Hard to Fight (Alpha's Heart, #1)(39)

I beam and turn back to Raide. He winks down at me and pulls me back into his side. “You guys want to stay for a drink?” he asks.

“I’m in,” Lynn says.

“Could use one after today,” Edgar adds.

We all migrate to the front porch, and Raide brings out a beer for everyone. I curl up on an old swing chair beside Raide and listen to them all catching up. Edgar talks about his property, and Lynn tells me about the coffee shop she owns down in Denver. Mandy is studying at college to be a doctor. Their laughter fills me, and my heart aches. I realize, for the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m part of something.

Don’t get me wrong—I have Kady, Dad, and Vance, and they’re amazing, but they’re individual people. I haven’t just sat with my family and laughed, joked, and talked about life. These people are good people, they’re kind and funny, and I’d do anything to be a part of something like this. My chest cramps, and I have to focus on taking a few deep breaths just to calm myself.

“Are you okay, love?” Lynn asks.

Raide’s hand is on my leg, and it tightens, causing me to jerk and lift my head. “Sorry, I’m okay.”

“You look sad.”

I force a smile. “I’m just thinking about how nice this is. My family … we don’t do things like this.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that,” Lynn sympathizes. “That must be hard.”

I nod, but say no more.

“You okay, baby?” Raide murmurs into my ear.

“Yeah,” I say softly. “I’m good.”

We continue on with the conversation, and Raide’s hand never leaves me. It’s on my leg or around my shoulders or holding my hand. It feels nice to be important, to be special, to be wanted.

“God do you remember that time you and Raide got busted making out at Lookout Point?” Benny laughs, and my head snaps up.

Mandy is blushing and Raide is glaring.

“God, yes,” Edgar mutters. “I had to explain to the cops why my sixteen-year-old daughter was kissing an eighteen-year-old in a car at midnight.”

“You two dated?” I ask softly.

“For a few years,” Raide says in his own mutter.

“We were engaged,” Mandy says, and it feels like someone has slapped me clean across the face. “We were going to get married but then—”

“Kelly,” Benny says softly.

“Kelly?” I ask.

“My sister,” Raide says, and I realize he never told me her name, and I must have missed it in the file.

“Oh.”

“Childhood sweethearts, these two were. Raide went to the same school and was always the jock,” Edgar teases. “He was in the foster family across the road, they were a good family, and these two hit it off.”

God. Engaged. He was engaged to her. You don’t just get engaged for no reason. He must have loved her, adored her.

“He was such a jock,” Mandy laughs. “Do you remember when you carried me out of that ice cream place over your shoulder because that man was looking at me?”

My chest gets tighter.

“Yeah,” Raide mutters, and I guess everyone takes the hint he doesn’t want to talk about it, because Lynn quickly changes the subject.

“Well, we should let you two get some rest. It’s getting late.”

We all stand and say our good-byes, then they’re gone and Raide and I are alone once more. We go back into the cabin, and this time Raide locks the door. The sun has just set, and the sounds of the night fill the small space.

“They’re lovely people,” I say.

Raide turns to me just before he reaches the bathroom. He’s got his shirt bunched in his hands, ready to lift over his head. “Yeah, they are.”

Our eyes lock, and so much passes between us. He knows I want to ask, but what he doesn’t know is that I won’t do it. Not because I don’t want to know—I do—but because it’s none of my business. I’m never going to be anything to Raide. I can’t be. I care about him, I want to help him, but the cold hard facts are, I’m going to betray him in a big way, and he’s probably going to get locked up because of it.

That very thought has tears burning under my eyelids. Raide notices and drops his shirt, striding over to me. He wraps his big arms around me, crushing his body to mine and holding me close. “It was a long time ago, Grace. Don’t love her anymore. We dated, I cared once, but we wanted different things. She wanted a white-collar kind of man, and she struggled when Kelly was down and being difficult. She didn’t know how to handle her. I realized then that the love I felt for her wasn’t what I thought it was. I could never be the man she wanted. She pushed for me to go into professions that would put me high in the business world. That wasn’t me, so I broke it off. She’s a good girl, but she’s not the girl I was ever meant to spend my life with. When I got charged, she didn’t call me for weeks. I thought I meant more to her—I mean, we grew up together, and we’d been on good terms the last few years since we broke up. She admitted I wasn’t the best fit for her either but she didn’t have the guts to call off the engagement . She’ll always be like family now, but that’s it. She let me down. I thought she’d be there when I needed her, even if we weren’t together, but she wasn’t. I don’t go back when my trust is shattered.”