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“Why couldn’t they be normal? Why did they have to be so fucking… mental?”
The slice of pain was instantaneous, as if she’d jammed a knife between his ribs. He shook his head, his world tilting to one side as her tears upended him. “I don’t know.”
“They… they… really and truly hated me. My mother convinced my father I was evil and… and unholy, when that’s what she was. But never once did he help me. Never once did he try to protect me from her.”
Lucas’s chest tightened and he blinked repeatedly with barely constrained rage at the thought of Birdie’s mother hurting her, and her asshole of a feckless father standing by and doing nothing to help.
But, to a degree, wasn’t he guilty of the same? When they were younger, they had spent a large part of each day together. Rarely did he ask questions about her home life, choosing instead to let her share when she was ready.
She never said a lot; only made cryptic comments that today would have had his hackles up, causing him to ask more in-depth questions and getting to the bottom of them.
“I’m sorry, Bird. I should’ve been there for you. Done more.”
She shook her head, wiping at the tears beneath each eye. “It wouldn’t have mattered. Everyone was terrified of Shelby Wellborn. Including my father.”
“Well, someone should have checked on you and Maisie.” He noticed her instantly bristle at her sister’s name. “The entire town knew your mother had problems, but no one did anything about it. No one looked into it.”
He wouldn’t mention the program he had started with Maynard and Cindy’s help. A program that helped him sleep at night and dampened some of the gnawing regret that ate at him when it came to the enigmatic woman, who was holding on to him as if her life depended on it.
As a result of one particularly restless night, he came up with the idea to work with the teachers who had their hands full with the hoops they had to jump through. That, most times, had little to do with teaching children the basics: math, reading, and science. They were overburdened and underpaid, not only as teachers but also as mandated reporters with the responsibility of keeping the children in their classrooms safe.
With so much on their plate, it wasn’t difficult to see how a neglected child could slip through the cracks.
So the threesome met with various teachers on a monthly basis and discussed those children who were considered high risk. Making cursory visits to their homes, getting to know the parents, and sharing the specialized program to them. And in rare cases, suggesting the teacher conduct their own home visit or to speak to the child when things seemed off, or questionable.
Then, there were those instances when they would make a call into Grant’s office or DFCS for further investigation. To his relief, those were few and far between.
Birdie’s situation, when she was younger, was the driving force behind the program. And she didn’t even know it. He would never share that with her, as she had a few items from their past she needed to address with him first.
Since starting the program he slept better at night, the relentless gnawing in his gut still there and full of regret for his onetime best friend, but it had decreased a notch. So he could get some blessed sleep.
A win in his book.
Suddenly, his attention was diverted. His Birdie-radar on high alert, his body a hair-trigger when it came to anything beyond platonic with this siren of a woman.
He felt her fingers running through his hair that had grown too long in the back. Her breathing sounding labored and her heart beating hard against his chest.
As if channeling a man with romantic options, his own fingers found their way beneath the hem of her T-shirt, making their way up her back, momentarily hampered by a bra clasp.
A millisecond of lucidity hit home as his forehead leaned into her chest, and he growled out, “What are we doing?” Her eyes drew shut and a tear escaped, making him equally angry between what had been done to her and the circumstances that had brought her to him.
It took a Herculean effort to refrain from doing what he ached to do with her. To her. His fists moving into white-knuckled balls behind her back.
“We have unresolved issues,” he forced out.
“We have history,” she countered with a breathy sigh.
“We have a daughter.” Unsure what the point was to that, other than they had a child together and he was the last to know, he added, “She needs stability in her life, not two parents with so-called history who can’t have an interaction with one another without having to fuck.”
He hoped his crass language dampened her ardor, but this was Birdie Wellborn. A woman known for her inability to capitulate or compromise unless she were cornered and without options.
He stood so as not to feel trapped between her body and the chair, but instead of giving him room, she sidled closer to him. Standing on her toes, moving her body insidiously against his, driving him crazy as her fingers continued their relentless effort of running furrows through his hair, her mouth inches from his.
Suddenly, the sadness in her eyes was replaced with something else.
“Look on the bright side, you and me together? It would be an utter fail. I mean, you probably have the sexual skills of a robot, never diverting from missionary style. You’re preferred position, I’m sure.” She leaned her head to the side and narrowed her eyes as if visualizing the whole thing. “Your typical two-thrust-Chuck if I were a guessing woman. Afterward, we’d both be unsatisfied and move on. A harmless one and done.”
He smirked. “I know what you’re doing. It’s not going to work. I’m not seventeen anymore and under the influence.”
