“I found out the two of you were on food stamps when you were a kid. I found out that there are no records regarding your childhood, meaning social services was never called.”
She looks down.
I tip her chin up. “You can tell me, Kelly. Please. Tell me.”
“You’ll think less of me.”
“Why would I? No child is responsible for anything that happens to her. It’s all on your mother, Kelly. Every bit of it.”
“That’s not true. Sometimes kids can be bad.”
“Absolutely. When I misbehaved, I was punished. But there’s a difference between punishment…and abuse.”
She swallows. “I’m not sure I know that difference.”
“I know, and I’m so sorry about that. I don’t know what your mother put you through, but I promise you were never that bad.”
“But I was. I must have been.” She melts into me, burrows her head into my chest.
She doesn’t cry, or at least not any sobs that I can hear. Perhaps she’s crying silently, and when she sniffles, I know.
I push her away slightly, so I can look into her glistening eyes.
“Whatever happened, I promise you that none of it was your fault.”
“I thought I was done crying over her.”
“You are. She doesn’t deserve your tears. But you know who does deserve them? The little girl that you were. The little girl that, in some ways, you still are.”
“I want to tell you,” she says. “I want to tell you everything.”
“I’ll be happy to listen.”
“But I can’t, Leif. It’s just too painful to talk about it. I’ve talked about it so much to Macy and my therapists on the island. I feel like I’m all talked out. And I know exactly what you’ll say. You’ll be horrified, disgusted, and you’ll wonder how such a person could even exist. All things I used to wonder myself, until I went to the island and I realized my mother wasn’t the only evil in the world.”
“Oh, baby.” I kiss the top of her head. “Evil is everywhere. You’ve seen it, and so have I.”
“If you’ve seen what I have, you have my sympathy.”
“I haven’t seen exactly what you’ve seen,” I say, “but I’ve seen enough. And I know what happened to you was far worse than anything that happened to me. Kelly, if I could wave a magic wand and make it disappear, I would. I’d give up everything if I could make you happy.”
She burrows into my chest once more, and this time her sobs aren’t silent.
I’m not sure why I said those words.
But the truth of them envelops me like the warm sun.
I would do anything to make this woman happy.
It hits me like a bolt of lightning.
I’ve fallen in love.
I’ve fallen in love with a woman who’s not ready to receive love.
It means hands off, Phoenix.
Buck’s words… But I didn’t keep my hands off when I should have, and now… Now I’m a fucking goner.
I’ll go slowly. Is what I’m feeling truly love, or just a strong need to protect her? To protect her from everything she’s been through and keep her safe so nothing like that will ever happen again?
Perhaps that’s all it is.
I can’t be in love with her, not after only a couple of days, during most of which she was yelling at me.
Of course, the sex was amazing. But that’s just chemistry. Chemistry between two very needy people.
She probably didn’t pay any attention to my words anyway. The poor woman has been destroyed, and now she’s putting herself back together.
All the women on the island went through the same thing, but most of them had been ripped from lives that were good. They were succeeding.
Kelly was ripped from a life that never gave her any happiness. Any love.
Poor sweet Kelly.
Kelly only knows how to fight back.
Maybe that’s why I was given this assignment. Not just to protect Kelly, but to show her she’s worthy. That she doesn’t always have to come out fighting like a cornered wolf.
I kiss the top of her head once more. “You want some breakfast?”
She shakes her head, sniffling against my shirt.
“What can I do for you then, baby?”
She looks to me then. Tears streaking her face, her nose red. “Take me to bed. Please.”
36
KELLY
He smiles, and my heart surges.
“Are you sure?”
“Very.”
“I wish I could promise you something more than this morning,” he says.
“I’m not asking for more.”
And I’m not. I don’t know that I’m ready, and he and I don’t know each other very well.
I’ve never let myself know another person.
I want to know Leif. I want to know him as more than a protector, even as more than a lover.
At this moment, though, what I need is to capture that feeling again. The feeling of being cleansed, being whole. The only time I’ve ever felt that was when I was with Leif.
He kisses my cheek, and then he leads me to his bedroom.
His bed of course, hasn’t been slept in. It’s kind of endearing that he makes his bed. Or the Wolfes probably hired a maid for him.
“I don’t want this to be just sex, Kelly,” he says.
“What do you want it to be?”
“I don’t know yet, but I want you to know this isn’t just sex to me. I don’t do that. I don’t have indiscriminate sex.”
“Even when you were overseas? On tour?”
“Especially not then. We were working. We were always watching our backs.”
“You didn’t meet anyone?”
“No one I wanted to have sex with. Buck did. He met a woman named Amira.”
“You mean he was in love before Aspen?”
“He was, but Amira died. She was killed by a suicide bomber.”
I frown. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
“But he’s okay. He and Aspen are so perfect for each other.”
“I don’t think I’ll ever be perfect. Not for anyone.”
“No one is perfect,” Leif says. “Least of all me.”
He seems pretty perfect to me, but the fact that he met with my mother last night doesn’t help his case. I have so many questions, but they fall to the wayside as I look into his beautiful blue eyes.
“You’re so gorgeous, Kelly.” He threads his fingers through my hair and then trails one down my cheek. “But I don’t have sex with just anyone. A lot of the guys did overseas. It was an escape, and we needed an escape.”
“What did you do to escape?”
“Slept mostly, when I could. I’m not saying I was celibate while I was there. But I wasn’t like some of the guys. Sex for the sake of sex has never done much for me.”
My heart lurches. That means the sex he had with me meant something. A spark of joy hits my heart. At least I think that’s what it is. I mean something to him. Something more than just someone to screw.
And that makes me…
I think it makes me happy.
He lowers his mouth to mine and kisses me.