It was a good start.
“Then, I’m going to find a stable job and secure us a nice home. Nothing fancy, but one that’s clean and has big windows the sun can easily shine through.” Her smile returned, growing in size. “With any luck, it’ll have a picket fence for Little One and a porch swing for Chiquita.”
Picket fence. Porch swing.
I committed both things to memory.
“As for me, all I want is a grande bed with a peach-colored comforter and an absurdo amount of fluffy pillows.”
“Peach, huh?” I asked, returning her grin. “That’s what your beautiful heart yearns for?”
Leaning her head back, she nodded. “Si, that’s what my fractured heart wants.”
The ache in my chest returned.
Full force.
I lowered my face toward hers. “Your heart may be broken, sweetheart, but that doesn’t make it any less desirable. Trust me.”
Wrapping her arms around my neck, she twirled a strand of my black hair around her finger. “You keep telling me to trust you.” She tilted her head to the right the slightest bit. “But I don’t know if I can. Not completely.”
“One day, you will.”
“Hmm,” she hummed, still playing with my hair. “What makes you so sure?”
I couldn’t help the toothy grin that tipped the corners of my lips. “Because a Crazy Old Biddy with an error-free track-record assured me you would.”
She blinked. “Who?”
“One day, I’ll tell you all about Maddie’s crazy, gun-toting grandmama who I’m convinced wakes up every morning just to terrorize me.” I chuckled, resting my forehead against hers. “Damned woman is a massive pain in my ass, but she’s also the best neighbor and friend I could ever ask for.”
Carmen chuckled. “I like her already.”
I smirked. “Of course you do.”
“James…”
My eyes slid closed.
Her saying my name absolutely wrecked me.
Pulling her fingers from my hair, she slid them down my face. “It’s time for me to go.”
My body tensed as every bit of tranquility I’d found washed away before I could blink. I didn’t want to let her go. Not the least bit.
But what other option did I have?
If I’d forced her to stay, it would’ve put Faye and the girls’ lives in danger. If something happened to them because I’d rode roughshod over her, forcing her to remain at the motel, I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.
It wasn’t only about Carmen. It was about all of them. So, with no other choice, I begrudgingly did what I had to do.
I let her go.
“When will I see you again?”
Ignoring my question, Carmen sat in the passenger’s seat of my parked truck and stared down at the small stack of cash I’d withdrawn from the ATM for her ten minutes before, pouty lips thinned into a straight line.
“I can’t take this,” she mumbled, shaking her head the slightest bit. “Are you fucking crazy, pendejo?” I was pendejo again instead of Guapo. I’d quickly learned that meant she was pissed. “You cared for me and helped me get past the worst of the withdrawal, si,” she continued, snapping her eyes up to meet mine, “but if I accept this, it’ll be like I cared for you.”
Her meaning wasn’t lost on me.
“Sweetheart—”
“You may see no more than a whore when you look at me, though you claim otherwise, allow me to let you in on a secret, James,” she interrupted, crumpling the cash in her shaking hand. “I’ve been forced to share my body with those offering my pimp cash in the past, but I have never, not once, willingly fucked a man for dinero.” Her chin jutted forward. “I steal, cabrón, I don’t kneel.”
As angry as she clearly was, the hurt that flashed in her shiny eyes was unmistakable. I hated seeing it and knowing I’d partly caused it was like a cinder block to the face.
Needing to fix what I had a hand in breaking, I unlatched my seat belt and reached toward her. Cupping her chin, I forced her wounded gaze to remain on mine. “There’s a whole lot wrong with what you just said.”
It was a battle to keep my voice steady.
“And once again, I’m going to remind just how much,” I continued before she could interrupt with more vitriol. “What I see when I look at you is a beautiful woman who’s been dealt a real bad hand in life, but fights with everything she’s got to rise above it.”
It was the truth.
“What I don’t see is a whore, a junkie, or any of the other bullshit titles you’ve given yourself. Titles, which I might fucking add, that I am going to douse with gasoline and burn until nothing remains of them but charred ash and smoke.”
Her anger vanished in an instant. Fist relaxing, her chin wobbled the smallest bit. “How?” she whispered, her voice barely audible.
“By giving you what you should’ve received a long time ago.”
Her brow furrowed. “And what is—”
She gasped as I pulled her toward me, seated her right next to me. Sliding one hand into her hair, I fisted her shiny locks, refusing to let her budge. “A second chance.” I almost choked on the emotion clogging my dry throat. “I don’t care what I have to do, or how hard I have to fight, I’m going to make sure you and your girls get a fresh start.”
Eyes bulging, her full lips parted.
“I was wrong,” she whispered, an emotion I couldn’t read flickering in her watery pupils. “When I said that there was no saving me, I was wrong, because I think that maybe you truly are mi salvacion, James Cole.”
There was no maybe about it.
I was her salvation, and she was mine.
And together, we’d erase our sins.
Just as she’d said before.
Wanting her closer, I tugged on her hair and yanked her to me, handling her rougher than I ever had before. A split second of panic consumed me at my actions, but it quickly vanished when her pretty eyes dropped to my mouth.
“Are you going to kiss me
