BooksBarbecue
Back Heart of the Sun Save as PDF
Chapters (56)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise for the novels of Mia Sheridan
  3. About the Author
  4. NOTE TO READERS
  5. Dedication
  6. prologue
  7. chapter one
  8. chapter two
  9. chapter three
  10. chapter four
  11. chapter five
  12. chapter six
  13. chapter seven
  14. chapter eight
  15. chapter nine
  16. chapter ten
  17. chapter eleven
  18. chapter twelve
  19. chapter thirteen
  20. chapter fourteen
  21. chapter fifteen
  22. chapter sixteen
  23. chapter seventeen
  24. chapter eighteen
  25. chapter nineteen
  26. chapter twenty
  27. chapter twenty-one
  28. chapter twenty-two
  29. chapter twenty-three
  30. chapter twenty-four
  31. chapter twenty-five
  32. chapter twenty-six
  33. chapter twenty-seven
  34. chapter twenty-eight
  35. chapter twenty-nine
  36. chapter thirty
  37. chapter thirty-one
  38. chapter thirty-two
  39. chapter thirty-three
  40. chapter thirty-four
  41. chapter thirty-five
  42. chapter thirty-six
  43. chapter thirty-seven
  44. chapter thirty-eight
  45. chapter thirty-nine
  46. chapter forty
  47. chapter forty-one
  48. chapter forty-two
  49. chapter forty-three
  50. chapter forty-four
  51. chapter forty-five
  52. chapter forty-six
  53. chapter forty-seven
  54. chapter forty-eight
  55. epilogue
  56. acknowledgments

I got up on my knees and turned toward him. “Yes. But what you did then was influenced by so many things.” I reached out, and put my fingers on his jaw, turning his face my way, demanding that he look at me. He didn’t get to do this this time, retreat inside himself without letting me have a say. I was hurting here too. For him. For me. For the world and all the people suffering right now. And maybe this wasn’t the perfect time for this conversation, hiding in the back of an abandoned laundromat while outside the world burned. But I wanted Tuck to be whole so that he could let go of the shame he’d been stubbornly holding on to all these years. He believed the only way he could serve the world was to sacrifice his own happiness, and I could tell that the particular dead bodies he’d seen today had opened a wound in him and reconfirmed that. And if that inner narrative was going to be interrupted by outside rationale, my time to offer a voice of reason might very well be dwindling.

“I know you regret not being there for Abel in the way you now see he needed,” I said. “I get it.” I lowered my hand from his bearded jaw and lay it on his arm. “But so many choices were made, and they weren’t all yours. You’re carrying all of them, every single one, and no one’s shoulders are strong enough for that. You can’t bring them back. Even if you save a thousand lives or do a million good deeds, they’ll still be gone.”

His head fell back against the wall. “I know that, Em. But I finally have the chance to right some wrongs by putting my talents to use and doing something worthwhile, something necessary. Who would I be if I walked away from that?”

“No one’s asking you not to help where you can,” I said. Just do it closer to home. Do it without leaving me again.

The room had grown dim while we talked and now we were both in shadow. We’d need to sleep if we were going to wake up at dawn and begin journeying to my parents’ farm. Tuck sighed and gestured for me to come closer. I did, and he wrapped his arm around me, pulling me against him and kissing my temple. “I’m sorry,” he said. And though I wasn’t sure exactly what he was saying sorry for, it broke my heart anyway.