I blinked at the view before I turned my head again to not quite focus on my knees.
“What?” I asked.
Joss didn’t say anything for a few beats before I actually heard her sigh over the phone.
Even though I heard that, she still didn’t say anything.
So I repeated my, “What?”
“Baby, you sure this guy didn’t remember you?”
I straightened in the chair at what she was insinuating and again asked, “What?”
“You know,” she said gently and carefully, “there are those who can play the long game.”
At that, mildly ticked, reminding myself that Joss had not yet met Deke so she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about, I took my feet from the side of the pit and put them to the deck.
I leaned forward and put my elbow to my leg as I hissed, “That’s not Deke.”
“I hear you’re pissed, Jussy, but I’m your mother. I worry. I have not met this guy. And you sound…” She paused before she went on, “I don’t know how you sound because I’ve never heard you sound this way before.”
This was because I’d never been in the throes of falling in love with a mountain man before.
Or any man, mountain or not.
I didn’t tell her that.
“You think I can’t spot a player?” I asked.
“I think he’s ‘Chain Link,’” she answered.
“As you know, he is ‘Chain Link,’” I returned.
“And I think if he knows he’s ‘Chain Link’…”
She let that lie.
I did not.
“Joss, he’s…” I shook my head and sat back, lifting my feet to the edge of the pit again, forcing myself to stay calm. “If you met him, you wouldn’t say this kind of thing. He’s not that guy.”
“There are a lot of those guys out there, baby girl,” she reminded me cautiously. “And they’re all real good at making you think they’re not that guy.”
“Yes, and Deke’s not one of them,” I told her firmly.
“What does he do?” she asked. “Who is he? Because I know what you do. I know who you are. I know what you have. And some dude who works construction who knows that too can—”
I cut her off, informing her, “When Mr. T introduced himself to Deke, he did it as Bill.”
“Holy fuck,” Joss breathed.
Yeah, she knew how big that was.
“Unh-hunh,” I mumbled. “And when Deke rolled up to my house the morning I got attacked, he saw the police cars and drove right back into town, right to the police station. And I don’t know if they told him he couldn’t see me or what. All I know was that I was talking to the detective and then I heard Deke shouting. Shouting for me. He was out of his mind with worry, Joss. The way you would be. The way Dad would be. The way Lace would be. I didn’t recognize it when I ran out to get to him because I was out of my mind about something else. But I’ve looked back and he was out of his mind with worry. About me.”
“Well, that’s—”
“Beautiful,” I whispered but spoke louder when I continued. “Romantic. Amazing. And from that point on, he barely left my side. He didn’t even like me out of sight.”
She was careful again when she started, “Justice, this can—”
I interrupted her.
“You know, everything I could tell you about him would support what you’re thinking. He lives in a trailer. He’s had a way tough life. He works construction and he’s got a lot of skills, I figure he gets paid well, but he’s not rolling in it. And as far as I can tell, he has that trailer, his truck, a Harley and some clothes, not many of the last, and not much else.”
I drew in breath and kept at her.
“But that doesn’t mean dick, Joss. Because I know he’s a simple kind of man. He doesn’t need much and life taught him not to want for anything because he wouldn’t get it. He’s not on the take. He’s not setting me up to use me. He didn’t remember me. He didn’t know I was Justice Lonesome. All he knew, in the beginning, was that I was a rich chick setting up house in the mountains and he wanted nothing to do with me. But seeing as I am likable, I liked him and he liked me, he struggled with beating that back. When I got strangled, he lost that struggle. And now…now…well, now he knows he’s ‘Chain Link’ because now he’s mine.”
He was mine.
I turned my head toward the house even if I couldn’t see him.
God, I said it and I didn’t say it wishing it was true.
I said it feeling it already was.
“So, what I hear in your voice is that you think he’s the one,” Joss noted.