Just One Kiss (Fool's Gold #10)(90)

“How are you doing?”

He shrugged. “Fine. I wasn’t the one who took Bart out.”

No, that had been Ford Hendrix. Patience couldn’t believe he’d simply arrived in town, heard what was happening and gone off to help.

“You would have,” she said, knowing it was true. “You would have killed your father to protect Lillie.”

“Don’t make it sound like more than it was. Bart should have died years ago.”

“Still.”

He dropped his hands to her shoulders. “I’m not a hero. Don’t make me into one. Bart was an evil man. I’m glad he’s gone.”

She was, too. Maybe it was wrong, but she was willing to live with the flaw.

“You saved us and I’ll never forget that.” She grabbed his hand. “Come on. Let me feed you. We’ll both feel better after you eat.”

She expected him to smile or make a joke. But he did neither and he didn’t move.

“I can’t do this,” he told her.

“What? Did you eat already? That’s fine. The casserole will...”

His dark eyes had a distant expression. As if he was really somewhere else. And then she knew. He wasn’t talking about dinner. He was talking about leaving her.

“No,” she said, careful to keep her voice low so she wouldn’t wake Lillie. So she wouldn’t cry out, because once she started, she would never stop. It was too soon, she thought desperately. She didn’t have anything left to get through him leaving. “No, you can’t. You can’t.”

She knew she was pleading, that when it came to the man in front of her, she had no pride. “You said you loved me.”

“I meant it. I do love you, and Lillie. But I can’t risk hurting you.”

“You won’t.”

“I will.” He lowered his arms to his sides. “Somehow, somewhere, I’ll drop my guard.”

“You’re not your father. You’re nothing like him.” She had to convince him. He had to understand; otherwise, he would go and she didn’t think she could survive that.

“I won’t take the chance.”

She felt tears forming. She would have sworn she was cried out, but obviously not. Pain tore through her, making her want to fall to the floor. She folded her arms across her chest, holding herself together as best she could.

“We need you,” she whispered. “Doesn’t that mean anything? I love you and Lillie loves you and we need you.”

He stiffened, as if he’d been struck. Or stabbed. She wanted to be grateful for his obvious pain, but she was suffering too much herself.

“Justice, don’t. Please, you can’t walk away. This is where you belong, with us. We’re a family.”

He drew her against him. For a second, she thought she’d won. She allowed relief to relax her as she breathed in the scent of him.

He drew back and stared into her eyes. “I will love you forever,” he told her.

Anger joined pain. She hung on to the rage because it was strong and right now she needed that strength.

“You’re lying,” she said coldly. “If you loved me you would stay.”

“It’s not that simple,” he told her, then turned and walked out of her life.

* * *

“WHAT WAS I thinking?” Ford asked as he leaned back against the sofa in Justice’s suite and sipped his beer.

When his friend had arrived, Justice had taken a break from packing. When they were done, Justice would throw his suitcases in his car and leave town. It didn’t matter that it was ten at night. He liked the dark. And he needed to be gone. Now that he’d told Patience the truth, he owed it to her to disappear. He didn’t want her to have to worry about running into him.

Justice picked up his own beer and sat across from his friend. “You grew up here. What did you expect?”

A muscle in Ford’s jaw twitched. “Not a hero’s welcome. I can’t step foot outside without someone running up and welcoming me home. Old ladies are hugging me and I swear one of them pinched my butt. My mother checked on me five times last night. Do you know what it’s like to come awake and find your mother hovering over the bed? I’m thirty-three years old, for God’s sake. She needs to leave me alone.”

Under other circumstances, he would have found his friend’s pain amusing. Just not tonight. Not when he’d left Patience earlier that evening, had lingered outside long enough to hear her start to cry and to know he was the cause of her pain.

He wanted to make it better. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t worth it. Only why should she believe him? All he’d done since arriving was screw up her life. He’d allowed her to believe in him. He’d fallen in love with her and let her think it was safe to love him back. Because of him, her daughter had been kidnapped by a madman.

Ford took another swallow of his beer. “She wants to help me find an apartment,” he said with a shudder. “I’ve been on my own for, what, fourteen or fifteen years, I’ve been all over the world, I’ve been to war and my mother thinks I need help finding an apartment.”

“She loves you.”

“She’s smothering me. This has got to stop.”

For the first time since the kidnapping, Justice managed a smile. “It’s been forty-eight hours, bro. You need to suck it up.”