Page 83 of Read With Your Heart

“Are we done here?” Leon addresses the sheriff, and Bart says we’re finished. They’ll handle the rest. I don’t want to be here anymore, and I hear Leon’s voice over my head.

“Get some things. You’ll come with us.” I twist at the waist to find he’s addressing Levi.

“I can’t leave my dad,” Levi states, staring down the hallway to where the bedrooms are.

“You will tonight,” Leon tells him. Leon tells the sheriff Levi will be with us if they need him for anything else. I must admit this take-charge attitude and not taking no for an answer does something to me. Levi stands and disappears down the hallway to his room, and I stand from the floor. Bart Wiggins leaves the house after telling us he’s going to contact someone to check on Robert. Once he’s gone, Leon turns on me.

“Woman, quit frightening the fuck out of me.”

I stare at him. “What?”

“When I can’t get ahold of you, I think the worse kinds of things. I called Jess and then Lys told me you had an emergency with Levi. Jess gave me the address here, and I was ready to haul your fine ass out of here when I saw that kid.” He blows out a breath. “And it’s Israel all over again for me, and I can’t leave him alone with that.” He points toward the hall, implying Robert and his current condition. I throw myself at Leon again, and he catches me, holding me tight to him.

His heart is so much bigger than he lets on, and I know his gruffness comes across gruffiest when he cares about someone, like with his sister Lena and their fights. With tonight’s take-charge display, I just want to tackle him to the floor and let him inside me, giving him my body and my heart because he deserves them both. He owns them both.

Levi returns to the front room. “Think he’ll be all right?” he questions of his father.

“What normally happens when he’s like this?” Leon asks, and Levi looks up at Leon.

“Right. He’ll be fine,” Levi says, and I hate that this sweet boy of fifteen has lived this kind of life.

Lesson 26

The truth hurts and heals.

[Tricia]

I don’t dwell on Trent’s death as I should. Leon hovers, constantly checking my emotions.

“I’m fine,” I say. It isn’t exactly a lie, but it isn’t the full truth. I’m in a funk. I should be grieving Trent, and I am in my own way. He was my husband, right? I didn’t want him to die. I just didn’t want to be with him anymore. In hindsight, I’d never understood his thought process or his heart, even if he claims I owned it. My concern rests with Levi and what this might mean for him. His brother protected him in some ways and hurt him in others. Life must be so confusing for him. His mother abandoned him. His father is a drunk. His brother was a contradiction. I vow to give Levi all the love I can in whatever manner he’ll allow.

“He’s hurting,” I say to Leon in the quiet of the night after Levi falls asleep in Leon’s old bedroom.

“He’s going to hurt for a long time,” Leon admits. “When I lost Israel, I felt like I’d lost a limb.”

I shift on the bed to look down at him, perching my head up on my hand. Leon’s on his back staring up at the ceiling.

“I know Lena and Lys told you what they know. A drive-by where we used to live. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t. My kid brother was trouble, and I was right there with him.” Leon bitterly chuckles. “But I held him in my arms, and you never forget that. The sight. The sound.” His breath hitches, eyes closing, and I shift to bring his head to my chest, curling my arms around him.

“I hate that that happened to you.”

“Me too,” he whispers, his breath like a kiss to my breast. “But it happened, and it shaped my life for a long time.” He pulls back so he can look up at me. “That’s how I know how this could go for him.”

He implies Levi, and I listen.

“He can either take that pain and hate the world as I did, or he can strive for something better. I wanted revenge, and I had a reason. Someone shot my brother at my parents’ front door. But Levi? He’s got no one to blame but Trent, and Trent’s gone, so he can either take that hurt and turn it on others, bury it deep inside, or let it out so love can come in.”

Leon blows out another breath and rolls to his back again.

“I messed up.” His eyes close, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I messed up in so many ways, and I got caught, again and again and again. Never learned my lesson. Then one day, I just woke up, and said, ‘Enough.’ I wanted out, and they were ready to let me go. Just one more job and then I was finished. I’d take my branding, but I got caught big. I served my time, but I do not want that for that kid.” He points toward Levi’s room, and the compassion in this man for a child he hardly knows warms me in ways I never knew possible.

“Is that why you have those marks on your back?” The raised skin is an etching into his shoulder blade like one might brand livestock.

“It was the way out. They’ll own me for life, but I’m not part of them anymore. It’s one of the reasons I moved here. I just wanted to start over somewhere quiet, without trouble.” He chuckles softly. “Been one bit of trouble after another,” he adds, rolling his head to look at me.

“You mean I’m trouble?” I quietly tease, but the question is there.

“The worst kind,” he replies. “The kind you can’t walk away from, can’t turn away from. The kind that burrows under your skin and into your heart.”