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“It wasn’t your fault.”
“If I hadn’t started a fight with her, she would have gone to the party. She would have been with me. I was selfish and mean, and I killed my sister.”
“Stop it.” Holding onto her shoulders, Skylar pushed her back far enough for their eyes to meet. “You were a kid. Sometimes kids say hurtful things they don’t mean. You would have apologized later.”
“She died thinking I didn’t love her.” Anna swallowed the hard lump building in her throat. “I don’t have anything left of them. Social Services wouldn’t let me go home to pack. I was taken straight to their building while someone went to the house to pack a bag for me. They just brought me clothes, one picture, and a stuffed animal. It wasn’t even my favorite. I lost all my stuff at some point moving from place to place over the years. Maybe someone stole them. I don’t know. Doesn’t matter. They’re gone. I have nothing from my childhood, nothing to remind me of my family except a handful of fading memories.”
Skylar scooped her into his arms and carried her to the bed. He sat down with her sprawled across his lap. With his upper body propped up by pillows against the headboard, he held her. Time stood still. She cried for several minutes as past regrets wounded her heart.
After a while he said, “Maybe someone out there has some of your possessions still, a friend of the family or a distant relative. Maybe someone is holding onto some stuff for you.”
“My mom’s best friend told me she had a box of possessions she’d gathered after their deaths,” Anna said. She wiped her wet face with the back of one hand and tried to stop crying. “The woman was supposed to give it to me when I turned eighteen, but I never heard from her again. I have no idea where she lives.”
“You could hire a private investigator.”
Anna sucked in a shaky breath. “I thought of that, but I couldn’t take another kick in the gut. Thinking that my old stuff is out there somewhere helps. I just want to believe someday I’ll see it again.”
“If you could have anything from childhood, what would you want?”
“There was this one thing, a glass music box with a ballerina that turned around. My sister and I used to fight over it.” Anna released a few new tears. “I forget who gave it to us. There were two of them at first. Then one fell and shattered. We used to fight over whose music box broke. There are a lot of things I’d like from my childhood, but that’s the main thing. That and pictures of my family.”
He placed a kiss on top of her head. “Who raised you? After your parents died, where did you go?”
“Foster care.”
He sighed. “I am so sorry you had to go through that.”
“A couple that my parents were friends with offered to adopt me after the crash. I lived with them for about nine to ten weeks. They decided to get a divorce. I was sent back to Foster Care. Then another couple considered adopting me a year later, but they found out they were having their own baby before it went through.”
“Did you at least get some good families to live with?”
“I wasn’t abused or anything if that’s what you mean. But most of them were doing it for the money. There were usually other kids. That’s why I want to help Kyle Jensen. On paper, we are the same person. I was labeled a troublemaker just like him.”
Skylar frowned. “Why would anyone think you were a troublemaker?”
“In one night my family was wiped out. At first, I was numb. Then I got angry. I missed them, but I didn’t want to talk about it. Kept it bottled in until I exploded. This girl took my picture away, the picture of my family. I broke her nose. They sent me to a new family, and I got a black mark in my file. After that, I came with a warning, and people didn’t want to give me a chance. They waited and watched and sent me back the second I did something they didn’t like.”
His arms tightened around her, and he kissed her forehead. “I won’t ever send you back.”
The tender statement flooded her eyes with tears again, but she knew it was just talk. People always promised they would keep her, at least until she hit eighteen and could be on her own. None of them kept their word. None.
Skylar spoke near her ear. “If you want, I’ll look at the Jensen case and go interview him. If I think there’s a chance he isn’t guilty, I will help you win. I’ll help you free him.”
“Really?” Her eyes widened, and she sat up so she could see his expression. “You would do that for me?”
He smiled. “I would do it for the girl that lost her sister.”
“Careful, Skylar. Your reputation as a cold mercenary is on the line. Some people might even think you’re sweet.”
He chuckled, and his chest rumbled with laughter, shaking them both.
She lifted up so that their mouths were a mere inch apart. Unlike every other time they’d kissed, she decided to initiate it. She wanted it more than she wanted to breathe.
But then she remembered her face was damp from tears and maybe a bit of snot. That made her laugh. At first, he looked confused by her mirth. Her laughter was contagious. Soon, he was laughing with her even though he probably had no idea why.
They agreed to share the bed and return home in the morning. She slept beneath the covers in her snuggly sweats; Skylar slept on top of the covers with a blanket he got from the hall closet. When he pulled her close, her back against his front, it felt natural. Safe. He kissed her temple. Within seconds she drifted off to sleep with the gorgeous man on her mind.
