…
Red-rimmed eyes moved over him, wary and urgent at the same time. She stepped back and wrapped her arms around her middle, turning herself into a beautiful, devastated island. “Booker. Come in.”
He shut the door behind him and then turned to her. A part of him wanted to shake her senseless, and then do whatever it took to erase the misery from her face. But touching her now, defaulting to the one connection they had that she could never deny, avoided the real issues.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The soft words, the obvious truth in them, banked his temper—somewhat. “What, specifically, are you apologizing for, Jailbait?”
She let out a miserable laugh and flung her arm in an all-encompassing gesture. “Everything…my mother showing up drunk and ruining your sister’s rehearsal dinner.”
Yeah, that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Fixating on the ruined rehearsal dinner was like fixating on the tip of an iceberg. Despite the last ten years and six weeks spent proving she could rely on him, her natural instinct when faced with a problem was still to put her guard up and block anyone who might try to help. Including him. Whether it stemmed from pride or fear didn’t much matter. It came down to a lack of trust, and if he didn’t call her on it, nothing would change. “You have no control over or responsibility for your mother’s behavior. Try again.”
She looked down, and worried her cuticle. “I’m sorry for not telling you she contacted me, and why.”
Okay, now they were getting somewhere. “Why didn’t you? We agreed your mother was a problem I could help solve. You promised to pull me in the next time she contacted you.”
Still looking down, she shrugged. “I guess you’d call it taking the fifth.”
“I don’t think that’s the reason, but we can detour there since you bring it up.” He pulled a folded document from his jacket and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” Shaking fingers closed on the paper.
“The good news I had for you. The insurance company sent Nelson a copy of their report.”
She skimmed it while he waited, slowly settling on the arm of the sofa as the information sank in. Then her eyes found his. “Their investigator agreed it was an electrical short?”
He nodded. “In the circuit behind your refrigerator. Old wires serving too much voltage. The fire started behind the wall and burned up and out. It’s irrelevant whether you were in the bakery that morning, because nobody can move a thousand pound fridge, fuck with the outlet in an undetectable way, and then move it back to exactly the same footprint without leaving a single scratch or nick on the floor.”
She let out a long, shuddering breath. The report fluttered like a leaf in her hand. “I honestly didn’t have anything to do with the fire.”
“I know. I never thought you did. I never would have tho
ught otherwise, even if I’d had all the facts. Why didn’t you tell me the whole truth that morning? Who were you trying to protect?”
Stormy eyes flickered his way. “Me…and you.”
“I’m not the vulnerable one in this scenario.” He said the words firmly. “I’ve got a badge, and all the power and authority behind it. As of now your mother’s under arrest for DUI, public intoxication, trespassing, and battery. She also has an outstanding bench warrant with Los Angeles Superior Court for failing to appear in another matter, and the neighbor she ‘borrowed’ the car from reported it as stolen.” He closed in on her. “She’s out of action for a while. Longer if you tack on a blackmail charge.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Defeat dragged at her voice. “Eventually she’ll shoot out the other end of this, and she’ll be back. As long as she’s alive and kicking, I’m always going to have a target on my ass.”
The resignation in her voice rekindled his temper. “Bullshit.” The word came out. “When she shows up, I’ll bust her again. And again, if necessary. I can play that game for as long as it takes to show her there’s no winning. When I told you to let me know the next time she contacted you, that wasn’t my ego talking. I’m in a position to make it impossible for her to get to you, just by doing my job. If you’d been honest with me weeks ago, everything tonight could have been avoided.”
She prowled the room like a caged animal. “I was ashamed, all right? My mother mortifies me. The only reason Denise creeps into my life is to bleed me for money. Nothing I have is off-limits. Not my reputation. Not my business. Not my…friends. That’s the kind of person I come from. I’m ashamed of her. Worse, I’m ashamed of the level she pulls me down to every time she comes around. She threatens something I care about, and I pay. I hate the kind of person it makes me. I hate feeling weak and desperate and under her fucking thumb. I’ve spent my life keeping the whole pathetic situation out of people’s view, because…” She broke off, sagged against the wall, and rubbed the heel of her hand over her forehead. “You wouldn’t understand.”
His heart hurt for her, standing there with her back in a corner, looking alone and miserable. The thing to remember was she’d backed herself into that corner, and she’d have to take the steps to get herself out. Even so, he closed the distance. “You might be surprised what I understand, if you mustered up the courage to tell me.”
“How in God’s name would you understand?” Her head snapped up. “You come from a different world, Booker. The reality is you’ve never”—she swept her hand through the air, clearing an invisible surface—“never had to compromise your morals, ethics, or anything else to protect something you care about. That’s not a trust issue. It’s a simple reality.”
And there it was. The rest of the iceberg, and not a damn thing he could do to change the shape of it, because it was him. “No.” Suddenly he was bone tired. Tired of the ache in his chest and the burn in his gut. “I’ve had advantages. I can’t deny that—hell, I’m thankful for them—but I know what it means to work for something I wanted. Nobody handed me a badge. I earned it. Still, some people can’t see past the advantages. I know that, and for the most part I don’t give a shit, but I never thought you’d be one of them.”
“Booker—”
“Since you’re such a fan of reality, let me give you some more. I love you.”
She flinched. “Don’t—”
He braced his hands on the wall on either side of her head and kept talking. “Whether you want to admit it or not, you love me, too. But you don’t want to. You don’t want to be vulnerable. You don’t want to trust. At heart, you’re the same scared, defensive kid I pulled off the beach ten years ago.”