was scaring her. The last thing he’d meant to do.
So he went to change into the blue chenille robe she’d bought him for Christmas, and sank to the floor of the bathroom, his back against the wall.
That was Pierce. Always with his back to the wall. Or against a wall.
Still in her robe, she’d turned off the water, but he knew she wouldn’t get in until he’d said what he had to say.
“Two things,” he said, keeping his voice low as he invaded the peace with which he’d purposely surrounded her. “First, it took less than a year of marriage for me to know that the man I am today, the man I became in the Middle East, could not ever be a father.”
Her chocolate sat untouched on the side of the double-wide cast iron tub—a luxury he suspected had been built in more modern times to emulate a tub of old. It had been holding court in the largely decorated with roses room the first time he’d visited Eliza.
“The responsibility, the constant need to be one step ahead, knowing that someone was relying on me for safety and security on a constant basis, being in charge of someone who could not always fend for himself...it triggered nightmare after nightmare. No matter what I did, how hard I tried, how much counseling I sought...the boy triggered nightmares.”
He knew why. His counselor hadn’t, not specifically. Because he hadn’t told him. But the PTSD professional had known enough.
“Last night was because of me,” Eliza said. “Because I wanted to talk about kids.”
“It’s not your fault, Eliza. And you need to talk about what you want and need. You have a right to. And our marriage needs you to do so. Our relationship needs it.” The words flowed freely when he was dealing with her. Loving Eliza was the one thing that had always come easy to him.
Too easy for her own good.
“And we need to deal with the fact that I am not a man who can have kids with you. Not in any way. Biological or not.”
Surrounded by roses, cast iron heart shapes adorned with roses, wallpaper depicting rose trellises, he felt like he was spewing ash on her beauty.
She wasn’t saying anything. But watching her expression, he knew she was thinking. Knew, too, that he had to nip any hope in the bud.
“It’s not just the nightmares,” he told her. He’d known that morning that he was going to have to give her more. Because they were dealing with so much more.
He wasn’t going to break the pact. Not yet, anyway. He couldn’t predict the outcome and was not going to get in the way of her reaching for her dreams. But she deserved the truth he could give her.
“I was a terrible father,” he told her. “Jeremiah thought I hated him. He was a good boy. Got good grades. Was respectful. I truly cared about the kid, but my silences scared him. So I’d try to talk and end up saying the wrong thing.” Because he’d had nothing to say. “I don’t have the ability to nurture a child. One night when I got home, Jeremiah ran up to me and threw his arms around my waist. I immediately dislodged them and backed up. And when I saw what I’d done, saw the hurt on his face, I still couldn’t hug him.”
He shuddered inside just thinking about that night.
“I was already sleeping in my own room by then, behind a locked door, because of the nightmares. I had to struggle, every day, for patience with Jeremiah. Listening to his boyish chatter, I’d go on a mind freeze and hope that he finished soon.” The boy would talk and Pierce would see all of the ways in which he was setting the kid up for hurt. For disappointment. Setting himself up for failure. And know that he couldn’t do anything to prevent any of them.
Jeremiah’s innocence had not belonged in his world, and he’d known it. Or rather, he hadn’t belonged in Jeremiah’s innocent world.
He belonged on the streets. Busting criminals. It was what he was good at. The way he could contribute good to the world.
“It got to the point that he refused to be alone with me,” Pierce told her the worst of it. “That’s when Bonita and I decided to divorce.”
He should have left months before then. He’d just hated to walk out on another woman.
And he hadn’t wanted to leave that boy.
“Pierce?”
Eliza’s soft tone drew his gaze. Her eyes should have been showing him...disappointment...at the very least. Instead, they were glistening with...him.
She’d sat in his darkness.
She loved him anyway. Still.
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