Page 43 of Stone Cold Savage

“Yes. I just don’t recall the job title, smartass. Anyway, that girl has big ambitions. She wants to change the medical world for the better, she says. Pretty impressive.”

“She’s something else, all right. And she chose Nash.” Coy chuckled.

“She’s good for him, Coy. He’s still very much Nash but… better.” Kenzie said.

“Better? You sure you’re okay?” he teased.

“Yes. I’m fine.” She swatted at him, “Stop it, will ya? You know what I mean.”

“I do know what you mean. He’s grown up a lot these past few years, maybe more these past few weeks I’ve been home. It’s good to see this side of him. Of all of them, really. I’ve missed a lot, Kenz. And I’ll never get that time back.”

“You were working. It wasn’t intentional.” She paused. “Or, was it?”

“Maybe, unintentionally intentional.” He answered.

“Now, who’s not making sense?”

“What I mean to say is I didn’t mean to miss everything I have. I stayed away to protect them but keeping them safe from my world came with a greater cost than I realized. I thought I was doing something good, but really, my choices just stripped us all of valuable time together.”

“Do you really think that’s what it was? To keep them safe? Or were you just running?”

“Running? From them? My family?”

“I said what I said, Stone.”

“Why would I run from them? This is my safe place. This is home. They’re home.”

“Because loving and losing from a distance is less painful than losing someone you see every day, have routines with, and will have to adjust to a life without their everyday presence? When you’re away, you miss them the same as you did whether they’re gone or not because they’ve been at a distance for so long the loss isn’t as in your face.”

“You’re saying I don’t miss my mom or her loss as much now because I’ve been away?”

“No, I’m sure you miss her a great deal, but your life isn’t changing. You don’t have to get used to not seeing her every day, seeing her at the breakfast table every morning, missing the casual conversations around the fire pit in the evenings… you’re removed from the everyday of it all. The loss hits differently. It’s… psychological. A way to protect…”

“Protect who?”

“You.” She said.

“I stayed away to protect them. From me. The shit I see daily…”

“Right. You think it follows you everywhere. You think it’ll find you here and use them as a way to hurt you.” Kenzie shook her head.

“What? Why are you doing that? Why are you shaking your head at me? You think I’m lying?”

“No, I believe that you believe every word of that.”

“For fuck’s sake, Kenzie, just say what you want to say.”

“Your job doesn’t follow you everywhere you go, Coy. You just think it does. The only thing following you are ghosts from your past because, reality is, if someone you brought down wanted revenge, they wouldn’t need to follow you here to get it. They’d just come take it whenever the hell they saw fit, whether you were here or not. It would have already happened.”

“You don’t know that.”

“I do know that, Coy, because it would be a much easier hit to wipe out your family without you here. If anyone were coming for you, through them, it would have happened already because they aren’t exactly a secret or hard to find, given who you are and who your brother-in-law is. The media has been in town since before Ransom’s plane landed –– everyone knows how to find the family Stone. How many shots have been taken at your family in the last decade?”

“None. I’ve seen to it.”

“Right, by neutralizing any and all threats before they have the chance.” She said with snark and discontent.

“Exactly.”

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