She paused for a moment as if she were grappling with finding the right words.
“How do you learn to forgive yourself?”
He stiffened. After everything they’d talked about and all the progress they made, he hadn’t expected all the assumptions he’d made about her to come roaring back so fast. The idea that she’d judge him and the others for doing what they had to rankled. It also didn’t feel quite right.
He pushed back against his assumptions and held her gaze for a moment. Her eyes filled with unshed tears and he realized they weren’t talking about him at all.
“What do you need to forgive yourself for?”
“It’s supposed to be my turn to ask the question,” she said, but she blinked and the tears spilled from her eyes.
He waited, holding her tight in his arms, willing her to feel his acceptance.
“I killed Millie’s husband.”
Whatever he’d been expecting, it hadn’t been that. “What do you mean?”
“I talked him into the mortgage. I was the one who convinced him to leverage everything. Millie didn’t want him to do it, but I kept hammering away. Selling the idea until he had no choice but to say yes.”
He ran his hand down her back, stroking from her shoulders to the dimples at the top of her ass. He didn’t want to say anything until she was finished telling him her story, but he wanted her to know he was there with her.
“When the market crashed and he got the foreclosure notice, he came to my office to see me. At first he was angry. Then he begged.”
She held his gaze, not hiding, and he imagined how much the honesty must be costing her.God, she was brave.
“The farm had been in his family for generations. He couldn’t deal with losing it. He begged for my help and I told him no. He had a heart attack and died on my office floor.”
“And you’ve been trying to pay for it ever since,” he said, the pieces finally sliding into place, completing the picture.
She nodded and he touched her cheek, brushing a tear away. He wasn’t going to tell her everything was okay or she didn’t do anything wrong. She didn’t need his bullshit and he knew better than most no one else could forgive the things you needed to forgive yourself for. But he could hold her, and he could walk through it with her so she didn’t have to keep doing it alone.
“Millie seems to have forgiven you.” He could only imagine what it had been like for the two women to move in together. That they’d built the relationship they had spoke volumes about both of them.
“She says I need to stop using her as an excuse to punish myself.”
“Smart woman, that Millie.”
“Don’t you dare tell her. She’s already got some kind of weird crush on you.”
“I know. I like it.” He was willing to let her change the subject. Hell, he’d help her, but he wanted to be sure she heard him first. “I agree with Millie. I think you’ve done enough. You can do what you do because you want to and you’re good at it and it helps people. You don’t have to beat yourself with it. At a certain point that doesn’t serve anyone.”
She nodded, and some of the tension seeped out of her body. Letting her forehead rest on his chest, she pressed her lips to his skin.
“You know,” he said, kissing the top of her head. “I was afraid I was going to have to buy you a new bed.” He rocked them together and the bedframe creaked. “I wasn’t sure this one would survive everything I wanted to do to you.”
He felt her breath hitch in response to his words and the energy between them shift. Hooking a hand behind her knee, he pulled her leg up around his hip.
“It survived,” she said, her voice sounding breathy as he fitted himself to her.
He intended to spend the rest of the night and as many others as they had together stealing her breath and showing her neither one of them had to be alone.
“The night’s not over yet.”
