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“Be still, Lila,” he told her. “We’re going inside to have a talk.”
“Did you just hit me?” she squealed.
Gavin snorted. “That? That was just a little smack to get your attention. Calm down.”
My God, he only seemed to get bossier as he got older.
“I should really clean up the rest of the house first, don’t you think?” she said, desperately looking to put off this little chat. She needed to think through what they’d said. They couldn’t seriously want her, could they?
And yet, they didn’t lie. Not once could she remember them telling a mistruth.
“You’re not lifting another finger,” he informed her. “You’ve done enough already. There’s hardly anything left to do. We’ll do the rest. After we talk.”
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“I don’t know if I want to talk.”
“Baby, we need to talk and we can’t put it off just because you’re scared.”
The world swirled around her once more as he placed her gently on the sofa in the living room. She immediately shot to her feet. Gavin softly pushed her back down.
“Let me up,” she said, fighting against his hold.
“Sit down, Lila.” His voice was quiet, but infused with pure, unbendable steel.
“No.”
“Lila, calm down; I don’t want you hurting yourself.”
His reasonable tone of voice just made her angrier.
“No,” she snapped back. “Just give me some space. Let me get past.”
“Lila, stop,” he told her in a deep voice that would normally have her instantly obedient. But she was beyond listening.
As she surged up once more, Gavin caught her gently but firmly by the arm and delivered five quick, fierce swats to her buttocks, effectively slamming her temper into remission as she stilled in shock. Those five swats stung!
“Are you calm now?” Gavin asked as he gathered her up into his arms and sat with her on the couch.
She nodded, still silent.
“God, baby, don’t ever threaten to leave again. Please,” he begged her, his voice breaking. She was amazed by that. Gavin was always so strong, so invincible. He didn’t hesitate or falter. And yet he sounded terrified at the idea of her leaving. Suddenly, she wanted to be the one comforting him. “I don’t think my heart could stand it,” he told her.
A hand touched hers and she looked up to see Trace sitting beside them. Turning her head she saw Colin perched on the coffee table, looking at her in concern.
“Please stay with us. Nothing needs to happen,” Colin said sadly, his eyes filled with such pain that she immediately reached for him. “We won’t force you into anything. But no matter what, you will always be a part of this family. The last thing we want is for you to not feel welcome in your own home.”
Gavin squeezed her hand. “I wish now that you had acted up as a child. Then you would know that Clay would never have kicked you out of our lives, no matter what. You were such a perfect child. I never saw it for what it really was—a fear of being rejected. Honey, if you’d done something naughty, Clay would have just punished you, then forgiven you. You might have ended up with a sore butt but he would never have rejected you. You were his daughter.”
She sniffled, wanting desperately to believe them. But it was so hard to turn around beliefs she’d held for years.
“He never spanked me. Well, once, when he caught me cooking on the grill. He gave me a couple of pats on the butt, but they didn’t really hurt.”
“He told me about that,” Gavin admitted. “He was afraid you’d hurt yourself. You scared him.”
“I did?” she asked.
Gavin nodded. “You often scared us all. You were so fearless, so independent. I found myself wishing you’d rely on us a bit more. I can remember once when I saw you running across a corral, trying to reach Clay. You missed seeing a hole in the ground and came crashing down.
