Page 55 of The Last One You Loved
Fifteen minutes later, I was back in my uniform, and Rianne had let herself in.
“So…I don’t know if she’ll be awake before you get Mila off to school, but I wanted you to know McKenna is in the guest room.”
Rianne’s lips twitched. “I’d heard she was in town, but I didn’t know she was staying with you. I honestly heard you’d pretty much sent her scurrying.”
Heat coasted over my cheeks, thinking of my drunken words.
“Mila doesn’t know they’re related. We haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“What parts have you figured out?” Rianne’s eyes twinkled with humor, and the heat in my face grew.
“It isn’t what you think.” I swallowed hard, thinking of the kiss we’d shared. If McKenna hadn’t pulled away because of her phone, I would have taken it further. We’d be naked and tangled in my bed by now.
Rianne chuckled softly. “Just go. I’ll handle Mila and McKenna both. Stay safe and come back to your daughter.”
My heart clenched.
That was the hardest thing about this job—the idea of something happening to me and leaving Mila without her dad. It would be like hearing her tormented cries that first night. Ripping us apart would be brutal and cruel. She’d never be alone like she’d been when I’d found her, because she’d have my family even if she didn’t have me, but it would never be the same. We had a bond, the two of us. And I wanted to be there to see all her firsts. All her successes. All her joys and sorrows.
I didn’t say anything else because I couldn’t. I just headed for the door with a heavy heart and chest, unsure how to fix them.
CHAPTERNINETEEN
MCKENNA
DREAMED YOU DID
“Ain’t too sure what hurts more
That you didn’t or that I dreamed you did.”
Performed by Jordan Davis
Written by Singleton / Davis / Minor
I scurried into my room,shutting the door with a heart that was clanging fast and furious as much from the raw, torturous kiss that had savaged us as from the recent text from Dr. Gregory. I put my forehead on the door, trying to find the calm I savored, the even keel I needed to get through every day.
The latest nasty message was from yet another unknown number and had been the worst one yet. A huge portion of me had been tempted to tell Maddox, just needing someone to know in case the worst happened—to voice the fact I was getting threats from a vicious man who was making it his mission to destroy me because he no longer had his son at his disposal.
But what could Maddox actually do if I told him? If Dr. Gregory was using burner phones—as I highly suspected because he wasn’t stupid—there would be no way to prove the messages were from him. He would have used cash to buy them. This wasn’t some television show where they’d find a miraculous connection. No, the only path I had was to wait for the investigations by CPS and the hospital to work themselves out.
I stripped down to my underwear and the tank top I had on beneath my sweater and crawled into bed. I touched my lips, feeling again the stunning kiss that had destroyed not only every memory of any kiss by another man but also the memories of Maddox’s kisses from our teen years. This kiss had been full of primal emotions, as if our bodies had been yearning for years to be rejoined, and when we’d collided again, a fire had ignited around us.
That bruised sensation I’d been feeling since arriving remained. My heart felt wrung out and yet still full of emotions all at the same time.
I pictured Maddox’s face as he’d told me about finding Mila. He’d fallen in love with my sister the moment he’d picked her up, and it sounded like she’d fallen for him as well. She hadn’t let anyone take her from him without screaming. She must have been able to sense he would protect her, like he’d always tried to protect me.
It took me hours to fall asleep, and when I finally did, I dreamed of Maddox, his hands, his lips, and forgiveness. I dreamed we were together, lost in beautiful moments that felt so safe and so peaceful that I didn’t know if I was actually alive or if I’d found heaven. It was harsh and painful to come awake and find myself alone in my bed with all the same problems hanging over me that had been there the day before. I hated it. I wanted to go back to those blissful moments and forget the world.
Instead, I pulled myself from the covers and headed into the guest bath, showering and changing into jeans and a blue sweater. I’d have to do laundry soon because I was already running out of clothes. I stared in the mirror for way too long, contemplating what to say to Maddox when I saw him again. Last night, when I’d come to the room, I thought the kiss had been a mistake. It had just been pent-up emotions we’d both needed to express and had burst from us through lips and hands. But after the dream…
After the dream, I wanted heaven again.
I left the room hesitantly. The air was filled with the scent of coffee and cinnamon and the sound of little-girl giggles. It tugged at my heart, and I found myself once again wishing for things I’d never wanted until I’d stepped back into Willow Creek.
When I rounded the corner to the kitchen, I found Mila sitting on a stool at the island. Her hair was done in two long French braids, and she was wearing a sweater, jeans, and rain boots she was pounding against the cabinet as she swung her feet. She was laughing at the person on the other side—a person who tugged at my memories but who I couldn’t quite place and was definitely not Maddox.
“There she is. Good morning,” the woman said. She was an older woman with dark-brown skin, maybe in her seventies, with wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, and gray in her thick black hair partially hidden below a wrap covered in cartoon turkeys.
