Jameson (In the Company of Snipers #22) - Irish Winters Page 0,30
She packed a stupid plastic grocery bag, Alex, and she ran away. Just like that. She left me.”
He waited, his chest hurting for the frightened little girl Kelsey had been then.
“I didn’t reconnect with her until after I’d graduated college and was teaching kindergarten. Someone knocked on my apartment door one day after I’d come home from school, and there Louise was. Alive and happy. Crying and telling me how sorry she was that she’d deserted me. She stayed a month with me that time, even introduced me to Phil. Also told me everything Rafe had done to her after our parents died.”
“Did he touch you?” Alex asked gently. He damned well needed to know.
Kelsey shook her head, silky dark strands shimmering with that same golden glow. “No. I think he was afraid Louise would go to the police. From then on, he made sure I did my homework and went to college. But I was the mouse in the family; Louise was always the lioness. She used to argue with Rafe, even bossed him around at first. You know how she can be. But when she went silent, I knew something was really, really wrong. She wouldn’t talk to me, and I was such a backward kid, I had no way to know what was happening after I went to bed. God…” Kelsey’s cheeks puffed with a long shuddering sigh. “I don’t hate many people, Alex. Hate is such an ugly emotion to let into your soul. It steals the life and light out of you. But I hate Rafe. Louise hasn’t ever been the same bright, vivacious pain in the ass she used to be. If you think she talks a lot now, you should’ve known her before. I swear Louise could’ve talked the paint off Phil’s big red cattle barn.”
“You were fifteen when she left.”
Lifting her chin, Kelsey looked Alex square in the eye. “Yes, but Rafe always said I was the dumber sister, which worked out pretty good, all things considered. My being awkward and shy saved me from him.”
“But it drove you into Nick’s arms.” And for that, Alex would gladly wring Uncle Rafe’s slimy neck. Nick Durrant was the bastard ex-husband, the son of a bitch who’d murdered Kelsey’s two tiny sons and then tried to kill her. Who’d very nearly killed Alex to get at Kelsey.
“Yes, but Nick’s dead now, and you’re here,” she breathed. “I look back on everything I’ve lived through, and I can see how every last one of the people in my life, good or bad, brought me to you. To us.” She cast a sideways glance at the bassinet. “To this special day and to our family. We may not have everyone we care about with us right now, Alex, but the ones we’ve loved are waiting for us. This might sound strange, but I’m excited to meet Sara someday. It’ll be good to talk about you with someone who loved you almost as much as I do.”
That did it. Alex tugged his wife across the narrow space between them and settled her onto his lap. The world always felt more tolerable with Kelsey in his arms and his nose in her hair. His lungs expanded as he wrapped his arms around her and drew in a deep, satisfying breath of the woman he lived for. “You and Sara together, huh? You’d like her.”
“You do realize that you have two daughters and three sons now,” she murmured into his neck.
“And two wives.”
He felt her lips curl into a smile. “Yes, just two. Those other two women you married never counted.”
“No, no they didn’t,” he breathed. Wives number two and three had been stupid mistakes born of despair and grief after he’d lost Sara and Abby. Neither marriage had lasted a year, and Alex knew he’d been out of his mind, thinking another woman in his bed would fill the holes in his heart. He’d divorced and lost touch with those two, long before he’d met Kelsey.
She’d wrapped one arm around his neck and was fingering the top button of his dress shirt, her fingertips soft and warm on his skin. He’d barely gotten home from work last night when she’d gone into labor. Now he was at the end of a tumultuous day, the proud father of five, and the humble servant of his queen.
“I’ll never understand how I got this lucky,” he confessed.
“Easy,” she breathed. “You were smart enough to marry me.”