Needing a moment, he paced to the end of the reception area and looked out the window covered in metal safety bars. That reminded him of where everyone in town had wanted him after the accident.

Molly’s arms circled his waist, and she rested her face between his shoulder blades. She didn’t say a word, just gave him the strength to go on.

“As if it wasn’t bad enough I’d been driving the vehicle that killed two people, because we’d been at the party, rumors were going around town that I’d been drinking.”

“But didn’t the hospital test your blood-alcohol level before you went into surgery?”

“Yeah. The hospital staff, the cops, and EMTs knew I had a zero blood-alcohol level. But the rumor was since my family had . . . influence, they’d paid off the officials to hide the fact I’d been driving drunk.”

“Omigod. That is awful.”

He closed his eyes. “The entire town thought I should be in jail for manslaughter. More rumors circulated that Cassidy’s parents planned to sue us. Not that it was an option, since Cassidy’s parents received a copy of the accident report, including their daughter’s blood-alcohol level and that she hadn’t worn a seat belt. Her parents only added more speculation when they banned me from Cassidy’s funeral. I was a pariah.”

Her tears dampened the back of his shirt. “Deacon. Stop. I’ve heard enough.”

He spun around and forced her to look into his anguished eyes, to really see him, to see what this had done to him. “No, goddammit. You were willing to kick me to the fucking curb because I kept this from you, so you damn well will hear every bit of it. All the way to the bitter end, because, babe, it gets even uglier.”

Embarrassment flared in her eyes before she glanced down. “Okay. Finish it. But I can’t . . . look at you while you’re telling me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’ll be so focused on how I can be there for you now that I’ll miss what you went through then.” Her tears landed on his hands. Then she tenderly kissed his scraped and scabbed knuckles. “I’ll listen to whatever you want to tell me whenever you’re ready. And I’ll be right here for you when you’re done.”

It took a moment to find his balance. “My parents were lost in grief. I was filled with guilt and anger and loneliness like I’d never known. I didn’t go back to school as I recovered from my physical injuries. Two months after the accident, when I couldn’t take the rage anymore, I went out and picked a fight with the biggest, meanest motherfucker I could find.”

“Where’d you find him?”

“Biker bar. Guy beat the fuck out of me. But during the fight I figured out that’s where I could channel my rage to block out my grief. Fighting became my coping mechanism.”

“It still is, isn’t it?”

“No. Now I fight because I’m good at it. But Jesus fuck. I couldn’t get away from myself or my family connections or the accident. As if being sprawled on the ground, eating dirt, bleeding, and sobbing like a fucking girl wasn’t enough”—he paused to swallow—“some asshole in the bar recognized me.”

“No,” she breathed.

“Oh yeah. The douche fucker worked for my old man and called him.”

“What happened?”

“My dad showed up, loaded me in his car, and took me home. Then he disappeared for a few days. Without him as the buffer, my mother didn’t have to hold back.”

“This is the ugly part, isn’t it?”

Yes. This was his private shame.

“Deacon. You have to believe I’m the last person who’d ever sit in judgment of you.”

“I do believe that, which is why I’m here pouring my guts out and not hiding in the bottom of a bottle of Jäger at the strip club at the thought of losing you.”

She squeezed him hard. “Tell me.”

He had to force the words out through gritted teeth. “My mother told me she wished I had died instead of him.”

Molly’s distressed gasp sliced through him. She ducked under his arm and plastered herself to the front of his body, her shoulders heaving as she tried to muffle her sobs against his chest.

Deacon’s heart turned over then, at having this beautiful, sweet, loving woman here with him, crying for him. It loosened the lump in his throat so he could go on. “I was devastated.” The isolation his mother had caused with her words had tainted everything in his life and had haunted him for years. As he’d grown older he’d understood them for what they were, but the broken child in him couldn’t forgive her or forget.