“In prison, I watched—” He stopped and swallowed. “I stood by as men were . . .” His voice strangled and he stopped again. He looked away from her a long moment before looking back at her. When he did her heart stuttered at the deadness of his stare. “You can’t help anyone in prison. Not unless you want a world of shit to rain down on you, too.”
She slid a step closer. “So you’re saying that other men were hurt and you didn’t try to help them?” She stepped forward, reaching for him, eager to touch him and offer comfort.
He flinched and jerked back. “Don’t say it’s all right. The boy I was when I went into that prison might have committed a crime, but he had honor, humanity. He would never have stood by as men were attacked . . . as men begged for help, crying like babies as horrible, unthinkable things were done to them.” He punched his chest with a fist. “I. Did. Nothing.”
She touched his arm. “You can’t blame—”
“Stop it. This was just sex. That’s all it was and all it can ever be. Now if you’re okay with that, fine. If not, you should leave.”
She dropped her arm, everything in her wilting inside. She had believed all along that he wasn’t a man who would hurt her—at least not physically. And that still held true. Her heart, however, was another matter. Right now it was dying.
She gave herself a mental slap. Faith had always prided herself on being one of those women to steer clear of bad boys. She had seen so many women make poor choices when it came to the men in their lives. Boyfriends and husbands who abused them and their children, who failed to provide, who abandoned them. She had never been tempted by men with unsavory pasts, and yet here she was. She had been tempted. She had fallen for this guy who was not long-term-relationship material.
“Like I said,” she finished, her voice strong and steady as she stared him down. “Coward.” Turning, she strode across the room and grabbed the doorknob, yanking it open.
“Faith?”
She stopped halfway out the door and looked back at him.
“That line you drew on the floor of my kitchen?”
“Yes?”
“You did it with a permanent marker.”
Fitting. She marred his tile floor. She laughed. “And you were so worried about you ruining things. Guess I did that.” Shrugging, she exited his house, deliberately slamming his door for no other reason except that it felt good.
To feel even better, she slammed the door on the way back inside her own house. She paced the length of her living room. She couldn’t believe she had been so stupid. She’d fallen for her neighbor and, of course, it meant nothing to him. She meant nothing to him.
Her family had been right. He was bad news, but not in the way he claimed. North insisted he was broken and not good enough for her and yet that hadn’t stopped him from sleeping with her. She should have seen it coming, but she still felt used. How could she even look at him again?
She knew what she needed to do.
TWENTY-FIVE
The pounding wouldn’t stop. She stopped amid packing up her kitchen, pushing herself to her feet. She stepped around the U-Haul boxes she had picked up after visiting with her Realtor yesterday. Mandy didn’t understand, but after her initial questions, she didn’t press Faith for an explanation. The house would go up on the market at the end of the week. In the meantime, Faith had decided to start packing. She could move back in with her father and sell the house while it was vacant. He’d be happy to have her until she found another house. She just couldn’t stay here. Not any longer than she had to. She’d avoided seeing North so far, but she knew it was only a matter of time before they came face to face.
The pounding was enough to drive her crazy. After taking a quick peek out her front blinds to assure herself that it wasn’t North, she yanked open the door and marched out to confront the offender. “Can I help you?”
The man pounding on North’s door stepped back and looked at her. “Yeah. I’m looking for the guy that lives here.”
The guy. It was assumed she wouldn’t know him. And really . . . did she know him? Did she know him at all? She thought she had. Or she thought she was at least starting to. She thought that maybe they had something special. But she was wrong. She was wrong about him. She didn’t know him at all.
She narrowed her gaze on the man, wondering if maybe he was North’s parole officer . . . except he had a look to him that reminded her of North. Even though he was fairly clean cut, he had that edgy bad-boy vibe. And something else, too.
“He’s not home.” She waved to the street. “His bike is gone. You’ll have to come back another time.” She used the tone of voice that she adopted when dealing with difficult people. Wendy called it her pit bull voice.
The guy blinked, looking her over. “You know North Callaghan?” It was more of a statement than a question.
Knew him? That might be an understatement. She knew him in the biblical sense, yes. She wasn’t the first one able to claim that fact. However, something other women couldn’t claim, something maybe no woman could claim, was that she loved him. But North didn’t love her. The thought angered her more than it surprised her. She shouldn’t have been so stupid to fall for someone so wrong for her.
God. She closed her eyes in a suffering blink. She loved him. She was an idiot. It was only physical to him, but she had gone and thrown her heart into the fray. If she hadn’t already made her mind up to move, she sure as hell would now.
She hesitated before nodding at the stranger. “Yes. He’s my neighbor. I know him.” It seemed the smartest thing to leave it at that and say nothing more.
He stared at her a long moment before sighing. He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the dark locks as he looked out at the street. She should move inside. She should be nervous. This guy that she didn’t know, who seemed in no hurry to go away, should make her nervous.
He looked back at her then. “I’m his brother, Knox. He hasn’t been answering any of my phone calls or texts.”
She angled her head, studying him further. Same dark hair. Same angular jaw. Good looks must run in the family. The tension in her chest relaxed a little. She stepped out from her doorway and stuck out her hand. “I’m Faith Walters.”
“Faith,” he murmured. She smiled, trying not to feel uncomfortable. “Maybe you could give him a message for me?”
She shrugged uneasily. “We’re not really friends.” Or friendly. In fact, I’m moving because of him. Because I slept with him and I love him and he is incapable of loving me back.
Knox angled his head and looked at her with growing interest . . . almost as though he could read her thoughts. She forced a smile. “I see. So. You don’t see him?”
She shrugged again.
Knox’s eyebrows lifted. “Huh.” Now there was no denying the interest in that single sound. “You don’t talk ever?”
“Well. We used to. I mean . . . not anymore. No. We don’t.” Her voice faded away. She sighed. In her attempt to not reveal anything about her relationship, or lack thereof, with North, she had probably already revealed too much. Clearly they weren’t just neighbors. They were more complicated than that.
Knox’s expression turned from knowing to sympathetic. He stared at her so long she shifted awkwardly on her feet. “You seem like a nice girl,” he finally said. “Whether he realizes it or not, my brother deserves a nice girl in his life.”
She swallowed against the sudden lump that had formed in her throat. She nodded, unable to pretend she didn’t know what he meant. “Yes. I happen to agree with you.” As conflicted as her feelings were for North, she couldn’t disagree that he deserved love and forgiveness in his life.
Knox stared at her long and hard. “My brother is a good man. Not perfect, but a good man. He might doubt that, but I never have.”
She nodded. “I know.”
Knox smiled slowly. “I like you, Faith Walters.”
She gave a rusty laugh. “You don’t know me.”
“I’d like to. My w
ife and I would like to get to know you. Hopefully, North will bring you around.”
Her smile slipped away. “Yeah, sorry, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
She sobered. There would be no getting to know each other because she was moving and even if she wasn’t North wasn’t about to bring her around his brother and sister-in-law.
All this talk about North being a good man didn’t amount to anything if he didn’t believe it himself. And there was the not-so-minor point that he didn’t love her back. He wasn’t capable of either of those things—loving himself or her.
“I think I’m going to have to cut you off.”
North looked up at Piper standing over him, one hand propped on her hip. He glanced down at the single beer in his hand. “Little zealous, aren’t you? This is my first.”
“Yeah, but you’re swapping eyes with Bambi after just one beer and that is not a good idea. I’m seriously questioning your judgment. You don’t need more alcohol to muddle your head.” She wrinkled her nose. “Trust me, my friend, even you don’t want to go there with Bambi.”
He looked over at the purple-haired dancer. She lifted her chin in his direction, the invitation clear. He’d come here tonight looking to escape—and because staying at his house meant he was only feet from her door. That didn’t seem like a good idea. His resolve, when it came to Faith, had already been tested and failed.
Piper followed his gaze. “She’s a nightmare you don’t want in your life.”
He lifted his beer and took a slow sip as the dancer squeezed her breasts and blew a kiss at him. “Funny. She doesn’t look like a nightmare.” Even as he uttered this, he felt nothing. Not the faintest stirring. Not the slightest temptation. The sight of the half-naked woman did nothing for him, which was a shame. He’d told himself the best way to get over Faith was to get another woman under him. When he left his house that had seemed like a fine idea. Unfortunately, that was no longer appealing. Staring at Bambi only made him feel empty inside.
“I thought you were seeing someone anyway.”
He looked at her sharply. “What gave you that idea?”
She shrugged. “Just a feeling. You’re not seeing Serena anymore.”
He took another pull from his beer. “I’m not seeing anyone.” Even as he uttered the words, the image of Faith filled his mind.
“Please. You got that look.”
“What look?”
“The I’m-hung-up-on-someone look. What’s her name?”
He shrugged. She nudged at his shoulder. “What’s her name? C’mon.”
“Faith Walters.”
“Walters. Huh, like that jackass Sheriff Walters.”
“Yep. That would be her brother.”
Piper stared. “You’re kidding. You’re dating the Sheriff’s sister?”
“We’re not dating,” he snapped, too quickly.
“Ohh.” She rocked back on her heels. “You’re in love with her.”
“What? How do you get that? I told you we aren’t dating.”
“Riiiight. That’s why you’re sitting here looking at the dancers like you’re suffering through a plate of liver and onions.” She motioned to the men around them. “Do you see any of these other guys looking like they’re in that kind of anguish? No. That would just be you.”
He grunted a response.
She moved past him, patting him on the shoulder. “Dreams come here to die. Trust me. Forget about this place. Go home to your girl, North.”
He sat alone for several more minutes, trying to convince himself that Piper was wrong, that if he stayed here long enough he would be able to forget about Faith—that he could lose himself in someone else and not want her anymore.
The purple-haired dancer stopped before his table. She twirled a bright lock of hair between her fingers and looked him over coyly. “Hey, there. I’m Bambi. Want to get out of here?”
He stood up from the table and dropped a few bills on the table for Piper. “Yeah. I do.” Without another glance, he turned and left the club. Alone.
North pulled onto his street and stopped hard, his foot digging into the brake pedal as his gaze locked onto the For Sale sign in Faith’s yard. She didn’t . . .
She couldn’t . . .
She was.
Sonuvabitch. He thumped his steering wheel. She was actually selling her house. She was moving. Because of him. Of that he had no doubt.
He sat there for a moment and simply stared, telling himself this was good; it would make things easier if he didn’t have to see her every day. But his stomach only continued to knot and twist until he thought he might be sick all over the front seat of his truck.
No. No. No.
It was the only word to fill his head but it was enough.
No. Fucking. Way. It was supposed to be just physical. It wasn’t supposed to be this. And yet it was this. Just like Piper accused. She had been right.
It hit him hard like a Mack Truck to the face. Everything he ever wanted he had either lost or was stolen from him. But not this. He wasn’t going to lose again. Not her.
Once she was gone, once she had moved, he knew it would finally and forever be over. He’d never see her again except someday far in the future when he bumped into her at a store or the county fair and she’d be with another man. Maybe this other man would be her husband. She’d be pregnant or have a baby on her hip and North would be forgotten like sophomore-year geometry. Her face would burn at the sight of him, the unwanted memory of a horribly embarrassing indiscretion.
Hell no.
He had done everything to wreck this and push her away, but no more.
He would finally attempt to save something. Again. He wouldn’t stand by and watch as this was destroyed. He would attempt to save them. Hopefully it wasn’t too late and there could be a them.
He hopped out of his truck and marched up to her door. He rapped sharply several times until the door opened.
She faced him, her expression stony. “North?”
“You’re moving?”
She glanced over his shoulder. “That’s what the sign means.”
“You can’t.”
She frowned. “I don’t understand why you care. You were very—”
“You shouldn’t have to move.”
“I’d be more comfortable living somewhere else.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, tugging the ends hard. “I don’t want you to go.” He let go and splayed both his hands wide in front of himself.
“North, you don’t need to feel guilty. This is for the best. We should never have gotten involved—”
“That’s just it! I want to be involved! I want us together. Seeing that sale sign . . . thinking you could be somewhere else, somewhere away from me . . . I just can’t handle that.”
“You can’t handle it? How good that you realize that now.” Angry splotches of color broke out over her face. “Well, too bad, North Callaghan.” She stabbed him in the chest with a finger. He winced. “I can’t handle staying here.”
“Faith—”
“No, North. Hopefully, the house will sell quickly and we don’t have to do this much longer. Until then, let’s just stay out of each other’s way.”
Before he could answer, she smoothly closed the door in his face, leaving him standing there, staring at where she once was, looking at the small circle of her peephole, pretty convinced she wasn’t looking back at him.
TWENTY-SIX
He spent the next week stealing the For Sale signs that kept popping up in Faith’s yard. That didn’t stop prospective buyers from showing up. He led a few of them astray, either telling them they had the wrong house or the owner had changed their mind and taken the house off the market. He did other things, too, all hoping to get her attention . . . and forgiveness.
He left flowers for her. It was the kind of thing nice girls like her deserved. He knew that. He figured he’d try. He sent texts. Serious ones. Naughty ones. Teasing ones. He tried everything to l
ure her out of her self-imposed exile from him. All attempts she ignored. He also resorted to parking in her driveway. That had always provoked her before. But nothing. She never rose to the bait.
He was running out of ideas. He had to do something.
He knew even if she sold her house, she would still be somewhere in Sweet Hill. But chasing after her when she didn’t live next door would more closely resemble stalking. And considering who her family was, that would probably not work out in his favor. He had to figure something out. Soon.
Faith had just entered her kitchen when she spied the Girl Scout walking down her shared driveway toward the sidewalk, dragging her wagon after her. Faith had taken to keeping her blinds open. Her For Sale sign was continuously being stolen from her yard—yes, she had a good guess as to the identity of the culprit—and she was hoping to stop that from happening again.
Running for her door, she was outside before the girl hit the sidewalk. “Hey, you there! Wait! I’ll buy some cookies!”
The cute girl turned around, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. “Sorry ma’am! The nice man just bought everything I had.” She pointed to North’s house to indicate who the “nice” man happened to be.
Faith stopped and turned to glare in that direction—at North. In his arms he held at least a dozen varieties of Girl Scout cookies. A quick scan revealed her favorites squeezed into the mix. Thin Mints and Caramel deLites crowded his muscular arms. She could think of a thousand and one characteristics for North Callaghan. Nice wasn’t one of them.
“Really?” She threw her arms wide. “You’re going to eat all of those yourself?”
His deep gaze burrowed into her. “I thought you might want them.”
She scoffed. “Oh. So you bought them for me?” She eyed him dubiously. Was this like the flowers he had left for her? She didn’t know what his game was for certain, but she assumed he felt guilty for the fact that she was selling her house. Or maybe he just felt like having sex with her again—although a man like him could get it anywhere, so that didn’t necessarily smack of truth.
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