Page 71 of When You Are Mine

“No, it hasn’t.” He faced his dresser, stretching his arms across its width and gripping the edges. “Kerris would never let it go further than that. She wouldn’t have even let it go that far tonight if the circumstances hadn’t been so extreme. We were talking, and it just got too intimate. Too close.”

“Why would you talk to her about what happened in Haiti when you wouldn’t even talk to me or Aunt Kris?” The hardened shell around Jo’s voice didn’t hide her hurt and confusion.

“I wish I could explain to you what I feel for that woman.” He dropped his head to the dresser, wanting to bang his head over and over in punishment for his careless stupidity tonight. “She feels like my other half, Jo.”

“You don’t believe in that shit.”

“I didn’t.” Walsh raised his head and moved back toward his closet to drag out a duffel bag. “But I do now.”

“What’s so special about her?”

“She is…” Walsh lost words, coming to a halt in the middle of the room, a shirt dangling from his fingers. “She’s pure. There’s no subterfuge, no faking. And she’s kind, to a fault. She’s sensitive to other people’s feelings. And to be all of that, to be such a good person, after how her life began, is a miracle.”

“Oh, my God, you really do love her.” Astonishment swept away the anger on Jo’s face.

“Like you didn’t know that the night before their wedding,” Walsh said through the cage of his gritted teeth. “You ignored it and wanted to make sure we didn’t hurt Cam’s feelings. Like you always do.”

“You broke Cam’s heart tonight.”

“I know that.” Walsh gave free rein to the guilt he’d been suppressing ever since Cam turned on that bright light. “His face…what do you think he’s doing to her?”

“I think he’s probably screwing her brains out.”

“What?” Walsh turned to face her, a frown snatching his brows together.

“Oh, yeah.” Jo nodded her certainty. “If I know Cam, and I probably know him even better than you do, he’s gonna want to make sure she remembers who her husband is. He’s a very sexual man. You know that.”

“Stop it.”

The image of Cam in bed with Kerris after what she and Walsh had shared for those few moments tonight was a screw slowly being twisted into the surface of his mind by an unrelenting screwdriver.

“I can’t…I need…I need you to check on her tomorrow, Jo. Make sure he hasn’t hurt her.”

“Cam would never hurt a woman. And Kerris is probably willing to do whatever it takes to get back in his good graces.”

“Fuck!”

Walsh squeezed the bridge of his nose, wanting more than anything to rush back to the cottage and drag her out of there. He started back toward his closet with new urgency.

“I gotta get out of Rivermont before I do something even worse. You thought tonight was stupid. Just trap me here a few days with those images in my head, and you’ll see stupid.”

“Walsh, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Jo drew a deep breath, placing a restraining hand on his arm; he was still flinging clothes into his suitcase. “I can’t let you run this time.”

“I have to.” Walsh shook Jo’s hand off.

“You need to talk to your mother.” Her tone was wall-flat and insistent.

Walsh glanced over his shoulder to stare at his cousin.

“Of course I’ll talk to Mom before I leave.”

“No, go talk to her right now.” Jo swallowed hard, and the tears didn’t slide down her face, but they stood in her eyes. “She has something to tell you.”

“What do you mean—” Walsh cut the sentence short at the pained emotion on his cousin’s pretty face. “What’s wrong with Mom?”

“She’s in her bedroom.” Walsh had never heard Jo’s voice so completely devoid of shine. Dull. Matte. Reflecting nothing, not even the turmoil he knew was teeming inside. “Go ask her for yourself.”

Walsh prowled down the hall toward his mother’s suite of rooms, rapping on the door.

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