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He pulled back and dried his eyes, not giving any indication of shame that he’d cried in front of me, making my heart melt even more. “The divorce was the nail in the coffin with my relationship with my parents,” he said, as if he could hear my silent thoughts.
“What? What do you mean?” I was shocked. How could that be true when the woman had cheated on him with his friend, then gotten pregnant?
“They’re old school. Divorce is just not something you do, under any circumstance.” He reached around me for his water glass as if he was going to sip it, but instead just turned it on the table and stared at the condensation for a moment as if lost in painful memories. “I think they were more concerned what their friends at church would think.”
“Justin...” I was speechless. My parents had been so wonderful to me when I came home pregnant and unmarried and unwilling to divulge details. I simply could not fathom that kind of treatment.
He waved me off. “Don’t. There’s nothing to say. Honestly, I kind of expected it. My dad is a retired Marine and has been hard on me my entire life. Nothing I do is good enough, not even when I became a SEAL. For whatever reason, I just never measure up in his eyes. Maybe because I was always a stubborn kid and I refused to bow down.” He blinked, drawing in a breath. “Jessica was the favorite. Sweet and well-behaved. She excelled in everything she did and made friends everywhere she went. She was literally the perfect child. I’m sure—no, I know—my parents wished I would’ve been the one to die instead of her.”
“Justin, no! That can’t be true!”
He nodded. “It’s very true. But I finally did something right when I married Tricia. She was like the great reset. A new daughter for them to love. Sweet and pretty and said all the right things. Screwing things up with her was a cardinal sin and I’ll never be able to repent enough for it in their eyes.”
Holy. Shit.
This man was like a beautiful onion that I was just beginning to see all the layers to, and this particularly painful one made me want to wrap him up in my love and never let him go—something I knew should terrify me. Instead, I went with my instincts and decided to let the chips fall where they may.
I moved to his lap and straddled his hips, cupping his jaw so he was forced to look in my eyes. “You did nothing wrong, Justin.” When he shook his head and started to talk around me, I shushed him with a kiss. “You are a good man. You tried your best to save your marriage. You did nothing wrong, and you deserve a family.”
Yes, I know it takes two people to make a marriage and two to break it, but it was clear that he did his part and he deserved to be exonerated from this self-imposed hell he was in. So, I kept repeating myself until he relaxed in my hold and began kissing me back, as if he was finally beginning to believe the words.
His phone rang from the counter, but he ignored it, forking his fingers through my hair to hold me close as he changed the angle of the kiss.
I’d never felt so possessed or so wanted in my life, and it was all because of one wounded man and my desire to share his pain instead of focus on my own. Panting, I drew back and caressed his face. “I hate that they hurt you.”
His eyes dipped to my lips, then back up. “It’s done. My future is now.”
My heart began to do crazy flips at the hidden meaning in those words. Did he mean with me? Is that what I wanted?
Yes. No. Maybe so.
Yes.
I dropped my gaze and played with the collar of his shirt.
Luckily, he let me off the hook as he ran his hands over my hip. “Should we finish our food? I’m sure it’s cold. I can heat it up.”
I wasn’t hungry anymore, but I agreed. I sipped my drink while he reheated our pasta. While it was warming, he checked his phone, listening to his voicemail. His frown told me it was something serious.
“What?” I asked.
“That was Kade.” He put the phone down, then brought back our plates. “He managed to run down the person whose been writing your brother those crazy letters.”
My stomach knotted. “Really?”
“Yeah. It’s a female inmate at a prison in Kentucky. It wasn’t caught initially because she mailed them to a friend outside who readdressed them for her, then mailed them on to Camden. Kade looked into both women thoroughly, and neither of them are people who could be doing this to you. So that’s one person to eliminate from my suspect list.”
“Oh.” A sigh rushed from me, though I knew those things she wrote were still all kinds of messed up. “Wow.”
“The letters will be turned over to the proper authorities to be handled. Now we can move on. I’m still working on tracking down some other leads. Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out and take care of it.”
“I know.” I swallowed, mentally smacking myself for how quickly I’d gotten lulled into forgetting why he was there.
We finished our meal quietly, letting some of the emotion dissipate.
He glanced over at me as we finished up the dishes. “Do you need some space? I can go get some work done in my room if you need some time to yourself.”
I frowned down at the towel in my hand, touched and a little afraid that he could read me so easily. I forced a smile as I looked up. “If you have work to do, especially after that message from your boss, it’s totally fine. I don’t need a babysitter.”