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.
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.