A piece of me felt guilty for parting with the last ring I had of hers. But my mom? I had to imagine she would have done the same.
We’d lost her so young, when I’d been four and Darius eight. A heart condition she’d never even known she’d had. Gone in a failed beat.
Since our father had never been in the picture, Mimi had stepped up to raise us.
Gage turned his attention to me, all dimples and cuteness and manners for days. “Miss Salem, is it okay if Juni can come play with me because you know I live just right across the street, and she’s got to be my best friend forever?”
“I think that would be really nice,” I whispered.
Suddenly overcome.
Overwhelmed.
Because Juni and I had never stayed in one place for longer than a couple months.
This was what I dreamed of for her.
Wanted for her.
More than I could say. More than I could express.
A friend.
A safe place where she knew the people would care for her. Look out for her. Love her.
A home she could always go back to.
Emotion gathered at the back of my eyes. The hope blinding and terrifying at the same time. I had to blink the moisture back, to hold myself together so I didn’t crumble.
Eden reached out and gently touched my arm, her voice so soft, held so it was just for me as the two children began to jump around on the stoop. “We’re so glad you’re here.”
“Thank you.” The words wobbled.
She smiled. “And also, I don’t want to be forward, but I’m teaching a beginning ballet class for five and six-year-olds this summer after school ends. It starts next week. Three days a week. It’s free at the school where I work. We’d love to have Juni join us.”
“Ballet? Oh, Mommy, Mommy, please!!!” Of course, Juni had heard it, her little eagle ears in tune, her fingers threaded together in a prayer. “I want the ballet shoes so bad, and maybe I will get to go to Russia and do the dances!”
Affection pulling tight, I glanced at Eden.
Those dreams right there.
The ones that’d been unthinkable for so long, and now? Maybe…maybe they were within reach.
“That would be wonderful.”
How I was going to get those ballet shoes, I had no idea, but I would figure it out.
Eden’s smile spread. “Great. I knew these two would be a good fit. I think you and I will be, too.”
She gently touched my wrist again. Like she saw everything written in me. Every secret. Every fear.
Like she was silently offering to come alongside me.
A friend.
I hadn’t had one in so long.
My throat grew thick. “I do, too.”
“Come over and chat with me while the kids play in the front?”
“Sure.” I leaned back into the house and called, “We’ll be out front, Mimi.”
“Have fun,” she hollered.
I stepped out and shut the door behind us.
Hand-in-hand, Juni and Gage started to run down the sidewalk.
“Wait at the curb,” Eden called, and the children skidded to a stop. We flanked them as we crossed, and we walked up the sidewalk to the house that was basically the same as the one we were renting, though it’d obviously received a little more care and updates through the years.
I nearly stumbled when a man came sauntering out the front door. Tall with a shock of black hair, tattoos covering every inch of exposed flesh.
He was pure intimidation.
Menacing.
Extremely so, in a way that set me on edge.
Bad was written all over him in bold streaks and hard lines.
But this sweet, sweet woman all but floated over to him and let him wrap his arms around her.
So opposite it was like they slipped into the other to form a whole.
They whispered below their breaths, their words only meant for the other.
Something familiar pushed at my consciousness when he looked at me with the darkest eyes from over her shoulder.
The way they pierced and flayed.
My pulse thudded.
Eden spun around with her hand wrapped in his. “Salem, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend, Trent. Gage’s dad.” Her voice deepened with devotion. “Trent, this is the new neighbor I was telling you about, Salem, Darius’ sister.”
The man looked me up and down, cautious, but still, he stretched out his hand to shake mine. “Nice to meet you, Salem. I didn’t even realize Darius had a sister. He works for my brother at his shop.”
I froze as I realized the familiarity.
The resemblance.
The way those sharp eyes held the power to slice me in two.
Jud Lawson was his brother.
The man in the rain. The man who sparked something inside me that I hardly recognized in myself anymore.
A want that had sizzled across my flesh. A need I’d all but forgotten.
A fire in my guts.
But it was the fire that burned.
The flames that ruined.
And I knew I needed to stay far, far away from the blaze.
FIVE
JUD
“Do we have an issue?” I stood behind Darius where he worked to install the gas tank to a 70s chopper that I’d finished painting last week. Thing was pure beauty, if I didn’t say so myself.
Turquoise and black.
Like someone’s eyes that I was having a damned hard time getting off my mind.
Same eyes responsible for the tension that had bound the shop for the entire day. Animosity fierce in the stone set of Darius’ spine.
Dude hadn’t even looked at me when he’d returned, but that didn’t mean I didn’t feel the malice radiating from him for the last four hours.
He barely cranked a glance at me from over his shoulder. But I saw it there. This fierce protectiveness that kinda pissed me off. He went back to working a screw while he mumbled under his breath, “Not if you stay away from my sister, we don’t.”
A low, hard chuckle rumbled out. “You have a problem with me stopping to help a woman stranded in the rain?”
“Have no problem except for the one where Salem came waltzing out of your apartment this morning.” He grunted that. The tattoos on his forearms writhed over his muscles that flexed with the words.
“She seems like a big girl to me.”
A fierce, hypnotic, gorgeous girl who’d kept me tossing through the night.
Didn’t think I’d point that out.
Before I could make sense of it, Darius flew to his feet, wheeling around with a threat in his stance and venom in his voice. “Stay the fuck away from my sister. She doesn’t need any more shit in her life than she’s already been dealt.”
My chest tightened with the confirmation, the sense I’d gotten that the girl might’ve only had a purse, but she’d been carting around a shitton of baggage.
At the same time, a disbelieving smirk kicked at the edge of my mouth. “I don’t think I appreciate the implication.”
His dark eyes flashed, and he leaned in closer, his voice grit, “You think I don’t know you? Kind of man you are?”
Unease gusted, blistered and blew through the scorched wasteland of who I’d been. Where my soul had gone dry.
My hands fisted. “I’m not sure who you think you are, Darius…” I bit out his name through clenched teeth. “But I’d suggest you watch what you say. Took a chance on you. Don’t make me regret it.”