Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
A battle went down inside me. A war that I didn’t have the weapons to win.
The man a blade. A dagger. A missile in the tattered sanctity of our lives.
But it was Emmalee who had dropped this bomb.
So I forced myself to say what she would have wanted me to. “Okay. Four weeks.”
Then I peeled myself out of the magnet of him. Needing to remove myself from the way he completely muddled my mind and made it impossible to think straight whenever he was near.
“Good,” he rumbled. “Bring your things in the morning, and we’ll get you settled.”
I took a step back, then another, my chin quivering as I whispered, “If you hurt her…”
Tears blurred. I couldn’t help it.
Kane’s thick throat bobbed. “Never, Emery. I would never hurt her, just like I’d never hurt you.”
I felt my heart crack in two because he already did.
TWENTY
EMERY
“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” Mom kept her voice low enough that Maci wouldn’t hear as we sat idling in front of Kane’s house. She was in the driver’s seat since I didn’t think I could be trusted behind the wheel.
Not when I couldn’t stop shaking.
Rocked by my nerves and the sorrow of what this meant.
This was Maci’s new home. Her new life. And there was a timeline for when I would be kicked out of it.
Four weeks.
“No,” I muttered beneath my breath. “Ted needs you.”
My stepfather was a great guy and normally wouldn’t be so needy, but he’d had neck surgery a couple of months ago, and he still hadn’t completely recovered. I knew it’d been hard enough for Mom to be here the last few days, worrying about him, but she also wanted to be here for her only grandchild.
She emitted a sound so stricken with sadness that it crushed me anew. “I know. I just…don’t know how to take this step.”
I didn’t either.
I had no idea how to force myself out of this car.
My insides felt like they were going to rupture out of me when the front door suddenly cracked.
It slowly…slowly opened as if the man knew he was a harbinger of destruction as he eased out onto the covered porch.
A whir of darkness and light surrounded him, spinning so fast it was disorienting.
“Hey, look it, Auntie! It’s our favorite friend, Mr. Kane!” Maci shouted from the back seat. She kicked her feet in excitement. “I fink he must be really very nice if he wants us to come and stay with him. And he’s got an extra super big house! You fink he’s got stairs in there?”
I hadn’t been able to bring myself to give her the full details of the situation. Couldn’t tell her that he was her father. That this was her new home.
My spirit moaned with the reality of it.
“Yeah, I see him.”
“Well, we better hurry it up since he’s waitin’ for us!” She yanked at the straps of her car seat.
I inhaled a fragmented breath, and Mom reached over and squeezed my hand. “It’s going to be alright,” she whispered.
I squeezed back so tight it was likely constricting the flow of blood in her fingers.
I could only nod.
Pray.
Hope.
Then I cleared the sogginess from my consciousness and forced myself to toss open the door, only side-eyeing the man who stood at the top porch step looking like a freaking poster child for bad decisions.
Seriously, what had my sister been thinking?
Guilt clamped down on my spirit.
What had I been thinking?
Except I had my answer as I peeked up with a furtive, covert glance.
The man was dressed in jeans and a loose, blue button-down with the sleeves rolled up his inked arms. Warm locks of golden-brown hair fluttered in the slight breeze.
Energy rolled from him.
Intense and deep.
Sex and sin.
Shadows and mysteries that crawled across the surface of his skin.
I could feel the weight of those hypnotizing eyes.
The way they flicked between me and the back door of the car.
Anticipation burned through his being.
I didn’t want to concede to the honesty of it.
The way I could feel his own spirit dragging through the space, desperate for the same thing as me.
Maci’s joy.
Guarding myself from the potency, I forced myself to move, and I rounded the backside of the car so I could unbuckle Maci from her seat just as Mom pushed the button to pop the trunk.
“It’s about time, Auntie. I fought you forgot all about me,” she said with her adorable lisp and one of those unending grins.
With quivering hands, I fumbled to release her buckles. “I would never forget about you, Maci. Never.”
“That’s really good because I would never forget about you because you are the best auntie I ever got.”
“You’d better not,” I told her with a tap of her nose, trying to keep it light and not devolve into hysteria.
Still, when I pulled her out into my arms, there was nothing I could do but hold her close as I inhaled a staggered breath.