Page 35 of Loving You Always

Walsh touched the puffiness under one eye and brushed his fingers across the cut above the other.

“Worse.” Walsh shoved all thought of Cam from his mind. He had waited too long. This was happening. Tonight. Now. “I need to see Kerris.”

“No.” Her lips barely parted over the word, like it was nothing to her either way, but Walsh wasn’t fooled.

“Is she asleep? My flight leaves in a couple of hours, but I can wait. I could even reschedule my flight. Cancel it. I can stay another day. Another week. I just need to see her.”

“Even when she wakes up, she don’t want to see you, son.” Mama Jess’s firm tone gentled just a little over the last part, but that brought Walsh little comfort.

“No, she will.” Walsh tried the usual confident smile, but it slipped and fell right off his face when he saw just how unmoved Mama Jess remained. “She’ll want to see me.”

“Then why did she tell me that if you came by, to tell you she don’t wanna see you?”

Walsh gave a vigorous shake of his head, denials fighting their way out of his mouth and tumbling past his lips.

“No, you must have misunderstood. She would never say that. Now that—”

“Now that she’s getting a divorce?” Mama Jess pushed away from the door, planting a fist on one full hip. “And now she’ll be free? Is that what you were gonna say?”

“Not exactly, but…can I just come in? Just for a few minutes.”

“I said no. Now go.”

“Go? You’re telling me to go?”

“No,she’stelling you to go. Look, give her some time.” Mama Jess heaved her full bosom with a sigh that seemed to say she was barely tolerating him. “Don’t be a spoiled little boy about it. Don’t you have money to make, orphans to save, and things to do?”

“Spoiled?” Walsh knew he was in trouble when he started sputtering. “Wha…I…You…Me? Spoiled?”

“Look, all I know is you out here, banging on the door, pounding on the window, whining ’cause you can’t get your way, and ’bout to pitch a fit ’cause I won’t let you disturb a woman who barely survived a car wreck, lost her baby and was just walked out on by her husband.” Mama Jess leaned forward and up until he couldn’t escape the strength of her brown eyes. “Excuseher for needing a minute.”

“I just need—”

“How about what she needs?”

God, he hoped Kerris needed him. As badly as he needed her. Desperation and desolation muddled Walsh’s thoughts. He, who had persuaded sheikhs out of oil holdings in their families for generations, couldn’t convince one middle-aged woman to let him into a cottage that had been in his own family for more than a hundred years? Nothing had worked, so all he had left was the truth.

“I can’t lose her again.” He said it so softly that the rain now coming down steadily almost drowned it out. “I waited once before. Tried to leave it up to her to fix things, and it got so messed up she married my best friend.”

Walsh flinted the stare he leveled back at Mama Jess.

“I willnotlet that happen again. I don’t care if you make me wait out here for a week.”

Mama Jess’s mouth softened, but she still didn’t make a move to open the door.

“Let’s make a deal.” She gestured toward the porch swing. “Sit down.”

Walsh remained rooted right where he stood. The swing was at least eight feet farther from the door than his current position.

“What kind of deal?”

Mama Jess smacked her lips together, impatience marking her smooth brown face.

“Boy, just sit down.”

He settled on the wooden seat beside Mama Jess, pushing his back into the corner and keeping his eye on her. She reminded him of his mother. They were as physically dissimilar as two women could be, but Walsh knew wily when he saw it. He’d lived with it, been raised by it. Had loved it. Mama Jess’s eyes held the same shrewdness his mother’s had. He swallowed the hot lump in his throat and braced himself for terms he probably wouldn’t like.

“I’ll let you know when she’s ready.”

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