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“My mom died when I was fourteen and my father became a drunk. He was a mean one too.” I paused as my hands started to tremble at the memories flooding my mind.
Kace was already out of the chair and I looked back up to find him settling on the couch just a little distance away from me. He didn’t speak but I think he just wanted me to know he was there for comfort.
“My dad wasn’t going to teach me and by the time I was eighteen I had taken off on my own. It was only six months later that I met Thad. That is my husband,” I said, looking right into the depths of his eyes, trying to figure out what he was thinking. “He was also a raging alcoholic. One even meaner than my dad.”
At those words, what I did see in his whiskey-brown orbs was fire blazing and he was mad, but he still stayed silent as he let me keep talking.
“He wouldn’t let me learn to drive when I asked. No, Thad needed to control me and that would have taken some of that away. I wasn’t allowed.” I glanced back at my lap and took a deep breath before looking into Kace’s eyes once again. “So, when I tell you what you did today was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me, you better believe it. I don’t know how I can ever repay you,” I told him.
Kace scooted a little closer. “The only thing you need to do is let me keep teaching you to drive. I’m sorry about your mother and I hope you will tell me more about her one day. But as for your dad and that husband of yours—”
I couldn’t take it anymore so I cut Kace off. “Ex-husband. It may not be official, but I hope for it to be someday. I ran away, Kace. I had to get out.” Tears flooded my vision and my hands immediately went to my stomach to protect my baby as I thought about the last time we had been with Thad.
“Sweetheart, me, the guys, Landon especially, we can help you do that,” he told me softly.
“I need to have my baby first before I can think about anything else. And there is so much more, but I don’t have any energy left right now to keep talking about the past.” The baby swirled and kicked. It was just what I needed to put my mind back where it needed to be.
But I wanted to share it with Kace.
“The baby is kicking, want to feel?”
He looked at me, shocked and also hopeful as he nodded. I grabbed one of his hands and he once again scooted a little closer. Placing it on my belly in just the right spot, I waited. When his face lit up and he looked at me in wonder, another piece of my heart snapped free.
“That’s amazing,” he said, a huge smile lighting up his face. “Are you excited to finally find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”
I didn’t want to explain why I hadn’t found out sooner because I didn’t want to talk about Thad anymore. But I was dying to know.
“Yeah, I can’t wait.”
We sat there a minute or so as the baby put on a show just as it had done for the ladies the day at lunch. And when Kace pulled his hand from my stomach, I immediately missed the touch.
But then the mood changed a little and I wanted to take back what I’d just done. I wasn’t thinking. I’d just learned he lost his baby and there I was doing something like that. It was insensitive of me. And when he got up and told me that it was late and I needed to rest, I knew he was struggling. I just didn’t know what to say.
He smiled, told me to lock up, said call if I needed anything at all, and went through the motions like all was well, but I knew different. I couldfeelit.
Kace had become important.
When he left it felt like I lost him.
ChapterNineteen
KACE
I ran like a coward.
It had been three days since I’d seen Teal and I had barely spoken to her since. When I left the night after feeling the precious life of her child moving inside her, a mountain of emotions built inside me and all I could do was flee.
Changing my schedule around, finding Teal rides to work, and telling the guys I needed to take a few days of personal time, I took off and got out of town. I’d text Teal letting her know something came up and I wouldn’t be around for a few days but she was set up getting to work and back. When she returned my text telling me that she would be fine and not to worry about her, I felt like an ass.
Yet I still didn’t go back.
Instead of feeling better and getting my head on straight, I felt worse with each passing day. I’d promised I would be there for her any time she needed and I wasn’t around. She’d finally confided in me with a very small peek into her past and I left her.
What the fuck had I done?
I was running scared because I didn’t want to lose them. And the hilarious part of all that was they weren’t mine to even lose.
But Iwantedthem to be.
