Page 58 of Be Mine Forever

“I’ll have to look for those the next time I nose around in your closet.”

“I don’t actually keep them there anymore.” Jo paused to make room for her next words. “They’re in Aunt Kris’s closet.”

She felt his eyes on her face.

“When my days suck balls, like a lot of them have lately working on this adoption initiative, I go into Aunt Kris’s closet and put on those shoes, and I talk to her.”

Jo laughed, leaning deeper into Cam’s warmth and strength.

“I know she won’t answer, and I’m not sure she can hear me, but I feel closer to her. Closer to her wisdom and guidance. And I need that so bad. It’s kind of the only place I allow myself to be hurt and angry and scared. I don’t know if it’s a magical closet or what, but it always works. When I come out of there, things are better.”

Cam pulled her into his lap, tracing a soothing line over her bent knee with a finger and pushing the hair back over her shoulder.

“Maybe the next time you feel that way, you can come to me.” He used his index finger to turn her chin until their eyes met. “Maybe I can be your closet.”

“I’d like that.” Jo covered his hand on her knee, entwining their fingers. “And maybe I can be yours.”

When he didn’t respond with anything other than the tension stiffening his body, Jo cupped the strength of his jaw, feeling the muscles go rigid beneath her palm.

“Cam, look at me.”

He did look at her, but the door she had so carefully pushed open over the last few minutes slammed in her face. Padlocked. The guard was back up, every feature protecting his mysteries and secreting away his thoughts.

“I know that nothing I shared with you could even match whatever it is you don’t want to tell me.” Jo bit her lip, refusing to indulge the uncertainty urging her to let this go. “I haven’t had a rough life. I’ve had it made in so many ways most people only dream of.”

“Jo, I—”

“And I know. I’m privileged and spoiled, and you probably think I can’t relate to whatever you have gone through.”

“It’s not that—”

“And no matter what it is, you have to know the way I feel is never going to change. Not when I saw you in that ice-cream shop. Not when you chose those other girls over me.” Jo looked down at their hands joined in her lap. “Not on your wedding day.”

“Baby.” His breath misted her ear and she felt his lips in her hair. “God, I really don’t deserve you, Jo.”

“You have me.” She turned her head, locking their eyes together, making this moment a conduit for all the acceptance and forgiveness, and though he wasn’t ready to hear it, all the love she had for him. “You’ve always had all of me. Please, please, please don’t ask me to settle for less than all of you.”

He dropped his eyes, the flickering fireflies in the nearby jar showing the struggle on his face in flashes of light. Jo leaned in, pushing her fingers into the silky hair at the base of his neck and fluttering kisses across the sharply defined cheekbones.

“You have me,” she whispered across his lips.

He angled his head until their foreheads met, cupping the back of her neck. He gave a small shake of his head.

“You have me,” she repeated insistently. “Nothing will change that. Not what you tell me or what you choose to hold back, but please don’t hold back because I want to know everything.”

“Jo, everything in me wants to keep this from you. Hasalwayswanted to keep this from you.”

“Why? You can trust me.”

“Of course I trust you. Trust isn’t the issue.”

“Then just say it.” Jo rubbed her hand up and down his arm, pulling him inches closer. “Once it leaves your mouth, it’s in the light. It’s not just yours. It’s ours. I want to help.”

“You can’t help, Jo. Don’t try to fix this. This can’t be fixed.” Cam pulled back and looked at her. “I don’t want your pity. I don’t want to be some project or some freak. Or worse, some victim.”

“Victim?” Jo squinted into the dim light, straining not just against the dark, but also against the shade he’d just pulled over his eyes. “Why would I think of you as a victim?”

Cam pulled in a breath that seemed to start at his feet and crawled up his long frame before making its way heavily past his lips. She silently begged him not to hide from her. She wasn’t sure if he’d been shielding her or himself, but whatever had been between them, she wanted it gone. And in an instant, like her heart had tugged on his, like her soul had whispered to his and it heard and obeyed, the shade lifted. And what she saw in his eyes sent icy tendrils across her skin. Was it bitterness or hatred, terror or regret? Or some conspiracy of horrors? Whatever emotions converged in his eyes, it looked like hell. Hell in his eyes. And then she had to know. She had to press. She had to help. Oh, God, she had to help.

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