nodded. “You’re right. You know, I’ve been thinking. We never did search the attic. Maybe Dad’s files are there.”
“Are you up for it?”
“I am. The rest helped.”
“Let’s do it.” Abandoning the kitchen, they rushed upstairs, stopping beneath the attic access door with a step stool she’d retrieved from her father’s room.
Placing it under the hatch in the ceiling, he climbed up and lifted the door. Grasping the lip, he pulled himself up then reached down to lift her through the opening. The unfinished space ran the length of the house. Rafters provided support for the pitched roof. And stacked boxes provided many places where her father could have hidden his files.
“Most of this is my mom’s stuff,” Felicity said. “After the divorce, Dad put everything she’d left behind up here.”
“Is this going to be painful for you?” Westley asked. He knew the agony of having to deal with the remains of a parent’s things. After his father had gone to prison, his mother had tasked him with the job of packing away his dad’s things. Westley had refused, which had earned him a beating, ironically with one of his father’s belts. Despite the lashing, he hadn’t touched his father’s belongings.
“I don’t think so,” she replied. “It will be harder to pack up my dad’s things.”
His gut clenched. “Yes, it will.” He’d admired and envied the love between Felicity and her father.
She lifted the flaps of a box to rummage inside. “Was it hard for you to deal with your father’s possessions?”
“Hardly,” he said. He moved a box closer to her to look through. He didn’t feel comfortable searching through her mother’s stuff. He doubted they’d find anything up here. All the boxes had layers of undisturbed dust.
“Will you tell me what happened to him?”
He really didn’t want to. Dredging up the past wouldn’t serve any purpose. But maybe if he told her, then he wouldn’t have to worry about her falling for him. Once she knew the type of gene pool he came from, she’d want to keep far away from him.
“My father was a murderer.”
She couldn’t have heard him right. A murderer? Unease slid down Felicity’s spine. She inhaled the musty odor of the attic, taking in some dust, and coughed. Catching her breath, she asked, “What happened?”
He sat on a trunk and dropped his head into his hands. There was a long moment of silence. She waited, hoping he would let down his walls and fully open up. He couldn’t leave her hanging with such a shocking revelation.
“It was my fault.”
His despondent tone broke her heart. She absorbed the blow. “Help me understand.”
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. Torment swirled in the blue depths of his eyes. “I was ten when it happened.”
So young.
“We were in a busy restaurant,” he continued, his gaze dropping to his boots. “My feet were big. Too big. I was awkward, gangly even.”
She couldn’t imagine him clumsy and self-conscious. When Westley ran alongside the dogs during training he was nimble, but his six-foot frame contained the same sort of coiled power the dogs had. Unlike Felicity, who had cornered the market on gawkiness.
“I tripped over my feet, knocking a man’s drink into his lap. He said something harsh to me and my dad took exception.” Westley let out a mirthless laugh, a sound she didn’t understand.
“They got in a fight. Dad punched the guy hard, he went down and hit his head on the metal foot of the table and died.”
Her stomach knotted. What a horrible incident for a child to witness.
“My dad had a long rap sheet for assault and battery so the judge gave him a ten-year sentence for first-degree manslaughter. He died when I was seventeen.”
Stunned, she reached out to touch his arm. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, stopping her from touching him. “No reason for you to be sorry. He was a hothead who couldn’t control his anger. It landed him in prison, where there were bigger, angrier men. I’m just surprised it took so long before someone beat him to a pulp.”
The breath left her lungs. His callous words echoed with an underpinning of unfathomable pain. She’d had no idea Westley had a traumatic past. And she had no words of comfort to offer. The urge to wrap her arms around him and hold on tight gripped her, but doing so wasn’t a good idea for either of them. They had to maintain a professional demeanor if they hoped to work together at the training center in the future. A future where, God willing, the Red Rose Killer was once again behind bars and her father’s murderer would be brought to justice.
Despite her warning, she moved closer to sit beside him and put a hand on his strong shoulder, now bowed with undeserved guilt. He made a distressed sound, as if her offer of comfort hurt him. Her hand floated to her lap.
A thought intruded as she recalled his earlier reaction to remembering the event that led to his father’s incarceration and a cold sweat broke out over her skin. “Was your father violent with you? With your mother?”
He stood and paced away. “He was rough. On both of us.”
Her heart contracted painfully in her chest with empathy and sorrow. Was that why Westley was so self-contained and unwilling to show emotion? The man had rarely smiled in the six months she’d been under his command. Not for her lack of trying. She’d assumed all this time he was displeased to have her in the training center. Could it be his attitude was more of a shield he hid behind rather than a reflection of his feelings for her?
She’d have to process this at another time. Right now, with him looking like he’d rather be anywhere but here, she sought to ease the hurt stirring within him. “You can’t blame yourself for something that was out of your control. You were a child. They were grown men who made the choice to fight.”
“Logically, I know that, but that doesn’t stop my mother from blaming me. It’s why she left. Why I was sent to live in foster care.”
The injustice of it all made her so sad and angry that she couldn’t ignore her emotions. Professional demeanor could take a flying leap. She went to him and put her arms around his waist. He tensed, holding himself ramrod-straight, his stiff arms at his sides. Frustration pulsed through her. He’d offered her comfort when she’d needed it, yet refused to take it from her.
“Westley,” she said, her tone half plea, half censure.
The tension suddenly drained from him and he wrapped his arms around her, drawing her closer. She laid her cheek against his chest. His aftershave—spicy, woodsy and masculine—teased her senses. His heart thudded in time to her own.
His strong arms made her feel safe, cherished even. It was a feeling she could get used to if she allowed
