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“Ty said you got handsy at the restaurant, and at first I thought he meant you got handsy with him. Then I realized you’d never do that.” He sidled up beside her. “He told me about you snatching a lady and forcing her to tell you about a mark on her.”
He didn’t prod or pry. Instead, he leaned against the tree and watched the river roll as he inhaled the briny scent, the earth and the rain coming in.
“I think she knows something about my mom’s abduction when she was fifteen. Their ages are close. She has the same brand on her arm. It’s a tree burned into the flesh. Unmistakable. But she acted as if she had no clue what I was talking about.”
No one wanted to talk. Violet didn’t blame them. The trauma was unbearable, horrifying. Her own mom had spent her life in depression and bouts of anger. What had she been like prior to the abduction? What had Grandmother been like? If it hadn’t been for Adam and the violence, would Reeva have grown up and married? Had a family she planned and wanted?
Violet would never know.
“I know you want to find your mom’s abductor. I want to find who killed Callie. I realize I may never get him. I am at peace with that though, Violet. Are you?”
Easy answer. “No.” She tucked her hair behind her ear and out of her eyes. “If you’re at peace either way, why bother at all?”
He cocked his head as if she’d asked a ridiculous question. “Justice. I want justice for Callie. Someone did unspeakable things to her and left her to rot as if she were garbage and not a human being. He’s continuing to do that, and he needs to be stopped. They all need justice, and I believe that we pursue it on earth, but if we don’t see it, it will still come.”
“In the next life? From God? Why not prevent it from happening at all?”
“Do you like making your own choices and decisions? I do. People have that freedom. All people. And not all make even decent choices. There’s violence and corruption, but there’s goodness too, Violet.”
She supposed that made sense enough. “I haven’t seen much good.”
“The fact you’re here on a case and are presented with a clue to the one who drives you is good. I call that providence.” John slid his hand in hers. It was warm for how chilly it was outside. He squeezed. “I believe that God often directs us when we don’t even realize that’s what is happening. It’s His divine care for you, Violet. His goodness. And wise ways.”
She wished that were true. It would be comforting. “You think God brought me here on this case to give me answers to the one I want?”
John sighed. “I don’t know if you’ll get the answers you want or any at all. But maybe there’s something more important, better than answers. Maybe there’s something here you need. He knows it. You don’t.”
“I don’t know, John. That sounds like some cheesy TV movie where it all ends happy and no one feels any aftershocks from the pain.”
He brushed the stray hair back in place. “There are always aftershocks from pain. It’s not cheesy.” He searched her eyes. “You’re not an accident, Violet. You were made on purpose.”
Why would he say that? How could he say that? He had no idea that while Adam had a purpose in making her, Reeva absolutely had not. She was a blight not a blessing. There was nothing loving or special about her conception or birth. It had been in violence in the cold, dark baby basement.
“You don’t know anything about me, John,” she whispered through a mountainous lump residing in her throat. But the words he spoke...though untrue, made a heated trail into her heart and settled in like warm fire.
Like hope.
“I want to, Violet. I want to know everything about you. I want to unwrap it all and see what’s in there.” His sight trailed to her lips and her heart rate sped up. Yesterday, she’d wanted to be kissed by him, had even spurred him to do it. But he hadn’t. He said he wouldn’t kiss her unless he’d stolen her heart. He hadn’t.
But those words. Him.
Yesterday, they’d been flirting, but now it felt like he was declaring something. It was intimate. Nothing playful or shallow.
His lips hovered over hers, waiting...
Panic seized her, and she blurted, “My father is Adam, my mom’s abductor.” A kiss might be the tipping point for her heart, and she wasn’t ready to face it, to respond.
He blinked and paused his slow descent.
“I was conceived on purpose. I’m not sure what his purpose was. But it wasn’t good. And... I have his DNA coursing through me. You don’t want to know me under the surface. You can’t know me. I don’t even fully know myself.” She pushed away from him and stalked up the hill.
“Wait! Violet, wait!” He muttered and growled then she heard his faster footsteps hurrying to catch up. He blocked her, faced her and let out a breath. “You can’t drop that kind of bomb on me and then blow away like a breeze. You weren’t conceived in love, but that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve to love and be loved.”
Tears stung her eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried. It wasn’t her thing, but his words, they kept coddling the tender places within her. Places she’d hardened over years of hurt and disappointment.
“You are loved, Violet.”
She raised her chin. “Yeah? By who? My mom thinks I’m a monster, and she’s not far off base. You don’t know the things I’ve done. My grandmother tolerated me. Men who have been with me have only gone surface deep, nothing past pretty. So who. Loves. Me?”
