Her eyes slide my way and I can see the glimmer of tears. “Because if I had, you would have been so nice to me, even as you told me that you didn’t feel the same. I couldn’t risk that. Couldn’t bear to feel like I was some…plus one. Like I didn’t matter unless it had something to do with my brother. You didn’t care for me and we both know that.”
“I did care for you, Kinsey. I cared a lot. If you had given me a chance we might have been good together.”
“Karter wouldn’t have liked that. And really? If I had stayed and we dated, what do you really think would have happened? Because I think we would have managed it for a month, maybe two. And then we would have broken up and the awkwardness between us would have buried all our feelings and broken my brother. He never would have looked at either of us the same.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do,” she insists and I can see the sparkle of her gray eyes in the dim light. “Karter was not going to be okay with us dating. Ever.”
“So maybe you could have come to me and told me the truth. Trusted me to do what needed to be done instead of just taking off like a child.”
She shrinks in on herself. “Yeah,” she whispers. “I could have. And then I wouldn’t have met my husband and wouldn’t have the two beautiful children that I do. Sometimes things just work out the way they’re supposed to.”
“And how do you see this going now? We’re both older and wiser. I still…care for you.”
“Good. I have feelings for you too.”
“But you can’t move past the way you’re feeling right now. Like you’ve messed up your life and his.”
“I don’t…know.”
I sit up and then move to my feet, each moment measured and sure. Even though I don’t feel sure. I feel a little broken inside.
I step up to her and my hand touches her shoulder, then lifts to touch her jaw, holding it gently between my thumb and forefinger. Her skin is like silk in my hands and I rub it softly, gently.
I close my eyes. “I wish I’d known. I never would have let you leave.”
Her dark silver gaze turns to me. “I had to. It was for the best.”
My head shakes. “Never. Losing you has never been for the best.”
I lean in and my lips touch hers and wild hunger rises in me, welling up and burying my senses in a tornado of longing and love. Our lips cling together and I can taste the salt of her tears on my tongue. Feel the heartbreak decades have hidden from view.
Breaking away from me, she jogs up the stairs and I stand there, the shifting play of colored lights like a maelstrom, a backdrop to the shifting feelings in my heart.
A door closes upstairs and I lean against the wall, my eyes lost in the past, searching for a way to make this right. A way to move forward, to have the one thing I never thought I’d have.
A woman’s love.
CHAPTER 9
Kinsey
“Kins…hey, wake up, baby.”
My eyes slowly open and I blink them ruthlessly, struggling to pull myself out of the ridiculous dreams that have plagued me all night.
Dawn colors the sky outside the windows, pale watery light that barely seems to filter through the blinds.
“Landon? What are you doing?” His face hovers over me and the smile that he shoots me…well, it breaks a little something inside of me.
“I’m showing you what should have happened. I should have chosen you. It’s always been you.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask hoarsely, shoving my hair out of my eyes.
“I didn’t know it because you were so much younger than us, but I’ve been waiting my whole life for you, Kins. No other woman was ever going to do. I met perfection a long time ago and I just wasn’t willing to settle.”
Sitting up, I study him standing there, his gloved hands holding out my coat.
