All This Time

by Melissa Tagg

  He poured every speck of smug delight he could into the smile he cast at Raegan.

  “It’s not working.” Erin plopped her fists on her waist, just like Raegan, her pout ridiculously endearing.

  He pulled himself to his feet, reaching for both kids, lifting one under each arm.

  “Hey!” Jamie yelped.

  He carried them out of the water and plunked them on wet grass in front of Raegan. Good thing Case’s house was a mere run up the hill away. All three of them were soaked through.

  “You’re not ticklish?” Raegan asked as he straightened in front of her.

  “Try it yourself if you’re not convinced.” He got way too much enjoyment out of her flicker of a glance at his bare chest and the blush that crawled up her cheeks. He leaned in. “Go ahead.”

  “You’re ridiculous.” But she didn’t back away.

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “Propriety.” There went her hands on her waist again.

  “Not a word I generally associate with you.”

  “I feel like I should be insulted by that.”

  “On the contrary.” He leaned down to pick up his discarded shirt and the phone he’d thankfully remembered to yank from his pocket before wading into the creek. He pulled the shirt over his head in time to see Jamie wringing out his own shirt over Erin’s head, her bubbling giggles unceasing. “I’m glad you had this camping idea, Rae.”

  “Me too. Even if it is so hot I’m regretting not chopping my hair weeks ago.”

  She pulled a band from around her wrist and reached up behind her head to tug her hair into a ponytail. He’d seen her do the same about a hundred times, but the sun must be getting to him because right now that one little routine proved entirely too . . . mesmerizing.

  Somewhere in the back of his head, that old mantra tried to resurrect itself. You can be attracted to her, but . . .

  What was the but? He couldn’t remember it. And the nagging voice had been steadily fading since a few nights ago out on that scaffolding. Since that afternoon in the men’s locker room shower stall.

  Fine, since the day he’d returned to Maple Valley to find Raegan Walker in his apartment.

  Nonetheless, he pulled his gaze away. “Hey, kids, what do you say we go find dry clothes?”

  They started for the ravine.

  He turned back to Raegan. Great, now with her hair up, it was too easy to notice the freckles on her bare shoulders. He should probably just go throw himself in the creek again already.

  “I don’t even know why I grew it out in the first place,” she was saying. “It’s so annoying. I never know whether it’s going to be straight or wavy, it’s always falling out of ponytails. It takes longer to dry in the morning.”

  “Is there a reason we’re talking so much about your hair?” He moved to follow the kids.

  Raegan two-stepped to keep up with him. “Because we promised not to talk about any of our problems. The serious ones, that is. I figure my hair woes don’t count as serious.”

  He stopped at the edge of the ravine, watching as the kids scrambled over the lawn. “Actually, speaking of that . . .” He opened Rosa’s text and handed his phone to Raegan.

  Took her less than a millisecond to press her lips together. “That’s . . . unbelievable.”

  “I think it’s a cover. When she told me two weeks ago that it was safer for the kids to be with me, I honestly thought she was exaggerating. Now I can’t help but wonder . . . well, all kinds of things. My imagination’s going wild.” He combed his fingers through his wet hair. “Sorry. We weren’t going to talk about this.”

  “But if you need to . . .”

  “What I need to do is talk to the kids. Let them know they’ll be staying here a while longer. I mean, if your family’s okay with it.” He said it like a question.

  A silly question, according to the expression on Raegan’s face. “Of course it’s okay.”

  “Think I should talk to them now?”

  “Might be good. Get it over with so they can come back down here and enjoy roasting hot dogs and having a campfire.”

  He nodded and stepped out of the cover of the trees.

  “Bear?”

  He glanced over his shoulder.

  “Leave your phone at the house this time.”

  He lifted his hand to salute her, then crossed the lawn. Ten minutes later he’d shed his wet jeans and changed into clean clothes. He emerged from the basement. Jamie and Erin’s voices reached him from the second floor as he climbed the stairs.

  “I think he’s twenty.”

  “He can’t be twenty.” Jamie’s tone was pure older brother knowing. “That’s too young. I think he’s forty.”

  “That’s too old.”

  “No, it’s not. Dad’s thirty, I think. And Bear’s older than Dad.”

  Bear leaned against their doorway until they noticed him, Erin’s wet clothes strewn about the room. He’d seen Jamie’s abandoned in the bathroom when he passed. “I’m thirty-two, guys. I’ll be thirty-three in August.”

  Jamie puffed his chest. “I was closer to being right.”

  He ruffled his nephew’s still-damp hair as he strode into the room. He dropped onto the bottom bunk and Erin immediately went for his lap. “We can have a birthday party for you. Raegan will help us.”

  At his sister’s declaration, Jamie’s focus shot to Bear, his question spelled out so plainly on his face. He wanted to know where they’d be in August. Wanted to know if they’d be together.

  Bear wasn’t going to get a better opening.

  “Actually, as long as we’re on the topic, how would the two of you feel about staying here a little longer?”

  Jamie lowered onto the bed beside him. “How much longer?”

  “I’m not sure. But probably, uh, maybe a couple more weeks?” Maybe he shouldn’t have brought this up without a more concrete plan.

  But it wasn’t fair to the kids to be left in the dark. Erin might be fine going with the flow, but Jamie was old enough to know this arrangement wasn’t normal.

  “We get to stay with you?” Erin’s eyes lit up. “And Raegan?”

  “Yeah. For now.”

  “What about Mom?” Jamie asked it quietly.

  Bear reached his arm around the boy’s back and tugged him to his side. “She misses you.” He assumed. “But she’s heard about all the fun stuff we’ve been doing so far this summer.” Through texts she hadn’t bothered to answer. “She doesn’t want to cut it short.”

  “Maybe she could come here and do more fun stuff with us.” Erin jumped off his lap. “Let’s go back down to the tents.”

  Jamie hadn’t moved.

  Bear squeezed Jamie’s shoulder. “You all right with this, son? Because if you’re not—”

  From under the shelter of Bear’s arm, Jamie glanced up.

  You called him son.

  But Jamie didn’t look angry. He didn’t lash out as he had last time. Instead, he simply nodded. “I’m okay with it.” Then he surprised Bear with a full-fledged embrace, his head against his chest and his wiry arms circling as far as he could reach.

  Bear had to blink to hide his sudden rise of emotion. Not just at Jamie’s surprise show of affection. But at the conviction that this wasn’t normal. Two kids shouldn’t be so happy to be away from their home, so accepting of their parents’ absence. It was completely wrong.

  But he hugged his nephew anyway, welcomed Erin into the circle when she jumped onto the bed beside them.

  So completely wrong.

  Then why did this feel so right?

  The buzz of cicadas filled the darkened hillside, a frog’s croaking downstream, the whir of a midnight breeze pushing through the trees. The smoky smell of the campfire’s lingering embers swathed the night air.

  Raegan turned over atop her sleeping bag, eyes to the flap at the top of her tent that opened to the moonlit sky. She grinned. From the moment Bear and the kids had returned from the house, tonight had been near p
erfect. They’d roasted hot dogs, taught the kids how to make s’mores, laughed when Erin ended up with sticky marshmallow in her hair and Jamie’s burnt to such a crisp it fell off his roasting stick.

  Kate had stuck around for a couple hours, and Dad, too, stopped down for a bit. But eventually, it’d just been Bear and Raegan and the kids, sitting on old lawn chairs around the fire.

  Until Jamie and Erin had both fallen asleep.

  And then it’d been just Bear and Raegan. Talking about everything and nothing.

  It’s okay to admit what I want.

  Kate’s words rolled around in her mind. Well, if Raegan admitted it right now, this is what she wanted. She wanted tonight again and again. And even if that’s all she ever got—Bear’s presence and his friendship—it might be good enough.

  Muted light through the tent’s mesh screen snagged her gaze. She rose to her knees and pulled a T-shirt over her camisole, then unzipped the tent. Bear?

  She caught sight of his shadowed form with flashlight extended turning a slow half-circle as he surveyed the trees bordering their campsite. He must not have awakened the kids when he slipped from his tent.

  Raegan had assumed Erin would sleep in her tent, but when the time had come to turn in, she’d refused to let go of Bear. Raegan had seen their huddled outline through the tent’s screen flap before she’d hunkered down in her own tent—one kid tucked on either side of Bear.

  The sight had warmed her and made her want to cry, all at the same time.

  Grass scratched her bare feet and ankles now as she padded toward Bear. He turned before she reached him. “Rae?”

  “Can’t sleep?”

  “Thought I heard something.” He glanced to the trees once more. “But I think maybe I’m just becoming paranoid.”

  He said it lightly, but he wasn’t joking, was he? He’d told her in sparse words and a dull tone last night about Jamie thinking he’d seen his dad. He’d mentioned the hang-up calls, the multiple sightings of that blue car.

  “It’s after midnight.”

  He flicked off the flashlight. “Right. We should be sleeping.”

  “No, I mean, it’s technically tomorrow. That agreement not to talk about stuff is now null and void. So . . .”

  Even in the dark, she could make out his light smile. “Are you seriously never going to get tired of me spilling my problems to you?”

  “Something tells me, Bear, you’ve never spilled to me half of what’s on your mind.”

  “Maybe I’ve just never wanted to burden you with all of it.”

  “Except friends are supposed to help carry each other’s burdens. At least, that’s what the best kinds of friends do. And I know I’m not Seth, but—”

  “No, you’re not. You’re definitely not.”

  The husky timbre of his voice chased away whatever else she’d planned to say. And for a moment thick with significance, his moonlight-tinted eyes, often so unreadable, were an open window into a heart she’d longed to explore. Please tell me I’m not the only one, Bear. Tell me it’s different this time and you feel the same as I do and maybe somehow . . .

  He cleared his throat. And the cicadas’ sharp hum infiltrated once more.

  She let out a breath and her head tipped down.

  “I was in prison.”

  She looked up. The shades were drawn once more, his gaze hooded, only the faintest hint of uncertainty peeking through, as if he wasn’t at all sure he should’ve said it. And yet, he went on.

  “Multiple felonies. I confessed, so there wasn’t even much of a trial. Just a swift sentencing.” He chewed over his next words, the unbearable pause stretching so long Raegan was sure he could hear her hammering heart. Finally, he met her eyes. “The thing is, I was . . . lying. I didn’t do any of what they said I did. Of what I said I did.”

  Goosebumps climbed over her skin, but she couldn’t make her arms move to fold together and ward off the cool. Shock held her frozen. “I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

  “It’s just . . . I felt so guilty for leaving Rio, and if I hadn’t been so focused on myself . . . he was just doing what he saw everyone else around him doing . . . and Rosa was pregnant and . . .”

  “Bear.”

  Hearing his name was enough to halt his frenzied explanation. And saying it was enough to unfreeze her limbs. Raegan reached out to touch his arm. “Slow down. Start at the beginning.”

  He swallowed. Nodded. “I moved out the day I graduated high school. Got my own place, got a job. Just couldn’t wait to get away from my parents and all the crap Rio and I had to put up with growing up.” His jaw flexed. “I didn’t even think about Rio. Just figured he’d do the same when he graduated. I tried to spend time with him now and then, but I got busy with paramedic training and Annie.”

  Annie? She tried to cover her inhale, the pang of dread-laced curiosity. But he had to have seen it.

  He looked to the ground. “Met her outside a church of all places. I was just passing by, she was just leaving a Sunday service.”

  Of course, there’d been a girl in his past. Maybe more than one. It’s not like it’d never occurred to her before. Stung all the same.

  “I’d never met someone like her, Rae—or her family. Close-knit, kind—not just to their own, but everybody. I’d never seen faith like what she had.”

  Had?

  “Her parents are John and Elizabeth, the missionaries I was with down in Brazil.”

  Wait, did that mean . . . had Annie been in Brazil, too? Was that why he’d gone? The sting sharpened.

  But Bear was already moving on.

  “Anyway, I had this whole new life and I loved it. But it was Annie who brought Rio up one day. She asked me how he was doing and I realized I didn’t have any idea. So one morning I went back to the old neighborhood to see him.” He stopped, pain twisting through every corner of his expression. “No one was home, but I still had a key. Don’t know why I did it, but I stopped in Rio’s bedroom. I saw a floorboard sticking out. Knew I was prying, but it’d always been his hiding place and I suddenly had this horrible feeling. I thought I’d find drugs, but instead it was piles of cash.”

  He rubbed his palms over his cheeks, the pace of his words picking up again. “I came back in the afternoon and he was pulling out of the parking lot when I arrived. Ignored me when I honked. I ended up following him to this warehouse. And from there, it was just a huge mess.”

  “Bear, you don’t have to tell me—”

  “He was in charge of all of it, Rae. I thought he was just mixed up in something bad, but no. In the two years since I’d moved out, he’d gone from troublemaker at fifteen to practically a ringleader at seventeen. He’d actually poached men from Luis Inez—Rosa’s father, possibly one of the most dangerous men in Atlanta.”

  “What were they doing at the warehouse?”

  “The usual—stealing cars, stripping them, selling parts. They weren’t manufacturing drugs, at least, but there was plenty of dealing going on.”

  That still didn’t explain how Bear had ended up the one in prison. Or why in the world he would’ve confessed. Unless . . .

  Understanding flooded in, drenching her with disbelief. “Bear, you didn’t.”

  “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I’d gone in to confront Rio, but the cops raided. We somehow ended up in the back of the same police car. That’s when Rio told me his girlfriend was pregnant.”

  His tone had gone numb as the memory glazed his eyes.

  “What was I supposed to do, Rae? He’d already been arrested twice and he was less than a month from eighteen. They would’ve tried him as an adult.”

  “Bear—”

  “He was going to be a father. He would’ve missed Jamie’s birth. I didn’t have so much as a speck on my record. I figured a judge would go easier on me. If I hadn’t left him behind in the first place, practically forgotten about him . . .”

  The pieces fit together, forming a picture she couldn’t handle. Bear had conf
essed out of guilt. Out of love. But the thought of him locked away in a prison cell, punished for someone else’s crime . . .

  It was all she could do to blink back tears. “But it wasn’t your fault, Bear. Rio was old enough to make his own choices.”

  “Didn’t end up mattering anyway. I did it because I thought I was giving him a second chance at a better life. A fresh start like what I’d had. But it didn’t change anything.” He shook his head. “Except, no, that’s not the truth. It made everything worse.”

  His anguish ripped at her heart, and it was the most natural thing in the world to reach for him. He let her fill the space between them, didn’t move so much as a muscle save his ragged inhale as she lifted both hands to his cheeks. “Bear McKinley, you are the very best person I know.” Not a single qualifier, and she meant it with everything in her.

  “Rae—” His breath was warm on her face.

  “You are kind and noble and brave. Everything you just told me might be shocking, but it’s also not really that surprising. I already knew you were amazing. I’ve known it forever.”

  He opened his mouth as if to argue once more, but she spoke again first.

  “What I didn’t know was that it was possible to admire you even more than I did before. But it is and I do and—”

  And now he was the one to cut her off. Not with words, but with movement so swift she didn’t have time to so much as gasp before he clasped both her arms and lowered his lips to hers. For one astonished moment, she couldn’t move or even think.

  But then he softened his grasp on her arms and his first kiss turned into a second.

  And all the desire she’d pushed and pushed and pushed away finally broke free. She twined her arms around his neck and relaxed into him, every nerve alive and warmth making its way through her, puddling in her heart.

  “Raegan.” He whispered her name against her lips. “I . . . we . . .”

  She didn’t let him finish. Couldn’t. Not when she’d waited so long for this. She kissed him now, years of longing poured into the embrace.

  No, she hadn’t been honest earlier. Bear’s presence, his friendship—not enough.

  She wanted this, too. Again and again.