Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills #2)(55)

He shook his head to cut me off, and he moved to gather up my hand. He pressed my knuckles to his lips before he took a deep breath and forced out the admission. “Promised myself that I would never go back, Salem. That I was going to live clean. Be right.”

Everything quivered around him.

Torment radiating from his body.

The laughter that rolled was spite.

“Got sucked into some old shit, Salem. An old debt the owner had come to collect. My brother Logan…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I had to do it. I had to protect him.”

I couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but watch as the agony pinched every line on his face into horror. “But it was fucked, Salem. They asked me to do something I couldn’t. I tried to fix it. Take it back. I tried to stop it, but it was too fuckin’ late. I didn’t mean…”

He choked on that.

Questions whirled through my mind.

My heart wouldn’t let me push him. The only thing I could do was listen. Hold whatever he was willing to give and pray it didn’t destroy me in the end.

He swallowed hard, then forced out, “I confessed it, Salem. I came home and confessed it because I couldn’t stand keeping secrets from her. Couldn’t take any more lies between us. Couldn’t sleep next to her while being riddled with that kind of guilt. But she saw who I really was, Salem. She saw the monster and she packed her things.”

Sympathy crushed my heart. Because I remembered—remembered the words he’d whispered to Eden.

Thank you for seeing him for who he is and not what he’s done.

Grief swam in my spirit.

His wife hadn’t seen that in him. And God, I could feel myself slipping into places I couldn’t go.

Jud’s hand curled over mine, and he ran his palm up and down the back of my hand, as if the motion offered comfort.

Respite.

Reprieve.

I wanted to be that for him.

Then he clamped it down tight as if I could keep him from floating away while the brittle words crumbled from his mouth. “She took our one-year-old daughter with her, Salem. She took her, and I never saw her again.”

Air streaked into my lungs.

Hot and thin.

Agony crushed down. A pain I knew all too well. I fought it. Refused it. The rush of tears that wanted to flee. But this wasn’t about me.

I hugged him tighter like I could be his rock when I’d never been so certain I could be a stumbling stone.

“That’s why I freaked out when I saw Juni. It just…hurt so fuckin’ much. Here was this little girl who’s so close to the same age as my daughter. My daughter who I don’t know. All I know is she’s got black hair and the cutest damned laugh, and she left a crater in me so deep and wide that it can’t ever be filled. I shouldn’t even have you here, Salem. Not for a fuckin’ minute should I get the grace of touching you. But I need you to understand why. It isn’t you or your kid. It’s me. It’s always me.”

“I’m so sorry, Jud.”

He kind of shrugged, attempted a smile that didn’t land. “And I’m just the fool who keeps trying to be better. Doing what’s right. Hoping one day…”

He trailed off at the very second we both realized what he was getting ready to say.

He was waiting for them to come back.

Who said anything about love?

Rejection burned a hole through the middle of me.

God, I was such a fool. So reckless.

But that’s the way he made me, and I didn’t know how to stop it.

I eased off him, no chance of hiding the way I shook.

I turned my face away as I reached for where my underwear and skirt were pooled on the floor, held back the hysterical laughter that wanted to burst from my throat.

The incredulous disbelief that was fully directed at myself.

Because how could I blame him for that?

I couldn’t.

I couldn’t.

And still, this stupid want burned. My body alive and my heart invested.

I slipped my clothes on while I felt Jud climb to stand behind me.

His presence powerful.

His pants rustled as he resituated them on his hips and zipped them up. Warily, I peeked at him.

He was standing facing away, and I clipped off a gasp when I saw the expanse of his back for the first time.

It was covered in tattoos, as well, though beneath the designs the skin was gnarled and puckered and pink.

As if the man had been burned alive.

A strangled cry clawed up my throat, and I pushed my hand to my mouth to try to cover it.

Jud stiffened when he heard it. When he realized where I was staring.

Trembling like I’d been zapped by a live current, I pushed to standing. My footsteps were unsure, faint as I slipped that way. With a jittering hand, I reached out and traced the marred flesh.

Jud shivered beneath it.

“You deserve someone to see you for who you are and not what you’ve done.” I whispered the truth of what he’d spoken earlier tonight.

God, I wanted it for him.

I cared.

And maybe that made me the biggest fool of all.

When he looked back at me, I saw the sadness that held his expression. “Tried so hard to be worthy of that.”

Jud shifted around, edged in closer. “Thing is, if you saw the ugly parts, you’d go running, too.”