“Let it out, baby girl.”
“I’m not your baby.” She’d sobbed into his chest.
“Don’t I know it,” he had said sadly as he wiped large alligator tears from her puffy cheeks.
“Everything okay back here?” Grandma Nadine had called, right before she’d walked around the corner.
“Fine, it’s fine.” Kacey had frantically wiped her cheeks and had pasted a smile on her face. “No biggie. You know how Travis and I can get.” She’d lamely punched him in the shoulder and walked off. But she hadn’t remembered until now what Grandma Nadine had said to Travis when she’d thought Kacey was out of earshot.
“She’ll come around one day, Travis. Don’t give up.”
“Damn, Grandma,” Travis had mumbled. “That girl wasn’t ever mine to give up in the first place.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
Travis watched the display of emotions wash over Kacey’s face. Hell, as long as he lived, he would never get tired of watching those eyes squint when she was thinking, or the way she held her lip captive between her front teeth when she was trying to keep herself from saying something she’d regret.
And finally, the worst of all, her tells. The way she clenched her hands in her lap as if that simple gesture would hold all the walls firmly in place.
“Kace, say something.” He reached for her shoulder and gently placed his hand across it.
“The last time I was here was with you.”
“Yup.” Figures she’d remember that first.
“You were so angry at me.”
“Kace,” Travis said, turning off the truck. “You were angry at yourself. I was angry at you for giving up — or at least in my mind, giving up something that I thought you wanted. But mainly, Kace, I was angry that when things got rough, you ran.”
“What did you expect me to do?” Kacey screamed, causing Travis to jump.
“Fight. I expected you to fight.”
“Against what, Travis? Myself? There was nothing left to fight for! I lost my parents, I lost my best friend. I lost everything!”
Travis scowled and pulled back his hand. He couldn’t touch her, not with what he had to say. “You didn’t lose everything. You still had my family, and you still had Grandma. Geez Kacey, you had me. You lived! But that was the day I watched part of you give up, and you let a part of yourself die. Maybe that’s why Grandma wanted you here in the first place. You really do need to find yourself, Kace. And if that means I lose you… again, in order for it to happen, so be it.”
“What?” Her head whipped around to face him. “What do you mean lose me again?”
Shit. “That day, the day you walked away from me, from us, from everything. I uh… I followed you.”
“To?”
Travis gulped. “Seattle.”
“Why?”
Travis closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of the seat. “To bring you home, Kace. To bring you home.”
“I don’t understand.”
Of course she wouldn’t. Travis groaned aloud and fought the urge to hit the steering wheel or at least strangle something. “You never belonged apart from us…” He gulped. “Apart from me. You never belonged apart from me.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying…” Could he do it? Could he say he loved her? Travis looked at her moonlit face and chickened out. “All I’m saying is, I was an idiot and chased after you to bring you back home. It was stupid that you would run to another city after your parents died. I know you needed a fresh start, but why couldn’t you lean on us? Why couldn’t you allow us to support you?”
“I can’t talk about that.” Kacey looked away again.