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“You get along with everybody.”
“Except my family. They don’t speak to me. So I stopped speaking to them.”
I sat up a little. “Why not?”
“They didn’t have my back when I needed them most.” He switched to my other foot. “What do you want from your family?”
I dropped my head back and looked at the ceiling. He’d never spoken about his family with me before, so I was curious. But his question about what I wanted from my own family was a good one. Scary, but a good one. Yet my mind was blank. What did I want? “I don’t know,” I eventually settled on.
“Makes it sort of hard to get then.”
“When you make sense, it’s frightening.”
“Think on it some while we’re here.”
“They didn’t believe me. About my mother and Andrew’s wedding.”
“You get why they didn’t.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I protested, still disappointed in them.
“I didn’t say you did,” he returned calmly. “But when you look at it from their perspective, you can see why they reacted the way they did.”
“You’re agreeing with them.”
He squeezed my foot until I looked at him. “I’m always in your corner.”
I cut my gaze out the window to the bright stars glittering above. Patrick was mercifully silent as I tried to clear my mind. I didn’t want to think about my family. About anything. I was tired of dealing with it all. Tired of everything.
Patrick’s movements slowed. He cradled my foot, his head against the ledge of the tub. I wasn’t the only one exhausted. But for the first time in a long time, I felt . . . content. Thankful. And it was all because of this man who had not only taken time away from his crazy-houred job, but had done it so I could relax. Who did that?
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Patrick
The time is coming . . .
I darkenedthe screen on my phone and dropped it on the lounger beside me. Multiple texts from an unknown number. With the kind of crimes I’d gotten people off for, the threats could be from anyone. I’d had my fair share from victims and their families.
“You look mad.” Marlow fell into the chair beside me.
“How’s the little dude?”
She looked at me like she saw my avoidance for exactly what it was. “Went right to sleep.”
“After all that fuss?”
“I’ll get him up in an hour or he really won’t want to sleep tonight.” She looked out at the ocean. “I can’t believe how warm it is today compared to yesterday.”
“Doesn’t get much better.”
We basically had the beach to ourselves. All morning we’d played in the sand with Blake. Wicked’s cheeks were pink from the sun. And I’d behaved myself despite that she had on a bikini.
“Thank you. For this.”
It was difficult to hide my surprised reaction, but I did a decent enough job. Those were rare words for her, and I was grateful to be on the receiving end, though I knew better than to make a big deal. “I could see you needed to decompress.”
She made a noncommittal noise.
