20. Emery
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.
Then I froze when I felt the presence encroach from behind.
Obliterating.
Decimating.
A shockwave of intensity that slicked across my skin.
A wave of disorder.
A tremble of that thing that had pulled between us since the moment I’d met him. That thing that I had to eradicate.
There was no chance in hell I would survive staying under his roof for four weeks while he made me feel this way.
Toiling in contradiction .
Stewing in a conflict that boiled in the darkest corners of my being.
The disgust up against the attraction that had sunk the sharpest claws deep into my psyche.
“Mornin’,” Kane rumbled.
The rough scrape of his voice skated over me like the skimming of his hands.
God.
This was a nightmare.
Maci squirmed, urging me to set her onto her feet. “Good mornin’, Mr. Kane! I didn’t even know that I got to come stay at your house, but when I woke up, my auntie said that we get to, and I fink you had a super good idea because I don’t got my old house anymore.”
My hands darted out to the roof of the car to support myself, and Maci wiggled around my legs to get to him.
I felt him stall, a stir of potency as he processed what she said, before I could feel the shift, sense that he was kneeling in front of her. “I think it’s a good idea, too. I think you’re going to like it here a whole lot.”
“I definitely like your house a whole lot! I fink it’s a princess castle.”
A low chuckle rolled out of him. “Well, I guess it is now since you’ll be staying here.”
I finally forced myself to turn around, eyes catching on the way his index finger that was tatted with a skull gently touched her chin as he peered at her before that powerful gaze slanted up to clash with mine.
A thousand unsaid words in his eyes.
I refused them, gulping hard as I set my hand on Maci’s shoulder. “We should probably get our things so Grammy doesn’t miss her flight.”
A flight all three of us were supposed to be taking.
Kane pushed to standing, and Maci grabbed his hand and started to haul him toward the rear of the car where my mom was already waiting. “Did you know I got really special fings in my special bag, Mr. Kane?”
He followed her without reserve. “I didn’t know that, but I can’t wait to see what you brought.”
“Well, I gotta have my bwankie because it’s the softest and my mommy gave it to me when I was only a tiny baby.” Maci chattered it as she hopped along at his side.
“You definitely need that,” he agreed, casting me a sympathetic glance.
My chest nearly caved.
Why did he have to look at me like that?
Like he freaking cared?
I didn’t want to receive it. But it swelled around me like a caress.
“Well, I gotta keep it forever.”
“That sounds like a plan, Angel Face. We’ll definitely make sure we do that.”
We.
Forever.
The two of them.
I bit down on my bottom lip to stop the flailing of my emotions, and I moved around to the trunk and ducked in so I could grab my suitcase.
Kane nudged me out of the way, his big body too close to mine. “I’ve got it.”
“I can carry my own bag.” I couldn’t keep the spite from my voice.
“I’m sure you can,” he grunted as he pulled it out. “But why would you want to go and do that when you have me to do it for you?”
He said it like he was the one at my feet.
Like I had a modicum of control when he’d crushed it with a single strike of his heel.
He set my suitcase on the ground beside him then leaned in to grab Maci’s duffel with the cartoon print. “And I’m assuming this belongs to you?”
Maci jumped, clapping her hands overhead. “How did you even know?”
Soft laughter drifted out of him as he tossed the strap over his shoulder. “Just had a hunch.”
“Well, you got a good hunch because you’re right.”
Breaths choppy, I leaned in and grabbed my laptop case and overnight bag before I straightened, fisting the straps of both in either hand, trying to breathe deep enough that I could get myself together.
Four weeks.
I had four weeks.
And then what?
She and I would come to our end?
Panic threatened to drop me to my knees.
Mom was suddenly there, shifting me around and pulling me two steps away from where Kane and Maci stood, her arms wrapped fiercely around me as she whispered, “You can do this, Emery. I know it’s difficult…
painfully difficult…because I’m having the hardest time forcing myself to leave right now.
But give him a chance. He might be exactly what she needs. ”
“Or the absolute worst thing that could happen to her.” I gasped it as I clutched her to me.
She edged back a fraction so she could see my face, and she reached out and brushed back a lock of hair that whipped in the slight breeze.
Compassion and faith filled her expression, her head canting softly to the side as she tried to reach me.
“I’ve always been a believer that things work out the way they’re supposed to.
That the right path will be found, even when it feels like we’re lost when we’re wandering around trying to find it. ”
She squeezed the outside of my arms in emphasis. “But you have this opportunity to make sure. To watch and listen. Trust your gut and your heart…they both count, but in order to do that, you’re going to have to peel away the anger you have toward him. It’s not his fault he didn’t know her.”
But how did we know that? None of us had any idea what had happened when Emmalee had found out she was pregnant. Maybe she’d come to him, and he’d turned her away.
Except, I’d seen the shock on his face when I’d told him, and I’d only be lying to myself if I tried to maintain that he’d known.
Blowing out some of the heaviness, I inhaled a shaky breath. “I’ll try. ”
Mom lifted her hand and set it on my cheek.
Warmth spread.
Her love for me intense.
So real.
There was no love like a mother’s.
Pain clamped down when I thought of Maci having to live without that.
“If you need me at all, you say, and I’ll be on the next flight.” It was a promise I knew she wouldn’t hesitate to keep.
“I know.”
Then she hugged me again. Hard. Her own sorrow gushed out. “I love you so much, Emery Voss. You can do this.”
Emotion thickened my throat, and I wheezed, “I love you, too.”
My mom stepped back, swiping beneath her eyes before she inhaled a steeling breath and turned around, feigning brightness in her voice when she moved for Maci. “Okay, Grammy has to go now to check on Grampa Ted, but I will talk to you soon!”
“You better go make sure he’s drinkin’ his milk. All he ever wants is coffee, coffee, coffee.” Maci hooked her hands on her waist and stamped her foot.
Mom choked over a soggy laugh. “I will absolutely tell him.”
Then she scooped Maci up and hugged her close as she swayed her from side to side.
Breathing her in, swimming in the same turmoil that I was, only she had already come up to that end.
She was leaving her granddaughter here with a man that none of us knew.
Maci squeezed her arms around her neck and wiggled in her hold. “Bye, Grammy! I love you so much like all the stars in the whole sky.”
“Every single one of them,” Mom whispered before she finally set Maci onto her feet.
Her face was so full of tears that she didn’t say anything else before she rushed around to the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut.
Grief clotted the air.
Bound it .
Held it.
Kane was the one who broke it, angling his head as he murmured, “We’d better get inside.”
My nod was wary, and I trudged along behind him and Maci as they headed for the house. Maci’s steps were light and eager as she raced up the stairs. The child nothing but a buzz of excitement. “I like your house a whole lot, Mr. Kane. You got any kids for me to play with?”
If I wasn’t watching so closely, I wouldn’t have noticed the way he nearly tripped. The stumble in his stride before he regained his footing.
But of course, I was.
So messed up that I couldn’t look away.
“No. You’re the first kid who’s going to be staying here with me,” he said, words thick, “but I do have a nephew who I think is going to be super excited to meet you.”
“Yay! Another best friend!” Her little sandals thudded against the porch as she raced across it, and she yanked at the door handle.
While I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel behind me.
I paused to turn to look back at my mother through the windshield. My mother lifted her hand and pressed her fingertips to her lips before she barely waved them at me.
A fluttering of hope and a staunch show of support.
I lifted mine in a silent goodbye, then I stepped into Kane Asher’s house.