Say It's Forever (Redemption Hills #2)

by A.L. Jackson

The girl was devastation wrapped in a black, seductive bow. Ebony hair and eyes the color of a toiling sea. The darkest, deepest blue. An abyss where it’d be so easy to get lost. That soaked white tee stuck to the contours of her curvy, pin-up body. She wasn’t exactly tall, but with those heels, she looked like a force. A motherfuckin’ knockout. A fantasy. A dream.

She stilled, and our gazes tangled. Thunderbolt eyes sparked in the light. Deep and dark. Ghosts welled from their depths. Felt them tugging at my heart. Compelling me to look closer. Drawn. Like I should recognize something in this girl that just wasn’t there. Magic.

His stare intent. His being profound. There was something about him that was so big and overwhelming, and it didn’t have a thing to do with his size. No doubt, I should fear it, so I figured it was a big, big problem that I suddenly felt comfort under his watch. Safety in his refuge.

The paintings were raw and candid, and my chest clenched around my thudding heart as I stared and tried to make sense of what they represented. I got the unsettled sense I was peering directly into the artist’s soul, right to where his demons thrashed and thrived. Depictions of ghosts that screamed and howled. Demons that climbed from fiery flames to crawl and ravage the Earth. Vague, obscured faces were woven in, as if they were hidden in the scene, prisoners that didn’t belong but were stuck there, anyway. Others were stark, haunting beauty. Stars and eternity and lost hope. Each was breathtakingly tragic. Earth-shatteringly inspired. I leaned closer to them. Enthralled. Enraptured. Like I had become a piece of the torment written in the bold strokes of paint. In the agony weaved in the canvas.

It billowed through me then. The memory in the night. The feeling of not being alone when the torment came. Like the man could give me comfort in the storm that hit me night after night.

“The heart usually decides when you’re ready, Salem, not the head.”

“Honestly, it was nothing, Mimi. Just a nice guy who stopped to help me in the rain. A guy who just so happened to turn out to be Darius’ boss. There was nothing there, so you just forget whatever scandalous ideas you have spinning in your brain right now.” “I live for scandalous ideas.” “Mimi.” I huffed. Laughing, she started to shuffle toward the kitchen. “I might be old, but I’m not dead, girl, so don’t pretend like I didn’t just see that blush light up your cheeks. Nothing there, my ass.”

My chest tightened with the confirmation, the sense I’d gotten that the girl might’ve only had a purse, but she’d been carting around a shitton of baggage.

I cranked the music back up, pulled on my welding mask, and got lost in the work. Got lost in the feel of the metal beneath my hands. The peace in it. Guessed it reminded me I still had something to offer. That the darkness could create beauty. That the condemned could whisper grace. That I had something good to show for my life. A purpose.

“I have you, Salem.” She remained there for the longest time, her breaths shallow, barely contained panic vibrating through her body, though she leaned deeper into my touch. “I have you,” I reiterated, words coarse and raw. Finally, she opened those eyes, their depths a tormented sea that I recognized too clearly.

“You want me on your bike? That’s what this was all about?” All? Not even close. But it was a damned good start. The truth was, I didn’t want to let her out of my sight. Still, I played along, kept the words light. “Might be the only way I get those legs wrapped around me.” She bit down on her bottom lip, though a slight giggle rippled free. “You’re unbelievable. Some savior you are.”

Warm, evening light tumbled in. Bright, golden rays that lit up the girl and my bike. My fingers itched with the urge to paint. To create something beautiful. Hope in the rubble.

Light laughter left her, and she looked at me with this expression that cut me in two. With hope and hopelessness. With faith and despair. “We’re a mess, aren’t we?” My fingers threaded through the hair at the side of her head, thumb tracing the angle of her jaw. “Yeah, gorgeous. A beautiful fuckin’ mess.”

“Sometimes the scariest journeys are the ones where the lost finally find the right path to lead them home.” My brow curled, and my head shook. He squeezed my hand tighter. “It’s okay to be afraid. The courageous always are. They just understand taking the chance is worth the fear and the risk.”

“It’s all I see when I look at you. Beauty. You’re the definition of it. You don’t have to be shy. Don’t have to be afraid. You’re safe with me, darlin’.”

“This, Jud, this is how I feel when you’re looking at me. Like I matter. Like I don’t have to hide. Like for the first time in years, I am seen. Like I exist.”

Jud Lawson was an anomaly. Conflict and peace. Harmony and dissention. A blinding light in the longest night. Stealer of heart and sanity and good sense.

“I’m so tired of being afraid.” The confession slipped free. “I’m so tired of running.” Those walls shook around me. A warning they might crumble and fall. I had to remember. Remember to be careful. Trust no one. But it was getting harder and harder to do. Beneath his beard, his jaw clenched. “I want to erase that for you, Salem. Gather up every scar you have and paint it something new.” “Some of the scars cannot be healed, Jud.” It was an admission from my soul. Where the sorrow railed and reigned. He blinked, caught in his own storm. “And I want to hold that, too. Don’t deserve it, but I want it.”

Which was fine because it didn’t feel like her scene, anyway. She’d have preferred hiding out in her room watching a movie with her best friend rather than watching a guy who was clearly too old for Talia feeding her a cheesy line that she ate up like candy. Or maybe it was just that Salem felt like a third wheel. A spare. In the way. Because no one flirted with her. Ever. So she tried to hide her unease behind her cup. To fade into the shadows the way she did.

The way it’d gotten intense and fast. Hands and mouths and fuckin’ bleeding hearts.

Memories of another little girl that I couldn’t quite place. Ones I was clinging to harder and harder the more time that passed, terrified they were going to fade.

“We’re a mess.” Jud chuckled a rough sound. “A beautiful fuckin’ mess.”

There are moments in our lives that we know are going to change everything. That once we take one step deeper, there will be no turning back. We will be irrevocably changed. Permanently marked. A new tattoo that doesn’t just cover your skin, but the ink bleeds way down deep, deep enough to imprint your soul.

Gently, she tapped her fingertips along the designs and innuendo on my skin as if she could tap into their meaning. As if she wasn’t afraid of the horror. Or maybe she was just strong enough to hold the brutality of what they meant.

“You’d better watch out…a girl could get used to this, and then you’re never going to get rid of me.” I smirked down at her. “Damn it. There you go, foiling my master plan, darlin’.” “Devious.” She grinned.

“I don’t think it was me who did the inviting. Some people just head in the direction they belong.”

“Well, I’m just glad the door was open when I got here.” “Oh, it wasn’t open, young man…it seems you possessed the right key to turn the lock.” Suggestion filled her words, and the old woman flashed this scandalous smile, her face weathered and aged, but it was clear the mischief had never faded from her mind.

“I thought it was my decision what happened in the morning?” There was a lilting tease that infiltrated her voice. “Well, see, gorgeous, I felt some kind of uncertainty on your part on how that was going to go down, so I thought I might nudge you in the right direction.”

“Need you to promise me one thing.” Her expression twisted in question. In the trust there was no doubt was hard for her to give. “Next time you get scared? Next time you want to run? Promise me you’ll run to me.”

We never had any idea when life was going to sweep in and shake us up.

Wanted to fall in and sink under and disappear in her storm. Get lost there forever.

But that’s the thing about trust—it’s always a little scary to give. To rely on someone when we’ve only been relying on ourselves.