He sighed into the wind, his eyes averting her face. “Yes.”
Then, she asked the question she was afraid to ask—because she was a warrior. “Was I supposed to succeed in killing myself. Did you stop me?”
He shook his head hard, his handsome face full of an emotion she didn’t understand. “No. No one is supposed to succeed in taking their own lives—not ever. At least not when the reason is because they want to find a way out.”
“But it’s okay to do it when you’re dying?” she asked, knowing she was lashing out.
His jaw clenched as he came closer. “I think you know there’s a difference, George. A distinct one.”
Tears filled her eyes when she was forced to remember that night. “But I was still making a choice, right? Why wasn’t it my choice?”
“Because it wasn’t your time, George. It wasn’t your time,” he whispered against the wind, his voice husky and raw.
God, that night. That long, cold, empty night when she’d found out she’d never have children…because of her disgusting father.
That sick, sick bastard. The stab wound to her abdomen she’d endured had stolen that from her, and it was that day when she found out she’d never have a family of her own. Houston Maverick had robbed her of that, and it was the last straw—her final tipping point.
Two years after he was gone, with no way to vent her anguish and frustration at him, Georgina Denise Maverick had had enough.
She’d come from hell, but she’d hoped to one day create her own family where her children would be safe and loved and the man she married would protect her, and all of that would heal her empty childhood.
And he’d taken it all away. Exactly the way he’d taken her mother.
George would never forget sitting on the top of that overpass in the dead of night, the freezing winter wind gusting so hard, she’d trembled from it, looking down at the scarce traffic at three in the morning, wanting to end the agony.
Wanting to leave all the suffering and guilt of that night with her father and mother behind.
Why? Why had she waited so damn long to take a stand? Would the same fate have awaited her if she’d just acted sooner? Those questions haunted her day and night, just the way she’d told Nina.
Then she remembered Gladys. Her beloved dog’s name slipped from her lips before she could stop it. “Gladys…she turned up that night on the overpass.” Suddenly, it all made sense. Dex had shown up shortly before she’d found Gladys. “It was you…you sent her to me?”
Her heart crashed against her ribs and her mouth went dry as she watched him.
Dex nodded. “Yes. I sent Gladys to you that night, George. You were going to end your life. End it. Terminate. Gone forever,” he said against the brutal wind, his jaw clenched. “The hell I was going to let that happen on my watch. It wasn’t meant to be. Gladys was rooting around in some trash, desperate to eat anything, covered in fleas and mange, cold, exhausted, ready to give up. You needed her as much as she needed you. Inspiration hit and a match was made. And you didn’t take your life. All I cared about was that you didn’t take your life because it was precious, and you deserved all the good things.”
Since he’d told her he was her guardian angel, and she knew Dex knew everything about her sordid past, she’d been horrified with humiliation. She’d tried with everything in her to ignore it and hope it would go away.
But she couldn’t ignore the fact that he knew her darkest secrets, and she couldn’t ignore the fact that he’d sent Gladys to her—the one thing that had helped her get through it.
She would have ended her life that night if Gladys, hadn’t shown up, shivering and covered in mange, her cold nose pressing against her hand, begging for food. She’d gone to the overpass with a resolve to end her pain, but Dex was the one who had ended it.
He’d given her something to hold on to, and she would never forget that.
As tears streamed down her face, falling in salty splotches at her feet, she sobbed. “I’m so ashamed of that night. I’m ashamed that I couldn’t see any other way out, but you saved me. Doesn’t that count for something? Don’t the powers that be see that as a win? You saved a life, Dex. Isn’t that enough to get your perm wings back?”
Looking her in the eye, he shook his head. “I don’t care about those, George. All I care about is your safety, your mental health, your happiness. I just want you to be happy again. I want you to truly believe you did nothing wrong. Because you didn’t do anything wrong, and the way you’ve been living, letting everyone take advantage of you, trying to fit a square peg in a round hole—it’s no way to live.”
Her heart twisted in her chest. He was right. It had been no way to live and she was just now coming to terms with that, but if saving her life that night was the right thing to do, what had he meant by he’d interfered with her?
Her blood went cold. “Wait, what do you mean, you interfered with me?”
Dex gave her a look of pure guilt—one she didn’t understand. “I’ve been wanting to tell you this since it happened.”
Wiping the tears from her face, she looked at him, handsome under the now darkened parking lot. This must be what he’d been talking about when he’d said he wanted to talk.
“Since what happened?”
“Since the night you fell off the roof…”
Her stomach started to twist and turn. “What about it?”
“I intervened,” he dropped the words like heavy stones.
George’s hands went clammy. “But that was an accident. You already told me you didn’t mean to clip me with your wings. I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t mean
