Chapter 9
POPE
The cool, damp evening breeze coasts over my exposed skin, and I take a sip from the beer in my hand and lean against the porch rail, staring out at the dirt road that brought us here. Or, at least, what I can see of it in the almost pitch-black of night.
It disappears into the thick trees—the only way in or out. Something about that makes goosebumps rise all over my body, and I shake myself, trying to lose the unnerving feeling creeping over me.
By now, I would have thought I’d be used to this place, to its remoteness, the intricacies of the land, and the quiet stillness of the evenings during which I barely sleep—but I’m not.
In fact, tonight is the worst so far, though that may have something to do with the look on Allie’s face when she overheard me on the phone with Bishop earlier.
You’re such a fucking idiot.
I should know better than to say shit like that when she might be around to hear me. And I’ve started up those steps a dozen times since then, stopping myself each time before ever reaching the second floor. Not because I don’t want to correct her very wrong interpretation of what I said, but because it’s probably best that she continues to misunderstand.
It makes it easier for both of us.
At least, that’s what I tell myself.
There are so many lies I’ve forced myself to believe in order to make it through the days and nights here with Alessandra and Benjamin. Lies about what I want and what’s possible.
I take another long swig of my beer, hoping the hoppy, cold liquid will erase the feelings I can’t seem to escape while I’m trapped here, but before I can even swallow it, a scream rips through the still night air.
The bottle falls from my hand, shattering on the porch, and I turn toward the cracked front door and race inside. Scrambling through the foyer, I jerk open the drawer on the table at the base of the stairs to grab one of the guns I hid there when we arrived, racking a round as I ascend the steps.
Three at a time.
But it isn’t fast enough.
Blood whooshes in my ears, my vision narrowing on the closed door at the end of the hall as I rush toward it. Allie’s low sob slips under the crack, and I turn the knob and push it open, holding my breath, unsure what I’ll find but prepared to do whatever I have to if there’s a reason to pull this trigger.
She stands over the bassinet, her hand over her mouth, trembling so violently that she has to grip the side of it to even keep herself upright.
I scan the room for signs of an intruder or threat, but all appears normal.
“Jesus, Allie, what’s wrong?”
Lowering my weapon, I approach her, searching for an injury. She shakes her head, pulls her shaking hand from her mouth, and another anguished sound rips from her chest.
I reach out and pull her to me while I check on Benjamin. He shifts restlessly in the bassinet, but he appears okay, probably just woken by the unexpected noise. Allie sobs against my chest, and I slip the gun into my waistband and wrap her fully in my arms, holding her close.
“What happened, Al?”
“He-he was here. He-he took Benjamin…”
Relief floods my veins.
A nightmare.
She was having a nightmare.
I take her face in my palms, forcing her to focus on me. “Allie, it was a dream. Benjamin is fine. He’s right here, asleep.” I tilt her head that way so she can see him in the bassinet before bringing her eyes back to mine. “He’s safe. You are safe.”
Another sob tumbles from her lips, her hysteria growing rather than going in the right direction.
I tug her against me fully, and she clutches my T-shirt tightly in her hands, her tears falling to my skin. Each warm drop only seems to add to her distress, so I scoop her up and carry her to the bed.
She keeps weeping, the sound of her anguish enough to make my eyes mist over as I carefully switch her weight so I can pull the gun from my pants and set it on the nightstand. I climb onto the mattress and settle myself against the headboard, draping her on my lap so I can hold her tightly and try to stop her rising panic.
“Shh.” I run my hand over her hair gently, my other hand keeping her close. “Al, it’s all right. It was just a dream.”
But I, of all people, know how vivid and real a dream can be.
I’ve had them about Allie for so long, sometimes I can’t figure out if they’re a memory of that night or a wish for more of what I never should have had in the first place.
She clings to me like a lifeline, the same way she did so freely back then, the way I’ve wished she would again without reservation. With trust that hasn’t been there for a very long time.
I rub her back and let her cry, rocking her while she tries to find reason again.
“Take some deep breaths, Al.”
She tries, sucking in a shaky one that sounds more like a hiccup. “I-I’m s-sorry…I—”
“You don’t have anything to apologize for, Teeny.”
Frankly, I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner.
With the threat from Roselli looming over us, time moving at a snail’s pace without resolution, it’s only natural for her to have nightmares about the man who poses such a danger to her and her son.
Nodding, she pulls her head back, her tear-soaked eyes meeting mine in the dark room. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t have left the hospital, your job, your life—”
Hell.
That has absolutely nothing to do with her dream.
Her apology is about what she heard me say to Bishop, the words I wish I could take back because they hurt her, even if I never meant them the way she interpreted them.
Cradling her face again, I tilt it up, forcing her to meet my gaze. “I’m exactly where I want to be, Al. Where I need to be. Protecting you and Benjamin and making sure you’re both healthy and safe.”
Her eyes soften, like whatever anger she held over what I said is starting to evaporate with her tears. “What about earlier…you said…”
Stupid woman.
She has no idea what she still does to me, how fucking impossible it is to concentrate on keeping her safe when all I want to do is kiss her senseless every time we’re in the same room.
I was this close to coming clean with Bishop, seconds away from telling her everything that happened between Allie and me back then, everything we kept hidden for what we thought was a very good reason. If Allie hadn’t let me know she was standing there, listening, I probably would have, so I could get some help from another woman, one I trust implicitly, with how to handle this impossible situation.
Allie swallows thickly, searching my face for something. “I don’t want you to stay here because you feel obligated to treat me as a doctor and protect me from something you have nothing to do with—”
After what she heard, of course Allie would think that’s why I’m here.
Obligation.
When we were in her hospital room, discussing a way to keep her safe, I made it seem like this was the most logical solution because I’m a doctor and wouldn’t be tied so readily to her as anyone else in the family.
She has every reason to believe those words were true—and the only reason I came with her.
I drop my head back against the headboard, releasing a sigh. “Al, that isn’t why I’m here.”
“Then…why?”
Her question sounds so innocent.
So simple.
Something that should be easy to answer.
But it’s tangled up with ten years of things we never said to each other. A decade of unspoken truths and lies I let her continue to believe.
Maybe it’s time to let the skeletons out of the closet…
Lifting my head again, I meet her questioning gaze. “Being here with you is hard because I want to wring that fucker’s neck personally. I took an oath to do no harm, to use these hands to heal and not hurt.” I hold them up, flexing my long fingers. “But I want to use them to hurt him, to make him feel the terror he has made you feel.”
A tiny gasp falls from her lips, and she grasps my hand, placing it back against her cheek and leaning into it, her soft skin against mine sending a low sizzle through me, making me feel things I shouldn’t be right now. “I’m sorry, Pope, for what I said that night at Nana’s…”
Her words have always stung, but I always took the pain as a proper punishment for the way I treated her, for the agony I caused her. But I don’t want to read too much into anything she says right now. I don’t want to misinterpret something that she only regrets because she’s upset about the nightmare.
I brush my thumb over her cheek. “You said a lot of things that night, Al.”
She nods slowly, a stray tear slipping from her right eye and making its way down to my palm. “About you never caring…”
* * *
ALESSANDRA
As soon asI said those words that night in Mom’s old bedroom, I knew they weren’t true. I knew they were a lie said to hurt him as much as I was hurting so he would feel everything he made me feel.
I knew they were a lie because every memory I have of Pope from my childhood through to that very day he broke my heart were of the man I’ve seen the last few weeks. The one who tried to help me even when I didn’t want it. The one who abandoned his duty to come find me in a storm. The one who left his dream job without a second thought to take care of me and keep me alive and safe. The one who has handled my son with love and not in a cold, clinical way he could be.
Pope is a lot of things, but uncaring could never be one of them.
Compassionate.
Protective.
Gentle.
A calming presence I needed in my life then.
He always cared.
Always.
And he still does.
His dark eyes lock with mine, unwavering. “You know I did, Allie.”
The pain in his voice as he says that while holding me so closely, the same way he has my son since he helped bring him into the world, brings a new wave of tears.
“Then why did you…” I swallow through another sob, stuck between not wanting to relive that painful moment again and finally getting the answer I’ve sought for so long. “Why did you say it was a mistake?”
Those four words have haunted me for a decade. They’re the reason for all of this distance between us, for all the ire I held for him for so long.
“Fuck…” Pope scrubs a hand over his face, staring at the wall behind me instead of meeting my gaze. “That was…a shitty choice of words.”
“But—”
There is a but there. I can see it all over his face. How much he doesn’t want to be having this conversation with me right now—or maybe ever.
He’s going to leave.
For a moment, I firmly believe he will without giving me the answer I need, but he finally lets his eyes meet mine, and the corner of his lip quirks up. “You know…I still remember the exact moment.”
I raise a brow. “The exact moment what?”
His fingers feather across my cheek. “The exact moment I stopped seeing you as little Allie and started seeing you as the woman you were becoming, the woman who could stop my heart with one look.”
My breath catches at his words, how genuine and heartfelt they are. “What was it?”
He grins. “My sixteenth birthday…”
Without even having to think about it, I know exactly the moment he’s talking about. “I came straight to your party from the salon.”
Pope bobs his head, lifting his fingers to thread them through my hair. “I saw you from the back, with that dark bob after you had chopped off like eight inches of your hair…”
I can’t fight the smile pulling at my lips. “I turned around and saw you.”
He matches my grin. “You turned around, and it was like I was seeing a totally different person. You weren’t that little girl anymore. You were all grown up, running toward me with your arms open, screaming, ‘Happy birthday,’ before you launched yourself at me.”
“So that was the moment, huh?”
Twirling a strand of my hair around his finger, he nods again. “Yep.”
“I remember mine, too.”
His brows rise.
“It was when I saw that look in your eyes that day…after I turned around.”
He probably thinks I’m fucking with him, but that moment in time has been seared into my brain since then. That day, Pope looked at me so differently. Not like I was his little “cousin” who he had to watch over and ensure I wasn’t getting into trouble; he looked at me like I was an equal, like the year that separated us in age no longer mattered at all and I was my own person—not just a Hawke.
That was it.
The beginning of the end.
We just didn’t know it would lead to so much heartache.
My humor fades, and the question he so deftly avoided answering only a few moments ago throbs in my head.
Why did you say it was a mistake?
I don’t repeat it.
I don’t have to.
His smile falters, as if he can read my mind, and he drops my hair and rubs his hands over his face, sighing.
Our entire relationship, if you can even call it that, plays on repeat, like I’m watching a movie rather than scenes from my own love story. Starting from our first kiss out in the rain that summer between his senior year and my junior one. Through the stolen moments we somehow found at family events and intimate ones when we managed to end up somewhere truly alone. And then that night…when we finally became each other’s firsts and it all came crashing down.
Pope stares at the ceiling. “After we…you know…that night, I was on cloud nine. I honestly couldn’t remember ever being happier in my entire life as I was being with you in that moment. But then”—he finally lets his gaze drop to meet mine—“you immediately started talking about how this changed everything. About how you didn’t want to submit all those college applications you had stacked up in your bedroom. How you didn’t want to travel the world and study abroad anymore—something you had been talking about for years. You said you were going to stay in New Orleans because it was where I would be for at least the next four years for undergrad…”
His gaze moves to the bassinet, an affectionate smile pulling at his lips. He reaches out to brush his hand over Benjamin’s head.
“I didn’t want that for you, Al.” His eyes meet mine again. “I didn’t want you to be stuck, stagnant, always waiting for me to find free time to spend with you when I knew how hard I was going to have to study in undergrad, not to mention medical school. Then work in my internship and residency. I knew what that would be like. And that wouldn’t have been fair to you to make you give up all your dreams for life so you could sit by watching mine.”
What?
The explanation isn’t what I thought I knew and understood for all these years.
Far from it.
“But”—I open and close my mouth, unable to voice the question threatening to choke me—“how could you just end it? How could you walk away so easily?” I never could have. “Didn’t you…love me?”
He releases a heavy breath, wincing and squeezing his eyes closed. “You think I ended things with you because I didn’t love you?” The sheer agony in his whispered question slashes at my heart like a fresh scalpel. “I ended things because I’ve always loved you…more than anything in this world. And I wanted you to grow up and make your own decisions about your life, not controlled by the ones I’d made for myself.”
Oh, God.
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this that night?”
Pope lifts his hand and cups my cheek again, brushing away the tears now streaming down it. “Because as soon as I said it was a mistake, you shut down and shut me out. You didn’t want to hear anything I had to say, and I realized it would be easier for me to let you go and easier for you to let me go if I let you hate me for ending things for whatever reason you had already created in your head.”
“I thought…” I shake my head. “I thought you wanted to be single when you went to college, so you could—”
He raises a brow. “So I could play the field?”
“Well…yeah.”
A mirthless laugh slips from his lips, and he shakes his head. “You couldn’t be more wrong, Al. I didn’t date in college. I was too busy studying and pushing myself to finish in three years instead of four so I could start medical school earlier. And for the record, it was even worse when I got there. All my time and energy were on that singular focus, not looking for someone to take to bed.”
“What about all the girls we all saw you with…”
“Friends.” He shrugs slightly. “Some who maybe wanted to be more. But most of them never were. In fact, the vast majority were nothing but pleasant company I shared a laugh and maybe dinner and a movie with.”
The redhead from the elevator in the hospital pops into my head, bringing with her the green monster. “Melody?”
He smirks. “We went to dinner once. One time, Al. Dinner. Nothing else.”
God, I was so fucking wrong.
About everything.
“But…” Another sob slips from my throat. “Why did you let me and everyone else think that you were sleeping with all those women?”
His sad smile almost undoes me completely. “Because I needed you to keep hating me so I wouldn’t be tempted to try to get you back. Nothing has changed, Al. I am still all about the job. I work insane hours. I miss more family events than anyone else—which I only get away with because Nana knows I’m ‘saving lives.’ But I don’t have one, Al. None. I work, I go home exhausted and crash hard, and then I get up and do it all over again in an endless loop. There isn’t room for anything else. For anyone else. It wouldn’t be fair…”
Oh, God.
I can physically see him pulling away again, shutting down exactly like he did that night. He shifts me off his lap, setting me beside him on the bed and climbing from it.
Without looking at me, he grabs the gun, tucking it into his waistband as he wanders over to check on Benjamin. His eyes linger on my son, the true affection there making everything he said hurt even more.
Slowly, he cuts his gaze to where I sit dumbstruck on the mattress. For a split second, I hold out hope that he’s not going to turn and walk away.
Please stay.
God doesn’t hear my plea, just like He didn’t that night when I begged Him to make Pope change his mind.
Pope walks to the door and pauses inside the jamb. He looks over his shoulder. “Remember, you’re safe here, Al. No matter what, I won’t let anything happen to you or your baby.”
The door clicks back into place behind him, sealing me in with the realization that I fucked up things even more than I ever knew.