She poured us two more drinks before she sat down again. “It hurts in a way you can’t even put into words because we love differently here. We live differently. So our grief is deeper, more violent, it can eat you from the inside out. But we don’t try to mask it and get on with our lives. ” She leaned back, sipping her drink. “You’re too good of a mom to let this shit eat up you up entirely. You’ll grit your teeth and get through it for those kids. But you’re really gonna try to keep yourself the grieving widow for life?”
I sipped my own drink, needing the burn of the booze to take away the sting of the truth. “I’m betraying him somehow,” I confessed, voice quiet. “I know it doesn’t make sense. Maybe I feel this way because I don’t want to let him go. I don’t want him to be dead. Because if he isn’t really dead, in my mind, being with someone else, feeling anything for someone else, is cheating.” I looked at her. “In order to be with Kace, I first have to bury my husband, truly put him to rest. I have to feel all of that pain. I’m not strong enough for that.”
“No, baby. You’re not weak enough to believe that,” Evie countered. “We both know you buried your husband almost two years ago now. He’s gone.”
She was right. Ranger was gone.
It was well past time for me to understand that.Chapter 21“Did you have a good time with Evie, baby?” Kace murmured.
We were in bed. He’d waited up for me, because he was Kace. Also, I guessed, because he felt the threat wasn’t gone. Though I doubted whoever was doing this would wait this long between... attacks? If someone really wanted me dead, they would’ve tried a lot harder. Maybe they’d been scared off. Decided I wasn’t worth the effort.
Of course neither Kace nor the club were going to be taking any risks. So the two prospects had followed me home and walked me to my front door, which Kace had opened before we even got to it.
He’d left the porch light on.
The house was dark and quiet inside when I arrived, the kids asleep, Kace’s laptop on the coffee table, a glass of tequila beside it. Kace wasn’t a huge drinker, he enjoyed having a few beers with me, but never in excess. I’d never seen him drunk. Or tipsy. He occasionally had one glass of tequila at home. Maybe two. No more. Especially when he had the kids to look after. I wondered if it was because he always wanted to be prepared to jump on his bike at the sign of trouble or drama.
Surely, he was expecting it, surely his brothers had updated him on all of the chaos that befell the club in previous years.
Someone cutting my brakes and putting a bunch of snakes in my underwear drawer was slightly chaotic, sure. But it was small potatoes compared to what the Sons of Templar had been through.
As soon as the door was closed, locked and the alarm was set, I was in Kace’s arms. His mouth on mine, his violent need palpable. He carried me to the bedroom, where he did glorious things to me. Things that made me forget my own name.
It was only after I got my breathing under control, managed to stumble to the bathroom to clean up and brush my teeth, did Kace ask the question about my night.
“Yeah, it was... reassuring, I guess,” I replied, voice husky.
“Reassuring?” he repeated. His hand was drawing lazy circles on my back.
“Yeah, with everything going on.”
“I’m guessing you mean me and you, not the faceless killer looking to end you?” he questioned dryly.
It was a point of contention between us, that I wasn’t taking the threat seriously. Or that’s how he saw it. I saw it as carrying on with my life and not letting some nameless, faceless asshole ruin a life that I was just figuring out how to put back together.
“What did you need reassuring with about us?” he asked. I knew Kace wasn’t pissed about me talking to someone else about us. About the fact I needed reassuring. He accepted that I couldn’t dive into this with the same confidence he had.
“You’re young,” I answered honestly.
He grinned, in that wicked way that he had. “Noticed that, did you?”
I pursed my lips against the effect that grin had on my thighs, and in between them. “I did. Noticed that you’re young. That you’re good with kids. That you are great with them. And you don’t have any kids.”
“Not that I know of.”
I scowled at him. “Do you want them?”
His eyes darkened ever so slightly. He understood what I meant. And he didn’t answer straight away. No more quick quips, no more teasing tone. “I mean... yeah. My lifestyle doesn’t really accommodate kids. But I figured I’d meet the right woman, it would all fit into place and I’d become a dad.”