Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 19091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 95(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 64(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19091 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 95(@200wpm)___ 76(@250wpm)___ 64(@300wpm)
Deena swiped at her tears, angry defensiveness burning in her gaze. “I would have thought some time with me was better than nothing.”
She didn’t get it. “Deena, you abandoned him when he was a baby and he gave you a second chance without even blinking. Because he is so desperate for his mum to love him. And now you’re going to tell him that you’re leaving him again and you only have time for him every other Christmas? Do you not realize how much that’s going to hurt him? Or do you just not care?”
She flinched again. “I … I don’t want to hurt him, but … I didn’t realize Jim would be so against having a kid when I wrote you that email last year.”
“And Jim is more important than Michael?”
Deena’s answer was silence.
To make it worse, she refused to tell Michael herself, and I had to tell him while we were driving home. He called Deena because he didn’t want to believe me, and she reluctantly confirmed that she was leaving for London. That they wouldn’t see each other for a while.
Michael had sobbed on the phone, telling her he hated her before he hung up. Then he cried and raged about it being Jim’s fault. That Jim didn’t like him. I hated my son had felt that from the bastard. Grief thickened my throat, and I’d had to pull the car onto the side of the road to comfort him. He fought me, wanting to be angry at everyone, before he finally collapsed against me in tears.
My own tears had slipped free, and all the old hurt and rage I’d felt toward my ex resurfaced. Yet I was angry at myself, too, for letting her back into Michael’s life to do this.
The rest of the car ride home I tried to talk to my son, but he wasn’t up for conversation. I’d told him Kenna was at the house and as soon as we’d arrived, he rushed out to her for comfort.
Controlling my emotions, I got out and strode into the house. I heard murmuring from Michael’s bedroom, so I followed the sound and stopped in the doorway.
Kenna laid on Michael’s bed and he was snuggled into her side. She stroked his hair and whispered soothing words. Her eyes met mine, and I saw the flash of rage in them before they filled with sad concern.
“I’m okay,” I mouthed.
“You’ll never leave us, Kenna, will you?” Michael cried, sounding so much younger than his years. “You’ll never leave us.”
Was it wrong that I wanted her to say she wouldn’t? That I wanted her bound to us.
She searched my face and whatever she saw there made her expression soften with awe. Then, “I’ll stay as long as you want me to,” she promised.
And I knew then I trusted her. If not with my heart, I trusted her with Michael’s. She’d never make that promise if she had even the tiniest bit of doubt.
Relief and joy cut through my anger, and I sank against the doorframe. “That would be forever, then.”
Kenna sucked in a breath. “Really?”
Michael burrowed deeper into her. “Really,” he and I said in unison.
That was the magic of Kenna Smith. She could take a traumatizing, sad day and uplift it with just her presence, like the sun through clouds. Even on a day that was painful for her too.
What had we done to deserve someone like her? Whatever it was, I wasn’t looking a gift horse in the mouth.
“Forever,” I repeated.
Kenna smirked. “Forever is a long time.”
I grinned, more than happy at the thought of coming home every day for the rest of my life to this woman. “It goes by fast when the company’s exceptional.”
Epilogue
Kenna
Four years later
“Mummy, can we get a cat?” Willow asked from the child’s play desk that sat in the corner of the living room. I noted the cat she was drawing as she watched an animation with singing felines.
“Perhaps when you’re older,” I hedged. Haydyn had bad pet allergies, so it was doubtful, but I was in the middle of cooking dinner and I didn’t want to deal with my precocious three-year-old having a meltdown.
“Ask Santa,” she pushed.
“I did. He said maybe when you’re older.”
Willow narrowed her eyes in suspicion and I almost cursed us for giving birth to such an intelligent child.
Thankfully, the perfect distraction was riding his bike up the driveway. This year, Haydyn had finally allowed Michael to ride his bike back and forth to school. I’d been nervous about it, but we’d agreed to give him that independence. The winter months bothered me the most, so we’d agreed he couldn’t ride his bike during the short winter days and I drove him to and from school.
The schools just finished for Christmas break yesterday, though, and I’d given Michael permission to ride into the village to see his friends, as long as he came home before it started to get dark.