AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Whoa, boy,” I say, rolling my eyes. But I keep my hand on his arm. I can’t seem to drop it.
“But you’ve never cared about any of that,” he says. “You’ve always been straight with me, and I know you’ll never tell me something just because you think I want to hear it.” His half-smile falls. “You said I was your little devil, but you’ve been my conscience. Pointing out whenever I fall short, which I know I do. A lot. So maybe a part of me needed you there, in my mother’s home, where I feel like I’ve fallen short most of all.”
Stunned tears fill my eyes. Because no one’s ever said anything like that to me before, certainly not the man he confronted while defending my honor. I had no idea he thought these things about me. “You’re a good son,” I insist. “Your mother said so.”
“She’s hardly impartial,” he says with a self-deprecating smile that doesn’t quite hide the hurt he feels.
“You stay with her, when she needs someone around. That’s more than most grown sons would do.”
“It’s not enough,” he says darkly.
“Well, I’m not perfect either,” I say, my voice hitching, my hand still on his arm. “I’m kind of a jerk. Only a jerk would say that thing about the little devil. If you’re going to like me for seeing you as you are, I want you to see me as I am.”
His lips twitch upward again. “Well, you always say I’m in love with myself, so I guess I like jerks.”
“Shane… I…you make me want to do better too. What you said about me and Vanny… Maybe you didn’t say it in a way your super sweet mother would have approved of, but you forced me to open my eyes and take a hard look at what I’d been doing with my life. At all of the time I’d been wasting. I’m grateful for that. And I…” I feel a couple of tears slide free, and my breath whooshes out of my chest when Shane reaches over and swipes them away, leaning in to kiss my cheek. “I’m so grateful for how kind you’ve been to Izzy. I’m a jerk for telling her not to call you her uncle. Because you’ve been like one to her. I mean…hell…you even remembered her argument with Goldie. You’ve been—”
“I don’t want her to call me uncle either,” he says. “Like I said, you’ve never been anything like a sister to me.”
My heartrate accelerates in my chest.
“But I’m not going to tell your daughter what she can and can’t call me. I’m damn lucky she wants to claim me at all.”
“She loves you,” I say, feeling my voice catch again. The hope I didn’t want to foster, that I’m so fucking afraid of, blooms in my chest. It’s a little flame—brave and strong—trying to burn up a well of hurt and shame and disappointment. I want it to survive, but if I let it, there’s a good chance it will burn me alive. I don’t know how many heartbreaks and disappointments one soul can take. If it happens this time, though, I know it will be worse. I know it down to the roots of my soul.
“You’ve been more to her than her own father ever cared to be,” I breathe out. It’s a piece of goodness in him I’ve always noticed, even when I was inclined to focus on his faults.
He meets my gaze and holds it, his hand lifting to my cheek again. “I meant what I said last night, Ruthie. I want to explore what’s going on between us.”
“I do too,” I admit, the words wrenching free from that flame within me. “But I’m so fucking scared.”
“So am I,” he says, and then he gives me the sweetest kiss, a kiss that soothes even as it claims. And as I kiss him back, I reach with my other hand for the ring at my chest. Because I have to admit something to myself, even if I’m not ready to tell anyone else.
I want to believe there’s a chance I can have it all for real.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Shane
Idrive us to Danny’s apartment, my mind racing. I screwed up by not telling her about Rand. It could have ruined everything. I’m going to make other mistakes like that, ruinous ones, because I’ve never been good at letting people in. Telling them about my plans before I execute them. But she’s still with me. And here we are in front of another hurdle.
This might be the one that destroys me.
Danny buzzes Ruthie in, and we hold hands as we walk up the stairs.
I can’t seem to make myself let go of her. If I do, it feels like someone might tug her away from me.
I’m not a good man, but I want to believe I can be for her. For Izzy.
That’s what I’ll tell Danny, I decide, but I still feel like I’m an accused murderer walking into a sentencing. No, an actual murderer—because I committed the crime. I fucked his sister. I dared to do that, to ask her to be mine, when I know that I’m not good enough for her. I may be better than Rand Callaghan, but most things are better than a sack stuffed with shit.
We reach the door before I’d like to, and she looks at me and says, “It’s going to be okay. He loves you.”
I squeeze her hand, trying to internalize the way it feels in mine, then release it and knock on the door. The little dog immediately starts barking, making Ruthie wince. “She’s still getting used to apartment living.”
“Something tells me she’ll always be getting used to apartment living,” I say, but it’s not without fondness.
She shoves me with her shoulder, smiling, just before Mira opens the door with a flourish.
