been left behind when she had left. It was the big one, the one that she had never wanted to look closely at. The one she had never even wanted to take steps to heal because that would mean acknowledging that it was there in the first place. She didn’t want to do that. It was too difficult.
But, now she knew it was what she had to do.
She looked over at her phone, chewing on her lip. It was probably a bit soon to call Jonathan. It wasn’t like she was going to spend the rest of her life not speaking to him. But he might not answer. This might have been the last straw. Maybe it was the excuse he needed to finally cut ties with his needy younger sister.
Along with the acknowledgment that she was afraid of being left came some more crystallized thoughts about fear of abandonment than she would like.
She took a long swallow of wine, then picked the phone up. She opened her call list, and found Jonathan easily. He was the last person who had called her.
She sighed heavily. He had never done anything to deserve all of her fear and distrust. He had always been there. Even if he was surly, even if he showed his affection in his own way, he loved her.
She pressed the number, waiting as the phone connected then began to ring. She closed her eyes, anxiety building inside of her while she waited for him to pick up.
“Hello?” He answered. And she knew that he knew it was her. Because he sounded too grumpy to be responding to a stranger.
“Hi. I know you’re still mad at me.”
“Yep.”
“That’s fine. I just want to know... Do you know where our mother is?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
WHEN REBECCA BEAR showed up on his doorstep bright and early, bundled up against the December chill—her dark hair hidden beneath a knit cap, her cheeks rosy from the wind, the tip of her nose bright red—Gage felt like he had been gut punched. He had been expecting her to come to the property, but he hadn’t expected her to show up at his door.
Apparently, he needed adequate warning before he came into contact with her. He had most definitely needed a warning for last night. For how it would make him feel, for the distance he would need afterward.
It was a strange thing, to come into possession of something he had told himself he’d wanted for a long time.
To know she was okay. To find some form of forgiveness for his transgressions.
But he had it now. And he found there was still something missing.
Damned if he could figure out what it was.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
“Good morning,” he said. “You’re up early. And you’re wearing mittens.”
“It’s cold.”
He had never thought of mittens as being erotic. Suddenly, he wanted her to press her mittened hands against his chest. That was just weird. But, that feeling, at least, he had a name for, and had a handle on. He could deal with being horny for her. It was the rest that concerned him.
“What’s up? You look impish.”
She crossed her arms and bounced slightly. “Aren’t you going to let me in?”
He reflected on some of the other times she had come to the door. On how tense things had been. The aura of anger that usually wrapped itself around her. It wasn’t there. Not now. She seemed different. Easy. And it wasn’t just down to this specific interaction with him.
It was something that went deeper.
“You can come in. But you do have to give me a kiss first.”
He expected her face to contort in irritation. Expected her to scoff at him. Instead, she leaned in easily, as though closing the distance between them were the most natural thing. Then, she put those mittened hands on his face—and damned if he wasn’t right, that was erotic as hell—and pressed her lips to his.
When she parted from him, her cheeks were even redder, and this time he knew it wasn’t from the cold. “Now can I come in?”
“Okay.”
He moved to the side, and she brushed past him, removing her hat, scarf and gloves quickly. “I talked to my brother last night.”
“You did?”
“He’s still mad at me. It wasn’t about us.” She said that casually too. As if the two of them being an us was natural. “But I asked him if he knew where our mother is. He does.”