Paddy took her hand, squeezing it.

“It got really bad. So bad I moved out when I was seventeen. I entertained trying to find my mom, but he didn’t lie about that. She did run off. Occasionally, a card would arrive from her with no return address. Mailed from all over the southwestern U.S. So I worked a bunch of shitty jobs around my school schedule and getting high. He was an excellent example so when I needed to be up to work and go to school, too, I used speed to get through.

“He got clean again. About six months before I moved to Portland and managed to get into college. That time lasted about four months. Pretty much it was the same pattern. I wanted to believe him, I let him back into my life and he wasn’t there when he’d asked me to come up to my grandparents’ at Thanksgiving.”

“Christ.”

“So I had contact with my grandparents and he found where I was going to school through them. He showed up when I was in my third year. I’d gotten my life together. I had a job, and I had friends, and I was doing really well in school. By that point, I was healthy enough that I could see and hear all the cracks in his facade. I wanted him to do well, but I had to keep him back. Letting him get close hurt too much. I kept communication with him, but eventually, after all the calls at two in the morning when he was high and needed me to talk him through stuff the same as I had over and over, I just changed my number and told him to leave me alone.”

“So he just turned up again?”

“He showed up the day we got into the fight at the winery.”

“What? Damn it, why didn’t you tell me? Why don’t you trust me more?”

“Because you were stumbling drunk, and it pushed all my growing-up-with-a-stumbling-drunk-asshole-as-a-parent buttons.”

She clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked she’d actually yelled it. “I’m sorry. That was totally out of line. I didn’t tell you because, as I’ve learned after some therapy, I’m ashamed of it.”

He sighed. “Just when I work up hurt feelings that you don’t trust me enough to be a man you can rely on, you reveal something else that breaks my heart and f**ks with my perceptions.”

Paddy took her hand between his to stop it from shaking. “I was indeed a stumbling drunk. I’m sorry I asked that like an accusation. You don’t need to apologize for having feelings. I can’t tell you not to be ashamed, though I don’t think you should be. We all went through some counseling while Ezra was getting clean.”

She snorted. “Ezra isn’t like Bob. Not at all. It took me a while you know, before I could see the differences. I tended to think all recovering folks were selfish jerks. But really, Bob is a selfish jerk. He’s not evil. That’s too simple. He just doesn’t have the ability to understand anyone else’s feelings. Or even that he should. Even when he’s clean, he’s going to be an ass**le. I don’t hate him. I don’t wish bad things for him. I just want to be free of him. I want a life without him in it.”

“Do you think you could ever have a relationship with him? I mean, does he get credit at all for coming to see you?”

“This isn’t a loan. I’m not interested in credit. That’s not how it works. There comes a time when you have to own your shit. Truly. Can I own what I did in a house like mine? When I was twelve and fending off druggies who wanted to f**k me? I won’t own that. I own my rejection of him now. If that makes me heartless, so be it.”

His mouth flattened into an angry line. “I hate that you lived that way.”

She shrugged. “It’s over and done.”

“The library was your haven, wasn’t it?”

She sucked in a breath. “I can’t do this anymore. Not right now. I’m scraped raw and embarrassed, and we’re going to be caught up in hurricane Hurley in a few minutes. Tuesday will be protective if she sees I’m upset, and I want her to have a good day.”

“I want to make everything better for you.”

She put her face in her hands as tears threatened.

“Now I’m making it worse, and I don’t know why or how. Jesus, I’m f**king up.”

She sniffed, willing the threatened tears far away, straightening to look at him. “No, you aren’t. You’re doing just fine.” There were things she wanted to say to him but was so freaked out by the fear. What if he thought she was stupid? What if she cared about him more than he cared about her?

“Remember? Trust.”

“No one has ever wanted to make everything better for me.” She rushed the words from her lips before she could take them back.

He pulled her over the console and into his lap. Her ass hit the horn, and he opened the door to swing his legs out, holding her close. “You wreck me. No one has ever wrecked me. You don’t mean to. It’s not calculated. You just do it because you’re brave and honest and Christ, I’m falling in love with you. And I do want to make it better because you’re so much to me. You ask me questions, and you care about my life, and you have this heart that fells me.” He spoke as he spilled kisses across her face. Over her eyelids and cheeks. She held on because he filled her up and made her light all at the same time.

“I want to take you in my house, strip you naked and show you how much you mean to me. With my lips and my tongue and other parts.”

“I’d love that, too, but you know people are waiting for us.”

Paddy sighed, standing and putting her down so carefully, the tears she’d managed to put away threatened again. “Sometimes they’re a pain in my butt.”