Page 212 of At the Edge of Surrender

Moisture brimmed in those toffee eyes, her spirit so alive, wrapping around me like an embrace.

I cleared my throat and turned back to my daughter. “Might be fun for you to go to his same school?”

I didn’t know why I was framing it a question, but I found myself tiptoeing into this thing.

Eyes the same color as mine went wide, so vividly green, though the gold sparkled beneath the rays of the sun. “Don’t even tease me, Mr. Kane, because Ifinkthat would be the best thing in my whole life.”

God, this girl had a ton of bests, and I was set on giving her a billion more.

“That’s good then because I want this to be your home. Where you live.”

“Forever?” Her brows shot for the sky.

“Well, at least until you grow up and you’re ready to move out.”

“Because you love me so much?”

Emotion crested in Emery. A wave of grief and a torrent of love.

Same way as it did with me.

“Yeah, Maci. Because I love you so much. Because you’re my best friend, but you’re more than that.”

“What am I?” she asked, so innocent.

I scooted closer to her, my hand trembling like crazy when I reached out to run my fingertips down her chubby cheek. “You’re my daughter, Maci. I’m your daddy.”

Confusion knitted her little brow. “I don’t got a daddy.”

Air wheezed out of my lungs, my spirit screaming for what I’d been missing but had had no idea that I was. “You do, sweetheart, just neither of us knew it.”

“Because you loved my mommy?”

Fuck.

How the hell was I supposed to answer that?

Emery sustained the brunt of that question. I knew it in the way a tormented moan clawed up her throat. One she tried to keep hidden.

I paused, wanting to be cautious, to make sure I didn’t damage my daughter more than she already had been. I knew questions would arise as she grew older. As she understood what having a child meant, but I figured it was unnecessary to go into those details then.

“Well, unfortunately I didn’t get to know your mommy all that well, but I know enough about her from you and your auntie Em to know that I absolutely would have loved her. I know she was amazing, just like you and our Em.”

“Ifinkwhen she gets back from heaven, she should come live here with us.”

Sorrow clutched my chest. Sorrow for Maci. Sorrow for Emery who physically bowed at her statement.

My palm spread out over Maci’s cheek, my hand covering theentirety of the left side of her face. My thumb stroked over the plumpness, and my voice grew rough with the pain I was experiencing for the two of them.

Taking it on as if it were my own.

“I wish that she could, Maci. I wish I could bring her back from heaven, but she has to stay there. But I know she’ll be watching over you. Watching over both you and your auntie.”

Tears blurred my daughter’s eyes. “Never?”

Fuck.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

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