Seventeen
Faith
Sixteen Years Old
“Can I get this, too?” Faith asked, grabbing a Snickers bar from the display.
Her mama glanced up from where she was scrolling through her shopping list for the hundredth time and double-checking to make sure she’d gotten everything.
Faith swore that it didn’t matter how many times she checked, every time they got home, they’d forgotten something, and her mama would have to turn right around and send her back to the store.
“Just as long as you don’t ruin your dinner,” her mama said.
Faith all but rolled her eyes. “I’m almost seventeen, Mama, not four. I don’t think you have to tell me not to ruin my dinner.”
The belt moved forward, and Faith grabbed a divider, tossing the candy bar onto it, and she began to load the contents of their cart onto the belt.
“Just because you’re almost grown doesn’t mean you’re not my baby,” her mama shot back. “It’s my job to warn you of all the dangerous things in this world. The pitfalls of chocolate bars included.”
Faith fought the affected smile that pulled at her mouth. Her parents were the best.
Courtney would have loved to pretend her parents didn’t exist, but Faith hadn’t ever reached that stage where she felt as if her parents were dumb or embarrassing.
She guessed she should be embarrassed that she spent more time with them than anyone else.
“Well, I’ll be sure to save it for after then. Daddy is grillin’ my favorite, after all.” Faith waved the package of sirloin toward her mama before she set it onto the belt and continued to unload the rest of the groceries.
Veggies and rice and potatoes.
Eggs and bacon for the mornin’.
All the makings for a fresh-baked apple pie.
No wonder she stuck around.
“I swear you bribe me through food to make sure I’m home to study every night, don’t you?” Faith teased.
Her mama grinned. “Every mother has her ways,” she told her, leaning down to grab the gallon of milk she’d placed under the cart. “Yours happens to be through your stomach.”
“I thought that was Daddy?” Faith tossed out, laughing lightly.
“Like father, like daughter.”
“Oh lord, don’t tell me I’m gonna end up chained to a ratty old recliner watching sports every night.”
Her mama chuckled. “God forbid.”
The customer in front of them paid and walked away, and her mama moved around Faith to push the cart the rest of the way through to the bagging station.
Faith distracted herself with the garbage magazines that lined the racks.
Apparently, Angelina and Jen were fighting it out for the covers the way they always did, another child star had turned into an addict, and there was some poor waitress getting slammed for having the audacity to date a celebrity.
She didn’t believe a word of it, but she reached out to grab one anyway, only for her hand to freeze midair when she heard the low voice from off to the side.
“Would you like your milk in a bag, ma’am?”
She swore, she could hear the creak in her neck as she slowly shifted her head that direction.
A sizzle of intrigue and a shot of that terror slipped through her insides as she looked that way to find Jace Jacobs bagging their groceries.
That terrifyingly beautiful boy with those copper eyes that uneasily flickered between her and her mama before they dropped down, only to dart up again for the flash of a second.
As if he didn’t know where to look.
And Faith? Faith just stared.
“Oh, no bag, thank you. We can manage just fine.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he mumbled.
Those intense eyes stole a quick, furtive glance at Faith before they dropped back down in discomfort.
He started to work a little more quickly, tossing all their stuff inside as if just touching it made him self-conscious or uneasy, the barest hint of that hostility coming out with the way he worked.
His arms straining.
Muscles flexing.
Faith suddenly realized all the little luxuries he was piling high in those bags. And she wondered if he was hungry. If he hated her for flaunting it, literally right under his nose.
But she was sure there was something more to it. Something different that shot between them, as if he were hooking her with something unseen with every glance that he stole.
Something that made her heart flutter and her skin go sticky with sweat. Right underneath the air conditioning vent that was pumping freezing cold air.