Page 47 of The Last One You Loved
But Mama’s demand for me to open my home to McKenna flashed stupid ideas in my head. Of us tangled in ways that wouldn’t happen. Every time I saw her, the part of my brain freaking out became smaller, and the part of my brain jumping for joy became bigger.
I’d only seen her four times in the last three days, and I was ready to relent and give her what she wanted. What would happen if she was here for a week? Two weeks? Longer… My heart spasmed at the idea of McKenna being here for good.
I shut that rogue thought down.
My eyes landed on her for the hundredth time since she’d walked through the back door. The jeans she had on clung to her hips, and the olive-green sweater made her hazel eyes stand out. She looked as sexy as she had in the pink dress the night before but in a completely different way, as if she was ready for a day spent on the couch at home instead of out at the bar.
The decade she’d been gone had added a layer of mystery to her instead of simply aging her, making me want to know how each line had become a reality. Every tiny movement she made?placing the fork to her mouth, shifting her legs, tilting her head?called to me. My veins were straining toward her, aching for a touch. To reclaim her lips. To see if she would still gasp if I sucked the soft swell of her earlobe.
She turned and caught me staring, and I looked down, fighting a blush and a growing hard-on. I couldn’t escape the frustration or surprise I felt at still desiring her after years of heartache. My head and my body were definitely on different planes.
After leaving Tillie’s, I’d spent the afternoon at the station, recovering from a hangover and feeling regret for the words I’d sent her way, truthful or not. I’d called her selfish, striking out in fear. I knew enough about human behavior to identify my fight-or-flight instincts. I’d fought—with words instead of a fist, but I’d still fought.
I looked back up at her, cleared my throat, and said words I never thought I’d say to McKenna Lloyd. “I’m sorry.” I inhaled sharply and then continued. “About last night and earlier. I was cruel…”
Her eyes softened. I remembered that look. It was the expression she’d held whenever she was trying to convince me she was right. It had never taken much for me to see her way. I would have done anything for her—jump over a snow-covered creek or off a bridge or out of a plane.
“I just want to understand what happened. I just want to know her,” she said quietly. “I’m not… I won’t…”
She faded off as if unsure of what she wouldn’t do.
“She feels too much,” I said gruffly, eyes finding Mila again as she danced around my dad. My lips twitched as he handed her his last piece of bacon. My girl would do anything for bacon, and I suddenly remembered, once upon a time, McKenna had been the same way. It launched a dart into my chest. “Mama says she’s an empath. I didn’t really get what it meant before she came into my life, but she’ll take on all your emotions. She’ll love you easily and without restraint, and then, when you leave, it will leave a mark like…” I faded off, not wanting to bring myself into this discussion. Like Ryder had said, it wasn’t about me.
“Like the one I left on you,” she finished for me.
Our eyes met, and I thought I saw regret in hers, but I couldn’t afford that any more than I could afford for her to be in Willow Creek. If I knew she regretted pushing me away, it would cause the little flare of hope I’d had spark to life to grow, and that would end as badly for me as it would for my daughter.
I rubbed my hand over the beard I’d grown. I needed to decide soon whether to shave it or go all in. McKenna followed the movement of my hand, and her lips parted slightly, tongue darting out to lick her bottom lip, and it did nothing but make my body tighten more, made the desire to kiss her grow until I thought I might do it regardless of my daughter and family in the room. Regardless of the fact she’d just leave and butcher my heart along with Mila’s.
“Why are you really here?” I asked, a tortured growl to my voice I wished I could take back.
She looked away but not before I saw fear flash across her face, raising my alarm bells to a new level.
“Are you in trouble?” I pushed.
Her shoulders went back, and her face became an unreadable mask. “It doesn’t matter why, but I’m here now, and what I’d like to do is get to know her.” She looked around at Sadie and her friends. “But I don’t really have a place to stay, and I definitely don’t have the money to try and book somewhere during Thanksgiving week, so you may get your wish. I may have no other choice but to leave.”
Mila screeched, and my heart thudded, getting ready to run to her just as she collided with me and looked at McKenna with pained eyes. “Daddy, you cannotlet McKenna leave. She has, has, has to stay! It’s important.”
My breath disappeared from my body, and when I looked over at McKenna, her face had paled, and her eyes were wide. The room had quieted down, and everyone was staring at us even as they pretended not to. Mila didn’t even know McKenna was her sister, and she was already feeling the ties that bound them together. Fuck.
The empty guest room at my house flashed before me as well as Mama’s words about it being the right thing. If I invited her, I’d be surrounded by her scent, and her eyes, and her emotions. It was a disaster waiting to happen. Not just because of Sybil, but because of Mila…and me…
The memory that had haunted me the night before, the one of McKenna daring me to jump the creek so she could bury the shadows left by her childhood, swarmed me all over again. It was as if that teenage girl was daring me again, this time to be brave enough to throw off Sybil’s darkness just as she had.
I cleared my throat.
“You already have a key. I kind of feel like you were meant to stay with us.” My words surprised her, as if she’d never thought I’d agree, and part of me still wished I hadn’t. My heart pounded a furious beat. It wasn’t just me I was thrusting into an unknown snowbank. I was bringing Mila along with me when I’d vowed to do everything in my power to protect her.
“Yes!” Mila said, her little arm pulling into her side, and then she ran off to Mama, screaming about McKenna staying.
McKenna’s eyes grew wide before she said softly, “I won’t hurt her, Maddox.”
It wasn’t just McKenna hurting her worrying me, but I couldn’t say those words at the moment with my little barn owl listening in. Instead, I said, “You can’t promise that.”
“I can.Do no harmisn’t just part of the Hippocratic Oath. It’s how I live my life.”
“Now.”
