His arms went around her, and he pulled her to himself. Ivy. He tried out her name on his lips, whispered it against her neck. Then he leaned back, held her face in his hands.
She swallowed.
“You make me feel new, Ivy. Like I don’t come with all this baggage. Like I didn’t tackle the guy who used to be my best friend today. Like I didn’t scare my son. You make me feel like I can start over and maybe someday be the guy I should have been all along. With you, all the roaring anger in my head goes away, and I can forget. Even move on.”
She swallowed again, her eyes glistening. Then she closed them, turning her head away.
What? “Are you . . . upset?”
She made a face, shook her head, but untangled herself from his arms.
“Ivy, what’s the matter?” See, he was moving too fast, setting things on fire he had no business igniting.
“I didn’t . . . You should know that I didn’t plan this. I didn’t . . .” She looked at him, took a breath. “I came here because I wanted to help people. I wanted to change lives. I wanted to do some good. I never wanted to hurt anyone—” She clamped her hand over her mouth and leaped up from the bench.
Darek followed her. “You’re not going to hurt anyone.”
“I just . . . Listen, maybe this isn’t a good idea.”
He caught her arm. “What do you mean?”
But she pushed against him. “Nothing. I’m sorry.” She walked away from him. “I think I need to go.”
“Go? No, Ivy. What’s going on?”
Her face had crumpled, a strange twist to it as if she might be trying not to cry. “You don’t get it. I do that. I have a good thing going, and suddenly I wreck everything. And then it’s just over.” She was backing away. “Just . . . over.”
Oh. He got it then. “Social services shows up and yanks you away.”
She went a little pale. But nodded. “I don’t have baggage because I know that nothing really lasts. Ever. People just . . . They give up on me. So I learn to not expect much. And now you . . . and Tiger and . . .”
She gave a harsh, almost-bitter laugh. “Or maybe it’s God who gives up on me. Who hates me.”
“What? Ivy, why would God hate you?”
Another sharp laugh. “No, wait; He doesn’t hate me. That would involve caring. He just doesn’t . . . Well, He’s not on my side.”
“Ivy—”
“It’s not that I care. It’s just . . . I want a break, you know? For just one thing to go my way.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t let it matter.”
She was walking away, toward the parking lot as if—shoot, she wasn’t leaving!
“I’m going home, Darek.” Her voice shook. Was she crying?
He caught up to her, turned her. Tears cut down her face. What in the world—? “Listen, I admit that God and I aren’t necessarily on speaking terms, but I know that He doesn’t hate you. And I’m not going to let you walk away from me. I’m not going to give up on you. Or . . .” He swallowed. “Us. I’m not going to give up on us.”
She frowned as if flummoxed by his words. “Us?”
Us. The word lodged in his brain too. But he’d really said that, and there was no going back now, so he nodded.
“I . . . I’ve never been a part of . . . us.”
He ran his thumb down her cheek, found the words easier than he thought. “Maybe it’s time you were. Maybe it’s time someone believed in you, held on to you, made you believe you matter.”
She blinked and a tear dropped off her chin.
He felt the words even as he said them. “You do matter, Ivy.” He nudged her chin up and bent down to brush her lips. “To me. I want an us.”
He kissed her sweetly because it felt right, and then more because his heart took hold of him.
She didn’t respond, not at first. Then she slipped her arms around his neck. A sigh shuddered out of her as she kissed him back.
She was small and perfect in his arms, and as the shadows carpeted the forest around them, he let himself believe that yes, he could be a good man. The man he should have been with Felicity.
The kind of man Ivy deserved.
WHAT DAREK HADN’T DONE physically, he’d accomplished mentally. Or perhaps spiritually. Because looking at Jensen, Claire knew something had shattered inside him.
He stood on his deck, unmoving, watching shadows fill the nooks and crannies of the lake. As if caught in that moment when Darek grabbed his arm.
Claire had the overwhelming urge to go up to him, put her arms around him. Tell him that he wasn’t the man Darek accused him of being.