19. Emery
NINETEEN
EMERY
I slammed my purse onto the booth tabletop where Kane was sitting, and I let the words that had been stewing in my mouth the entire afternoon fire.
“It’s not going to happen.”
Kane’s attention snapped up at the rage that blistered off my tongue. A rage that had only grown with every hour that had passed leading up to this meeting he’d demanded.
It had become an inferno when I’d helped Maci have her bath, then even more so when she’d crawled into bed beside me and I’d read her a story, the child falling asleep snuggled against my side.
A vehemence that sank all the way down to the marrow.
A liquid steel that ran through me, solidifying into a thousand blades.
Blades I wouldn’t hesitate to protect her with.
“She’s going home with me tomorrow. Where she belongs.” I kept my chin high as I declared it.
There was no surprise on Kane’s face at my assertion. The faint lines at the edges of his entrancing eyes only deepened a fraction.
“Why don’t you sit down?” He gestured at the opposite side of the booth. The exact spot where he’d been sitting two nights ago when I’d noticed him.
Before I’d tried to drown my sorrows in him.
How had only two days passed since then? It’d felt like a lifetime. A harrowing, agonizing lifetime.
“That’s not necessary. I came here to tell you the one thing I needed to say, and now I’m going to go.” I dug into my purse and pulled out the picture I’d shown him yesterday and tossed it onto the table in front of him. “I’ll send more through the years if that’s what you want.”
The one I brought would have to be enough for now.
And that was all I was going to give him because I couldn’t sit here and face him. Not with the memories of the way he’d interacted with her earlier today. Not with his concern or care. Not with the way he’d made me feel alive for the first time in my life on Friday night.
So I fled.
Wedged heels thudding on the worn wooden floors as I rushed back through the bar.
I refused to give him the chance to try to sway me.
My hands shoved against the heavy door, and it swung open, allowing me to stumble out onto the sidewalk.
Night rained down, the mountain air faintly chilled, streetlamps glowing a hazy yellow where they lined the street.
It was only nine, so there were quite a few people out and about. Ending their lazy summer Sunday with a meal on the town.
I wanted to escape into it. Into the shadows that loomed.
Only the door burst open behind me.
My ravaged heart boomed with a bolt of dread.
Did I really think he was actually going to sit there and let me walk away? I knew this would be a fight.
But I had to do it.
I had to protect Maci.
I couldn’t hand her over to a stranger. To someone she didn’t even know. To someone who might have some fleeting feelings of love but didn’t come close to understanding what the fullness of it meant .
Because if he did, then he would understand the sacrifice he needed to make.
He would understand she needed to be where she was most comfortable.
With the people she knew and loved.
“Emery.” He didn’t even shout it as I hurried away from him down the wood-plank sidewalk.
It was this low, hoarse command that somehow held the power to make me stumble in my tracks.
Facing away, I gritted my teeth and fisted my hands.
Trying to prepare myself. To fortify and withstand.
Fat freaking chance since chills lifted on my flesh when I felt the thud of his boots reverberating the wood as he took a slow step toward me.
Another then another until he was looming over me from behind.
A beast that had risen to consume.
Severity blistered, crackling across the dead space. In it, it felt as if all the numb, paralyzed places inside me had come alive.
I attempted to control the ragged breaths that scraped from my lungs. To ignore his scent and the energy he emitted.
To completely disregard the awakening of my body.
God, I was so messed up. I was going to need to re-up my sessions with my therapist over him. Because he made me react in every way that I couldn’t.
Conjured something in me I’d only hoped one day would exist.
What a cruel joke that he was the last person on earth who I would choose to invoke it.
Yet there it was, wisping around me like a vapor that could swallow me whole.
“Please don’t make me fight you on this, Little Warrior.” Kane’s words were low and controlled, brushing against the shell of my ear.
Did he really think it was that simple? That at his whim, I would concede?
Aghast, I whirled around, unable to fathom his audacity .
At the sight of him, the places that had come alive inside me ignited into flames.
“Don’t make you fight me on this?” Disbelief curdled the words, and I slammed my palm against the bleeding, mangled organ in the center of my chest. “That’s my niece.”
Ferocity deepened the lines of his harsh brow. “And she’s my daughter.”
“You don’t even know her.”
His own fury boiled in those magic eyes. Emerald sparks that struck in the night. “Because the chance to know her was taken away from me. That’s not going to happen this time.”
Agitation ticked through my limbs.
I hated that he was absolutely right and completely wrong.
“She’s just a child, Kane. Little more than a baby. She just lost her mother, and now you want her to lose the two people she knows best? The ones who love her most? Do you understand how terrified and confused she would be?”
I begged it, praying he would see reason.
Emotion pulled through his expression, and my spirit leaped, clinging to the hope that the sincerity I’d felt in him Friday had been real. There was goodness under the clear hazard he emitted.
“That’s not my intention, Emery. Not for a second.”
What?
Relief pounded through me, and I rushed, “Then why would you suggest?—?”
“I want you to stay here.”
Surprise blasted me back, my body slammed by a rogue wave.
Had he lost his mind?
“What are you talking about?”
He reached out and snagged my wrist, pulling me closer as he urged the words up close to my lips. “I want you to stay here. Both you and your mom if you’d like. I have plenty of room. Want you here while she gets settled. While she gets used to me. For as long as you want.”
Shock dropped my jaw.
No .
That wasn’t my intention.
I wanted to take her home.
With us.
And besides, I was supposed to go back and take over Ivy Threads, Emmalee’s clothing boutique. The one she’d begged me to open with her three years ago, but I’d been too afraid to step out my door most days to even consider it.
I’d let her down, and I wouldn’t let her down this time.
In my stupor, he managed to tug me even closer. “Give us four weeks. It will give Maci the time to get to know me and the rest of my family, and it’ll give you time to see this is where she belongs. Time for you to be sure you can trust me. Then we can go from there.”
“Are you insane?” I tried to fumble back, but he held me close.
His proximity sent a rush of lightheadedness through my brain.
Or maybe it was just his outrageous demand that had me feeling like I was tumbling through space.
Sucked into a black hole with no way out.
Severity erupted in his features. “Alternate is for me to take you to court. Is that what you want?”
It was a plea all mixed with a threat.
Dread nearly choked me out.
I was pretty sure there wasn’t a chance I’d win. The man had money, and well…he had the right.
There was no question she was his. Maci had borne little resemblance to Emmalee other than the color of her hair.
But to this man? I knew exactly what a paternity test would show.
It didn’t mean it didn’t stoke a flame of hate so hot in the middle of me that I couldn’t see.
Would he really wield that kind of power against us?
Wield the power to rip her from our arms?
It was so unfair.
Why, Emmalee? Why did you bring us here? Why would you want this terrifying man to raise your daughter? One who barely even remembers you? One who I am certain is keeping secrets?
Why didn’t you trust me ?
Maybe the last was what hurt the most. She knew I would have done anything for that little girl.
Moisture burned and blurred, and I only grew angrier when Kane reached out a tattooed hand and swiped a tear that had gotten free with the pad of his thumb.
Softly.
Tenderly.
Like he actually had a conscience.
“You asshole.” I croaked it.
“Maybe,” he rumbled.
Tension pulled and bound as he stared down at me for the longest time before he spoke again, “But I’m of the mindset that what would really make me an asshole is turning my back on my own kid.
I won’t do that. Won’t have her growing up without a father when there is one right here.
One who is going to love her with everything he has.
I won’t hurt her that way. You take care of the ones you love most.”
He choked over the last words, as if they caused him physical pain to release them.
I couldn’t contemplate what that meant before he edged in even closer, inhaling my shattered breaths. “Stay and let me prove it to you.”
“Am I just supposed to uproot my life to accommodate you? I’m supposed to be taking over my sister’s store when I get back. One of her friends has been running it and can’t do it any longer.”
I was going to do it this time. I was going to keep Emmalee’s dream alive, our dream that I’d let die.
“Four weeks, Emery. I’ll pay your sister’s friend whatever they need to cover it for you.
I would come to you, but you know she needs to get used to my house, to this town, and she’s going to be a whole lot more comfortable doing it if you’re there with her while she adjusts.
You know this is the right thing to do.”
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.