Cold Spite (Cold Justice: Most Wanted #5)

Chapter 33

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

C as woke early and blinked in the darkness, transfixed by the scent of Delilah. It hadn’t been a dream. She was here. Beside him. He lay on his back with his one leg raised on a pillow, the covers thrown off because he ran hot and always had. He hoped to hell he hadn’t snored.

He tested out his knee, and the swelling had gone down. It was stiff but not too sore.

He rolled carefully onto his side so he could watch Delilah as she slept. The streetlight outside provided enough illumination to make out her features. She looked like an angel. She’d always exuded a deceptive, almost childlike innocence but she’d toughened up these last few years. He wished he hadn’t been at least partly to blame for that.

In sleep her beauty was on full display. Her long dark hair tangled on the pillows, full lips slightly parted, cheeks soft, brow unlined. She’d put on a little weight since they’d been together. She’d needed to. He dreaded to think how close to death she’d come following the miscarriage and emergency hysterectomy. She was lucky to have survived.

A bad taste lingered at the back of his throat that he’d had a part in that too .

He would never have left her if he’d known.

Fuck her father.

Fuck his dreams.

But that was the problem. He’d made a decision without consulting her. Without treating her like an equal. He’d run away like the scared little boy he’d always been deep down inside.

Her eyes fluttered, and she moaned. Turned over toward him. “What time is it?” Her words were muffled.

“Early. Go back to sleep.”

He could watch her for hours.

She cracked a lid. “Are you staring at me?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Same reason you were staring at me on the plane yesterday.”

Her eyes opened slowly. “How do you know why I was staring at you on the plane?”

He said nothing, just listened to her breath in the darkness.

She mumbled something unintelligible. “I was thinking that if there really was a God you’d have gotten old and wrinkled, gone bald, and developed a generous paunch.” Her laugh was soft. Low. “Obviously there is no God.”

He reached out and smoothed the hair away from her cheek. “I figured that out before I was eight.”

She caught his fingers, and he wondered if she was still asleep. “What happened before you were eight?”

“Things I don’t want to talk about.”

Her eyes opened wider then, but he didn’t look away.

He’d never told anyone what had happened in one of his foster homes. He thought she’d pry deeper, but she simply lay there holding his hand.

After a few minutes, he thought she’d fallen asleep, but then she surprised him by murmuring, “I’m going to adopt one day. I’m going to find a kid like you and bring them home.”

“May as well bring home a feral cat. ”

“Uh-uh.” She shook her head slightly. “I’ll find a kid where I still have a hope of making a difference.”

His heart ached. If someone like Delilah had come along and chosen him out of all of the kids in the foster care system maybe, he wouldn’t have spent so many years trying to prove them all wrong. All the people who’d picked the other kids. All the people who’d never even known he’d existed.

As if it was their fault?

How stupid to have lived his life like he was in competition with someone else when the only person who he’d really needed to convince was himself. And he still wasn’t fully there. Not one hundred percent. He still didn’t really believe he was worthy of a woman like Delilah Quinn.

“Did you tell your parents about the miscarriage or hysterectomy?”

She made a noise that could have meant anything. Then. “No.”

He released the sense of anger that had swelled inside him at the idea her father had known Delilah was suffering alone and had not told him.

“I didn’t want to have to explain about everything.”

Him.

And now the old bastard had dementia so there was no way Cas could tell Delilah the truth. She probably wouldn’t believe him anyway.

“Go back to sleep,” he urged.

She made another noise, and he could tell she was drifting off.

She still held his hand.

He watched her.