Page 26 of Iron Cross

Maybe I wasn’t as indifferent to romance as I had thought.

But even as the pull of this man tugged at my skin, something else held me back.

I stared down at the image. The one of a kiss that was made to last through the centuries. Jesus, I had even painted scars on the man’s palm…

“I’m sorry, I can’t let this go.”

“That’s a pity,” he said with a gentle shrug. “Does the guy in the painting mean something to you?”

Ice went up my spine. I turned around, wide-eyed, as I clutched the painting against me, trying to hide it from his gaze. But he wasn’t looking at it now. He was looking at me, that fucking smile never leaving his lips.

“I mean, the woman in the painting is you, right? It looks like you.” He gestured to the canvas, and I pulled it away from me to look down at the figures I had drawn.

I don’t know why I did it. I already knew the answer. Ihadpainted myself into it. My dark skin, and long, curling hair.

“The guy someone you know?” His voice seemed very far away now, as I stared at the faces locked in an eternal kiss.

The familiar blond hair and scarred hand, the beautiful chiseled jaw… yes I had known him. I had known him briefly, butintensely. Like getting hit by a lightning bolt, charring my flesh until I would never be the same.

And this stranger had seen it.

I had to get the fuck away from this Aaron Jackson. I ran back to behind my kiosk, started slamming things closed, and grabbed easels from behind my barrier, putting it away to be locked up.

“I think I will close up now,” I said in a rush. “I want to grab mysonbefore it starts to snow.”

Yes, Aaron Jackson. I’m a single mum. Let that baggage sink in.

I wantedhimto pull away fromme.I wouldn't repeat the mistakes of the past. I wouldn’t put myself into the orbit of a magnetic man. I wouldn’t… Icouldn’t…

“My son is my whole world,” I said, proudly. “I hate being away from him, ever. Heck, I barely let him go to school, I love him so much. I’m a proud boy mom, you know?”

That would make any sane prospective paramour run for the hills.

But instead, Aaron Jackson, in the warm smelling flannel, just smiled bigger.

“Gosh, that’s great to hear. I love kids.” He pointed down to another painting that was, indeed, of my son. “Is that him?”

His golden hair and pale skin, his regal looking face and deep, black eyes. My stunningly handsome boy was a chip off the old block.

I smiled, looking down at his image. I couldn’t help it. What mother could?

There was nothing in the world more perfect than the face of one’s own child. I would never create anything as good, or as perfect as him.

Even in a tantrum, when I was exhausted and crying from fear, stress, and loneliness, it didn’t matter. When my son crawled onto my lap, and wrapped his arms around my neck, I realized what life was really about.

I’m not an idiot that thinks one has to have children to have a purpose in life.

No, it ran so much deeper. It wasfamily.A thing I had been missing since I lost my father. A thing that had made me embrace Eoghan in the first place. A sense of belongingtosomeone.

It was that warm, overwhelming feeling of needing to be better because you had someone to care for.

Cillian was the reason I got up in the morning. He was the reason I endured the lonely nights.

“Yeah,” I finally said, “that’s him.”

The pride I felt each time I looked at my boy, and remembered that I hadmadehim far surpassed the pride I could feel over any painting, any art work. Even if I became a master painter as talented as his father… no work would ever be better than the living thing we had made.

I had done the right thing, running from the mob, but I still hurt. I hurt for the husband who would never know his son, who would have been a great father, were he not made to inherit the underworld, and become its tyrant.

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