Page 62 of Colton's Last Resort

“I’m not Prince Charming.”

She clicked her tongue. “I’ve looked for Prince Charming. No luck there.”

“Doesn’t mean you and me are meant to be,” he asserted.

Some part of her wanted to challenge that. Even the part of her that knew better wanted to know what it would be like...the hot mess they would be together. When heat fired in her again, she drowned the images with more wine.

“And, for the record,” he said, “you’re not hard or cold. You’re calm and together, and you have a strong sense of what’s right for you and what isn’t. You know how to take out the trash. That’s why the playboys have come and gone. And so has your father.”

She looked away. “My father has nothing to do with this.”

“Your daddy’s got everything to do with it,” he said. “It was him who taught you what toxic people look like.”

She thought it over. “If I’m together or strong, I learned it from my mother. She kept my brothers and me together through the upheaval. Even when she was sick, she had spine. She was incredible. I can’t fathom why she never kicked my father to the curb. They lived separate lives by the time she bought this place, but she never divorced him.”

“Maybe he made it impossible for her to do so,” he intoned.

She felt the color drain from her face. “You’re having a glass,” she decided, handpicking another piece of stemware. She poured him one and passed it to him over the countertop. “I don’t believe in drinking alone.”

He lifted the drink, tipped it to her in a silent toast, before testing it.

She watched his throat move around a swallow. Her own tightened. She was growing tired of the tug-of-war between her better judgment and the side of her that wanted to dance in the flames. She was having difficulty quantifying both. “What was your mother like?”

His glass touched down on the counter with a decisiveclink.“I don’t talk about my mother.”

She culled a knowing noise from the back of her throat. “That’s what’s wrong with you.”

A laugh shot out of him, unbidden.

Another one, she thought, satisfied.

He shook his head. “God, you’re a pest.”

Even as he smiled, she recognized the pain webbing underneath the surface. “She died, didn’t she?” she asked quietly.

The smile vanished. He masked the hurt skillfully with his hard brand of intensity. “So what if she did?”

She took a moment to consider. “That would mean we have something in common.”

He stared at her...through her.

There was a lost boy in there somewhere. The foster kid who’d been dumped into the system while he was still coming to terms with losing the woman who’d raised him. She ached for that child, just as she ached for that part of her that had listened to Joshua cry himself to sleep every night and had been helpless against the tide of grief.

The line of his shoulders eased. He lifted the glass and downed half the wine in one swift gulp. Frowning at the rest, he cursed. “She’d just kicked my stepdad to the curb. He was a user with a tendency for violence. We moved around some to throw him off the scent. I didn’t mind. Stability’s fine and all, but I had her, and she had me, and that was...everything.”

He chewed over the rest for a time before he spoke again. “There was this STEM camp I wanted to go to. I didn’t think I’d get to go. It cost money, and she was working two jobs to keep the building’s super off our backs. She put me in the car one afternoon, said we were going out for groceries. She drove out of town and pulled up in front of the camp cabins. She’d packed me enough clothes for a week. I was so happy. I don’t remember hugging her goodbye. I just remember running off to join roll call.”

She waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she asked, “Is that the last time you saw her?”

“Alive?” He jerked a nod. “The son of a bitch found her. Bashed her skull in with a hammer. Next time I saw her, she was lying in a casket.”

“I’m sorry.” She breathed the words. “I’m so sorry, Noah.”

“He got off,” he added grimly. “Broke down on the stand and got sent to a psych ward instead of doing his time upstate.”

The wine on her tongue lost its taste. She winced as she swallowed. “No closure for you, then.”

“Hell, no. All things considered, it’s better than what Allison went through before she got shuffled into foster care.”

---