Chapter 19 Kelcie
Kelcie
This morning, Levi took me to the auto repair shop to get a new battery. I told him he didn’t have to, but he insisted.
When he starts the car and the engine purrs to life, I clap my hands and lean down to press a kiss to his cheek. “Thank you! Now Jordan can get off my back.”
“You’re welcome, my muse,” Levi replies. “I’ll go get snow tires put on later today.”
I step back so he can get out of the car and shut the door.
“Levi.”
Hearing a woman’s voice, we both glance toward the end of the driveway where Colby is standing with a microphone in his hand, a cameraman, and some lady who looks awfully familiar. For a few seconds, I can’t place where I know her from, but then recognition shudders through me like an earthquake.
Wesley Porter’s mother.
“Why would you bring her here, Colby?” I exclaim in complete shock.
Does he hate me so much?
“Fuck,” Levi mutters under his breath.
Feeling completely rattled, I glance at Levi, who’s staring at the three people with a grim expression, the blood draining from his face, and his jaw clenching hard.
Suddenly, he grabs me by my wrist and begins to drag me toward the front door, but Colby calls out, “Levi, your mother came all this way to see you. Don’t you have anything to say to her?”
Mother?
A weird pins and needles sensation spreads from the top of my head to my toes as I’m hit with a wave of shock that threatens to wash my feet from right under me.
“Levi,” the woman says, her tone urgent as she walks closer to us, “I just want to talk to you.”
Levi shoves my front door open, and I’m hauled inside.
“What’s going on?” I ask, air bursting over my lips and drying them quickly. “Why . . . ?”
My heart clenches into a tiny ball as the grief I’ve worked so hard to deal with consumes me.
“Kelcie, did you know your boyfriend is related to the man who killed your mother?” Colby shouts for half the neighborhood to hear. “Wesley Porter is Levi Graye’s brother.”
No. No. No.
I shake my head, unable to process what Colby is telling me. There’s no way it’s the truth.
Lifting my eyes to Levi’s, I don’t even have to ask whether what Colby is saying is the truth. The guilt is written all over his face.
No!
Somewhere deep inside my soul, something breaks.
It’s only then that I begin to make sense of everything, and I rip my wrist free from Levi’s tight hold. I slowly shake my head, the initial blow of heartache so intense it forces me three steps backward.
“Levi,” his mother says, trying to get his attention.
He turns his head, hatred and disgust darkening his features as he snaps, “Fuck off, Rene!” He slams the door shut in her face. After locking it, he keeps his head turned away from me. “I can explain.”
Oh God.
A sob threatens to escape from me. I take another step backward, shaking my head faster as my breaths turn to short puffs. “No, Levi,” I whisper, my tone filled with unspeakable fear. “Tell me Colby is lying. Tell me this isn’t true.”
It feels like I’m being sucked into a world where everything is turned upside down and nothing makes sense. I lift my hands to cover my mouth as another wave of shock shoots through me.
Finally, Levi looks at me, his eyes filled with guilt and pain.
“I wanted to tell you,” he replies, his tone desperate. “But I didn’t know how, and then I fell in love with you, and I just couldn’t.”
“No!” I cry, my chest heaving as sobs begin to build in me. The pieces of my heart he carefully glued back together over the past few months shatter into an unrecognizable mess around me, and I whimper, “No, Levi.”
“I saw the article and recognized Wesley’s name,” he says while giving me a pleading expression.
“Even though I knew it had nothing to do with me, I felt guilty because he’s my half brother.
I followed the trial, and it broke my heart to see how you and Jordan were suffering. I wanted to do something to help.”
“So you moved in right next door to me?” I whisper, my mind reeling from this . . . this . . . nightmare.
He followed the trial. He bought a house in my hometown. He lived next to me for two months before we started talking.
“You stalked me!” I gasp.
“I just wanted to help, Kelcie. I tried to fight my feelings for you, but—”
“Is that why you kept pulling away?” I ask, feeling so stupid for pursuing him.
Oh. My. God. I . . . I . . . I . . .
A dry sob tears from me.
Someone knocks, and when I don’t answer, they begin banging on the door. “Kelcie. Let me in. You deserve to know the truth,” Colby shouts.
When I step toward the door, Levi begs, “Don’t listen to him. Let’s talk about this.”
Ignoring his plea, I unlock the door and yank it open. Giving Colby the darkest glare I can conjure to my face, I snap, “Get off my property. The next time you come near me, I’m calling Sheriff Williams, and I’ll have you arrested for trespassing.”
“Kelc—”
I slam the door shut again, engage the locks, and walk to the kitchen to put some distance between Levi and me.
When he takes a step in my direction, I shake my head. “You stay right there. Don’t come any closer.”
My mind races to process everything.
I remember every memory Levi shared with me and realize he never said his family’s names. It was always stepfather, mother, or half brother.
“Baby,” Levi groans.
My eyes snap to him, and I begin to feel torn. Part of me wants to do everything in my power not to hurt him, but the other half feels betrayed and so, so very heartbroken.
“You lied to me.” A tsunami of pain tears through my chest. “You inserted yourself in my life and made me fall for you. You . . . you . . . you . . .”
My breathing becomes choppy as my emotions spiral into chaos, and I blindly move toward the cupboard. I can’t get any air into my lungs, and it feels as if I’m suffocating.
Levi darts past me and quickly grabs my medicine from the cupboard. He pops one of the pills out and pushes it past my dry lips.
My vision grows spotty, and I’m not aware of what happens for the next few minutes.
When the severe panic attack begins to ease, I smell cedarwood and citrus.
“I’m so sorry,” Levi groans, sounding as if he’s in physical pain. “I love you with everything I am. I never meant to hurt you.”
My face is pressed to his chest, and his arms are steel bands of safety around me.
But the moment only lasts a few seconds.
I yank away from him, and when he lets go of me, I stagger backward until I hit the wall.
“You tricked me. You played me for a fool,” I sob, unable to handle all the heartache eating me up alive.
What else is he capable of?
Fear slithers through my veins, and I don’t know what my expression looks like, but it has Levi holding his hands up in front of him.
“I will never hurt you. Please don’t look at me like that.”
“Leave,” I whimper.
“Kelcie.” His arms fall limply to his sides, the most heartbreaking expression I’ve ever seen settling on his face.
“I didn’t play you. Everything between us was .
. . is real. The memories I shared with you were the truth.
I left that family when I turned sixteen.
” He lifts his arms again and scrubs his palms over his face.
“I shouldn’t have kept from you who my half brother was, and I’m so sorry I did. ”
His expression turns pleading again. “I didn’t want to lose you.”
While Levi talks, I can’t keep myself from remembering every moment we shared.
My head begins to pound from all the tension, and I wrap my arms around myself.
“I need time alone. I have to process it all. I can’t do this with you right now.”
Levi takes a cautious step toward me, and when I begin to shake my head, he sucks in a shuddering breath before saying, “I’ll give you all the time you need.
” His eyes burn into mine. “I never meant to hurt you, Kelcie. Your beautiful nature and warmth drew me in, and I couldn’t fight it.
Getting to know you has been the greatest gift I’ve received in my life, and whatever you decide, I’ll always treasure every second I got to spend with you. ”
When he slowly begins to move closer again, I don’t have it in me to tell him to stop.
“Can I hold you, please?” he begs. “If this might be the last time I see you, can I be selfish and ask for one last hug?”
Tears overwhelm me, and as I begin to cry, his arms gently wrap around me and pull me against his chest. His scent envelops me, and I weep because the happiness I managed to find with Levi has just been cruelly ripped away from me.
I don’t think this is something I’ll ever recover from.
Levi
Unbearable pain keeps dragging me back down into the darkness that’s followed me throughout my thirty-three years of life on this godforsaken planet.
Kelcie is the only warmth and love I’ve ever felt, and I can’t bear to think I might lose her.
I hold her as tight as I can without hurting her, and as her tears wet my shirt, my eyes burn like they’re on fire.
It feels as if someone is ripping my heart clean from my chest.
“I love you,” I groan, buckling under the severe heartache. “I’m so sorry.”
There’s nothing I regret more than hurting Kelcie.
The instant I laid eyes on Rene, the woman who gave birth to me, the ground might as well have opened up beneath my feet.
I was bombarded with every destructive emotion she and my stepfather have ever made me feel.
The abuse I suffered at their hands tightened like a noose around my throat, threatening to once again squeeze the life from me.
During my entire childhood, they destroyed me, and now she has come back to destroy the happiness I’ve finally managed to find.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, hoping Kelcie believes me.
She begins to calm down, lost sobs drifting over her lips, and then she wraps her arms around me and holds me tightly.
“I love you, Kelcie. More than you’ll ever know. It might not matter, but please don’t judge me for what Wesley did. Please try to understand, I was terrified of losing you, and that’s why I kept quiet about being related to him. I haven’t seen my family since I was sixteen.”
“You deceived me.” She sounds broken, and it crushes my heart to dust.
Kelcie lowers her arms and pulls away. Knowing I have no choice, I move a couple of steps backward and desperately take in every inch of her face.
When I see all the strength drain from her and a grief-stricken expression dull her eyes, I know I’ve lost her.
Her light fades away, and it feels as if I’m dropped in the middle of the Arctic desert.
My entire body trembles as I quickly dart forward, and framing her face with my hands, I lean down and press a kiss to her forehead. Against her skin, I vow, “I will always love only you, Kelcie. You own all of my heart.”
I duck down lower and kiss her soft lips before I force myself to let go of her.
I rush out of the back door, and as blinding pain engulfs every part of my being, I somehow make it back to my house.
I feel Lick nudging her head against my hand, and when I drop down on the couch, she jumps up and lays her head on my chest, her big eyes locked on my face.
Fuck.
I gasp as the pain keeps intensifying.
Lifting my arms, I grab hold of Lick and bury my face against her fur. She whines as if she can sense my distress.
I just lost Kelcie.
I let go of Lick, and unable to sit still, I dart to my feet and begin to pace up and down the living room for God knows how long.
When I hear an engine start, I stop by the window, and seeing Kelcie’s car backing out of her driveway, I rush to my front door and rip it open. As I run across the yard, she drives by and keeps going.
Jesus, she’s in no state to drive anywhere!
I stop in the road and lift my hands to the back of my head, my breaths exploding over my lips as worry for her safety floods me.
“Levi!”
I glance over my shoulder, and seeing Rene, I turn away and walk back to my house.
“Please,” she cries.
The next second, she grabs hold of my arm, and I just react, yanking away from her while growling, “Don’t fucking touch me.”
I’m instantly filled with disgust so thick, it threatens to suffocate me.
Lick barks threateningly, and it has Rene quickly retreating a couple of feet. “I just want to talk to you.”
“I have nothing to say to you.”
I go inside my house, and as I wait for Lick to come in, Rene says, “We lost everything to pay for your brother’s lawyer. I wouldn’t ask for money if I had any other choice, but we’re family. We read you made millions from your books and the movie.”
You have got to be fucking kidding me.
My eyes lock with her desperate ones.
For a split second, I thought she was here to ask for forgiveness. To tell me she missed me.
But instead, she’s here to ask for money?
It feels like I’m losing my mind, and a dark chuckle escapes me.
My voice sounds foreign to my ears as I say, “You come to my house with a reporter and ruin the most important thing in my life, only to ask for money?” I shake my head hard.
“Even if you were dying of hunger, I wouldn’t give you the trash I throw out every week. ”
I keep eye contact with her and let her see every ounce of hatred I feel for her. Only when I see the realization that she’s not getting a dime from me register in her eyes do I shut the door.
With every step I take through the living room, my body trembles more and more, and by the time I move in beneath the scorching hot spray of the shower, there’s nothing left of the man I was this morning.
I sink down until my ass hits the tiles, and lowering my head, I stare at nothing.
I’ve lost Kelcie.
My chest shudders, and for the first time since I ran away from home, I break down.