Page 69 of Fall Into Temptation
“Your mom was on drugs?”
“She’d had bouts of depression for as long as I can remember,” Eva sighed, committing to the telling. “I didn’t know until years later that it may have been post-partum depression. But after I came along, she started trying to find ways to feel something, anything. I was so young I didn’t understand that when we visited her ‘friend’s’ house she was taking me to see her dealer. It was prescription meds mostly. And once they got a hold on her, it was like I didn’t have a mother anymore. Dad was at the restaurant trying to scratch out a living, and my sisters were in school. So, it was just her and me.”
He took the Chinese food from her and stacked the containers on the nightstand before pulling her into his arms.
She rested the side of her face against his chest. “She’d wait until my sisters got on the bus, and then she’d go dig out her pills from whatever hiding place she’d stashed them in. She’d just lay there on the couch. Sometimes I couldn’t tell if she was still alive. She called it naptime. It was such a relief to me when I was old enough to go to school, too.”
It didn’t hurt as much to tell it as she thought it would. But Donovan hadn’t been there, hadn’t missed the signs, hadn’t assumed that Eva was safe at home with her mother. Eva knew her father and sisters wouldn’t forgive themselves for not knowing. They also might not forgive her for choosing to carry the burden alone.
Donovan swore quietly against her hair. “Your sisters don’t know. Do they?” he asked, reading her mind.
Eva shrugged again. “I never said anything to them about it. They were so upset when she left. To them, it seemed out of the blue. But for me? I was relieved.”
“And you felt guilty for feeling relieved,” Donovan guessed.
She nodded letting his hands soothe her. “I feel guilty for everything. It was my fault that she left. At least, that’s what she told me.”
Donovan’s hands stilled on her skin and then began to move again. “When did she tell you that?” he asked. And Eva realized her mistake.
“It was just something she always said. That her life was so different after I came along. Worse,” she said, correcting herself.
He wanted to ask more. She could feel him holding back the questions. She was done talking. Done facing the shadows. She wanted the light again, and Donovan could take her there.
Eva turned in his arms and brought her mouth to the rough texture of his jaw. “Show me again what you feel,” she breathed against his hot skin. And then he was rolling over her, shielding her from the world with his body.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Eva dreamed of being chased through town square by the Beautification Committee and their pink binders. She tried to tell them that she was working on her issues, that once she took care of this last problem she could finally start to live a normal life. But no one could hear her over Bruce Oakleigh’s shouts about true love and non-disclosure agreements.
When Donovan’s phone rang at six, he told the caller he was going to put them under house arrest if this wasn’t a real emergency. When they called back at 6:07, he reluctantly dragged himself out from under the covers. Eva yawned and burrowed further under the pillows.
She woke again minutes later when Donovan prodded her with a set of car keys. “You don’t have to get up, baby. I’m just showing you the keys to my SUV are right here on the nightstand. If I can’t stop the cold brew shitstorm at Overly Caffeinated and get back in bed with you, you can take my truck home whenever you want. Okay?”
“Mmm-kay.”
“Eva, I need to know that you’re at least partially awake and hearing me.”
“Mmm-kay, Sheriff Sexy. I’m probably going to go through all your stuff while you’re gone.”
“That’s fine. My secrets are your secrets.” He slapped her on the butt, dropped a kiss on the back of her neck, and was gone.
The front door opened and then closed, and Eva pretended the words didn’t bother her. He didn’t mean it as a dig—he couldn’t know—but it still got under her skin. Wide awake and now guilty, Eva decided to start her day by discovering where Donovan kept his coffee stash.
She crawled out of bed and dragged on one of the clean t-shirts she found neatly hanging in the walk-in closet off the bathroom. On her way back through the bedroom, the glitter of something on top of his dresser caught her eye. Her snooping instincts insisted she get a closer look.
She’d seen him put his wallet and gun on top of the dresser. An ingrained habit, it seemed. It was a spot he visited every day. A spot where his most important things went. On the back of the dresser was a framed photo of a couple—his parents, she assumed—mugging for the camera. Both had blond hair and the kind of tans that spoke of outdoor living. She wore a sheriff’s uniform while he was dressed in a Blue Moon Fire Department t-shirt.
And in front of that frame was a comb.Hercomb. She’d worn it in her hair at Gia’s wedding. She’d loved the rose quartz stones and gold filigree. Aurora had wanted to play with it at the reception, so she’d taken it out. She hadn’t realized until this second that she’d never gotten it back.
Donovan had found it and kept it. Not only that, but he’d put it in a place that he’d see it every day.
Eva sat cross-legged on the floor, holding the comb in her hands. Inexplicably, tears pricked her eyes.
“He means every damn word,” she whispered to herself. Donovan Cardona loved her. The current her. The messy, distracted, hot mess of a woman that she was today.
She was sitting in the bedroom of a man who loved her without reason, without history. Where she’d spent her entire life trying to prove herself worthy of love, he’d simply loved. More than that, he trusted his heart without questioning whether or not it was right.
And just like that, the broken pieces of a little girl’s heart knit together a little tighter.
