“No.”
Her eyes fill with tears. “I wanted one errand. One normal thing. I wanted to prove I could come back, and now…”
“No.” I close the distance but stop before touching her. “This ain’t because you left.”
“It feels like it is.”
“That’s what men like him do. They make freedom look like punishment.”
She breaks then.
Not loud.
Her face crumples. One sob gets out before she swallows the next.
I can’t stop myself.
I reach for her, slow enough that she can step back.
She doesn’t.
She steps forward.
Into me.
August between us, pressed to her side, and I wrap one arm around both of them because there is no way to hold her without holding the kid too.
And there it is.
The thing I have been running from since a pair of granny panties hit my face on a dark Kentucky road.
Not fake.
Not pretend.
Not strategy.
A woman shaking against my chest.
A child under my arm.
My house around them.
A threat on the table.
I look at Oaks over her head.
My voice comes out calm.
Too calm.
“Tell Legend I want Vale.”
Amelia stiffens, but I don’t let go.
I lower my mouth near her hair and say what I should have said first.
“Not without you. Not over you. With you knowing every step.”