Page 79 of Playing With Love

He was figuring it out.

“I told you, you were wasting⁠—”

“Baby, please shut up, and I mean that with every goddamn ounce of love I have for you.”

I shut up.

Not because Tucker told me to but because I felt my throat close and my chest start to burn.

His did not.

“I need to think,” he repeated. “I don’t know what my best play is here. Instinct tells me to railroad over you and make you see what I see by any means necessary. But my head’s telling me I need to show you your worth before you’ll believe me. My heart is telling me to go cautious because if I fuck this up I lose you. But you’re mine, and being that, it fucking kills knowing you think I’m wasting my time like your father’s told you you’re wasting his. So I need to think about how to proceed. But bottom line, baby, however I do that you gotta know I love you, and right now you don’t want to hear those words, but it doesn’t make them any less true. You also have to know I think your dad’s a dick and straight up if I ever hear him talking to you that way again I’m stepping in and saying my piece. It won’t be pretty. Chances are it’s gonna be ugly but my thoughts will be known and they’ll be absolute. He is never to speak to you that way again. And if he can’t find it in him to treat you like the precious treasure you are, then he won’t be treating you like anything because he won’t be speaking to you again—period. Am I clear?”

My throat wasn’t closing, it was clogged full of emotion.

So totally and completely backed up I couldn’t speak.

I think I nodded my understanding, or perhaps my body was simply seizing as some unknown feeling evaded my senses.

Never.

Not ever had anyone come to my defense, not against my father’s treatment of me.

“Lizzy, am I clear?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Good. Now we got fifteen minutes until we get to the compound. Do you need more time to pull yourself together?”

I might need a full year.

“No. I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, baby, you will be,” he promised. “Grab your phone, Lizzy. Call Dylan and ask him to pull your mother’s hospital records.”

I stared at Tucker’s profile. I felt his big hand in mine. His strong, warm leg. His anger still blanketing the car, I wondered if this was what it felt like to be loved. Was this what it meant to be his?

God, I hoped so.

Hope.

How could one thing be so fragile yet feel so safe at the same time?

CHAPTER TWENTY

“Nothing says small town like a Davy Crockett truck stop,” Liza muttered from beside me, leaning forward to look out the windshield at the sign as I exited the highway. “And a general store slash antique mall.”

I relaxed the death grip I had on the steering wheel and took my first full breath since Liza had gone silent on me. She hadn’t said anything after she’d called Dylan to ask him to look into her mother’s condition. I wondered if she was hiding her concern for her mother behind her silence, or her father had gotten under her skin and locked in her head, or if it was a combination of both.

My problem was, I didn’t have the time needed to draw her out. But I needed to see where she was at.

“Lizzy—”

“Leave it, Tucker. Please.”

Fuck.

“Just tell me you’re good to continue and I’ll drop it. If you need a few more minutes, I’ll pull over.”