“Don’t.” Jim grabbed hold of her left hand, massaging the scarred fingers. “None of this is your fault. You did nothing wrong. The bastards who attacked you need to be strung up by their balls with piano wire.” He squeezed her hand. “And I’m a guy saying this.”

She huffed out a laugh. “That’s something.” She looked up at him through her lashes. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“The way you talk or men being strung up by their bits?”

She nodded.

“Which one, sweetheart? You’re starting to scare me. Or at least my bits.”

She covered her mouth as the giggle escaped. “My speech.”

“Nope. Not at all.” He had no real trouble figuring out what she meant. Her speech might be odd, but it wasn’t incomprehensible. He just had to put a little thought into it. “I know it bothers you, though.”

She shrugged. “I may get better, or I may get worse. We just don’t know.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” If that was what she needed tonight, he’d listen. Being a sympathetic ear when needed could be the biggest gift a person could give.

“Not now?” Her expression lightened, her natural sunshiny nature coming to the fore. “But thank you.”

“Hm.” He stroked her fingers, trying to bring back the mood they’d had when they’d first walked into Noah’s. “Then what should we talk about?”

She blinked, her fingers tightening on his. “Um. Nice night?”

He chuckled as the waitress dropped off their appetizers. “So it is.”

He kept the conversation as light as he could while they ate, asking about her family and swapping stories about how he met Spencer. “So there he is, this man I’d never met, staring at me like I was public enemy number one. I swear I thought he was going to try and run over my toes or something.”

“What did you do?” Chloe was so caught up in the story a piece of chicken fell back onto her plate completely unnoticed.

“I told him our sperm donor was a douche.”

God, that laugh. He’d live for that sound alone. “You didn’t!”

“I totally did.” Jim chuckled, remembering the look on Spencer’s face. “He just grinned and said, ‘Then mi casa es su casa, bro,’ and that was that.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It turns out he’s a great guy, just has a sucky dad.” He grimaced, wondering what Spencer’s life would have been like if their father had deigned to acknowledge him. “When I was growing up my parents had their problems, but nothing like the mess we’re all going through now.”

“They sheltered you from it.” Chloe took a bite. “Mm.”

“More than likely. I think what killed my mother wasn’t finding out that my father cheated, but that he’d done it so early in their marriage. I mean, I was what? Seven when Spencer was born? Then finding out he’d produced a son?” He shook his head. “In her mind it’s unforgiveable.”

“And you acknowledging him only made things worse.”

“Not for them, for me. But I won’t give Spencer up. He’s the only member of my family I give a damn about anymore.”

“Do you think they’ll come around?”

Chloe’s concern was touching, but misplaced. “Honestly? I don’t care. I would have, even six months ago, but too much has happened. Sometimes you just have to cut the toxic people out of your life, even if they’re family.”

She sighed. “I just wish it didn’t have to happen at all.”

“Spencer was worth it.” He tried to explain, hoping someone with as close a family as Chloe would understand. “He’s the only one who’s accepted me exactly the way I am. If I wanted to keep having a relationship with my mom, he wouldn’t care one little bit. The only thing he does care about is the fact that she hurt me. I know he wishes things could be different with our dad, but he’s one of the most resilient people I know. He rolls with the punches almost as well as you do.”

She smiled at that, almost hiding the expression behind her hand before she put it back down on the table. “Thanks.”

“When we thought he was dying we had long talks about what it was like where we grew up. He had a good childhood, Chloe. He had a mother who loved him and adored him. When his mom died he was alone, until I came along. My father refused to have anything to do with him, even when Spencer told him that he might be dying.”

“Might be why he was hostile when you thirst showed up.”

“Yeah, I think so too.”

“Do you wish…?” She shrugged. “Never bind.”

Uh-oh. Her speech was getting worse again. “Ask me.”

She bit her lip. “Do you fish you’d been at the hospital? With me?”

Ouch. How could he answer that without upsetting her more? “Yes and no.” She stared at him, and the hurt on her face was almost more than he could bear. “I won’t lie to you. I did think you were going to be all right, and I did think you were too young for me. Too young to deal with all the shit coming down on my head, and far too young to have to deal with your injuries and my family at the same time.”

She didn’t seem happy about that, but he wasn’t going to fib just to make her feel better. He couldn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to her. “I’m not.”

“Chloe, there’s almost ten years between us. You’re twenty-three now, but when we met you were nineteen. I felt like a dirty old bastard every time you smiled at me.” He still did, to a certain extent, but neither his Wolf nor he was going to allow that to stop him from claiming her. “And there’s no way I’d lie to you about it.” He stared at her intently, hoping she’d see how serious he was. “Do you ever remember me saying I didn’t want you?”

She opened her mouth to respond, then stopped, her expression stunned.

“No, you don’t. That’s never been the issue.” He’d wanted her so badly he’d been a goddamn mess. “Think about it, Chloe. Nineteen. All I could see was this young, gorgeous kid with bright green eyes and a future I had no part of.”

She whimpered in protest. “You did.”

“You knew that, but I didn’t.” He allowed the Wolf to show just a little bit, his vision changing to the animal’s rather than the man’s. “And as sorry as I am for that, I wouldn’t change it.”