From Ashes (From Ashes #1)(82)
“Connor,” he all but growled.
“I know you don’t give a shit about me, so drop the act!” I hissed back. “I just found all that out before I walked into the shop, so now you know everything I know. And now you know that yes, we lied to you when you showed up at the house a few years ago, but I couldn’t let you take me away; I needed to stay near Tyler. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I turned to leave but his grip on my hand tightened and his other hand came up to my shoulder.
“Cassidy, none of this was a damn act!”
“Look, I respect that you love your job, and you’re good at it.” The hand that was somewhat free tried to flail out. “Obviously. But I’ve had a crappy week. I’ve had bad memories resurface. I’ve visited the—well—now-burned-down house that I wanted so desperately to escape from my entire life. If that wasn’t enough I have this annoyingly attractive detective who will not leave me alone, and I just found out that for the last nine months my mother was sober for the first time in thirteen years! And because she was sober her husband decided to start beating her. She couldn’t handle it, and she couldn’t handle what she’d done to me, so she decided to kill herself and him, for me! She thought she was doing it for me, Connor! If only she had called me, I would have done something. I could have done something, right? I would have gotten her away from him, but she didn’t, because she knew I wouldn’t answer, because she knew that I hated her. She killed herself knowing that I hated her, and did it for closure for me. So I could start a new life. I just—I don’t—why wasn’t I there for her?”
Connor’s arms wrapped around me, and it was then I realized I was sobbing. What was happening to me today? And what on earth did this man do to me? “Shh, Cass, it’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t let that guilt get to you, none of this is on you, you hear me? None of it. Your mom had demons, and that was the only way she knew how to deal with them.”
“But she sounded so much like how she was before Dad died. I loved her then, and I should have been there for her the last nine months.”
“Don’t go down that road. It’s going to eat you alive if you do.” He held me until I stopped sobbing and shaking, then asked quietly, “What did she say to you in the note?” When I sighed and tried to pull back he added quickly, “God, that makes it sound worse. Please forget I’m a detective while we’re together. This isn’t an act, Cassidy, I’ve been thinking about you nonstop since we first left the Bradley house last Saturday. I had no idea you were even still in California, let alone going to be at this coffeehouse this morning. You don’t have to tell me, but I can see how much you need to talk about your past. If you don’t talk about it and this letter, it’ll just get worse.”
Without saying anything, I left my forehead pressed against his chest and reached into my purse to pull out the envelope. I held it up for Connor and was surprised when he shifted me so I was still wrapped in his arms while he opened and read it. My left hand was still curled into a fist against his chest and I slowly uncurled it to lay it flat at the same time I brought my right arm to wrap around his waist. Connor’s arms constricted and for some reason it made my body relax even more into him. This was wrong, I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t have felt this comfortable, this good, in another man’s arms. It wasn’t like when Tyler held me; even after all that happened between us, it still felt like he was just my best friend and my rock all last week. But Connor? It felt easy, natural even. Which was more confusing than anything. I’d dreamed about him for years, but I hardly knew him and was still convinced he was just playing his part very well in order to get the information he wanted. That had to be it, right? He’d played me with the story of his “childhood”; he knew it’d get me and it did. I hadn’t realized how much I’d craved someone who understood me.
“Cassidy, I have a few more questions regarding your past, and then I’ll stop. Anything you tell me after that will be because you brought it up, all right?”
“Whatever.” I mumbled so softly, I doubt he heard.
“She said she almost killed you, and you said you should have gotten stitches often. They didn’t just hit you with their fists, did they.” It was a statement, not a question. But I still nodded my head. “When I was called out to your house for the possible disturbance, why didn’t you say anything?”
“I told you, I couldn’t be taken from Tyler; he was all I had left in my life after my dad died.”
“I saw it in your eyes, Cass, but without your help I couldn’t do anything about it. I thought about you so much over the next couple years; I should have come back to check on you.”
“I used to dream about you,” I admitted into his chest. “There was something about you and your eyes . . . I don’t know how to explain it. Part of me wished you’d come back and take me away, the rest knew I wouldn’t let you take me away even if you tried.”
His hand slid up and down my back in soothing trails. “The woman who called said she’d heard a woman screaming. Had they hit you that night?”
I nodded slowly, wondering what would have happened that night if I had told him everything. “It got worse after you left.”
Connor froze and his arms tightened around me again. “How?”