Jagged (Colorado Mountain #5)(83)

He stopped talking finally, but I couldn’t start.

I didn’t know what to say.

What I did know was, being the best woman he’d ever known was a lot better than his just caring about me. And his vowing he was never going to leave me wasn’t shabby either.

But he still had not told me he loved me.

Then again, I was Zara Cinders and until I was old enough to go out and make friends, only one person in my life loved me truly, completely, and unconditionally. And, even though she stepped up repeatedly to take beatings meant for me, eventually made me watch her go through a junkie stage, through empty hookup after hookup that didn’t mean a thing, and finally made me watch her essentially die, she never stopped loving me.

So I should probably learn to take what I could get.

“You with me on all this?” he asked when I said nothing.

“Yes,” I answered and I felt him let out a long, silent sigh.

I said no more. Ham didn’t either.

Then he did.

“You fight nasty, cookie,” he stated gently.

“Yeah, I do. When what I’m fighting about matters,” I replied.

“I get that,” he said. “What I don’t get is that you were in no state to start a conversation about Feb. You had to read I was not in a place where I wanted to talk about that, and you still threw it in my face, which was not cool.”

He was right.

However, he was also wrong.

“That mattered,” I declared and his hand came to my chin, moving it up so he could catch my eyes in the dark.

“All I’m sayin’ is, in future, wait for your right time and give me the same. Yeah?”

Seriously, I hated it when he was gentle and reasonable when I didn’t feel like being the same.

So I laid it out why I wasn’t.

“Ham, you’re the one for me and it doesn’t feel good knowin’ you don’t feel the same.”

“What?” he asked.

“You heard me,” I answered.

“Jesus,” he muttered, rolling into me so I took on a lot of his weight.

“Ham—”

“Cookie, quiet,” he ordered, his voice jagged and at that tone, I didn’t know what to expect so, even tired, I pulled all I had left close and braced. “Please, baby, I know a lot of shit is swirlin’, but pay some f**kin’ attention.”

“I am,” I snapped because I damned well was.

“Get this,” he stated, his voice not jagged any longer, but suddenly harsh. “That bitch walked into our home.”

The shadow of his face dipped close to mine, a move so swift I held my breath.

“Our home,” he repeated, saying that like the space we rented was sacrosanct. “And I don’t give a shit if that woman finally did right. My girl and I were fightin’, it was intense, it didn’t feel good for either of us, she takes off to blow off some steam and opens the door to my ex?” He shook his head. “No. Fuck no. I don’t give a shit she drives for hours to show me she’s changed, she wants redemption. Zara, babe, you do not open the door to our goddamned house and be confronted with that shit. Not ever. Not if I can help it.”

I’d been wrong. Rachel didn’t have the power to push Ham to extreme emotion.

It was me having to deal with her that had royally pissed him off.

But Ham wasn’t done.

“She showed me how it felt to be stripped of power when she aborted two of my children. Then she pops by out of the f**kin’ blue to do right.” He said the last two words with extreme sarcasm. “And in doin’ that strips my power f**king again by makin’ it impossible, unless I acted a bigger dick than I was or got physical, to shield you from that. The only thing I could do to protect you was hold you close and that is not cool. Not in any way.”

I was right.

His not being able to protect me was what pissed him off. And he didn’t put his arm around me because he needed me. He did it because he thought I needed him.

Okay, maybe I’d been a bit of a moron.

Ham still wasn’t done.

“The point I’m makin’ is, I do not feel that way about anyone, Zara. I’m a good man and I’ll take a friend’s back but no one gets that shit from me. Not ever. Not since Rachel. Not Feb. Not anyone. But you. Now, are you finally gettin’ how you need to start payin’ attention?”

“Yes,” I whispered because, finally, I was.

Ham still wasn’t done.

“Then play close attention to this. A man is not what he says, babe. He’s what he does.”

Was he saying what he actually wasn’t saying… but was?

“You care about me,” I stated quietly, testing my theory.

“Fuck yeah, Zara. I care about you enough to lay roots with you. I care about you enough to fight for your nephew with you. I care about you enough to make babies with you.”

His hand grabbed mine, yanked it up, and pressed it flat against his shoulder where the smooth, puckered skin of the ugly scar left by an ax marred his flesh.

“I care about you enough to take another one of these if a man was comin’ after you. Both my parents are dead. I got no siblings. I got no roots. The only thing I got, the only thing I realized months ago I’ve had for a long f**kin’ time, is what I’ve kept as close as I could until I was ready to take it all the way, and that’s f**kin’ you.”