Текст книги "From Ashes"

Автор книги: Molly McAdams

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

When Jeff came into the picture, I was so far gone, I just needed someone there with me; I didn’t care who it was. Guess it helped that he was rich, since we both had an expensive habit, but he hated kids. Told me the day I met him, and I should have stopped seeing him at that, but what did I do? I married him two weeks later. And then I just . . . became a monster. I know you already know he’d reward me when I would hit or kick you, and thinking about that now makes me sick to my stomach, but at the time for some alcohol-induced reason, getting rewarded for beating you sounded like the most amazing gift. Of course you already know all that, but I had to write it, had to put it out there. And now that it is, I just want to die for almost killing you hundreds of times and beating you thousands more. Gosh, sweetheart, I hate myself. I’m sick with grief and guilt for what I’ve done to you!

I’ve been sober three months now; it may not seem like much, but it is for me. Since your father passed, I hadn’t gone longer than ten hours without drinking myself back to sleep. In these three months, I’ve finally realized everything that’s happened over the last thirteen years, and that’s why I’m writing this letter now. You, my sweet Cassidy Ann, are so strong. What child, what adult even, stands back up without a tear coming out of their eyes after being beaten down, just so the other parent can take their turn? We ruined you, we tried to break you, and gosh, sweet girl, I hope we didn’t. You deserve the best of everything. You deserve a husband who loves you, cherishes you, and treats you like the princess your father always said you were. You deserve kids who love you, and give you laughs, tears, as well as moments that make you want to pull out your hair. You deserve it all. I’ve prayed to God every day for the last three months that you’ll get that, and that you’ll know you deserve that, and I will pray it until my last breath.

Like I said, sweet girl, you are so strong, I am not. I can’t handle what I’ve done to you, and I can’t handle what Jeff’s begun doing to me now that I’m sober. It doesn’t compare to what you went through, but I still can’t take it. I don’t know how to begin to make anything up to you, actually . . . I know there isn’t a way. But I need to do this, for you and for me. If you’re reading this you’ve already been given the money; I hope it helps you get started in life. I left Jeff the house and car for a reason; I’m sure by now you’re understanding that as well. If not, please read this next part carefully and try to understand. I can’t live with this guilt, sweetheart, and I couldn’t die knowing Jeff would move on to do this to someone else. But know this: I love you, I swear I do. I’m so sorry for everything, my darling girl!

I’ve been spending a lot of time in your room the last few months, just staring at your wall. Your father wasn’t the only one passionate about the phoenix. Everything it symbolizes fascinates me. Being given the chance to be reborn and start its life anew from its own ashes . . . who can say that they’ve had that opportunity? Through these ashes, I pray you’re able to find peace, knowing that your nightmare is now over. I can’t give you a new life, but this is your chance to start your life however you want it to be, sweet Cassidy, without Jeff or I tainting it. You’re beautiful, and you have a bright light that just bursts from you. Your smile can light up a room; your father and I always said that, and it’s true. Go shine your light on the world, sweet Cassidy.

I’ll love you forever and always,

Mom

I read the letter two more times and finally folded it up, put it back in the envelope, and safely tucked it away in my purse when I could no longer see the words. She’d killed herself. Killed them. For her? For me? She left the house and car to Jeff because she knew all three of those would be destroyed in the fire. How did she do this without Jeff trying to get out? They’d been badly burned, but the coroner was certain their deaths were due to the smoke and fire, nothing else. No way he wouldn’t have fought to get out. And she just lay there and let herself be burned alive? My entire body shivered with a sickening chill. I didn’t understand how someone could be so miserable that they would want to end their life, and to willingly be burned alive? I couldn’t begin to comprehend it.

A sob burst through my chest and I covered my face with both hands. The mom in that letter hadn’t existed for me for so long, I had never expected to see or hear from her again. And even though I hated her for what she did, I hated it even more that she’d been sober nine months and had to go through it alone. At least I’d had Tyler; my mom had no one.

Another twenty minutes passed before I checked to make sure I didn’t look like a wreck and walked into the cozy coffee shop so I could allow myself to get lost in a book. Or at least attempt to look like I was. I really just needed someplace where no one was trying to bother me so that I could think about Gage.

I was one person back in line when a somewhat familiar voice called out.

“Cassidy?”

Looking to my right and then to my left, my eyes skimmed across the unfamiliar faces in the shop. As my eyes made their journey back to the front I saw a pair of uncertain pale blue eyes looking at me.

I started. “Oh my God, Detective Green?” I’d just seen him a week and a half ago, but he’d been in a suit and looked all badass and older then. Now he just looked like a normal guy in a coffee shop. Looking at him now, the sense of recognition hit full force and I struggled to remember how I knew him. He had on a blue henley shirt that did amazing things for his eyes and a pair of worn jeans that fit him perfectly. In other words . . . he looked good. Too good. My stomach fluttered, and though it took some effort, I was able to stop chewing on my bottom lip when I realized he was studying me intently.

He smiled crookedly. “Unless you want me to call you Miss Jameson, you can call me Connor.”

Connor Green. Even his name was attractive. I watched as he ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up like he’d just rolled out of bed. God, I needed to look anywhere else but at him right now. “Please, just Cassidy . . . or some variation of that.”

“All right.” He chuckled. “Cassidy it is. Let me buy you a drink,” he said as he set his cup on the counter and reached for his wallet in his back pocket.

“Oh no, that’s not necessary.” I gave the lady at the counter my order and reached into my bag.

“I want to, please.” He handed the girl his card and she swiped it through the machine.

The girl at the register gave him an appreciative smile as she handed his card back to him, and my stomach and chest heated. I realized I was glaring at her and mentally shook myself. What the hell? Why do I care if someone else looks at him? He’s just an overly confident detective who I must know from a past life and who’s done nothing but manage to piss me off . . . and make my heart flutter—nope! Nope . . . just piss me off.

“Uh, thanks. You really didn’t have to do that though.”

Connor took a sip of his coffee and smiled softly. “Well, maybe this way you’ll agree to sit and talk with me for a while?” My face must have fallen because he said swiftly, “I swear, no type of interrogation, I would just really enjoy your company.”

He’d been kind of an ass the last few times I’d seen him, so I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy his, but I’d certainly enjoy the view. I thought about Gage and grimaced; I really shouldn’t have been thinking of another guy like this. Especially this guy.

“If you’re busy, I understand. It’s probably awkward to talk to the detective who just questioned you regarding your parents’ death anyway,” he said quietly, and looked out the window, then back to me. His mouth opened and shut again with a hard sigh and shake of his head.

I twisted my father’s ring around on my thumb and managed a shrug. “Well, I was going to sit here for a while anyway. I just got back from the reading of the will and have nothing else going on. You can join me if you want.” I tried to act like I didn’t care either way, but his crooked grin told me he wasn’t buying it.

The guy behind the bar called my drink, and after I grabbed it, Connor led us over to a pair of plush chairs that were facing, and almost touching, each other.

“So they read the will today. How did that go?”

I studied his face to see if he was digging for information that would help with his job, but when he just looked worried, my head tilted to the side and I shrugged again. “It went. I was the only one there, so it was over pretty quickly.”

He nodded. “So now that everything is over with, how long do you think you’ll stay in California?”

“Not sure, I need to go back to Texas. I really just up and left everything, but I feel like I need to figure some things out first. Tyler went back on Sunday so I finally have time to myself. I’ll probably take another week or so, unless you guys need me for something . . . ?”

“Uh, no.” He huffed and shook his head slightly. “No, the fire and deaths were confirmed accidents. I know I already said it, but I am sorry for the way the questions went the first day—”

“Don’t be,” I said, cutting him off, “that’s your job, right? Can’t really blame you for doing that, and I’ve got to say, you’ve got it down to an art.”

Connor sat back and laughed out loud. “An art, huh?”

“You do! I remember thinking that during. You look completely calm while you’re talking, not giving anything away, but your eyes are so intense that it throws the person you’re talking to off and I can see how you could get people to start spilling stuff. I know I did . . .” I trailed off and looked to the side.

“Your eye looks much better; the bruising went away quickly,” he said, guessing the direction my thoughts had started going.

“Yeah, I hadn’t gotten hit too hard. I’d just been trying to break up the fight, and one of the guys was pulling me away as an elbow connected, so it wasn’t able to do much damage. And I know what Tyler told you. I was listening, just as he’d been listening to me. There was a reason I didn’t tell you and Detective Sanders about my past; I’ve only ever told one person, and that was Tyler. He’s known since it first started happening, and other than him I’ve never felt the need to share it. With how you were questioning me, I could only imagine how my past would make me look even more suspicious. I hadn’t meant to say anything about your knowing anything about my life. It just slipped.” I looked into Connor’s now-soft eyes and continued. “Like I said, your calm intensity makes people say too much. But I didn’t think that was a need-to-know, and it wasn’t Tyler’s place to tell you.”

“I agree completely. And for what it’s worth, since you were listening, I thought of a hundred different ways I wanted to go off on him for letting that happen to you growing up. You threatening to run away or not, you could’ve been killed, Cassidy.”

My eyes had popped open the second he’d agreed with me but narrowed into slits toward the end. “You don’t understand, Detective Green—”

“Connor.”

I sighed. “Connor. You don’t understand. Tyler was all I had. If we had told someone, they would’ve taken me away from the only person I had left. I couldn’t let that happen.”

“I probably understand better than you’d think,” he said softly, and leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I didn’t need you mentioning your life or Tyler telling me about your past to know what had happened. Within the first minute of questioning you, I knew you’d had nothing to do with the fire. Even if you had a rocky relationship and weren’t close with your mother and stepfather, you would still have been upset over their deaths and the loss of your childhood home. When you were neither, I knew.”

“How?” I asked quietly.

“Cassidy, only someone who would react that way to their own parent dying would understand your reaction.”

My brow furrowed and I looked around like the walls would be able to explain that confusing statement. When my gaze met his, I saw it, the tortured numbness. I inhaled sharply and started to reach for his arm but stopped myself. “You?”

He nodded slowly. “My mother was a junkie. I knew who she was, but she wasn’t around much. She’d sell herself to be able to afford her addiction, which is how my sister came along, and then me. Through all this, her husband stayed married to her. He didn’t do drugs and he didn’t drink; I wish he did so I could blame what he did on either of those. But he just hated us because we weren’t his, and because of what we represented. My sister was six years older than me, so for the longest time, she was the one who took all the beatings he dealt. When I was old enough to understand what was happening when she’d lock me in the closet, I started holding my own and taking my half of the beatings. She didn’t want to tell anyone, said what you told Tyler, that if we told anyone they would separate us. She said if we could make it until she was eighteen, she’d take me away and we’d start over.

“Then one night when I was seven he just lost it. He hit Amy so hard she wasn’t waking up and ended up breaking both my legs and my left arm. I waited until he went to his room, like he always did after, and dragged myself out of the trailer and tried to make it to the neighbor’s. I didn’t get that far, but someone from the park had been walking their dog and found me, called 911. I’d passed out, and with all the blood they had thought I was dead, so police, EMTs, and homicide detectives all came out. My father was arrested, and Amy and I were rushed to the hospital. All I remember from that night other than trying to make it to the neighbor’s trailer was waking up to one of the detectives sitting next to my hospital bed. He didn’t say a word to me then, but when I woke up the next day he told me he was going to make sure no one ever touched me or Amy again. He and his wife fought hard and were able to adopt both of us. To me, they are Mom and Dad.”

“Is he why you wanted to be a detective?”

Connor smiled his acknowledgment and his eyes went over my face. “I would never wish death on anyone, Cassidy, and like you, I wouldn’t blink if someone told me that man or my real mother was dead.” He stayed quiet for a few moments before speaking again. “I had to continue questioning you, even though I knew exactly what was going through your mind. But I hated every second. Looking at you, knowing what I’d come to realize, and seeing you with a black eye, I wanted to grab you and run you out of that house.”

“I don’t have a reason to lie to you now that you know the truth. I really was trying to break up a fight.”

“I know. Once I realized Tyler wasn’t your boyfriend, I sat there wondering who was so I could find him instead. But after Tyler basically spilled all your secrets and told us how you got the shiner, I figured it’d be pointless for him to lie about something like that. It’s not like he gave us the whole ‘she tripped’ excuse.”

I sighed and mumbled pathetically, “I’ve used that one before.”

He grimaced. “You really don’t talk about it often?”

“No. I mean, I told Tyler everything, but it was so he could figure out how best to take care of my injuries.”

“I didn’t open up for a long time, until I was almost sixteen I think, but once I finally did everything changed. I still don’t tell just anyone; you’re actually the first person I’ve told in a long time. But you need to relive it all and get everything out there, or else you’re never going to move past it. You may think you have, but it’ll always haunt you, Cassidy.”

Thoughts of how easily all my fears had surfaced when I saw Gage at the party that night came to mind. Connor was right, but I’d spent so long not talking, I didn’t know how, or if I even wanted to start now. “Did you have bones broken a lot?”

“That last night was the only time. Did you?” I don’t think he’d even realized it, but his eyes had slipped into that same intensity he’d had a little over a week ago in the Bradleys’ den.

“No, they were too smart to break anything. Had a lot of cracked ribs, but anything that would have required a cast they stayed away from. Stitches though . . . they didn’t seem to understand or care that people needed to get stitches.”

“Did that happen a lot?”

“Stitches? I needed them probably once a month or so, only ever got them a few times though. Tyler was good with butterfly bandages.”

Connor’s eyes widened for a moment and I bit my tongue.

“Uh, didn’t you ever need stitches?”

He shook his head. “No, I didn’t. Not until that last night.” He paused and then leaned closer, his face only inches from mine. “Cassidy, how often did you get hit?”

I began to back away but one hand snaked up and locked behind my neck.

“Cassidy, how often did they hit you?” he repeated, and that cool intensity in his stare held me where I was. What was it about that stare and those eyes?

“Every day. Is that—is that not like your situation?” I asked when his next breath was audible.

The hand on my neck squeezed lightly and he hung his head. “No. For us it was every two weeks or so.”

I mouthed the words he’d just said. I guess it was naïve, but I’d thought all kids who were abused had it pretty much the same as me. “Did you—” I suddenly broke off on a gasp and pushed back against his hand until he let go when he looked up at me from under his lashes. Oh my God, how could I have not recognized him?! I’d dreamed about that look, dreamed about those eyes!

“What?”

“You’re that cop!”

His eyes widened and he straightened slightly. “I didn’t think you recognized me.”

“You knew who I was and you didn’t say anything? You’ve just been acting like—like you cared?” I gasped again. “Were you even—” I backed away from him and grabbed my purse.

“Say it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said coldly, and stood up before he could trap me in the chair again.

“Cassidy,” he pleaded, but I was already walking toward the side exit door that emptied out into an alleyway. “Cassidy, wait!” Connor’s hand grabbed mine and he brought me to a stop. “It does matter. You need to talk about it.”

My hand involuntarily tightened around his even as I tried to walk away. “Are you a therapist too or does it just come with being a detective?”

“Neither, but you’re never—”

“Stop with the hidden interrogation bullshit, Connor!” I cried “I know what you’re doing! You’re doing the same damn thing you did a week and a half ago! Only now you’re—you’re—you look like this!” I waved my free hand in front of him. “Did you follow me here? Did you think dressing like a normal person would help me open up to you? Were you even abused as a child or did you use that to get me to talk too? Did you just want to know my past so you could figure out if you made the right judgment on that call all those years ago? And why does it even matter anymore if they’re dead?”

His brows slanted down and he backed me up until I was pressed against the wall. “You think this is all some play to solve a case, Cassidy? A case that’s fucking closed? That was barely even opened? You honestly believe I would make up some sob story to get you to talk to me?”

“God, just stop! I know all of this was so you could find out the truth about my life! And I know you people do that, you lie about stuff to trick people into saying what you need them to, you make up stories so they think you’ll understand. So I hope you feel better now that you’ve gotten what you’re here for, but I obviously have nothing to hide from you anymore! And if you really want to know what I got out of the will, Detective Green, I got her money. I got a lot of it. Yeah, that probably makes me look even worse than before, but I couldn’t care less about the money! I was shocked that I was even in her will. And another thing: the fire was no accident, but you won’t be able to find the person who did it, because she killed herself in the fire.”

“What?” His eyes bulged and one brow raised.

“She left me a letter, and from what she said in it, she was going to make sure both she and Jeff didn’t make it out, but I don’t think Jeff had a clue. So I don’t know how or what exactly she did. But there you go. She killed herself and him. Burned that godforsaken house to the ground and took them with it. There’s everything, Detective Green—”

“Connor,” he all but growled.

“I know you don’t give a shit about me, so drop the act!” I hissed back. “I just found all that out before I walked into the shop, so now you know everything I know. And now you know that yes, we lied to you when you showed up at the house a few years ago, but I couldn’t let you take me away; I needed to stay near Tyler. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” I turned to leave but his grip on my hand tightened and his other hand came up to my shoulder.

“Cassidy, none of this was a damn act!”

“Look, I respect that you love your job, and you’re good at it.” The hand that was somewhat free tried to flail out. “Obviously. But I’ve had a crappy week. I’ve had bad memories resurface. I’ve visited the—well—now-burned-down house that I wanted so desperately to escape from my entire life. If that wasn’t enough I have this annoyingly attractive detective who will not leave me alone, and I just found out that for the last nine months my mother was sober for the first time in thirteen years! And because she was sober her husband decided to start beating her. She couldn’t handle it, and she couldn’t handle what she’d done to me, so she decided to kill herself and him, for me! She thought she was doing it for me, Connor! If only she had called me, I would have done something. I could have done something, right? I would have gotten her away from him, but she didn’t, because she knew I wouldn’t answer, because she knew that I hated her. She killed herself knowing that I hated her, and did it for closure for me. So I could start a new life. I just—I don’t—why wasn’t I there for her?”

Connor’s arms wrapped around me, and it was then I realized I was sobbing. What was happening to me today? And what on earth did this man do to me? “Shh, Cass, it’s okay. It’s okay. Don’t let that guilt get to you, none of this is on you, you hear me? None of it. Your mom had demons, and that was the only way she knew how to deal with them.”

“But she sounded so much like how she was before Dad died. I loved her then, and I should have been there for her the last nine months.”

“Don’t go down that road. It’s going to eat you alive if you do.” He held me until I stopped sobbing and shaking, then asked quietly, “What did she say to you in the note?” When I sighed and tried to pull back he added quickly, “God, that makes it sound worse. Please forget I’m a detective while we’re together. This isn’t an act, Cassidy, I’ve been thinking about you nonstop since we first left the Bradley house last Saturday. I had no idea you were even still in California, let alone going to be at this coffeehouse this morning. You don’t have to tell me, but I can see how much you need to talk about your past. If you don’t talk about it and this letter, it’ll just get worse.”

Without saying anything, I left my forehead pressed against his chest and reached into my purse to pull out the envelope. I held it up for Connor and was surprised when he shifted me so I was still wrapped in his arms while he opened and read it. My left hand was still curled into a fist against his chest and I slowly uncurled it to lay it flat at the same time I brought my right arm to wrap around his waist. Connor’s arms constricted and for some reason it made my body relax even more into him. This was wrong, I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t have felt this comfortable, this good, in another man’s arms. It wasn’t like when Tyler held me; even after all that happened between us, it still felt like he was just my best friend and my rock all last week. But Connor? It felt easy, natural even. Which was more confusing than anything. I’d dreamed about him for years, but I hardly knew him and was still convinced he was just playing his part very well in order to get the information he wanted. That had to be it, right? He’d played me with the story of his “childhood”; he knew it’d get me and it did. I hadn’t realized how much I’d craved someone who understood me.

“Cassidy, I have a few more questions regarding your past, and then I’ll stop. Anything you tell me after that will be because you brought it up, all right?”

“Whatever.” I mumbled so softly, I doubt he heard.

“She said she almost killed you, and you said you should have gotten stitches often. They didn’t just hit you with their fists, did they.” It was a statement, not a question. But I still nodded my head. “When I was called out to your house for the possible disturbance, why didn’t you say anything?”

“I told you, I couldn’t be taken from Tyler; he was all I had left in my life after my dad died.”

“I saw it in your eyes, Cass, but without your help I couldn’t do anything about it. I thought about you so much over the next couple years; I should have come back to check on you.”

“I used to dream about you,” I admitted into his chest. “There was something about you and your eyes . . . I don’t know how to explain it. Part of me wished you’d come back and take me away, the rest knew I wouldn’t let you take me away even if you tried.”

His hand slid up and down my back in soothing trails. “The woman who called said she’d heard a woman screaming. Had they hit you that night?”

I nodded slowly, wondering what would have happened that night if I had told him everything. “It got worse after you left.”

Connor froze and his arms tightened around me again. “How?”

“Jeff was convinced I’d somehow called the police, even though I’d been in a room with them for an hour before you even showed. My mother took off her shoes and came after me. Hit me repeatedly over the head with the heel of her stiletto. I wasn’t able to move for hours until Tyler came to come get me.”

“Shit, Cassidy, I’m so sorry,” he whispered, then stayed silent for a minute before asking, “In the letter she said she was rewarded; rewarded how?”

My body stilled and I instantly had to swallow part of my coffee that decided to make its reappearance. “Uh . . .” I licked my dry lips and swallowed again. “Um, sexually,” I whispered into his chest. “Usually, I’d get up and leave, but sometimes I wasn’t able to move and they wouldn’t feel the need to go to their bedroom. So, if I was able, I’d just have to turn my head and try to block out the noise.”

“Jesus Christ,” Connor hissed as his body and one of his arms left me so he could drag his hand down his face while he whispered, “Sick. They were seriously sick, disturbed people. You didn’t deserve that, any of it.” There it was again. That tortured emptiness in his eyes. No way you can learn or fake something like that. It’s just not possible.

“I know that, Connor.” I’d heard it enough times from Tyler to know and believe that before I met Gage, and Gage had only confirmed what Tyler had led me to believe. “And you didn’t either; no one does. Not even my mother.”

His face changed into a mix of shock, awe, and relief, and his blue eyes seemed to brighten. “What is it about you?” he asked himself softly, and brushed some hair away from my face. We stood there studying each other for minutes before he broke the silence. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been looking for you my entire life, Cassidy Jameson.”

Before I could question that, my back was against the wall again and his lips were on mine. A muffled high-pitched groan left me. Connor’s lips were firm and soft all at once, and as they began to move against mine another moan left me at the realization that this ridiculously handsome man could kiss. But he wasn’t Gage. Just as I’d started to push against his chest, he pulled slightly back and his pale blue eyes bounced back and forth between mine.

“Connor, I have a boyfriend,” I blurted out.

He blinked quickly and pulled farther back. “You have a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, in Texas. It’s Tyler’s cousin.”

“Where is he?”

“In Texas,” I said slowly, making sure he heard me, since apparently he hadn’t the first time.

Connor shook his head like I wasn’t getting it. “Cassidy, does he know about your past?” He still hadn’t released his hold on me, but thankfully he wasn’t so close that I was worried he was about to kiss me again.

“He’s known since the day I met him; that’s the person Tyler told.”

“Right.” Connor nodded and stepped closer. “Then tell me why the hell he isn’t here with you now. If you were my girl, no way would I let you walk into your personal hell without me right there beside you.”

“He doesn’t even know why I’m here though, I just left.”

That crooked smile was back and he leaned in, kissing me harder this time, letting his lean, muscled body press against me. “You aren’t helping your argument,” he whispered against my lips.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered back, “I thought you were just doing this to get answers about the fire and that night the police were called.”

“No, Cassidy. I told you I have thought about you every minute since I left you that first day and I have been thinking of ways to see you. But seeing as you didn’t give me your number, I thought it would be a little much to just show up unannounced. You’re incredibly beautiful, Cassidy—God, you’re so beautiful. Even when you’d had no sleep and had a black eye, I had to continuously remind myself to not just sit there and stare at you. And I didn’t realize who you were until the last time we came to visit; the way you opened the door and looked up at me was what finally brought that night back to me.”

“Connor—”

“Today, I swear to you I thought I was seeing things, because that’s how bad I wanted to see you again. And you looked so different,” he mumbled as he ran a hand through my hair. “No matter what you do, you look amazing. And then you tell me about your past, one that makes mine look like I spent it at Disneyland, and you say we didn’t deserve what happened to us, and neither did your mom. Your mother, who did all of those things to you for all those years. And you cried for the woman she was before, and who she was when she died. Cassidy, I gotta tell you, I thought your beauty was only skin-deep when I saw you the morning of the fire, when I figured out your past. I thought you were wasting it when I thought you were in an abusive relationship. Now, after today, God, I know your beauty goes straight through to your soul. It’s rare to find someone like you, and until a few minutes ago I hadn’t realized I’d been looking for someone just like you. Someone who understands my past, someone with your heart; and as an added bonus, you don’t let people intimidate you, and by ‘people’ I mean me and Sanders.” He smiled crookedly. “And I just know the more I get to know you, the more I’m gonna find that I like.”