40. Kyle
KYLE
Liddy had practically given Kyle a checklist to follow for setting ground rules to keep his heart safe . . . and he hadn’t listened to a thing she’d told him.
So, as he set up the propane on the brand-new grill on the back deck, he glanced over the rail toward the lawn, where Liddy was chasing his two nieces who were following the dogs in the grass he’d combed over for dog poop before his family had arrived for dinner.
Mom, Dad, and Elle were there too, Dad throwing tennis balls for Charlie, while Sadie lavished in Tara’s belly rubs.
This, at least, was one thing he could do to keep Liddy happy.
She’d been annoyed with him for missing Mom’s birthday too, and more vocal about it when Kyle had stopped by the day before at Mom and Dad’s to apologize and invite them over for dinner today.
The giant bouquet he’d taken Mom had helped mollify Liddy, but then he’d told his family that he and Sloan were officially forgoing separate living spaces and making their relationship official—to which she’d been oddly quiet.
“You’re looking well,” Quinn said, the back door sliding as he came out. “Settling into the house all right then?”
Kyle nodded. “Yeah, definitely. Especially now that I’ve moved all my stuff from storage here, thanks to you and Callum.” His brothers-in-law, Dad, Jeremy, and Brandon, had proved invaluable the day before. “What about you? How’s life with another newborn?”
Quinn shook his head. “Exhausting.”
“Can’t be all that bad or you wouldn’t keep having them,” Callum said with a grin as he came outside.
Quinn rubbed his eyelids. “Laugh all you want. Someday, if we’re ever well out of the diaper stage and you and Liddy are just entering it, I’ll make sure to call and tell you to quit whining.”
“Don’t hold your breath. Liddy and I are pretty content being the fun favorite aunt and uncle for now.”
“Yeah, but you’ve got too much competition for that role. Speaking of which, how did Aiden and Isla do getting back? Aiden still seems like he has a hard time stepping away.” Kyle squatted as he twisted the valve to open the gas.
“It’ll always be more challenging for him as the head of the company,” Quinn said with a grimace. “I think they had to make a pit stop in New York for something, but they’re back safely in London now. But it was good seeing them.”
“Are you boring my brother with your brother’s travel stories?” Elle asked Quinn teasingly, coming up the deck stairs slowly. A smile spread across her face. “By the way, your daughters are now begging for a puppy.” She came up beside Quinn, and he rested his hand around her shoulders comfortably.
“I don’t think I’m ready to add yet another living creature to the house yet,” Quinn said with a pointed look at Jude, who was comfortably asleep in the baby carrier on Elle’s chest.
“Uncle Kyle won’t let them be disappointed like that, will he?” Elle fluttered her eyelashes at Kyle.
Kyle wiped his hands on his shorts, grinning.
“Uncle Kyle knows that there are some gifts you don’t give anyone—and anything that’s breathing is one of them.
” As Elle pouted for dramatic effect, Kyle leaned toward Quinn, “But I can also tell you that there wasn’t a single day I remember from my childhood quite so clearly as the day Mom and Dad brought home Murgs. ”
“Aww, Murgs.” Elle’s pout turned into a real frown. “I still miss him. He was the best dog on the planet.”
“He was a menace,” Quinn said with a shake of his head.
“I let you two settle your differences.” Kyle slipped inside the house, heading for the kitchen.
He found Sloan at the counter, slicing some tomatoes. “You hiding out in here?” he asked, setting his hands on her shoulders as he kissed the side of her neck.
She smiled, her body curving into his instinctively. “You know, for someone who likes home-cooked meals as much as you do, you don’t seem to realize there’s no magical cooking fairy putting it all together.”
“Hmm, debatable.” He nipped her ear.
“We can’t make out in the kitchen when your parents are over,” she hissed.
“Why not? We used to make out in their kitchen while they were in the living room.”
“That’s different,” she said, her cheeks turning pink. “We weren’t living together then. They didn’t know we were having sex.”
He grabbed her boobs. “I’m pretty sure they were aware but just looked the other way.”
She wiggled against him, then set the knife down and turned toward him, sliding her arms around his neck. “You really shouldn’t cause jerky movements while I’m holding sharp objects. Is the grill lit?”
His lips grazed hers. “What grill?”
“You know, the one we’re using to make food for your family?” She kissed him, a smile in her eyes that made him want to pick her up and carry her back to the bedroom.
Maybe grinding against her in the kitchen wasn’t the smartest idea after all, though he couldn’t seem to summon the will to care.
“I’m happy to light a different fire—”
“Listen, grabby hands, go get the patties out of the fridge before your family comes in here and finds you all over me.”
He groaned and pushed away, then crossed toward the fridge.
Sloan returned to the tomatoes, but her shoulders bunched with tension.
“I do worry that your family isn’t going to forgive me like you have.
Your sisters have been sweet to me every time I’ve seen them, but it’s definitely . . . cautious.”
Kyle found the plate of hamburgers in the fridge and straightened.
This wasn’t the first time Sloan had expressed her worry about that—and he couldn’t entirely blame her, given the way Elle had reacted when he’d first told her about Sloan being in Nashville.
Not that he’d ever tell Sloan about that.
Granny had always said that some truths didn’t need to be shared. The older he got, the more he realized which ones they were.
So, he told her the truth that needed to be shared.
“My family is good at forgiveness,” he said, balancing the plate on one hand as he reached for some hot dogs.
“Even when people get hardheaded or stubborn, that usually only lasts a couple of days at the most before they find a way to apologize or look at things from a different point of view.”
“I wish my family were like that,” Sloan said, grabbing a pair of grill tongs and a spatula out from a drawer and handing them to him. Her face settled more peacefully now. “But I think we turned a real corner. For the first time in a long time, I’m really excited about the future.”
Kyle held his breath, his stomach clenching with guilt as he kissed her again. “I’ll send a few people in to help take the food out. Stop hiding in here.”
He headed back toward the deck. She was happy. Excited. And he loved to see it. After the hard separation she’d been through, and Penny’s cancer, seeing Sloan bravely battling through a second time, confronting the same horrible disease in her family, gave him hope.
They’d spent so much time the last two nights talking long into the night about Penny, her dad, and her mom. She’d cried about everything that happened eight years earlier, and it had helped Kyle understand their breakup better.
Sloan had felt so . . . abandoned and lost and alone.
She hadn’t had the emotional maturity to turn to Kyle back then, which wasn’t a huge surprise.
She’d been so young. And he probably wouldn’t have had the emotional maturity to be what she needed.
But Kyle found that understanding why Sloan had broken up with him all those years ago made it easier to forgive her. To move forward and love her freely.
Except for the fact that they’d been so focused on her healing that he hadn’t spoken a word to her about Blue Ridge and the SkyRun.
Maybe because he was a coward and didn’t want to say anything that might deflate her happiness.
Or maybe because he just didn’t know how to.
Either way, he needed to tell her. Tell his family.
But what if he was wrong about this?
Granny’s letter had been haunting him since he’d read it, especially the part where she’d said, “Take care of your body. I’m not joking. You only get one body. And when you’re my age, you’ll wish you’d taken better care of it. There is bravery, and then there is stupidity dressed up in confidence.”
As usual, Granny’s keen insight into him had been spot-on. She’d practically predicted the Jet Ski accident with that line, and he couldn’t help wondering if he’d have taken that risk in Cabo if he’d laid Granny to rest in Vail. And therefore, read her letter. But what if he still wasn’t listening?
He moved back outside to the grill and opened it, then put the hamburger patties on, appreciating the sizzle on the clean grates and the smoky heat in the air.
Leaving them there, he walked toward the rail again.
Quinn and Elle had gone back down with the rest of the family.
“Hey, you all, come on up. Dinner will be ready in a few minutes.”
They made their way up the deck stairs, and Kyle sent his dad and Quinn inside to help Sloan bring the food out while he manned the grill.
He didn’t see Liddy and Callum, though. “Hey,” he said, glancing at his mom.
“Do you know where Liddy and Callum are? I have a little announcement I want to make before we eat, and I want them here for it.”
Mom and Elle exchanged a look. “Announcement?” Mom asked.
Oh no . . . not what I was going for. “It’s not about Sloan and me,” he said flatly.
Mom relaxed, visibly. “Oh thank goodness. I love Sloan, you know that. I was just worried—”
“What, that I knocked her up already?” Kyle asked, quirking his brow.
“What’s knocked up?” Tara asked, looking at her mother.
Elle glared at Kyle, then gave Tara a patient smile. “You know, knock-knock-knock,” she tapped her knuckles against Tara’s skull lightly, and she giggled.
“No, I thought it might be an engagement,” Mom said with a look at him to watch it in front of the kids. “I’ll see where they wandered off to.”