44. Emery
FORTY-FOUR
EMERY
Mom
How is it going?
I hesitated, my teeth raking my bottom lip before I forced myself to tap out a reply.
Me
Really well.
Mom
Do you want to fill me in a little on what that means?
I could feel her prodding from across the miles. Her care and her concern.
Me
It means you were right in asking me to do this because he did turn out to be exactly what she needs.
I wavered, unsure, my fingers hovering over the screen, waiting for her response, though I could almost feel she was waiting for me to elaborate. Like she already knew. But she’d always had a way of tapping into exactly what I was feeling.
Me
Is it wrong if he’s exactly what I need, too?
The dots danced and played for the longest time before her response came through.
Mom
No, Emery, it’s not. I wondered. Thought that I sensed something between you two. And you deserve to be happy. Whatever that looks like. And if he’s what that makes you, then you take it.
I swallowed around the rocks in my throat.
Me
What about Ivy Threads?
Mom
You get to choose your priorities in this life, Emery.
Whatever your heart is calling for? You listen to it.
You chase joy and grab onto it wherever it’s waiting for you.
It’s your time, my sweet girl. I’ve felt your spirit waiting to be freed for a while now, and it’s time.
Don’t you dare feel guilty for finding love or happiness because I promise you that is what your sister would have wanted. I know you know that. Embrace it.
I could almost feel my mother curl her arms around me.
Me
I love you so much.
Mom
I love you, too. More than you know. You and that little girl. Now go and wrap your arms around that joy.
“Put it right there in the basket.”
Standing on a stool at the island, Maci carefully set the container of the little finger sandwiches that we’d spent the last hour working on into the basket, her tiny tongue coming out in concentration as she nestled it beside the container of fresh fruit.
“I fink I got it really good, Auntie Em. This is definitely going to be a super fun picnic. Do you fink my mommy wishes she was here?”
Her rambled, casual words pierced me like a knife.
A dull, blunt blade that sheared through me with gutting pain.
My knees going weak as I thought of my sweet sister. Guilt roiling in my spirit because I still didn’t know if what I was doing was wrong.
The only thing that was becoming clear was there was no letting go of him.
My foundation had been rocked. All the things I’d thought I’d known and wanted completely demolished in his touch.
My hand was shaking as I ran it over the top of Maci’s head, the words choked as I murmured, “I think she would definitely want to be here.”
“I fink I’ll draw her a picture so my dragon can fly it all the way up to heaven so she can see it.”
Grief bashed through my spirit, but somehow, it was mixed with this blossoming joy that had sprouted inside.
“Your mommy would absolutely love that.”
A wash of warmth suddenly flooded the room, and my stomach tightened in anticipation. Kane’s nearness eradicating every question all while evoking a thousand more.
I looked up to find him striding through the entryway, wickedly cool and sporting one of those easy grins that I found so sexy, though there was no missing the intensity. The worry he’d carried after what had happened at the beginning of the week so clear.
There’d been no trace of whoever had attacked me. No clues to pick up on. No additional threat.
That didn’t mean we hadn’t all been on edge since then.
Those magic eyes rolled over me as he approached, and I had to steel myself from the reaction that he evoked in me.
A bare glimpse and the fire he’d ignited was rekindled in an instant.
I couldn’t count the number of times he’d had me in the last week since I’d given in to our connection. Every moment while Maci was asleep, we’d be tangled in each other. Kane searching me in every way while I discovered exactly what it was like to be worshipped.
Sometimes it was soft and slow, but usually, it was grasping hands and desperate bodies. A wild sort of freedom that I was fast becoming addicted to.
“Found us a good blanket,” Kane said, lifting the folded white and black checked blanket that he’d carried in.
“Finally, my Mr. Kane. I fought we were gonna have to wait for you for the whole night, and we gotta hurry up and have our picnic ’fore the sun goes to sleep.”
It was only three, but apparently, she was concerned.
An affectionate chuckle rolled out of him, though I knew him well enough now to sense the tension that underscored it. Nervous of Maci’s reaction.
He’d confessed it last night, in the deepest hours as we’d lain in the dark curled in the middle of his bed.
His fear of being enough for her.
Of being good enough for her.
Was I a fool that after everything he’d confessed, after the terrifying things he’d suggested, that I’d argued that he was more than good?
It seemed impossible that I’d been here for just over two weeks and every presumption I had made had been transformed. I’d wanted nothing more than for this man to change his mind and allow me to take Maci home with me, but now I couldn’t imagine ripping the little girl from her daddy.
Her daddy.
Thickness grew at the back of my throat.
She would know it today. Who he was, and where she was supposed to be.
Excitement shivered through me at the thought. At what her precious little face would look like when he told her.
I wanted that for her so desperately.
Was I completely wrong that I wanted that to apply to me? That I’d know who he was completely—this man who asked me to stay ?
This man who was promising me forever?
To surrender all this pain and grief and loss?
Asking me to allow him to hold a piece of it?
Kane’s boots ate up the floor as he came our way, and he dropped a kiss to the crown of Maci’s head. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Angel Face. I had to search around for the blanket in that mess of a closet.”
“Sounds like you should do a better job of cleanin’.” Maci shrugged one of her shoulders.
Another low toll of laughter. “Guess I’d better, hadn’t I?”
Emerald eyes found mine. Sparks and light. Stealing sanity and breath.
He took a slight step in my direction, covering me whole, the man a landslide. I shook when he reached out and ran his thumb across my brow, his voice both deep and tender when he murmured low enough that Maci wouldn’t hear.
“You’re frowning awful hard.” Concern flitted across his features. “Don’t be sad, baby. In the middle of all the sadness, I think this might be a good day.”
I saw what he was pleading for. For me to do this with him. To be at his side. And I wanted to be.
“I’m not sad, Kane,” I whispered back.
At least not over this.
I wanted this for them. They both deserved it. The fullness of who they were.
Maci slammed the lid shut on the basket. “Time to go, lovey doves.”
Surprise jolted me back.
“Lovie doves?” I didn’t even mean for it to drop from my mouth as a question.
She hopped off the stool. “You love my Mr. Kane because you give him so many kisses, just like my auntie Raven gives my uncle Otto so many kisses.”
I didn’t know if it was horror or embarrassment that hit me first.
How had she seen that? I’d made sure we’d been careful. That whatever was happening between me and Kane was happening behind closed doors.
But I realized it’d been getting harder to keep it that way.
The covert brushes of his hands. The times when he’d grab me when he thought we were alone and kiss me into a needy puddle, growly promises dripping from his mouth about what he was going to do to me when he really got me alone.
Kane set his big hand on her shoulder, but he remained looking at me. “That’s because I really like giving your auntie Em all the kisses. All the kisses in the world.”
Maci giggled, while I struggled to stand.
To stand beneath what was clearly on his face.
The plea that was written there.
Stay. Stay. Stay.
I grabbed the handle to the basket. “We’d better get going then.”
“Yay! It’s about time, you slowpokes.” Maci started for the big sliding door that led out back.
“Let me take that,” Kane rumbled near my ear, his hand going to the handle.
Energy snapped at the bare contact.
I heaved out a breath, and he angled in closer. “You don’t have to hold it all, Little Warrior.”
A smirk took to the edge of his mouth as he angled back. “Some things are just better when you do them together.”