More of You: A Confessions of the Heart Stand-Alone Novel

by Jackson, A. L.

  How could he?

  How could he?

  Though there was a stupid part of me that was thankful someone was watchin’ after us.

  Gulping down the unease, I grabbed the short robe from where it hung on the back of a chair and pulled it on, quickly tying the knot.

  My door was wide open, the same as Bailey’s so I could hear her if she needed me. I glanced into her room, my child again soundly asleep, unaware of the disturbance as I tiptoed across the creaking floors.

  As quietly as I could, I moved down the sweeping, curved staircase, the house massive and dark.

  Ominous at this time of night. Maybe it’d been all along.

  Heart a thunder knocking at my ribs, I worked through the locks on the double doors, not even sure what it was that I was doing. Why I felt compelled to step out into the night.

  Toward him when I should be running in tacklinthe opposite direction.

  Away from the man who had destroyed me in a way that only he could. The only one who’d ever had the power to desolate me because he’d been the only one I’d ever completely given myself to.

  And I hated it.

  Hated that he still had that control.

  The control to make me quiver and shake and question everything I thought I knew.

  Pulling open the door, I stepped out onto the wrap-around porch, hugging the robe tighter around my body, wishing it was a thousand layers of protection.

  A guard against my heart that beat a frenzy at the center of my chest.

  Outside, the night was heavy, bugs trillin’ in the massive trees that were hugged by the droning night. The ancient oaks lined the long, dirt drive, their branches covered in moss and stretched out like craggy arms to shelter the road.

  I eased a step forward and lifted my chin in a stance of intimidation while, on the inside, I wasn’t feeling close to brave.

  I stared at the outline of the man who stood at the end of the tree-lined road.

  As if he’d been there all along.

  Waiting.

  Squeezing my eyes closed, I wondered if I was hallucinating. Part of me praying that I was. That he’d never stepped foot back in this town.

  When I opened them, there he was, moving forward, his steps slow yet somehow powerful and purposed.

  He’d always moved that way.

  His presence profound.

  Hitting me with the force of a bolt of lightning. As if I were standing right at the edge of a moment that would change everything.

  The first time I’d seen him, I was sure the boy was there to be revered, completely unattainable, shrouded in some kind of dark mystery, while the town called him trash.

  They’d whispered that he wasn’t worthy, when I’d known in my heart of hearts that he’d been worth everything.

  Every risk.

  Except right then, I was wishin’ that I’d never taken it.

  His intensity mounted and mounted with each step that he took.

  Energy thrashed through the air, binding to the humidity.

  My pulse went thready beneath the pressure, knees shaking as if I’d seen a ghost.

  But that was what these walls had always held.

  Ghosts and secrets and scandals.

  I’d always been drawn to the beauty of it. Romanticizing this place. I guessed it’d been all too easy to fall in love under the shadow of it.

  He stopped at the bottom of the five steps that led up to the porch.

  Those hands stuffed in his pockets again. His hair that had been styled earlier had been tussled and mussed, no doubt the victim of those restless, big hands.

  My breaths turned jagged as he stood there staring up at me, those eyes glinting beneath the moonlight.

  His teeth clamped down on his lush bottom lip as he looked around the old, dilapidated plantation, expression intense, as if he were reaching out to caress a memory.

  Rocking back on his heels, he tipped the potency of that gaze back up to me. “You always loved this place.”

  There was something there in his words.

  Something wistful and sad.

  It sent a stake of anger to pierce my heart.

  We loved this place, I wanted to shout at him. Beg him. Because it didn’t matter how many years separated us, the question still remained.

  Why?

  Why?

  Why?

  But asking would be wrong.

  Misguided.

  Nothing we shared in the past mattered anymore. And I hated that just him coming here could stoke even an ember.

  My heart no longer belonged to him.

  “What are you doing here, Jace?” A tremble rocked through the question.

  He dropped his gaze to the ground, wary when he looked back at me. “I needed to check on you.”

  Bitter laughter rumbled out, all mixed up with the fear and sorrow and grief that lined the inside of me. It came rolling out in a rush of anger. “Check on me? I haven’t seen you in ten years, and you needed to check on me at three in the mornin’?”

  He blew out a sigh. “A lot has changed since then. I couldn’t sleep, knowing you were here alone.”

  Gutting disbelief moved through me like a black, ugly storm. I’d always been the one who was the first to forgive.

  But when it’d come to Jace, all of that had changed. The man had taken all the good and belief inside me and turned it into a mockery.

  I couldn’t believe he thought he had the right to stand there, in that spot, acting as if he cared.

  “And none of those things have much to do with you, do they?”

  He eyed me, words hard. “Don’t they?”

  “You gave up your place here, Jace. You did. You left, and you don’t get to come back when you find it fit.”

  He flinched as if I was the one who was hurting him. As if he hadn’t left me humiliated and broken. Like the trash I’d refused to let anyone convince me that he was.

  I’d been the fool, and I wouldn’t fall for his act again.

  “Can’t stop myself from being worried about you.” His voice whispered on the wind, hitting me like knives against my skin.

  “There’s nothing for you to worry about.”

  He lifted a brow in challenge. “You sure about that?”

  Looking off to the side, I bit my lip, realizing that Mack had most likely told Jace everything. I should have known I couldn’t keep it private when Jace and Mack had been as close as brothers back in high school, and now Mack was the one leading the investigation.

  Still, I couldn’t stop the anger that slipped into my bloodstream at the thought of Jace being privy to any details of our lives.

  I wanted to shut him out, put up every wall so he couldn’t see inside.

  It wasn’t right for him to be afforded a view of my demolished heart.

  It didn’t matter how much I wanted to keep Jace out, the words were scraping free. “My husband was murdered. Murdered in cold blood.”

  Cold blood.

  Is that what it’d been? It’s what I’d believed in the beginning. When Mack had shown up at my door and delivered the news that they’d found Joseph shot outside the grocery store, I’d been devastated.

  It didn’t matter that the love I’d had for Joseph had been different than I’d ever imagined for the man I’d marry.

  Ours had been a slow love. One that had grown out of friendship.

  Joseph had been there for me when I’d needed a friend most. He’d picked me up after Jace had left me in pieces.

  Losing Joseph that way had been a brutal blow.

  A smack to the face.

  Still, I’d been sure it’d been a cut and dry case of a man being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  But with each day that passed, I’d begun to question that. Began to question Joseph’s innocence. Began to question whether he’d unknowingly set Bailey and me on a course of destruction.

  Grief clutching my spirit, I plowed on, needing Jace to know he wasn’t welcome. “You don’t get to
come here now and pretend like you care.”

  “He was my cousin, Faith. I have a right to know what’s happening.”

  The fact they’d been family made my insides recoil.

  My brows pinched in pain. “Do you? Do you really think you have the right? The right to show up here?”

  He raked a hand through his hair, staring off into the distance, into the muggy breeze that rustled through the trees.

  Finally, he turned back to me. “I know you hate me, Faith. You have every right to. You should hate me every bit as much as I hate myself, but that doesn’t change the fact that I’m here. That I’m going to take care of you. Protect you. Whatever it takes.”

  If only I could hate him the way he assumed that I did.

  I lifted a defiant chin. “The only thing I want from you is for you to leave.”

  His posture was hard, his eyes harder.

  The man hazard and peril the way everyone had warned.

  “That is not going to happen. You should know me better than that.”

  I moved for the door, pausing to look back at him from over my shoulder. “I thought I did know you.”

  Retreating inside, I slammed the door, closing off the connection.

  Every part of me started shaking, my hands barely cooperating as I fumbled through the locks as if they might be strong enough to keep him out. My lungs squeezed with each battered breath, and my heart rioted at the center of my chest.

  I couldn’t let him in. Not ever again.

  I sucked down a breath and turned for the stairs, climbing them quickly.

  I stumbled to a stop three steps from the second-floor landing.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” I whispered into the darkness, my sweet, sweet girl rubbing a fist at her sleepy eye, and that torn, tattered Beast hooked under her right arm.

  Just the sight of it nearly dropped me to my knees.

  “Don’t never weave me, Mommy.”

  Only three years old, she still dropped the L in every word she spoke, her mouth not quite ready to form the sound, the lilt of it always sending a fresh wave of affection crashing through me.

  But it was her fear of abandonment, the loss that was haunting us both, that nearly destroyed me.

  I swept her into my arms. Love and adoration and the strongest devotion pumped through me like a river. Growing stronger and deeper.

  My heart no longer felt as if it was goin’ to fail because I had my reason for living in my arms. My reason for fighting. My reason for surviving.

  I pushed back the wild locks of her brown curls from her face and pressed a tender kiss to her forehead, murmuring against her baby-powder skin. “Never. Mommy would never leave you.”

  She wrapped her tiny arms around my neck, squeezing me tight, her lips against my cheek. “Oh-kay.”

  She yawned and snuggled tighter into my hold.

  I hugged her closer and carried her toward my room. Part of me knew I was clinging to my daughter too tightly, feeding into her own fears of desertion and loss.

  It was hard to stop when she felt like the only thing I had.

  My very breath.

  I set her on my bed, and she stared up at me as I took her in. Her pink cheeks were round and chubby, her lips full and red. Her dark eyes somehow grinned. “I sweep with you?”

  “Yeah, baby, you can sleep with me.”

  The problem was, I didn’t know who I was doing it for. Because I sighed out in relief when I snuggled up to her, pulling her chest to mine, our hearts beating in time.

  In perfect sync.

  “I love you, Bailey Button.”

  She giggled at her nickname and snuggled closer. “I’s wuv you the most,” she murmured like a secret, her breaths quick to even out.

  I held her in the darkness.

  In the shadows.

  I still couldn’t believe someone had been in our house. That someone had invaded our sanctuary with the sole purpose to instill dread and fear. A terrorizing sort of manipulation.

  My mind spun with the threat of the two letters that had been left. I’d found one sitting at the front door, and the other had been tucked in the mailbox at the road. The first had simply confused me.

  Joseph had something that was mine. I want it back.

  But it was the one that’d come last week that made me want to pack up my daughter and run. Hide us away until Mack found who was responsible.

  I know you have it. Joseph was a fool. I hope you’re smarter than him. I’d hate to see you end up with the same fate.

  The problem was that I had no idea what the it was. What they were lookin’ for and how I was supposed to deliver it. Didn’t they know I’d give up anything for my child? To keep her safe? I just didn’t understand.

  I tucked Bailey tighter to my body, and I made the same promise to her that Jace had just made to me.

  But mine was the truth.

  One on which I’d live and die.

  I’m going to take care of you. Protect you. Whatever it takes.

  Five

  Jace

  Good God.

  It was hot.

  The sun pounded down through the humid air, the moisture like liquid fire on my skin, a fucking sauna set to full blast that would never offer any relief.

  I lifted the hem of my already drenched shirt, and I swiped the sweat from my brow before I moved back to my SUV and pulled more lumber off the luggage rack.

  So maybe I’d had to get creative in order to get all this shit here.

  But hell, growing up, my entire life had been about making do.

  So here I was.

  I hoisted the stack of two-by-fours onto my shoulder and carried them to the pile of supplies I was making, eyeing the old house that was all but crumbling on its foundation.

  Every plank on the porch was rotted, paint peeling from the walls, and pieces of the third-story roof were caving in on one side.

  The place was a gorgeous disaster.

  The rambling plantation was teeming with history and charm, all of its potential hidden by a layer of rot.

  Beauty.

  I saw it right there, simmering in the sagging heat waves and begging for reprieve.

  My spirit clutched.

  A painful, blissful pinch.

  Just about every good memory I had was of this place. Of course, it was the keeper of my worst one, too.

  It had been her dream.

  Our dream.

  A dream that was falling down around her.

  Dangerous.

  As dangerous as the ghosts that lurked in the shadows. As dangerous as the bastards who wanted to cause her harm.

  Every step fraught with peril.

  Fucking Joseph.

  It felt like another sin to still be pissed at him, but I couldn’t help it. What the hell had he been thinking?

  Only about himself, obviously.

  I dumped the stack of wood, and it clattered onto the growing pile. The sound of it crashing to the ground ricocheted through the bated morning.

  Subtlety had never exactly been my strong suit.

  I went back to my car to gather the rest of the tools I’d picked up at the hardware store this morning.

  At the hatch of my SUV, I blinked at the unopened boxes I’d stuffed inside. An electric saw, sander, hammers and nails, paint and stain, a ton of shit I hadn’t used in years.

  So out of practice, so far away from the world I’d built for myself, I wasn’t even sure where to start building this one.

  Of course, Faith wasn’t either.

  Because when I popped my head back out, still bent over with my hands pressed to the tail end of my car, she was on the porch, glaring at me.

  If she wasn’t so damned sweet, that single look might have taken me out.

  Wouldn’t have been necessary when I was already getting the wind knocked out of me.

  Not when Faith had that little girl hooked protectively on her hip. The kid had her head tucked under Faith’s chin and her thumb in her mouth as she stared
out at me with the same color and depth as Faith’s knowing eyes.

  It brought a lump the size of the boulder up to lodge itself in my throat.

  I tried to swallow around it.

  The anguish and awe and fucking jealousy.

  Impossible.

  Instead, I blinked and tried to pretend like it didn’t hurt so damned bad.

  Faith stood on the porch looking like some kind of maternal angel holding her perfect match, light all around her, the girl glowing that glow that had always made me feel like I was sinking my fingers into something good.

  She covered her little girl’s ear with her hand, her words seething from between pursed lips. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Jace Jacobs?”

  I hauled a heavy box out of the back of my car. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

  “Trespassin’.”

  Low, disbelieving laughter made its way around that lump in my throat. “Trespassing, huh?”

  “You are on my land after I asked you not to be.”

  “You want to call the police? Go for it. I’m sure Mack would love to pay a visit.”

  So maybe my tone was antagonistic, but she needed to know I wasn’t backing down.

  Frustration billowed from her, her attention darting from the pile of wood I was making, to my face, and then to my chest before she jerked it away, gulping for something to say.

  She hugged her little girl tighter, her words turning to a whispered plea. “I told you, you don’t get to do this.”

  “What, help you?”

  Protect you?

  A huff of air puffed from that delicious mouth. Incredulous. Breaking with the day.

  I was nothing but a fool because I wanted to get lost in that sound. In her voice and her need and her despair.

  Take every bit of it away.

  Fill the spaces that’d gone bad with something good.

  Bitterness pounded at my ribs.

  That was kind of hard to do when I didn’t have anything good to offer.

  Except this.

  Maybe for once, I could do something that would make a difference in a positive direction.

  For her.

  Maybe even for Joseph.

  I just prayed he wasn’t looking down and hoping I’d have a slip up with the saw and cut right through an artery rather than the wood.