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“Sometimes she’d touch us, just to straighten a collar or pull our backpacks up on our shoulder. Love has a feel, Raye. You know that when you’ve never had it. So you know it when you get it. And she touched with love. Not fawning all over us and covering us with kisses and hugs. She gave us space. But when there was touch, it was all about love. She’d never had a kid, but she was so fuckin’ plugged into what we needed, it was fuckin’ unreal.”
It was really,reallyhard not to let the tears flow.
But if I did, I might miss something.
So I didn’t let them flow.
Instead, I whispered, “I love that.”
“She got Hank to talk to us about becoming-a-man shit. She didn’t go there. But from zero to thirteen, my life was straight up hell. From thirteen to fifteen, it was uncertain, finding my way on the streets, keeping clear of the dealers and other elements that would use kids for things that would alter them permanently. Park and Roam found me, Jules came with them. And then from fifteen to now I’ve had nothing but steady. Solid. Stable. But I watched the men. I knew what I wanted when it was time for me to have it.”
“Okay,” I said softly when he paused again.
“And then you raced to the door Elsie Fay was behind and shook it like you could tear it off its hinges, and then tore into that room when I opened the door.Fearless.”
The last word was so guttural, I felt it drive into me, like a stake to the heart, the piercing of which, my heart couldn’t function ever again without it embedded there.
He kept going.
“She slammed into you and you picked her up and held her like she weighed nothing. You held that weight and held it and didn’t let it go until it was safe to give her up. She felt the touch of love from you, Rachel, don’t doubt it for a minute.”
Oh shit.
“Cap.”
“I knew it then, and I was fucking terrified of all I was feeling for you.”
His name broke this time when I repeated, “Cap.”
“I fought it, but that didn’t last long. Dropped you at your car. Drove back to the office. Did a prelim search of you. I read what happened to Macy. What happened to your mom. And it was like my insides turned out. I couldn’t get them right until I was back with you. I started to tear out of there, Mace came out of his office, put a hand to my chest, and I stopped. He said, ‘She’s the one, isn’t she?’ I don’t know what I replied, but it was some form of yes. He smiled, dropped his hand, I got my ass in my car and drove back to you.”
“Please stop talking,” I whispered.
He didn’t stop talking.
“Jules and Shirleen knew Roam and me needed men in our lives. Good men. Men we could learn the right things from. We started hanging at Nightingale Investigations when we were fifteen. They taught us everything we needed to know. I’m one of them, Raye. I know because, when Lee was ready for Indy, he’d moved in with her within a couple of weeks. Eddie moved Jet in with him in that same amount of time. Hank and Roxie. Jules and Vance. Ava and Luke. All of them.” Some of the intensity drifted away from him and his lips tipped up. “But it was you who told me to pack a bag.”
I was feeling too much, I tried to duck my face in his throat.
“Baby, no, look at me,” he murmured.
I dropped my head back.
“I hope that doesn’t freak you, because I’m down to slow things up. I’m down with anything you need.” He dipped closer. “But I gotta ask that you let me look after you. It’s what I’ve been waiting for for fifteen years. A woman I can call mine who’s beautiful and fierce and strong and vulnerable and has a fracture, she turns to me to help her hold it together. I need to know she gets that from me. I need to know I give that to her. I need to know she can count on it. It’s what I need.”
“I’d just woken up and I was freaked out you knew Clarice, and I have to cop to having a bit of a temper, and I forgot who I was dealing with because the last time I had a man look after me was when I was eight. But he was taken away right along with Macy.”
“Raye,” he groaned and shoved his face in my neck.
After all he’d shared, I let him do that and ran my hands all over his back.
“You’re going to have to give me some time to get used to having that back, honey,” I warned.
In response to that, he kissed my neck.
“We didn’t handle this morning well,” I stated the obvious. “We might do better next time. We might not. But I’ve been worried all day I messed things up with you?—”
He lifted his head. “I should have called or come by.”
