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“Yeah, she did. I saw Dr. Evans for over a year.” His voice was hoarse and hesitant as his instincts warred with his emotions. “Mom wanted to make sure I was okay emotionally.”
She squirmed back against him, pushing her body tightly against his, getting as close as she possibly could. Her hands slid down his arms, finding his hand under the water, entwining their fingers together.
He breathed in the scent of her as she tilted her head, resting it against his jaw, her fragrance surrounding him.
“Simon?” she whispered softly.
“Yeah?” He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze.
“I love you.” Her voice was barely audible. “I love everything that you are, every part of you. Nothing that happened in your distant past is going to change that. I even love you when you’re bossy.”
“I’m never bossy,” he answered automatically, the walls around his heart crumbling, allowing his heart to soar. Holy shit! He had wanted her to say it, but he had never imagined that it would feel this damn amazing to hear it. He wasn’t sure what he had ever done to deserve a woman like her, but he wasn’t stupid. He was keeping her. “You know that I’ll never let you go now, don’t you?” It wasn’t really a question, but he figured that she should know his intentions.
“I didn’t tell you so that you would feel obligated. I just wanted you to know.” In a lighter tone, she added, “And you are bossy. Now tell me about Dr. Evans.”
Obligated? She wasn’t an obligation. She was his whole damn life. His arms tightened around her convulsively.
She loves me!
He relaxed, the tension draining from his body. Suddenly, talking about the past didn’t seem quite so difficult. Yeah, he’d much rather take his woman to bed and show her exactly how much he worshipped her, but he wanted to do it with full disclosure. He needed to explain what had happened the other night, and the only way to do it was to talk about the past.
She loves me.
He started to talk.
“Before I tell you about Dr. Evans, I guess I should start at the beginning.”
Kara nodded, not wanting to interrupt the flow of his words with any questions or comments. She hadn’t meant to confess her love, but she hadn’t been able to help herself, hadn’t been able to hold back the words. And she didn’t regret it. She was weary from trying to hide it, and no man deserved to be loved more than Simon.
“My father died a month before the incident. Overdose. Drugs and alcohol. He was foolish enough to steal drugs from one of the biggest drug dealers on the West Coast, a guy he ran errands for or distributed drugs for in return for enough drugs and booze to feed his own habit. He rarely got paid in cash, and even if he did, he didn’t use it to feed his family or his wife.” His voice was low, seething with distain for the man who had fathered him. “Mom tried her best, but she had dropped out of high school and couldn’t get anything but minimum-wage jobs. She did whatever she could to feed us and keep dear old dad’s business away from our shitty apartment and away from me and Sam. Mostly, she kept us out of trouble, making us see that we could be something more, something better.” His voice cracked, his adoration for his mother evident.
Everything that Helen had told her made sensenow. Helen blamed herself for not being able to give her boys a better childhood. Kara frowned as she remembered the sorrow in Helen’s eyes when she had talked about her boys, their crappy childhood. Didn’t Helen realize that she had given her boys something to cling to in their childhood, something they desperately needed to survive intact? Helen had given Simon and Sam love...and hope.
Simon’s voice strengthened as he continued. “Rose was my childhood friend, really my only friend other than Sam. She grew up in the apartment next to ours. She was a year older than me.” He shifted uncomfortably, his foot bouncing in the water as though he were nervous. “We were as close as friends can be until my hormones started to rage and I started to see her as a female. I cared about her a lot and I thought she cared about me.”
“So you did have a girlfriend when you were a teenager?” She wasn’t sure where he was going with his explanation, but she sensed that it was important to his history.
“Yes and no. I guess. We kissed, we held hands. I had horny, teenage-boy wet dreams about her every night. I wanted to get laid for the first time and I wasn’t exactly an attractive teenager. I was quiet and skinny, not much to look at. Clumsy as hell. I read a lot. Mom made sure Sam and I had books from the library or reading programs. But Rose seemed to like me even though I was a gawky, ugly kid.”
Kara’s heart contracted, trying to picture a young, awkward teenage Simon. She was willing to bet her nursing career that he had been adorable.
“She started changing when she turned seventeen. She dropped out of school, started hanging with my father’s crowd, wouldn’t talk to me anymore or was so distant that she acted like I was nobody.”
She squeezed his hands. “That must have hurt.”
“It did.” He didn’t bother to deny it. “I knew she was using, stoned out of her mind most of the time. I begged her to let me help her, but she wouldn’t listen. She just laughed in my face, saying that there was nothing I could do because I was as poor as she was. And she was right, damn it! But I wanted to help her get clean. And stop working the streets.”
“She became a prostitute?”Oh God, poor Simon.
She couldn’t see him, but she felt his shoulders lift in a shrug. “She had to pay for her habit somehow and I know she gave some of the money to her mom to help her younger brother.”
“You didn’t give up, did you?” Kara didn’t need an answer. She already knew. Simon was stubborn and tenacious, his rescuer tendencies still alive and well. It wasn’t in his nature to stop trying.
“No. I wanted to believe that the Rose I knew was still inside her, waiting to come out again.” He snorted. “It didn’t matter how many times she tried to avoid me or told me fuck off, I still tried. I was pretty naive, I guess.”
No, you weren’t. You were good, even though life had dealt you a crappy beginning. You were a dreamer who wanted to believe that everyone could be saved.You must have been as guileless, honest, and direct as you are now. You just didn’t hide it as well then.
“Having hope doesn’t make you naive, Simon.”