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“I’ve missed you like nothing I can ever try to explain,” he said, wanting to reach out to her, but still scared to push his luck. “I don’t know why you didn’t want to talk to me, but I don’t care right now, I just want—”
“What are you talking about? You’re the one who sent me that package, Heath.”
His brows drew together. “What package?”
“The package that arrived the same day as the kids moved to the cottage,” she said, pointing vaguely toward the windows. “The one with the note that told me not to accept your calls or letters. The one with the…medical records.” Bella looked at him with sad eyes that seemed to question the soundness of his mind.
Seemed to question the soundness of his mind.
“Someone sent you my medical records.” Heath started to pace the floor.
God, he wanted to hit things, but knew he couldn’t. If he did, the woman he loved would think he was even crazier than she already did. When he found the son of a bitch who’d done this, however, he was going to hit something, a lot of somethings.
Like a head and a stomach and a spleen and anything else he could think of that would hurt. A lot.
“You didn’t send them?” Hope flared in her eyes before suspicion crowded in. “Are you sure?”
“Bella, I have a medical condition, but it doesn’t make me forget things and it doesn’t make me crazy. I haven’t had an episode for three years. And just so you know, I never did anything horrible when I was sick, no matter what those ‘records’ said. I was just a pathetic piece of shit who cried a lot and had a seizure every once in awhile.”
He slammed his fist down on the island, next to a batch of chocolates. When Bella jumped at the sound, he immediately regretted it. Slowly, he crossed the room to kneel next to where she had perched on the edge of a very comfy looking couch.
“Listen, B, I’m not crazy, I swear to you. I’m pissed as hell right now because some asshole wanted to make you hate me, or keep us apart, or something. But I’m not a crazy man. I love you. I want to be with you more than I’ve wanted anything in my life,” he pleaded, willing her to see into his heart, to see all the pain that he’d been feeling.
To see that he wanted to cry, right here in front of her, because the idea that she might not give him a chance was the most horrific thing he could imagine.
“I love you too, so much,” she said, tears rising in her eyes. “And I hate that someone did this. I can’t believe anyone would be so cruel, but—”
“But what? There are no buts. Everything can be fine now.” He reached up to cup her face in his hands, prevented from kissing her only by the uncertainty he still saw in her midnight blue eyes. “We can start over, or pick up where we left off, or whatever the hell people do when they’re in love.”
“But, Heath, you said it was real. That there was something wrong with you.”
“Bella, please.” Heath jumped to his feet and drove his hands through his newly cut hair, wanting to rip out every strand. He wanted to rid himself of every single dark blond piece, dispose of everything that reminded him of his father, the evil son of a bitch who had indirectly caused this mess.
“I’m sorry, Heath. I wish I didn’t know, but I do know and I have a family now and I can’t put them in danger.” She started to cry in earnest now, big teardrops that rolled down her cheeks, which looked thinner than he remembered.
Apparently heartbreak wasn’t good for Bella’s appetite either. He’d lost ten pounds himself and the permanent dark circles under his eyes were a testament to the fact that weight loss didn’t agree with him.
“My dad beat me when I was a kid,” Heath said, knowing only the truth, as horrible as it was, would have a chance of making her believe that he wasn’t whatever those “records” had claimed.
“I’m so sorry, Heath.”
“I don’t want you to be sorry. I’m fine. Other than the fact that the woman I love thinks I’m a violent lunatic, I’m at peace with my past. My father beat me until I had brain damage. It gave me seizures and the occasional bout of depression. The seizures stopped when I was twelve, the last depressive episode was three years ago.” He stared at the wooden floor next to her feet, then the wall covered with the candy ads he remembered from her cottage, anything to avoid the eyes that were killing him with
their prediction of doom for their future.
“But the note said you killed someone, Heath,” she said, her expression cautious, though her voice held a hint of hope. He prayed she’d still feel that hope when he dropped the last bomb in his arsenal.
“I killed my father when I was twelve, in self-defense after he almost killed me. When forced to decide between the two of us, I chose myself. Then I put him in a garbage bag and threw him in the river. No one ever found his body.” Retelling the horrific experience caused almost no emotional response within him anymore.
He’d talked through it so many times with ten million different therapists that it was almost like it had happened to another person. He’d forgiven himself for it by now, and put the majority of the horror behind him. He was the man he was because of the cards life had dealt him and he liked himself most of the time. He tried to be a decent person, tried to harm no living thing, and to bring pleasure to the world in his own small way.
“So that’s the story. The whole story and nothing but the story,” he finished lamely, the anger and frustration and anxiety he’d been juggling since he walked into her apartment fading away, leaving a peaceful, quiet space in his heart. It felt good to tell her, to tell someone, but especially her.
“My family was possessed by a demon spirit for three hundred years,” Bella said softly.
“For real?”
“My great-great-whatever-grandmother sold us all into the demon’s service in exchange for spells that would make her candy the most delicious in the kingdom,” she said, starting to cry again.
