Come to Me Softly (Closer to You #2)(67)
Author: A.L. Jackson

I wasn’t fool enough to pretend like I didn’t know why.

The first month back in Phoenix, I dove headfirst into making a life for me and Aly and our baby because I’d had the intense urge to build. To create something good in the chaos that ruled my heart and mind.

If I could just have one goddamned thing in this world that I did right, it’d be me doing right by Aly and our kid.

But it was like as soon as the year flipped, so did I.

I watched the calendar crawl, speed, and blur, dreading for the day to come and begging for it to pass.

All I had to do was get past it.

On its own accord, my hand fisted. The ink on my skin flexed as it burned, the imprint promising me I would never forget.

2006.

In a week and a half, seven years would have passed since the day I stamped out the good, since she’d sucked my soul into the nothingness where she’d forever beg in the bowels of my brain, where she cried out for atonement in the night.

But my spirit had rebelled against those chains. Now I somehow felt as if I was living in the light in the day and running from the darkness at night. Suspended somewhere in between. Fighting as hard as I could for what my heart wanted while my wicked feet took me down those same haunted roads.

But I refused to walk them.

Not a f**king chance.

I just needed to make it through that day and I would be okay.

Out of the corner of her eye, Aly continued to watch me. Worry crested her forehead, her eyes landing on mine almost hesitantly.

I swallowed hard, pushed all of that shit back down where it belonged. A reassuring smile pulled at the side of my mouth, my head tipping with it, letting her know it was all going to be fine.

With a frown, she wavered, before she let her own smile whisper at her mouth. This smile was meant only for me. Her own reassurance. That dose of encouragement that kept me going every f**king day.

Because I was living for this girl.

Slowly, Karen climbed to her feet, standing to take in the warmth of the fire. She seemed to rock as she let her attention pass over the few pictures Aly had added to the mantel. There was a family picture of theirs, all five of them smiling at the camera in a staged cheesy pose. In another, Christopher had his arm slung around Aly’s shoulders when she was all dressed up in her cap and gown to graduate high school. She was already beautiful then, all her childhood days behind her and a woman taking hold.

The truth was, she’d always been beautiful. She’d just affected me differently, made my heart crazy at every age because she’d always belonged to me.

Different, but still the f**king same.

It didn’t take a whole lot to admit my favorite was the grainy one snapped back when Aly had to be the cutest f**king kid around. Her two missing top front teeth weren’t enough to stop the undaunted force of her trusting smile as she grinned right at the camera. Behind her, Christopher was midjump, acting like the monkey the ass**le always was. Off to the side, I stood with my arms crossed over my chest, wearing a knowing smile like I was observing it all.

We were out in our empty field. Happy and free.

And f**k if I didn’t like to be reminded of those days, just the overwhelming heat of the summer sun and the excitement bounding through our veins.

“I remember this day,” Karen murmured. She looked over her shoulder at me. A wistful smile pulled at her mouth, full of sadness and outright affection. “Your mom and I had been sitting out back, listening to you kids play.”

I blanched with the casual mention of her.

Karen slanted an accusatory brow in Christopher’s direction. “I don’t think you all knew that’s where we’d sneak out to when you’d run off to play. We knew we had to keep an ear on you in case you needed us. Christopher was giving Aly a hard time . . . again . . . telling her it was past her naptime and she needed to go home. Of course she was six years old and she hadn’t had a nap in years.”

With a delicate snort, Karen shook her head, glancing at Christopher with a knowing gleam in her eyes. “You were always trying to embarrass your sister. . . . chase her off.” She shifted and pinned me with a look that had me itching, wanting to run and desperate to hear what she had to say all at the same time. “But Jared was always there to stick up for her.”

My hand shook as I roughed it over my head. Why did Karen have to pick a moment like now to bring this up? Audiences weren’t exactly my thing.

But it was like Aly’s entire family had settled into the memory, too.

Christopher chuckled low, but without all the ass**le he usually injected into everything. He cast a repentant smile at his sister.

“You told Christopher to shut it,” Karen continued with a tender laugh, “and it wasn’t Aly who needed a nap but him because he was the one who was always acting like a baby.”

She bit at her trembling lip, fighting some kind of raw emotion. “Your mom climbed onto the storage box we had pushed up against the back fence.” Wistful, she let her gaze travel over us all. “Bet you didn’t know how much we spied on you kids to make sure you were staying out of trouble.” She shook her head and looked back to the picture. “I grabbed my camera and climbed up beside her.”

I swore to God if she started to cry I was going to bolt. I didn’t talk about my mom. Ever. It’d been my rule for years, and it’d been a damn good one. Only one night had I ever faltered, the night I’d ripped myself open and told Aly what happened the day I’d taken it all.

Of course it was Aly.

It’d always been Aly.

But I sure as hell learned my lesson that night. Had gotten my fill of baring my soul. It amounted to no good, just ushered in the torment and shame, flamed the guilt that had chased me out Aly’s door and into the three f**king most miserable months of my desolate life.

Aly had talked about her the night I’d returned, too, spoke secret words about drawing her, about my mom somehow crying out to her.

That was an idea I couldn’t fathom. Refused to. All I knew was Aly’d been the one who’d partnered with fate, that piece of fate that kept me chained to this world, what kept me tied to this girl. That was all I needed. The rest I rejected.

After that, Aly had attempted to bring her up, subtly, tiptoeing around the subject I consistently shut down.

But not Karen.

She just jumped into it like she’d opened the pages of a history book that was meant for everyone to see.

“She was giggling when she asked Aly if she liked playing with you boys or if she wanted to come in and hang out with us girls.”