“If you aborted my child without telling me it existed.”
All the fight drained out of her, and she fell boneless to the side of the bed. His ex-wife had committed that crime against him, against her own child. He’d left her without looking back. Max didn’t realize she’d closed her eyes until Witt’s arms came around her and he pulled her onto his lap. She’d neither seen nor felt him move and couldn’t fathom how Cameron’s shirts and socks had returned to the box now pushed to the center of the room.
Abortion. Her Achilles’ heel. The killing of an innocent. Witt would never understand. She could never tell him what she’d done.
He leaned back against the bed frame, settling her snuggly against him. A frightened voice inside begged her to fight. Exhausted, she stayed where she was.
“I’m sorry your wife lied to you about the baby.”
“Sorry you thought your husband was leaving you.”
“He was.” The words were token resistance.
“He’d have come back.”
She couldn’t see his face. He might have been making it up so she’d feel better. “I don’t think so.”
“He couldn’t have stopped himself.” He stroked the hair at her temple. “Like me.”
“You sound like a lovesick puppy,” she murmured, all squishy inside. He was getting to her. How the hell had he done that?
His arms tightened. “I’m not ashamed of loving you, Max. Thing is, you gotta realize you love me back for it to work out.”
Ah, so there were two reasons he’d leave her. She traced a small circle on his T-shirt right over his heart. He smelled of fresh laundry that had been hanging in the sun. She wondered if he knew how ridiculously straightforward his answer was. Of course. He was a master of understatement.
Loving him back was a small part of the problem, a moment of realization she’d passed days ago, if she were totally honest. There was so much more. All the things Cameron had run from. It wasn’t needing to be on top or the switch of terminology from having sex to making love. It was about the shame that attacked in the aftermath of sex with Cameron. It was about the terror she had of bearing his children, regardless of whether she could. It was about the constant belief that one day her husband would up and walk away because he couldn’t take any more of her shit.
As Cameron had. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
“I can’t blame him for leaving. I’m not normal. I tried with Cameron, I really did. I wasn’t the white-picket-fence-and-babies kind of girl. He left me that night, and if he hadn’t died, he wouldn’t have come back.”
“He did come back.”
“Stop humoring me. You think I’m crazy as a loon and that Cameron’s ghost is a figment of my imagination.”
“I don’t.” Fingers on her chin, he made her look at him. “Not for a long time. He’s real. He’s leading us to his killer.” He stroked her jaw. “Cameron would never have left you if he didn’t have to.” It was the first time Witt had used Cameron’s name. “He didn’t stay to find you a man. He stayed to watch you overcome the shit life’s dealt you. Like me, he knows you will.”
“Ladybird and Horace have been talking to you.” She managed a facetious tone. Inside, she was about to burst.
He shook her shoulders. “Wake up, Max. You’re the one who thinks you’re weak. The rest of us know you’re tough as nails.”
Wonder of wonders. He believed in her. God, he really did. She thought about telling him all her secrets, about being so angry she’d wished Cameron dead that night, about the baby she’d killed, about the uncle who’d gotten her pregnant, about the years of wandering from man to man searching for something she finally found with Cameron only to lose it such a short time later. She could have felt sorry for herself, she could have sunk deeper into the hole she’d been digging for the last twenty years or so, and while she couldn’t blame Cameron for getting sick and tired of it all, she decided here and now she wouldn’t blame herself either.
Somewhere nearby, Cameron sighed.
She wasn’t like Bud. She wouldn’t sleep with Witt for his gun. For this night, she’d forget about vengeance and betrayal. She’d forget about Bud and her plan. Instead, she would learn to make love. Not merely how to use the words, but to feel them melt the block of ice that had surrounded her heart and enslaved her soul.
Max put her arms around Witt’s neck, her face to his shoulder, and whispered, “I love you.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“See how much I believe in you? I’m not even gonna ask if you really mean it.”
Funny. For her, he had to enumerate reasons for loving her. She only had to say the words, and he accepted.
“Remember that the next time I get mad and take it back,” she warned.