Page 54 of The Last One You Loved
“He sounds like an ass. He sounds like someone I’d never expect to see you with.”
She gave me a wry, pained smile. “I think that’s what attracted me to him to begin with. I thought I could turn myself into someone completely different. That day…his threat of taking the phone or losing him…it hit all my raw points. I was afraid he’d be just another person who didn’t want me enough to stay.”
“That’s bullshit.” The words slipped out before I could help it, anger welling up inside me. I pulled away from her and stood, looking down at her. “You’re the one who left, McKenna. You were always enough for me. I always wanted you.”
She rose, hands on her hips, glaring at me as she scoffed. “Was I really enough, Maddox? Did you truly want me more than your family or this town? I told you to stay away, and you did. I told you not to call, and you did. You didn’t even try to fight for me.”
Her voice cracked, tears welling in her eyes, and my anger turned to frustration and maybe some regret as I realized with a slam to my heart that she was right. I hadn’t fought to stay in her life when she’d pushed me out, and I certainly hadn’t been willing to leave everything I loved in order to keep her.
“Maybe,” I said. “Maybe you’re right, but I’d been taught my whole life that no means no. That if someone asks you to leave, you do. I didn’t think I had to beg you to be a part of my life after everything we’d been through. I didn’t know it was some goddamn test.”
“A test? I wasn’t testing you, Maddox.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even know I’d done it until my therapist pointed it out to me. It may not have been fair to you, but I was waiting for you to prove Mama wasn’t right. That I was worth fighting for. I’d suffered years of abuse, abandonment, and neglect, so pushing you away was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I wasn’t enough for you to stay. I didn’t deserve you...”
Her words hit us both at the same time, and her face flared with embarrassment. She was still fighting her tears just like she’d fought them whenever I’d found her hurt and bleeding in our past. And I goddamn couldn’t take it.
In two strides, I had her in my arms, pulling her against my chest and holding on to her like I had in my dreams a million times. Like I’d wanted to do for a decade. My hand ran up and down her back as heat and the scent of her washed over me, tangling with memories of our childhood. RC Cola and MoonPies. Belonging. Peace.
When she lifted her haunted eyes to me, I wasn’t sure which of us moved first, but suddenly, my lips were on hers. The moment they touched, a groan escaped me. Years of missing her twisted with anger and frustration that quickly disappeared into sensations of home and heartache. They flooded my veins, mixing with the acute joy of finding something you lost. Rediscovering every piece of it. Her mouth was pliant but greedy, moving underneath mine and searching for the memories and the past as much as I was. I slid my tongue along her seam, and she let me in, where I lost myself all over again to the taste of her as our mouths danced and pushed and demanded.
I gripped her hair, tugging her head back, exposing the long expanse of her neck and sending my lips on a journey over her sweet skin. I nipped at her earlobe, licking the juncture between it and her neck before sucking and plundering like I’d wanted to do earlier. She gasped just like she had a decade ago, and my body tightened from head to toe, raw need fueling my movements as I continued the assault of kisses and licks down her neck and back up. I took her mouth again with a savage ferocity I’d never felt, not even with her in those early, tentative days of making love.
A buzzing that kept repeating brought us both back to our senses, but it was McKenna who pulled back first, a shaky hand going to my chest. She was breathless, lips red from my teeth and tongue and beard. I wanted to take that flush and place it all over her entire body with my caresses. I wanted to rediscover every curve and valley and erogenous zone I’d once found.
She turned back to the coffee table and her phone vibrating against the wood. When she read the text, her expression chilled me to the bone. Fear and heartache.
I stepped toward her again. “What’s wrong?”
Her face became the blank slate she was an expert at making, and she shook her head. “Nothing.”
“That wasn’t nothing, McKenna. That was fear. I know fear when I see it.”
She swallowed and looked away.
“Tell me,” I said, the demand in my voice sounding so much like the voice I used on the job that it did the opposite of what I wanted. Instead of easing her mind, it had her lifting her chin in defiance.
“One kiss doesn’t mean you can make demands of me. I don’t owe you any explanations.” She headed for the hallway, and I followed.
“I didn’t mean it that way,” I said. She hesitated, and I continued. “I just meant, I’m here for you. I can help.”
“Unfortunately, at this point, there’s nothing anyone can do, but thanks.”
She didn’t wait for a response. She just ducked into the guest room, shutting the door behind her with a click that rattled through my soul.
I looked up at the ceiling, rubbed my hand over my face, and whispered a quiet, “Fuck.” I didn’t know what to do. Run after her? Force her to tell me the truth? Or let her go even if it risked her feeling like, once again, she hadn’t been enough?
My work phone rang, and I let out another curse before hurrying over to pick it up from the counter.
“Hatley,” I barked into it.
“Sheriff, I think I spotted Sybil hitchhiking toward the West Gears’ headquarters. When I flipped around to go back, she was gone. I passed a beat-up 1970 Charger heading there that she might have gotten into. What do you want me to do?” Bruce Walker was my best deputy. He was older than me by two years but didn’t give a shit about our age difference. There was no hostility about me being in charge. Bruce said he’d never wanted the headache of being sheriff, and there were days I couldn’t blame him.
“Don’t go into the Gears’ headquarters without backup, Bruce. Let me call Sheriff Scully to see how many of us we can pull together. Park near the turnoff to their place until you hear from me. They might just kick her right back out.”
“Will do,” he said and hung up.
I placed the call to Scully, the sheriff of the county over from us, asking for help. Neither of us had a whole lot of manpower, and we backed each other up whenever we could afford to do so.
I looked down the hallway, wondering if I should tell McKenna about Sybil, wondering if I should tell her I was leaving. But I didn’t want Mila waking up to a practical stranger in her house, and McKenna didn’t know Mila’s routine. It would be easier to get someone here. So, instead of going down the hall and knocking on her door, I called the first person I always called—Rianne. If she couldn’t come by, I’d call Mama. And if that didn’t work, one of my siblings would show up. They all had my back when it came to raising my daughter.
