Emily's already past the railing and onto the sand by the time I get the server's attention. I pull two twenties out of my wallet and drop them on the table without waiting for the check. When she stormed out, she didn't bother to take the flowers, which are now on the ground by the chair, and I don't bother picking them up.
I stomp out the door after her, fuming mad again, but this time at myself. How can I sit there and listen to her share her truth and then look her dead in the eye and shut down? I'm not cut out for this emotional shit. The only emotion I've been allowed to express for the past eight years is happiness or anger. Fear got you criticized, and sadness got you shut down. Rage was the only safe thing to feel, and now it's the only thing I feel. Rage and terror—but I'm so fucking locked in my head, I can't show that to her.
I wander out on the sand where the beach is mostly empty this time of evening. Emily is stomping away from the boardwalk, heading south along the shoreline with her arms crossed and her head down. She looks really upset, which I can't blame her.There are a lot of hurt feelings between us now, and if we're going to work this out, I really need to man up or something. I just don't know how, especially if she's gonna storm off angry with me every time I get choked up.
I follow at a distance, about fifty yards behind her. She's taken her shoes off, walking barefoot in the wet sand. She doesn't even pay attention to anyone around her. Some weirdo could be following and she'd never know it. It's not safe, but tell her that… No one has ever been able to control Emily Carter when she wants something her way.
I'm not sure what I'm going to say when I catch up. But she's walking away from me, and if I let her keep walking, she's not coming back. So I pick up my pace and close the distance between us. When I'm about ten feet behind her, she hears my footsteps in the sand and turns around. Her face is wet, eyes red, and she wipes her cheek with the back of her hand.
"Go away, Jaxon."
"No, Em." I stop a few feet from her. The waves are rolling in behind us, breaking on shore loudly, drowning out the city sounds.
She shakes her head. "I don't want to talk to you right now."
"I know you don't. But I need to say something and I need you to hear it." I reach for her but she backs away. It's my natural tendency to want to touch her and comfort her, and I keep forgetting that she's not a touchy sort of woman.
"I don't want to hear anything from you unless it's an honest answer to an honest question." God, those words hurt, but I get it. And I want to give her that honest answer as quickly as possible.
"That's what I'm trying to give you." My chest is getting tight, and I ball my hands into fists.
She stands there with her shoes dangling from one hand and her arms wrapped around herself. She doesn't walk away again, but she doesn't come closer either.
"I want to be a part of Mercy's life," I say. "I know I've handled all of this wrong. I've been angry and aggressive, and I've scared you, and I'm sorry for that. But she's my daughter and I want to know her." I want to be able to tell this woman that I clearly love with every fucking shred of my being what really happened and why I couldn't be here or call home. I just feel trapped.
Emily shifts her weight from one foot to the other. The wind picks up and tosses her hair into her face. She tucks it behind her ear with her free hand. "It'll confuse her, Jaxon. She doesn't know who you are. She thinks you're the guy who fixed the bakery. You can't just walk into her life and announce that you're her father. If we did anything, it would have to be slow."
"I'm not asking to announce anything. I'm asking you to let me be around her. Let me get to know her, even if she just thinks I'm a friend of her mom's. We can figure out the rest as we go."
"How am I supposed to trust you around her when you can't even be honest with me about where you've been for eight years?"
She's right. I know she's right. I can't ask her to open the door to Mercy while I'm standing behind a wall of my own. It doesn't work that way. She showed me hers tonight and now she's waiting for mine, and the longer I stand here not giving it to her, the wider the gap between us gets.
"I need you to explain," she says. Her voice is steady now but her chin is trembling. "No excuses. No 'it's classified', no 'I can't talk about it'. Just tell me why."
The words burst out of me like gas from a volcano erupting, an angry burst I think might make her fear me, but I can't stop it.
"I fucking killed people, okay? A lot of them." My chest is heaving, head pounding, and I can't stop myself. "I see their faces when I sleep." I point at my head and grimace, then clench my jaw and curl my hands into fists. "I can't stop thinking about them. And the worst part is it just kept happening over and over. And?—"
"Jaxon," she says, pressing her palm to my sternum, "take a breath." Her whole demeanor just did a one-eighty shift. Emily is more calm than I've seen her before. My first thought is that she must be damn good at being a mother. My second thought is how badly I want to break down crying.
"You don’t fucking get it!" I snap, backing away, but she comes toward me, reaching up to touch my face.
"I know I don’t… but I'm here now. Okay? And it's safe. And you're safe."
I'm able to fight back the worst of my anger, but I can't look her in the eye. Fear and shame war for my attention, making me unravel slowly until she touches both of my cheeks and makes me look at her.
"Okay, I see you're upset, so we don't have to talk about this anymore…" Her eyes are brimming with tears again, and she's so close I can smell the sweetness of her perfume on the hint of salty air dancing around us.
"I'm so sorry," I grit out, still fighting back tears, but Emily's mouth closes in on mine and takes my breath away. "I should’ve told you sooner. I never wanted to?—”
Her mouth crashes into mine again, hotter this time, cutting off the words. Salt from her tears mixes with the sweetness of her lips. The waves crash behind us, cold foam licking at our ankles in the dark as the tide comes in and the beach is empty now, just moonlight painting silver streaks across the wet sand.
“I fucked everything up,” I mumble against her lips, trying again. “I didn’t know how to come back to you after?—”
She silences me with another deep kiss, her tongue sliding against mine, demanding attention. Her fingers thread into my hair, tugging hard until I groan, my body reacting instantly, blood rushing south. Her shoes drop forgotten into the sand.
“I’m sorry,” I rasp when she breaks for air, forehead pressed to hers. “For leaving. For the anger. For not being there when?—”
