“No.” After a beat, he releases a slow breath and his shoulders slump. “Maybe.”
Tears blur my vision. I blink hard to force them away. “You didn’t think this was something I might need—or want—to know?”
Guilt churns in his eyes, settles deep into the lines around his mouth. “Grace?—”
“No!” I shove against his chest hard enough he releases me, and my ass hits the floor. “You’ve been doin’ all this behind my back? I was in here with you yesterday and didn’t see any of this. You’ve been hiding it this whole time?”
A vein in his temple throbs. He scrubs a hand over his jaw, the only sounds in the room his stubble rasping against his palm and my ragged breathing. There’s no denial. No apology either.
I press a shaking hand to my chest, trying to hold myself together. “I can’t remember most of my life, AJ. The only thing I’ve been sure of since I first felt your arms around me…was you. But you’ve been keeping secrets from me. Do you have any idea what that feels like?”
AJ staggers to his feet, rights the chair, and sets it next to me. He offers me his hand, but I won’t take it. I may feel like I’m on a tilt-a-whirl, but I’m determined to do this on my own.
My right knee buckles the first time I put any weight on it, but I don’t give up. After three tries, I make it into the chair, my chest heaving from the effort.
Leaning his hip against the desk, AJ shoves his hands into his pockets, his shoulders hunched.
“I didn’t tell you because… Fuck. I didn’t want to make anythin’ worse,” he admits. His voice is rough, the edges of it frayed and thin. So unlike his usual warm, reassuring tone. “You’ve been fightin’ so damn hard to get through every day, Grace. To stand. To talk. To play with Belle. And I—” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t bury you under the weight of all this. Not when you’re already carryin’ so much.”
“You don’t get to decide that for me,” I whisper.
“I know.” His gaze lowers to mine. “Every time I thought about tellin’ you, I’d remember how you looked that first morning in Mexico. You were so lost, darlin’. But then you started findin’ yourself bit by bit. You came back to me. I couldn’t risk losin’ you again.”
My chest aches, a battle between fury and something softer—something I can’t quite name—raging in my heart. “So you kept it all hidden.”
“I did,” he says quietly. “And I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry, Grace. But I swear to you, I wasn’t tryin’ to shut you out. I’ve been workin’ to piece it together, to make sense of it, so I could give you answers instead of just…all these fucking questions.”
My eyes drift to the board again. The photos. The scribbled notes. The careful lines of string connecting one horror to another. Some of the clippings are curled at the edges. Faded. A few crumpled and smoothed out again.
He’s been doing this for three years. All the days and nights I was lost, he was here. Fighting for me the only way he could.
The sharp edges of my anger dull a little. I spin my wedding ring around on my finger. It’s still loose, but the weight of it grounds me. “You never stopped looking.”
His eyes close, and a shudder runs through him. “Never. Not for one goddamn second, Grace.”
The tears I’ve been fighting spill over, hot and fast. And for the first time since I woke up in that hospital bed, I don’t feel like a ghost of someone who vanished. I feel…seen. Wanted. Remembered.
AJ doesn’t move right away. Like he’s afraid if he does, he’ll break some spell and I’ll run—okay, shuffle—from the room. But eventually, he offers me his hand again. This time, I take it.
He guides me over to his leather couch, his arm tight around my waist. We sink down together. One of his knees cracks, and the sound is so achingly normal that I almost laugh.
“Can I hold you?” he asks.
I hesitate. Just for a second. But then I lean into him, pressing my cheek to his chest. His arms close around me, strong and steady, the scent of leather and soap wrapping me up like a blanket.
I take an easy breath. Then another.
AJ rests his chin against the top of my head. “I should’ve told you, Grace. You deserve better than secrets. Better than me stumblin’ around, tryin’ to protect you the wrong damn way.”
“I stumble enough for the both of us,” I say, and the single moment of lightness helps heal a little of what fractured between us. “But…AJ, we work because we’re honest with one another.”
He sucks in a breath. “Fuckin’ hell. You said almost the same thing to me the mornin’ you disappeared.”
“I did? Was I mad at you then, too?” After a beat, I twist enough to look up at him, my eyes wide. “AJ, were we…fighting that morning?”
His hold tightens, the kind of squeeze that says he’s hanging on as much for himself as for me. There’s so much pain in his gaze, my heart aches for him.
“I was an idjit. We were supposed to go up to the cabin that Friday night, but Harris pulled rank and ordered me and Jasper to stake out a couple of strip malls all weekend. I…texted you. And when you called me back, I didn’t pick up.”
