“I’m going to look into her, Kayla. If you know something about her, you should tell me now,” I warn her.
“You’re being paranoid. I promise you, Izzie is a good person. She’s my best friend. And it wouldn’t be right of us to let her stay alone in a hotel when there is plenty of security here,” she presses.
“I agree. Fair enough,” I sigh, giving in.
Reaching for Kayla, I want to pull her into a hug, but she steps away.
“Are you hurt at all?” I ask, feeling the sting of rejection.
“No, um, but I want to check on the twins, so….” She takes another step away from me.
“Go on,” I say quietly.
The problem is that if I can’t blame Izabel for this attempted kidnapping… I have to blame myself. All those years ago, I forced myself to let her go in order to keep her safe. And now I’ve pulled her back into my world, and she’s already at risk.
Half of me wants to run off and start an investigation into her friend right away. The other half feels like it would be a betrayal to Kayla not to trust her. She says she knows her friend. She says she trusts her. Maybe for once I have to put my doubts aside and have faith in what Kayla insists. Besides, I am almost certain I only want to blame Izabel so that I don’t have to blame myself.
And how much worse would it be if the girls were with her when something like this happened?
Kayla disappears upstairs, and I pace the living room. If I can’t protect my wife, then what kind of a man am I? If I can’t protect myfamily…
I can’t sleep. I can’t stop thinking about her. I can’t stop the continuous looping thoughts telling me to go check on her, but then the contesting thoughts tell me to leave her alone because she wants nothing to do with me.
It’s quarter past one in the morning. The house is silent, the kind of silence that weighs on you. Empty silence. The silence I fear will come if I mess all of this up and she takes the girls and leaves.
I will never let that happen.
But something breaks that silence. Footsteps.
I sit up, cocking my head to the side.
Someone is coming downstairs. Standing up, I move to the doorway in the dark, positioned so that I can see who is coming downstairs without them seeing me.
It’s Kayla.
My heart stammers, beating faster.
She’s wearing white shorts edged with lace and a cropped white cami. Her hair is loose over her shoulders, hanging in messy curls down her back. She looks like she might have been asleep, or maybe struggling to sleep.
Kayla walks past me without seeing me and heads into the kitchen.
I follow her.
She flicks on the soft under-cabinet lighting.
“Can’t sleep?” I ask quietly.
She sighs and shakes her head without looking at me. “Not really,” she replies.
“Why do you keep shutting me out, Kayla?” I ask, walking closer to her and leaning on the counter with my arms folded over my chest.
“What?” she snaps. “Josiah, it’s one in the morning. Now can’t be the time for this.”
“When, then? When is the time for it, because I’m getting sick of being pushed away and never having a chance to talk to you,” I complain.
“I’m tired. I’ve had a really long day,” she mutters.
My eyes drift over her. Every perfect piece of her.
