FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER
I made it as far as the front porch.
“Fuck this,” I muttered, turning back around to push open the front door.
Kacey’s mother gave a little cry as I stormed past her down the last part of the house I saw Kacey’s bastard of a father walk down.
I spied him in a chair in what looked like a den.
I shoved the door open so hard, it slammed against the wall and bounced back.
Kacey’s father sprang out of his chair. “I’ll call the police.”
“I bet you would,” I said. My blood pounded in my ears and adrenaline coursed through my veins like liquid fire. “You would call the cops on your own daughter.”
Her father shook his head, as if I were telling him a story he’d heard a hundred times before. “Young man, get out of my house. I don’t have the time or inclination for this nonsense.”
“Nonsense,” I said. “Your only daughter’s happiness is nonsense to you.” I shook my head. “You have no idea what you’re doing. What you’re throwing away. And the truly insane part is she loves you. She’s here. She’s trying and you don’t give a shit.”
Kacey’s father stared back, unflinching. “Are you done?”
“No, I’m not,” I said. “I’m going to marry her.
She’ll have a wedding you won’t see. Someone else is going to walk her down the aisle because you’ve got your head shoved too far up your ass to do it yourself.
We’re going to have a child you’ll never meet, and we’ll have a life you’ll never be a part of because you chose not to.
“But fuck it. She doesn’t need you. She didn’t come here to beg for your shitty kind of love.
I’ll take care of her. You don’t have to do a goddamn thing, not that you ever did.
I’ll love her enough. I’ll love her enough she’ll never want for it.
I’ll spend my entire life loving her and making her happy.
And she will be happy. Maybe she has to live with the fact you’re a cold-blooded son of a bitch, but at least her conscience is clear. Can’t say the same for you.”
I spun around and nearly bumped into Kacey’s mother, her face stricken, her hands at her throat. I wanted to spit fire at her too, but she looked like she would fall over at the slightest push. I shook my head, disgusted at her silence, and strode out.
Kacey was waiting for me on the front stoop.
“I’ve never heard anyone tell my dad he has his head shoved up his ass before.”
I stopped short.
“The den window leads off the side of the house,” she said. “I heard everything. But you kept your promise and didn’t punch him in the face.”
“Barely.” I helped her to her feet. “I’m sorry, Kace. It probably won’t do any good, but I had to tell him.”
“Maybe not, but it was everything I needed to hear, or else I was going to lose it, right here on the porch.” She ringed her arms around my neck. “Everything I needed to hear.”
Oh shit.
She searched my eyes a minute, then tucked her head under my chin as she’d done when we’d danced at Oscar and Dena’s wedding. “Are you proposing to me, Teddy?”
My old instincts rose in me, warning me to shut the hell up, to mutter away how I felt. Instead, I told her the truth.
“Not here, not after that. But one day…I will. Because I want nothing more on this fucking earth than for you to be my wife.”
“You want to marry me.” She sighed, and I felt the tension melt out of her shoulders.
“I want to marry you,” I whispered against her head.
“But this isn’t a proposal,” she said against my chest.
“Definitely not.”
“Then I’m not saying yes.” She raised her head to look at me, the blue of her eyes shining like the purest glass. “Definitely not…” She brushed her lips to mine. “…Saying yes.”
We walked down to the curb, and I opened the passenger door of the rental car for her. As I shut it and turned, my eye caught Kacey’s mom standing at the front window. She raised her hand as if to wave, but only rested her fingers on the panes, her gaze trained on the car.
She caught me staring, withdrew her hand as if the glass burned her and let the curtain fall across the glass.