Page 126 of Renewal After Dark

“Thanks, Dad. I will. Love you.”

“Love you, too, kid.”

Duke watched her go up the stairs and waited until the lights went on inside before he backed out of the spot and headed for home.

Freaking Sierra. Ugh. Not only had she arrived at the worst possible time, but she’d also filled his head with things from his past that he tried hard to never revisit. It’d taken years for him to not think about the bad stuff every day anymore, and now she had him wondering if he owed McKenzie the full truth about his past before he could expect to have a future with her.

He so, so,sodid not want to go there with her or anyone.

Ever.

But was it fair to her for him not to give her all the information she needed to make decisions about whether she wanted to be with him long-term?

He’d never told Lynn, and he’d been relieved later that he hadn’t reopened that wound for a relationship that hadn’t lasted.

Today had been a really good day. Tonight had been a great night. He wished he could rewind to earlier to see Sierra’s text so he could tell her not to come over. That way, he’d never have had to hear her tell him he owed it to McKenzie to fully share his painful past with her.

That was the last fucking thing he wanted to be thinking about as he headed home to her mostly naked in his bed.

He hoped they could pick up where they’d left off before they were interrupted, and more than anything, he hoped that Sierra’s sudden appearance at his house hadn’t given McKenzie doubts about him or his relationship with Sierra.

In the driveway, he applied the brakes impatiently and brought the truck to an abrupt stop. He jogged from the truck to the door and rushed to the bedroom to find her curled up in a ball, fast asleep in his bed, hands placed angelically under her face.

The sight of her sleeping in his bed came with an overwhelming feeling of rightness. As he got undressed, he hoped she’d make herself comfortable in his bed and his life. He went to check on Jax, brushed his teeth and took a leak before he crawled into bed next to her, putting an arm around her.

She sighed and relaxed into his embrace, as if she knew it was him and that she was safe.

This night hadn’t turned out the way he’d thought it would, but she was sleeping in his arms while her little boy slept in the next room.

Having them there was like having a dream he hadn’t dared to entertain come true. He wanted to close his eyes and dwell in that perfect place for as long as he possibly could.

Chapter26

Early the next morning, Tiffany told her mom and Ned, who’d brought coffee and doughnuts from the marina, that she wanted to go see Maddie.

“I’ll drive ya over,” Ned said.

“I can take the SUV,” Tiffany replied, still mourning for her beautiful Bug.

“No need. I’ll take ya.”

She understood that the dear man who was now her stepfather, and truly the only father she’d ever known, wanted to do something to help. So she let him. “Thank you, Ned. That’d be great. Let me get the girls ready.”

They set out fifteen minutes later, bringing the rest of the doughnuts for the kids to enjoy with their cousins.

Ashleigh had lit up with delight at being told she’d be seeing her cousin and best friend, Thomas. If anyone could make her feel better, Thomas could. With only a few months between them, they’d been raised like siblings from the beginning, and he was still her favorite person in the whole world. She also adored Addie, Hailey, Mac and the twin babies. But Thomas was her person, and their mothers loved the tight bond their children shared.

From the back seat of Ned’s cab, with her girls strapped into the seats Ned always had handy for them, Tiffany watched the familiar scenery go by while feeling oddly detached from the place she’d called home most of her life. She’d left only to help Jim through law school. They’d returned to set up his island practice right after he graduated.

His discontent had set in soon after they came home to the island. She saw that now. For a long time, she’d tried to pretend that nothing had changed as she went through the motions of being a wife and mother, supporting his dreams the way she always had while fighting for a few of her own. She’d run an at-home daycare and a dance studio then, trying to do her part to supplement his income while he built the practice.

But nothing she’d done had been enough. After working multiple jobs while he was in law school and giving him a beautiful daughter, he’d simply checked out of their marriage right when they were on the cusp of finally realizing the life they’d envisioned for themselves.

Suddenly, he’d no longer wanted that life—or her.

Tiffany was amazed at how, even after all this time, after years of marriage to a man who worshipped the ground she walked on, that it could still hurt to think about the way Jim had discarded her.

Things had gone rapidly downhill between them, culminating in a messy divorce that had turned most of the island against him and his practice and led to him making a series of disastrous decisions, one of which had landed him in jail after he slashed Dan Torrington’s hand open during Dan and Kara’s engagement party.

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