The Last Letter(97)

I brushed my thumb over the underside of his wrist. “You’re doing fine. We’re doing fine. Come to think of it, this is my longest relationship, too. Just don’t keep things from me, okay? I can always deal with the truth, and lies…” I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Lies are my hard limit. I have to be able to trust you.”

And I still did, even though he’d hidden this detail from me.

“There are things about me that would change the way you look at me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do.” He was so certain.

“Try me.”

The muscle in his jaw flexed, and he looked like he just might—

“How did you know about my commanding officer?”

Or not.

Disappointment flooded my stomach. “The insurance company called. They’re sending someone out on Monday to interview us.”

“What? Why?”

“I guess the amount of Maisie’s bills tripped some internal alarm with her recent enrollment. They’re investigating us for insurance fraud.”

His eyes closed slowly, and his head rolled back. “That’s just fantastic.”

“Beckett…”

He pushed back from the table and took his hat, tugging it on. “I think I’m going to sleep at my place tonight. It’s not you, just the rescue, and I need…”

“Did you find the little girl?” I asked, shame lowering my voice because I hadn’t thought to ask before now, too consumed with my own drama.

“Yeah. She should make it, but it was close.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Then I’m glad you went in.”

How different this conversation was from the one we’d had a few hours before when he’d left.

“Me, too.”

“Stay. Please stay,” I asked softly. “I know sometimes you get nightmares after you do rescues. I can handle it.” If I wanted any future with this man, I had to prove to him that I wouldn’t turn away when he showed the parts he purposely kept hidden. “I told you, there’s nothing that would make me look at you differently.”

“I killed a child.”

He said it so quietly that I almost didn’t hear him, but I knew he wouldn’t repeat it even if I asked. So I sat as still as possible and simply watched his face.

“It was a bullet ricochet. She was ten. I killed her, and our objective wasn’t even at the location we’d had intel for. I killed a child. Still want to sleep next to me?”

“Yes,” I answered quickly, tears prickling at my eyes.

“You don’t mean that. She had brown hair and light brown eyes. She’d seen us coming and was trying to get her little brother out of the way.” He gripped the back of his chair. “I still hear her mother screaming.”

“That’s why you go for every child rescue, no matter what.”

He nodded.

Maybe it was part of the reason he was so determined to save Maisie, too.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“Don’t ever say that to me again,” he snapped. “I pulled that trigger. I knew the risks. I killed that child. Every time you see me with Maisie or with Colt, think about that, and then you decide how much you really want to know about how I’ve spent the last decade.”

My heart broke for him, for that little girl and her mother. For the brother she’d tried to pull out of the way. For the guilt Beckett carried. I wanted to tell him that he couldn’t scare me. That I knew who he was down to his soul, and he was a phenomenal man. But the look on his face told me that wasn’t an option tonight—he wasn’t ready for anyone’s absolution.

In case no one ever told you—you’re worthy. Of love. Of family. Of home.

Ryan’s words from his last letter to Beckett hit me. He was the only person who might have known Beckett better than I did, and I had a feeling that while I knew all the beautiful sides of Beckett, Ryan had known the shadowed ones.

I stood and held out my hand, waiting for him to make his decision.

After what felt like a lifetime, he took my hand and went upstairs with me. Once he’d showered, and we lay together in the darkness of my bedroom, Beckett pulled me against him, holding my back to his front.

“I didn’t give you a key because you own the cabin, Ella. I figured you already had one. Maybe I should have told you to use it whenever you wanted, but I guess I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“You gave me your key when we reached the point in our relationship where you trusted me, then I was allowed access to you.”

“Right.”

“I had to earn your trust. But you’ve had mine since day one. You already had a key to me. I know the attic door is a little jammed, but just give it some time.”

I turned in his arms, remembering every time he’d asked if he could help me. The day he’d found Colt at his house. The night I’d walked in to read Ryan’s letter…and then again the night of the adoption. When he’d first come, I was the one who’d shut him out.

“I love you.”

“I know, and I love you,” he told me. Then he spent the next hour showing me with every touch of his hands and kiss from his mouth.

Like I said, we were experts at quiet sex.