Only His (Fool's Gold #6)(71)

“He’s okay. For a cat.”

She smiled. “You’re a softie. So tough on the outside, but it’s just an act.”

Instead of smiling, he kissed her.

“I love you.”

His words fell into the silence. They were unexpected and unwelcome.

Not love, she thought frantically, sitting up and pulling the sheet with her. Never love. They weren’t supposed to get that involved.

His mouth twisted. “Judging by the panic in your eyes,” he said gruffly, “this isn’t welcome news.”

She rolled off the bed and picked up her thong. After slipping it in place, she pulled on a T-shirt, then faced him.

“No. It’s not.”

“At least you’re honest.” He sat up, leaning against the headboard in her small bedroom. Pain darkened his eyes. “Want to tell me why?”

Annoyed that the scratching had ceased, Jake moved to the foot of the bed and began washing his face.

Will was a good man, Jo reminded herself. She’d always known that. He was kind and normal and he couldn’t possibly understand. Telling him the truth meant losing him. Not telling him probably meant the same. She’d hurt his feelings, the one thing she hadn’t wanted to do.

“You gonna spend the rest of your life hiding?” he asked. “What is it? Did somebody hurt you?”

She folded her arms across her chest. “It’s not going to work. If I tell you, everything will change.”

“No, it won’t. I’m not that guy.”

A claim he’d made before. But he was wrong. Everyone was that guy, she thought.

“Just tell me,” he insisted. “I can’t fix it if I don’t know what it is.”

“There’s no fixing. It’s my past and it can’t be undone. It simply is.”

He stared at her. “There’s nothing you can say to make me turn away. I love you. That’s not going to change.”

He meant it. She could see it, and she almost believed him. But that would make things too easy, she thought sadly. She wasn’t that lucky.

She stood there a long time before accepting the fact that she didn’t have a lot of options. If she didn’t tell him now, he would bring it up later. Either she gave in or they were done. She tried to tell herself that not wanting to lose him didn’t mean she was weak, but she knew that she would be lying to herself. Somehow, when she wasn’t paying attention, this man had become important to her.

A narrow straight-back chair stood in the corner of her room. She pulled it up closer to the bed and sat down. The past that she had done her best to put behind her flared up now, surrounding her.

“My parents died when I was pretty young,” she began, studying her short nails rather than looking at him. “I was in foster care for a few years, different places. It wasn’t great, but nothing too awful happened. I wasn’t abused or anything. But I never belonged, if that makes sense.”

She looked up and found him watching her intently. Her stomach tightened. Nothing about this was going to end well, she thought sadly. But it was too late now to come up with a lie.

“When I was about fifteen I was sent to live with a woman who was new to the foster care system. She was older—at the time I thought she was ancient. Now she seems less elderly.” She managed a smile. “I think she was in her late fifties. Sandy. She was nice. Really nice. Sweet. She cared, which no one had for a long time. Then I met Ronnie. He was a year older than me in school, a bad boy. Sexy as hell, with tattoos and a motorcycle. I couldn’t resist him. The day he kissed me, I knew I could die happy.”

She looked at the blanket, at the floor. Anywhere that was safe.

“Being with Ronnie was exciting. Dangerous. One day we stole a couple of bottles from a liquor store. It was too easy. We got drunk. Sandy never knew, never guessed. Ronnie was so polite to her. She adored him and was happy for me. I felt bad, deceiving her, but that didn’t stop me.”

“I know that type of guy,” Will said.

“Then you won’t be surprised to know things escalated. We robbed a corner grocery a couple of towns over. Then held up a dry cleaner. They barely tried to stop us and the police had no clue who we were. Being bad like that was exciting and fun and something we shared. By day we were students and at night, we were Bonnie and Clyde.”

She looked at him then and shrugged. “I’d only heard part of that story. I didn’t know how it ended.”

She drew in a breath. “We decided our graduation present to each other would be to rob a bank. Sandy was having me fill out college applications and said she’d put away a little money to help me pay for it. I couldn’t believe it. I should have listened, I should have accepted the gift, but I wanted to be with Ronnie more.”

“You robbed a bank?” Will sounded shocked.

“We tried. We did a decent job planning and would have gotten away, except the bank manager decided to stand up to us. Ronnie had a gun and…”

Now came the hard part, she thought. The part that haunted her. She could still remember the terror in the bank manager’s eyes. The way he kept looking at the pictures on his desk. He had a wife and three kids. To this day, she could recognize those kids anywhere.

“We were so young and so stupid,” she continued softly. “Ronnie was screaming at him to hand over the money and I—” Her throat tightened. “I went along with it, saying Ronnie would shoot him if he didn’t listen. I was so scared, but determined.”