Page 175 of Save Me

“Neither one of my girls is,” Tyler Townsend declares as he follows his brother out.

Her other uncles make a similar declaration as they leave the room.

“I should still kick your ass for locking my twin up,” Kyle says, as the last remaining Townsend in the room. He pins me with a glare, looking more like his father’s twin than Kennedy’s.

“You should make it quick. I have a wedding to get to in …” I peer at my watch, “twenty minutes. And I won’t let anyone make me late.”

He tuts. “This son of a …” Then he nods. “Just make my sister happy,” he tells me, his voice a warning. One that I don’t need. Every day from here on out will be spent making Kennedy the happiest woman on this earth.

Kennedy

“Daddy, will you dance with me?” I ask, standing in the middle of the ballroom of the countryside ranch where Dae and I brought our friends and family for a destination wedding.

My father pauses, and his eyes do something I’ve never seen before … they gloss over with unshed tears.

“You asked me to dance at my wedding,” he says only loud enough for me to hear him.

I remember his and my mother’s wedding day. I was six years old. They got married at my grandparents’ manor.

My father looks across the room, and I follow his gaze. My mother smiles back at us. I watch as a range of emotions cross his eyes. He rarely lets most people see his emotions this clearly.

“Absolutely,” he finally replies to my question. “Stand on my feet.”

I laugh out loud. My father is a notoriously terrible dancer. “I’m too big to do that now. I’ll crush your feet.”

He shakes his head. “I won’t step on my baby girl’s toes,” he insists.

It’s a battle I know I won’t win.

“Wait.” I kick off my high heels and step onto the tops of his feet. He takes my hand in his and starts moving to the music.

“You’ve gotten better at this,” I compliment. He’s more fluid and actually in time with the music.

“Your mother insisted on lessons years ago,” he explains. “I still take them occasionally to dance with her when she wants.”

I kiss his cheek. My father hates going out and despises most people, but he takes dance lessons for my mom so she doesn’t have to stay off the dance floor.

“I love you,” I tell him.

He narrows his eyes at me. “Not enough to stay my little girl forever.”

“We’ve been through this,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “No one stays a kid forever.”

He grunts. “I know.” He sighs. “It all went so damn fast, though.” His hazel eyes meet mine. “If I had it my way, I’d go back in time, and we’d never take that detour to Korea. Then you never would’ve met the son of a—”

“Do you know why I didn’t cry when I fell off that horse?” I ask, cutting him off. “When I was twelve.”

His eyebrows raise in surprise, and then realization dawns on his face. “Because you hate crying.”

I shake my head. “Because before I felt the pain in my collarbone, I saw you running toward me.”

The memory comes back as if it were yesterday. My father pushing people out of his way to get to me while I laid in the dirt.

“I knew you wouldn’t let anything happen to me. You’d always be there to pick me up when I fell. That feeling of safety, I felt it so much more than the pain.”

I stop and peer at Dae, whose dark eyes zoom in on mine. Even from halfway across the room, I see only love shining in them.

“That’s how I feel with my husband.” I look into my father’s eyes. “I was only able to embrace what I have with him because I know what true love feels like because of you.

---