Agitated as I’d ever been thanks to the withdrawal eating away at me, I wiped away the tear tracks covering my face with one dry hand as I stared down at the business card I held in the other.
Madelyn Davis
Licensed Social Worker
Toluca Battered Women’s Shelter
“The shelter is the key,” I whispered, nodding to myself like a lunatic as I read the printed words typed across the front of the off-white stock paper repeatedly. “The key to getting mi chicas out.”
Hand going to my thigh, I dug my fingernails into my bare skin as an ember of something resembling hope sparked to life deep inside me, snuffing out a small fraction of the darkness that lived there.
“Maddie said she could keep me, along with anyone else I brought along for the ride, safe. She swore that she could protect us. I just have to find a way to—”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Yelping in surprise, I jerked in place and nearly slid off the side of the toilet when James banged on the bathroom door, scaring me half to death.
“Carmen.” The flimsy wood did little to muffle his deep baritone. “You alright? You’ve been in there a long time, sweetheart.”
His worried voice made me smile.
“I’m fine.” Laying the card down on the cigarette burn-covered sink, I started to stand. “I just—”
A second yelp, this one louder than the first, echoed through the room as my weak legs gave way with no warning the second I pushed to my feet.
Having no time to catch myself, I folded like a lawn chair and crashed onto the faded tile floor with a bone-jarring thud.
“Mierda,” I cried, pain splintering throughout my pelvis and already bruised rib cage. “I—”
Boom!
Words dying on my lips, I once again jerked in place when the bathroom door exploded, sending shards of wood flying. Before I could blink, James’s calloused hands were on me.
“Christ, I knew I shouldn’t have left you in here alone. You’re still too weak,” he fussed, running his hands over my small body, checking for any signs of injury. “What did you land on?”
I gasped, the pain nearly unbearable. “Hip,” I croaked out, eyes going to what remained of the busted door. “You”—I choked on a cough—“b-broke it.”
His frantic stare found mine. “Yeah, and I’d break a lot more than a piece of shit door to reach you whenever you’re hurt.”
I froze as he slid his rough palm over the faded and worn strapless dress covering my torso and hips, skimming my heating skin as he went.
If he’d been looking for a way to tear down what remained of the wall Hendrix’s words had fractured earlier, he’d found it. It could’ve been the withdrawal, or maybe even the fact that I was starved of love, affection, and someone to protect me from the evil that never ceased hurting me, but all it had taken was a single spoken sentence, one which I believed with every ounce of my battered soul for him to knock the same wall the rest of the way down.
I swear el hombre was like a wrecking ball determined to burst through every barricade I had in place to reach the very things I’d kept hidden for so long.
My tattered heart and scarred soul.
Pulling in a breath, I lifted my chin, meeting his gaze. “You would?” My quiet voice sounded almost childlike as I fought to keep the myriad of feelings that welled high into my throat from pouring out in a slew of barely constrained sobs.
Hand stilling, James raked his tongue over his lower lip in a move I’d witnessed him often do. It captured my attention and held it prisoner each time. “You’re damned right I would.”
Heart thumping so hard I feared it may burst, I covered his palm with mine. Bringing it to my heaving chest, I rested it above my left breast as I mentally prepared myself to take a grande leap of faith.
A leap of faith which, until that very moment, I would’ve never thought twice of taking. But there was something about James, something I couldn’t explain—yet again—that made the risk seem worth seizing.
I only prayed that I didn’t burn for such a choice, because if I did, more than just my life and soul would be rendered to smoldering ash.
“But what if I’m hurt deep in here?”
At my question, confusion contorted his handsome features. “Beautiful girl, I’m many things, but a mind reader isn’t one of them,” he whispered, voice gentler than I’d ever heard it. “Tell me what’s going on in your pretty little head.”
“I can’t hold it against you any longer,” I whispered, knowing there was no need to emphasize precisely what it meant. James would know. “Not when you’re trying so hard to be a better man, and especially not when your beautiful son, who has found the strength to slowly forgive you, even when most would have chosen to remain lost in hate, wants me to let my disdain for your past go.”
James stilled. “My boy wants that?”
I nodded. “Si, he does.”
Swallowing, he yanked his watery gaze from mine and focused on the mold-covered tile wall to my left. “He cares for you, you know,” I continued, speaking the words I suspected he needed to hear. “Very much.”
His chin trembled.
Lifting my hand, I curled my fingers around the side of his throat and caressed his warm skin, drawing his unwavering attention. “I want to let someone in,” I whispered, energy waning. “And I think that maybe I want that someone to be you.”
And I did.
I honestly and truly did.
Even though it made zero sense.
“But I’ve got a lot of walls, James. Walls that are constructed from sixteen years’ worth of revolving pain and never-ending torment.” Eyes darkening before mine, his jaw clenched. “And behind those walls lies a maimed heart that has been nearly obliterated beyond recognition and function.”
“Carmen—”
Pressing my index finger to his
