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“Does that mean I’m in your favorites, too?” she asked, her voice turning timid, though it was underscored with hope.
Everything soared. Was it possible to fall for a child? Like completely, irrevocably lose your heart? Apparently, since I was sure mine now belonged in her little hand.
So very reckless, like Caleb Greyson had accused me of, since I would be leaving tomorrow afternoon, my time here limited. And it wasn’t like the lessons were going to go on forever.
But I knew I wanted them to.
“You are definitely in my favorites, Evie-Love,” I admitted.
“That’s good because I don’t got a mommy anymore, and I never even had a dad.”
She might have stabbed me in the heart with the way it seized.
Stopped beating.
I moved so I could run my finger along the length of her jaw, careful how I chose my words. “I’m very sorry for that, but I think it’s very good that you’re in my favorites, too.”
“It makes me really sad because I miss my mommy lots.” She whispered that like a secret, her tiny voice riddled with things no child should have to feel.
Her torment tore me in two, and I raised up on my knees so I could get closer to her, so I could slip my arm around her back and lift her to me.
I hugged her fiercely.
So tight.
She clung to me, different this time, her fingertips scratching at my back as if they were looking for a place to sink into. A place where she belonged.
“It’s okay to miss your mommy,” I whispered against her head.
Pain sheared and slayed, and I hugged her tighter, never wanting to let her go.
“My uncle said she’s gone forever.”
I froze for a beat, lost to a crash of confusion, before everything came rushing in on a flood.
The pain on Caleb’s face every time I called Evelyn his daughter. The way she’d never called him dad. How her mother had never been mentioned.
Oh God, how had I been so oblivious not to add it up?
Caleb was her uncle.
It made so much sense. His overprotectiveness and his inability to connect.
Too much sense, and I hated the reality of it for this little girl so violently that I would do anything to erase it. But there was no erasing it. There was only holding her and loving her through it.
My spirit shook, a trembling, a sickness that had become my own.
Because I saw it in her eyes. The grief kept there, brimming below the surface and seeking a way out. She just hadn’t felt confident enough before to release it.
A thousand questions burned on my tongue, but they weren’t mine to ask.
She was five.
That was an invasion of privacy.
Manipulation.
So I gave her what I could.
“It’s an awful thing to lose someone we love, Evelyn, but you should know you don’t ever have to feel bad for missing her. You don’t have to feel bad for still loving her or for being sad that she isn’t right here with you. But what’s also really important is that you find joy and do all the things that make you happy because that is what she would want you to do. I bet she’s looking down right now, so happy that Mazzy makes you so happy.”
I might be overstepping, pushing past a line I shouldn’t cross, but I believed it. Believed a bond that great couldn’t be broken.
“You think she got happy for me?”
God, that didn’t mean this wasn’t painful.
Excruciating.
I squeezed her tight then eased back to brush my fingers through her hair. “I do.”
A soft exhilaration filled her expression, something that looked like rejoicing, and I wondered if she’d felt completely alone and isolated since she’d lost her. How long ago that’d been, I couldn’t say, but I had to guess it was recent.
A fresh, raw wound cut into this little girl.
“I like that,” she murmured.
My heart panged, and my smile was soft. “Me, too, and I like you.”
“A lot?” Hope filled her words.
“A whole, whole lot.”
God, I was getting myself in deep. So deep that I wouldn’t be able to get out. Setting myself up to get my heart ripped to shreds because I was falling for a little girl who wasn’t mine to love.
“Okay, time for bed.”
“Do I have to?”
“It’s already thirty minutes past your bedtime. But shh…” I pressed my finger to my lips. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Predominantly the stickler who’d given me five pages of printed-out instructions about her care, her schedule down to a T.
I was going to have to talk to him about that.
But it made Evelyn giggle, so I was happy for that. She snuggled down under her covers, and I pulled them up to her chin. Leaning over her, I pecked a kiss to her nose. “Goodnight, Evie-Love.”
“Night-night, my favorite day.”
Everything squeezed, and I held onto the sensation that felt like my heart weighed ten thousand pounds heavier, so full that it throbbed against my ribs.
