by Cindi Madsen
“I see,” she said, curling her fingers into the fabric of his shirt.
“But…” He swept her hair off her face and placed his hand on her cheek. “Se vuoi, te ne parlo.”
The words wrapped around her and ratcheted up her already rapidly beating pulse. She swallowed past her suddenly dry throat and raised her eyebrows.
“I said, ‘If you want, I’ll speak it to you.’”
Instead of answering with words, she used the grip she had on his shirt to tug him closer and kiss him. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and the twin girls showed up, blinking their big eyes at Faith and Connor. Considering neither of them had kids, it was funny how often kids interrupted them.
As they headed outside so Connor could push his nieces on the swing set, he wrapped his arm around Faith’s shoulders and said, “Thanks for coming with me today.”
Now that Faith knew Connor better, she realized she was wrong ever thinking he was anything like her ex. She curled into him, hugging him tightly and thinking she never wanted to let go. “Thanks for asking.”
…
Connor waved good-bye to his family and helped Faith inside his truck. He’d wanted her to come home with him so he could spend another day with her, show her off to his family, and so he could prove to her that he was all in.
What he didn’t expect was to look at her and feel like he was getting ready to dive off a cliff, all the thrill, none of the fear. For the first time in his life, though, he worried about what would happen if there wasn’t a pool of cool water waiting at the bottom of the dive. Maybe he’d hit the ground and never recover.
How could so much of how he felt be wrapped up in one person? Part of him thought he was stupid for avoiding feeling like this for so long, and the other part was glad he’d never lost his mind like this before. As tiny as she was, Faith seemed to take up the entire cab. She was part of his life already, one that couldn’t simply lift out.
“What?” she asked, her cheeks coloring slightly.
He wanted her close enough to feel her body heat next to him, inhale her perfume, brush his fingertips across her bare skin. “Faith Fitzpatrick, would you please scoot over here so you’re not so far away?” He patted the spot right next to him.
“Wow, being around your family turned you into a gentleman.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that if you knew what I was thinking.”
She scooted closer and he wrapped his hand around her thigh—he decided it was an even better place for his hand than her back. Really, it was a win-win, though.
As he pulled onto the freeway, his lungs tightened. He could sense it coming, but it was like his body was trying to hold his past in, even though he’d decided to let it out. But it was time to tell Faith the full story. “The first time I met your dad was because I called the police.”
Faith looked up at him and he wondered if he should take her to his place before he told her the rest. But he’d probably talk himself out of it, and at least driving, he could focus on the road instead of how talking about it made his chest achy and raw. Considering the hollow sensation in the pit of his gut, that theory wasn’t holding up, though.
“Why did you call the police?” she asked.
“Because my dad hit my mom. He’d done it before—did it all the time. But it was getting worse and worse. She used to…” He blew out a breath and pushed through. “She’d tell us to go to our rooms when they started fighting. I guess she thought we wouldn’t realize he hit her. But we all noticed the bruises. How she’d limp the next day.”
He kept his eyes glued to the yellow dashed line on the road and cleared his throat. “When I’d ask her about it, she’d give me money and tell me to take my brother and sisters to get ice cream. As you saw in the picture, I went out for ice cream a lot.”
Faith put her hand on his knee. “Connor…” She seemed to be struggling for words.
“It’s okay,” he said, assuring her. Assuring himself. “Anyway, I was the oldest boy. It’s not like my sisters could do anything—my dad didn’t take back talk. He…” Connor gripped the wheel tighter. “He had a bad temper, and he lost it a lot. We were all scared, but as I got older, I kept thinking maybe I could stop him. One night I tried. He… Well, he was bigger than me.”
Even after all these years, he didn’t want to admit that his dad had knocked him out with one punch. Dad was so pissed about giving him a black eye, not because he’d hurt him, but because people would ask—he made Connor swear to tell everyone he got hit by a baseball and that he better sell it, or he’d never go anywhere again. As Mom tucked him into bed that night, even as she was holding her most likely broken ribs, she begged him not to interfere ever again. That she could take it.
Faith raised his hand to her lips and pressed a kiss there, so tenderly, he almost lost his fragile grip on his emotions.
He clenched his jaw until his teeth ached. “The next time I didn’t step in, and I felt like a coward. So when it happened a couple months later, I snuck into the den and called 911. Your dad was one of the officers who showed up. I was so relieved when they took my dad away. But of course, my mom… She was scared. And all her family was in Italy and she didn’t have a job. So she bailed him out and didn’t press charges, sure he’d finally change. But he didn’t. One day after school I walked to the police station instead of riding the bus home. I found your dad and asked him for help.”
The headlights from another car lit up the cab and Faith’s eyes were glistening. Shit, he didn’t want her to cry. Especially since it made him feel like damn near crying, too.
“I’m sorry.” The words scraped his throat on the way out. “This was a bad idea.”
“No,” she said, tightening her grip on his hand. “Connor, pull over.”
He glanced around and found a turnoff a few yards up. He maneuvered the truck over and then parked on a deserted part of the road. For a moment, the cab of the truck was dead silent.
Faith unbuckled her seat belt and twisted to him. A tear had escaped and was slowly trailing down her cheek. “I don’t know what to say. I could give you all the responses I’ve been trained to say, but it’s about you and your mom, and then you tell me about my dad… I have no idea what to say, but I’m glad you’re telling me, and I don’t want you to stop. But I might cry. I can’t help it.”
Connor wiped the tear off her cheek with his thumb and she threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her tightly for a moment, inhaling her scent and breathing out the bad memories. “Your dad, he wanted to help so badly, and every time I called the police, he’d show up and say that they got a noise complaint from the neighbors so my dad didn’t know it was me.” This was the first time he’d told the story in so much detail. Even when he’d told Kaleb, Connor kept the details light. That Officer Fitzpatrick had helped him when Connor’s father had abused his mother, not about the two-year struggle.
“One night Dad lost his temper with my sister, and my mom realized she had to do something to keep her kids safe. So she called the police. Turned out she’d also been documenting the abuse with pictures. Dad went to jail for a couple years, we moved to Huntersville for a fresh start, and I decided that someday I was going to be the cop who showed up and helped people who couldn’t help themselves.”
He exhaled. There. He’d gotten it all out.
Faith sat back and a couple more tears rolled down her cheeks. It felt like one word and either one of them might crack, and while it was good to get that off his chest—he never even discussed it with his family—he worried again that it was a mistake. “Kaleb knows my dad was arrested and that your father helped, but…I don’t want him to know it all. I’m…I’m still ashamed I didn’t do something sooner.”
“You saved your mom. Your family.” She placed her hand on the side of his face and locked eyes with him. “You should never be ashamed.”
“Spoken like a true shrink,” he tried to joke, but it didn’t come out quite right. When she opened her mouth, that overly ana
lytical expression on her face, he pressed a finger to her lips. “Thank you for listening, but I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I need…something else to think about.”
She nodded, then slowly leaned in. Her warm breath hit his neck seconds before her soft lips. He closed his eyes, focusing on the sensation. She trailed kisses up and along his jaw. She ran her fingers through his hair and his thoughts swam to a pleasant blur. Then her mouth came down on his. It was sweeter than most kisses they’d shared, but in this moment, it was exactly what he needed.
For a long time, he’d felt like something was missing in his life. Now he realized it wasn’t something, but someone. And he hoped like hell that they’d figure out a way to work it out, because he didn’t want to ever go back to the way life was before he met Faith.
Chapter Fifteen
By all appearances, nothing much changed. But inside, everything was changing for Faith. Every look that passed between her and Connor, every touch, made her fall that much more for him. And just when she thought she couldn’t like him more, he’d run the 5K, then come back to where she was—right when she was ready to give up on running and walk the rest—and encouraged her to the very end, telling her that she was doing so well. That she was almost there.
She’d told herself it wasn’t about her time—she was doing it because the money would go to support families of fallen heroes, a cause she strongly believed in. But when she crossed the finish line faster than she ever had before, a swell of pride filled her from the inside out. She’d jumped into Connor’s arms and kissed him with reckless abandon, not caring about all the onlookers.
“Catch,” Connor said now, lifting one of Anna’s blue clay pots and swinging it toward her.
Faith jerked up her hands, to catch it if it came down to it and try to say stop all at the same time. “Dontthrowit!”
Connor laughed, not releasing the pot. “You really thought I was going to?”
“With you, I never know.”
He placed the pot on the table in front of her, caging her in with his arms, and kissed the back of her neck. They’d both showered and met back at the festival to set up the tent and all of Anna’s pottery. They’d made approximately one hundred trips to and from the van, so when a woman selling jewelry showed up with one bin and set up the booth across from theirs within a couple of minutes, Faith couldn’t help feeling like she had it easy.
When all the pillars and plate stands were in place, the pottery on top of them, Faith took a picture with her phone and sent it to Anna. She stepped between the tents and took a picture of the park and gazebo all decked out, too, and she had to admit that today she was feeling a sense of pride being part of the Cornelius Fall Festival Committee, whether it’d actually been voluntary or not.
On her way back into the booth, Connor pulled her onto his lap instead of letting her cross to the chair next to him. Once the festival started, she’d have to move, but for now she relaxed back against him, shivering as he pressed a kiss to the sensitive spot under her ear.
Connor’s mouth moved higher, his lips brushing her earlobe. “Mi fai impazzire, bella,” he whispered, and zips of electricity traveled across her skin.
A throat clearing interrupted the moment. Kaleb had Ella and was standing in front of the booth. Her poor brother was still adjusting to his sister and best friend as a couple. “It looks good.” He set the phone credit card reader on the table so they could take payments that way, and Faith slid onto her own chair so her brother didn’t have to keep looking like he was going to have an aneurism.
Ella leaned forward for hugs and kisses, and then started pointing at all the booths with their balloons and bright colors. She tugged on Kaleb’s hand, trying to get him to move.
Kaleb let her pull him a couple of steps. “Guess I’ll take Ella around. Unless you guys need anything else.”
“We’re good,” Faith said. “If you run across the cotton candy machine, though, I wouldn’t say no to some.” She grinned extra wide, and her brother shook his head, but she knew he’d bring her back a bag.
Throughout the day, a steady stream of people stopped by, a lot of them having come from all around the county. She noticed plenty of women giving Connor sex-me-up eyes, but he didn’t give anyone a second look.
They’d steal kisses here and there, and Connor would whisper innuendos in her ear and pinch her butt about every time he moved past her—she’d almost dropped a plate the first time he’d done it. Anna’s pottery sold well, piece after piece. Faith kept her updated to try to make her feel like she wasn’t missing out on too much. Hopefully the money from her sales would help her feel better as well.
After they’d packed up for the day, Connor closed the van and crooked his finger at her. “Come ’ere.”
Faith crossed her arms. “I thought we talked about this. I don’t respond to ‘come ’ere.’”
“I must’ve been paying too much attention to your pretty mouth to listen to what you said. Happens a lot, actually.” He took a step toward her. “Did you just say you can’t live without me?”
She took a step toward him. “You wish.”
“Why yes, I’d love to make out with you. Thanks for asking.” He slid his hand behind her neck and lowered his mouth to hers. He took his time, exploring every inch and holding her against him.
“Officer Maguire?” Mrs. Lowery approached the van. “You’re not forgetting about your shift at the pie-throwing booth, are you?” Someone’s grandma or not, Mrs. Lowery had the worst timing.
“I was just about to make my way over there.” Connor took Faith’s hand and they walked across the grass to the gazebo. The fresh paint and shingles looked great, the twinkling white lights strung around it showing off all the hard work and smashed pie.
There were several cops from the station gathered at the booth, watching Grant Sullivan get pies thrown at him. Connor kept his arm around her as he introduced her to the guys she didn’t know. Kaleb came over, his hair damp and dressed in a different outfit than he’d been in earlier.
“I missed your shift?” Faith asked. She knew he’d taken Ella home a while ago, but she’d thought she might throw a pie or two at her brother. For charity, of course.
“Just got back from cleaning myself up. Mrs. Ferguson’s staying with Ella and Anna, but I thought I should come and contribute. Get all of Anna’s pottery and stands home and”—Kaleb slapped Connor on the back—“make sure my partner has enough people throwing pies at him.”
Faith tried to gauge how the vibe between them was, but they were both so straight-faced she couldn’t tell. Connor took the keys out of the van and handed them to Kaleb. “Everything’s in there. I’ll get Faith home.”
Grant came out from behind the board with the face hole and a cop uniform painted underneath it—apparently it was to remind people you were throwing pie at a cop, while not risking staining their uniforms. Connor stuck his face through the hole. All of the other activities from the festival were slowing down, so a crowd was gathering to watch the final cop get pelted with pies.
Kaleb went first—and his aim was dead on. The other guys from the station cheered and jeered, while other people laughed and Faith hoped it wouldn’t result in a fistfight later. Kaleb came down the steps and moved over to Faith. He let out a long exhale. “I feel much better now, actually.”
He stood next to Faith as they watched people pay money to throw pies—most missed, but the pie would splatter enough to get Connor messier with each toss. When one pie was left, Faith plunked down her money and stepped up to the line, the heavily whip-creamed pie in her hand.
“Please don’t tell me you baked that one,” Connor said. “I need something I can at least stand to lick off.”
“Oh, you’re going to pay for that.”
Connor’s grin only widened. Faith squared off, remembered all the tips Kaleb had given her when he taught her how to throw when she was a kid, and launched it, hitting him square in the face. She got even more cheers than Kal
eb had.
Connor came out from behind the board. He wiped a hand over his face, shaking off a large portion of the pie, but it was still clinging to his eyelashes with smudges of white all over his face. He moved for her, and before she could react, he yanked her to him and kissed her. For a moment she tried to push away, but then she gave in, tasting whip cream and banana pudding as he kissed her.
With the event over, people sprung into action, using a hose to clean off the pie. One of the women from the committee offered Connor a washrag and he cleaned himself off as the festival wound down, all the work and magic coming to a close.
Kaleb put a hand on Faith’s shoulder, glancing at Connor and then back at her, and she waited for another speech about how he didn’t approve. “Just be careful, okay?”
Faith nodded. “Okay.”
Connor approached, and another wordless conversation, like so many he and Kaleb seemed to have, passed between them. Then her brother gave her boyfriend a sort of half salute, half nod thing before walking away.Connor let out the same kind of exhale Kaleb had, all relief. She could tell he’d been upset things were off between them, and it looked like they were finally getting back on track.
A grin curved his lips as he drew her to him, sliding one of his hands under the back of her shirt. The lights from the gazebo cast soft light on his face, giving her a chance to soak in the stubble forming along his jaw, the slope of his nose, his perfect lips.
“I can only handle about another second of you looking at me like that before I do something about it,” Connor said, digging his fingers into her skin and sending white hot jabs of desire through her core.
She leaned closer so that her breasts pressed against his chest. “You think I’m scared?”
He peered into her eyes and suddenly she felt like she was naked, and not in a good way. “You are. But you shouldn’t be.”
Her heart beat against her rib cage. She licked her lips and Connor exhaled a shaky breath. She’d never felt so safe and out of control at the same time. “Take me home.”