6. Milo

SIX

MILO

“Paula, please…” My voice was ragged, my heart squeezing so fuckin’ tight I thought it would implode as I pressed the phone to my ear.

I wasn’t sure I would physically make it any farther.

Not when she dug deeper at the guilt. “How could you be so selfish, after all you’ve done? After everything you’ve already taken from us?” she spat.

Anger coiled with the shame. “You know there’s no chance I’m just going to turn my back on them.”

“Like you didn’t before.”

Grief clutched my spirit, right along with a giant slab of guilt. “I was mourning, Paula.”

Her voice was bitter. “They’re better off with us. You can’t actually think they’d have a better life with you.”

“I’m their father.” Agony spiked through the air.

“You don’t deserve to be.” It was spite.

Hurt.

Part of me wanted to agree with her. Take on every single thing she threw my way.

God knew it was my fault.

The other half knew my kids needed me. I knew it to my soul.

“I’ll fight for them.” Those words came out hard, laced with that truth.

“If you had any heart at all, you’d let us live. They’re safe. Well cared for. And you see them every week. Isn’t that enough?”

An afternoon at the park. She thought that was enough to make up for every memory that was lost? For every holiday and birthday and chaotic morning trying to rush them out the door to make it to school on time?

Misery crawled through my bloodstream. Clotting off life and love and hope, but it was the last vestiges of that hope that had me whispering, “I love them, Paula. I love them. They’re my children. They need me.”

“Are you sure it’s not the other way around, Milo? Are you sure it’s not you who needs them, and you are too blind to see what is best for them?”

Torment flayed and cleaved.

“I’m not backing down. They are my children.”

“And you stole mine .” The heaving of her grief slashed through the too-dense air, impaling me in the chest, this torture that would never end.

“I would have died for her.” The words croaked from my trembling throat.

“But you didn’t.”

The line went dead before I could say anything else. I threw my phone to the mattress beside me, slumped over, and buried my face in my hands.

I did my best to lock down the riot of emotions.

A war that raged and fought to take hold.

The truth of Paula’s accusations at odds with the truth of my soul.

I couldn’t sit still.

I pushed to my feet, my boots slogging slowly over the planks of my cabin floor, the call of my heart drawing me to the destination.

I crossed the great room and turned down the hall. Outside the closed door, my forehead dropped to the wood. Inhaling a shuddering breath, I pushed into my children’s room.

Sunlight filtered through the window. It pitched a glittering glow over the room my mother and I had painstakingly poured our love into. Her fingers had woven the patchwork designs of their bedspreads and painted the images on the walls, while I’d carved and nailed and drowned myself in the making of the treehouse beds, praying one day they would be filled.

Agony I would never be free of lifted from the pit of hell where my soul was condemned.

Suffocating.

Crushing.

Excruciating.

Every fuckin’ horrible memory, every mistake, impaling me as I stood there in the middle of it.

A prisoner to the vacancy within the walls.

I was so lost to the turmoil, I guessed I hadn’t heard my SUV roll up to the front of the house.

It didn’t matter.

I felt her.

I felt the shift in the air and the tremble of the ground and the warm energy that infiltrated the space.

I needed to guard myself against it. Ignore the pull that tugged and whispered and coaxed.

A gravity I’d do best to resist. I never should have asked her to stay here because there wasn’t a single piece of me that could handle her presence.

Her smiles and her goofiness and her laughter.

Her quiet insight and soft spirit.

The way she filled the walls of the cabin like she was supposed to be there when it was supposed to be Autumn who roamed the halls.

Guilt nearly choked me out.

How could I even think it? Want something good after what I’d done?

Motherfucking heresy.

Knowing it didn’t stop it.

Heat crawled up my spine as Tessa slowly approached from behind, each step quieted and cautious as she crept up to the door.

I could feel her peering in. “Hey. Am I intruding?”

I shifted to look over my shoulder. “It’s okay.”

When it came to Tessa, I couldn’t seem to refuse her anything.

She took another cautious step forward.

Shit, I could actually sense her inhaling my grief, experiencing it, her attention carefully moving around the room like she was newly categorizing everything.

Ocean eyes swam.

Calm on the surface and a riptide underneath.

“Tell me about them?” she whispered.

Telling her no would be the correct answer. Instead, like a fool, I scrubbed a palm over my face before I fully turned around to face her.

Tessa stood just inside the doorway.

The sight of her tugged at every forbidden place inside me.

A blaze of red hair framed her gorgeous face, all those freckles bright beneath the shimmery rays of light.

She wore jeans and a cropped white tee. Casual and sexy at the same time.

Her lips parted on a breath, like she was hinged on my next words, waiting on me to invite her into a place I shouldn’t let her go.

“Remington is my daughter. We call her Remy. She’s eight. She’s shy but super intuitive. One of those quiet spirits that get things on a deeper level, especially for her age.”

Emotion clogged the description.

Love and grief.

I might only get to see her once a week, but she and I shared a special connection. A bond that would never break.

A soft smile touched the edge of Tessa’s mouth. “Remington’s a beautiful name.”

“Yeah. Her mother named her.”

The admission cracked at the end, and before I lost the nerve, I forced myself to continue. “Scout, he’s five. A handful like nothin’ you’ve ever seen.”

My own smile was fighting for dominance, plucking at the edges of where everything had gone dim, my tongue locked on all the painful parts.

“Well, I’m a teacher, so I’ve seen some wild ones.” Her voice was a soft tease as she watched me, like she was searching for clues in my expression. Or hell, maybe she could already read every single thing inside me, and she knew she was traipsing into a minefield.

A place riddled with darkness and ghosts and destruction. The place I would be forever chained.

Maybe Paula was right. Maybe I should give up.

At the thought, a spike of agony speared me so deeply I nearly buckled, a gasp coming up my throat before I could stop it. My hands curled into fists as I tried to force all the shit back down where it belonged.

Tessa caught it, anyway. “I’m so sorry, Milo. I realize I don’t know the circumstances, but I can feel what’s here…”

Her gaze moved around the room, taking in every emotion and intonation.

“Yeah, and what’s that?” Didn’t mean to sound like a jerk, but anger came ripping out.

Anger at what I’d done.

Anger at what I couldn’t stop or change.

It was too late.

Too fuckin’ late.

She watched me without judgment, without disgust, and when she spoke, her voice was both a plea and understanding. “It’s your life. Your hopes and your dreams and where your love lives. And it’s locked behind a closed door in your house.”

Felt like I’d been kicked in the gut.

My teeth ground, pain splitting through my head.

Turmoil spun, everything dense, too tight, too narrow.

“What happened to their mother?” Tessa pushed beyond the boundaries.

I was moving before I even knew it.

Her eyes went wide as I backed her against the wall.

I towered over her where I caged her in, and the woman stared up at me in quiet ferocity.

In fierce care.

While I glared down at her stunning form that made me feel like I was going to lose it.

“I didn’t invite you here for you to try to crawl into my head, Tessa.” The words were shards.

“I know,” she said, unwilling to look away from the agony that had me crushing my teeth. “But sometimes, friends need to go there, anyway.”

My head angled down, my nose so close to the cut of her jaw.

Her scent invaded logic.

Strawberries and cream.

The sweetest temptation.

Tiny Tease.

I inhaled deep, and the words I exhaled scruffed against her cheek. “Not a safe place to be, Tessa. I’d suggest you stay away.”

I started to pull back, but she fisted her hand in my shirt, keeping us nose-to-nose.

“What if I don’t want to?” she whispered, those eyes rushing all over my face.

Penetrating.

Tempting.

Destroying.

Everything clutched.

Urges slammed me from all sides, this need to stand in the light.

To feel her tight little body against mine.

To kiss and fuck and take.

Before I did something stupid, I uncurled her fingers from my shirt and pushed away.

I could feel myself slipping.

Getting sucked into a trap.

The foot of space separating us came alive.

Boiling with that energy.

“Milo,” she almost begged.

“Just don’t, Tessa.”

Without saying anything else, I had my feet pounding out the door because I couldn’t spend a second longer with her in that room.

Not with her grace, and sure as fuck not with her understanding.

Because I already ruined my chance. Destroyed. And I’d never fucking spoil beauty again.