He does, however, sound broken, and that rips through my heart like a knife.
“Honey, what’s going on?”
“Found me.”
“Who found you?”
“I was careful. How did he find me?”
“Sweetheart, I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
He turns his head, no longer talking to the empty space above him. His eyes haunted.
“I needed to stay dead.”
I gasp and feel the tears welling up. “Baby … you don’t mean that.”
He sits up, shifts his body so his elbows are resting on his knees, and drops his head down in his hands.
“Every one of them,” he whispers. “I died for them.”
“You aren’t dead, honey,” I exhale, feeling a desperation I hadn’t before crawling up my throat.
“Been a dead man for more than half my life.”
“You aren’t making any sense. I don’t understand what you’re saying, honey.”
“Fuck!”
I jump when his bellow rips through the quiet room—bringing his attention back to me. It’s too dark to read what’s on his face, though. Instead, I wait for him to talk again with my heart pounding in my chest.
“Didn’t think it was possible to find you, though.” He lifts his head, and I feel his gaze burn across my skin.
“Honey…”
“Gotta let me get this out, Liv.”
His words stop me. I don’t even take a breath, reaching out and pulling one of his hands into mine, kneeling in front of him.
And I wait. I wait, silently, so he knows that this is his time, and I’m listening.
“Don’t know where to start.”
“Drew,” I exhale.
“I know, sure as shit, I never want to hear that name out of your mouth again, though.”
I feel myself blush, embarrassed I had forgotten. “Coop, shoot, I’m sorry. It’s new for me and slipped my mind.”
He pulls his frame up and takes his hand from mine, reaching out to turn on the lamp behind my shoulder. When the warm light hits the darkness around us, it takes me a second to adjust. I blink a few times before I’m able to focus on him.
When I do, I gasp.
Gone are the eyes that I’ve grown to love over the past few months. I had questioned him before, but never had any confirmation from him about it. Well, I do now. His eyes are blue now. Completely different from the dark green I had seen every day for so long. Seeing such a vibrant color is a shock, but it’s the changes to his whole face that have me so stunned. They’re like a stormy sea in the clearest of waters. He doesn’t look away as I study him. He doesn’t even seem to be breathing, just waiting for me to get a good look.
“I was born Zachariah Cooper. There hasn’t been a single day since the one when I became Andrew Shaw that I haven’t wished I could be Zeke Cooper again. When I died, I knew that void would remain a giant hole inside me. They were my past, and a dead man can’t go backways, no matter how much I wanted to or missed the family that I left. I knew when I told you about my family, you believed them to be dead, but it was me who died to them.
“I had someone from that past visit me the other day,” he continues, rumbling softly, the words sounding painful. “He shouldn’t have been able to find me, but there he was, and it was like twenty-plus years hadn’t even passed. He stood right over there and, just like you, had more questions than I knew how to answer. One thing he did manage to do is remind me how much I’ve lost just by standing in my apartment. I have no business wanting them all back in my life, but that’s all I can think about.”
Not wanting him to stop, I keep my lips pressed together and bite the inside my cheek so I don’t get the urge to interrupt. My heart feels like it might rip through my chest with its frantic pounding.
“They all think I’m dead, Liv. I made sure of that. I turned my back on my family and let them mourn for a man who wasn’t really dead. Just living like he was from that day on. They moved on eventually, thank God. I heard from the person I had in town that they were all breathing easy, alive and well. I know I did what was right back then, but now? Now, I’m not even a little sure I did.” He holds my gaze, so much working behind those beautiful blue eyes. “When I was shot, I made it my life’s mission to wipe the earth clean of the scum that had threatened my family. I knew I had one choice and that was to let them think I was dead so I could ensure the threat that got me would never touch them. I just had to make sure I stayed a dead man, stayed in the shadows and hunted. All of the people responsible for that bullet I took—the bullet I took to stop it from hurting my family—they’re where they belong. Didn’t matter, though. They took that life from me, and I have been living like the dead man they all thought I was. It didn’t matter what I did, I had to live with the choice I made to keep them safe. Dead men don’t come back.”
He stops talking and then he blows a long exhale. Somehow, I know in my gut that exhale tells me I should brace silently before he continues.
He tells me about the men he was enlisted with, the years they spent together before moving to Georgia. His whole demeanor changes as he tells me about his family. He continues as I learn about the people who he says he left behind when he took a bullet meant for someone else. The whole time he speaks, his voice is low, and sadness hangs on each syllable. I never in my wildest dreams would have guessed that the family he said was gone was gone because he made them believe he was dead.
“There’s more …” He pauses, and I start to think he won’t keep talking until he opens his mouth and shocks me stupid. “I … I have a son.”
My mind swirls as his confessions continue. I hurt for the pain he’s lived through. The tears burning behind my eyes begging to flow. Sadness for what this man has sacrificed and lived without.
“I have a son I didn’t know existed until a day ago. I have a son. A man now. I have a son who I don’t even know a thing about. A son my brother has raised. Only thing that doesn’t hurt is knowing how loved my boy has to be having my brother as his father. As much as that news has thrown me, knowing he has my brother is more comfort than you can imagine.”
“Honey,” I hiccup, blinking the tears from my eyes. “I don’t know where to start.”
“I don’t know where to start either.”
“You faked your death?”
He nods, not looking away and letting me see that he’s completely open to giving me all of him. There’s nothing holding him back, no walls built up or shadows hiding behind his eyes. His bright-blue eyes I still can’t get over.
My beautiful man needs me. No matter how shocked I am, he needs me.
“I know you think that you have to stay gone because of all this, but you have to know if there was even a small chance to have someone you love back, it’s taken. There isn’t an amount of time that could pass that I wouldn’t welcome my sister back. It sounds like they loved you, honey. Don’t you think they would want to know you’re alive?”
“Back then, Liv, the cases I was on put some unwanted attention on me and, in retrospect, them. The only way to keep them safe was to become a ghost.”