His smile fades.
“I’m sorry about your sanctuary, baby,” he says softly. “I’m sorry about your animals.”
My throat closes.
“Livy can never find out Billie was burned alive,” I tell him. “She can never know that, Maverick.”
“She won’t,” he promises.
“I couldn’t let her out.” My voice breaks. “I knew she would attack the first person she came across.”
“She would have attacked you the moment you opened the cage,” he tells me.
“Maybe.”
“No,” he says. “Not maybe. She was scared. Hurt. Surrounded by fire. And blind to it all. You opening that cage would have put you both in danger.”
I close my eyes.
“I told Livy to stay inside. I told her not to leave the house no matter what she heard.” A sob claws up my throat. “She almost died because of me.”
Maverick goes still.
Then his hand comes to my face, gentle but firm enough to make me look at him.
“No.”
“Maverick.”
“No, Amelia. Listen to me.” His voice drops into that quiet place that makes people obey before they think about it. “You told your daughter to stay where you believed she was safest.”
“The house exploded.”
“After you left it.”
“She listened to me.”
“Because she trusts you.”
The words hurt worse than blame would have.
Tears spill down my cheeks.
“I should have taken her outside with me.”
“To a burning barn? To panicked horses? Smoke? Fire? Falling beams?” His jaw tightens. “You made the best choice with what you knew.”
“It was wrong.”
“It became wrong because someone made it wrong.”
I stop breathing for a second.
His eyes harden.
“Someone set those fires. Someone turned your home into a trap. That guilt belongs to them, not you.”
I want to believe him.
