Page 49 of The Kidnapped

Kenna sighed and put down her fork.

“Ripley was really young when her house caught on fire, and she lost her whole family,” she shared.

“What?”

“Yeah. It was bad. She lost her parents, her two brothers, and her grandmother all at the same time when she was so little.” Kenna looked off into space as if it was still hard to talk about. “She ended up in the system and isolated herself from pretty much everyone. My girl busted her ass, though, and she ended up putting herself through school and becoming a kick-ass social worker who helps kids like Aaliyah. When she and I met, it was for a story, like I told you, but then I dove deeper and couldn’t leave the thing alone until I found out what happened to her. I was totally into her, too. You’ve seen my wife: she’s gorgeous. She’s also a little sassy when she wants to be, and, apparently, she really wanted to be the day she met me.” Kenna shrugged a shoulder and added, “I was hooked. I wanted to be with her. While we were figuring things out between us, though, I discovered some stuff about her case because I have a hard time letting things go. Anyway, we found out that a friend of her brother’s, actually, set the house on fire.”

“What?”

“Yeah. No one looked at him because he was a kid at the time.”

“Why the hell would he–”

“We don’t know,” Kenna said. “He’s locked up now, but he’s never said why. I think that still bugs Rip, but no explanation could ever make any difference to the fact that her family is still gone.”

“I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t do anything, but that’s awful,” Hollis said.

“She was on her own for the longest time,” Kenna added. “When we met, she was going through trying to put up with this overeager reporter and, at the same time, finding out what happened with her family, but I didn’t let her go. I loved her. She’s the one for me. And now, we’re married, and we have a daughter. She’s got my family now, and they love her. She has friends at work and outside of it, and she actually put herself out there to find them. She’s this amazing person whom no one really ever knew, and that makes me sad because they missed out. She’s happy now, though, and I think I’m a little less annoying to her.” Kenna laughed lightly. “She gets me in this way that no one else ever can, and I do the same for her. Ripley hates conflict. She avoids it at all costs. I lean into it. We balance each other. I know I’m no relationship expert, but I think you need that, you know? The person who gets you or balances you; that person who makes you want to be better.”

“Yeah,” Hollis let out.

“So?”

Hollis grunted and replied, “Yeah, I like her. Okay?”

“I knew it!” Kenna said and winked at her. “Have you told her?”

“God, no!”

“Why, ‘God no?’ It’s just telling a woman you like her. What’s the big deal? Ask her out.”

“Not everyone is you, Kenna.” Hollis laughed.

“I did ask Ripley out within, like, three minutes of meeting her,” Kenna shared, looking off to the side as if recalling the event.

Hollis laughed again.

“What? It worked. We’re married.”

“Kenna, she’s great, and I do like her, but neither of us is in a place to date.”

“I get it. But you could say that about a lot of people.”

“Like whom?”

“I don’t know; Dylan and Ada, for one. Well, two, technically.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It’s never the same,” Kenna replied. “Every person and every couple is different. But Ada, for example, was going through stuff when she met Dylan. Well, re-met her. She still blamed Dylan for not finding her brother and had a lot of anger built up over the years. Dylan broke through that, though, and they’re happily married. I never thought Ada Cramer would get married. I met her for the show – that girl was crazy angry most of the time. Still, she and Dylan made it work. Now, she’s an attorney married to a cop, and they both help people.”

“Raleigh lost her daughter. It’s not the same.”

“And you were taken by your father. I’d argue that there’s probably no other couple in the world that could say the same.”

“We’re not a couple.”

“Not yet.”

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