Page 48 of The Secrets We Left Behind
His words washed over her, only making her cry more, because he was right. He was so right. She’d spent every waking moment in France tending to others; there hadn’t been time for her to be upset or worry about herself, until now.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what’s come over me,” she apologized, brushing her eyes with the back of her fingers and taking a big, shuddering breath.
“Come here,” he repeated, leaning back down a little, one elbow propping him up as he beckoned her to lie beside him.
She’d been doing it only moments earlier, but that had been different. Jack had been asleep then, she’d pressed against him for warmth and comfort without it meaning anything, but lying with him now ... She looked down, not sure what to say.
“I don’t expect anything from you, Cate. I just thought we could lie here for a bit until we fall asleep. You look like you could do with the rest.”
Her body was exhausted, her shoulders slumping forward, eyes even heavier from the crying. A little voice in her head told her not to, that she shouldn’t trust any man like that, but this was Jack.I can trust Jack.
“You do realize we’ve already slept together in a ditch, in the pouring rain,” he teased, his smile warming her. “So it’s not like it’s the first time.”
Cate gave in then. To hell with what her mother had told her about never trusting boys. She’d been to hell and back with Jack already, and the crook of an arm had never looked so inviting.
“Men tell you things so you’ll fall for them, and then before you know it, you’re married with children and you can’t get away even if you want to.”
Cate hugged her mother tight, not wanting to let her go. “They’re not all like that, Ma.”
She’d seen what good men looked like; her brothers would never raise a hand to their sweethearts and they would protect her with their lives if they had to. Charlie had been the same, so like her brothers, right from when they were kids. So no matter what her mother said, she wasn’t going to tar all men with the same brush just because her daddy had been a mean drunk.
Cate leaned back and looked at her mother’s face, at the ugly purple bruise that curled around her right eye. He might be dead, but he’d still managed to leave his mark on one of them.
“You deserved better than him, Ma,” she said. “I’ll never feel sorry that he’s gone.”
Cate could see that day in her mind like it was only yesterday, the policemen coming to the door with news that they thought would bring a mother and daughter to their knees. And she was sure that’s what it looked like to the policemen, seeing them hug and cry as the news sank in. But it was because he’d never come home drunk and beat her mother again; he’d never come home looking like murder, waiting like a snake coiled to take his anger out on one of his children. Never her, because her mother and brothers made sure of it, but it hadn’t stopped her from being terrified of him.
She slowly moved toward Jack, shuffling in against him, refusing to be scared of him just because he was a man. He’d given her no reason to be frightened, and she wasn’t going to let old memories of her bastard father ruin every close experience she had with a man.
“You looked scared of me just before,” Jack whispered, his arm warm around her as she pressed her cheek into him.
“I was,” she whispered back.
“I’ve got plenty more reasons to be scared of you than you have of me,” he said gruffly.
She smiled into him. “Like what?”
Silence swam between them for a beat, but he didn’t answer her. “You know, my daddy used to beat the crap out of me when I was younger. I can still feel the sting of his belt on the back of my legs, and his knuckles colliding with my cheeks, even though I was barely ten when he did it to me.”
She swallowed, forcing a breath in and then out before answering. “How did you know?”
He stroked her hair, just one slow, long stroke before his hand settled on her arm. “Because that frightened look you gave me beforeis one I used to know well, so I’m guessing a man sometime, somewhere, has hurt you. And before you ask, I’m not my father’s son.”
She listened to her own breath as memories tried to tug her back.
“Was it your fiancé?” he asked. She felt his gaze rest on the ring around her neck, and she instinctively touched it and slipped it back under her dress.
“No, he was,is, a good man, a kind man,” she said, not wanting to think about Charlie, not now, not when she was lying in the arms of another man, innocent or not. “I’ve known him since I was a kid, he was friends with my brothers. Honestly, he was almost too scared to hold hands with me for so long, let alone hit me.” Charliewasa good man. He might not have swept her off her feet with romance and excitement, but he was steady, loyal.Safe. The complete opposite of her daddy, and so different to Jack, too. Jack made her heart race, made her want to press herself against him and lose herself in his kisses. Jack scared her because she’d never felt that kind of excitement about a man before.
But Jack didn’t push her; he let her take her time, not moving beside her.
“It was my father, same as you,” she murmured. “Only he preferred hurting my mother, not me.”
“He still around?”
She placed an arm over his chest, careful not to touch his bandages. “No. He was raging drunk one night and killed himself. Shot his own brains out in our car.”
“That must have been quite the mess to clean up before you could drive it again.”
