Show Me the Way (Fight for Me #1)(60)

“I missed you,” I whispered into the mess of hair on her head. I held her to me a little closer, and Frankie wrapped those tiny arms around my neck, the force of her smile touching me even when I couldn’t see her face.

“I misses you, too, Daddy! But mes and Grammy had so much fun. She lets me do my very own skupture, right, Grammy?” She wiggled out of my tight hold, shifting in my arms to look back at my mom, who was standing at her usual place in the threshold and grinning back at us.

“A sculpture?” I clarified as I carried Frankie up the sidewalk.

“Uh-huh.”

“And what did you sculpt?” I asked.

Those brown eyes widened like I was clueless. “A puppy, silly. I told you I wants a puppy so, so bad. Oh, Daddy, can I? Can I have a puppy? I’ll be the best puppy mommy ever!”

A pang hit me hard.

Cutting me deep.

I fought against it, the memories threatening just at the cusp of my consciousness. Since Rynna had come into my life, it felt like everything was right there, trembling beneath my nose, begging to be exposed.

The thought of Missy still killed me, finding my girl dead at the side of the road on the same damned day my wife had left me. I’d had that dog since before I’d lost Sydney, and she’d been my solace, a reason to live when I hadn’t wanted to go on.

But life was brutal that way.

Threatening to take everything in one fell swoop.

If what happened with Sydney hadn’t been enough to make me ridiculously overprotective of Frankie, desperate to keep her safe, the cruelty of that day had solidified it.

I shoved the thoughts down and softened my voice. “Still don’t think that’s the best idea right now, Frankie.”

“When’s a good time?”

“Now we’re sculpting?” I asked when I got within a couple feet of my mom, praying it’d distract Frankie from demanding an answer to that question.

“We dabble in all the art forms, don’t we, Sweet Pea Frankie Leigh? Call us multitalented. Just like your daddy.” Mom ruffled her fingers through my daughter’s hair. There was so much affection in her gaze when she looked at us both, I couldn’t help the surge of love that went crashing through my senses. It was like something inside me had been unlocked, and every sort of emotion I’d tried to keep repressed billowed out without my permission.

The love.

The longing.

The fear.

The regret.

Rynna’s face glided through my consciousness, her touch a faint whisper across my skin, breathing all that beauty and life.

Stirrings of hope shook through me like tremors of warning. Like quivers that staked deeper, demanding more. The ground shifted between the two extremes. Tossing me back and forth with no idea which was going to send me stumbling straight into a free fall.

Guilt throbbed, urging me to take heed of that distorted sense of loyalty. Thing was, I was having a harder and harder time remembering just what I was supposed to be loyal to.

Mom’s head tilted as she studied my face. Saw the second she came to a conclusion, because her brow lifted in a slow, knowing arch. “You have a good time last night?”

I tried to form a quick lie, but it wouldn’t come fast enough. Not before my mom latched on to something in my expression that sent her mouth curling into satisfaction.

“Ahh, I see,” she said. “Looks like you had a really good time last night.”

How the woman still had the power to send a rush of embarrassment flooding my face, I didn’t know. But there I stood like a twelve-year-old kid who was trying to come up with an excuse for his mom finding his dirty magazine stash under his bed.

“Ma,” I said with a huff of a breath as I set my daughter on her feet. The kid wobbled in those ridiculous shoes.

Shit. I felt guilty for even holding her when I was suddenly belted with a thousand memories from last night.

Rynna.

Fucking Rynna.

Little Thief.

Guessed the woman conquering my body wasn’t all that unexpected. But it was the way she’d taken hostage of my mind that was close to sending me into a tailspin. The way she’d stolen a place for herself inside me. A place I didn’t think it was possible for her to keep.

For years, I’d never been tempted. Had never given in, because I knew what I was living for. The reason for every beat of my heart. My gaze dipped to that reason. To the tiny thing that swayed clumsily in her tutu and those heels, her hands over her head as she attempted a spin she wasn’t even close to being capable of pulling off.

My perfect Tiny Dancer.

“Go get your stuff, Sweet Pea.” My voice was quieted, muted to the point where the only sound was my devotion flooding the room.

“’kay.” Frankie scooted across the room, heels catching on the carpet, the little thing disappearing at the head of the hallway.

I jerked with the soft hand that suddenly landed on my forearm. “Hey,” Mom said. Her voice was the same gentle command as the one she’d raised me with. All the innuendo she’d been teasing me with had vanished. “What’s going on with you, Rex?”

Looking at my boots, I roughed a palm over my mouth, like it might have the power to seal in all the things I was itching to confess. “Nothin’,” I said.

“Don’t nothin’ me. You think I don’t know you? My boy? My son? My kid, who’s worn that same expression since he was seventeen? You think I don’t know when you’re terrified? And that’s something that just about never leaves those eyes, Rex. But today? It’s different, and I know you know it, just as well as I do.”