Chapter 8
Landon
“The kids are in bed?”
Kinsey nods her head and her eyes wander to the tree again. The colored lights blink on and off and the shadows curl around her like they’re protecting her. Her head leans against her knees and her arms are wrapped around her legs.
The lights dance across her pale cheeks and my fingers itch to touch her.
I sit behind her and study her downturned face. “Are you alright, Kins?”
She nods her head but still says nothing. “You know that he wasn’t mad at you, Kins. I won’t say he didn’t miss you like hell. We both did. But he never blamed you for leaving and trying to find your own way.”
“He raised me. He took care of me those last two years until I graduated and then like a little girl, I left in the middle of the night and didn’t tell him where I was going.
I was a damn brat. And then I never came home to see him again.
Just called him every once in awhile and video chatted even less. ”
“Granted, you did do that. But he didn’t blame you. He always said you had your reasons but he never told me what they were. I wish he had. Maybe I could have fixed it so that you could come home.”
Her head shakes, her silky red hair sliding across her tense shoulders. “You couldn’t have changed a thing.”
“How do you know that? I always helped you two out whenever I could. I think I might have been the only person that could have diffused whatever the issue was and let you come back.”
“You couldn’t, okay!” She hollers and then stands up to pace like a caged tiger.
“Why not? I would have done anything for the two of you.”
She freezes in her tracks and I can see her luscious breasts rising and falling rapidly.
“You were the problem, Landon.”
It feels like ice strikes me right in the heart. My breath stalls and I stare at her, shocked beyond belief.
“What?” I ask her softly.
“It’s true. I left because I was in love with you. Obviously Karter figured it out and he was okay with it. I felt like he knew. But I had to go.”
“Why?” I can’t move. Can’t think.
She left her brother and her hometown because she had feelings for me.
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Her eyes slide my way and I can see the glimmer of tears.
“Because if I had, you would have been so nice to me, even as you told me that you didn’t feel the same.
I couldn’t risk that. Couldn’t bear to feel like I was some…
plus one. Like I didn’t matter unless it had something to do with my brother.
You didn’t care for me and we both know that. ”
“I did care for you, Kinsey. I cared a lot. If you had given me a chance we might have been good together.”
“Karter wouldn’t have liked that. And really?
If I had stayed and we dated, what do you really think would have happened?
Because I think we would have managed it for a month, maybe two.
And then we would have broken up and the awkwardness between us would have buried all our feelings and broken my brother.
He never would have looked at either of us the same. ”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she insists and I can see the sparkle of her gray eyes in the dim light. “Karter was not going to be okay with us dating. Ever.”
“So maybe you could have come to me and told me the truth. Trusted me to do what needed to be done instead of just taking off like a child.”
She shrinks in on herself. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I could have. And then I wouldn’t have met my husband and wouldn’t have the two beautiful children that I do. Sometimes things just work out the way they’re supposed to.”
“And how do you see this going now? We’re both older and wiser. I still…care for you.”
“Good. I have feelings for you too.”
“But you can’t move past the way you’re feeling right now. Like you’ve messed up your life and his.”
“I don’t…know.”
I sit up and then move to my feet, each moment measured and sure. Even though I don’t feel sure. I feel a little broken inside.
I step up to her and my hand touches her shoulder, then lifts to touch her jaw, holding it gently between my thumb and forefinger. Her skin is like silk in my hands and I rub it softly, gently.
I close my eyes. “I wish I’d known. I never would have let you leave.”
Her dark silver gaze turns to me. “I had to. It was for the best.”
My head shakes. “Never. Losing you has never been for the best.”
I lean in and my lips touch hers and wild hunger rises in me, welling up and burying my senses in a tornado of longing and love. Our lips cling together and I can taste the salt of her tears on my tongue. Feel the heartbreak decades have hidden from view.
Breaking away from me, she jogs up the stairs and I stand there, the shifting play of colored lights like a maelstrom, a backdrop to the shifting feelings in my heart.
A door closes upstairs and I lean against the wall, my eyes lost in the past, searching for a way to make this right. A way to move forward, to have the one thing I never thought I’d have.
A woman’s love.