we were still undercover and you didn’t know who we really were. He fell for you hard and fast; nothing was going to be enough until you were completely his, and he got caught up in it. He wouldn’t have married you before you knew everything, I know that for a fact. I promise you, he’s killing himself for ever keeping anything from you.”
I wanted to say something like
“But you don’t understand, Rach. When we came to Austin, we were hiding from a hit placed on both of us for some undercover work we did here in Florida. We didn’t have a choice about going by false names; we didn’t even have a choice about moving to Austin. We had to leave the night we found out about it. Because of the case we were on, we were going undercover
I winced and Mason grimaced.
“Kash tried to fight his feelings for you in the beginning, though. I swear he was constantly lecturing me on why we can’t have relationships, and I know it was to try to remind himself why he couldn’t be with you. But he’s never met anyone like you, he couldn’t stay away from you . . . and I know all you see is that he lied to you, but you didn’t see how much the lies killed him during the time you two were together. Like I said, I was mad when he told me you were engaged, and I know that’s one of the things that hurts you the most. Try to look at it from his side though: with the kind of undercover work we’ve done, and just being in law enforcement in general, we see a lot of death. We know life is short. So we don’t waste it.”
“But he shouldn’t—”
“Hold on, Rach . . . let me finish. There was this girl Kash had dated for a long time, and he told me he was going to ask her to marry him when we got out of our first undercover assignment. By the time we got out, she was engaged to someone else. He never once looked at Megan the way he looked at you, and when he found out about her engagement, he wished her the best, knowing the other guy could give her the life she needed. Sure, he was upset, but it was nothing compared to what is happening to him still after all these months without you. So try to see it from his side, and know that he’d found the girl who meant the world to him. He wanted it all with you. Should he have waited to ask you to marry him until you knew the truth? Yeah, he should’ve. But he didn’t; he was too in love with you to wait.”
Silent tears were streaming down my face and I brought up my hands to try to wipe them away, but it was useless. They wouldn’t stop.
Swallowing past the lump in my throat, I spoke softly. “I just don’t know, Mason. He—what he did hurt me worse than anything has in my life. And he could easily do it again.”
I watched as he reached forward and guessed he was touching my image on the screen. “I can promise you all day long that he wouldn’t. But you’re the one who has to decide to trust him. I know you’re hurting, sweetheart . . . he is too. None of us can stand this for either of you. I’ve tried to get him to go to you, but he won’t. He thinks that he’s hurt you enough for one lifetime and that his job is too dangerous for you. He honestly believes he can’t give you a life you deserve. He’s always going to blame himself for what happened to you.” He ended on a whisper.
A sob broke through and I buried my face in my hands.
“Rach, one of you has to end this, and he thinks he’s protecting you by staying away.”
My chest tightened in pain and a wave of what can only be described as the deepest sorrow I’ve ever known washed over my body. This full-body ache had become so familiar to me over the last four months, but it never once got any easier to deal with. Each time it knocked the air from my body just as it had the first time, and every time it took a little longer for the ache to subside.
Can people die from a broken heart?
I don’t think so. But I do know that when you keep yourself, or are kept, from the person who holds your heart, your body cripples under the knowledge that it isn’t whole and won’t be until you’re with them again.
Minutes passed as I stayed curled in on myself, and at some point, Eli pulled me up into his arms and sat back in the chair with me in his lap. “Rach,” he whispered, “I finally pulled my head out of my ass . . . are you ready to do the same?”
20
Kash
“MASE? I’M HOME.” I loosened my tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons on my shirt.
“Did you tell your mom I want more banana nut bread?”
I huffed a laugh and opened the fridge to grab a bottled water. “I did. She said if you come visit she’ll make some.”
“All right. Well, I’ll see you later.” He grabbed his keys off the counter and headed toward the door.
“Whoa. Wait. What? She’s not going to make you some tonight. And you told me to get back here immediately and now you’re leaving? I only see my parents once a week and I’d just barely gotten there.”
“Yeah, well . . . I gotta go. I’ll probably see you tomorrow. Or something.”
My jaw dropped as I watched him walk out the door. I’d just spent all day in court and then missed a home-cooked meal for that?
Walking quickly into my room, I yanked off my tie and shirt and had begun taking my badge, gun, and cuffs off my belt when my eyes finally noticed the new item on my dresser. My heart skipped a couple painful beats before drumming quickly. My chest tightened and I had to force myself to set the cuffs down before grabbing the mason jar sitting there. It was full of Sour Patch Kids—only the green ones. I squeezed my eyes shut when I felt another person come into the room and swore that if Mason was playing a trick on me, or just trying to get me to go see her again, I’d shoot him.
Blowing out a deep breath, I turned slowly and looked up to see Rachel standing there, looking more beautiful than I remembered. Before any type of hope could fill me, the memory of our last conversation replayed in my mind and pain sliced through my chest. I hadn’t seen her in just over four months, and not one day in that time had passed without my wishing I could go back and change everything.
Neither of us said anything, we just stared at each other. But then her eyes filled with tears and they spilled over, and I couldn’t stay away from her anymore. I didn’t know what she was doing here, and I didn’t know what she wanted from me. All I knew was that I loved her more now than I had when I left, and my girl was crying.
“Rachel,” I breathed when I pulled her into my arms.
A sob hitched in her throat and she buried her face in my neck, her arms tightening around my waist when I kissed the top of her head. I breathed in her sweet scent and almost thanked God out loud for bringing her back to me. Walking us toward the bed, I sat down and pulled her onto my lap before wrapping my arms around her again. I didn’t say anything; I was afraid to. Right then, she was in my arms, and I knew how quickly that could change. So I would keep her there and try to prolong the moment while I memorized the way her body felt against mine.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and pulled away.
I started to keep her there but knew she wasn’t mine to keep, so I gritted my teeth and let her slide off my lap and to the other side of the bed.
“I—that wasn’t—I wasn’t going to cry. I wanted to talk to you, and I had this whole thing planned out that I was going to say, but then I saw you and . . . and I’m just sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
I didn’t know how to respond to what she was saying. Rachel was here, in Florida. She’d come to me. If she wanted to say something bad, she wouldn’t have come to the other side of the U.S., right? She would have called, or . . . well, she would have just continued to not talk to me.
“How are you?” It was one of the worst questions I could have come up with. But it was better than letting
