More of You (Confessions of the Heart 1)

Jace chuckled a rumbly sound. “We might need to add a few extra inches to the top of that gate.”

I released an affectionate sigh. “She seems to figure things out when she needs to.”

“That’s because she knows she can, just like her mother.”

His words were fueled with his own belief, and my footsteps slowed until I was no longer moving, just standing two steps ahead of him facing away in the narrow hall. “Her mother’s older now, and she’s learned the hard way that’s not always the case.”

He was suddenly right there, so close he might as well have been touching me, his heart beating so loud I could feel the pound of it at my back. “Maybe she needs someone to remind her.”

My eyes slammed closed.

As if it could stop the wave of emotions from slamming me, so overwhelming, they almost knocked me from my feet.

Belief enveloped me, a shroud of the words we’d shared when we’d snuck out to meet in the middle of the night.

As if he’d captured them in the palms of his hands when I’d given them to him, carried them through all the years, and then softly blew them back my direction at the exact moment I needed them.

I cleared the roughness from my throat, shook myself off, and forced myself to keep moving. I stopped at the first door on the right and pushed it open.

Turning to face him, I stepped off to the side and gestured inside.

“This is you.”

He stood in the hall, unmoving, staring at me with all that potency. So big and enthralling. That mystery I’d always wanted to discover, his gaze almost too much to take.

He pointed to the room directly across from it. “Huh, I would have been sure it was that one.”

A sharp wheeze filled my lungs at the forwardness of his words.

Presumptuous and brash and cruel.

It was a room I’d scarcely been able to force myself into in all the years I’d owned this home.

I was suddenly assaulted by images that I’d tucked way down deep inside.

Of that night.

Our bodies in the shadows, a twist in the moonlight. Before the sun had broken and we’d lost everything.

Heat burned on my cheeks. “Jace. You can’t do that. Say things like that.”

“Why?”

Was that anger in the word?

As if it had been my fault?

As if I hadn’t begged him to stay?

“It’s not fair . . . you coming into my home and stirring up ghosts.”

His face pinched with frustration and remorse.

Severe and dark.

“You think I can come here and not think of it? Not think of you?”

I could feel the anger pulling across my features. “You did perfectly fine the last ten years.”

He flew forward a step, stealing my breath. “Is that what you think? That I was fine?”

My lungs squeezed, and my heart stampeded, the man in my face, eyes overpowering, soul shattering.

“Fuck.” He cursed so low that I could barely hear it before prying himself away and releasing me from the hold of his stare.

I lurched forward as if I’d been freed from an invisible force that’d held me pinned.

Strain radiated from him, and he moved into the room I’d prepared for him. I hovered at the doorway, watching him as he set his suitcase on the bench and let the strap of his bag slide from his shoulder.

Standing there? I didn’t have the first clue what the hell I was supposed to do.

How I was gonna deal with this kind of devastating presence in my home.

Day after day.

I jolted when the pound of tiny footsteps echoed from behind. Bailey suddenly squeezed past my legs. She scrambled right passed me and onto his bed before I had the chance to stop her.

“Bailey,” I scolded, starting for her.

I hadn’t even made it two steps when my little girl had jumped to her feet, singing, “One, two, three,” as she bounced, not even hesitating for a second before she leapt for Jace, who watched her with wide, shocked eyes.

My stomach nearly sank right to the floor, figuring that was exactly where she was gonna end up.

Right on the floor.

But Jace . . .

He snatched her from the air as if he’d been planning to do it all along.

Reflexively. Catching her in his arms.

“Whoa,” he said, a rough chuckle leaving him as he looked between the two of us in something between discomfort and awe. “Looks to me like someone really is a daredevil.”

Bailey was beaming at him, hungry for attention. “I jump high.”

“Really high. But next time, you need to give me a little warning, yeah?”

I finally shook myself out of the stupor and went for my daughter. “Bailey, you can’t just come in here like that.”

And she sure shouldn’t be jumping into his arms.

“She’s fine,” he said as if he was in some kind of pain as he awkwardly held her. Though he didn’t seem to be all that inclined to set her down. “I’m the one invading your home.”