Renegade Father (20 page)

His chest rose and fell against her as he took a deep breath and then his gaze met hers. “I didn't kill my father,” he murmured. “I wanted to, but I didn't.”

She touched his beautiful, rugged face, to the muscle twitching along his jawline. “I know you didn't. Not on purpose.”

“No, you don't understand. I didn't touch him. He was already dead when I walked in the door.”

Shocked questions buzzed through her mind, then the answer came to her, sending them all scattering.

“Your mother,” she whispered, a statement not a question.

Joe nodded. “She was in the kitchen baking cookies as if nothing had happened while he bled to death.”

“Oh Joe. I'm so sorry.” She wrapped her arms around him, finally able to give the comfort he had always rejected.

Holding her tightly, he rested his chin on her head. “I think he hit her one too many times and she finally snapped. She didn't remember a thing about it. Nothing. She never did, even up until she died four years ago.”

“So you took the blame for her.”

“It seemed the right thing to do. I couldn't let her go to jail, not when she had already been through so much. I figured I couldn't protect her from him while he was alive but maybe I could protect her once he was dead.”

They were silent for several moments, accompanied only by the rattling of the chains on the porch swing and the beating of their hearts. Finally he kissed her again, so tenderly those tears came sneaking back.

“I love you, Annie. I came back to town all those years ago to tell you that, to see if you might feel the same way. But everything changed after I found my father.”

For all of them, she thought. If he hadn't taken the blame for his mother, she never would have married Charlie. But then she wouldn't have had C.J. and wouldn't have discovered how truly strong she could be.

She looked up at the big, hard man she had loved since she was a little girl and her heart overflowed.

It was time to break free of the past, time to move forward and seize the promise life offered them.

And they would do it together.

The knowledge filled her with sweet, healing peace.