From This Day Forward (The Wedding Belles 0.5)(19)

Right. He could call her. But just like last time, he didn’t want to have to chase someone down. Just once he wanted someone to care enough to stick around long enough to give him a f*cking chance. Why should he go running after Leah when she’d been the one who’d left with no warning?

“Okay, scroll through; I want to see,” Kathleen said, motioning with her hand and jerking his attention back to the present. “I’d do it myself, but you’ll just do that ‘don’t touch my stuff’ tantrum again.”

Jason obeyed, obediently scrolling through the photos, smiling as she pointed out a half dozen faces that she recognized from the news.

“Wait, go back,” Kathleen said, her eyes narrowing. “Who’s that?”

Jason did, and then tensed when he saw the picture his sister was pointing at.

Leah.

There was one of her about every fiftieth picture or so. When he hadn’t been able to stop himself from capturing her smile.

He’d remove them all before he sent the finished photos to the Prestons, of course. But he wouldn’t get rid of them.

They were all he had left of her.

He tried to scroll forward, but his sister swatted his hand way from the mouse. “Hold on—I know her. But I feel like not from the news? I don’t think she’s in politics.”

“Drop it,” he snapped, his tone sharper than it usually was with her.

Kathleen gave him a startled look. “Hold up. Is she the reason you’ve had a stick up your ass all week? Did you sleep with her?”

He didn’t respond. He would never lie to Kathleen, but he stopped short of actively confirming details about his sex life.

“So that’s a yes, then,” she said in amusement. “Could it be that the pretty redhead didn’t call you back? That’d be a first, wouldn’t it? No, actually make that a second. There was that redhead from last year—”

Kathleen broke off, and Jason cursed as her eyes went wide as she put the pieces together. “That’s how I know her. That’s the woman that came over and freaked out when I opened the door!”

“Yeah, because you were f*cking wearing my shirt,” he exploded.

“Okay,” she held up a finger. “It is so not my fault that the stupid travel mug you lent me was booby-trapped so that I spilled coffee all over my dress! It was either your gross clothes or a first-degree burn or whatever.”

Jason pushed his chair back and stood up, locking his fingers behind his head and going to the window. “Can we not talk about this? It’s not exactly a good memory.”

“Nope. We’re talking about it,” Kathleen said. “What’s going on? Why do you shut me down every time I ask about that morning? I can see how this woman might jump to the wrong conclusion, but didn’t she chill out when you explained I was your sister?”

He said nothing, and Kathleen let out a low exaggerated groan. “Jason Adam Rhodes. You didn’t tell her?”

“She wouldn’t let me,” he snapped. “I f*cking chased her all the way down the street, but she was already on the PATH by the time I caught up.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we live in the age of phones. And email. And Facebook. And Twitter. And texting—”

He spun around. “You think I didn’t call?”

His sister crossed her arms and eyed him closely. “How many times?”

Fuck. “I don’t know. Ten? She never picked up.”

“And she just ignored all your voice mails?”

He ground his teeth, and Kathleen just shook her head. “You moron. You gave up! You could have just fixed this with a simple text saying, ‘Hey, false alarm, that was my little sis,’ but you let her believe I was one of your million flings . . . Why?”

He lifted a shoulder. “She saw what she wanted to see.”

Kathleen stood up and crossed to him, her eyes annoyed. “Sure, which was another woman in her boyfriend’s home. Can you blame her for jumping to conclusions?”

He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face. “Why is it that I’m supposed to be okay with everyone’s assumptions about me being for shit?”

Kathleen frowned. “What are you talking about?”

He spun toward her, angry now. “I’m talking about the fact that people have been deciding who I am without my consent from the day I came out of the womb. About the fact that every time there was a fight in kindergarten, they assumed it was the drug addict’s kid. Every time someone’s lunch money went missing, it was the foster kid. There wasn’t a single girl in high school whose daddy would let her go to prom with me because I drove a beat-up car that I bought on my own. Fuck, even in the military, people got it in their heads that I was the loose cannon to keep an eye on.”

Kathleen’s eyes had gone soft, and she rested a hand on his arm. He checked the urge to shake her off, but barely. It was more than he’d ever said out loud, to anyone, and he felt uncomfortably exposed.

“I know you’ve had a crap time of it,” his sister said gently. “But you’re so strong. You’ve never let it bother you.”

“Yeah, well, this time it bothered me,” he grumbled.

“Why?” Kathleen pressed. “Why with this woman did her lack of faith cut so deeply?”