Burn It Up(118)

After a pause, she said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you told me, these past couple days. About who you used to be.” She paused when the baby fussed, and rose to free her from the seat in the hopes of settling her. She sat back down, bouncing her gently.

“After everything I’ve just said, it might sound ridiculous, me saying that I’m trying to do good now. That since I found out I was pregnant, the worst thing I’ve done is lie—which for me is an improvement, sadly. But I really am trying. I just want to work, and make enough to support myself and the baby. No more secrets, no more dependence. I want a fresh start, more than anything. To believe that whatever new life I make for myself is an honest one. A genuine one . . .” Thoughts were forming. Solidifying, and she spoke them as they came. “And I think you want that, too. To put your old life behind you.”

“I do want that,” he said softly. “A fresh start. A respectable life. It took me way too long to regret what I’ve done. It took what you said for it to register . . . and it took the fire at the ranch, and losing Don, for it to really hit home. Now that it has, I . . . Christ, I feel sick. I think about what I used to do and I feel like I could throw up.”

She believed him. There was pain on his face, so real and so sharp it stabbed her in the heart.

“We want the same thing,” she said, realizing it as she heard herself speak. “But when you were honest with me, I turned my back on you.”

“Not without good cause.”

She shook her head. Something had come loose in her chest, like a clog finally washing free, letting things flow. She could breathe for the first time in days. She could feel air in her lungs, and blood moving through her body, as though her decision had shut her system down, protested by every cell in her body.

“Neither of us can fix what we’ve done in our pasts,” she said. “But neither of us gets to move on, either, not until somebody knows what we’ve done and chooses to forgive us. Chooses to believe we’re capable of doing better, going forward.”

He nodded, and now his own eyes were welling. He sipped his drink, sniffed softly, held his tongue. There was fear in those shining blue eyes, and hope as well.

“I forgive you,” she said, and leaned close to put her hand to his face—on his soft skin and scratchy beard. “Whatever you did before you met me, that was another life. And I don’t want to punish you for it. I only want to see what comes next. What you make of this life.”

He covered her hand with his. “That means a lot.” Other thoughts hid behind his lips, and he seemed poised to share them, mouth opening and closing. When he did speak, it was only to say, “For what it’s worth, I forgive you, too.”

She felt her chin crumple, and tears rolled fat and heavy down her cheeks to land on the baby’s leg. She choked out, “It’s worth way more than you know.”

“Put the baby down a second.”

She moved Mercy back to her seat, and as she sat once more, Casey set his glass on the windowsill and pulled her against him, cradling her head, rubbing her back. He let her cry for long minutes, until her bucking shoulders went still and her breathing deepened. He seemed calmer himself. Stronger, if still uncertain.

“From now on,” Casey said, sitting up straight to catch her gaze, “whatever we are—friends, or colleagues, or any other thing—we go forward accepting each other’s mistakes with our eyes wide-open, okay?”

She nodded, dabbed at her nose.

“I won’t ever hold anything you just told me against you.”

“I won’t, either.”

“All I care about is what comes next. And if you need something from me, know that you can ask for it, and I’ll give you whatever you need, because I care. Not because I think you need saving, and not because I want something from you. Just because I think you deserve a fair shot at this new life of yours, okay?”

“I’ve never doubted that.”

“I want you to know,” he said slowly, carefully, as though handpicking each word, “that nothing’s different about how I feel for you. After hearing everything you’ve been through. I’m still crazy about you, no matter what you did when you were fifteen, no matter what happened to you in Lime or any other place.”

Her chest felt funny. Light and . . . and porous. Like a sponge, thirsty to sop it all up. “Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

Was that even possible? She’d never been able to forgive herself for her mistakes, or stop feeling dirty about her past. It had been impossible to imagine someone else managing it. Certainly not a guy. “The filth of your sins is a mark that will never wash off,” her father had told her. “No decent man will ever want you now.”

She’d ached so badly for him to be wrong, though for years her choices had fulfilled that prophecy. But looking at Casey now, in the wake of what he’d just said, and knowing how it had felt, every time they’d come together . . . A good man had wanted her, and still did, in spite of all those sins. Not a perfect man, but a good one. It seemed all but impossible. A miracle.

“I don’t understand how you can know all that stuff and still see me the same.”

“I can’t see you the same, no. I can see way deeper than I did before, knowing all that. But I feel the same, I promise you. I got absolutely no attachment to a girl’s innocence, or her being perfect, or ladylike, or any other thing. All I’ve ever cared about is how somebody makes me feel, and you make me feel like I want to do better. Be better. And I can honestly say, no woman’s ever made me want those things before. You and Mercy,” he said with a smile, hooking his thumb in the baby’s direction, “you guys accomplished the impossible. Must be the blue eyes or something.”