Chapter 35
Chapter Thirty-Five
Kylie
Not since the day I woke up from the coma had I come out of sleep peacefully. Once they locked me in that house, I’d merely drifted on the edge of consciousness, never fully giving in to sleep for fear I wouldn’t wake up ever again.
Now … here…
The sounds and scents—so familiar, yet still foreign—brought me out of slumber with a sense of security I hadn’t felt in far too long.
I went to sleep last night with Travis and Gage after asking them if it was all right to share their bed.
I probably should’ve slept in the guest room downstairs, but I didn’t want to be alone.
They had both looked at me as though I’d lost my mind, but I couldn’t help it.
The house, the people, it all felt like my life, but not.
I wasn’t sure that made any sense, but it was as though I was a puzzle piece and they were the puzzle.
I belonged, but I hadn’t quite gotten to the place where I would connect with the other pieces.
Granted, I’d only been home for a few hours, so maybe in the coming days, weeks, months, I would feel differently.
“You awake?” Travis mumbled behind me, his breath fanning my hair.
“Yes.”
He moved in closer, one arm under my head, the other draped over my hip. It wasn’t the position we’d gone to sleep in, but at some point, I had settled against him, yearning for the warmth and security I’d always associated with him.
As we lay there in the quiet of the morning, I appreciated that he didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Although I wasn’t quite comfortable walking back into my life after all this time, being here with him … it was as natural as breathing.
“Kieran texted me last night,” Travis relayed. “He said he could bring the clothes you had at the—”
“I don’t want them,” I interrupted abruptly.
Travis’s arms banded more tightly around me, and I forced myself to relax, snuggling back against him.
I knew that my things were gone because I’d seen the closet last night when Travis went into it to get me one of his T-shirts to sleep in.
It was strange to see, but I understood.
They thought I was dead. Why would they hang on to that stuff and suffer that loss again and again when they saw it?
Did it hurt? Yeah. It did. To know that they had moved on without me…
I drew in a deep breath, shoving the thought aside. There was no reason to dwell on the things I couldn’t change. Not right now, anyway. I had to take this one breath at a time.
“I’ll let him know. Right after I…”
“He’s not to blame,” I said when Travis trailed off.
“The hell he’s not.”
It didn’t surprise me that Travis was pissed at Kieran.
I understood why. His own family had kept a secret that would’ve changed everything.
Not to mention, Kieran had been aware that I was alive and being held captive by Martin.
At least from the time he’d come to the hospital with Allison to move me.
Whether he knew before that, I didn’t know.
I hadn’t bothered to ask. I had tried to wrap my head around Kieran’s reasons for doing what he did, but I couldn’t.
Nothing had ever been more important to me than family.
Certainly not a job. However, I did appreciate that he’d come to rescue me when he had.
Otherwise, I would’ve been dead. For real.
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“For what?”
What was I sorry for? Being rude? Interrupting? Or coming back from the dead and inserting myself back in my life as though I’d never left. The world hadn’t stopped turning while I was locked away. For all I knew, Travis and Gage had moved on. Perhaps they’d found—
Screeech.
That was the sound of my world coming to an immediate halt.
I hadn’t considered the possibility that they had found someone else.
Sure, I’d thought about it before, but not since they showed up yesterday had I actually considered the reality of it.
What if… I swallowed hard and forced the hard question past my lips.
“Have … um …” I gripped Travis’s arm and tried to calm myself.
“Have you and Gage been with … anyone else?”
“No,” he said easily and without hesitation.
Relief flooded me, but I tried to hide it. “Why not?”
Travis bristled behind me. The way his arms tensed told me he didn’t appreciate the question. When he pulled away, I feared I’d upset him. He didn’t leave, didn’t get out of bed, and I could sense him watching me.
Rolling to my back so I could look at him, I was about to apologize, but something in his expression stopped me. There was a wealth of emotion burning in his blue-gray eyes. Before I could stop myself, I put my hand on his cheek, letting the stubble scrape my fingertips.
God, he was so familiar. And safe.
“Kylie…”
“It’s okay,” I whispered, unable to stop the tears from sliding down the sides of my face and into my hair.
“We haven’t been with anyone,” he whispered. “Only each other.”
That made my chest tighten, the thought of them turning to one another in their grief.
“Trust me when I tell you … I haven’t made it easy for Gage.”
I chuckled and felt some of the stress ease out of my body. “I can only imagine.”
Travis smiled. It wasn’t filled with light and laughter, but it was there nonetheless.
I turned toward him, burying my face in his chest, relishing the warmth and the strength of his body as he cocooned me within his arms. I wanted to stay like this forever, to let Travis keep the world at bay by simply holding me.
I had dreamed about this. While I was trapped in that shit hole.
I had dreamed about what it felt like to be held by Travis and Gage.
I’d longed to feel it again, and here I was.
It felt surreal. I feared that I would wake up at any second and find myself back in that house, chained to the floor, starving to death.
I didn’t want to wake up. I wanted this to be real. I needed it to be real.
“I’ve missed you so fuckin’ much,” Travis rasped, his lips pressing to my hair, his arm curling around me, holding me.
We remained like that for several minutes, the two of us surrounded by silence and each other. It felt good.
However, the day needed to get underway. Not only because I had promised to have breakfast with the kids, but also because it was high time I started taking the necessary steps toward making Martin Calloway pay for the hell he put me through.
“Are the kids awake?”
Travis shifted back a little. “They are.”
I smiled. “I should get downstairs and have breakfast with them.”
“They would love that.”
I pulled back, intending to roll away from him, but his arm remained firm, keeping me close. I looked up, saw that he was watching me. He shifted again, propping himself up on his elbow and brushing my hair back with his fingertips.
“I’ve missed you so fuckin’ much,” he rasped, repeating the words from a moment ago.
“Me, too.”
The instant tears formed in his eyes, it turned on the waterworks for me.
I grabbed him, holding tightly as my emotional boat started rocking, barely staying upright in the storm that churned.
I couldn’t remember the last time Travis cried.
Hell, I wasn’t sure he ever had. Yet I could feel his pain.
“I love you,” I whispered against his neck. “I love you so much.”
“I hope that’s true.”
I pulled back, meeting his gaze. “What does that mean?”
A slow smile pulled at the corners of his mouth. “It means you’ll forgive me for hovering for the next”—he shrugged one shoulder and twitched his lips—“fifty years or so.”
I laughed, and it was real, and it felt so good. “I’ll just call you Helicopter Husband.”
His smile grew and I saw the moment it reached his eyes.
It would take time, but things would return to normal. Even if normal had a new definition.
Travis
After snatching a pair of Gage’s sweatpants and one of my hoodies for Kylie to put on, the two of us went downstairs to find everyone sitting in the kitchen, waiting.
Kate was the first out of her chair, racing over and throwing her arms around her mother.
Neither of them said anything as they held onto one another for a few heartbeats.
It was a scene right out of one of my dreams. The ones that always turned into a nightmare because Kylie would end up fading out of them, gone forever.
But she wasn’t gone.
That anxious churning in my stomach returned, making me feel nauseous.
This scene felt off in so many ways, but right in the best possible way.
My wife was alive. She was here. With us.
I’d mourned her for so long, my grief becoming a living, breathing thing.
And all of a sudden, the grief was gone, replaced by a sense of … unreality.
Yeah. That was a good word for it. While I was grateful beyond measure that Kylie was home, this felt strange to me. Surely that would pass, though. With time.
Once Kate released her, Kylie went over and greeted Kade, Avery, Haden, and Maddox, pausing to meet each of their gazes.
Their reactions were notably different than Kate’s. While Avery offered a hug, it was weak in comparison. Kade flashed a half smile while Haden stared, sipping chocolate milk. And Maddox … his eyes were wide and he was grinning, clearly happy to see his mother.
I understood Avery’s hesitance and Kade’s standoffishness.
I even got Haden’s indifference. But Maddox …
the little boy had bonded with Kylie in a way that none of the others had.
And because of that bond, he somehow remembered her despite having been only a year and a half when she died … er… left.
There was no way Kylie didn’t notice the reactions, but if they bothered her, she didn’t show it.
I could tell she was drinking them in, probably cataloging all the differences.
She’d been gone nearly two years, and they’d grown significantly, reached important milestones.
I could only imagine how difficult it was for her to have missed all that.