Page 137 of At the Edge of Surrender

I was thinking the same way as hers were drawn to me.

She stared at me with that warm, toffee gaze that sparked beneath the twilight.

The first woman I’d ever met who might have the power to do me in.

THIRTY-THREE

EMERY

“Look at them together.Are they not the cutest thing you’ve ever seen?” Reverence filled Raven’s voice as she looked out at Maci and Nolan in the yard.

I’d barely been able to convince Maci to stop long enough to eat.

Charleigh hummed in agreement. “Nolan has been begging for another kid to play with since his best friend moved away last fall.” She shook her head in awe. “And now he has Maci who is basically his cousin? Someone who’s going to be in his life forever? I can’t imagine anything more beautiful than that.”

As I sat there at the outdoor table between Raven and Charleigh, I wasn’t even sure it was discomfort I was itching in any longer.

It was just a shifting.

A changing of my reality.

An altering of the things I’d imagined for my life.

As if the building blocks of my foundation were being restructured. Rearranged to become something entirely different.

Unfortunately, it was an upheaval I hadn’t asked for, and it was one that I certainly couldn’t stop or change.

That was so much of life, though, wasn’t it? Wantingor loving something or someone so desperately and having no control over whether that love was found or remained or if it would be stolen away?

I guessed the most painful part was so much of myself had been stolen over the years.

My innocence.

My belief.

First Jana.

Then my sister.

And now Maci.

I stared out at my niece where she was at the top of the fort, shouting down at Nolan, “I am the princess of the castle!”

From the ground, Nolan wielded a foam sword. “I’ll save you from the dragon, Princess Maci!”

“I don’t need no savin’. It’s my dragon, and I already trained him, and I ride on him all the way high in the sky to that mountain over there at his big cave.”

She swung her arm around to the mountain peak that showed through the trees.

Laughter rolled from Raven. “Ooh, our princess is a little firecracker. Just the way we like them.”

“If she’s going to be surrounded by all these burly brutes her entire life, she’s going to have to be. Show them who’s actually in charge.” Charleigh took a sip of her margarita, slanting a sly grin our way. “Apparently, Raven learned that from a very young age.”

Raven hoisted a playful shoulder. “What can I say…I’ve had these bad boys wrapped around my finger since I was nine years old.”

“You’ve known them since you were nine?” Surprise jutted out of my mouth as my gaze drifted to the group of men who were huddled over near the high wooden fence, chatting quietly.

Whispering maybe, as if whatever they were saying was to be held in secret.

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