Page 80 of At the Edge of Surrender

Why didn’t you trust me?

Maybe the last was what hurt the most. She knew I would have done anything for that little girl.

Moisture burned and blurred, and I only grew angrier when Kane reached out a tattooed hand and swiped a tear that had gotten free with the pad of his thumb.

Softly.

Tenderly.

Like he actually had a conscience.

“You asshole.” I croaked it.

“Maybe,” he rumbled.

Tension pulled and bound as he stared down at me for the longest time before he spoke again, “But I’m of the mindset that what would really make me an asshole is turning my back on my own kid. I won’t do that. Won’t have her growing up without a father when there is one right here. One who is going to love her with everything he has. I won’t hurt her that way. You take care of the ones you love most.”

He choked over the last words, as if they caused him physical pain to release them.

I couldn’t contemplate what that meant before he edged in even closer, inhaling my shattered breaths. “Stay and let me prove it to you.”

“Am I just supposed to uproot my life to accommodate you? I’m supposed to be taking over my sister’s store when I get back. One of her friends has been running it and can’t do it any longer.”

I was going to do it this time. I was going to keep Emmalee’s dream alive,ourdream that I’d let die.

“Four weeks, Emery. I’ll pay your sister’s friend whatever they need to cover it for you. I would come to you, but you know she needs to get used to my house, to this town, and she’s going to be a whole lot more comfortable doing it if you’re there with her while she adjusts. You know this is the right thing to do.”

A battle went down inside me. A war that I didn’t have the weapons to win.

The man a blade. A dagger. A missile in the tattered sanctity of our lives.

But it was Emmalee who had dropped this bomb.

So I forced myself to say what she would have wanted me to. “Okay. Four weeks.”

Then I peeled myself out of the magnet of him. Needing to remove myself from the way he completely muddled my mind and made it impossible to think straight whenever he was near.

“Good,” he rumbled. “Bring your things in the morning, and we’ll get you settled.”

I took a step back, then another, my chin quivering as I whispered, “If you hurt her…”

Tears blurred. I couldn’t help it.

Kane’s thick throat bobbed. “Never, Emery. I would never hurt her, just like I’d never hurt you.”

I felt my heart crack in two because he already did.

TWENTY

EMERY

“Areyou sure you don’t want me to stay with you?” Mom kept her voice low enough that Maci wouldn’t hear as we sat idling in front of Kane’s house. She was in the driver’s seat since I didn’t think I could be trusted behind the wheel.

Not when I couldn’t stop shaking.

Rocked by my nerves and the sorrow of what this meant.

This was Maci’s new home. Her new life. And there was a timeline for when I would be kicked out of it.

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