He stroked her hair, just one slow, long stroke before his hand settled on her arm. “Because that frightened look you gave me before is one I used to know well, so I’m guessing a man sometime, somewhere, has hurt you. And before you ask, I’m not my father’s son.”

She listened to her own breath as memories tried to tug her back.

“Was it your fiancé?” he asked. She felt his gaze rest on the ring around her neck, and she instinctively touched it and slipped it back under her dress.

“No, he was, is, a good man, a kind man,” she said, not wanting to think about Charlie, not now, not when she was lying in the arms of another man, innocent or not. “I’ve known him since I was a kid, he was friends with my brothers. Honestly, he was almost too scared to hold hands with me for so long, let alone hit me.” Charlie was a good man. He might not have swept her off her feet with romance and excitement, but he was steady, loyal. Safe. The complete opposite of her daddy, and so different to Jack, too. Jack made her heart race, made her want to press herself against him and lose herself in his kisses. Jack scared her because she’d never felt that kind of excitement about a man before.

But Jack didn’t push her; he let her take her time, not moving beside her.

“It was my father, same as you,” she murmured. “Only he preferred hurting my mother, not me.”

“He still around?”

She placed an arm over his chest, careful not to touch his bandages. “No. He was raging drunk one night and killed himself. Shot his own brains out in our car.”

“That must have been quite the mess to clean up before you could drive it again.”

Cate choked on her laugh as Jack’s chest began to rumble with laughter of his own.

“I’m so sorry, that was terribly insensitive,” he apologized. “I have a very warped sense of humor sometimes.”

“Not at all. It’s probably the best darn thing anyone’s ever said to me.” Cate wiped her tears away, still smiling as she shut her eyes and promised herself that it was finally time to sleep.

“Wake up!”

The hiss of words was so loud, so sudden, that Cate felt as if someone had jolted her with electricity. She sat bolt upright, hand on her head, which was pounding from being woken up so unexpectedly.

She looked around, horrified that she’d fallen asleep with Jack in his bed. But Harry clearly had other things on his mind. He closed the attic door behind him and came to sit beside her, raking his hands frantically through his hair.

“What’s going on?” she asked, rubbing her eyes.