“Stay away from her? You hear me?” His face had been contorted in disgust. “You aren’t worthy of her, and I won’t stand aside and let you get her dirty.”
I wasn’t that pathetic kid anymore. But it sure as hell wasn’t like I was any better.
Cringing, I shook the memory off, mentally scraping it from where it’d been etched like a scar into my skin. I wasn’t going there. I had a better use for the bitterness that remained.
Besides, could I have blamed Faith’s father? I hadn’t done anything but prove him right.
“Well, I don’t know that much about your grandpa, but this guy right here has had to take care of himself for a long, long time. I know my way around the kitchen.”
“You gonna take care of me?” she asked, all bright and shining anticipation.
I gulped around the impact of it. Like she just trusted me to. Without question.
“I’m going to try to,” I mumbled, knowing I was a damned fool. Such a damned fool. “God knows, I’m trying.”
I muttered the last.
“How abouts eggs and bacons?” she offered. “And owange juice?” Her face lit up in unfound glee.
Yeah. Like I was going to reject that.
I ruffled my fingers through her hair, trying to ignore the tug at my spirit. “Yeah, sweet one, you can have whatever you want.”
Her eyes went wide, but her voice tipped to a whisper. “And a cookie?”
Oh shit.
I’d walked right into that one.
“Maybe after you eat all your breakfast.”
“Deal,” she drawled in that sweet way.
God, this kid was going to do me in.
Tentative footsteps edged up from behind, and I forced myself to standing, my gaze tangling with Faith’s for a beat.
Tension and need and pain.
I tore my attention away and looked back at her daughter. “Goodnight, Bailey.”
“Nights,” she said, and I backed away, into the darkness.
Doing my best to run from the light.
Maybe Joseph was still playing the puppeteer, after all. Pulling these fucked-up strings and dangling what he’d had in my face.
All the while laughing his ass off from somewhere on the other side.
One last begrudging kick to the gut as he reminded me what was his.
What he’d taken from me.
Because watching Faith kneel at the side of her bed? Run her hands through that little girl’s hair? Whisper her love?
I’d never felt as if I had less than right then.
Destitute.
Penniless.
Impoverished in a way that hollowed me out.
Sixteen
Faith
I kissed my daughter’s forehead, fighting with all of me against the sorrow I’d felt at seeing Jace with her that way.
Fighting against the way she was lookin’ at him.
As if he might be the sun.
As if he might be there to fill a little of that void that echoed through these walls.
It was all so hard to ignore as she hugged that Beast doll tighter.
Her security blanket.
I tried with all my might to ignore it, to forget the night he’d given it to me and focus on the day when she’d found it buried under a pile of old clothes in the back of my closet.
I lifted the sheets, and she snuggled in. I ran my fingers through her soft, soft hair.
My mind was still spinning with the tale Jace had spun for her. As if he already knew her. The man telling her the type of sweet fantasy she loved so much.
One where everything was good and right and bad never prevailed.
I wanted it to be the truth.
So badly, I wanted it to be the truth.
But the reality was that we lived in an evil world.
One where hearts got broken and our dreams got smashed.
Ones where daddies sometimes didn’t come home after they’d promised they’d be right back.
I stayed there with her, needing the space, the time with her.
The distance from Jace.
I knew him being here was going to be hard. I’d just had no idea how much.
Bailey finally fell asleep while I just knelt there, and I leaned up, kissed her forehead, and then ran my nose along the softness of her cheek.
Heart pressing full.
So full.
So perfect.
“Good night, Bailey Button.”
God knew, she was the hook that kept everything together.
Slowly, I climbed to my feet, quiet as I moved across the floor.
A shiver of awareness skated over me the closer I got to the door.
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.