His to Take (Wicked Lovers #9)(105)
Author: Shayla Black

Bailey’s heart broke for the little boy who had idolized his fallen dad. In some ways, she’d been lucky to be too young to truly remember the family that had been taken from her. The memories she’d recovered earlier today had been the first to make her feel any connection to the Aslanovs. She’d realized that they’d truly loved one another. She’d experienced her first sense of loss for no longer having them in her life.

Joaquin remembered every moment of his heartache. She reached out to caress his shoulder and kiss the corner of his lips. He tasted faintly of pepperoni. She met his stare, certain that her expression would tell him that he’d become her moon and her stars.

Bailey held her breath, wondering if he’d try to disconnect. Was their intimacy now simply too much for him to handle? To her shock, he leaned in closer and layered his mouth over hers softly, lingering for a long minute.

“You’re easy to talk to, even about my dad. You understand.”

“I do. You loved him. The loss was difficult.”

He shrugged. “You lost a lot more. Today seemed really hard on you. I’m so proud of you for pushing through. So many memories rushed back to you. Were you surprised?”

“Completely. But it was as if driving up to the little farmhouse unlocked some key in my head. The dreams I’d had for so long merged with the actual memories I’d hidden away. Suddenly, I had all the pieces of the puzzle. I didn’t expect that.”

“I think a lot of people would have just lost it at that point. But you didn’t dissolve into tears, just soldiered on.”

“I’ve got to. If I want a future, then I have to dig all this up. So . . . I guess we need to try to figure out where the rhyme Viktor taught me might be referring to. I wish he’d put something in the words themselves to give me a clue.”

“What he gave you was already a lot for a five-year-old to remember. He had to have known that. Do you remember if he sang that rhyme to you all your life? Or do you remember when he taught it to you?”

Nipping at her lip, Bailey considered the question. “I remember he sang it a lot the night before all the bad stuff. That morning, too.” She frowned, trying to sharpen fuzzy memories, but it was like looking at a series of snapshots or short home movies depicting various moments. “When we sang the song those last few hours, I already knew it. I remember being excited to show him how well I remembered it.”

“So it wasn’t completely new?” Joaquin leaned closer to her. As he propped his arm over his bent knee, the blanket barely covered his hair-dusted thighs and his cock pooling low in the space between his legs.

Bailey tried not to be distracted, but he was so gorgeous, so male, it was impossible.

“No.” She managed to drag her thoughts into the conversation—mostly by jerking her stare down to the piece of cooling pizza in her hand.

“Do you remember if he took you anywhere before that? Do you remember a time when he might have shown you the dock or the painted fence? Or ever demonstrated how to find the ‘mouse’ he talked about?”

Wasn’t that the question of a lifetime—literally? She blew out a breath and set her half-eaten slice of pie back in the box. Closing her eyes, she tried to think back, grab any memory that snagged her attention. They seemed awfully random. Mikhail putting a little toy truck down the toilet and clogging up the plumbing. Annika trying to help their mother cook and burning her hand on hot grease, requiring a trip to the emergency room. Her mother complaining about having to stay in a tent on a camping trip . . .

“That’s it!” She sat up and blinked Joaquin’s way in excitement. “We went camping. I don’t know exactly when or where, but I remember my dad getting this idea that we needed a family vacation and packing everyone up in the car suddenly. My mother wasn’t the sort to ‘rough it,’ but Viktor wouldn’t hear of hotels on an outdoor excursion, so we bought a tent and took it from location to location. It wasn’t ridiculously hot or cold, so I’m guessing it was either spring or fall.” She tried to latch on to one of the memories swirling through her brain. “I think fall. I remember looking at big golden leaves at one of our campsites. Anyway, one morning, my dad took me fishing. I remember it now because my brother wanted to go and threw a hissy that my dad wouldn’t take him.”

“What else do you remember?”

She bit her lip. “We went to a lake, maybe.” Bailey shook her head, wishing the details weren’t so fuzzy. “We parked and got out. I remember being excited to be alone with my dad. That almost never happened. But then when he opened the back of the car, he didn’t have any fishing equipment, just a shovel.” The memory became sharper, and she sank into it, recalling more. “I was confused by that. When I asked, Viktor said he wanted to play a game instead.” The last of the recollection buzzed through her brain, almost knocking the breath from her lungs. “He wanted to hide something and show me how to find it. Oh my goodness . . .”