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She had also said something he’d never forget. “We’ll carry this to the grave,” she’d whispered.
Angel hadn’t been sure how to handle that, and he’d decided he would spill everything to his foster father first thing in the morning. However, the following day, RJ and his wife, Melanie, had told everyone that Kenton had packed up and left. Even though Angel had figured that was bullshit, he’d wanted to believe it. With all his heart, he had needed to believe it.
Now, Kenton had been found, and it would spin Mia’s and his lives way the hell out of control.
“If any questions come up about the text you got from me, you’re to say you don’t know who sent it,” she insisted, “that you believe it’s a prank.”
Angel sighed and shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
She stared at him. And stared. Before she leaned in and got right in his face. “Angel, I don’t want you to go to jail for killing Kenton. You did it to protect me, and I don’t want you punished for that.”
Angel was certain he didn’t have a poker face now. WTF? “I didn’t kill him,” he couldn’t say fast enough.
Mia flinched as if he’d actually struck her, and she leaned back, studying him. That lasted a couple of long moments before she frantically started shaking her head. “You didn’t?” she muttered.
“No,” he managed, and he repeated it a couple of times while he tried to wrap his head around this. “I thought you’d killed him.”
Her answer came out on a rush of breath and was accompanied by more of that headshaking. “No.”
Well, shit.
That left Angel with one huge question. If Mia hadn’t killed Kenton, then who the hell had?
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Chapter Two
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Mia tried to speak, but her throat had clamped shut. Heck, her entire body had, and that’s why it took her a while to process what Angel had just said.
“No,” she repeated. “You didn’t murder him?”
“I didn’t,” Angel stated, and she didn’t think it was her imagination that he was dealing with as much shock as she was.
Because he’d thought she had killed Kenton.
“Oh, God,” Mia muttered. The babbling habit erupted again, and she just kept repeating it like a mantra.
She hoisted herself on the console between the seats and threw her arms around Angel. She wanted to spew out words that matched the flood of relief inside her, but all she could do was hold him. And tremble.
And cry.
Crap, she was crying. She’d never been much of a crier, but apparently, that was how her body was choosing to react to this stew of emotions that had been pent up inside her for nearly twenty years.
She wasn’t exactly sure how long the hugging went on, but Mia soon became aware that Angel wasn’t hugging her back. And he also wasn’t expressing any signs of relief.
“We didn’t kill him,” Mia spelled out, pulling back to meet his gaze.
Oh, even now those drown-in-me brown eyes got to her. Of course, pretty much everything about Angel got to her.
And now she knew he hadn’t killed for her.
Angel hadn’t gone to Kenton’s room and beaten the jerk to death for attacking her.
But then she stopped her mental dance party, stopped crying, too, and let the rest of that sink in.
It didn’t sink in well.
