“And would you stay in Charlotte?”
She doesn’t have to respond at all this time because she knows I know.
Lucky has nowhere to go. No one to take her in. Nowhere she can settle and have any sort of support system at all.
“How long have you been moving like this?”
“Since I was fifteen.”
“What?”
A tiny sob slips from her throat, but she tries to swallow it back. “I mean, basically my whole life. Moving constantly in foster care, and then I left when I was fifteen. I’ve been on my own ever since. Almost seven years.”
Despite feeling like my heart is being ripped out of my chest at the possible reasons why, I have to ask. I have to know. “Why did you leave?”
Her only response is a flinch.
And I can’t stay away anymore.
I eat up the space between us again with a few determined steps and capture her face between my palms. “You know what? You don’t have to tell me that if you don’t want to. I just…I need you to understand that there’s nothing you could say to me, nothing you could admit or tell me, that would change what I’m asking you right now, which is for you to stay.”
LUCKY
I have never wanted to say “yes” so badly in my life as I do at this moment. As I stare into his green eyes filled with so much hope and longing, so much compassion, so much determination, I know that if I did, he would do everything in his power to try to save me.
Liam would try to make everything right, no matter the cost.
And that’s why I can’t tell him.
I have to protect this incredible man from what I’ve done. Keeping him in the dark means keeping him safe.
It means keeping everyone safe.
I shake my head, the feeling of his calloused palms rubbing against my cheeks almost too much to bear. “I-I can’t.”
My voice cracks, giving away just how fucking hard this is when I never expected it to be. This was only supposed to be a few days, a few hundred dollars in my pocket, and then I would have been on my way, leaving this small town behind me the same way I have dozens of others.
It should have been easy to leave. It was supposed to be.
“Why not, Lucky?” Liam prevents me from dipping my head and looking away like I so badly want to. He holds me firm, forcing me to stare into those mossy green eyes that so closely match the color of the trees on McBride Mountain that it almost feels like I can see the leaves and boughs blowing in the wind when I stare into them. “Tell me.”
Those eyes plead. For me to talk. For me to open up. For me to trust him.
Good God…I want to…
Every fiber of my being says that I can trust him. That he might be the only person on this planet who potentially could help me.
It might have been enough if I didn’t already care about what happens to him. If I didn’t already feel that horrific sense of dread tightening my gut when I think about what could happen if my past catches up with me here.
“It’s just…safer if I go, Liam.”
“There’s that word again.” His voice deepens, his eyes hardening with his determination and frustration. “Safer. And the more you mention it, the more I understand that whatever it is you’re running from isn’t something you should be facing alone, so here’s the deal.” His coppery brows rise. “You listening?”
I nod.
I’m listening because he’s making me.
He’s holding me in place with his strong grip and the intensity of his gaze and words.
