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“You’re pushy, you know that?”
My laugh comes out lighter than what it feels. “Only with you.” A grown man who owes me no explanations.
I stand up.
His fingers wrap around mine. “Stay.”
I look at our joined hands. Feelings jumble, blending and impossible to distinguish.
When I sit down again, he releases a quiet breath, like my presence matters. I swallow the building lump in my throat. I am incredibly ill-equipped to be John’s rock, his friend, or even a sounding board. “I don’t mean to trespass in your business. I only wanted to be sure you were alright. You don’t have to tell me anything.”
He hunches forward, his strong hands in wads, and stares at the dirt. “This isn’t something I talk about, you know?”
“I’m shocked.”
He bumps my elbow. “You’re a fine one to talk.”
My arm tingles where his touch landed. “You mean you don’t sit around and emote with your buddies?”
He choke-laughs. “What buddies?”
Our eyes meet. Here I am, living in the shell of a life I’ve carved out, and yet…have I met my match? I catch my breath at the thought.
What I mean is my counterpart—not mymatchmatch.
After a lengthy pause, his words roll out. “As you saw, my son hates me.”
Hate is a strong word. I sigh. Yes, Tyler’s disgust was palpable. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. I can only imagine. Jacob is my life.
“Be sorry for him, not me. I was no kind of father, Hollie.” He moves his hands to his knees as if he doesn’t know what to do with them. “I gave George and Judy reason to hate me.” He looks at me suddenly. “I stole their daughter—and then I destroyed her life.”
Chapter 19
John
Memories carry me back. I don’t think about these things and times often.
Only every day in those random moments when they rear their heads and I have to stop a minute to stuff them back into their lockboxes. Other than that, none of it ever crosses my mind.
“Deann and I met our sophomore year in college, and we fell fast. You know how that is.”
The line of Hollie’s mouth is tight, even in profile.Doesshe know? As one walled-off soul to another, I see it, that love might be a foreign concept. There could be another explanation for Jacob’s existence. I continually get weird vibes on the issue of his father.
Shaking off the notion, I stay in my lane. “Before we even had a shot at getting our heads on straight, Tyler was on the way. Stupid kids. We eloped and didn’t tell our parents for almost four months. How’s that for maturity?”
Surprise shows through her barely tipped lips.
“In fact, the only reason they found out when they did was that Judy showed up at Deann’s—and my—apartment one day when she was passing through town and thought she’d take her daughter to lunch.” Yep, I was a real man.
And then I dug in deeper.
“We promised her parents she’d finish school, but once Tyler was born, Deann didn’t care about anything except him.” Sounds understandable, and yet there was something abnormal in how she clung to that child. “She’d always hated the idea of law enforcement—something that might have been a sign if we’d slowed down a minute.” More like a strobing red light with a siren blaring.
Standing, I rub my jaw and pace away a few steps. Through the waning daylight, Hollie is watching, hanging on what comes next.
Oh, man. I’ve begun a story that, very soon, is going to beherstory. Only, I expect she’ll be far more gracious when she finds out about her grandchild than Judy ever thought about being.
“Things deteriorated fast.” I return a step. “Once I graduated, I worked all the time, and when the opportunity came to shift into undercover work, nothing Deann said could stop me. And no, a young father and husband had no business doing a job like that.”
