Meant To Be Family (Meant To Be Series Book 3)

by Amelia Foster

  His gaze swept the living room and kitchen, landing on a very angry Kelsey. “What?”

  “What?” She repeated his one word question with incredulity dripping from her voice and brows raised so high they nearly reached her hairline. “I left three days ago for a conference, and this place was immaculate. Completely spotless. I come home after seventy-two hours to this?”

  Connor’s eyes followed the wide sweep of her arm, and his neck tingled with warmth. The entire living room was a mini disaster, and that was mostly thanks to an extended bachelor weekend with his younger brother crashing at his place to “keep him company,” when in reality Dean was bored and Connor was the best offer he had.

  So three days of fast food, a few cases of beer, and countless hours of video games had consumed them. And many, many inches of previously clean floor space.

  Irritation flared right behind the guilt. “Dean and I were just hanging out, watching some college ball and playing some video games. It isn’t that bad. I can have this all picked up in thirty minutes.” Even he knew it was a slight exaggeration, but he’d invested several hours of his weekend to finishing up the designs on their home, and Kelsey didn’t give a damn.

  She rolled her eyes and wheeled her suitcase past him toward the stairs. “Right, you’ll get distracted with one of ten million other things and forget. By the time I throw my dirty clothes in the hamper and get a shower, you’ll have your nose buried right back in that design again and nothing will be touched.”

  Connor loosely circled her forearm to stop her from walking away. “Kels, there are a few beer bottles, some empty wrappers, and dirty dishes in the sink. You’re acting like I’ve committed some sort of crime.” With a swoop of his arm, he gestured at the cluttered table. “And in case you haven’t noticed, it isn’t just any blueprint; that’s our house I’m working on. What I spent a decent chunk of my weekend working on.”

  She easily pulled her arm free from his gentle hold. “It isn’t just right now, Connor. This has been a constant battle with you since we moved in together.” She released the handle of her suitcase and held up a hand, ticking off her points on her fingers one by one. “All I ask is for you to get the clothes in the hamper, the dishes rinsed and in the dishwasher, the trash out on time, and pick up your shit.”

  Indignity flooded his veins. “I do all of that. Just because one weekend I spent some time relaxing with my brother, you think you can act like I never do anything?”

  Her eyes turned to saucers. “Every damn day I come home and there is shit everywhere. In case you haven’t noticed, I work just as many hours as you, usually more. Coming home to a disaster area when there are only two people living here is ridiculous.”

  “What’s ridiculous,” he began, anger fueling his words and not a drop of his normal will power keeping them in check, “is that you have these insane expectations for everyone to behave the way you do. Newsflash, most homes aren’t white glove ready clean. You don’t want me to pick up the house, you want it to be immaculate, Kelsey-level clean always.”

  Kelsey’s nostrils flared. “Having everything where it belongs and keeping clutter tucked away is not an impossible standard.” She paused for a moment, her gaze dropping to the floor. “If you can’t manage to keep things clean now, what the hell are you going to do when we have three kids? Hell, what would you do if we only had one?”

  A small voice told Connor to keep his damn mouth shut and try to end the argument. Unfortunately, he wasn’t very good at listening to that particular direction. “Is that even on the table, Kels? Because every damn time I try to even broach marriage and kids with you, something always comes up. I’m not asking you to marry me tomorrow, but a little interest might be nice.”

  She swung an arm out, encompassing their home. “Are you doubting my commitment to you? Is the fact that I live with you five and a half hours from my family not enough? Or the fact that we bought land together and are designing our home to be built on it? You have got to be kidding me with this shit.”

  Guilt wound a tight band around his heart and sunk a lead ball into the pit of his stomach. Unfortunately, the strong stubborn thread that every Carlisle man possessed won out. “You have got to be kidding me that you are picking a huge fight over a little mess. Although that is the most emotion you’ve shown about anything to do with us in the past six months.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “And maybe you should think about that the next time I try to talk to you about the future of anything other than your practice.”

  Kelsey’s jaw dropped, and Connor barely managed to restrain doing the same. He crossed the room to the front door and sat down on the small bench beside it, tugging on the well-worn sneakers placed neatly on the mat.

  “You’re leaving.” Her voice was soft and resigned and definitely not asking a question.

  He stood and grabbed his phone and earbuds off the stand. “I’m going for a run. I need to clear my head, and…I’ve already said a shit ton of stuff I regret.” The dark circles under her eyes stabbed at his conscience. “You should take a nap.”

  With that, he wrenched open the door. Soon the rhythmic pounding of his shoes against the pavement in time with the hard rock drum cadence in his ears brought the calm he needed. He pushed himself as he went into a steep incline. The euphoric bliss of adrenaline also carried a heavily weighted truth: he and Kelsey had both ignored far too much for far too long.

  Two and a half miles into his therapeutic run, Connor stopped and bent over at the waist, hands resting on his knees, his breath coming in heavy, labored huffs. Before his mind could catch up, his feet did a one-eighty, and he took off in the direction of home. Toward Kelsey, because she was the definition of the word.

  ***

  Kelsey

  Four Years Ago

  She ignored the tears streaming down her face as she carried the bag up the stairs. Asshole. Connor was behaving like a childish, stubborn asshole.

  At the landing, she turned to look at the disaster she’d walked into and, only to herself, admitted it wasn’t as bad as she’d believed when she’d arrived home. Three beer bottles lined one stand at the end of the couch, an empty bag of chips sat on the coffee table with a few crumbs speckling the cherry surface for good measure. A small stack of dishes stood in the sink with aging cheese and red sauce from pizza from who knew when dried on the surface. And his damned socks. Three pairs balled up and scattered about the room.

  Annoying, but certainly not a catastrophe. Even if it felt like that when she walked through the door.

  Kelsey dropped down onto the top step, folded her arms across her knees, and laid her head on them as the past three days of information overload from the various meetings and symposiums at her conference and excessive amounts of interaction with people hit her at once. The nearly constant exhaustion added extra pressure to the already heavy mental load.

  Minutes ticked by as all-consuming sobs wracked her body, from so much more than a few pairs of dirty socks and some empty bottles. They were just the icing on her stress-created cake.

  And possibly part of the reason Connor was a little bit right. She did avoid discussions on the home he was designing, and she managed to push off topics of the future because there were days she came home and…felt completely disrespected.

  She wanted to be able to count on him, she wanted them to be a team, but if he couldn’t do something as simple as help around the house, how could she trust him for more?

  Kelsey rubbed a hand across the ache buried in her chest cavity. The messy house, his ability to sink into oblivion and forget everything around him wasn’t even close to the spark that ignited the fire of contention between them. It was more, all the thoughts she’d held captive in her mind and never spoken.

  A soft click from the front door shot a startled lightning bolt through her, and she jumped. Connor’s worn sneakers came into view across the room from the base of the steps. She barely resisted the need to fly down the stairs and straight into his ar
ms.

  Her brain buzzed with the need to reach out for him, but before she could even make a decision, he was standing one floor beneath her. A million things she wanted to say spun into a knot and burned in her throat, begging to escape.

  But Connor managed to read her mind and give voice to her thoughts before she could even pull them together in her own brain. “This was about a lot more than my dirty socks, which I’ll admit I’m an ass for leaving in the living room.”

  She nodded and wiped at the tears remaining in the corners of her eyes. A tangled web of words caught somewhere between her vocal cords and her lips, refusing to exit.

  “I’m sorry.” He took one hesitant step my toward her, and when she didn’t move, he took two more. “You’re right, you keep asking over and over again for me to pay more attention and try harder to keep the house clean and I…” His words trailed off, and he climbed three more stairs with a shrug, now standing close enough they were eye level. “I get so wrapped up in work or my art, I just forget about the world around me. Everything is blocked out, and time and location just fade away.”

  He settled himself on one wooden plank just two below where she sat and rested one hand on her knee. “I more than respect you, Kels. I think you are the most brilliant and driven woman I have ever met. The fact that at your age you’ve not only managed to get a graduate degree, but also open your own practice and already have it thriving is…” Connor shook his head. “There aren’t words big enough to describe how amazing you are.”

  From their first date, he had always been her biggest cheerleader. He made it his mission to help her study through grad school every night, even making ridiculous flash cards with far too detailed pictures he hand drew for her. But even at that, this was the first time he’d laid it all out for her, and her chest swelled as he spoke.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to marry you.” It fell from her lips without her brain having much input, and she rested her hand atop where his laid on her knee. “Connor, I want to spend the rest of my life with you, and I want everything we’ve ever talked about. The perfect house, the three kids, the gigantic, slobbering dog. I want it all, and I want it with you.”

  His brows lifted as his thumb stroked across her wrist. “But?”

  “I want us to be a team. In every way. I don’t want to ever think for one second that I can’t rely on you for something or that there is anything we can’t handle together.” She tightened her grip on him as she spoke, silently reaffirming everything she said.

  He leaned forward and brushed his lips against hers once, twice, then on the third pass his free hand moved to cup the back of her head as he deepened the kiss. The solid wooden step beneath her dug into her backside, making it ache. Even the passion and affection Connor poured out couldn’t distract her from the ache, and she reluctantly pulled her mouth from his.

  His sapphire eyes twinkled with mischief and lust. “I’m sweaty and disgusting, and you’re exhausted and jetlagged from your trip. Maybe we need to take a long bath so I can show you exactly how much I respect you.”

  Kelsey curled her lips into a smile. “I frickin’ love your creativity there, Picasso.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Connor

  Present Day

  The scar along his thigh itched, and Connor barely banked the urge to scratch it. “I’ve never been a fan of ‘we need to talk,’ unless you plan on actually telling me what the hell happened between us that made you bail.” His eyes devoured her barely clothed form. “And what the hell is going on now.”

  Kelsey dropped her eyes and fiddled with the hem of the shirt for a minute. When she lifted her head and opened her mouth, Connor put a hand up.

  “Don’t you dare try to give me that ‘this was just sex’ bullshit, because I swear you damn near destroyed me when you walked out before.” He carded his fingers through his short hair, tugging on the spikes. “Minimizing this, what we have between us, that would frickin’ kill me.”

  Her chin quivered, and her lower lip jutted out. It took every ounce of strength Connor had, and some he didn’t know he possessed, not to push it back in place the way he used to. Or kiss the pout off her face.

  “I wasn’t going to say that. I never could say that.” She took a deep breath and met his stare head on, even though her eyes sparkled with unshed tears. “You…deserve to know. Especially after…” Her eyes widened, and her hand flew to her mouth as she choked back a sob. Without a word of warning, she launched herself into his arms. “You almost died because of me.”

  Every errant piece of his world that had been spiraling out of control fell back into place as soon as Kelsey melted into his arms. Not in the heated kiss they’d shared a few days ago and not in a needy, passionate embrace that led them here, but a raw, emotional melding of pain soothing pain and need meeting need.

  Tears tracked in twin paths down her cheeks when she pulled back far enough to look in his face. “I thought I was protecting you. I thought I was making everything easier on you.”

  Connor’s brows knitted together, and his lips curled down. “Protecting me from what? Are…are you in trouble? Is something wrong?” He ran his thumbs under her lower lids. “What the hell happened that made you ever believe there was something you couldn’t talk to me about?”

  She took a deep breath and sat away from him, gripping his hands tightly in hers. “You need to let me get this out, all of this, before you say anything, okay?”

  He tightened his hold on her. “Whatever you need to get through this, even if it takes all day, but, Kels, I am not letting you run away. Not again.”

  Every emotion was written across her face, and there were a hell of a lot of them. Confusion, fear, and panic each reflected back at him in her hazel stare. “Don’t speak so quickly.” As soon as Connor opened his mouth to speak, she shook her head. “I should have talked to you about this, you should have been part of it, but that doesn’t change the end result. We can’t be together.”

  He ground his molars together and drew in a deep breath through his nose. “I am really getting sick and tired of you deciding these things without giving me a chance.” He dropped her hands and scooted to the far corner of the mattress, wishing his legs were strong enough to carry him off the bed, down the hall, and for a three-mile run through the woods behind their home.

  His home. Not their home.

  Pain widened her eyes, and she flinched as he pulled away, but he couldn’t allow himself to cave, not yet. She’d shattered his heart when she’d walked out on him, and he’d allowed his life to spiral in a direction he never thought possible. The accident had offered a much needed wake-up call that the self-medication of parties and booze wasn’t smart. And it didn’t even come close to wiping away the memories of Kelsey.

  “Hearing this won’t undo the past two months.” Her whispered statement was so in line with his current internal dialogue he wondered for a moment if he’d actually spoken the words out loud.

  But this was Kelsey. The fact she knew exactly where his mind went should be more expected than a surprise.

  He pulled his lips inward and bit down. “But I deserve to have some answers instead of chasing after you like a damned puppy looking for its owner.”

  She swiped her lower lids with her thumb and nodded. “You do. Before I start, you need to know that this has nothing and everything to do with you.”

  Connor drew his brows together and shook his head. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “I didn’t leave because of anything you did.” Her eyes fluttered closed, and her chest rose on a deep inhale. “It wasn’t because we had a fight, it wasn’t because I couldn’t stand to live with you anymore, and it sure as hell wasn’t because I fell out of love with you.” She shrugged one shoulder and offered a mirthless laugh. “It was more because I loved you too damn much. Still do.”

  Anger, desperation, and hope warred within him. Bitter words reminding her of the pain she caused tangled with offers to move past
this and renew their plans for the future…together. He pressed his lips together, unwilling to give voice to either side.

  Silence stretched between them nearly to the point it snapped the few taut nerves he managed to keep intact. Finally, Kelsey lifted her head and met his gaze. “Do you remember when we moved back from Chapel Hill?”

  His brain was stunned with the distant, fuzzy memory. That had been four years ago, after she’d graduated with her Doctor of Physical Therapy degree. Yeah, she’d been tired while they’d lived in Chapel Hill, but they’d both chalked that up to her school schedule and then clinical rotations.

  When they’d moved back to Asheville, things had gotten worse, and Kelsey had not only moved to a level of exhaustion that scared him, but she was almost constantly annoyed with…everything. But that had been explainable with the stress and demands she was under, taking control of the satellite clinic her father had opened as well as their home construction.

  At the time it had all made sense, and as they settled into a more stable routine, so had she. They began planning their wedding, and everything seemed to get on the right track. Until she disappeared one day without warning and refused to speak to him again.

  He nodded slowly. “Yeah, but…that all got better.”

  Kelsey tilted her head from side to side. “Not exactly.” Her fingers tangled in the hem of the shirt. “There is a lot more. A lot that I never told you.”

  ***

  Kelsey

  Present Day

  Actually speaking the words seemed an impossibility. And the longer they lodged in her throat, the bigger the odds of her running away became without shedding the big, glaring spotlight on the truth.