31. Emery #2
“Hey, hi, Maci! I’m Nolan! My uncle Kane said you were coming over to my house to play with me!” The little boy came bounding up the stairs, a dog wagging its tail as it ran along at his side.
The child rushed straight for a giggling Maci.
“He told me you wanted to be my other best friend.” She swayed in her white sundress, redness lighting her cheeks.
“’Course I do because my uncle Kane said you’re really awesome, and I was gonna be super excited that you get to play with me all the time now.”
“Wait.” Her voice dropped like it was a secret. “I get to play all the time?”
“I guess so because my uncle Kane doesn’t tell lies.”
“Lies are bad,” Maci agreed.
“Well, my dad and my uncles are really good,” he told her.
I’d been too distracted by the adorable little boy that I hadn’t noticed a man had come up the stairs behind him.
Just as intimidating as Theo and Kane. His hair midnight and his eyes to match. Tattoos rolled up from the neckline of his shirt and onto his throat, and five little stars dotted the edge of his hairline.
Apprehension skimmed through my nerves.
Who were these men?
“Maci, want you to meet one of my best friends. River. Nolan’s dad.”
“I fought you said he was your brother?” Confusion wound Maci’s little brow up tight.
Kane chuckled one of those light sounds. “He’s not my actual brother, but I care about him so much that I consider him that. My family. That’s what all these people here are to me. Family.”
“Family is who you love most!” Nolan sang.
Emotion thickened my throat, and I tried to swallow around it.
River leaned down in front of Maci, and he stretched out a tattooed hand. “It’s really good to meet you, Maci.”
“It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. River.”
“How about you call me Uncle River?” he said with a quick glance at Kane .
Kane gave him some silent look that said a million things.
Be careful. She doesn’t know who I am yet.
“I didn’t even got an uncle, but then I got Uncle Theo and an Uncle River?” Her cheeks grew pink with all of her adorableness rippling out.
“Well, think you’re going to have a whole bunch of them now.” River gestured to the group who had gathered behind them.
A group I’d been too caught up to notice since I’d been watching the interaction.
Shock widened my eyes when my attention locked on one of the women there, the same kind of shock that dropped her jaw with a gush of surprised air.
“Oh my gosh, I cannot believe this. I know you!” Eagerness blazed from her as she touched her fingers to her chest. “Do you remember me? I’m Raven. I met you outside my flower shop, Moonflower.”
Oh wow.
I couldn’t formulate a response before Maci squealed and jumped with a hand high over her head. “Me, me! I remember! I remember! You’re the lady who gots all the flowers!”
Gleeful laughter rolled out of Raven.
Goodness, she was really beautiful.
Strikingly.
Sleek, shiny black hair twisted into a loose knot with a few flowers tucked into the plaits. Midnight eyes rimmed in black liner and mascara, wearing bright red lipstick and a floral dress that hugged all her curves.
“That’s right. I have all the flowers. And I told you I have a nephew who I thought would really like to meet you, and it turns out he definitely does.”
She set a tender hand on Nolan’s head.
“Wait, Nolan is the good friend you got for me?”
“That’s right.”
Maci released a dreamy sigh. “I fink it’s meant to be.”
“You think you were meant for me?” Nolan peeped, his blue eyes wide .
I tried not to laugh, but a soft sound came out of me, anyway.
The child was so cute it would be impossible not to be captivated by him.
Clearly, Maci was.
“I fink so since I got here and I found you.”
“Then you better come on so I can show you all my stuff. I bet you’re gonna like it,” he told her as he snatched her by the hand and hauled her across the large, covered patio and down the steps, the dog hot on their heels as they ran into the backyard.
It had clearly been set up with a child in mind.
A fort and a swing set and a big grassy area where he could run and play.
It was enclosed by a high wooden fence that would keep him safe and contained.
A small amount of ease filled me.
It didn’t last long since Kane returned his hand to the small of my back.
A shiver streaked down my spine. That energy that dragged between us thick and suffocating.
Something about the way he did it this time felt possessive.
A claim.
The strength of that arm a band that I foolishly craved to fully wrap around me. Tie me in chains. All while I knew I needed to run.
“Everyone, I want you to meet Maci’s aunt. Emery.”
It was the first time I allowed myself to fully look at all of them.
River had risen, so darkly intimidating I would have stepped back if Kane hadn’t become a fortress behind me.
River had his arm casually slung around the waist of a blonde woman who’d come to stand at his side, her face beautiful and serene and full of joy.
A giant of a man sauntered up to Raven. Wholly formidable and covered in ink. Wearing an enormous, welcoming grin, though his piercing blue eyes seemed to be trying to cut right through me to see inside .
As if he should be the one wary of me when the lot of them looked like a pack of trouble.
Peril and affliction and an irrefutable threat.
Theo watched me with an amused smirk. Like he knew something I didn’t.
Undoubtedly, he did.
Kane started introductions. “As you probably heard, this is River.”
“Nice to meet you, Emery,” he said.
“Nice to meet you, too.” The words were thin.
“And this one right here is Charleigh, River’s fiancée.”
Charleigh was just as beautiful as Raven, but in an entirely different way. A soft innocence radiated from her as she stepped forward and smiled.
She reached both hands out for one of mine. Holding it gently as she whispered, “Hi, Emery. It’s so good to meet you.”
Emotion clawed through my consciousness, and some of the tension I’d had locked inside me unfurled.
“Charleigh,” I whispered in a hello.
Kane continued on, pointing at Raven. “And it seems you already have met this one right here, which isn’t a shocker considering she goes around befriending every person she meets.”
Playful affection laced Kane’s voice as he lifted his chin at her. “Raven is actually River’s little sister.”
There was no missing the resemblance.
Both with black hair and midnight eyes, their brows arching in nearly the exact same way.
“I can’t believe this,” she whispered, amazement in her voice. “There was something about you all that had me right here…” She splayed both palms over her chest. “And now…”
She clipped off as if she wasn’t sure she should release the joy.
“It’s a small world, I guess.”
“Or a small town.” She choked it around the happiness I could feel radiating from her.
The real kind.
Her sincerity clear .
Another rush of relief rolled through me.
There was something about them that was…good.
Safe.
Close to the type of safety I felt with Kane when he was the last person I should feel it with.
“And this brute rubbing himself all over her is Otto,” Kane teased.
The man didn’t seem to take any offense. He just grinned as he stretched out a hand to shake mine.
“Really good to meet you, Emery.” His expression was the one that dimmed, sympathy pursing his lips together as he murmured, “Though I am very sorry to hear about your sister.”
A thrum of sorrow crested. “Thank you.”
The pad of Kane’s thumb stroked at the very base of my spine.
It both soothed and ignited a fire.
But in it, I could feel the rush of his compassion.
Something real and true, and God, I had no idea how to make any sense of him.
How to make sense of any of them.
Theo lifted a hand where he loitered to the side. “Good to see you again, Emery.”
“You, too.”
He roughed his hand through the crop of his black hair.
It was the first time I noticed the tattoo stamped on the back.
Two stacked Ss with a dagger running through and an eye in the middle.
The same as Kane had on the back of his, though Theo had a skull at the top where Kane had the wilting black rose.
Awareness dawned, and my attention skated, dipping to Otto and River’s hands and noticing that they all had the same one, only with slight variations.
Kane had said they were close.
But there was something about them that made them seem tied in an intrinsic way. As if their connections reached far deeper than the obvious .
River seemed to notice what I was looking at, and he shifted his hand from Charleigh’s waist to her back to conceal it.
Disquiet gusted.
“Come on, let’s get you something to drink before you stand out here dying of thirst.” Raven broke the tension, and she reached out and grabbed my hand to tug me away from Kane. I didn’t realize I’d basically been leaning on him until he was no longer there for support.
My knees wobbly and weak.
“I literally cannot believe it’s you,” she squeaked near my ear like it was a secret as she snuggled close to my side like I was actually her new best friend.
Like she’d known me forever.
Like anything about this was normal.
She began to lead me back into the house.
No reservations or shyness.
“Um, excuse me…are you going to wait for me?”
The voice echoed from behind, and I peeked back to see Charleigh rushing to catch up, that warm smile on her face.
Raven spun around to face both of us, still holding my hand as she dragged me inside. “I would never leave you. I just knew you would follow because hello, we obviously have to talk about this in private because is this not the absolute best thing ever?”
She drew it out before she set an emphatic gaze on me. “I mean, I hope you don’t think I’m weird or anything, but I got this feeling we were bound to be close when I met you and look what happened. You’re standing right here in my brother’s house! And Maci .”
She dropped the last to a whisper, her hand coming to her mouth to cover the awe.
“Psychic.” Charleigh razzed it around the significance that hovered in the air.