Hard Edge - Tess Oliver Page 0,29
I’d spent the rest of the afternoon convincing myself that I’d always done the right thing, when it came to Kenna. I’d made plenty of bad decisions in my life. I’d done the wrong thing far more than I wanted to admit, but denying myself Kenna had been as hard as it had been right. And not just because Grady had loved her too. I knew damn well that her parents would have been devastated. Even as a teenager, I wasn’t exactly the type of guy who parents approved of. I still wasn’t that guy. Only now, as an adult, I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought. The only person whose opinion of me mattered at the moment was the golden haired woman standing in front of me, still my dream girl and still completely oblivious to the fact that I loved her.
She stopped at the far corner of the tree house. The afternoon sun had dropped low enough that the light inside was dimmed by the shadows of the tree. Her fingers brushed over something written on the wall. “It’s my name with a big heart next to it. I don’t even remember carving it.” Her voice trailed off.
I walked up behind her. I knew I had no right to touch her. There had been no fall off a bike and the hugs of shock and grief were behind us, but I was done giving a fuck about what was right and wrong when it came to Kenna.
I placed my hands on her arms. She responded by leaning back against me, just as she had earlier when I’d helped her to her feet. I’d worked hard telling myself that I’d just imagined her standing there, pressed against me as if it was where she wanted to be. But it was happening again.
I glanced down at the writing, my brother’s writing, on the wall, and as if someone had splashed a cold bucket of betrayal on me, I sucked in a breath and lowered my hands.
She reached forward, touched her name and traced her fingertip around the heart. “Grady wrote this,” she said weakly. She turned away from the wall and walked to the small opening on the opposite wall. She looked down at the backyard. “There are these weird moments in time when I forget he’s gone. I can just pick up my phone and shoot off a text to see how he’s doing. And he’ll just write me back with some funny, poignant retort. But it won’t happen. It’s not real anymore. I can’t text him or call him or talk to him.” She wiped at a tear as she stared out the opening. “Nothing in my life is making sense anymore. The lawyer thing, the marriage thing, losing my best friend, none of it is right.”
“You can make some things right. If you don’t want to finish law school or get married, then don’t.”
She spun around. “Just like that, huh? I’m not like you, Cade. I can’t just make wild life decisions based on what feels right or fun at the time.”
I hadn’t expected the turn in conversation. Her words had stung plenty. “Is that what you think I’ve been doing all this time? Cuz, Kenna, I’ve got to tell you, there wasn’t anything fun about being a soldier.”
She shook her head and seemed to regret her earlier words. “No, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. But I can’t just change course now.”
“So stick to the plan even if it makes you miserable.”
“It doesn’t,” she said as she stared out into the yard again. “It will be fine. I’ll have a solid future.”
“She said, without an ounce of conviction.”
My ill-timed sarcasm angered her. “Don’t pretend to know me, Caden. I’m not a little girl anymore.” She hurried to the first wood rung and climbed down.
I followed her down the tree and across the yard. “But I do know you, Trinket. Even if we haven’t seen each other in years, I know you. You haven’t changed. And I’m so fucking glad that you haven’t. Because you are incredible. You’ve always been incredible.”
She reached the gate but stopped before opening the latch. Her shoulders relaxed but she didn’t turn around to face me. “When I think about going back, it feels like that life belongs to someone else. Not me.” She turned to face me. “I don’t know if it’s the shock of losing Grady or just being back here, in my very comfortable