“Did you really think that I was going to stay where I was so that I had to deal with my brothers and cousins dropping in at all hours of the night to interrogate me?” she shot back.
“I wouldn’t say that it was at all hours of the night,” Trevor murmured thoughtfully as she turned her glare on the large bastard that had made it a habit of showing up at her place at two in the morning to raid her fridge and bug the shit out of her.
“You shoved me in a closet and left me there so that you could finish watching the game,” she snapped.
Shrugging it off, Trevor said, “You wouldn’t answer my questions.”
“I don’t have to answer your questions,” Kenzie said, trying to yank her hands free but the damn rope wouldn’t budge.
“You do when you get married and don’t tell any of us about it,” Garrett said, drawing her attention back in time to watch as he got up and headed over to the Christmas tree to help Danny’s baby girl grab a candy cane off the tree.
“Don’t worry,” Jason said, reaching over to shove another bite of brownie in her mouth, “we still love you.”
“Are you going to untie me?” Kenzie demanded, narrowing her eyes on the bastard that looked really pleased with himself.
“Not a chance in hell,” Jason said, finishing off the rest of the brownie as he got up and headed towards the kitchen.
That left…
“This is for your own good,” Trevor said, getting up with a sigh and left her sitting there, struggling to break free and-
“Mikey!” she said, sighing with relief when she spotted her brother’s stepdaughter coming down the stairs.
“Can’t,” Mikey said with a sad shake of her before Kenzie could say anything else.
“What do you mean you can’t? Untie me,” Kenzie said, watching as the small girl that had her brother wrapped around her little finger gave a helpless shrug as she rolled a baseball between her hands.
“Well, I would, but that man,” Mikey said, pausing mid-roll of her ball so that she could point at Reese, who was trying to pull his wife under the mistletoe so that he could steal a kiss, “told me that if I let you go that he would beat me senseless.”
Rolling her eyes, Kenzie said, “He’s not going to beat you.”
“True,” Mikey murmured, pursing her lips up thoughtfully as she added, “but he also won’t give me the twenty bucks that he’d promised me if I made sure that no one untied you.”
Narrowing her eyes on her niece, Kenzie said, “I’ll give you forty.”
“And so will Uncle Jared,” Mikey said, gesturing to her uncle who was currently glaring at his grandson as Cole made a show of finishing off what appeared to be the last cupcake.
“Fifty,” Kenzie bit out.
“Uncle Lucifer already offered that,” Mikey said, nodding towards Kenzie’s brother who was busy rearranging the ornaments on the Christmas tree.
“Fine. What do you want?” Kenzie asked, more than willing to do whatever it took to get out of here before-
“Play catch with me,” Mikey said with a huge smile while Kenzie sat there, unable to look away from the baseball in Mikey’s hands before shifting her attention back to Reese and that scar above his eye that he got the first time that he played catch with Mikey and-
“No, I’m good where I am,” Kenzie said, nodding because she really didn’t feel like spending the night in the hospital.
“Are you sure?” Mikey asked, looking really freaking hopeful.
“Yes, I’m sure,” Kenzie said, licking her lips nervously as she did her best not to wince as she glanced at her brother Darrin and spotted the scar on his temple that he got from Mikey’s curve ball.
“But-” Mikey started to say only to sigh when Sebastian, who’d been hiding in the corner with a book for the past hour, walked over and grabbed Mikey’s hand, pulling her away with a sad shake of his head and a muttered, “She’d never survive your hardball,” that had Mikey pouting as she allowed her best friend to drag her away.
Relieved, Kenzie shifted her attention to her Uncle Shane and Aunt Caylee to find them smiling as they watched their son Devin, who couldn’t seem to stop glaring at the woman that he’d been going out of his way to avoid since they arrived a few hours ago. She really didn’t understand the men in her family sometimes, Kenzie thought as she looked away from Charlie, who was reading to the twins to glance back at her cousin and-
Found herself wondering why the bastard that ruined her life was here.
“I was hoping that I’d find you here,” Roger said, sighing heavily as he sat down next to her.
“Did you sign the divorce papers?” Kenzie asked, because that was the only thing she cared about.
“We’re not getting a divorce,” he said, shaking his head absently as he took in every Bradford in the room who had stopped what they were doing to glare at him.
“Yes, we are,” she bit out, because there was no way in hell that she was going to waste one more year of her life on the man that had nearly destroyed her.
Nodding, Roger absently began to toy with something on his left hand, drawing her attention and-
She felt her stomach drop when she spotted the black wedding band that she’d given him on their wedding day back on his finger. For several minutes, all she could do was sit there, watching as he slowly turned the ring around his finger, something that she used to find endearing. Now all it did was turn her stomach.
Once upon a time, they’d been happy. Truly, unbelievably happy, but that was another lifetime where everything was perfect, she was young, in love, and married to the man of her dreams with a baby on the way. They’d never planned on starting a family that soon, but when she found out that she was pregnant, oh, god, she’d never seen Roger happier. He’d just glowed. There was no other way to describe it.
He wanted to quit medical school and go work for her Uncle Jared, but she wouldn’t let him. He’d worked too hard to get where he was, so they’d compromised. They were going to finally break the news to her family that they were married and move back to Massachusetts so that she wasn’t alone when Roger was stuck in class or work, but…
Life didn’t work out that way.
She still didn’t remember the accident, but that probably was for the best. But she would never forget the look on his face when the doctor told him that she’d lost the baby. He’d shut down on her while her grief had swallowed her whole.
When her family came to get her from the hospital, Roger hadn’t said a word. He’d simply stood there, looking out the window while her father thanked him for looking after her, while she’d laid there, silently pleading with him to say something.
But he didn’t say anything.
Not when they helped her into the wheelchair that was going to take her away and not when she’d said his name. He just stood there. As they rolled her out of the hospital, she’d told herself that he just needed time, just needed to figure this out and that everything was going to be okay, but it wasn’t.
Nothing was okay after that.
She had so many chances to tell her family about the baby and every time that she tried, her grief would swallow her whole. As far as her family knew, she was just depressed because the accident had forced her to drop out of school. They’d told her that everything was going to be okay, but she knew that it wouldn’t.
For the first few months, she’d waited for him, waited for him to come for her, call her, something, but he never did. While he’d buried himself in his studies, switching from plastic surgery to pediatrics and OBGYN, determined to make sure that this never happened to another parent, she’d been mourning the loss of their child alone.
She’d never had the chance to hold Brandon, never got a chance to tell him that she loved him, and she never had the chance to say goodbye and that…
She was never going to be able to get over that.
Forcing herself to go on without her baby or Roger by her side was the hardest thing that she ever had to do. She never
wanted to go through that much pain again and she sure as hell didn’t want to be reminded of it and that’s what he did. Every time she saw him, Kenzie remembered just how much it hurt to lose him and she couldn’t go through it.
Not again.
“Sign the papers,” she said hollowly, forcing herself to look away.
“No.”
“Then why are you here?” Kenzie snapped, wondering why he wouldn’t just let her go.
“I came to tell you something,” he said, turning his head to look at her.
“What’s that?” she asked, wondering when this nightmare would end.
“I’m done waiting.”
Chapter 22
New Year’s Eve
“We want to go to the party, Daddy,”
“We really do,” Dustin said, nodding absently as he paused to select a crayon from the large box that Charlie had given him for Christmas.
“And I really want you to get in your pajamas,” Devin said as he plucked Abbi out of her chair and hung her over his shoulder.
“Why aren’t you going to the party, Daddy?” Abbi asked, sighing heavily as she began to draw shapes on his back with her finger.
“Because I would rather spend New Year’s Eve with you,” he said, wrapping his arm around Abbi’s legs as he reached over and helped Dustin put his crayons away.
As tempted as he was to go to the party tonight, it wasn’t a choice. If he went there would be nothing on this earth that would be able to stop him from pulling Charlie into his arms and that…that was a bad idea.
Christ, just being around her was a bad idea.