Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(29)

Maybe bigger.

This was Ollie, we were talking about.

My great big world.

He had taken that world from me for so long, and now I felt as if I was stumbling through it in the darkness.

I chose not to tell my sister any of those things. She didn’t need to be fretting over me when she had her family to care for. To worry for.

The important things in life.

She glanced over at me as she started to make gravy in a skillet. I wasn’t joking when I said I’d come around here diggin’ up dinner. My baby sister knew how to cook. “Mama is so happy you’re getting ready to graduate.”

My chest tightened with a smidge of pride. “She’s always worrying about me. I think she keeps forgetting I’m thirty.”

Sammie laughed under her breath. “That’s because Mama thinks she’s still thirty.”

Standing at the stove, she looked back at me, concern in her eyes. “I’m worried about how she’s handling Gramma falling ill, moving in with her to be her full-time caretaker. That’s gotta be hard, seeing her own mama like that.”

So many emotions raced through me at the thought, I didn’t know how to make sense of them.

My grandma who’d always been so alive and strong.

The summers we’d spent running in and out of her house, the screen door slamming shut as we came and went.

“It has to be the hardest thing any of us ever go through, watching our mother’s fall ill. God, I can’t stand seeing it with Gramma. Every time I go over there, it breaks my heart a little more.”

She nodded through the somberness of it. That cycle of life we’d give anything to stop but never could. It didn’t matter how old my gramma was, my mama, my sister. There’d never be a time when I didn’t want to cling to them forever.

“At least Uncle Todd is back in town to help around the house. That will hopefully take away some of the stress,” I said.

From behind, Sammie’s spine stiffened, and I could have sworn I saw her knees sway, losing balance.

“Sammie . . . you okay?”

She nodded. “Of course. Just . . . hate the thought of Gramma being sick.”

Just then, the speaker on the baby monitor crackled. A tiny, rattling cry came through, and I slid off the counter. “Let me get her.”

“That’d be nice,” Sammie said with a gracious smile, though I couldn’t shake the feeling something was suddenly off.

I headed down the hall and eased open the door to Penelope’s room, which was adorable with its hearts and elephants everywhere.

My chest filled.

So full.

Almost too full.

The feeling only came stronger as I looked down at my niece, who was flailing one fist while trying to shove the other into her tiny mouth. Somehow, she had kicked free of the blanket and was wiggling around, making the sweetest sounds.

I couldn’t help but echo them back. “Hey, Angel,” I whispered, scooping her into my arms. “How’s my sweet, sweet girl? Auntie Nik has been missing you.”

I hugged her to my chest and kissed the top of her head, whispering against her crown. “So much.”

She cooed, scratched her sharp little nails in my chin as she fisted at my skin.

Was it wrong the little thing made me ache?

It wasn’t like I was old. But I still felt that time slipping away. A piece of me missing that I’d always assumed would just be there one day.

I could swill wine with my friends and laugh all my nights away. Give back the best I could, live and embrace who I was.

I’d be happy.

That didn’t mean something wouldn’t be missing.

Maybe it only seemed fitting it was tucked right down in that place with all those pieces that’d gone missing long ago.

“Nik?”

I startled with my sister’s voice coming from behind me.

I spun around to find her standing in the doorway. There was something mournful in her expression. As if she’d just heard every single one of my thoughts as if I’d said them aloud.

Or maybe I just saw it projected back, her face like a picture of mine.

I pasted on a thin smile. “She’s so beautiful, Sammie. If I were you, I’d want to sit and rock her all day, too.”

Sammie gazed at her daughter. “It’s funny, just looking at her makes me believe the world could be a better place.”

Hugging the tiny thing to me, I kissed her temple.

And I believed it, too.



Outside of my sister’s house, I sat in the driver’s side seat of my car in the darkness, holding the card Seth had given me between my fingers. With a shaky hand, I dialed the number.

Two rings later, a scratchy voice came on the line. “Hello?”

“Seth . . . it’s Nikki.”

“Are you okay?” he rushed.

I sucked in a breath, eyes darting through the windows, searching the shadows.

The feeling of being watched sent chills crawling across my skin.

No question, I was being paranoid, but I couldn’t seem to stop the dread clinging to me.

I just couldn’t take the risk.

“Yeah. I’m fine. I just . . . I have something I need to tell you, but I need you to promise you won’t tell Ollie.”





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