He edged forward, voice dropping low. “You really think Rynna’s not worth the fight?”
Anguish fisted my heart. “Of course, she’s worth the fight.”
“Then fight for her, Rex. Fight for her and fight for Frankie, and for goddamned once, fight for yourself.”
Every muscle in my body recoiled. “What if I don’t deserve it, man?” I swam against all the emotions that came rushing in. “I fuck everything up. Every single time. Lose the people I love. I thought this time . . . I thought this time with Rynna I’d finally outrun it. That I’d gotten a second chance. And the next thing I know, she’s gone, too. She doesn’t want me, man. She doesn’t want me, and I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to stop it.”
The last left me on a wheeze, and I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes.
Fuck.
I didn’t know how to stop it.
I drove back home in a blaze of pain. I’d sat in my truck for two fucking hours, letting the booze run their course, before I forced myself to move. I pulled into my drive, trying not to look behind me to Rynna’s place. Maybe if I blocked it all, I wouldn’t feel it anymore.
Frankie and Rynna.
Maybe if I managed to go numb, it’d erase all the pain. Maybe then I could float right through the days.
I heaved out a couple of breaths before I forced myself from the cab. Footsteps dragging, I made my way up the porch and to the door.
I was in a daze when I walked through it, and I squinted when I stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind me. Like I was watching the scene through a dream. Everything distorted.
Janel was in the kitchen.
Cooking dinner.
Frankie and Rynna.
The smell of pork chops hung heavy in the air. But it felt all off. A knot formed in my throat, and I tried to swallow.
Her blonde hair swished around her shoulders when she turned to look at me, taken by surprise. She quickly tucked her phone in her back pocket, hands shaking. “Oh, you’re here early.”
She dipped into the fridge and grabbed a beer. “Here. You look like you could use this.”
She was all care and concern when she sauntered over to me, twisting the cap from the beer, leading me to the couch.
“Did you have a bad day?” she asked, sinking to her knees on the floor, staring up at me.
I choked out a laugh. A bad day. She had no clue what her returning had done to me. Had done to Rynna. The toll it was taking on Frankie.
And I still had no idea if this was right, letting her into our lives, giving her a chance to be a mother.
She’d gone to dance with Frankie twice, done everything I’d let her, taking her to the park, playing with her every chance she got, even though every time they were in the same room, I wanted to rip my hair out.
But she was trying.
Shouldn’t I?
“You might say that,” I told her.
She pressed both her hands on my knees and leaned up, her voice going quiet when she reached for the fly of my jeans. “Then let me take the bad away. Let me take care of you. Please, Rex, let me take care of you.”
I groaned, head rocking back on the top of the sofa, breath a hiss on my tongue.
Frankie and Rynna.
37
Rynna
I paced my kitchen.
I felt as if I were stuck in limbo.
A path set out ahead of me that I didn’t yet know how to take. Stuck in a purgatory of worry and jealousy and loss. A shimmery anger that lit up at the edges where it kept me enclosed.
Helpless.
And helpless was the last thing I wanted to be.
Milo was asleep on his bed in the corner, and I shuffled around in my kitchen, trying to distract myself from it. Maybe baking would give me a little clarity. Insight to the right decision. A calm in the midst of the worst kind of disturbance that still rattled my walls.
I tried to reject the shiver of unease that slipped down my spine, still unable to shake the idea that someone had been in my house when I was away.
Wondering if it was just me being foolish—jealous and petty and needy—or if the foolish part was me ignoring it.
Gramma had told me to always, always trust my gut.
But my guts were tied in one of those impossible knots. The kind where you couldn’t tell what was what, where one loop started and another ended.
“Gramma . . . I wish you were here. You would know what to do,” I murmured under my breath, pulling the ingredients for an apple pie from the pantry and refrigerator. Night pressed in at the window, the globe light on the ceiling a hazy hue of yellow that lit the dated kitchen.
I had just set everything on the counter when I stilled.
A prickle of awareness flashed up the nape of my neck. Though this was an entirely different kind of fear.
This was hope and excitement and the worst kind of confusion. Sucking in a breath, I took a step backward and craned my head out the arch and into the living room.
Listening.
Silence echoed back. But that silence was thick. Weighted. Heavy.
Like a tether was tied around my waist and anchored in my belly.
Drawing me closer.
I edged across the room, my footsteps subdued, my breaths shallow when I inched toward the door.
One solid knock rattled against it.
It rang out like a call.
A beckoning.
A plea.
My hand was trembling when I reached for the lock. Maybe it made me a fool, but I twisted it, anyway. The scrape of metal pierced the bottled quiet. For a flash, I squeezed my eyes closed before I turned the knob and pulled open the door.
He was there.
Standing on my deck.
A scatter of stars stretched across the heavens above, and gusts of wind whipped up the long pieces of his hair, his expression pained where his face was cast in a haze of milky moonlight.
A perfect picture of hope and despair.
It was instant, the way tears streaked free from my eyes.
“Rex.”
His hands were balled into fists, jaw clenched, eyes hard.
Dominant and dangerous and somehow chained by all his doubt.
Energy lashed. Whipping and inciting.
Compelling.
And God, I wanted to fight. Fight with him for lying to me. Fight for him because I wanted him so badly. Fight for what was right. The problem was, I wasn’t certain of exactly what that was.
Rex’s nostrils flared, and we stood there staring at each other. Captives to all those questions that bounded between us. Coming faster and faster and faster.
I saw the second he finally snapped. He pushed across the threshold, on me in a flash, the heat of his strong body lighting me up like a furnace.
My heart fluttered and drummed.
He wound a big hand in my hair, tugging, forcing me to look up at him.
“Little Thief.”
The accusation was gravel, and I sucked in a staggered breath. It only drew him deeper, his presence sinking in, penetrating every cell. Emotion swelled just as the pain of my past went rushing through my veins. A raging river that threatened to drown.
The fact of who Janel was. What she’d done.
I gasped over a cry. Unable to keep it in any longer.
“I married her, Rynna, I married her, and I knew all along, I shouldn’t. Maybe I was ashamed to admit it to you or maybe I was just afraid of your reaction when you found out I hadn’t severed it. But I promise, I promise you I was going to. When I told you I needed to get some things in my life in order, that’s what I was referring to. Ending that marriage like I should have years before.”
Another cry wrenched free.
He took my face in his big hands, fingers in my hair. “Rynna . . . baby . . . Rynna. Don’t cry.” He was kissing me through a tumble of frantic words he mumbled at my mouth. “I’m right here. I’m right here. I’m not going anywhere. I told her to go. I told her I was leaving and would be back in an hour and she and her things needed to be gone when I got back. I told her, Rynna. I told her my heart belongs to you, even if you won’t take it. But I want you to. I’m gonna fight for you, Rynna. I’m not giving us up. Not ever. You and me . . . we’re what’s right.”
I choked over a cry, and he kissed me deeper. The only thing I wanted to do was succumb.
Get lost in this man.
In his presence and his power and his overwhelming heart.
Another ripping sob tore from my throat. Unstoppable. Wounds fresh and raw. Too much. “It hurts so bad, Rex. I didn’t mean for it to. I thought I was over it. Bigger than it. And it’s right there. I don’t know how to handle what happened. It’s just . . . I think about it and it hurts all over again.”