Chapter 5
Chapter Five
RYAN
“Karla! I was so worried about you,” I cried, pulling my little girl into my arms. She cried too, her sobs quiet and her voice soft as she kept calling out “Daddy, Daddy.”
I was happy to hear her voice again after so long, but I hated it was like this. I never wanted her to be scared or sad again.
“I’m sorry I didn’t keep a better eye on you, baby.
” I held her tightly to reassure myself that she was safe and sound.
The terror I felt when I realized she’d disappeared was something I never wanted to experience again.
I’d turned my head for one second to get her some water from my backpack, and when I turned back, she was gone.
I had to be the world’s worst father for losing their kid on a mountain—well, this was technically a hill, but that wasn’t the point!
What if a wolf had gotten to her? There hadn’t been any large wild animals on these trails when I was a kid, but who knew if that’s changed since?
Or what if there were human traffickers hiding out in the woods, waiting for their next victim?
I thought the fresh air would do us both some good after being cooped up in the car on the long drive here. Besides, I’d always been safe on these trails as a kid. Who knew she’d disappear in the split second I took my eyes off her?
All sorts of terrible thoughts ran through my head while I frantically looked for her, and they kept getting worse with each passing second and her nowhere in sight.
I was a terrible father, but Karla didn’t blame me like she should have. My sweet little angel held on tighter, her tears creating a wet spot on my chest. I ran soothing circles on her back in comfort.
She hiccupped when she’d cried it all out of her. Her tears dried up almost instantly, like she hadn’t just been sobbing in my arms. I smoothed back her hair. Strands of black came loose from the braids Mom did for her this morning.
“You can’t leave Daddy’s side like that again, okay?” I gently reprimanded her. I should have kept a better eye on her, but she also needed to know she couldn’t wander off like this again.
Karla nodded. I pressed a kiss to her forehead, then picked her up and stood to face the stranger who took care of Karla until we reunited .
“Thank you so much for helping me find her. Let me?—”
The rest of my words trailed off when I saw the person who stood in front of me. It felt like there was sand in my throat, causing me to rasp as I choked out, “Jones.”
“So you didn’t forget about me.” He crossed his arms. The smirk on his face looked more sarcastic than anything else, and the look in his eyes as he watched scorched me right where I stood. He’d probably watch me burn if he could.
And I would’ve deserved it.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered the words that had bubbled in my throat for the last decade. But when the words came out, they didn’t feel like nearly enough.
Jones must have thought so, too. He snorted, arms still crossed, and fists balled tightly.
Even with how royally pissed he looked right now, he still did something funny to my chest. It was the same confusing feeling that’d happen every time I was around him during our last summers together…
the summers we’d promised each other until I broke the promise.
He’d grown out his beard. Tight rings of curls covered half of his face, but that couldn’t hide his looks.
He was still as handsome as I remembered, too.
Deep-set eyes focused on me, even if they were full of anger right now.
I could still recall when his dark eyes fell on me with longing just moments before he kissed me …
Karla’s arm blocked my view of Jones, recalling me from the summer of regrets. She’d rolled up her sleeve to show me faint red lines running along her forearm.
“Baby, did you scratch yourself? Did you fall?” I asked, completely in worried-dad mode.
She nodded, and I carefully grabbed her arm to examine the injury. Thank goodness it wasn’t bleeding, but the scratches still needed first aid. I would hate it if they scarred.
I turned back to Jones to find him still watching us, this time more carefully and considering.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. There was so much more I wanted to say to him, but Karla came first. “We need to head back and get her all bandaged up. Could we catch up another time? Please?”
“I live a ten-minute walk away. Let’s go,” he said and turned around.
“What?”
“C’mon,” he said, looking over his shoulder at us. “We need to get Karla treated.”
I was fully prepared for him to reject me, yell at me, or say he never wanted to see me again. He had every valid reason to do so. I wasn’t expecting him to offer to treat Karla at his home.
Even in his anger with me, Jones was still the kind soul I knew. When we were kids, he could never leave a person in need alone. It was the very reason we’d become friends in the first place .
As I followed behind Jones’ wide back down a small trail I hadn’t remembered being there ten years before, I was transported to the first time we’d met.
The view had been the same then, but Jones had been holding my hand as he pulled me out of my tears.
His then-tiny back had spanned my entire world as a kid, and it seemed nothing had changed since.
A few minutes later, the trail had evened out, and the foliage thinned to reveal a lone cabin at the base of the hill.
Jones beelined to the sliding door in the back, not even having to unlock it first. After growing up and living in the city for all my life, I would never get used to the relaxed security around these parts.
He left the door open, which I took as a cue for me to follow. He glanced at me from the kitchen when I entered. “You can lay her on the couch over there,” he said, nodding to the living room opposite the kitchen.
Karla had fallen asleep in my arms during the walk here.
Her little head was pressed against my chest. These past few months, I’d sometimes wished I could always hold her like this and shield her from all hurt and sadness, but I knew it was an impossible wish.
I laid her down on the giant couch that took up half the living room and rolled up her sleeve.
I could only be there to help her when she fell.
Jones came to our side with a first-aid kit in hand. He knelt beside me. I reached for the kit, but he shot me a glance. “You should wash your hands first,” he reminded me and nodded to the kitchen.
I went to do as he said and returned to see that he’d already wiped her arm with a clean, damp towel and was in the process of rubbing ointment on her scratches.
I grabbed bandages from the first-aid kit and covered the wounds after he was done.
I rolled up her other sleeve and pant legs to check if she had any other injuries and was relieved to find none.
Straightening her clothes, I turned to Jones. “Thank you for treating her wounds. We’ll get out of your hair now,” I said and made to pick Karla up, but Jones reached out a hand to stop me.
“She’s probably tired after an exhausting morning. You should let her rest.”
“But—”
“Do you want a drink?” he asked, suddenly shooting up and striding to the kitchen. He’d already filled a cup with ice and water before I could follow.
“Why are you being so nice to me? Why do you keep helping me?” I couldn’t help but ask when I accepted the cup.
He tilted his head like he was confused by the question.
“I’m not. I’m helping Karla.”
“Yeah, but she’s?—”
My daughter. My throat tightened, and the fears that haunted me every night as I lay awake in bed taunted me, telling me that a real father wouldn’t have lost their kid.
“—innocent in all this,” Jones finished with a hand gesturing between us. His deep timbre released me from the clutches of my own thoughts, and I could finally breathe again.
I thanked him and took a small sip of water. All the while, I could feel Jones’ dark gaze on me, watching me, appraising me, and maybe even checking me out?
He didn’t bother hiding the appreciation in his eyes when he looked me up and down. I couldn’t help but stand up straighter, and if his little smirk was anything to go by, my little actions hadn’t gone unnoticed.
How stupidly embarrassing. This was not the time to try to look good in front of a man I’d hurt and broken so many promises with. But when he looked at me the same way he did in my memories, I wondered if he was still stuck in that summer, the same way I was?
“You have a daughter,” Jones said, breaking the silence.
It wasn’t a question, just a statement of the facts, so I nodded.
“She has your eyes,” he added, this time sounding more rueful.
“Her mom and I used to joke that fate brought us together because of our similar eyes,” I replied with a reminiscing smile. A bright laugh and eyes eerily similar to mine appeared in my mind, and it had my smile faltering.
Kassy was the only person I knew with eyes the same shade of blue as mine, bright, almost as if they glowed.
We used to joke that we were long-lost siblings, and withKassandra being an orphan, she could have been related to me somehow.
Mom told me I got my eyes from her great-grandmother, so Kassy might very well be one of her descendants.
“Used to?” Jones prompted.
“She…” I licked my lips to quell the dryness that was taking my throat again. It must just be really dry in this part of town, though that didn’t explain the prickling in my eyes. I stared at my hand gripping my water cup. “She passed a few months ago.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and the sincerity of his voice had me looking at him again. There was genuine concern on his face, which didn’t help my rapidly increasing heartbeat as I took him all in.
I flicked my gaze away and murmured, “Thank you.”
Jones chuckled softly. “It feels like all you’ve done today is thank me.”
“I guess you need to be less helpful then,” I joked, glancing up again when his laugh echoed in the kitchen. His laugh was very bad for my heart.
Jones had been handsome as a teen, but he’d been more lanky than anything else back then.
Now, as an adult, he’d really filled out his frame.
He was maybe an inch taller than my six-one, but he had me beat in size.
His bulging arm muscles told me he either didn’t have an office job like I did, or he was a very frequent visitor to the gym.
He could probably bench press me if he wanted to…
“Is that why you’re here?” Jones’ question had me realizing that I was checking him out.
I cleared my throat, ignoring his smirk, which said he totally knew I wasogling him.
“Sorry, what was the question?”
“Is her passing the reason you’re in Kither Springs?” he repeated, and I nodded.
“After…after Kassy died…” The words dried up again, and then my phone’s ringtone echoed in my ears, replaying the dreaded call.
“You don’t have to talk about it.” Jones’ hand landed on my shoulder. I hadn’t even known he’d come around the island to stand beside me. In a much softer tone, he added, “I’m sorry for bringing it up.”
“It’s okay,” I said with a shake of my head. “I’m okay, but even if I wasn’t, I need to be.”
“For Karla?”
I nodded.
“She was in the car with Kassy when the accident happened. Some drunk motherfucker drove on the wrong side of the highway and hit them head on.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, and I nodded in agreement, because what else could you say?
“Flipped the car right over. Thankfully, Karla’s car seat kept her safely buckled, but Kassy wasn’t as lucky…
I’d always told her she needed to trade in that old beater of hers for something more reliable.
I should’ve been mo re persuasive. Maybe then, her seat belt wouldn’t have unbuckled in the accident. Maybe then…”
She’d still be alive .
“It’s not your fault,” Jones whispered in my ear, and I was suddenly in his arms. His bulky arms held me so differently from the smaller ones of his youth, and yet it was somehow very familiar at the same time.
“It’s not your fault,” he repeated.
I sank into the hug, letting my head rest on his shoulder.
He smelled the same as my memories, like sunshine and a bit of dirt, but not in a bad way. It was the smell of nature and all the afternoons we’d played outdoors on those sunny days so long ago.
“Kassy died before theparamedics even got there,” I continued softly.
In his arms, retelling the story felt easier, but I’d always felt brave with Jones.
He gave me the safety to be. “Karla had some bruising, but she was fine for the most part, at least physically. I can’t imagine the trauma the poor girl experienced in that moment, crying for someone to help her mommy…
It’s one of the reasons she doesn’t talk anymore, at least that’s what the therapist thinks. ”
Jones rubbed my back the entire time I unloaded on him. He didn’t interrupt me or rush me and just let me talk, even though he probably still hated me for what I did back then.
Hurting Jones was just another one of my many regrets .
I reluctantly pulled away from his embrace and put some distance between us. Jones reached out to wipe my cheeks. I hadn’t even known they were wet.
He was so damn caring, and kind, and still the most fucking perfect person in the world. Too bad he wasn’t mine anymore, and I had nobody but myself to blame for that.
“But to answer your earlier question, yes, that’s the reason we moved here. After the accident, Karla didn’t do well when I was out of her sight, so I found a remote job that’ll let me be with her, and I thought being around family would be good for her, and heaven knows I need the help,” I joked.
Plus, I hoped Karla could make happy memories in the place where I’d had my happiest ones, though I didn’t say that out loud.
Jones tilted his head in contemplation, eyes meeting mine. There were so many unspoken words between us, but before either of us could say anything, the little patter of feet broke our moment. Karla ran to my side and tugged my shirt, asking to be picked up.
“Does your arm still hurt?” I asked while lifting her up.
She shook her head and rested her head on me, ear pressed against my chest, the way she often did.
I secretly wondered if she did this to confirm my heart was still beating and that I was still alive, though I shook those thoughts away.
She was too young to even know what a heartbeat was.
Jones watched us with a soft look before clearing his throat and saying, “We should get you back to your car. I’m sure Karla wants to go home and get cleaned up to rest.”
He turned after he finished speaking, leaving me with no choice but to follow him while wondering if I’d ever see him again after this.