When she sees me, she goes absolutely still.
Merri
I LOOK UP at his face and feel a vice around my heart. He’s Drake Carlson’s son. There’s no way he can ever really care for me. Men aren’t like that. They’re territorial. He knows what I did with his father. Drake cheated on his wife, Derinda, and for at least a little while, I was the ‘other woman’.
Tears fill my eyes, so he and the trees behind him are smeared, but I still can’t look away. I feel my mouth tremble. I’m too upset to even be embarrassed.
Cross is watching me like he’s watching his life pass before his eyes. Having him right here in front of me, looking at me that way, is too much at this moment. It’s like I’m on one island and he’s on another. I don’t think the water that runs between us could ever dry up. Not unless one of us becomes someone else.
I wish I could. I wish we’d met some other way. I wish he didn’t know about my past.
I wipe my face with fingers that feel numb, and when I speak, the words sound thick and muffled. “What are you doing here?”
The expression on his face remains the same. Blank. Almost stoic. His eyes roll over me and then he looks away. “Can you tell that I’ve been drinking?” he asks softly.
I nod. I could smell it earlier.
“I’ve always been a rash drunk. Doing things I shouldn’t.” He sinks to the ground in front of me, making a face as he uses his right hand to balance. I lean forward, wishing I’d thought to help him.
He reaches out his right hand and takes my left one, threading my clammy fingers warmly through his stronger ones. He looks down at our hands.
“It makes me angry that he had you. It makes me angry because he didn’t deserve you. No one does.” He looks into my face. “Especially not me. I lied to you.”
“That’s true.”
“I’m an asshole, Merri. I…didn’t think I was, but now I know I always have been. I’m not brave like you are. When people started following me, I was afraid.”
“Of course you were,” I whisper. I bring our joined hands to my mouth so I can press a kiss on the back of his knuckles, because the least I can do is assuage his guilt. “Cross, you rode into Mexico, into cartel territory, alone, with only this.” I squeeze the fingers of his right hand gently and look into his eyes. “Please don’t ever think that you’re not brave. I don’t know of many people who would do something like that. Something so…selfless.”
He shakes his head. “I wouldn’t call it selfless. I couldn’t live with the guilt anymore.”
“It was still selfless,” I say. “I’ve made bad choices, too, so I can’t judge. And even if it did take you a year, I’m never going to feel anything but grateful toward you, promise. So we can go our own separate ways and as long as your dad never tracks me down or tries to hurt me, I’ll be fine.”
“I don’t want to go separate ways.”
His words feel like a stone thrown into the waters of my heart. I just sit there for a moment, unable to move or think. Cross’s handsome face is blurry from my tears, but his voice is quiet and strong. “Meredith…” His hand around mine tightens. “I didn’t expect to feel this way. I didn’t want to. But I do. I know it’s fu— it’s weird, okay? It’s crazy weird…because of my father mostly. But I want to be with you. I want to get to know you more.”
I shake my head, pull my fingers from his and scoot away. I press myself against the door and whisper, “You should want to leave.”
“There are reasons why I can’t.” He scoots toward me, thumbing my cheek. “And they are here—” he leans in close to kiss my temple— “and here—” his perfect lips find my mouth and taste it gently— “and here—” he says, kissing me just above my breasts.
He leans in close enough to steal the air out of my lungs and presses a kiss against my forehead. “And that’s why I can’t walk away, even though I know I should. My father might have found you first, but you were always mine.”
He is all around me. I can smell him, feel the warmth that radiates off him. I can feel his arm thread through my hair and then his mouth takes mine. The kisses start out soft and slow, excruciating. I’m shivering. But pretty soon they turn hungry. I’m pressed against the door and Cross is gently over me, smelling of vodka, breathing my name. The skin of his back is so soft and so warm. My hands are under his t-shirt, crawling up his hard, lean sides, blinded by lust until I feel the gauze.