He was home. He was truly home.
She sat up when he closed the door. She looked so exhausted. For the first time, Sean didn’t know anything about what had happened on a case of hers. He had known it was a bad one, and he knew now that they’d solved it and stopped a black-market baby ring, but it was clear from the way Lucy looked that she’d gone through hell and back.
And he hadn’t been here.
He practically ran over to her, kissed her, hugged her. She felt so good, so right here in his arms.
“I missed you so much,” he said. He buried his face in her hair. Her neck. He kissed her over and over.
She kissed him back lightly, then sat down again. He sat next to her, grabbing her hands. He never wanted to let her go.
“Our cases intersected,” Lucy said.
“Yes. But Carson Spade is in custody and Jesse is back with his mother. And you found the missing sisters. It’s over.” He kissed her. “Can we talk about it tomorrow? I just want to think of nothing but us. You. Me. A hot shower.” He kissed her again.
She wasn’t kissing him back.
“Lucy, what’s wrong?”
“I saw Jesse’s photo.”
He blinked.
She continued. “I wish you had told me, Sean.”
“That Jesse is my son.”
She nodded.
That was when Sean saw what was underneath Lucy’s exhaustion. She was blank. Cool. She was assessing him. How he responded mattered.
“I didn’t know about him.”
“I know. Not until Madison told you.”
“Right. And I couldn’t just tell you over the phone. I wanted to, but I needed to be here with you. She never told me she was pregnant. She never told Jesse that I was his father. It was … a shock. But that doesn’t change anything, not for us. We’ll work through it.”
She extracted her hands from his and stood up.
“It’s not Jesse. It’s not that you have a son. You lied to me, Sean.”
“What?”
“Just now. You lied to me. I wanted—needed—to hear you tell me why you didn’t explain everything on Monday before you left. You knew Monday, when Madison came here and told you everything. And yet … You didn’t tell me. So I’ve been thinking and trying to figure out why you kept that from me, why you went to Mexico to rescue your son without even explaining to me the real reason you took the job. Nothing I thought of made sense. But I love you, and I knew you would have a good reason that I would understand.
“And then you lied to me.”
“I didn’t. That’s not what I meant!”
“You did. Why didn’t you tell me when you had the chance?”
He stared at her. This could not be happening. Lucy was emotionless. It was like she already had walked out on him. His chest tightened. “I—there wasn’t a good time. You had a tough case, an abandoned infant, missing girls, and I didn’t want you to worry about me. I had Kane—”
“Kane and everyone else knew. Everyone.” Now there was a flash of anger. Anger was good, right? That meant she still loved him. That she cared. “Kane knew. Jack knew. JT Caruso knew. Rick Stockton knew. They knew because they needed to know, because they were all part of this extraction in one way or the other. But not me. I didn’t need to know, did I?”
“Lucy—”
“I love you, Sean, and this has been the hardest three days of my life. Your attempt to once again protect me by keeping information from me hurts more than anything. It comes down to trust. I trust you explicitly. But you don’t trust me.”
“That’s nonsense! Lucy—”
“Is it nonsense? Because if you trusted me—my emotions, my ability to compartmentalize, my sanity—then you would have told me the truth and we would have worked through it. But you kept it from me because somewhere deep inside you think that I’m fragile. That I need protecting from, what, life? That lying to me, keeping secrets from me, is your way of loving me. That’s not love, Sean. It’s pity.”
“God no, Lucy, you’re wrong.” This was not happening. Lucy couldn’t be thinking like this. Sean began to panic.
“I was once broken. I know what it’s like to be in a million pieces. But I’m not broken anymore. I’m no longer fragile. You gave me hope. You gave me back the piece of me I was missing before I met you. You told me once that we were stronger together.”
“We are.”
“You don’t believe it. Because you don’t trust me to not break again under the weight of life. Life is cruel, Sean. It’s dark. It’s violent. Innocent people die and we can’t save them all. You were my light, my hope, my sanctuary.”