Lessons Learned (The Gifted Realm Book 2)

by Jillian Neal

  “But I do know that I don’t want you and Rainer to leave. I told you Dad would flip. You wouldn’t listen, but he’ll get over this and, believe me, you definitely made your point. You need your family, and if you don’t need us, we do need you and Rainer.”

  “You’re not just my sister,” he admitted with a hint of disdain. “You’re one of my best friends.” Logan and Rainer shared a hopeful glance.

  With that, Emily pulled away from Rainer and fell into Logan’s arms still sobbing ragged, abhorrent tears. Her tears didn’t just wound Rainer; the look on Logan’s face was sick as well.

  “I’m so sorry, Emily Anne,” Logan, Rainer, and Emily all spun, shocked to hear the harrowing pain in Governor Haydenshire’s desperate plea.

  “Please, baby girl, please, come back inside and hear me out. I can’t tell you how sorry I am, and then if you want Rainer to take you away,” he choked as tears fell from his eyes. He clenched his jaw and willed them away. “Then I won’t try to stop you.” The excruciating offer seemed to rob the Governor of breath.

  “I’m not your baby girl!” Emily screeched. Her voice echoed around the garage in harrowing repercussions.

  “Em,” Rainer hushed. The horrific pain on her father’s face made his heart ache.

  “Okay, I know,” Governor Haydenshire stammered. His voice was distant and terror filled. “You’re a grown woman, and I know that.”

  “Do you?”

  “I do. It’s just not the easiest thing for me to remember, mainly because I’m just so afraid of losing you.”

  Logan kept his arms protectively around his little sister.

  “Please, Emily, believe me, I heard and understood everything you just shouted at me, and all I’m asking is for you to let me apologize and try to explain why I acted that way.”

  “Fine.” Emily spun out of Logan’s arms and edged towards her father. “But we’re not staying here tonight.”

  “Okay,” Governor Haydenshire stated calmly, “I understand.”

  Rainer and Logan shared a nervous glance as they followed Emily back into the house.

  Everyone but Mrs. Haydenshire made a quick exit, either back out to the beach or to one of the bedrooms.

  “I’m just gonna,” Logan looked extremely uncomfortable. He pointed to the beach where Adeline was waiting. Rainer nodded as he sank onto the sofa beside Emily to await her father’s explanation.

  Her fury seemed to come in waves. Renewed sobs shattered through her. She fell back onto Rainer’s chest as he wrapped his arms around her tightly.

  He couldn’t quite help the aggrieved glare he threw at Governor Haydenshire. His fury, over the way her father’s words had hurt Emily, cut him to the quick.

  “Rainer, I owe you an apology too.”

  Rainer didn’t speak and the Governor began to pace.

  “Emily, sweetheart, when I look at you,” he shook his head. “You see, baby girl, I’m sorry. I mean, Emily. When I look at you, I still see my sweet little girl with bouncing red pigtails who wants me to read her a story or have a tea party with her.”

  “It feels like just yesterday I was picking you up out of your crib and pouring cups of water down your hair because you wouldn’t let your mother wash it. You said I was the only one who didn’t get the water in your eyes.” The pain in his expression was so deep it was clearly a physical pain not just an emotional one.

  “And then you were four years old and telling me that you were going to make Rainer Lawson marry you, and I nodded and chuckled and agreed because he was a great kid then, and he’s a fine man now,” Governor Haydenshire nodded humbly to Rainer.

  “And then you were seven years old, and precocious, and adorable and full of wonder and spite in equal doses, and I stood on our back deck and watched you dare him to kiss you. It was like being able to see into the future. I saw the look in his eye, and the love and the fascination in yours. I knew right then, that one day I was going to lose you and, that I was going to lose you to him.” He drew a deep breath and continued.

  “So, you see, sweetheart, I’m not even certain I was concisely aware of it then, but I’ve been fighting that battle for thirteen years now, terrified that one day you were going to slip through my fingers and be gone.”

  “Then you turned twelve, and that was the summer everything changed. Then I was fighting a whole new war. That was the year the world fell apart at my doorstep. The Crown Governor, and my best friend, was found murdered in his office, his son an orphan.” Governor Haydenshire shook his head in disbelief.

  “I went to get you from school. Remember, Rainer?” Rainer nodded.

  “I pled with the board to give me full custody that moment, but they had to let your uncle try. He showed up with those damn papers.” Anger, from a decade before, perforated his tone.

  “But a few weeks later, I moved you into my house, bruised, and battered, and terrified. I hurt for you. The night I moved you in was the first night that I’d slept since your father’s murder, because I knew you were safe.”

  “Rainer, I don’t ever, ever want you to think that I begrudge giving you a place to live or what little I did to raise you. Joseph did all the hard work. You were already a tremendous kid,” he gave Rainer a kind, sincere smile.

  “But then I saw it again. I saw you and Emily. The way she could make you smile when none of us could. The peace that settled in your frightened eyes whenever she rushed into a room wherever you were.”

  “I watched her heal you, Rainer, and make you whole again. She could pull you out of the despair that was threatening to take you under, son. When neither I, nor Regis, nor Lillian nor the boys could get through to you, Emily did. And I moved you into my house with my little girl,” he swallowed and the time seemed to shape his eyes and face.

  “So, you see, I just decided to fight harder, because I wanted you there with us. So, I fought much harder than I even needed to, because you would never have pushed anything on Emily, no matter how badly you hurt or how much she offered to ease your pain.”

  “But I told myself I had to remain vigilant. That one day you two were going to decide you were old enough to do something I knew you weren’t old enough to do.”

  “And then you got a car, and she decided, come hell or high water, she was graduating with you, and I knew it was done, and that I had lost. But you shocked me again.”

  “I knew you weren’t planning on going to see a movie and get a pizza that night, Emily.”

  Emily’s head shot up in utter shock.

  “I was sick. I was furious, but your mother kept telling me that Rainer Lawson wouldn’t do what I knew you’d gone out planning to do that night.”

  He shook his head in disbelief. “And an hour later you came flying in the house, slamming the doors, and stomping up the stairs, furious and stinging with rejection.”

  “Rainer moved through the kitchen in tears. He looked terrified and heartbroken, and I knew your mother was right,” he reached and took Mrs. Haydenshire’s hand. “She always is. But you see, sweetheart, that just made me feel all the worse.”

  “I kept telling myself that he wasn’t going to turn you down forever. That he loved you too much, and that if he thought that he was hurting your feelings he would relent.”

  “So, I kept up the fight and you graduated, and I felt like I could breathe, just a little, for the first time in about eight years. I guess.”

  “But you see, baby, your mother told me that he was bringing you here, all alone, and that I had to let you go,” he choked back renewed tears.

  “And, Emily, I didn’t know how to let you go. I still don’t, and I didn’t just start fighting to keep you from the day Rainer kissed you on the cheek. I’ve been fighting it for the past twenty years, from the moment they handed you to me, right after you were born, and you screamed, and I saw those precious red curls you used to have.”

  “You looked at me, and I was done for. You were it, my little baby girl. And then I was furious again.” He shook his
head. “Who did Rainer Lawson think he was, taking my baby girl to my beach house and then climbing into bed with her?”

  “And I know all of your brothers have done that. I knew when their first times were, even though they tried hard to hide it. For some reason I couldn’t let go of all of those years of fighting to make certain that you were ready, and that you wouldn’t have any regrets. I fought to make certain that your first time would be with someone who loved and adored you almost as much as I do.”

  “And somewhere in my heart I knew that Rainer did, and that he would take care of you. That he would never hurt you, but it was just so much easier to hate him and hate what he was doing to you than it was to know that it was something you’d decided together and something that you were ready to do. See, Em, I wasn’t ready for it.

  “I knew as soon as you’d given him that, that it was all over. That you were his, and that I’d lost my precious little girl. As hard as I’d tried to hold on to you that I just couldn’t.”

  I watched you slip right out of my hands, sweetheart. In fact, I had to let go of your hand and had to watch him catch you.”

  “So, I think I just tried to hold on to you so tightly that no one could get to you, not even Rainer, and I took my anger and my hurt at the inevitability of life out on both of you, and I’m so, so sorry, Emily.”

  “You know, when I was yelling at you earlier, I heard my father in my own voice, and that isn’t something I ever want to hear again. So, I understand if you can’t forgive me right now, and I understand if you two want to go somewhere else, but I just need to know that you know how sorry I am.”

  “Daddy,” Emily stood off of the couch and threw her arms around her father as he wrapped her up in his protective embrace.

  Rainer felt air fill his lungs again. He gazed at Emily in her father’s arms. He was so thankful that she had a father who loved her like that, even if it made the road rocky at times. He knew that Governor Haydenshire was a huge part of what made Emily who she was, and he couldn’t love anything more than the girl wrapped up in her daddy’s arms.

  Garrett pushed the sliding glass door open. Most everyone had been watching from the beach.

  “Is it safe to come back in?” he smiled at the scene before him. With an adoring smile for her father, Emily wrapped her arms around Garrett.

  Garrett hugged her tightly and kissed the top of her head.

  “She’ll always be my ‘baby girl’,” Governor Haydenshire winked at Rainer.

  “I know, sir, and I’ll always take care of her.”

  “I know, son.”

  Emily was smiling as Garrett released her.

  “Em, if you still want to go, the concerts are just starting,” Garrett urged. Emily turned to study Rainer. He drew her back into him.

  “I told you, baby, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.” He ignored the twinge of pain that etched her father’s face.

  “Okay,” Emily nodded. She took Rainer’s hand but then turned back to her father. “He caught me, Daddy, and he’ll never let me go.”

  “I know, baby girl,” her father choked. “But, you see, that split second that you were falling through the air, when I watched you two walk out of the kitchen that night and get in his car, I have never been so terrified in my entire life.”

  “I know, Daddy.” She kissed his cheek. Governor Haydenshire turned to Rainer.

  “I love you just like you were one of mine, son.”

  “I know sir, and just so you know, I’d never been so terrified as I was that night that I put her in my car and brought her here either.”

  A broad, knowing grin spread across the Governor’s face as he extended his hand to Rainer. He shook it and then Governor Haydenshire pulled him into an encompassing hug.

  Good Night, Son

  By the end of the night, Emily was lying under one of the quilts with Rainer. She was curled up on his chest as they listened to one of the crooners work his way through one of Emily’s favorites by Dave Matthews.

  Her eyes were still swollen and red, and Rainer kept her casted through most of the evening. Her energy seemed placid and calmed when she was wrapped up in his protective embrace.

  She was exhausted. He could feel that too as he held her tenderly and brushed sweet kisses in her hair.

  He was thinking about everything she’d shouted at her father and everything her father had known about that he and Emily had never even realized.

  As most of the female concertgoers were dressed in nothing but the bikinis they’d worn that day on the beach, Emily actually had on more clothing than most of the girls on the beach that night. Not that this information would make Governor Haydenshire like her outfit any better.

  A deep yawn shook through Emily as Rainer beamed at her. “You want to go home, baby?”

  She began packing their things. They moved quickly, as not to block the view of other reclined couples.

  It was almost one when Rainer lifted Emily from the car and carried her into the house, just to make her giggle.

  She tucked her head under his chin, and he felt her energy leap. He held her while she unlocked the door, both of them laughing.

  When she finished, Rainer threw her over his shoulder so her backside was right beside his face, which he slapped repeatedly as she kicked her legs and squealed.

  She shook her hips as he held her, then leaned and extracted his wallet from his back pocket.

  “Ha!” she declared.

  Rainer still refused to release her. “It’s all yours anyway, baby.”

  They continued to laugh as he headed through the kitchen, but they met her father in the living room. With a slight grimace, still not certain quite where the Governor stood on their physical relationship, Rainer set her on her feet.

  Governor Haydenshire was chuckling and shaking his head.

  “You brought her home early.”

  Rainer smiled. “She was tired. She wanted to come home.” He would never let the Governor down. He would always take care of Emily, just as he’d promised.

  “I’m just glad you’re here,” the Governor slapped Rainer on the back and moved to the kitchen to pour a glass of milk. With a smile, Rainer walked Emily to her room.

  “Think I’m allowed to tuck you in, maybe get a good night kiss?” He was really only kidding, but Emily beamed and tugged him in the room.

  Make-up, hair care products, brushes, an opened box of tampons, clothes, magazines, candy wrappers, finger nail polish, bras and bikinis covered almost every surface and hung from several of the bunks.

  “I feel like I’m having some kind of horrible nightmare where I’m trapped in Sephora, and I can’t escape. Where do you sleep?”

  He reached and guided her to his chest. “Here, I need to protect you. I’m afraid you may be eaten alive by beauty products.”

  “Aww, I’m just proud you knew the name of the store is Sephora.”

  Rainer gave her a cocky grin. “Well, you see,” he husked in her ear as he swayed her gently and felt her body meld into his. “There’s this really smoking hot girl I’m after that keeps dragging me in there with her every time I take her to the mall.”

  Emily stepped away from Rainer and slid the lace sarong off and let his shirt hang down open over the bikini before she moved back into Rainer’s chest. He growled in her ear.

  “But,” she sassed. “Whenever I drag you in there, I always reward you when we get back home.”

  “That’s why I keep going with you, baby, for the rewards,” he flirted shamelessly and listened to her sweet giggles.

  She lifted her head off of his chest, and he stared down into the depths of her emerald eyes. He watched her exhaustion play on the edges of desire, fear, love, and trust.

  Full of wonder and spite, in equal measure, was Emily to perfection. The traces of her father’s little girl mixed in with his baby. It was all there, swirling in the most beautiful eyes he’d ever seen.

  “I love you, Emily, more than life itself.” He cupped
her cheek tenderly in his hand and brushed a soft, lush kiss across her lips.

  Slowly, he turned his head to the other side and added to the intensity of the kiss. He let the love, and the passion, the desire, and the lust between them build.

  She braided her hands through his hair and pulled him harder into her. With a soft groan, he devoured her mouth as she began to pant.

  Rainer slipped his hand under the back of the shirt she was using as a cover-up. He dipped it into the bottom of her bikini and kneaded her backside hungrily.

  She trembled, and began grinding her hips into him and felt him harden against her abdomen. Her breath stuttered, but she stepped back, still panting slightly.

  He fought with every fiber of his being not to jerk her back to him and remove her bikini altogether.

  “I should probably go.” He let his eyes close for one brief moment. He couldn’t watch her eyes darken or follow the curve of her kiss-swollen lips down to her deliciously enticing breasts, heightened, pert, and anxious from her need.

  She gave a devastated nod, only making the act of turning away from her so much harder. He turned slowly to open the door.

  “Rainer,” she whispered, and his heart sped.

  He spun back around to face her. Tell me you don’t want me to go. Tell me you want me to stay with you, to make love to you, to be inside of you, to hold you all night long. His mind whirled from desire and need as he waited on her to speak.

  “I love you so much.”

  He stepped back to her and wrapped his arms around her.

  “I love you too, Em.” He felt her energy calm as soon as he wrapped her up in his embrace.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever been here and wanted to go home so badly.”

  “Yeah, me either. I’ll take you back if you want, sweetheart.”

  “No,” she shook her head, “But next summer, when we come back, we’re kicking Patrick and Lucy out of the other bedroom.”

  “Or we could go out tomorrow and look for a beach house of our own.”