Trent squeezed his shoulder.
Their loyalty fierce and true. There was no mistaking it.
I struggled to breathe.
Jud glanced at me once before he hoisted Gage into his arms. Joy and pain split through his expression.
It pierced me in the chest, and I tried to look away, but my eyes couldn’t help but see deeper. To the sorrow, to the grief, to the torment written underneath.
Don’t do this, Salem.
Don’t fall. Don’t fall.
Tenderness took over his ferocity when he tossed Gage onto his back. Gage laced his arms around his thick neck and shouted, “I’ll take you down, Uncle!”
“Not a chance, Gage in the Cage.” He wrestled around with him.
Before I could stop her, Juni hopped onto her feet and blazed around the table.
“I’ll help you, Gage!”
She threw herself at Jud, too.
My heart sank to the pit of my stomach.
But he caught her and tossed her onto his opposite shoulder.
They shrieked and held on tight as Jud playfully roared and spun them. He had both hands on their backs to keep them steady. To ensure they wouldn’t fall.
Dread thudded through my veins, taking this stupid hope with it.
“Hurry, Juni Bee, we gotta get him. Chokehold!” Gage shouted.
Juni laughed and wrapped her arms around Jud’s neck, too, and Jud dramatically fell to his knees, careful as they all toppled in a pile onto the ground.
They flailed around, pinning him.
“Victory!” Juni shouted.
My chest clutched and my head swam.
Torn between the urge to rush for my daughter and steal her away from this place.
Where it wasn’t safe.
Where we were treading into unknown territory.
Into territory where our hearts were at stake.
All while every cell in my body clutched in a swell of longing.
I jumped when a warm hand covered mine where I had a death grip on the arm of my chair. I looked to the right to find the sympathy written in Gary’s gaze.
“Sometimes the scariest journeys are the ones where the lost finally find the right path to lead them home.”
My brow curled, and my head shook.
He squeezed my hand tighter. “It’s okay to be afraid. The courageous always are. They just understand taking the chance is worth the fear and the risk.”
Emotion locked in my throat, my spirit a disorder, and I was jerking again when Juni and Gage were suddenly jumping at my side. “Guess whats, Mommy? Gage just asked me if I wanna have a sleeps over at his house, and his mommy said YES! Oh please, oh please, oh please.”
Juni weaved her fingers together in a prayer.
“Please, Miss Salem! We’re gonna take really good care of her and I got a fort and we can even sleep in it.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Juni.”
“Please, Mommy, I’ll be soes good, and I never even had a friend before.”
My heart seized in a bolt of sorrow, and the word was wheezing out before I gave it permission. “Okay.”
What was I saying? What was I thinking? Giving my trust to people I didn’t really know?
But my soul?
It promised they were good.
And I knew we had to take a chance if we were ever going to hope for a normal life.
“Yay!” Juni and Gage shouted it at the same time.
Eden edged up behind them with that knowing smile on her face. She set a hand on each of their shoulders. “We’d love to have her. Gage has been asking for a sleepover since the moment he met her.”
My mind raced to find an excuse. Why this was a horrible, horrible idea. “Are you sure it’s not too much trouble? Don’t you and Trent want to spend the night alone?”
There.
That was a good excuse.
A valid reason when I’d let myself slip into insanity.
Eden giggled. “Um, Trent wore me out last night. This will be a good distraction.”
My lips pressed together as I warred.
“How’d you get here?”
I jolted when the low voice hit me from behind, and I shifted to look at Jud who stood there like a fortress. I swallowed the rush of desire that rose in my throat. “We got a Lyft.”
His nod was tight. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
“That’s not—”
He leaned in, his hands on the back of my chair, his mouth at my ear. “I’ll give you a ride, Salem. I at least owe you that.”
FIFTEEN
JUD
“Are you ready?” I rumbled low.
I looked on from where I stood behind her. Chills skated down Salem’s arms while she watched Juni drive away with Trent, Eden, and Gage.
The party had wrapped, and Eden’s trunk was loaded down with the presents people had brought. Friends and family had drifted off into the night, everyone high on the life Eden and Trent shared.
Slowly, Salem shifted. Felt the ground quake when she did. Energy blistered through the dense night air.
Girl stood there in that skirt and blouse, and fuck, my insides took a tumble into greed.
“I’m sorry.” My confession toppled like stones.
Hard and jagged and heavy.
It was the truth.
Salem’s gorgeous face blanched, that body flinching like she didn’t know what to believe. “Why are you doing this, Jud?”
Confusion thick, my head barely shook. “Don’t know. All I know is I can’t stop thinking about you. Can’t stop going back to the shop. To your fear. Way it felt when I touched you.”
The edges of that seductive mouth quivered, and she hugged her arms across her chest like she could block this out. “And we already established it doesn’t change things, though, does it?”
“Doesn’t it?”
Attraction blurred the lines.
Whipped and lashed and curled, rising around us like a dark, dark storm.
Her tongue darted out to wet her lips. “My daughter is and will always be my first priority, Jud. It’s clear you have a problem with that.”
Agony staked through my chest. Yeah, it’d hurt like a motherfucker when I’d first seen that precious thing come flying out the door. When my mind had gone there, taunting me with that penalty I could never fully pay.
But I thought the wall that had gone up between me and Salem might have hurt worse.
I forced the brittle words from my tongue. “I was just surprised.”
Her face pinched. “And you are a liar.”
Nerves rocked me back, and I rushed an agitated hand through my hair, blinking toward the ground like it would hold an answer.
A reason.
“I’ve got shit, Salem. Dark, ugly shit.”
The fuck did I think I was doing? But the confession had slipped out before I could think better of it. A proclamation I shouldn’t offer.
But there it was, hovering in the deep, summer night.
Bare and raw.
Salem’s jaw clenched against it, that scar dancing on her gorgeous face. “Isn’t that true of us all?”
My throat tightened, the words gravel, “Not like mine.”
Guilt clutched and clawed, and still, I stood there, a criminal looking for vindication.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” she finally said.
Girl so stunning. A mystery. Perfection.
“Want to paint you.” It came out on the urging of my fingers.
I’d officially lost it.