“Are you good with letting someone help you erase that?” he asked carefully.

I didn’t answer. Instead I stated what I knew. What I’d been denying. What, if I allowed myself to understand it, I knew would kill me.

“Dad sees it, like me. I know he does sometimes in the way he looks at me.”

“He loves you, baby.”

Yeah. Oh yeah. My dad so, so loved me.

Tears filled my eyes. “Yeah.”

“You can’t see Harvey anymore.”

Poor Harvey.

Poor me.

I should never have gone to him. It probably wounded him every time.

But I needed him.

Now I didn’t.

But I’d miss him.

Tears slid down my cheeks. “Yeah.”

“And I’m gonna see to you.”

I knew it. I knew he would.

Jacob loved me.

Jacob had always loved me.

My breath hitched and I repeated, “Yeah.”

Then I dissolved.

Jacob pulled me closer, tucking my face in his neck.

And as I leaked everywhere, finally let it out after holding it for so long inside me, Jacob didn’t allow me to fall apart.

In his lap, on my couch, his big strong arms around me, he held me together so maybe… maybe…

I could finally find me.

And then be happy.

* * *

Deck

Twenty hours later…

Deck pulled up to the curb, shut down his truck and swung out.

Before he was halfway up the walk, the door opened.

He stopped at the bottom of the two-step stoop and took in Harvey Feldman.

Not surprisingly, the man looked old and beaten.

Surprisingly, he also looked kind.

“Emmanuelle will not be coming to see you again but if you attempt any form of contact, you’ll be seein’ me,” he stated.

Harvey Feldman closed his eyes and whispered, “Thank God.”

Deck stared.

The man opened his eyes and Deck spoke.

“I see you’re down with that.”

“No, sir. I am not down with that. I get the impression you know what it would be like to lose Emme. What I am is relieved to know that Emme finally has someone looking after her.”

The last part was a surprise.

The first part he did not like.

“I suggest you get down with it,” Deck warned.

His eyes grew intent and he asked, “I assume you’re Jacob Decker?”

This also wasn’t surprising. In the last day, when she wasn’t sleeping, Emme had shared everything including the fact she’d told Feldman everything.

So Deck didn’t answer. Instead, he jerked up his chin.

Feldman nodded. “Then, Mr. Decker, I’ll tell you that the first time Emme came to see me, I knew I had not yet endured my penance. No prison can accomplish that. Being locked away with men like the men I shared time with was not fun. But it is no penance. No.” He shook his head. “My penance was different. My penance was doing what I did because I lost all that I had lost and then God giving me the opportunity to get to know Emme knowing someday I’d lose her too.”

Christ.

He cared about her.

Genuinely.

Not expecting that, Deck had no response to it.

“I’ll ask one favor,” Feldman said, and Deck had a response to that.

“You’ll get no favors.”

“I have a feeling you’ll give this one to me.”

Deck held his eyes and ordered, “Spit it out.”

“I’ll need your contact details so I can get in touch with you should she attempt to contact me.”

“She won’t do that,” Deck returned firmly.

Feldman shook his head, a ghost of a smile on his lips. But it was no ghost, the pain lurking in his eyes.

“She hasn’t given herself completely to you. When she does, you’ll see.”

“Man, I’m not in the mood to play word games,” Deck bit out, not liking any of this shit and wanting it to be done so he could be on the road to get back to Emme.

“Sweet to the core, that’s Emme. She’ll worry about me, Mr. Decker, and eventually she’ll try to contact me.”

“I see you’ve seen the error of your ways and know what this is, so it gives me no pleasure to tell you, when she had her breakthrough, it was not pretty. She is currently under mild sedation in her bed at her home with her mother and father watching over her. It took a lot of talkin’ to stop her father from comin’ with me or comin’ on his own. You lucked out this visit is from me. Emme’s already spoken to a counselor and she’s committed to doin’ that until what’s twisted in her head gets straightened out. When that happens, she’ll know not to contact you.”

“She will.”

“She absolutely will not.”

“Do you know, Mr. Decker, the only thing that can hold back goodness and light?”

What was up with this f**king guy?

“Again, in no mood,” Deck clipped.

“Darkness,” Feldman answered his own question. “And, since Emme shared you’re highly intelligent, I know I don’t have to tell you that darkness drowns out light. But when that light is freed, when so much has been stored for so long, nothing can dim that beam.” He paused to suck in a breath before he finished, “That beam is Emme. When she was twelve, I did something that drowned that beam. If I’m assuming correctly, seeing as you’re visiting me, that beam has been freed. And because Emme is Emme and she carries that light, she’ll contact me.”

Already creeped way the f**k out by this guy, he was concerned about his girl. Now he was more concerned because she spent time with his whackjob. Not to mention, not wanting to be there at all, what the man said made Deck more of all of that.

So he moved to shut it down by asking, “Are we done?”

“Make her happy.”

That meant they were done, thank Christ.

“Already planned on doin’ that,” Deck muttered, turned, walked two steps then turned back. “I’ll get you my email address. She contacts you, you don’t open your door, answer the phone or reply to an email. You email me.”

Feldman nodded.

Deck walked to his truck.

Then he wasted no time getting home to Emme.

* * *

One day later…

“Okay, so, nervous breakdown… check,” Emme said, and Deck’s eyes went from his book to her at the opposite end of the couch.

She was slouched down, feet in his lap, head to the armrest. But her hand was up, palm facing herself like she was holding a notepad, other hand holding an imaginary pen and her eyes were on him.