Marissa thought about her struggles with what her upbringing had left her with. “Boy, do I get that one. I feel like I should stop being bitter and insecure about my brother and my years in the glymera. But it’s like I learned too well that that stove burned, you know?”

“Totally.” He smiled a little. Then rubbed his face. “Am I as red as I think I am.”

“Yes. And it’s adorable.”

He laughed in a short burst—but then he got serious. And stayed that way. “There’s another reason. Well, with the club thing, there’s another reason … but it’s crazy thinking. I mean, really crazy.”

“I’m not afraid. As long as you’re talking, I am honestly not afraid of anything.”

Already she could feel the connection growing between them—and it wasn’t the short-lived kind you got when you just had some good orgasms, but then had to return to everything that still hadn’t been fixed.

This was the concrete kind. The bedrock kind.

The I-loved-my-partner-before-but-now-it’s-even-more kind.

And she knew he was getting ready to talk about his sister because his entire body went still—to the point that he didn’t appear to be breathing. And then a glaze of tears appeared across his beautiful hazel eyes.

When she went to get up and go to him, he slashed his hand through the air. “Don’t you dare. Don’t touch me, don’t come over here. If you want me to talk, you gotta give me some space right now.”

Marissa slowly lowered herself back into the chair. And as her heart thundered against her ribs, she had to part her lips to keep drawing breath.

“I’ve always been superstitious…” he said softly, like he was talking to himself. “You know, a superstitious thinker. I draw all kinds of connections that don’t really exist. It’s like what I was saying to Axe about the exam gloves. On a rational level, I understand that I’m not leaving any part of me in or on those bodies, but … it doesn’t feel like that.”

As he went quiet again, she stayed right where she was.

“My sister…” More with the throat clearing. And when he finally did speak again, his naturally gravelly voice was nothing but rocks. “My sister was a good person. There were a lot of us in the family, and not everyone was nice to me. She was, though.”

Mentally, Marissa recalled what she knew about the girl: the disappearance, the rape, the murder, the body being found a week later. Butch had been the last one to see her.

“But there was another side to her,” he said. “She hung out with a lot of … goddamn, this is hard to say … but she went out with a lot of boys, you know what I mean?”

His face was pale now, the lips compressed, those hazel eyes heavy lidded as if he were replaying bad memories.

But then he just stopped. And when he didn’t say anything further, she had to fill in the blanks.

“You think she was murdered,” Marissa whispered, “because she wasn’t being a good girl. You think maybe if she hadn’t been having sex with those boys, she wouldn’t have gotten into that car and they wouldn’t have done what they did to her and she wouldn’t have died.”

Butch closed his eyes. Nodded his head once.

“And you hate yourself for thinking that because it puts the blame on her—and that’s a betrayal. That’s blaming the victim—and you would never, ever do that to anyone, especially not your own sister.”

Now he nodded over and over again. Then wiped away a tear.

“Can I come hug you now?” she asked in a cracked voice. “Please.”

When all he did was nod, she raced to him and put her arms around him, drawing him to her until she ended up sitting on the desk and he was collapsed into her lap.

Bending down over him, smelling his hair and his aftershave, stroking those huge shoulders, she felt more in love with him than ever before—in fact, what was in her heart at the moment was so tremendous, she didn’t know how her body held it all in.

“It wasn’t her fault,” he said roughly. “And I know that. The fact that I even had that thought once—it’s so fucking ugly. It’s as bad as me not saving her—I might as well have put her in the car myself. Jesus, to believe her actions were the problem?” Butch sat up. “My head gets all fucked-up over it—if I had a daughter, and God forbid”—he made a quick sign of the cross over his heart—“something happened to her, and anyone tried to blame her short skirt, or the fact that she had one drink—or seventy-five, or consented to have sex and then changed her mind in the middle? Do you have any idea what I’d do to that misogynistic asshole?”

“You’d kill him, right after you murdered the perpetrator.”

“Damn fucking straight. Fuck, yeah.” He made a circular motion next to his head. “But then that old tape plays, and every once in a while, it spits out that horrible fucking thought—and I feel so guilty for having it that I want to vomit. In fact, right now I’m eyeing the wastepaper basket and wondering if I can make it there in time.”

As his eyes locked off to the side, she wished Mary were in the room with her. Guess this was why people went to therapists—when the dam broke like this, it was probably best to have a trained professional around.

“And by the way,” he tacked on, “I’m proud of my religion. The church isn’t perfect, but neither am I—and it’s brought a lot of good into my life. Without my faith, even with you, I’d be a shell of what I could be.”