For me to come tumbling back down to reality.
To the truth of who I was. To my responsibilities.
I edged back, fighting the dread that spiked like barbs at the base of my throat.
“Shit.” I shook my head, trying to orient myself. To rip myself from her body. I stepped back, my body still raging, barely able to look at her after the shit I’d just pulled.
Rynna reached for me with a trembling hand. “Rex...”
How was it possible that I saw understanding flash through her expression?
“I’m so fucking sorry, Rynna. God, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing.”
Rynna resituated her clothing, stepping back out onto the walkway, all lit up in the new day laying siege to the summer sky. For a moment, she just stared back at me. That energy flickered in the air. The softest smile rimmed her mouth. “You don’t have to be.”
Then she turned and crossed the street while I stood there like a fool, staring at the spot she’d just left vacant.
I guessed maybe that was what I’d always been.
A fool.
Shaking myself off, I rushed back up the steps and inside.
“Daddy.” The tiny cry filtered down the hall, and I reined in all the emotions and locked them there where they belonged.
Because just like I’d told Kale, I only needed one girl in my life.
And right then?
My girl needed me.
* * *
The doorbell rang. The words to the book I’d been reading Frankie trailed off. Instantly, my breaths turned shallow, my heart skyrocketing with a boom.
God. I really had lost it, my mind and body still reeling from whatever the fuck it was I’d thought I was doing earlier this morning when I’d had Rynna up against my truck.
I’d resisted for years.
And it was the girl next door who’d become irresistible.
Guilt welled in the deepest parts of me. In those sacred places I’d just desecrated.
I shifted where I was propped up on the headboard of Frankie’s bed with the book lifted out in front of us. My daughter was sprawled halfway across my chest, her head twisted to the side so she could see the pictures.
I’d basically been there all day, alternating between reading her stories, checking her temperature, and watching her sleep.
“Who’s that?” she whispered. Those brown eyes lit with a flash of excitement, promising me whatever sickness she’d been suffering from had finally begun to run its course.
“Not sure. You expecting a party or something?” I teased, tapping my index finger against her button nose, trying to pretend like the mere idea of Rynna standing on the other side of the door didn’t have me in knots.
She scrunched that nose with the cutest grin. “People aren’t suppose to gets a party just for feelin’ better, silly.”
“No?” I feigned ignorance.
“No way! Only prize people gets for feelin’ better is having to go backs to work.”
Laughter shot from my mouth in the same second affection stabbed me in the chest, so deep I thought it might cut me in two. But that was the thing about loving Frankie Leigh.
