I needed to get my shit together. Lake had a daughter. She could be married or have a significant other in her life for all I knew. Her being with someone else felt like a knife to my chest, but I had walked away, so it was my own fault.
“What the hell is happening to this tool?” Gyth asked, drawing my attention solely his way.
Kace laughed. “Isn’t it obvious, you big buffoon?” He smacked Gyth on the shoulder.
“Watch it, dumbfuck,” the big man replied.
Even with my mind spinning with the reality that Lake was standing just feet away from me after so many years, I couldn’t help but laugh at my crazy group of friends. As the guys kept talking, my gaze turned back to the woman who’d never left my mind since the day I walked away.
I watched as Lake and her daughter were greeted like long lost friends by the group of women. Knowing how that felt because they had treated me the same way, I wondered how the duo was going to take it all in. For me, I’d been a bit overwhelmed at first, but it had also felt damn good.
The crazy bunch of men, women, and children were a found family. One I didn’t realize I needed, but that I quickly became aware I not only did need, but also wanted. Losing my mother to cancer as a young child, then my father shortly after I joined the military, and also walking away from Lake—the latter being completely my fault—I’d lost the three most special people in my life.
My family was gone.
And even though I had some relatives out there, they didn’t live close, and we didn’t keep in touch. I’d made some great friends, ones that were like brothers to me, in the military. But it was when I’d come home and become a cop that some tight bonds had been made. Lyric especially, and with Lyric, the whole group of people he’d introduced me to.
The same group that surrounded Lake as I approached with the guys, turmoil swimming in my gut.
Even though Ruby thought Lake might be a single mom, I found myself glancing at her ring finger in search of confirmation.No ring.I wasn’t sure why it was important or even my business but I couldn’t stop the question bombarding me since finding out it was her that took care of me when I got shot. Something that when I’d woken from surgery, I’d thought had all been a dream.
Introductions were made and then it came to Lake and me. Sticking out my hand like an idiot as if we were meeting for the first time rather than knowing her all her life, I wasn’t prepared for the jolt that slipped up my arm at her touch. And sure wasn’t ready to hear that Lake may need help and was in danger.
Before I could get a handle on the protective beast rising inside of me, Lake had her daughter and was running toward her car.
It was her turn to walk away from me but I couldn’t let her.
I was in pursuit within seconds.
I owedthe big doe-eyed angel big time.
Stormi, very wise beyond her years, had talked her mother into not only going back to the party, but listening to my apology with the intent on forgiving me. While Lake had agreed with her daughter, I had no notion that our past was water under the bridge and that was true. But for her child’s sake she relented for a moment.
I had my work cut out for me if I truly wanted forgiveness.
Did I want Lake back in my life? Truth was, I had always wanted her with me, but I’d fucked up. When I realized just how badly, so much time had passed. I was a different person after the death of my father and the things I’d seen overseas in the military. I didn’t think it was fair to go back to try and grovel.
A small hand slid into mine, abruptly yanking me from my thoughts. Some foreign feeling trickled through my body. Sure there was surprise and a dose of nerves, but there was longing, a nostalgic feeling that had me perplexed.
Stormi grabbed her mother’s hand as well and pulled us back to the party. As we moved into the backyard Embry and the other kids came running up to us.
“You’re back,” Embry said. “You want to play with us now? I promise I’ll watch out for you and it will be okay.”
When I looked at Lake, her eyes misty with unshed tears, and then down at Stormi who lit up like the fireworks we’d be settingoff later that evening, a warmth settled inside me. These two girls were capable of stealing my heart in a nanosecond.
Hell, Lake always had my heart but her daughter was about to snatch it up too.
How did these feelings come on so fast? If Lake had a man in her life, I was just setting myself up for disappointment.
Stormi pulled her hands free from her mother and me. “I want to play.” Her smile was radiant and her big, brown orbs sparkled with flecks of gold. Then she ran off.
“Be careful,” Lake called out to her with a worried look on her face.
My hand reached out and this time, unlike at the car, I let it come to rest on her upper arm. “She’ll be okay.”
“She’s my world,” Lake whispered. “She’s all I’ve got.”
Guilt and hope hit me like a freight train, both battling for the win.
