6. Emery
SIX
EMERY
No. No. No. No.
Sickness turned in my insides, and I was worried the alcohol I’d consumed last night might come back up. My stomach churned in a fit of nausea so severe there was a chance I might have to toss the door back open and lose it right there on the ground beside the car.
As if all of this wasn’t humiliating enough.
I did my best to keep it at bay as I threw the car in reverse. The tires peeled out on the gravel as we blazed backward, then I shifted into drive and gunned it down the long driveway.
“What’s going on? Was that not him?” My mother wheezed it in her own turmoil as she shifted to look over her shoulder through the back window.
My heart ravaged violently at my chest. My blood thick and slogging through my veins. Head spinning at finding the man who’d touched me in a way I didn’t let anyone do standing in the doorway. A man I’d already convinced myself I was going to hate.
My natural enemy.
Kane Asher.
How hadn’t I known ?
“I’m just not ready.” I had to force the craggy whisper out through the rocks clogging my throat. I clutched the steering wheel, my palms so sweaty I could barely hang on as I struggled to see through the blur of moisture coating my eyes as I sped down the dirt lane.
“I really fink we should go back and talk to him, Auntie! Did you see him? He ran aww the way down the stairs to come say hi.”
I could see Maci’s tiny hands wave through the air with the embellishment, and my chest nearly burst with the force of it.
Or maybe it was caving.
Imploding.
I didn’t know.
Still, I was unable to stop myself from lifting my gaze to the rearview mirror.
Dust billowed behind us, a heavy plume that rose to the sky, but I could still see him in the midst of it.
At the base of the stairs of the gorgeous old house.
The man shirtless and barefoot and so ridiculously attractive that the lingering vestiges of pleasure that still tickled through my body flared.
What a cruel, sick joke.
I could see that his chest was heaving with his own surprise.
With his questions.
Questions that clawed their way toward the car to get to us.
My hands quivered against the steering wheel as my attention flicked to Maci.
Maci who was trying to turn around in her car seat to get a better look.
Regret billowed through.
I shouldn’t have brought her with us. It was a mistake. She didn’t understand the full scope of what was happening.
How could she?
She was four.
Four years old.
My guts tangled in a gnawing of pain, a black hole with a force so great I was sure it was going to swallow me. Suck me down into a darkened, unfathomable abyss where I’d forever drown.
Somehow, I managed to respond. “I saw him, sweetheart, but I think he was busy.”
“We better go back later when he doesn’t got to be too busy then. Besides, I think I got very starving, and we better eat. I got a belly growl. Did you hear it so loud?” She giggled with the last. This child a joy unlike anything I could comprehend.
“It sounds like we should definitely go and get lunch then,” I returned, swallowing around the landslide of horror that rolled in my throat.
“Was it him?” my mom quietly urged. She’d shifted in her seat, concern flagrant as she stared across at me.
Her hair was the same color as all of ours, though she now added color to the roots to cover the grays, and it was cut into a long bob that brushed her shoulders.
I’d always thought my mother was the most beautiful woman on the planet. She still was, though now, the grief had begun to whittle into her features. Carving paths of sorrow that I doubted could ever be repaired.
“I don’t know,” I breathed without any sound. “I think it might have been the wrong address.”
It was a lie.
A blatant lie.
I should have known the second I’d seen his eyes last night. They were exactly the same as hers.
I should have understood why I’d felt that tugging of familiarity. Why the man had somehow made me feel comfortable when it should have been impossible.
Another bout of sickness roiled through my being, and I inhaled a staggered breath. Trying to get myself together. To come up with a plan.
Running seemed like the only solution right then.
“What kinda food do they got here? Did you know I wike hamburgers the bestest, Grammy? And eggs, but we already ate our breakfast, and it was so, so good, but we gotta get some variety and some vegables .”
Her tinkling words were garbled and lisped, and a wash of heavy amusement rolled through me.
Mom shifted farther in her seat and sent Maci a warm smile that was coated in sorrow. “I know you definitely like hamburgers.”
She had to have eaten at least twenty of them since we’d lost my sister three months ago. Maci had been staying with me down the street from my mother and stepfather’s house where we all lived in Wisconsin.
I was a freelance graphic designer, so my schedule was flexible, and I’d spent as much time with her as I could.
Had believed I would raise her.
Then I’d found that letter and it’d become clear we had to come here.
Here, where I was just supposed to leave the last bits of my mangled heart.
“And don’t forget my mostest favorite! Candy!” Maci screeched.
A tender laugh rolled from my mother. “I could never forget that.”
“Because my grammy and my auntie pay really good attention to me.”
“That’s right. Because we love you so much.” Pained affection wisped from my mother’s lips, and she slanted me a glance, turmoil rippling between us that we had to do this .
The weight of that letter throbbed from where it was folded in my purse.
I wanted to take it and throw it in that massive fireplace at the hotel.
Watch it burn.
Pretend it never existed.
Ignore my sister’s wishes.
I know you don’t understand, but I need you to trust me. I could almost hear her voice from the words she’d penned, and I wanted to shun that, too, but how could I ?
We made it to the end of the long drive where it passed by a massive old church that had been converted into a nightclub.
Kane’s.
Unease curled through my spirit.
Why had he been at that dive bar last night? He should have been right there, behind those imposing walls, in the strobing lights and the disorder a place like that always invoked.
This man I’d already decided had no place in the life of this little girl.
Not sitting at that booth, stealing my breath with the bare glimpses I’d caught. Not picking me up from the floor when I’d been at my most vulnerable and carrying me into an office.
His office.
At least, that’s what I’d assumed.
I pressed trembling fingertips to my temple to try to soothe the headache I’d woken with that had only grown worse.
A stabbing that pierced behind my left eye.
Apparently, Kane’s wasn’t the only bar he owned.
I’d just been so caught up with the vile image I created of him that I hadn’t allowed myself to consider that picture might extend beyond the boundaries I envisioned.
A picture I’d built in my mind, considering I hadn’t been able to find an actual picture of him online, which had also left a sour taste in my mouth.
It had seemed shady. Like this unknown man I’d learned about in the worst way was trying to keep secrets.
Not even close to being a good man. I’m not the dragon slayer you think I am. I’m the dragon.
The low growl of his voice skated through my memories.
What he’d claimed and the peril he’d radiated.
I’d known it.
Known he was dangerous, but at the time, I’d wanted it.
The risk and the hazard and the thrill of energy he’d elicited in me.
But now…?
I sucked for the oxygen that had become scarce .
This was Maci’s father.
This menacing, terrifying man who spent his nights at bars doing God knew what.
I nearly scoffed at myself.
After last night, I was pretty sure I knew exactly what that was.
More than that? My gut told me it went so much deeper.
Corruption seeded in those beautiful, magnificent hands.
Bile rushed up my throat.
I could not think of him like that. He’d…been with my sister.
I tried to blink the image away.
I had to focus on what was important.
Maci.
And that kind of lifestyle was not what she needed.
She needed stability.
Consistency.
A family .
She needed to be loved and cherished and adored.
At the T in the road, I made a left at Culberry Street and drove back into the main part of town, making a right on Broadway then a left at 9th.
“There’s a little café I saw last night that I thought you might like,” I forced out, trying to cover the tension that radiated from me. “It has some yummy treats for after lunch.”
I noticed the little sandwich shop while I was wandering last night.
When I felt as if I’d been completely lost.
Searching for something that no longer existed.
Aching in every recess of my being.
It hadn’t been long before I found the vapid sanctuary of the bar and the momentary respite of his touch.
“Yay! You know I really like the treats, Auntie Em!” Maci shouted.
“That’s right, I do,” I whispered as I found an open spot and parallel parked at the curb.
I climbed out and went to Maci’s door and unbuckled her, then Mom and I each took one of her hands and guided her down the sidewalk toward the sandwich shop.
This street had a bit of a different vibe than Culberry. Where Culberry seemed upscale and trendy, this one felt quainter. The shops and cafés cozier, exuding that traditional small-town charm.
The pace of the few people ambling around was slowed, all while my mind raced and spun.
Spun with the implications.
As hard as I tried to squelch them, memories kept coming at me from last night.
Flashes that struck and impaled with each blink of my eyes.
His hands and his mouth and the freedom that I’d found.
The way I’d wanted to fully give for the first time in so many years that I didn’t even remember what it was like to want.
And God, I had wanted .
And it was him.
Him.
I stumbled a step as I was hit with a wave of dizziness.
“Are you okay?” Mom asked from over the top of Maci’s head, a frown tugging deep in her brow.