Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Jess asked you to place Jake into my care?” When he jerks up his chin without pause for thought, I stammer out, “Why?”
The lines on his forehead soften when he confesses, “Because she knew you’d be a good fit. That you’d teach him how to be brave and to live with what happened to him instead of hiding behind a shame he doesn’t deserve.”
“How could she know that? She doesn’t know what happened to me.”
My heart slips for a moment when he pushes out with remorse, “She knows.”
I shake my head with determination. If she knew, she would have looked at me differently. She would have hated what she saw in my eyes, so she can’t know, but she’s never once looked at me with anything but admiration and another glint I don’t think he would want to hear.
My confidence is knocked back several places when Santiago restates, “She knows, Caleb. She has for some time.” My head shake is nowhere near as brisk this time around. More from what he says than laziness. “Do you not remember the clap lights in the bathroom? The murmured drunk comments?” There is no anger in his eyes during his last question, “The words you spoke when you believed you were protecting Lachlan?” My denial is weak, but he acts as if I confessed to a thousand sins. “Then you may think she doesn’t know, but she does, and the reason you don’t know she does is because it didn’t change her opinion of you at all. She still loves you despite the challenges you faced. She may even love you more because of them.”
Love?
Jess loves me?
I’m certain Santiago needs his head checked when he says, “Jess loves as Christ loved his church. She sacrifices her own happiness for others.”
“I don’t want her to sacrifice anything for me,” I say before I can stop myself. That is part of the reason I left. I don’t want people hurting her to get to me. I don’t want my shame shunted onto her.
I also don’t want her giving up who she is for me. I want her to love without fear of rejection and be herself because she doesn’t know how to be anyone else.
She can’t be that person with me, can she?
I wonder if Santiago heard my private thoughts when his smile enlarges. “If you don’t want her to lose who she is, show her she can have everything her heart desires. Show her that she can have both.”
“Both?” I ask, confused.
I’m not quite sure how to respond when he replies, “Both of us. Don’t make her pick, Caleb.” His smile sags when he mutters under his breath, “The Lord will save my crushed spirit, but I still don’t like losing.”
Too shocked about his confession that Jess would choose me over her family, I remain quiet, freeing him to leave the bathroom via a secondary entry without additional words being shared between us.
CHAPTER 51
CALEB
My eyes stray from a flashy town car driving past the front windows of Alexander House to Octavia when she flops onto one of the many springless couches in the living room. She looks exhausted but for the first time in a long time, content.
Although confident her tiptoe to the happy side will be brief, I can’t continue hoarding the information I sourced tonight. I need to get some of it off my chest before I explode.
“Can I show you something?” A question usually requires a response, but I act as if it doesn’t. After ensuring every pair of little eyes in the house aren’t close to us, I pull out the articles I printed tonight while Octavia tortured our residents with her version of spaghetti Bolognese then dump them on her lap.
It takes her several long minutes to shift through the stack of papers, but when she does, her expression is as shocked as mine was when I went through them, and it doubles when one of the faces in a newspaper article registers as familiar. “That’s—”
“Jess’s dad,” I interrupt, hurrying her along. “And this is the story his daughter wrote about how he was the main orchestrator of an investigation that took down several priests, pastors, and church members in the New Jersey region a few years back.” I wave my hand around the articles. “And how he was hated for it.”
“I can understand why. This operation took down a lot of people—”
“Pedophiles,” I correct. “And it saw the church lose hundreds of millions of dollars in civil proceedings.” I can’t hide the shock in my tone while saying, “But they kept Santiago on. He is still classed as a top member of their sanction. Shouldn’t they have ousted him like they did us?”
Octavia slants her head before arching a brow. “We weren’t ostracized by the church, Caleb. It was by the people who believed our grandfather’s lies. Unlike these cases, it was my word against his until Jack came forward.”