Page 376 of Branded
Of course he did.
He’d always seen too much when I hadn’t wanted him to, but now that he was in my heart, that thoughtfulness, that insightfulness, the fact that he knew each and every part of me was a gift.
“You won’t, sweetheart.” A squeeze of my fingers. “Because you’re not her. I don’t think you ever were—otherwise, you wouldn’t be the woman I know and love.” I inhaled sharply, and his fingers tightened again. “But I also know that you won’t be that girl because Ethan and I are here with you and we have your back, gorgeous.”
I shook my head. “He’s a baby and I’m potentially exposing him to—” Another sharp shake of my head, trying to clear away the past. “I should have left him at home.”
“He needs to be here. Yeah, he’s young,” Cas said when I started to protest. “But he saw how upset you were. He knew that you were rattled. If you’d come without him, if you’d left him at home, then he would have worried all weekend, sweetheart, worried about you because he’s old enough to see that you’re upset. Bringing him, giving him that comfort, at least, was the right call.” He released my hand again to make a turn, and I saw that we were there, that we were pulling into the long, dark driveway that led up to my childhood home. “And I promise you,” he said, slowing in front of the house, “I promise that at the first sign of this going bad, we’re out of there.” A beat, his eyes hitting mine. “All of us.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“And if it goes bad, gorgeous,” he said, pulling to a stop in front of the garage, “you’ll have your answer.”
He saw too much.
Knew too much.
Knew even more than I’d known herself.
Because I had held on to a question, buried deep beneath everything else, for a long, long time.
What if my father had changed?
The house hadn’t changed.
Old leather furniture, the smell of smoke and whiskey. Dark wood and dust in the corners and worn paint covering ancient walls.
Only it was worse than when I’d left.
Because back then I’d been trying to keep the polish on, to make it so that…
My father would love me.
But no one had cared for this place for a long time.
Not the soft-spoken nurse who’d answered the door and then disappeared down the hall to give us privacy, and not my father.
Who was on a big, hospital-grade bed in the middle of the living room.
Looking at me.
I sucked in a breath. He looked old. Six years had passed from when he’d kicked me out of this house, left me with a bag of clothes and toiletries on the snow-covered porch.
That night, I’d walked to Nate’s place.
Who’d delivered another blow.
Then I’d gone to Lake and—my eyes stung—he’d been the one to help me.
But the eyes staring at me weren’t the frozen, angry eyes that had glared at me that night, venom having soaked through the blue irises, turning them ice-cold.
They were…well, I didn’t get a chance to see what they were because then they turned to Cas.
No. To Ethan.
My heart squeezed hard, and I took a protective step toward my still-sleeping son, shifting, putting my body between my father’s gaze and my baby.
And that was when I knew that Cas was right.
