Page 59 of Don’t Go Stealing My Heart

Van Gogh?

He stared at her, unblinking. He opened and closed his mouth, confusion growing as he tried to assemble this unfathomable puzzle. With her skittishness and all she’d been hiding, he’d known she’d had skeletons in her closet. Dark secrets. He’d never imagined they resembled this. “Do you have a weapon on you? A gun or anything?”

She recoiled. “No. God, no. I’ve taken a knife to jobs since”—she glanced at her abdomen—“the stabbing. But I’d never bring something dangerous into your home.”

His shoulders lowered. He believed her. He wasn’t sure why in the face of her confession, but if Clementine wanted to do him or his family harm, she wouldn’t be standing here, telling him to call the cops.

Clementine.

Burglar.

Van Gogh.

The stabbing she wouldn’t discuss earlier.

He kept blinking, puzzling. It didn’t help. He just felt…numb. He put his model back on its shelf, crossed his room, and sat on the edge of his bed. “Why?”

She chewed on her lip. “Why what?”

“Why do you do it?”

She tipped up her chin, a hint of pride in the move. “The money funds orphanages and schools. We—I can’t use most of the cash here. I keep it untraceable, spend it overseas and spread it around where it does the most good, with a focus on a couple of places. I try to make a difference for these kids.”

“By stealing?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t keep any of it?”

“Enough to live comfortably and work on my car. I don’t need much.”

He clenched and released his hands. “Why should I believe you?”

She huffed out a bitter laugh. “I guess you shouldn’t.”

“And all of this with me…” He motioned to the bed, aggressive now. Pissed off. “Was all of this a lie, too? Was everything with me a way to get into my parents’ home?”

Like Ava had used him for his connections. The shock was wearing off, anger replacing his numbness.

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “Not the first time we met, when I helped with your car. I didn’t know who you were then. My attraction to you was as real as real gets. It’s why I gave you my actual name, something I never normally do. But at the diner the next day and meeting you on runs…that was on purpose, to get invited here. Then it got complicated.”

The heat felt freshly oppressive, the air in the room thick and stifling. She focused on her feet. He closed his eyes.

“I fell a little for you when you sang for me in your shelter,” she whispered, her pleading tone slipping over him, forcing his eyes open. “Then a little more each day after. Or maybe it was before that, the first day we met. I couldn’t explain it then and I can’t now. It was so unexpected. You were so unexpected. And I’ve never told anyone about my past. Those stories were true, all of them—about my parents. But I used you, so…” She blinked and a tear slipped out. She dashed it away, looking appalled. “It’s okay to call the cops. I’m ready. I just want it done.”

He didn’t move for his cell phone. She’d lied and used him, but those tears yanked at his chest. Her admission did the same and worse to his heart.

He pictured her as a kid, walking in on her father dead in his car, being torn from her mother, tossed into the foster system. Clementine was a strong woman. She had overcome, but at what cost? She hadn’t become a burglar on her own. Someone would have schooled her. “You said we.”

“What?”

“Before, when explaining, you said we, then you switched to I. Who do you work with?”

Her fidgeting ceased. “No one. I work alone.”

The hard lines of her face said otherwise. “If you want me to believe you, you need to stop lying.”

She flinched like she’d been slapped and mouthed fuck. He waited. If she shut down and didn’t give him the full story, he was done. He wasn’t sure he’d rat her out, but he’d make sure she left Whichway and never came back. The thought alone did painful things to his insides. He’d fallen for her, harder than he’d realized, but could he forgive her? Animal or human, Jack believed in change. Rehabilitation. Easier said than done when the betrayal was personal.