“I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. I wasn't there. I-I…oh, Belle baby, Daddy’s so sorry.”

I crawled up on the bed beside her, pulling her limp body into my arms, rocking her one last time. Singing her our lullaby, I kissed her tiny face and broke down.”

He cleared his throat and squeezed my hand. Coming back to the present, he continued telling me about what had happened.

“I later found out Janelle wasn’t just drunk, she was also high. Nobody was watching Belle. While my baby drowned, I was nowhere to be found and her mother was messed up.”

I looked up at Mace’s face, tears streaming down mine and his. The anger I felt toward Belle’s mother didn’t just move up a notch, it skyrocketed. If I ever laid eyes on the woman, I was liable to harm her, beat the living crap out of her. She didn’t deserve the breath in her lungs.

Mace took a shaky breath and kept going; my throat clogged with emotion. I wasn’t sure I could hear anymore, but for him, I had to.

“She was only a baby, Scar. My baby. I’ll never forget the day we buried her. The tiny, little pink coffin holding her fragile broken body. You could see—you could see my Belle wasn’t in there; her laughter, her inner light, it was gone. She was gone. The look on her face will haunt me for the rest of my life. Her little body so still and cold. Belle was such a happy girl. From the moment she opened up her eyes, until the very last time she closed them, she was wide awake loving the world.

“I’ll never get to hold her again. See that beautiful smile, those bright blue eyes shining with laughter, her little giggles; she sounded just like a pixie when she laughed, a real life Tinkerbelle. She would light up a room just with a smile.” At the memory, he gave me a pained smile.

“So many things she’ll never have, never got to do. Her first day of school, a wobbly tooth, graduating, walking toward the man she would have spent her life with, having her own babies. I’m the reason she’ll never get that. I’m the reason she was robbed of that. If I hadn’t reenlisted, taken her from her mother, or manned up and married Janelle, taken care of them. Stayed. Just gotten home a little bit earlier…she would still be here. I’d still have my baby Belle.”

“You can’t do that, Mace. You can’t blame yourself.” It was final; my heart was broken, for Mace, for Belle. That was without a doubt the hardest thing I had ever listened to, and to make it worse Mace blamed himself to the fullest extent. It was shining clear across his face. It was in the tears he was shedding.

“I can and I will until I’m taken out of this world. It should have been me, Scar. I would give my own breath, my own life to have her back, but regardless, I can’t bring her back. I didn’t even get to kiss her goodbye. The day I lost Belle, I lost a part of myself, a part I’ll never get back. I’ll never be whole again. It was the end of everything I knew.”

I couldn’t hold back any longer. I pushed myself across the small distance and grabbed a hold of Mace. My heart tore wide open, and I needed to hold him to soothe some of his sorrow, to soak up some of his pain and take the burden from him, if only for a little while. He was a good man in an unimaginable, devastating situation. Losing a child was something no parent should ever live long enough to see.

Chapter Thirteen

I held onto Scarlett like she was the air I needed to breathe. For years my family had been telling me Belle’s death was out of my control, but a few whispered words from Scar had taken a little bit of the pressure off my chest. Regardless of the things Scarlett could make me feel, I knew I wasn’t good enough for her. I wanted her. God, I wanted her, but I wasn’t good for her. She was sweet and caring, had a good heart that shone brightly. She wasn’t a needy bitchy woman; she was straight to the point, sexy as all hell and funny. She shouldn’t be tainted by the likes of me and my past, the blood on my hands. She didn’t know the half of it. Even as I held her in my arms after talking about Belle, I knew eventually she would have to know about the rest.

Belle was the tip of the iceberg; the only part of my broken heart that had good memories attached. Scarlett would soon learn about the reason I stepped away from my career; the mistake that I made that left good men dead and families devastated. The fact I was still in Belle’s mother’s life. Any one of these things might be what drove her away from me, and protecting Scarlett was the only thing on my mind, even if it meant protecting her from me.

Somewhere during the last week, she had dropped some of those walls down and I wasn’t about to ruin the progress in one fell swoop. I didn’t want to destroy this by laying all my shit bare. I needed her for as long as I could have her.

Scarlett cleaned up the shop and shut down the lights, locking the doors behind us as we left for her place. I wanted this woman in my life. I just wasn’t sure if it was fair to her. I was torn about how to deal with my feelings for Scar.

A few minutes later, I pulled my truck into Scarlett’s drive, cut the engine and followed her inside. The house wasn’t extravagant, just a simple, inviting place you could relax. The large open plan living areas were filled with sleek furniture that was comfortable looking. Markers, pencils and sketch books lay on the coffee table, framed photos littered the room: Scarlett at different ages and poses, some her and Teeny, some just her and a few with an older man who I assumed was her father. I noticed none of her mother; in fact, she had never spoken of her before, a topic for another day.

The sun had set hours beforehand, and with the earlier mood of the evening, we’d both opted for a movie. Scarlett came into the living room with a bowl of popcorn and two cans of soda as I was putting a disk in.

“What’d you pick?” she asked putting the popcorn and sodas down.

I pulled her by her hands, flopped down on my back, setting into the deep folds of the couch, my head on the cushions, and grabbed her waist, pulling her on top of me hip to hip. My one hand palmed her ass, while the other gently pulled her cute, confused face toward mine. “Don’t know. Didn’t plan on watching it, babe.” My hand slid up the back of her thigh under her tiny sundress and flicked her clit ring driving the point home. Her eyes became hooded, her breathing hitched, and she whimpered before I kissed her hard and deep. We spent the next hour making out like kids while some action movie played in the background.

When the movie finished, Scar took my hand and dragged me toward the bathroom. Stripping us both, she turned on the water, stepping into the chocolate and cream tiled double shower stall. By the time we were done with soapy sex and washing each other, the water had cooled. We toweled off and slipped into the large king bed. One thing I had learned early on about Scarlett was she slept naked, which suited me perfectly. Not much could feel better than her perfect, soft inked flesh pressed tight against mine, spooned behind her, my hand splayed across her taut stomach. As I drifted toward sleep, I swear I heard her whisper a barely audible, “Don’t break my heart; I don’t think I could take it”.

I said nothing laying there in the dark, holding the very thing I had been unconsciously looking for. Feeling all kinds of conflicted, I realized I was pretty fucking certain I was falling in love with her, yet deep in the pit of my stomach, I knew I didn’t deserve her or her heart.

Chapter Fourteen

It had been ten weeks of sleeping beside each other at least a few times a week, getting to know one another better, sweet kisses and scorching hot sex. We hadn’t been without disagreement. Scarlett was stubborn and hot headed. She wasn’t used to being taken care of; it was something she was slowly getting used to. She might have come across as a hard ass, but she could be sweet, and she was damn cute when she got mad about shit. We’d learned a lot about each other. She hated pickles, this was after her and Teeny had overdosed on them as kids. She was terrified of spiders—something I had found hilarious after finding her screaming and standing on a chair, her shoe in her hand pointed like a sword at a tiny black spider a foot away from her on the floor. I’d gradually added bits and pieces of my crap around her house as the weeks went by, a toothbrush here, a shirt there, my favorite coffee mug in the kitchen.

We spent most of our free time together, dinners out, movies, long Sunday afternoon drives in the Cobra. I’d even taken her to the cemetery to visit with Belle. We were damn near perfect together. For every funny moment, there was a serious one. For every argument we had, there was hot-as-shit make-up sex. We balanced each other out. Although on occasion, I had to find inventive ways to shut her rambling moody mouth up. Not that I’d ever complain about it.

A small murmured, “Morning” was the only clue to Scar being awake. I kissed the trail of tiny butterflies that started behind her ear and ran down her neck and over one shoulder, one hand palming her breast, the other roaming her warm body. With the tips of my fingers and my tongue, I traced her tattoos starting with the wings running the full length of her back. The morning light shining around her made her look like an angel. Goosebumps broke out over her skin from the barely there contact against her naked flesh. I made it to the very lowest part of her back before I introduced my teeth, nipping at the perfect creamy orbs of her backside, drawing a gasp from her; moving lower, I ran my tongue through her slick folds with a groan as her sweet juices coated my tongue and lips.

Ignoring the disgruntled noise she made when I moved away, I rained kisses along the backs of her thighs then turned her to her side licking, kissing and nibbling her hip and ribs on my way back up. I paused momentarily at the tattoo on her ribcage, a flowing red ribbon encasing words that rang so true it caused a sharp pang in my chest, ‘Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future’. I continued up her body, and over her shoulder. Tiny nips driving her crazy, she rubbed her soaking wet pussy on the thick muscle of my leg trying to find friction to give her any kind of release. My cock throbbing, I leaned my head to her breast and sucked the pert rosy nipple into my mouth, biting down gently and soothing it with a swirl of my tongue. Her back arched off the bed as her hands came to the back of my head holding me there on a long moan, her chest rising and falling quickly with short choppy breaths. The sexy little noises she was making in the back of her throat had me walking a tightrope; my dick was so hard, it was almost painful. I lifted my head, looked up at her face, her eyes hooded, biting her lip and asked, “What do you want, baby? Tell me what you want.”

She planted her heels in the bed and moved quickly taking me by surprise. Next thing I knew, I was on my back being straddled by a very naked and aroused Scarlett, smiling smugly down at me, her hair forming a curtain around us. “You, just you, Mace.”

Fuck, she was sexy.

Clearly, she thought she had the upper hand. I was willing to play her game but not before showing her who was really in charge. My hands started at her knees running slowly up her legs to her waxed folds, tugging on her magic little ring, setting off her orgasm as she screamed out and ground down on me causing a deep growl to tear from my throat. I gripped her hips and lifted her slightly. Grabbing my cock in my hand, I rubbed the tip between her folds. Knowing just how wet she was, I pulled her down hard and fast, impaling her and almost coming the second her walls clamped tight. My dick pulsing, I held her still. “Don’t move, babe. You feel too damn good.” The second I had it under control, I lifted her to the tip and drove her down hard again. She gasped, head thrown back, then righted herself, hands in her hair and found her rhythm which was enough to drive me outta my mind.