Authors: Lisa Childs
“What?”
“To get to know me,” he explained. “I never gave you the chance.”
Now, for as many years as he would be locked up, she wouldn’t get that chance.
* * *
H
E
HAD
NO
RIGHT
TO
STOP
HER
, so Jed just watched her walk away. Just as he hadn’t when he got deployed, he didn’t want her waiting for him. His returning from prison was about as likely as his return from Afghanistan had been.
“No.” Erica stopped herself with the word and turned back toward him and their daughter.
“No what, Mommy?” the little girl asked, confused about what she might have done wrong.
“No. I’m not going to do this again,” she said.
Macy started down the slope of the parking garage toward them. “Jed—”
“I need a minute with your brother,” Erica interrupted the young woman. “Isobel, go play with your aunt for a little while. I need to talk to your daddy alone.”
The little girl wriggled down from his arms and whispered, “You’re in trouble now. That’s Mommy’s mad face.”
A smile tugged at his lips…until he was alone with Erica. The little girl was right; this was her mommy’s mad face. Anger tightened Erica’s silky lips and hardened the pale blue of her beautiful eyes.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“No,” he agreed. “The sheriff already talked to the D.A. about making sure charges were not pressed against you for aiding and abetting me. Rowe vouched for you. You won’t have to worry about yourself or Isobel.”
“I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be okay,” he said. “No place else could ever be as bad as Blackwoods was. I’ll survive my time—however long they give me.” He didn’t dare hope that they’d commute his sentence for the time he had already served for the crimes he hadn’t committed. She walked up closer to him and lifted her hands to his shoulders, which she clasped as she pressed her body against his.
“You will survive,” she said. “And I’m going to be waiting for you.”
“Good,” he said, breathing a sigh of relief that she wasn’t going to try to deny him time with his daughter once he was done serving his time. “I want to be part of Isobel’s life.”
“No,” she said. “
I
will be waiting for you. I’m not letting you push me away like you did before. I’m going to wait for you to be free.”
Even though his heart leapt with the hope she offered him, he shook his head in rejection of her offer. “Erica, I can’t ask you to do that.”
“Can’t or don’t want to?” she asked. “Will you ever be able to forgive me for doubting you?”
“It’s not so much forgiving as trusting that you won’t doubt me again,” he admitted.
“I should have talked to you,” she said. “I should have gone to the jail where you were being held before your trial and talked to you.”
“But Marcus had told you not to,” he said. He completely accepted that his lawyer had manipulated her.
“I shouldn’t have trusted him over you.”
“I trusted him, too,” he said with a weary sigh. He hadn’t thought Marcus was smart enough to lie, but then he had had Brandon, the master manipulator, coaching him. “We both made mistakes.”
“Then don’t make another one,” she warned him. “Don’t push me away if you really want me.”
He couldn’t have her putting her life on hold any more now than he had been able to years ago. She was a mother; she and her daughter needed more than he could offer them. So he gripped her shoulders and gently pushed her back. “Go…”
She blinked, as if fighting back tears. “I hope you’re pushing me away because you can’t forgive me and not because you think you’re doing what’s best for me. Thinking that you hate me or that you don’t want me—” her voice cracked with emotion “—that isn’t what’s best for me. That hurts me.”
And hurting her hurt him; pain clutched his heart. He loved her. He had always loved her. That was why he wanted more for her than him.
“I can’t…” he murmured, unable to say more.
“Can’t forgive me?” She nodded in response to her own question before he could even form a reply. “I don’t blame you. I can’t forgive myself.”
As she turned for the entrance again, where his sister and daughter waited just beyond hearing, he reached out. Grabbing her arm, he whirled her back to him and pulled her into his arms. “I can’t let you go again.”
Her breath escaped in a shaky gasp of surprise. “Jed…”
“I love you, Erica,” he said, finally declaring the feelings he had denied for far too long, “so I should be unselfish. I shouldn’t ask you to wait for me, but…”
“I would anyway,” she said. “I waited when you went to Afghanistan, and without even knowing it, I waited while you were in prison. There has never been anyone else for me but you.”
He lowered his mouth and took hers in a deep, possessive kiss. Her lips parted as if she breathed him in, as if she needed him for air. As if she needed him as he needed her.
“I love you, Jed,” she said. “And that’s why I never should have doubted you.”
“Maybe that’s why you did,” he said. “Because your love made you vulnerable and scared.” He held her closely. “You never need to be again. I will come home to you and Isobel. I will come back.”
“You never have to go away,” Macy said, her face flushing with embarrassment at getting caught eavesdropping.
Jed flashed back to all the times, while they were growing up, that his pesky little sister had barged in on him with a girlfriend. She had jealously wanted all his attention back then because their parents had given her none of theirs. But she seemed very willing to share him with Erica. As smart as she was, she would have realized before he had how much he loved and needed to be with Erica.
“The district attorney, Drake Ketchum, waived all the charges against you,” Macy said, her voice shaking with excitement.
“Why?” Jed asked, too cynical now to believe it was possible.
“You served three years for crimes you hadn’t committed,” Erica said. “You shouldn’t have to serve any more time.”
Jed stared at his sister. “Did Rowe have something to do with this?”
“No,” she said. “The D.A. is using you as his star witness against the warden.”
Jed chuckled. He’d been right to be cynical. Nobody was selfless except for the woman in his arms, who had willingly put her life at risk for his. “I take it that he doesn’t want me showing up in court to testify in an orange jumpsuit.”
“Who cares what his motive is?” Erica asked. “You’re a free man, Jedidiah Kleyn.”
“I don’t want to be a free man,” he said with sudden realization.
“But, Jed,” she said, her eyes wide with shock, “you served three years already—”
“No.” He dropped to one knee on the cold concrete. “I don’t want to be a free man. I want to be your man, Erica. I don’t just want to be Isobel’s father. I want to be your husband…if you’ll have me. If you can trust me…”
For the first time since he had pulled her into the nightmare that had been his life, she cried, tears streaming down her face. “I trust you, Jed. I trust that you’ll be a gentle, loving father and a loyal, protective husband.” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and hugged him tightly. “I will marry you.”
Her acceptance meant more to him than finally clearing his name. That had been all about his past. She and their daughter were his future. “Now I’m the luckiest man in the world.”
Finally the promise of their first meeting and that instant connection was fulfilled. That promise had been tested and strained and had nearly broken over the past three years. But now it was a promise that they would keep for the rest of their lives.
Epilogue
“You better get used to that side of the bars,” Drake Ketchum taunted him. “You’re never getting out now.”
Jefferson had already heard the news. The district attorney definitely had a star witness in Jedidiah Kleyn. No one would doubt his testimony now.
“And you’re not getting to Kleyn before the trial. There’s no bounty—no amount of reward you can offer for someone to risk hurting him. He’s well protected.”
And damn near impossible to kill, Jefferson had already discovered. But with all his time alone behind these damn bars, he had figured out who wasn’t protected—who was so damn cocky that he thought he couldn’t lose.
But it wasn’t just the trial Ketchum was going to lose. It was his life.
* * * * *
ISBN: 9781459226340
Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Childs-Theeuwes
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