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Of her leaving. Of her walking out of my life.
How had I known her for such a short amount of time and already it felt like she had become intrinsic to who I was?
But some people came into our lives and changed everything.
I hesitated, before I asked, “Is that what you want to do?”
I could feel her answer in her hesitation, though she murmured, “That store was my sister’s dream.”
I kept my voice soft. Cautious. “Her dream. But was it yours?”
A few seconds passed before she spoke again. Her words hushed and filled with the loss. “It was until?—”
She clipped off like she’d almost revealed something she was supposed to keep secreted. Whatever it was too fucking painful for her to divulge.
I eased back so I could see her face. That stunning face that pierced through me like an arrow every time I looked at her.
This woman with a hook in me.
“What happened?” Didn’t mean for it to come out a demand, but there was no keeping the rage from my tone. The fury that ignited at the thought of someone doing her harm.
The thirst for wrath thumped in the dark recesses of my psyche. In that place that sought vengeance and found no guilt in the drawing of blood.
No shame in putting those in the ground who didn’t deserve to stand.
Emery flinched, her whole body going rigid in my arms.
I smoothed my palm down the back of her head and back, again and again, trying to assuage the fear that she held. My Little Warrior always going on lockdown the second her past was mentioned.
But I had a hunch we had to get to it in order for her to fully put her trust in me.
“You started to tell me last night…” I murmured it quietly, close to her ear.
Her heartbeat accelerated a fraction.
“I don’t talk about it.”
She overwhelmed my senses. Her spirit and her heat and her sweet morning glory scent.
It was standing at the brink of a sunrise, waiting for the first rays to shine.
Wading at the edge of surrender for the both of us to topple over the side.
I’d catch her.
I’d be sure of it.
“But the scars still gape. I can feel them,” I told her.
“And somehow you’re the first person who’s ever reached beyond them.”
“Then maybe that means you can trust me with your pain.”
“I don’t think I’m ready yet. I’m not sure that I’ll ever be.” She wavered for the longest time, the two of us caught in the stillness, caught in each other, before she rushed on a breath, “I told you my sister fell off her roof…but…but I don’t know if I believe that.”
Disquiet tightened my insides, and I edged back so I could see her face better. “What do you mean?”
Uncertainty pulled through her expression. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just reaching, grasping at straws. But she was always out on that roof, Kane. We’d done it our whole lives. What caused her to fall now?”