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She licked her lips as she looked at me nervously. “Do you think … maybe I could … have one of your shirts that you’ve worn recently? Just to sleep in.”
My shirts?
“Why?”
She had plenty of those little satiny shorts that looked entirely too sexy on her.
“I just … I thought maybe … if I smelled you, then I might sleep better—you know, maybe not have a nightmare.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Fucking hell. Dammit, why did she say shit like that?
Opening my eyes, I stared down at her, and the fear in her eyes was all I could handle. She was terrified of having another nightmare.
Fuck. I bent back down, scooped her up, and headed to my room with her. Not once did she question me or even squirm. A woman who was trying to manipulate me to get in my bed would be rubbing against me, kissing on my neck, doing shit to turn me on. Aspen barely breathed; she was so still. Why was her fucking innocence turning me on? I liked to beat women’s asses and call them sluts. Tell them they were dirty whores who got their cunts wet because they wanted me to be their daddy. Shit like that.
Aspen would never be able to handle me. I put her on the side she’d started on last night, then covered her up. She stayed still and said not one fucking word. No flirty smile. Nothing. Just those big-ass eyes watching me, unsure.
I sighed and brushed some hair out of her face. “Until you feel like you can sleep without having nightmares, you can sleep with me,” I told her. “If I’m not home when you go to bed, just go ahead and get in my bed.”
She pressed her lips together, and gratitude flickered in her gaze, but so did admiration.
Sweetheart, don’t do that, I thought.You don’t know me. Don’t give me that worshipful look. If you truly knew me, you wouldn’t look so damn happy to be in my bed.
The ceremony was difficult. I watched Aspen cry while the retired minister, who had been at the Baptist church when Irish and Aspen were growing up, spoke about her. He talked about heaven as if he was sure that was where she was. When he finished, he hugged Aspen and whispered something to her. Probably told her to get the fuck out of this house and that we were all going to hell. But then again, for the amount he’d been paid to come here, he’d better not say a word to upset her.
I watched as Aspen walked over to the urn with her sister’s ashes and the framed photographs of Irish, which she had taken from an album in the things she had in her room, and she spoke softly to her sister.
Then, she began to sing “Amazing Grace,” tilting my world on its axis, and it made my suffering through the minister’s preaching worth it.
I hadn’t been prepared for her to sing. None of us had. She hadn’t said she was going to sing.
I wasn’t a spiritual man, but, holy fuck, her voice sounded like a goddamn angel. I hung on every word, not wanting it to stop. I didn’t care that it was some old hymn everyone liked to sing. The voice singing it was hands down the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard.
When she was finished, I wanted to beg her to sing more, not to stop, but she turned back to us with tears streaming down her face, and my damn chest constricted so hard that I couldn’t breathe. Like it was natural, she walked right to me, and I wrapped my arms around her. She held on to me as if I was all she had in the world. That wasn’t a good thing. I wasn’t the one she needed to rely on. I should be pushing her to Trinity. Not holding her like she belonged to me.
“I didn’t know you could sing like that,” I whispered against her ear.
“Irish was the dancer. I was the singer.”
Every day, I learned something new about her. Something that I liked. I now understood Kitty’s response after I asked her about Aspen. She had been so damn protective. Even Kitty had known I wasn’t good for Aspen.
I watched Blaise speak to the minister before Huck led him back to his car. They’d all come through today for Aspen, and I fucking appreciated it.
“I’m sorry we couldn’t have her funeral in Alabama,” I told her.
Aspen finally let go of me and smiled. “She would have hated that. She ran from there the moment she turned eighteen. She would have left sooner if it hadn’t been for me.”
Aspen looked around at everyone, and then her green eyes came back to me.
“She would have loved this.”
Maddy walked over to us. “Although I am sorry about the circumstances, it was nice to meet you,” she told Aspen.
“Thank you for coming. I’m overwhelmed with how kind everyone has been.”
Maddy’s gaze flicked up to me, then back at Aspen as a small grin touched her lips. “We’re all very glad you’re here.”
Aspen looked like she might cry again, so I put my arm over her shoulders and pulled her against my side.
