Lead Me Home (Fight for Me #3)(82)

Had taken all I had to peel myself away from her sleeping form when my phone had lit up with a string of texts, Rex prodding me out of that place that had become a sanctuary.

“About time, man,” he said with a harsh shake of his head.

Didn’t even know if I should deny it or play dumb.

He was right.

It was about time.

“So, what changed?” he attempted, stealing a glimpse at me before he looked back out through the windshield.

Trees hugged the narrow road, whooshing by as he wound deeper into the area where the woods became dense, giving way to the tall, thin, spindly trees that made up the forest that surrounded the lake and river.

“Not sure what you mean.”

Deflecting.

Sometimes that was all I had because I didn’t think I had an answer for that.

“Are you kidding me?” Rex laughed an incredulous sound and gave a harsh shake of his head. “You’ve been tiptoeing around this thing with Nikki for years. Don’t act like you haven’t wanted her all this time. Second she’d walked into the room, your spine would go stiff. Willing to put down bets your dick did, too.”

I rubbed my hand down my beard, taunting him. “Looking at my dick now?”

“You wish, asshole. They don’t make glasses that thick.”

“Now who’s wishing?” I tossed back.

Both of us laughed for a second before we fell into silence.

“Seriously,” he prodded, “what changed?”

Could feel him pushing, edging me a direction I wasn’t sure I was ready to go.

I blinked through the protective anger that wound back through me when I really evaluated it.

Yeah.

I’d felt something coming.

Something wicked and dark.

But there’d been a tipping point.

“Finding her apartment that way . . . knowing she could have been in danger . . . that someone might have hurt her?”

My teeth ground so hard I could hear my jaw popping in my ears. “It . . . brought everything crashing down. Turns out the punk had been leaving notes on her car, too. Just the idea of someone hurting her made me want to hunt down any fucker who even looked at her wrong and silence that threat forever. I guess that was the moment I realized I could no longer stand the thought of her being anywhere else than with me.”

He blew out a strained breath. “So, this wasn’t you pulling any of that one-night bullshit? You know Nikki doesn’t deserve that, and you know she wants more than that.”

He slowed and took a right onto the bumpy dirt road that wound down the hill.

The glittering river stretched out below us, trees reaching for the sky like they were offering up prayers to the sun.

In the distance, the roofs of the old buildings jutted up through the cover of the branches, a reminder that this area had once not been so desolate.

My chest clutched when we wound around a corner that opened to a field of purple blazing stars that swayed in the breeze. A million memories slammed me. One after one.

“This way.”

“Follow me.”

“We’ll be together forever.”

Sydney’s sweet voice as she’d run and explored and looked at the world with so much wonder in her eyes. Nikki and I in tow.

I pushed out a sigh. “Why do you think I’ve been ignoring it for so long? Last thing I want to do is hurt her. Makes me insane to hold something so precious and know that, chances are, in the end, I’m going to crush it in my hands.”

“And why would you do that?” Wasn’t so much of a question as a challenge.

I looked out over the landscape. “Men are prone to destroying beautiful things.”

He swallowed hard. “Maybe. Unless they finally open their damned eyes and see that beauty for what it’s worth. Make the choice to build it up. Protect it and keep it.”

Unease wound through me, and I swore my throat was closing tight.

Didn’t want to go there.

But Nikki deserved for me to.

To stop fucking hiding.

“What happens when you want to protect it and fail anyway?” It was a wheeze I forced out. My inadequacy a glaring defeat.

Rex came to a stop in a small clearing that had been made.

Equipment and machinery had already been delivered and was set up within a temporary chain-link fence as they prepared for construction.

He hesitated for a moment, squeezing the wheel, staring out the windshield to the splintered wood and crumbling stone of the weathered building. “We do our best, Ollie. We live and we love. We cherish and we hold.”

He killed the engine, set his hand on the latch, and looked over at me. “We fight with everything we have, even when we know we might lose.”

He clicked open the door. “We do it because we can’t do anything else. Because we love so hard, loving is the only thing we can do. Rynna and my kids? I love them so damned much, Ollie. With every single thing I have. Never thought I’d get that chance, and I’d be nothing but a bastard and a fool not to recognize it.”

His message slammed me on all sides. Pointed and demanding. Forcing me to evaluate the way I’d been living.

He climbed out and moved toward the bank of the river, staring out over it. I got out and followed.

“Do you remember playing here? Growing up? Running wild?” There was something somber in his tone.