She stepped back. “All right then, you’d better go before it gets too late. I expect you home before one. And don’t you let that boy talk you into somethin’ you’re not interested in. Or is that exactly what you’re interested in?”
She cocked a brow.
“Mama,” I muttered through the thick emotion, light laughter breaking through. No one could flip a U as fast as her. “You are utterly ridiculous. You know the last thing I need is to go gettin’ wrapped up in that man again.”
Not that he even wanted me or that I wanted him.
That would be plain foolish.
“Ridiculous? I’m just keeping it real.” She started for the swinging door. “Apparently, I’m the only one in this house who isn’t completely delusional. You think I didn’t feel that tension radiating from you two on the porch? We were all lucky it didn’t blow the house right over.”
“It wasn’t anything like that,” I told her softly.
“You just go on tellin’ yourself that.” She paused, her expression going somber. “Find your heart, Izzy Mae. Don’t ignore it.”
Thirty minutes later, I pulled to a stop at the address Faith had given me. His house was in a quaint, quiet neighborhood in Charleston.
Squeezing the steering wheel, I peered out the side-window, trying to ignore the spike of hurt that pierced my spirit when I took in his house.
Small and charming and sweet. Hedged by a short fence that might have been considered cliché if it weren’t so perfect, dainty white flowers blooming on the green shrubs that grew up the slats of the wood. Porch painted gray with white accents, the barest light flooding the space in warmth. A manicured lawn stretched in between.
Seeing it hurt.
It was the kind of home I’d hoped for as a little girl. The kind of home I’d dreamed of when I’d become that hopeless romantic as a teen. The kind I’d been a fool to tell him all about.
I nearly rolled my eyes at myself.
Hopeless, was right.
Well, I sure couldn’t dwell on it then, so I sucked down a steeling breath, cut the engine, and climbed out.
In the dull light coming from the porch, my sight caught on the same Suburban parked in the driveway that Maxon had been driving when he’d saved me a few days ago. Sitting next to it was an enormous black pick-up truck that he probably took hiking or camping or hunting.
Or hell . . . it just looked like Maxon, no matter what.
Rough and rugged and strong.
Part of me wanted to run and hide from all that strength and intensity, the same way as I’d been doing for the last thirteen years. But that was no longer an option.
It was time for me to suck it up. Tell him like it was. He could hold it or trample it or laugh in my face, but all of those things were up to him.
The only power I had was in myself. My own choices. My own resolve.
Fingers fumbling, I unlatched the gate and started up the concrete walkway, feet clumsy in the same heeled sandals I’d been wearing earlier.
My heart felt even clumsier.
Like I might tumble.
Take a fall.
Land flat on my face.
But that was a risk I had to take. I at least owed Maxon this. An explanation. An apology for my own wrongs, not that any of them negated what the man had done.
Holding onto the railing, I eased up the two steps onto the porch.
Swore, the echo of my shoes felt like gunshots as I crossed the wooden planks.
A breeze whipped through the humid night air, and my tongue darted out to wet my dried lips, and I searched for courage as I stood at the dark gray door.
I lifted my hand and rapped the wood. It sent a loud, reverberating echo through his house.
I struggled around the dread and the worry and the gross feeling that had forever whispered in my consciousness.
Whispered that I hadn’t been good enough. Not pretty enough or sexy enough or interesting enough.
That insecure girl didn’t matter right then.
This was about Benjamin.
Stilled silence echoed back. Well, that and the roar of my pulse that thundered in my ears.
I leaned in closer to the door, listening for . . . anything.
I looked back at the cars parked in the drive, sure that he had to be there.
A smack of panic hit me in the face.
What if . . .. . . what if he was with a woman?
Oh, God.
I hadn’t even considered that. And I shouldn’t. Shouldn’t even contemplate it or give it a second thought. But I couldn’t help it, those old memories that crept up the way they loved to do.
Ghosts that shouted and mocked.
Pain crushed my ribs, squeezing, pressing at those shards, still sharp enough to cut.
I gulped for a cleansing breath and forced myself to knock again.