“No,” I ribbed.
“Truth.”
Quiet laughter rolled free as that heaviness throbbed. “I’m going to miss you, Mace.”
Right then, San Francisco felt a million miles away. An alternate galaxy. Really, it was just a different reality than the one I was headed toward.
Somber silence filled the space, and Macy lowered her voice. “Are you sure this is really what you want? You left the city you love and an incredible apartment downtown. You resigned from a job any one of us would kill to have. Hell, you were halfway up the corporate ladder. Worst, you left me.”
My heart clutched while I fought with the urge to turn around and head back to San Francisco. I wasn’t that broken girl who’d run from Gingham Lakes eleven years ago. I was strong, and I sure as hell wasn’t a quitter. “You know why I have to do this.”
“I do, and I know how hard it has to be for you.”
Grief pressed at my spirit. The perfect complement to the determination that lined me like steel. “It is, but I need to do this for her almost as much as I need to do it for myself.”
“This city won’t be the same without you, Ryn.” In all the years I’d lived with Macy, I’d only seen her cry once. I knew she was trying to hold it back. Still, the soft sounds seeped through the line, touching me from across the miles.
I pressed a hand over my mouth and tried to keep the jumble of emotions that quivered and shook inside me at bay. “You’ll come visit.”
She released a soggy laugh. “Hell no. There are, like, alligators down there. One look at all my lush, curvy deliciousness, and they’ll be inviting their friends over for a feast.”
I wanted to tell her I was plenty lush when I’d run from this place. The alligators were the least of her worries. I bit it back, keeping all those old insecurities buried where they belonged.
“You don’t think I’m worth the risk?” I asked instead.
She sniffled, and I swore I could see her grin. “Yeah, Ryn, you’re totally worth it.”
I cleared the emotion from my throat, wondering how I was going to do this when the road took another sharp curve and the speed limit dropped. “I better go. I’m getting into town.”
“Good luck, babe. You’ve got this. I want you to know I’m proud of you, even though I’m going to miss the hell out of you.”
“Thank you, Mace,” I told her.
I was definitely going to need it.
2
Rex
My eyes went round, and I came to an abrupt stop in her doorway.
“Are you sure that’s what you want to wear?” Sweeping a hand through the long pieces of my damp hair, I gave it my all to keep the panic out of my voice.
Honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to bust out laughing or drop to my knees and cry.
Such was my life.
We were already ten minutes late, and there she was on her bedroom floor, wearing a hot pink tutu over a bathing suit.
“Uh-huh. We gots to look so pretty for dance. Annie said all the best dancers wear leg warmies, and her mama bought her all the pretty colors. Like a rainbow,” she rambled as she tugged on the black high-top Converse she’d talked me into at the mall last weekend.
Right over a pair of old tube socks she must have found in one of my drawers.
The hideous kind with the two blue stripes at the top that should have been burned years ago.
“So I gots these.” She rocked her heels on the ground as she sat back and admired her handiwork.
She suddenly looked over at me with that smile that melted a crater right through the stone that was my heart. Her single tooth missing on the bottom row and her attempt at a bun that looked like she’d just walked out of a windstorm were about the damned cutest things I’d ever seen.
“I’m the best dancer, right, Daddy?”
“You’re the best, prettiest dancer in the whole world, Sweet Pea Frankie Leigh.”
I just was betting that uptight bitch, Ms. Jezlyn, wouldn’t agree. I’d already gotten one bullshit letter about “appropriate ballet attire,” which was strictly a black leotard with salmon tights (what the fuck?) without any runs in them. Apparently, Frankie wasn’t living up to those standards.
That was what I got for picking Frankie up late from Mom’s and then coming home and telling her to get ready while I grabbed a quick shower. I’d been at the work site the entire day, had been drenched in sweat and grease and grime, and was trying to put my best foot forward.
Problem was, I was having a hard time figuring out how my best could ever be enough.
I pressed my palms together in some kind of twisted prayer. Then I dropped them and blew out a resigned breath. “All right, then. We need to get out of here before I get you in any more trouble.”
Frankie hopped onto her feet and threw her hands in the air. “Ready!”
I chuckled beneath my breath, grabbed her dance bag from the pink bench right inside her room, slung it over my shoulder, and extended my hand. “Let’s go, Tiny Dancer.”
Giggling, she pranced over to me and let me take her miniature hand, so small and vulnerable in the massiveness of mine.
Following me out the door and down the hall, she skipped along at my side.
Innocently.
Joy lit up my insides. I swore all her sweetness held the power to blow back the thousand pounds of blackened bitterness built up around my heart. Like when this kid was around, it weighed nothing at all.
The day she was born, I’d sworn an oath to myself. I’d never allow her to be torn up by this vicious, cruel world. Refused to let it tarnish her the way it had me.
My entire life was protecting her from it.
I snagged my keys from the entryway table when I heard the sound of a door slamming somewhere outside. Frowning, I leaned back so I could get a glimpse out the window and across the street.
An older white Jeep Grand Cherokee was parked in the driveway of Mrs. Dayne’s old house.
Guessed they had to finally be putting the place up for sale. Mrs. Dayne had lived there forever, long before we’d moved in across the street from her five years ago, but the place had been sitting empty for the last two months.
A fist tightened in my gut, grief I really shouldn’t be allowing myself to feel. She’d just been so good to Frankie that it’d been impossible to keep her shut out. Hell, she’d barged right into our lives like she was supposed to be there, constantly bringing over dinner and those delicious pies from the diner-style restaurant she’d owned downtown.
Frankie rushed out the front door and onto the deck at the side of our house.
It was the way all the homes were situated in our neighborhood. The houses were elevated from the ground with the main doors located on the side rather than out front. Each had an open deck that extended out from the side of the house, giving a view of the street and neighbors’ houses. The porch steps angled that direction and led down to the driveways that came up to the far side of the houses.
It probably would have looked strange if not for the big, leafy trees that outlined each of the lots.
They made everything feel cozy and secluded.
Just the way I liked it.
It was one of the main reasons I’d insisted on this place when I’d been looking for a fixer-upper to renovate.
Frankie released my hand and pointed across the street. “Hey, Daddy, look it. Someone’s at Mrs. Dayne’s house!”
Stepping out behind her, I closed the door before I attempted to tame a few pieces of hair that’d fallen from her bun and were now flying around her face in the hot breeze. I dropped a kiss to her forehead. “It’s probably a realtor putting it up for sale, Frankie Leigh. Remember how we talked about that?”
With her head tipped back, she peered at me with confused but hopeful brown eyes. “She wents to heaven?”
“Yeah,” I murmured softly.
The screen door at the side of Mrs. Dayne’s house slammed, and I jerked my head up to find a woman crossing the small deck and jogging down the steps back toward the SUV.
Goddamn.
Maybe I was just caught off guard.
But just looking at her knocked the air from my lungs.
Let’s just say I was unprepared for a woman that looked like that. Guess I’d been expecting someone dressed up. Older. And there was this girl, disheveled in a sexy, careless way. A massive mound of hair that was wilder than Frankie’s was piled haphazardly on her head, wavy pieces falling out all around her. She wore a super tight white tank that disappeared beneath high-waisted jeans.