Though he couldn’t reason why, her last words sliced rightthrough him. He lashed out. “This, whatever it is,” he motioned between them,“was par for the course. I thought it was different, but guess what? I waswrong. Again.”
Stuffing his clothes into his overnight bag, he prepared toexit before he could see his vicious words reflected in her eyes—or admit toher that this had never been par for the course.
.~* * * ~.
Whatever this is?
Stung, Natalie recoiled inside. “Wrong how?”
Anger blazed her cheeks, and she cinched her arms tightacross her chest. Before she could gather thoughts into a more coherent stream,T.J. began talking, his voice low and tight.
“You want to know what twelve-seventeen means? It’s a date,not a time.” His eyes flared. “That’s the day Mom left. It’s also the day mydad killed my dog. He made my sister and me watch, ‘setting an example,’ sowe’d understand what would happen to us if we crossed him.”
Horror shook Natalie to her core, setting her mind awhirl.No words came.
His eyes glazed over, and he darted them to the ceiling,where he fixed them, as though the memory was a bad movie streaming behind hiseyes. “December seventeenth. I was six years old. Merry Fucking Christmas.” Hecontinued in hitches, his voice unsteady. “Duffy—that’s my dad—used to beat mymom. I tried to stop it, but I was puny. He put her in the hospital. A lot. Thelast time, he took Trish and me to visit her. He fawned over her like he hadnothing to do with putting her there. Made me sick.” A gusting exhale. “I guess she’d had enough. She checked herself outof the hospital and never came back. She left her kids behind … with amonster.”
Natalie’s heart caved. Checked tears stung her eyes,congealing in her throat. She swallowed around the lump. “Did you ever hearfrom her?”
He pressed a thumb into one eye, put on a mask of coolness, then shuttered his eyes. “Nope.”
“Did you try to find her?”
A too-casual shrug. “Once or twice.I have no idea if she’s alive, if she’s got a different family, or if she’srotting in a grave.”
“What about your sister?”
Eyes back to the ceiling. “Without Mom there, Duffy turnedhis fury on Trish and me. Trish especially. She was sixteen, working some shitjob, and promised me we’d get the hell out of there. ‘T,’ she’d say, ‘don’tworry. I’ll get us a safe place where Dad can’t find us. I promise I’ll takecare of you. Pinkie swear.’ And like the dumb fuck I was, I thought pinkieswear actually meant something.”
Natalie sucked in a breath, but he didn’t seem to registerit. He dropped his bag and began moving like a caged lion, pacing back andforth, all ferocity and restlessness. She sensed he’d retreated to a painfulplace, somewhere she didn’t belong. He was in a world completely his own.
“Trish married some random guy and moved out before shegraduated high school. He was her ticket out. I begged her, like a littlepussy-ass, to take me. ‘I’ll come for you, T. Soon as I get things settled.’ Butshe disappeared, just like Mom. So I became my dad’s favorite punching bag.Know what it feels like to take a bat to the gut? When you’re seven? Not allthese scars are from hockey.”
Natalie pressed her lips between her teeth, her tearsthreatening to break her dam of composure. Her heavy heart fractured for thelittle boy who loved to paint. Who loved a mother, a sister, and a sweetheartwho’d cast him off. Mind spiraling to a pitiableplace, she wanted to pull him to her, comfort him, but he stood like aforbidding tower, a mixture of loathing and hurt twisting his features. Fordleaned against her legs as though protecting her. She barely recognized the manbefore her, but she wasn’t frightened. Only moved.
“Have you looked for Trish?” she whispered.
His expression and voice were like chilly steel tetheringpain and fury. “What’s the point? Women leave. All. The. Time. They pull youalong, tell you what you want to hear, then wham! Doneand dusted. Loyalty isn’t in their DNA.”
Whoa! “And you think I’m in that category.”
“I don’t know.” He seemed to deflate. “It wouldn’t haveworked anyway.” Defeat laced his words. “I’m broken. I’m my father’s son, witha temper to match.”
Natalie blinked. “Have you ever hit a woman? Melissa …On draft night?”
Something akin to disgust flashed in his eyes. “Christ, no.Never. That would make me just like him.” He picked up his stuff again.
“But you’ve convinced yourself you are just like him.He still controls you.” Tears spilled down her cheeks. Damn it! She took angryswipes at her face while thoughts streaked through her mind. How could she makehim stay and listen? How could she make him see himself the way she did?The right words were like precious gems in that moment, embedded in rock whereshe couldn’t extract them.
His hard lines softened with a momentary flicker of regret.He stared at her a long beat. “You’ll be fine, Natalie Amber Eyes. You’re acat, and they land on all fours.”
Natalie’s heart about imploded with the finality of hiswords. “I’m a dog. They flop on their sides, and it hurts like hell.” Shepaused to collect herself. “I’m in love with you, T.J., and I thought you werein love with me.”
Something flashed in his hazel eyes. “I can’t do this.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?” Her voice climbed to an embarrassinglyfierce squawk.
“Does it matter? You’ll get over me in a nanosecond. Same asI’ll get over you.”
Thunk! She’d neverbeen struck with an arrow, but she could’ve sworn one pierced her heart justthen. Pulling in a lung-filling breath, unworldly calm and clarity settled overher, bringing with it an understanding. “I have something for you.” Withoutwaiting for a response, she hurried into her office, slid a handwritten paperfrom a drawer, folded it, and stuffed it in an envelope. Back in the livingroom, she handed it to him.
Turning it over, he frowned. “What’s this?”
“It’s something I wrote after our fishing trip. I meant tothrow it away when I
