Awareness filled his expression. Clearly, the man knew exactly what I was asking. Words faltered on his lips before he got a distant look on his face.
When he finally spoke, his confession was hoarse and choppy. “I think we need to go back to what I used to want, Hope. Not yesterday and not a year ago.”
He grimaced in pain. “But ten years ago? I’d pictured that by now, I’d be married. Have a horde of kids who’d come running out of the house to meet me at the end of the day.”
A sad smile kicked at the corner of his mouth, and his voice turned wistful, as if he were lost to the image in his mind. “They’d be shouting ‘Daddy’ and tugging at my pant legs and driving me crazy in the best of ways.”
He swallowed hard, his gaze filled with longing when he set the sincerity of those eyes back on me. “I thought I’d have a wife, who’d be waiting on the porch after her own long day, and we’d meet in the middle. Our lives would be chaotic and busy, but they’d be perfect because we were living for the right things.”
A tremor ran his thick throat. “Then that picture was shattered. And it destroyed something in me. From the day I lost her, I thought I’d be going my life alone. And I was okay with that.”
No longer was his gaze distant, but he was right there, with me. “That lonely picture remained the same until the day I met you.”
My heart pressed and thrummed and battered at my chest.
Agony.
The words caught, and I had to force them from my lips. “You know I can’t give you that . . . a horde of kids.”
He blinked in confusion. It only took a second for the man to come to understanding, and I thought maybe it was anger that flashed through his features. “I know what his records say, Hope. They don’t know where his disorder stems from.”
I blinked my own tears. “And you know I can’t take that risk.”
He rolled me to my back and propped himself on an elbow, staring down at me as he wound a lock of my hair around his forefinger. “And if you knew . . . what would you want?”
Wetness seeped from the corners of my eyes. “I’d always dreamed of a big family . . . but Evan will always, always be enough for me.”
His smile turned tender. “You think the two of you aren’t enough? You two are more than enough. So much more. Which means I can’t help but want to give you everything.”
Dreams and faith. They spun around me, wrapping me whole.
Because to Dane, Evan and I had never been enough.
And I swore, right then, Kale Bryant had become everything I needed.
24
Kale
I glanced at her from the corner of my eye.
Sitting in the front seat of my car like she’d been meant for that spot.
My chest clenched in an almost painful way. Reverberating with a deep-rooted sort of pleasure. The kind that promised it might last forever and, still, you were terrified of letting it slip through your fingers.
That didn’t mean my muscles weren’t knotted in anticipation.
I was heading in a direction I’d never gone. Taking a girl to hang out with my friends, who I considered family.
I’d asked Hope and Evan to go to Rex’s with me for a barbeque.
Not since Melody had I invited someone into our intimate circle, and even then, she’d only hung out with them once or twice because I was attending medical school in Birmingham.
That was where I’d met her.
Where I’d lost her.
I clamped down on the morbid thoughts that threatened to rise from that dark place inside me and, instead, focused on Evan, who was bouncing with excitement in the backseat, his smile bright as he strained to see out the windows.
Funny how all those questions and what-ifs were rambling around me, and I still felt completely at peace.
It was like that frantic lust and greed and want that had flamed inside me since I’d met Hope had become aware that feeling was actually an everlasting need.
An undying devotion.
And it wasn’t ever going to go away.
I felt the weight of her questioning stare burning into the side of my face. I took a right-hand turn, and I let myself peek over at her for a second as I accelerated down the road.
Fuck.
She was gorgeous.
So goddamned gorgeous.
All that red hair aflame, a halo of fire where it was lit up in the streaks of light that blazed through the passenger window.
Body tight and skin soft. Pale with that smattering of freckles.
Like she was sprinkled in some kind of fairy dust and she held her own special brand of magic.
Enchanting.
Entrancing.
That was what she was.
“What?” I asked, word scraping from my throat.