Page 48 of His Sacrifice

“She didn’t remember my name, but she remembered me.” He leaned toward me. “And you, too.”

I reared back. “No, she didn’t.” I honestly could not remember the last time Mom had remembered me. I was always just a stranger to her, and I decided to hang around a little bit every week. But she was happy, and I was satisfied with that.

“She remembered us from last week, Jada. She asked me where my wife was and then even remembered your hair is black.” He held up his finger and got up. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed a piece of paper off the table. “And when we were done making this, she said she wanted you to have it.”

I clasped my hand to my mouth and took in the beautiful collage of bright cutout pieces of paper. I had made countless collages with Mom over the years, but she had never offered me one to take with me. She always kept them for herself.

“It’s beautiful,” I whispered.

Creed moved closer and pointed to the various purple circles. “Your mom went to town on the purple. She wasn’t kidding when she said that was her favorite color.” He handed it to me, and I stared at it. “I was thinking I could get it framed for you.”

“Yes,” I whispered. It had felt like I had lost my mom years ago, but I could see her in this collage. “I’d like that.”

He carefully took it from me and set it back on the counter. “Now it’s your turn to tell me how things went with Candace.”

Ugh, talk about a downer. Creed settled back on the couch next to me. “I’m assuming it went well since you didn’t need to call out the cavalry.”

I nodded. “It went fine. I told her what you guys were doing, and then she asked about Leo. I mentioned that he said he was heading to St. Louis this week, and she perked up. She wanted to know when he was going, but I told her I didn’t know. She said she could find that out on her own. She finished her drink, which, by the way, she made me pay for, and then she was gone.”

“That’s all you told her?”

I nodded. “Swear to god. I know you don’t know what St. Louis has to do with anything, but it seems like Candace does.”

Creed sighed and shook his head. “Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Has Leo called?” I asked.

Creed shook his head. “Nothing from him yet.”

“Is it normal for him to just take off without telling you where he is going?”

“I wouldn’t say it’s normal, but he has done it before. Murphy and I were talking, and we’re glad he at least took Apollo with him.”

I guess that was a good thing.

“So what are we supposed to do now?” I asked. It seemed like all we were doing was hurrying up and then waiting.

“Wait for Leo to call. Or I guess wait for Candace to pop up again,” Creed shrugged.

Ugh. I didn’t want to wait anymore. I wanted all of this to be over. I’d like to go back to just working at the bookstore and spending my nights with Creed. Was that so much for a girl to ask for?

I moved to Creed and straddled his lap. “Just what are you doing, gorgeous?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“I thought we could move on to dessert,” I suggested, letting a playful smile spread across my face.

“You still have half of your food left,” he pointed out, not taking the bait.

“Are you going to lecture me about wasting food again?” I laughed.

“No, but I am going to put your dinner in the fridge so it doesn’t go to waste.” He lifted me off of him and grabbed my plate. I watched him go into the kitchen and slap some plastic wrap onto the plate.

“Why are you so concerned about wasted food?” I asked, watching him from the couch.

“I didn’t have much growing up.” He set the plate in the fridge. “Food was not something I had. I went days without eating, and when I did get to eat, it was bread, and if I were lucky, there would be butter.”

“What?” I whispered, feeling a pang of sadness for him.

Creed moved back to the couch and positioned me back on his lap. “My mother was an addict, and my dad took off before my mom could even tell him she was pregnant. Any money she had was first spent on drugs, and what little was leftover got spent on food.”

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