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It’s crazy being me, too.
How’m I supposed to know if I’m doing any of this right? I didn’t think being her godfather meant I could actually someday be…her father. It was unimaginable. It still is, even now. And when they handed her over to me there were no accompanying instructions. She hadn’t even been born yet when her dad died in a crash. A careless and senseless accident involving a drunk driver. It’s a miracle they were able to save Rynn from her mom, at just twenty-nine weeks, mere moments before she passed away from sustained injuries, too.
I’m doing my goddamn best; that ain’t to say I’m doing great. There is someone out there who would be better suited for this than me. And I do mean, way out there. Now she would be a natural but she’s far away from Rynn and me in so many ways it’s sometimes as if she’s as dead as Grover.
Of course, I’d never in a hundred thousand years let Rynn go now. If Kinsley really were here we’d do this together. The parenting thing. The family thing. The happy ever after. Like we talked abou—
Don’t go there, Bennett.
When I don’t speak for a minute or so, Rynn takes another drink of water, looking sidelong at me with cautious eyes. She’s not going to press me further for juice. Good.
She’s probably learned that by not pressing me? She will most likely get whatever she wants.
“How about this,” I start to give in as the sun kisses the farthest mountain peak I can see out our living room window. “You give Beebs a little quiet time on the porch to watch the sunset, and when I come back in I’ll give you some juice.”
“Otay!” she brightens.
“One sip,” I add. “It’s too close to bedtime for more than that.”
“Ohhhtay,” she repeats, her voice quieting down a whole bunch of notches.
I only feel okay about leaving her alone for fifteen minutes because I can see every room in the house from outside the house. When you live so remote like we do, why have curtains? And why not have all the windows? Kinsley’s idea—matter of fact, her word choice, too. I did make sure to design this cabin so that the sun wouldn’t burst into the master bedroom windows too early in the morning, but I’m up before the dang thing every day, anyhow.
The sun sinks a little at a time, and then faster, it always seems, dragging the long day off of my shoulders as it descends. There is nothing in the world like looking out at my portion of Earth as the day falls asleep over it. Mine. Maybe it sounds possessive and territorial of me but that’s not far from the truth anyhow. I put all of me into this land. Pulled from every single thing I have and put it right here—my time, energy, money. Heart and soul. At the time there wasn’t much else to spend all that on. Even the heart and soul parts. ’Sides clearing that land there, building this house, digging the pond. Watching it all turn into something. Watching it all…become.
Ours.
That’s more like it, I muse, as I breathe in deep. Fuck, yeah. It was all worth it. It is all worth it. Only thing that made those early post-Kinsley days survivable was this…effort. And now, five years on down the road, life here is pretty ideal. It’s practically fucking perfect if it weren’t always missing…something.
Someone.
Told you NOT to go there.
I fail that game a lot. So I try to just imagine a different someone. A faceless someone who is gentle and loving, and sexy. Who I love, too. And who loves Rynn and Rynn loves back. But faceless isn’t really an option in my head, evidently. It always becomes Kinsley. Five fucking years later and it’s still always her.
A snap! then loud thud breaks the stillness in half. I peek over my shoulder, into the house on instinct, to find Rynn safely nestled in the sofa cushions. It’s been a long day. I whip my head back around, toward the source of the thump! that was like nothing I’ve ever heard before out here. Dull, quick. The hell?
I’m on my feet, sprinting toward it. Maybe an animal was injured. Or there’s a lost hiker. Wouldn’t be the first time. In fact that seems to happen more often than not in the Wylder Bluffs. Often it leads to more than just falling down and eating dirt. It leads to falling in lo—
I spot the female form on the ground before my brain can even finish that statement. Long brown waves splayed in the grass. At least she landed someplace soft. I’m over her before I can blink, hands on her shoulders, my stomach rolling and heart in my throat.
Please don’t be dead.
I’ve had quite enough of that, thank you very much.
I turn her over, and then it’s all I can do is to blink. The eyes are closed, but I know what they’re like. Brown and deep and warm. How they pull you. How they can hold you. How they can hate you. I know how they shine when they’re sliding secrets over toward me. I know how they fill up with flashes of mischief. I know how they glaze when I plant a little kiss on the tip of that nose, and lower, the full, soft pink lips.
“Kinsley?” That’s my voice I hear, saying her name out loud, as I tuck both my arms underneath her and standing back up, I carry her lithe form against my chest, all the way back up the small knoll to my cabin.
Kinsley is here. Here. The fuck is she doing here? Passed out in my arms. Heat exhausted. Breathing. And warm. Thank fuck, she is breathing and warm.
“You built the house,” I suddenly hear her whisper against me, her voice meek, weak. Glancing down, my eyes lock onto her unfocused ones looking up at me. Tingles of electricity skitter up my arm, where it’s touching hers, and forge a heated path straight to my heart.
“Of course, I built the house.” I can’t even not grin. She’s still got those sweet, sweet curves—and that smile that’s even sweeter. “And the pond, too,” I add, proudly. I’m not prepared for the first step I take into the house, the moment the realization strikes me hard that both of my girls are here, now.
My girls.
I look over where Rynn was snuggled a moment ago, about to ask for help, but the sofa is vacant. It’s too soon to fully panic but my stomach still pulls at a weighted chill. That’s just being a parent. She could be anywhere.
She could be anywhere.
“Rynn!” I holler. No reply. “Rynn!” I shout again, louder, and then to myself, “Where is she?”
Still in my arms, I look down at Kin. There’s an expression on that pretty face I don’t remember seeing there ever before, like curiousness, and happiness that’s so faked it makes her appear even more sorrow filled, as she asks, “Who’s Rynn?”
