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“It must have been terrifying for you when your parents died,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.” She stretched out a hand, offering comfort without pushing it on him.
He lifted his gaze, his dark eyes shaded by his furrowed brow. “I don’t remember anyone saying that,” he said. He touched his fingers to hers. “I’m sure they did. They must have?”
“Probably,” she said. “I remember hearing it. I can’t imagine how you and your brother and sister suffered. My world wasn’t ripped apart like yours. I still had Dad. I didn’t have to move.” She laced her fingers through his. “Losing someone you love is always devastating, no matter when it happens. I wasn’t sure Dad would ever smile again after Mom died. There was an invisible cloud that followed me around everywhere, a shroud over everything. Sunlight, bright colors, flavors and feelings, all of it was dim for a long time. Grief takes time to wade through and the effects linger.”
She hoped not forever. Jarvis was too good a person to spend his life afraid of living deeply and completely. She understood abandonment, even if her experiences differed from his. Her dad had essentially walked away from her, withdrawing his support and confidence in her. At the first curveball, her husband had chosen his idea of the perfect couple over adapting along with her and becoming a family.
“My brother and sister are moving on,” Jarvis said. “It’s good. They’ll both be married soon.” He withdrew his hand, leaning back in the chair. “Probably with kids.”
“And you’ll be the cowboy uncle.”
“Absolutely.” A hint of a grin tilted his mouth. “All of the fun, none of the pressure. The traditional path isn’t the right fit for me.”
“Isn’t searching for proof of Isaiah’s stories a way of moving on?” she pressed. She refused to mention that kissing her could qualify, too.
“The search started as a weird way to connect with our past and, if Isaiah’s information is right, the result might be a better future for the three of us.”
She sipped her water. “In my book that sounds like a man who knows exactly how to value, work for and honor his family.”
He shrugged off the compliment. “At this point, I think I’m just too stubborn to quit.”
“Stubborn doesn’t have to be a weakness. Being willing to fight and adapt is also a good family trait. Your list of strengths is getting longer.”
“Stop it,” he said without any real heat.
“Why?” She turned the ring on her thumb. “Families are as different as the people who make them up. I had family with Mom and Dad. I had a family of friends in college. Now, with Silas, I have a new family. Just because it doesn’t resemble some gooey holiday commercial doesn’t make it less valid.”
“I hear you, Mia. But I just can’t give anyone that much power to hurt me again. I’ve dealt with enough pain for one lifetime. And the flip side is I don’t want to risk hurting anyone, either. Not the way I was hurt as a kid.”
Her heart ached for him, for cutting himself off from the world. Loneliness was a pain unto itself. She wished she could make him
see that. Taking a deep breath, she gave him her award-winning smile. “That’s understandable. Trust me when I say I’m not looking forward to the moments when Silas and I hurt each other. Life won’t be perfect. One of us already shows signs of a strong and unquenchable temper.”
Jarvis laughed. “At least one of you.”
She ignored the jab. “You’re talking to a woman who’s cleared her own path more than once. Going it alone is exhausting,” she admitted. “Without you, I probably would’ve given in to Regina or flat-out run away and changed my name by now.”
“Not likely, with your famously beautiful face.”
She soaked up the sweet words, the heat in his eyes as he said them. “I can do wonders with makeup,” she teased. “Yes, the person you love most is also the person who can hurt you the deepest. I still want to have love in my life.”
“After what happened with your husband, I’d think you’d be done taking those chances.”
“I’m not. The fact that it was easy to walk away from Roderick only confirmed that what we had wasn’t as deep as it should’ve been. And when I said that, I was actually thinking of my dad.”
“The man who put his new wife ahead of his daughter.” He shook his head. “Doesn’t that prove the wisdom of keeping part of yourself protected from that kind of rejection?”
She wondered if he heard the brokenhearted little boy in his voice. “At the risk of sounding like a shrink, I’ll remind you that the loss of your parents when you were so young had a lasting impact. Compounding that when you lost your aunt—”
He shoved roughly to his feet, the chair scraping across the plank floor. “Her death wasn’t the same at all.”
“The same or different, it was another loss,” she soothed.
“More like a burden lifted.” He scrubbed at his face. “She didn’t want us, we didn’t want to be with her. More family dysfunction.” He sighed. “How did we get on this topic, anyway?”
“You stopped kissing me.”
“Well, call me a fool,” he said with a wry grin.
