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Chapter 8
WESLEY
Later that evening, after Jersey and Sam each took a shower and I cooked dinner for them, both of which scarfed down the food like they haven’t eaten in days, I’m in the living room, pacing the floor as I wait for Jersey to come back down after getting Sam settled in his room. My thoughts go a mile a minute, coming up with all kinds of scenarios of what kind of trouble the both of them are in.
Is she running from the cops? Did she commit a crime? And what is Sam’s role in all of this? He can’t be any older than twelve or thirteen. What could he have possibly done? Why were they in that abandoned building? And what happened to Sam’s leg?
“Why is a priest living in a house of this size?”
I spin and face the stairs at Jersey’s voice. She’s descending them, her hand running over the smooth railing as she goes.
“My grandparents left me this house when they died years ago. I inherited it when I turned twenty-one,” I tell her.
She stops at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes moving all over the living room. “It’s beautiful,” she states, finally bringing her eyes back to me. “Very cozy.”
“Thanks,” I grunt.
She comes further into the living room and stops at a wall with several hanging pictures. She asks without turning around, “Is this your family?”
I walk over and stand beside her. “Yeah.”
“Wow.” She steps closer to the wall, looking from one picture to the next. “I can’t imagine how difficult it was to grow up with quadruplets for sisters.”
I chuckle. “There were times it wasn’t easy.”
“I bet.”
I turn my head and look at her. For the past several hours, I’ve found myself on more than one occasion watching her. She’s even more beautiful than I thought the night I found her out on the street. Her long, thick hair is loosely braided, the rope lying down her back. She’s wearing one of my t-shirts, the material almost swallowing her whole. She also has on a pair of my sweatpants, no doubt having to roll the waist several times, so they don’t fall down. I lent clothes to both her and Sam because all of theirs were dirty. Her face shines from the bath she took earlier.
“I don’t see your dad in any of these pictures.”
Her comment has me jerking my eyes away, and I look back to the wall.
I clear my throat and my brain of the Jersey-inducing fog. “He wasn’t around much, and when he was, we all wished he wasn’t.”
I feel her eyes on the side of my head, so I glance over. “I’m sorry.”
I lift a shoulder. “He made the choice to be the way he was. There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
I turn and follow her with my eyes when she moves away from the wall. She goes to the couch and plops down on one end, tucking her feet under her butt. I follow, but instead of taking the other end of the couch like any gentleman would, I find myself taking the cushion directly next to hers. I just feel the need to be close to her.
Leaning forward, I rest my elbows on my knees and clasp my hands together between them. I point my eyes forward.
“I get why you don’t want to tell me what’s going on with you and Sam. We hardly know each other, and I sense you don’t trust many people very often.” Turning my head, I look into her eyes. “You can trust me, Jersey, and I really wish you would.”
She chews on the inside of her cheek and stays quiet for so long that I’m afraid she won’t answer.
“Sam and I lost both of our parents when I was sixteen and he was nine,” she finally says quietly. “A semi-truck hit them dead on, and they died instantly. We had no other relatives, so we became wards of the state. Unfortunately, there were no families willing to foster us both. Sam was put with a family, and I stayed in the system. No family wanted to foster a girl my age. Sam came to Silver Falls, while I stayed in Willowbrook.”
“I’m so sorry, Jersey. I know that couldn’t have been easy. Losing both parents and your brother so close together.”
Her smile is sad. “Thank you.”
She pushes her hands between her thighs, like she’s trying to warm them up.
“I hated being so far away from Sam because I knew he was missing our parents too. He was so young. I swore once I was old enough I would try to get custody of him myself. I was naïve and didn’t realize living on your own was so hard. I got a full-time job after I turned eighteen and graduated high school, but even then, I could barely afford the one bedroom apartment I got for myself. There was no way a judge would grant me custody. Especially when Sam was living with a family who had plenty of money to care for him.”
Jersey drops her eyes to her lap, a frown tugging down her brows as if she’s thinking about something unpleasant. I stay silent and let her continue at her own pace.
