Page 117 of Burning Love
His heart was thumping faster than it had the first fire he had to fight. It felt the same to him as it did when he thought of his father and Lauren and his sisters.
Of never seeing them again.
Disappointing them.
Just like he had Talia the last time they talked.
“Jace?”
He turned his head to see Jeremy standing a few feet away. The man who said he wouldn’t be able to care for him. At least Jeremy was man enough to admit that.
“Yeah.”
“It’s good to see you. You look the same. A lot bigger, but the same. I’ve kept tabs on you over the years.”
He snorted. “Why? You didn’t want me.”
It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him to see his stepfather here. In the past few months every time he turned around something shocking was popping up in his life.
Meeting Talia, then her family, the baby, introducing her to his family. Falling in love.
Nothing he’d experienced before.
Might as well put it all out there now to move on.
Like his father and Talia told him to do.
She was right.
If he couldn’t get past what happened to him, he wouldn’t be able to fully accept his future.
“It wouldn’t have been right for me to take you when you had a father out there,” Jeremy said.
“So you did it for me? That’s what you want me to believe? What if my father didn’t want me?”
“I would have never let you be alone,” Jeremy said. “I promised your mother that. But I told her she needed to reach out to Dean first. She owed it to you.”
Just another thing in his life his mother didn’t tell him.
“You told her. She didn’t do this on her own. Another lie? She lied about everything,” he said. He had no idea what to believe anymore.
Jeremy sighed. “Your mother had a lot of fears in her life. She was stubborn and impulsive on top of it. I loved that about her, but it was her downfall too.”
“How’s that?”
He crossed his arms. A defensive move. Guess he still didn’t like anyone talking shit about his mother. Even the guy that loved her.
“Jace,” Jeremy said patiently. “Your mother was sick for a good year. She put her head in the sand and hoped it went away.”
Something he’d thought of for a long time too.
“Like Dean?” he asked.
“I know you don’t want to hear this, but it’s the truth. You had every right to say what you had to her and she died knowing she was wrong.”
His throat was closing on him. He hadn’t expected Jeremy to side with him. “I shouldn’t have done that to her.”
“No,” Jeremy said. “You shouldn’t have, but no one could blame you either. You were a kid being dealt a lot of hard hands at once. No one knows what to do in those situations and most times they make the wrong decisions.”
