Chapter 4
Cute Little Traeger Babies
Clay
Lines on pavement blur as I make the twenty-minute drive to Hillcreek.
I can’t stop thinking about Leni. My mind compares every little difference from the girl I knew at eighteen to the woman who crashed into my life last night.
She is all woman now, the girl I once knew stuck in a past neither one of us wants to return to.
Even the way she holds herself is different.
There’s a guardedness to her that never used to be there. Before that night.
I bring my hand up, dragging it down my face when I catch a hint of lilacs and vanilla. Her scent calls back a memory so vivid; I have to stop on the side of the road.
I fly out of the driver’s seat, breath coming in ragged and painful as I try to think of anything but that night. My hands grip the grill guard of my pickup, knuckles turning white as I’m swallowed whole by the day that changed everything between us.
I find Leni standing outside the barracks, somehow there without any of her brothers. She snuck away, told her family she was with Miya, and crossed the country to see me.
I think my chest would swell with pride if I weren’t so damn worried about her family blaming me. She put herself in unnecessary danger, and for what? Me? A broken man who could never be right for her? I lay beside her in the hotel room, counting her breaths as they deepen with sleep.
Muted light filters from the street through dirty polyester curtains.
The run-down motel was a practical choice on my part.
Trying to make this visit as uncomfortable as possible for her, so she has no desire to stay.
Or come back. It’s probably a giant waste of time, considering how stubborn each of the Kanes are.
Leni shifts in her sleep, her arm wrapping around my chest. Her head tucked into the crook of my shoulder.
My chest expands as I take a deep inhale of her scent, trying to memorize it.
I’m sending her home tomorrow, I have to.
She doesn’t belong here; she belongs on the ranch.
Finishing high school, going to college. Not piecing me back together.
Slowly, I feel myself starting to drift off, the usual barrage of gunfire and screaming replaced by her soft, quiet breathing.
“No!” I growl, backhanding the soldier beneath me.
He’s not getting away this time. He’s going to die.
I watch, detached from my body as my hands wrap around his throat, thumbs digging into his trachea, crushing his windpipe.
Fingernails dig into my skin, drawing blood as he fights me off.
I ignore the pain, pressing harder as his lips beg for reprieve, his eyes wide and full of fear.
I blink, trying to clear my doubt. He will kill me if I don’t kill him.
That’s how war works. The soldier before me gasps when my hands loosen a fraction.
Enough to take a breath. I bear down on him again, fingers tightening their hold.
I watch in horror as the soldier’s face shifts, and it’s no longer an enemy fighter, but Leni.
Her lips turning blue beneath me, tears streaming from the corners of her eyes.
“Clay,” she rasps. I try to pull my hands back, but I’m stuck. My muscles locked, unable to release the hold I have on her. More tears stream down her face, her eyes pleading. No! Not this, not her.
“Clay.” I hear my name, like she’s speaking into my mind. It’s syrupy and muffled. Her mouth isn’t moving, her hands aren’t fighting me, and her eyes go dead beneath me.
“No!” I hear myself scream this time.
“Clay!” Warmth radiates on my cheeks, soft fingers brushing tears off my face.
“Leni,” I cry, unable to open my eyes, worried I’ll find a corpse beneath me.
“It’s okay,” the sweetest voice in the world whispers to me. “You’re okay, Clay. I’m here.”
“Leni. Leni. Leni,” I chant, choking between sobs that rack through my entire body. I killed her. I fucking killed her in my dream, and it felt real. The whole thing felt so fucking real.
I finally manage to open my eyes, hands gripping her face harder than I mean. Pulling her away from my chest so I can see her, I move her head left, then right, checking her neck for bruising. For any signs that the dream might not have been a dream.
She’s quiet, with gentle eyes, studying my face as she lets me assess her. Never once complaining about how rough I’m being. How insane I must seem to her right now.
“You have to go,” my voice cracks as I jump off the bed and start packing her bag.
“What? No. This is why I’m here. You need help, you need me.”
I chuckle, a dark twisted kind of sound coming from my chest. “I need you? What the fuck is a high schooler going to do to help me?”
“Clay,” she whispers, tears glistening in her eyes.
I turn my back, shoving down the lump in my throat as my head begs me to take it back. To tell her, I don’t mean it. That I do need her. That she’s the only person I have ever needed. I’m too full of adrenaline; the image of her dead, lifeless eyes under my hands floods my mind.
“I’m not going,” her voice floats across the room. It’s hard and stubborn, the same voice Ma uses when she digs her heels in.
“Yes, you are!” I roar, whipping around to face her. The bag flies from my hand, slamming into the TV.
Green eyes widen, her pouty bottom lip trembling.
Rage fuels me. I saw my mom look at my dad that way. Scared. I’m scaring her, but I don’t know how to stop. I don’t know how to pull it back.
“You have to go.”
“No, Clay. You’re just scared.” Tiny feet walk toward me, her hand raising outward, like she’s approaching a scared horse.
“You don’t get it. I am not meant for you.”
“Please,” her voice wavers when she begs. Tears streaming down her face now.
“GET OUT!” I scream. Wood splinters as I haul the shitty wooden chair up and smash it into the wall.
Leni’s hands fly up, covering her ears, her body shaking. My fingers grip her elbow, spinning her around to flatten her back against the wall. Her eyes squeeze shut when she makes impact, a whoosh of air puffing into my face.
“I. Don’t. Want. You. Here.” I grit the words out through clenched teeth. Plaster dusts across her freckles when my fist finds the wall beside her head. Her eyes open, a cry loosening from her lips brings me back into my body.
“Leni,” I half sob, half beg. Stepping back from her, I stare at the broken chair, the hole in the wall, the way her body is shaking, eyes overflowing with tears.
She gathers her things, frantically shoving the rest into her backpack before she sprints toward the door.
I reach for her, my brain freezes when she screams, green eyes full of terror.
My chest tightens, lungs stop functioning as I drop to my knees and watch her leave.
I don’t know how long I sat there, staring at the empty doorway.
My lungs burned as a panic attack ripped through me, stealing all the air.
My vision started to blacken, my body collapsing under the weight of it.
I knew she’d leave eventually, like my mom did.
Running from the shitty DNA stuffed into us, Traeger men.
I wasn’t born inherently good or well-adjusted like the Kane siblings.
I tried to tell her, tried to warn her, and still I’d chased away the one person I ever truly felt at home with.
Scared her so bad she still flinches when I move near her.
I tried to call her the next day, when I woke up in a hospital bed, my CO was standing over me, shaking his head.
She never answered. I learned pretty quickly that she got a new phone; I found hers smashed under the bed.
She’d rushed out of there, in the middle of the night, without having a phone on her.
I’m a bastard, and I will never deserve her.
I thought the family knew what happened, figured she called them to come get her.
Now I’m questioning if she told them anything.
They’ve never treated me any differently, never asked about that night.
No one asked why I stopped sending her letters, no one except Mercer.
He never lets me forget it. You’d think he would take more of the classic big brother stance, where they freak out if their best friend had a thing for their sister, but Mercer is a romantic at heart.
He told me once that I looked at Leni the way his dad looks at his mom, and that had to mean she was my soulmate.
That I was stupid for pushing her away like I did.
He still thinks that, and every chance he gets, he brings her up in conversation.
Rubbing it in my face when she goes on dates, or who she dances with at the bar when she comes home for a visit.
Telling me when she’s had bad days, when she calls him crying because she’s lonely.
I’ve gotten daily updates on Leni for the past ten years, but she thinks Mercer wouldn’t bring her up.
She has no idea her brother has been playing matchmaker for most of our lives.
I suck in deep lungfuls of air, shaking out fingers that ache from gripping the grill too tightly. I need to get my head screwed on and figure out how to survive the next week. Need to get her out of my brain, erase the memory of having her in my lap yesterday.
The way I sleep like the dead when I’m near her because she is safety for me. Leni is home and so fucking off limits. I can’t risk it, hurting, scaring, watching her leave me again. I wouldn’t survive it. Never mind the risk of losing her entire family. The only family I’ve ever known.
Fuck. I’m in such deep shit.