Kaleidoscope (Colorado Mountain #6)(49)

One of his arms wrapped tighter around my lower back, one of his hands slid up my spine and into my hair as he said, “Emme, honey—”

I kept going.

“Outside of snatching me, which was scary, he didn’t touch me. Nothing bad happened. He didn’t even call me her name. He knew I wasn’t her. He was just messed up. Sad and messed up.”

“Baby, can I say—?” he started, but I kept talking.

“In the end, he knew he did wrong and took me to the police station himself. When Mom and Dad got to me, that’s the only time I knew that something really bad had happened. I mean, I knew things weren’t right, I missed them and I was worried about them, knowing they would be worried about me, but that’s the kind of care Harvey took with me. Mom and Dad were beside themselves. Then Dad got really mad. If I wasn’t so young, I would have talked to them. Told them not to press charges. Encouraged them to get him the help he needed. I was too young. Dad lost it. They threw the book at him. And Harvey took it because he thought he deserved it. He had a daughter. If someone did that to her, he would have done the same.”

Jacob’s eyes were intent on me when he asked, “How do you know that?”

I didn’t answer his question.

Instead, I shared, “But he marked me.”

Another arm convulsion but this one didn’t loosen. “It would anybody.”

“No, Jacob, not like you might think. See, seeing him and how much he loved his wife, his daughter, how much he missed them, I changed. I was careful about letting people in my life. People I could lose. People who, losing them, could hurt me. Even the ones I loved, I held myself remote from, so if I lost them, I didn’t allow myself to feel that hurt. Not hurt like Harvey’s that slipped over the edge of sanity. Any hurt.”

My eyes slid to the kaleidoscope then back to him.

“Like losing you,” I finished.

His eyes closed again, his arms tightened further and he rolled me so he was on me, weight held up by a forearm in the bed but his forehead was resting on mine.

Then he opened his eyes and they were all I could see.

Concern.

Warmth.

Beauty.

Have mercy.

Looking into his eyes in that moment, I realized I’d been in love with Jacob Decker for fourteen years.

Fourteen years.

And I let him shut the door on me.

“Yesterday,” I started on a whisper, “I was angry and I said it was you that had to open the door because I would be a reminder of Elsbeth so that was up to you. I was wrong. I could have opened the door too.”

“Emme, stop talking.”

I closed my mouth.

“I knew all this. Elsbeth told me.”

“Pardon?” I breathed.

His eyes held mine as he lifted his head. Then his hand came up and his eyes watched as he brushed my bangs across my forehead so the ends didn’t spike in my eyes.

His gaze came back to me.

“Elsbeth shared that, baby,” he said gently.

I felt my jaw tighten before I stated, “That wasn’t hers to share.”

“No. You’re right. But she did.”

Outside of her breaking up with Jacob, which, belatedly, was a very, very good thing, that was the first time I was mad at her.

Really mad.

Fucking angry.

“That wasn’t f**king hers to f**king share, Jacob,” I mostly repeated.

“Shit, you’re cursing,” he muttered.

“Damn right I am!” I snapped. “What the f**k?”

His hand came to my jaw. “Emme, what I’m saying is, I know this and I know why you were remote. So, knowing it, it was me who should have opened that door. I didn’t. I took that kaleidoscope and closed the door in a way you couldn’t misinterpret and I didn’t open it, babe. It was you who came to me on the street and asked me to dinner. You got your shot, you took it and you opened that door.”

This was true.

I relaxed under him and the anger ebbed out of me.

He felt it and continued.

“Now, some of the shit you shared makes me uneasy. You got it in you to go over it?”

I didn’t have an answer to that because I couldn’t fathom why he’d be uneasy.

“Why are you uneasy?”

“Because, at twelve, you were snatched from recess at your school by a man you didn’t know who made you wear his dead daughter’s clothes, eat the food she liked and kept you away from your family, and you don’t seem much to mind.”

On the face of it, that sounded crazy.

It just wasn’t.

“He didn’t hurt me,” I reminded him.

“He scared you and marked you, babe, you said both.”

“He was sweet,” I whispered, and Jacob blinked. “He was sweet and sad and grieving, and,” my arms around him got tight, “adults miss a lot of things, so involved in themselves, their lives, their stresses, their responsibilities. But kids don’t miss much. I knew he’d never hurt me. I also figured he’d eventually let me go. I knew he was in pain. It was weird and it was wrong but he was kind to me, it didn’t last long and then it was done.”

He studied me and his voice was very gentle when he asked, “Can you take a moment to think on everything you’ve said and see why you saying it would trouble me?”