Miguel shook his head at me, his face blank. “I’m not following, Chief.”
“I could adopt you,” I blurted, and squeezed my eyes shut. “I could adopt you both.”
The quiet in the car was long and deep and finally I looked over at him. He stared at me, mouth hanging open, eyes wide.
“You kidding?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“You saying this ’cause you feel bad for me? You think I can’t take care of Louisa?”
He was so defensive, ready to fight the world for his sister, and I just couldn’t admire the kid more. “I think you can take care of you sister just fine. I just want someone…” I paused. “I want to take care of you, Miguel.”
Miguel turned to stare out the window and I didn’t know what he was thinking. If this was good. Or bad. If he was insulted.
“Think about it, okay?” I finally said, wondering if I’d just made a huge mistake. “Just think about it.”
He nodded but didn’t say anything, and after a moment I started the car again and continued to drive out to the build site.
Surveyors were putting up flags, marking the areas where the individual houses would be built, and men were climbing into little Bobcats and diggers, getting ready to level the land for the concrete pour.
And in the middle of it all was Tyler. An unforeseen conductor. A surprise leader.
The second I drove up, Tyler—wearing a hard hat and those perfect jeans that made my body sweat—turned away from the men he’d been talking to and approached the car.
My heart thundered in my chest.
“Hey, Tyler!” Miguel said, hurtling out of the car before I even had it in Park. “Sorry I wasn’t here on Monday—”
“It’s okay,” Tyler said, clapping Miguel on the shoulder. I could see the emotion in Tyler’s eyes, the relief and the love he felt for that boy. I had to look away, his visible emotions tearing at my walls, my carefully crafted distance.
“I’m glad you’re here today,” Tyler said to Miguel. “You ready to work?”
Miguel nodded.
“Attaboy. Go see Derek over there and he’ll get you set up.”
Miguel was off like a shot. Tyler watched him go and then slowly, turned to face me.
21
I clenched and unclenched my hands, smoothed down the front of my shirt.
As his long slow stride brought him over to the car, I found myself breathless. Waiting.
He ducked, smiling when he saw Louisa in the backseat.
“It worked. They’re with you now,” he said, clearly relieved, and I knew I should have called him earlier. To thank him. To tell him that everyone was safe. But I’d been a coward for two weeks, scared of what other things I might have said.
I got out of the car. “I should have called—”
He waved me off. “You don’t owe me anything,” he said. “I’m just glad it worked out. Everyone’s doing all right?”
I nodded, words completely beyond me.
“Good,” he said. “That’s…good.”
We both looked out at the work and I was stunned to see my father out there holding one of the surveyor flags.
“Is that my dad?” I asked.
“I couldn’t believe it, either,” Tyler said, “but a few days ago he came out here saying he wanted to work.”
“With you?”
“He doesn’t talk to me, but every once in a while he’ll nod. Yesterday he told me to have a good night.” Tyler shrugged. “He didn’t tell you?”
I reeled. My father? And Tyler? I felt the need to check the sky for flying swine.
“No,” I said. “He didn’t.”
“Do you…forgive him? For what he did?”
Tyler sighed. “I mean, it was a shit thing, no doubt about it. But he wanted to protect you. He was scared for you.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“No. But I understand it. And I think he wants to figure out how to make it right. I feel bad for him, honestly. He seems lonely.”
It was that easy for Tyler. He was that kind of man, who understood doing the wrong things for the right reasons all too well.
If he can do it, a small voice whispered in the back of my head. So can you.
“You’re still staying?” I asked.
“Lots of work to do.”
I glanced up at Tyler only to find him watching me. His smile was the saddest thing I’d ever seen. Hopeless. Lost. And I wanted to have a hard heart, I wanted to be unaffected, but it was impossible. Part of Tyler O’Neill lived under my skin and I would never be impervious.
The truth was, I understood why he lied. How in his head it was all right. He was protecting the people he loved in the only way he knew how. With secrets and deceit and self-sacrifice.
It was wrong, but everything he did, he did because he loved me.
A light went on in my head. My heart.
Tyler O’Neill just needed to be shown a different way to love.
He wasn’t that different from Miguel—scared of the unknown and making decisions out of fear. Betrayed by people who should love him.
The battle in me turned and sharpened and now I was fighting for him. For him to see me, really see me, and understand that I stood in front of him a whole person.
“I don’t need protecting,” I said, and his eyes, electric in their intensity, swung my way.
“You’re the toughest, strongest woman I know, Juliette. I was stupid to think you needed me to protect you.”
“And I don’t need you making decisions for me.”
He nodded. “I won’t make that mistake again.”
“You told me you wanted to show me the best of yourself,” I said.
“I did,” he said. “I do.”
“I want to do the same,” I said, feeling as though I was in midair, suspended between trust and doubt. Between my wants and my fears.
I thought of my father, alone in that big house that used to know love. Doubt and mistrust had been Jasper’s roommates, his only friends.
That could be me one day. I knew it. A few years from now, and I could still hold this grudge against Tyler. I could still see only the hurt he’d caused me and never pay any attention to why.
But Jasper had found his way out of that house.
And Tyler was the key.
If there was one thing Miguel had shown me, it was that context was everything. Circumstances mattered. And Tyler’s context was complicated.
There was a light in Tyler, dim right now, but growing brighter every moment. It was Tyler as he should be.
Noble and good. Human, but trying to rise above the worst of himself.
I can do that, too, I thought, inspired by his beauty, his courage and his effort. I want to do that.
“I want to show you the best of myself, too, but I don’t know what that is,” I said, the truth actually hard to say. “All I’ve done is doubt you—”
“For good reason, Juliette. Christ, I’ve hurt you and lied—”
“You keep absolving me of guilt,” I said, “like I’ve had no part in what’s happened to us. Like I’ve done nothing wrong, and that’s not true. Priscilla told me that I wanted to believe the best in you but couldn’t get past the worst, and she’s right. The second things went south, I doubted you. And I was interrogating you that day at The Manor. And maybe you lied because I never really showed you how much I trusted you.”
His eyes went wide. “I don’t blame you, Juliette.”
“Tyler.” I couldn’t help but smile, and once I did, tears bit hard into my eyes. Love filled my heart. “I know you don’t. But maybe you should blame me a little more and yourself a little less.”
I reached out for his hand, lacing my fingers through his. Pressing my palm to his, I felt every callus. Every heartbeat.
He clutched at my hand, his strength taking my breath away. “Let’s go slow,” I whispered. “Take our time.”
“Where are we going?” he asked, pulling me i
n closer, winding the fingers of his other hand through mine, until we stood there, smiling at each other, holding hands as if the world might tear us apart any moment.
“Anywhere,” I whispered. “I’ll go anywhere as long as I’m with you.”
Epilogue
One Month Later
It was the end of the night and I could not contain any more joy. I was full—my hands, my heart, my whole damn body—full of as much happiness as I could hold.
Margot, Savannah and Matt were home and the party had been grand—even Carter had come home for it.
But still, I looked in the shadows under the grand cypress in the back courtyard for Tyler.
Because no amount of happiness was enough if Tyler wasn’t there.
I found him, sprawled in a chair, his shirt half-unbuttoned.
“Hey, baby,” he said, his voice liquid like his hand on my back, fingers down my spine, and I smiled. “Where are the kids?”
“Margot let them have the sleeping porch. They’re out cold.”
He held out his hand to pull me into his lap and I went willingly, though I rearranged myself to straddle his thighs.
“Well, well,” he said, his half smile the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. He wrapped his arms around my hips and pulled me closer.
I lay into him, my face in his neck breathing in the warm spice that was Tyler.
“Miguel told me he wants to go on with the emancipation paperwork,” I said. The trial had been last week and Ramon was going to jail. Emancipation was the first step toward adoption.
“What?” he asked, pushing me away slightly so he could look into my eyes. “Really?”
I nodded.
“That is good news,” he whispered, his voice gruff.
In that moment I made my decision. Or rather, I pushed my mind out of the equation and let my heart lead the way.
A month ago, I would never have expected to do this. But over the past three weeks, I’d come to realize just what kind of man Tyler was.
The best kind of man.
“I love you,” I said. “Have I told you that?”
“Not enough,” he said, pressing a kiss to my shoulder. “Have I told you you have a great butt?”
I laughed, I kept laughing until I couldn’t stop the tears.
“Hey,” he said, lifting me up so he could see my face, wipe away my tears. “Come on now, what’s this?”
“I’m happy, Tyler,” I said. “I’m so happy.”
“That’s great, Jules. Me, too.”
“I’ve changed my mind,” I said.
“About what?” he asked.
I licked my lips, thinking I needed to gather my courage, my belief and trust. But it was simply right there. Everything I felt for Tyler was so much a part of the happiness I felt, and I knew that this moment, all the moments ahead with Miguel and Louisa, were only possible because of him.
“I don’t want to go slow,” I said. “Not anymore.”
“We can go faster,” he said, his hands sliding up over my hips.
“Tyler.” I put my hands on his, stopping him.
His eyes met mine and it took a moment, but he clued in and his slow smile revealed the future.
And it was perfect.
“I don’t want to adopt those children without you,” I said. “I can’t imagine being a family if you’re not in it.”
His head snapped back as if I’d slapped him and then tears welled up in his eyes.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, his face twisted between doubt and joy and I clapped my hands to his face.
“I couldn’t be more sure of anything in my life,” I said emphatically.
“Marry me,” he said.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
* * *
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Now… how about a glimpse of what happens to Carter O’Neill when a pregnant woman with a secret brings him to his knees. Keep reading for a taste of THE SAINT.
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
Carter
* * *
There were two kinds of people in the world. Logical people who saw reason and agreed with me about the Jimmie Simpson Community Center. Then there were the others. The others, who wanted my blood. Who wanted to string me up by my neck and shove bamboo under my fingernails, just to hear me scream.
Right now, I was surrounded by the others.
Looking out at the mob of seniors and single moms, all I saw was bloodlust in their eyes. Even the toddlers were sharpening their incisors on their teething rings.
But no one looked more furious than Tootie Vogler, who showed up at every single informational meeting, with her Sunday hat and her white gloves and so much anger in her eighty-year-old body she nearly levitated.
“Mrs. Vogler,” I said with as much calm as I could muster, which didn’t work because she bristled. “Mrs. Vogler, hear me out. As I’ve explained, the activities and services that are currently offered here will be held in the new building.”
“But,” she said, standing in the front row of the small gathering being held in the decaying belly of the Jimmie Simpson Community Center, “what happens while you’re building that new building?”
“Yeah,” one of the mothers said, jiggling a baby in her arms while her toddler ran amuck in the corner, grabbing the cookies we’d laid out. Seriously, she needed to be watching that kid instead of asking the same damn questions I’d heard—and answered—a thousand times already. “How long is it going to take?”
“Once we tear down the existing building it will take a year—”
“A year!” Another one of the mothers cried as if I’d just said I wanted to eat her kid for lunch.
“Well,” Mrs. Vogler said, “that’s what you say now, but what about what happened over at the Glenview Community Center?”
There were rumbles of agreement, and frankly, the others weren’t wrong. The Glenview sat, half-built, a total waste of time and money. There was simply no way the city could finish that project with the limited tax money they had while the existing community centers were in such terrible shape. Never mind the fact that Jimmie Simpson was in low-income Beauregard Town where the programs offered by the center were at capacity and Glenview was over in up-and-coming Spanish Town, where there wasn’t nearly the demand for day care and after-school programs.
I’d tried to explain this, but the message was never received and frankly, I was feeling like a broken record. A broken record speaking German.
The Glenview Community Center was this administration’s albatross. And, since I wanted to be voted in when the current mayor’s term was up next year, it was my giant hole-in-the-ground cross to bear. “As I’ve explained numerous times,” I said, “that project was spearheaded by a previous administration. And while it’s not currently a priority, we are looking into ways to complete the job.”
What I couldn’t say, though everyone knew it to some degree, was that the previous administration had been so dirty, so backhanded and money hungry, that I still spent half my days trying to make right the terrible wrongs that the former mayor and his staff had perpetrated on this city. But I couldn’t say that. Nope, diplomacy was my task.
“Well, why doesn’t your administration go fix that mess and leave this community center be?” Mrs. Vogler said, rallying the troops behind her.
“Mrs. Vogler—may I call you Tootie?”
“No.”
“Fine. Mrs. Vogler, we can’t leave this community center alone because this community center is falling down,” I cried, pointing to the chipped paint and flickering lightbulbs.
“So,” Tootie said. “Fix what’s wrong. We’re not arguing that nothing needs to be done around here, but why are you tearing the whole thing down?”
“Everything needs to be redone h
ere. Plumbing, electrical, a new roof, a new pool. Part of the foundation was damaged during the storms six years ago and I’m telling you the truth—it will cost more to fix Jimmie Simpson, in the long run, than it will cost to rebuild it. I know your lives will be disrupted—”
“I count on the day care here, Mr. O’Neill,” one of the mothers said, steely-eyed and angry. I’d blown it again. This wasn’t even part of my official job as mayor pro tempore, or president of City Council. I’d taken it on at the mayor’s behest, since the totally deserted and decimated Office of Neighborhoods and the overworked Parks and Rec department couldn’t do it. But now I was regretting it; I’d had more trouble with the public than any one man could handle.
“Look,” I said, inwardly sighing and trying to start fresh. Again. “I’ve started this off on the wrong foot.”
“I’d say,” Mrs. Vogler muttered, and I grit my teeth.
“The parks and recreation department,” who should be handling this mess, “are working to move your programs to other centers in the city.”
“I don’t have a car, Mr. O’Neill,” a woman said. “It just won’t work!”
“For you,” I said and then winced as everyone sucked in a scandalized breath. Backtrack, Carter. Backtrack. “This is going to be better for this neighborhood in the long run—”
“And what would you know about Beauregard?” another woman asked, who I couldn’t see. She was short and in the back, but I caught a glimpse of black hair and pointy features. She looked like an elf.
Great. I even had elves after me.
Honestly, I wanted to go back to my office and get to work on the budget. Or poke myself in the eye with a pencil. Anything would be better than this.
“Are there any more questions?” I asked, admitting defeat. “About things that haven’t already been covered?”
“Yeah.” A young man, partially hidden behind Mrs. Vogler, stood and revealed himself. Blood instantly boiled behind my eyes.
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