Page 22 of Hold Me Until Morning

It was done in light grays and whites with splashes of color since my sisters and my mother had insisted on coming to help me decorate.

Each of them were so damned sweet, doing their best to take care of me when my only true purpose in life was taking care of them.

The rest was fucking fluff.

Extra.

Bonus days that I got to live out because I never knew when my time was going to run out.

I dipped out the front door and into the waning day. The temperature was still warm, though it’d cooled a bit as the sun had begun to sink behind the soaring trees that enclosed the neighborhood.

Twilight tossed those wispy hues of blue and pink through the atmosphere.

Nothing but calm and peace in the air as birds flitted through the leaves.

I headed down the sidewalk toward my mailbox at the end of the drive, making no attempt not to eye the U-Haul that was still parked in the neighbor’s drive as I opened my mailbox and blindly reached in to find what was inside.

Wondering why the hell she was back.

Well, mostly wondering why she was living here in this modest neighborhood when she’d been raised in what equated to a palace.

A fist of contempt squeezed my chest as that voice I’d come to abhor flitted through my mind.

Don’t think you could ever be good enough for her.

Regret clamped down behind it.

So many times, I’d wished I’d done things differently. Said them differently.

But would it have made a difference?

Changed a thing?

I fuckin’ doubted it.

But I’d spent a lot of damned nights wondering if I was to blame.

And I guessed my attention was so firmly rooted in the past that I didn’t notice any other activity in the neighborhood until a tinkling voice came flooding from the opposite direction.

“Hi, mister, hi! What’s your name?”

I swiveled that way, peering down the sidewalk that rounded the cul-de-sac at the end of the road. My house was the last on this side of the street, and at the very end of the cul-de-sac was a small, grassy playground that took up the lot before the land gave way to the woods.

A little girl with tight ringlets of blonde hair that made her head look three times its actual size was hopping and skipping my way, dragging a tiny wagon behind her, the plastic wheels grinding on the concrete.

An elderly lady trailed close behind.

The child was all pink cheeks and overexaggerated excitement and the brightest damned smile known to earth.

No doubt in my mind the force of it could guide satellites.

Caught off guard, I scrubbed a palm down my face to break up the disorder before I let a slow smile claim it. “Well, hey, there. I’m Cody.”

She increased her speed, little legs bringing her up the sidewalk, her free hand lifted above her head in a zealous wave as she approached. “Hi, Mr. Cody. I am Madison Ella, but I got a nickname called Maddie, and this is my greatest grams-gram, Lolly.”

Before I had time to respond, another voice hit from the opposite side, one that was throaty and low and dragging like a caress across my flesh. “And you are not supposed to be talking to strangers.”

A shockwave of lust barreled straight through me. Fuck, that was the last reaction I should have toward the woman, but the attraction had already taken hold last night, and I wasn’t sure there’d be any taming it now.

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