Follow Me Back

by A. L. Jackson

  Rage.

  It burned.

  Immediate.

  Hardening every place inside me. The sudden, consuming need to wrap both of them up and protect them.

  “What is he asking?” I pushed out through gritted teeth, trying to keep myself cool and composed.

  Impossible.

  She exhaled a harsh breath, eyes moving to the archway to ensure Evan was still asleep before she looked back at me. “I’m not sure I should be telling you any of this.”

  I blinked, swallowing back the fury, something that was typically so foreign for me. I was the laid back one. The one who found the good in all situations.

  But whoever that piece of shit was had the power to obliterate that.

  My teeth gritted. “Why not?”

  A small gesture of her chin as she said, “For starters, you basically look like you want to up and murder someone at the mention of my ex.”

  “That only seems natural.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Wanting to protect you.”

  She dropped her gaze back to her work, and I reached out, touched her hand from across the table. “I want to know, Hope. You can trust me.”

  Her eyes squeezed closed, like she wanted to disagree, or maybe like she wanted to run and hide, obviously struggling around the fear that had taken her whole.

  “He wasn’t a good dad?” Obvious, I knew, but I needed the verification. Her proof. Because I was feeling things I hadn’t ever felt before.

  A wild kind of protectiveness.

  A savage kind of possessiveness.

  She rasped a hoarse, unamused laugh, as she peered over at me.

  “No, Kale, he wasn’t a good dad.”

  Violence curled my fists. The itch to get up. Hunt him down.

  “And I know what you’re thinking . . .” she rushed. “It wasn’t physical. It was . . .”

  I attempted to keep my voice steady, but it tremored with barely contained fury. “What? You can tell me anything.”

  Fuck.

  Deeper and deeper.

  I couldn’t stop.

  She looked over at me.

  Hopelessly.

  Which just about fucking killed me.

  “He rejected him as his child the second we found out about his heart condition.”

  My curled fists tightened. The tight rein I had on my anger slipped, just a fraction. “How could he do that?”

  It wasn’t even a question. I just couldn’t fathom a father rejecting that kid.

  That amazing kid.

  An old kind of sorrow shook her head. “At first, I thought he was in shock. Processing it in his own way. But time wore on, and it only got worse and worse. The only thing he cared about was inheriting his grandfather’s company, working day and night, his life consumed with earning that spot. Wanting the money. That became the only thing his life was about. I tried to hold out faith until there wasn’t any faith left to hold on to.”

  Her tongue darted out to wet her lips, and she pressed the stick into the last lollipop, sinking into a chair from where she was standing.

  Like she couldn’t remain on her feet anymore.

  “He—” She slammed her lips together and harshly shook her head, like she was about to admit something and then stopped herself. She hesitated for a couple seconds before she tentatively cut her gaze my direction, admitting what she thought she could, “It all finally came to a head a year ago, and I knew I couldn’t keep my son in that house for a second longer.”

  Without a doubt, she was keeping the details veiled. Hidden. But I wanted to know it all. Every element. Fuel for the hatred that coursed and raced.

  She cleared the thickness from her throat. “I packed our things and left. We were hiding out at Jenna’s house, and of course, he showed up there demanding for us to come home. She threatened to call the police if he tried to get through her door. I petitioned for divorce. I asked for full custody and nothing more. I’d saved enough that I could put a down payment on this little house. I didn’t want his support or his time or anything because he has never wanted anything from Evan. All I wanted was a quiet separation and our freedom.”

  Lines of pain tweaked all over her face, her voice rough. “I did what I thought I had to do, Kale.”

  There was so much in that statement. Something she wanted me to know and couldn’t bring herself to say.

  Anger swelled in the room. A swilling wave threatening to take me under.

  Because this? I didn’t know if I could handle it. Hearing about someone doing either her or Evan wrong.

  Her inhale was sharp. Cutting. “He fought me from the beginning . . . saying I would regret it if I left him. I told him the only thing I wanted was my son free of his influence, so he did the one thing he knew would hurt me most . . .”

  Head dropping, she choked as tears streaked down her face. When she finally looked up at me, her eyes were nothing but devastation. “This last week, I received a counter to my divorce claim. He’s asking for full custody. The whole point of my leaving was to remove Evan completely from his life, protect him, and now he’s trying to take him away from me.”

  My teeth ground as that rage clattered around my ribcage, and I couldn’t remain sitting any longer. I was moving around the table. My discarded gloves hit the floor a split second before my knees did, and then I was cupping her face, urging her to look at me. “There is no chance on this earth that any court would declare you an unfit mother, Hope. None. I don’t want you to worry about that.”

  Sniffling, she gave me one of those believing smiles, the kind that made her glow.

  Sunshine.

  Could feel it heating those vacant, dead places inside me. That place riddled with fear when all I’d ever wanted to be was the one who was brave.

  The goddamned hero.

  Or maybe it was the hatred that flamed. Hate for a man I hadn’t even met. A man who was the one who was going to be feeling all the regret if we ever crossed paths.

  “That’s what Jenna keeps saying, and I’m trying to cling to that belief.”

  I ran my thumb under the hollow of her eye and then dropped my hands. “Good. Believe it. Hold on to it. Don’t ever, ever give up on hope.”

  She smiled this wistful smile. “My heart has always been hung on hope.”

  My chest squeezed. Because I got it. She was an incredible woman who carried her entire world on her shoulders. And, fuck, I wanted to bear some of that weight.

  I knew I didn’t deserve the jealousy that raved through my insides. But it was there. Alive and thriving. “So, if he rejected Evan, why the hell would he want custody?”

  A shrug of her dainty shoulders and a tug of her bottom lip between her teeth. “Part of it is because I left him. Because of his pride. But I can’t help but feel it’s more than that. He says he still loves me, but then he always blamed me.”

  “That Evan was sick?”

  Her nod was shaky. “We didn’t know anything was wrong until Evan was two days old. He was this perfect, tiny thing. Small. So small. But the doctors didn’t seem to be all that concerned. Until the nurse listened to his heart on his final check when we were being discharged from the hospital.”

  Her voice trembled, taken back to that day. “They flew him to Memphis to the big children’s hospital there. He had his first heart surgery when he was five days old. Five days old.”

  Hope clutched her chest. “I’ve never been so scared in all my life. They tried to repair his abnormality, hoping it would be enough for him not to need a transplant, but they didn’t give us a lot of reassurance that it would. They told us to prepare for the worst. They told us his condition was typically caused by a genetic defect, and that if he did live, then we should expect it to also present in other ways.”

  Images flashed. My greatest loss. My biggest regret.

  I sucked in air against the memories, trying not to compare the two. But it was so fucking hard. So close. Too similar. Still, it didn’t seem to fucking m
atter because all I wanted was to move closer, hold her, take the turmoil away.

  “Hope,” I murmured, shifting farther around so I could see her better, see the brilliant love that shined on her face.

  Really, I didn’t even have to look.

  Because I could feel it.

  Bounding from the walls. She gave a soggy smile. “I didn’t accept what they said, Kale. I knew my baby would be just fine. That he would grow and love and live. And that the world might see him differently, but he was exactly how he was supposed to be. I won’t lie and say it was easy, because those were the most difficult, terrifying months and years of my life. But never—not once—did I give up hope.”

  “And that hope shines right out of him,” I said.

  Her face pinched. “But his father . . . his father didn’t get the perfect son he demanded. He refused to be tested to see if he carried the gene. Telling me it was bullshit. That we should let him go and try again.”

  The last tore from her throat on a cry. On the hurt and wounds the bastard had inflicted.

  That rage.

  It blistered.

  Blinking through her tears, she dropped her gaze, her chest heaving, before looking back at me.

  Destroyed.

  Her expression was nothing but desolation.

  “I took Evan away because he wanted me to sign a DNR. If Evan falls ill again, he doesn’t want us to fight to save him. I can’t let that happen. I did what I had to do.” She begged the last. Like she was pleading for me to understand.

  I choked out this sound that verged somewhere between horror and the threat of revenge.

  “Fuck,” I muttered, trying to process. To make sense of what all of this really meant.

  Monster.

  That vile bastard was nothing but a monster. I hated him.

  But I didn’t know how to say it. How I would get out of it if I stepped in the middle of it. But that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to get in the ring and beat the piece of shit bloody.

  Her expression shifted into one of stark vulnerability. “But you’ve probably already read all of this in his records, haven’t you, Dr. Bryant?” She said it like she wanted to attempt a tease, before she fell back into somberness. “You probably understand it better than I do.”

  I let a small smile tweak the corner of my mouth. “Well, I knew some of it. But his records never said anything about his father being a douchebag who needs to be taught a few lessons about being a man.”

  She stumbled over a small laugh. “Well, I wish they did. I could use it in court.”

  “Done,” I said, forcing a grin before I sobered again, studying her expression.

  “So, really, he’s just doing all of this to threaten you? To force you into doing what he wants?”

  He wanted her.

  But not Evan.

  What a sick fucker.

  A tremor raced her throat when she swallowed. “I have no idea what he really wants, Kale. I don’t even think he knows. And the only thing I want is him to leave us alone. Let us live.”

  I took her face between my palms again, making sure she was looking directly into my eyes before I said, “You are, Hope. You are living and giving your son the best kind of life. He’s the happiest kid I’ve ever seen.”

  “He’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” she whispered. I did my best to tame the overwhelming feeling that raced my veins.

  Possession

  Greed.

  Not because I wanted to control her the way that prick tried to keep her under his thumb but because the need to protect her was almost a riot where it clamored to take hold inside me.

  Raging and growing and stirring.

  “Don’t let him scare you. I know that’s simple for me to say, but I promise you . . . you don’t have anything to worry about. No judge would ever find in that bastard’s favor. And if you need me to sit up on that stand and claim it, as Evan’s doctor, I will.”

  Fuck.

  This was getting messy.

  So damned messy.

  Because all those lines were blurring and crossing and tangling.

  A fresh round of tears streaked down her face. “Thank you, Kale, but I don’t know if I can ask you to get in the middle of this mess. It goes deeper than you know.” Grief and fear struck on her face. “When I told you my life was complicated, I meant it, but I refuse to regret a single choice I’ve made in my life that I’ve made to protect my son. No matter what it costs me”

  “Maybe you should stop questioning the lengths I’d go to in order to protect the both of you.”

  “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” she whispered softly.

  It was like a zap to the air.

  Energy.

  Need.

  That tether of awareness cinching and cinching, pulling us closer until it felt like there was no space between us at all.

  My fingers slipped into the silky strands of her hair.

  I wanted to kiss her.

  God, I wanted to kiss her so damned bad, and I knew if I did, there would be no going back.

  I thought maybe she saw the hesitation in my eyes, because she cleared her throat and inched back to put some space between us.

  “Let’s call it a night. The rest of these need to cool before they can be wrapped, and I need to get Evan into bed. He and I can finish them in the morning. I’ll drop them off to you so you don’t have to bother on Monday morning.”

  I quirked a grin. “What, you don’t want to see me walking through your shop’s door on Monday morning. What if I’m having a terrible craving for A Drop of Hope?”

  I let my voice twist with the tease, a distraction from the chaos staging a war in my spirit. The selfless war raging in her.

  Heat rushed across her cheeks, and she peered at me, that vulnerable expression laying siege to her face.

  Faith and belief.

  The girl was so gorgeous that it was hard to look at her.

  She let her fingertips roam the collar of my shirt, staring at the action before she met my gaze again.

  Words a breathy confession. “Am I a fool to admit that the favorite part of my day is watching you walk through that door?”

  “Think maybe both of us are guilty of that . . . being fools,” I told her, gentling my fingers through a long strand of her strawberry hair. Through the silky softness.

  Relishing.

  Wanting more.

  Something darkened in her gaze, and I knew she was about to dive deeper than I was ready for her to go. That she was getting ready to ask me things I wasn’t ready to answer.

  Because the girl could read me, too.

  I edged back, hating being the asshole who shut her down after she’d just completely opened up to me. Trusted me.

  But I wasn’t ready to bring the darkness that lived deep inside me out into her light.

  “I should go,” I told her.

  She nodded. “Okay. But please . . . let me bring the lollipops to you. It would make me feel better after everything you’ve done.”

  For a moment, I just stared, blinking, assaulted by the urge to ask her to let me stay.

  But I had to go. I knew it. I needed to get the hell out of there before I did something I couldn’t undo.

  “All right then,” I told her, smiling slowly as I pushed to my feet.

  I stretched my hand out for her, and she accepted it.

  Need.

  Just that small touch had need racing through my veins, careening and curving and compelling.

  My jaw clenched, and I forced myself to let her hand go once she was standing.

  Hope followed me down the hall. Her presence covering me all over. Skating my skin and spinning my head.

  Intoxicating.

  I tried to hold my breath because I swore this girl floated on the air.

  So damned sweet.

  I paused in the doorway to the living room, hesitated for a beat before I went for the couch.

  Before she could stop
me, before I could stop myself, I scooped the kid into my arms. He made a grumpy, grumbling sound as he looped his arms around my neck and snuggled closer.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  “Kale.” More fidgeting from beside me, Hope anxious and restless.

  “Let me help you get him to bed,” I managed, no longer able to see how the lines holding me back made any sense.

  Resigned, she nodded, and I followed her when she headed through another arch and down a separate hall that led to the back of the house. We passed by one small room that was set up as an office, and she turned into the last door at the end of the hall.

  I followed close behind, unable to stop myself from grinning when I saw his room.

  Decorated in everything comics. From Marvel to Conan to the completely obscure.

  It so utterly, completely fit this adorable kid that my heart was thumping again.

  Mind spinning with impossibilities.

  I laid him on his bed and stepped back so Hope could pull his covers over him. She pressed a kiss to his temple and then ran her fingers through his hair. Neither of us said anything as we tiptoed out of his room, back down the hall, and through the living room.

  For a flash, my gaze darted to the far back of the living space. To the double doors I knew had to lead to Hope’s bedroom.

  I wanted to take her there. Lay her out. Treat her right.

  Lust curled my guts. Almost painfully. No question, Hope knew exactly where my thoughts had gone. Hers right there with mine.

  Desire a flood in the room. Rising so high that there was no doubt we were getting ready to drown.

  Both of us going deeper and deeper into that territory where it was so abundantly clear we couldn’t go.

  Fisting my hands in restraint, I forced my feet to move the rest of the way across the room, back through the foyer, and out the front door.

  When I stepped out onto the porch, I inhaled the cool air that brushed my heated skin and prayed it might stand a chance of dousing the fire.

  I pulled in a couple deep breaths, letting the sounds of the night calm my racing heart, the bugs trilling in the trees and the leaves that rustled in the light breeze.

  I turned around when Hope came out behind me and quietly snapped the door shut behind her.

  Moonlight poured down on her face. Milky skin a translucent glow.