Page 44 of True North

She was in a pair of old, ratty jeans that were torn in a way you knew wasn’t from style. Up top was a faded tee that was splattered with different shades of paint and wood stain. Her fiery hair was thrown up in a haphazard bun to keep the strands out of her face as she scrubbed violently at a piece of wood with a sanding block.

A sniffle wrenched through the air, causing my eyes to shoot straight to her face, and what I saw damn near ripped my heart right out of my chest.

Tears poured from her eyes and trailed down her cheeks, dripping onto the stripped wood she was working on, leaving dark spots behind. So many dark spots I knew she’d been crying for a while.

I moved, instinct taking over, and closed the distance in a few long strides.

She let out a yelp when I grabbed hold of her and pulled her into my chest. She knocked the buds out of her ears, her wide, startled eyes shooting to my face. “North,” she breathed instantly, her whole body sinking into me as she broke down completely.

“Let it out,” I rasped. “Give it to me to hold for you, honey.”

“North.” With that, she clenched her fingers in my shirt at my back and clung to me as she let the sobs wrack her body, knowing she was safe with me.

TWENTY-ONE

NORTH

She clung to me as I sat us on the floor, pulling her into my lap. She wrapped herself into a tight ball, her arms moving to my neck and banding tight as her tears soaked my collar. Hearing her cry tore my insides to shreds. Just sitting there and letting her pour all that pain out was one of the hardest things I’d had to do. Every instinct in my body wanted to go full steam ahead and fix whatever was wrong, take all her pain away so she never had to feel it again.

But I couldn’t fix this for her. All I could do was be there. And as long as she needed me, I wouldn’t be anywhere else.

Eventually, the sobs tapered off into whimpers before stopping altogether.

“I’m sorry,” she said into the silence surrounding us.

My arms spasmed, drawing her even closer. When it came to Iris Maxwell, there was no such thing as close enough. “Don’t you dare apologize for this. For feeling. You need to cry, you do it. You need to scream and rage, I’m here for it. You need to call some little dick weasel a yeast infection and skunk’s anus, I’ve got your back.”

Christ, just the memory of her laying into Simmons and her insults was enough to make me want to laugh. Fortunately, she let out a little giggle, so I didn’t have to hold my own chuckle in.

“He is a skunk’s anus,” she insisted grumpily, burrowing her face into my chest on a deep sigh.

I leaned against a piece of furniture, more than happy to take the discomfort if it meant she was more comfortable. I remained silent, running the tips of my fingers up and down her back as she gathered her composure. Finally, she spoke again. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here?”

I let out a breath and gave her the truth. “I saw it on your face today, what happened to your friend affected you on a level that was more than friendship or respect for a co-worker. It hit you somewhere a hell of a lot more profound.” She stiffened in my arms, but I didn’t stop talking or stop stroking her back. I could feel it, she was seconds away from being spooked, and I was damned if I would let her run from me, not now that I finally had her.

“You’ll tell me as much or as little as you want whenever the time is right for you. I’m not here to push, honey. I’m only here to make sure my girl’s okay.”

She remained silent for so long I started to worry I’d gone too far. But before I could try to take it back, she started talking. And what she said gutted me, ripping out my very soul.

“I used to be engaged,” she admitted on a whisper, like she was so ashamed to say it, she couldn’t make her voice go any louder. “I was young and stupid, still in college. We met my sophomore year, and everything happened so fast. You hear people talking about whirlwind relationships, and I thought that was what I had with Davis. It took me two and a half years to finally see our relationship for what it was.”

“Baby,” I croaked as my insides slowly started to boil. “You don’t have to⁠—”

She pushed up, turning in my lap so that her thighs were straddling mine and we were face to face. “I want to. I need to get this out. After what happened today, I can feel it eating away at me inside, and I don’t want to give it that power.” She blinked, another tear falling down her pale, freckled cheek. God, she really was the most beautiful woman I’d seen in my life.

As badly as I didn’t want to hear it, I wanted to give her what she needed more. I wanted to help her take her power back. “Then I’m here to listen, Little Flower.”

She closed her eyes on a deep inhale and held it for a beat before letting it out and lifting her eyelids. “What I mistook for love was actually love-bombing. I convinced myself that he wanted to spend every moment with me because he loved me. I didn’t realize it was his way of alienating me from everyone else. It was like I blinked one day, and all my friends were gone. He was so good at it, I didn’t realize it was happening.”

“Men like that, it’s one of their greatest talents.” I learned that the first time in the very worst way, and it was a lesson I refused to ever forget.

Her gaze grew quizzical, her head canting to the side as her fingers played with the hair at the nape of my neck. But she didn’t ask the question I knew she wanted to ask: how could I know something like that?

“Davis excelled at it. I looked up one day and I was all alone. None of the clothes in my closet were things I chose. Same with food. You know how much I love food.” She arched a brow teasingly, making me chuckle.

“I think I have an idea.”

“Well, with Davis, that also changed. It started with little comments about my weight. Nothing that seemed insulting at first. In fact, I thought it came from a place of concern for my health.” She let out a caustic laugh. “I unknowingly turned into one of those women I swore I would never be.”