I ran my nose down her face, nuzzling up under her chin. “So, you’re telling me you like my stamina after all?”
Another giggle. “If I tell you I do, will it go to your head?”
I laughed, pressing my hips to hers in a playful way, my dick already perking up with the contact. “Uh, I’m thinking that’s a possibility.”
Smacking at my arm, she laughed, keeping it quiet, so much easiness floating through the air. I gathered her closer and locked my arms fully around her, loving the way she felt against me.
All warm, silky flesh and lush curves and tender spirit.
Light.
Rolling again, I pulled her on top of me, and more of those giggles slipped free. And fuck. I loved being her haven. Giving her some reprieve.
She pressed her palms to my chest and pushed up, red hair falling all around her, lighting up in the dawn of the day that was barely breaking at the window.
She stared down at me, all that belief shining around her like a halo.
And this gorgeous girl?
Looking up at her?
I was gone.
Incinerated.
“What you did today, Kale . . .” Sincerity took hold of her expression, and she chewed at her bottom lip, like she was searching for what to say. “I want you to know how much that meant to me. You staying with us.”
“I wanted to be there,” I told her, threading my fingers through the fall of her hair.
Her eyes searched mine. Honestly. “I wanted you to be there, too.”
A heavy sigh pressed between my lips. “I hate that I have to, but I’m going to need to put in a transfer of care for Evan. It isn’t a good idea for me to see him as my patient if you and I are together.”
It was a tweak of joy that pulled at the corner of her lush mouth, though concern swam in her eyes. “Is that what we are . . . together?”
I bucked up a little. “Sure feels like it to me.”
Heat bloomed on those sweet cheeks, her freckles prominent in the wash of the sunrise that glowed against her face. Hesitation rimmed her words when she said, “But you do this all the time.”
I shot up to sitting, framing both sides of her face in my hands. “No, Hope. I don’t do this all the time. Not like this.”
“It feels different, doesn’t it?” she asked, voice almost whimsical as she chanced meeting my eyes.
I cupped the side of her neck. “Yeah . . . it feels different. It feels better.”
It feels right.
A sad smile tweaked her mouth. “I hate the idea of you not seeing him. You’re a good doctor, Kale.”
“I want to be.”
“Does this scare you?” There she was, once again, so goddamned open. Vulnerable and honest and real. No games.
I refused to play them, either. “Yeah. It fucking terrifies me.”
“I don’t ever want to put you in a position you don’t want to be in, Kale. I’d never back you into a corner. But you need to know, Evan is my life, and every choice I make affects him. I have to be careful, especially with what’s going on with his father right now. Most of all, I need you to know I will do whatever it takes to protect him.”
There was almost a warning in her words.
Anger flamed, and I pushed it down, refusing to let that bastard come into our sacred space.
Instead, I wrapped my arms around her slender waist and tipped my head back so I could read her expression better. “I’m not here to yank you around, Hope. You already made yourself perfectly clear, and I knew what I was doing when I followed you into this room. I get it. I know what’s on the line.”
With her, I wanted to walk it.
She wrapped her arms tighter around me, pressed her mouth to my neck. “I didn’t expect you, Kale Bryant.”
I hugged her body against mine, our hearts synced, beating in time. “I definitely didn’t expect you, Hope.”
I glanced at the clock on her nightstand. “I should go before Evan wakes up.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, albeit reluctantly.
I shifted so I could toss her onto her back on her bed. Giggling, she bounced, red, red hair splayed all around her, her smile brighter than the sun that rose through her window.
My chest clenched. Never thought I could feel this way.
I climbed off her bed, feeling the heat of her gaze as she watched me dress from behind. When I turned back to her, she had her sheets pressed to her mouth, blushing all over the place.
God. This girl.
I leaned over and planted my hands on her bed, kissed her mouth. “You can ogle me any time you want, Princess. You don’t have to be shy about it. I’ve been ogling you since the second I met you.”
“It’s just . . . you’re gorgeous, Kale. Such a beautiful man. Inside and out. I don’t think I ever want to stop looking at you.”
I dipped down closer. “And you’re the best damned thing I’ve ever seen.”
I let my gaze rake her body. “Fair warning . . . next time I get you in bed, I’m not gonna be so easy on you.”
Because there I was, wanting to climb right back onto her bed and take her again. My mind running wild with fantasies. The ways I wanted to have her. Wanting to incite that sweet little vixen.
Redness splashed those cheeks when she grinned. “Is that a promise?”
I growled, buried my face in her neck before I pushed back, smirking down at her. “You are in so much trouble, Harley Hope.”
She ran her fingers through my hair. “Figured as much. I knew you were trouble the first time I saw you.”
I pecked her mouth again. “I’ll swing by later, if that’s okay? Check up on Evan?”
Her expression grew soft. “Yeah, that would be nice.”
“Why don’t you try to get some more rest? Yesterday was a long day.”
She tucked her bottom lip between her teeth, gave a nod. “Okay.”
“Okay,” I told her in encouragement before I straightened. Wavered.
Looked around her room, not really wanting to leave but knowing I needed to.
She was right.
We had to be careful with Evan. Their lives were riddled with complications, and I definitely didn’t want to make a single one of them worse.
I headed for her door where I slowly and quietly released the lock. The door barely creaked when I opened it. I tiptoed out, leaving it open a crack behind me, heading for the door.
I froze when I saw the mess of red hair sticking up all over the place from over the top of the couch.
I wondered if it’d make me a horrible person if I tried to sneak out, taking advantage of his disability that way.
But he’d already noticed the movement, anyway. His eyes keen and knowing, the kid always picking up on more than I thought he would.
He scrambled from the couch, going for the pad that was on the coffee table like he’d been waiting for me.
Furiously, he scratched something on the top sheet, and I slowly eased around to the front of the couch. I sank down onto the edge of it, the coward’s side of me wanting to bolt.
Somehow sitting there made me feel like I was fifteen and had been caught sneaking out the window of my girlfriend’s bedroom in the middle of the night, her dad standing with a shotgun on the lawn, waiting for me.
Which was ridiculous.
Or not.
Because my eyes bugged out of my damned head when I saw what he’d written.
Did you and my mom do it?
Evan’s green eyes were hard and demanding behind his thick-rimmed glasses, his demeanor a little mad when he shoved it at me.
I roughed my palm over my face. Apparently, that feeling hadn’t been so off base.
Warily, I eyed him, watching him carefully when I took the pen and wrote out a response.
How do you know what that is?
He seemed annoyed when he snatched it back.
I’m 8. Almost 9.
“Exactly,” I said, knowing he was reading my lips.
He scribbled more.
A disbelieving laugh jolted free, nerves and caution and unease.
He scribbled again.
Did you sleep in her bed?
How the hell was I supposed to answer that? I didn’t want to lie. Fuck, I didn’t want to lie to this kid.
Because I saw it all over him.
He thought he was the one who was supposed to be protecting his mom.
Looking out for her.
The man of the house.
And I didn’t think he really knew exactly what he was asking me, but I knew it was wholly important to him.
My chest tightened, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat, leaned over, watching him as I wrote.
That’s private between your mom and me.
I knew in his expression that answer brought him to his conclusion.
In a flash, he was on his feet in front of me.
Tears of anger and frustration glistened in his eyes when his hands frantically signed.
No. I couldn’t read it.
But I knew exactly what he said.
BUT DO YOU LOVE HER?
Everything clenched and crushed, and I was rubbing my mouth again, dropping my hand to make sure he could see.
“It’s complicated, Evan,” I said.
He was back to the pad, the pen cutting deep into the paper.
You have to love her if you live here. That’s the rule.
And God, he was so innocent and wise. Smarter than I was. Seeing the world so simply.
I reached out and grabbed him by the outside of the shoulders, dragging him a step toward me, wishing with all of me he could hear me. That I could communicate with him better. That I could make him understand something that I didn’t fully understand, either.
“I care about your mom, Evan. I care about her so much. And I care about you. Okay?”
Without warning, his tears were running free, and I had him in my arms, hugging him against me.
I suddenly realized so many things about those complications that Hope had warned me about.
This kid and his mom had been through hell, and he was terrified of a man taking them there again. I pulled back, dried his eyes. “I won’t hurt her.”
He swiped his forearm under his nose. “Promise,” he said. His lips formed the word, but the sound he forced from his throat was unintelligible.
But I heard.
I heard.
“I promise.”
He stared at me for a beat before he nodded. OK.
Okay.
I huffed out a breath, hit with a distinct rush of relief.
I grabbed the pad and wrote out the question.
How are you feeling?
Hungry.
I chuckled.
All right then.
Breakfast.
I stood and offered him my hand. And there weren’t a whole lot of things in the world that felt better than when he took it.
22
Hope
It was early afternoon when I heard a clatter in the foyer. The front door banged open then slammed shut. Two seconds later, Jenna stumbled through the kitchen archway.
Hair a mess. Clothes splattered with dough and streaked in frosting.
Frazzled and unnerved.
Her gaze darted to Evan, who was sitting on his knees on the stool next to me with his elbows propped on the counter as he Snapped with Josiah.
As if he hadn’t been through the trauma of yesterday.
Jenna had been at the coffee shop this morning when I’d called to let her know what had happened. The weekend manager had been short-staffed, so she’d gone in to pick up the slack.
She went right for him, hauling him into her arms, hugging him tight and peppering a bunch of sloppy kisses all over his head and face.
“Is he okay?” she asked, her eyes cutting up to me from over his head.
I nodded, fighting that rush of terror I was struck with when I thought of what might have been. Instead, I forced myself into focusing on the fact he was here.
Whole.
Healthy.
“He got a little out of breath. Chanda and Richard were concerned, so they rushed him in. He was fine by the time I got there.”
No. It hadn’t been our first urgent trip to the ER, and I hated to accept that it certainly wouldn’t be our last. But it was the life we lived. But it sure didn’t ever get any easier. Terrified that one day the diagnosis wouldn’t be so simple. That our worlds might be rocked once again.
“Thank God,” she said, squeezing him tighter. He pulled back, sending her a huge grin, shaking his head as if he thought she was being ridiculous.
She set him back on the stool and ruffled his hair before dropping down low to be sure he was watching her face. “You have to stop scaring me like that.”
He gave her an indulgent nod, signing, I DON’T MEAN TO SCARE YOU, AUNTIE.
Jenna only signed well enough to pick up on whatever my son was trying to say.
She ran a tender hand down the side of his face. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”
Evan immediately went back to his iPad.
Straightening, she ran both her palms over her face and blew a big puff of air between her lips.
She gave me that look, the one asking if I was okay.
I grimaced, not sure how to answer that question. Yesterday had been horrible, bad enough to drop me to my knees, and still one of the best days of my life.
I was struggling to process all the emotions roiling inside me.
I could still taste Kale on my breath and feel him on my skin.
“Yesterday was rough,” I told her, “but I promise I’m okay. I’m just thankful it turned out the way it did.”
I turned to make sure Evan couldn’t see me speaking before I set my attention back on Jenna. “You know I’m going to have to borrow more money to pay for that visit.”
We’d figured paying out of pocket for Evan’s medical care for a year was going to be steep. But we hadn’t prepared for any emergencies, praying we could eke by on the bare minimum, going with it, riding on the hope that it would all work out in the end.
“Don’t you dare mention money, Hope. I told you from the start, I’m in this with you.”
I blinked, pushing out the words around the heavy emotion in my throat. “I just hate that I’m putting your livelihood on the line, right along with mine. It isn’t fair to you, Jenna.”
“Pssh.” She waved me off with a wry grin. “Don’t give yourself so much credit. Who do you think the criminal mastermind is around here? If I hadn’t have come up with the idea, you never would have been in the middle of this. Just be thankful I’m your BFF—best friend felon.”
My brows lifted. “Best friend felon?”
“Um, I did go into a dark alley to make that happen. Doesn’t get more gangster than that.”
“So hardcore,” I teased her, letting myself latch on to her mood. Because she was right. It was all gonna work out. I just had to hold out a little longer.
“Hey, that dude was scaaaary,” she drew out, before she fanned herself. “And hot. On all things holy, that man was hotter than Hades. Hell, he might have been Lucifer himself.”
Only Jenna.
She dropped her smile. “But seriously, the last thing I want you worrying about is money. We’ll figure it out, no matter what. We’re almost to the end. We’ve got this, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Good.”
Shucking off the heaviness, I grabbed a coffee mug from the cupboard and waved it toward her. “You want?”
Her eyebrows disappeared behind her messy bangs. “After a day like today? That cup had better have wine in it.”
I laughed, shaking my head. “Wine it is.”
Ducking into the fridge, I pulled out a chilled bottle of rosé. I hunted in the drawer for the opener, focused on tearing off the foil and popping the cork.
“So, why didn’t you call me yesterday?” she asked. “You know I hate t
he idea of you having to go through something like that on your own. One call, and you know either me or your mama would be there in a flash.”
There was a hint of hurt in her tone. A little bit of conniving, too.
Because Jenna knew me so well that I was pretty sure she’d waltzed through that door and saw everything about me was different.
That my insides had been rearranged to make room for something new.
Something beautiful and wonderful.
Magical.
I could feel the flush race up my neck, and I dropped my face toward the floor, trying to conceal what was probably written all over me, anyway.
“Harley Hope Masterson, you better fess up right now . . . because I see that pink hitting your cheeks, and you haven’t even had a sip of your wine.”
I peeked up at her. “I didn’t have to go through it alone.”
“And who might it have been at the hospital with you?”
Evan caught my attention in my periphery when he sat upright, nonchalantly signing, K-A-L-E.
Little stinker. He had a knack of knowing exactly when to start paying attention, picking up on the little bits I might want to keep hidden.
But there had been no hiding what I felt this morning when I’d gotten up and could hear the deep tenor of Kale’s voice echoing through my walls.
After I’d thought he was sneaking out when I’d wanted to beg him to stay.
I’d tiptoed out to find the staggering sight of the man in there with my son. Cooking for him. Laughing with him. Caring for him.
After the night we’d shared together, seeing him there like that had almost been too much.
Triumph glinted in Jenna’s eyes as they slanted from Evan toward me. “Oh, really.”
Evan was back to divulging all my secrets. YUP. AND HE SPENT THE NIGHT AND MADE ME BREAKFAST. HE’S HER BOYFRIEND.
The last he said with a little shrug.
No big deal.
Jenna choked, sputtered over her laugh, that original triumph shifting to an all-out celebration of victory. “You little slut.”
Follow Me Back Page 23
