Chapter Twenty-eight: Love the Lonely Out Of You

Ryder

LOVE THE LONELY OUT OF YOU

Performed by Brothers Osborne

After giving me a glimpse ofthe true woman behind the mask, Gia had nearly run from the kitchen, and I’d let her, even though I’d yearned for her to stay. I wondered how many people even knew she’d tried to give her heart to someone. That she’d had it batted away with even more callousness than Ravyn had treated mine. Because after reading Ravyn’s letters, I at least knew that she hadn’t set out to con me as I’d thought for years.

What Gia had experienced had been colder—both Kieran’s actions and hers in return.

I didn’t hold it against her. I would have handed Ravyn over to the authorities without any compunction if I’d gotten my hands on her back then.

But now, the parallels and the differences between Gia’s life and mine had me stumbling around for footing.

So, instead of following Gia from the kitchen and showing her just how much a person could be loved, I stepped back. I concentrated on my daughter.

Maddox dropped Addy at home just before dinner, and she seemed quiet and subdued. A step back from the openness of this afternoon when we’d played in the snow. I did my best to tease her out of it as I cooked burgers and made a salad. Gia and Enrique ate with us and then went back to work, him on duty, Gia doing whatever it was she did, tucked away in the guest room, typing away on that computer of hers. Addy and I watched television before I tucked her into bed.

On entering her room, Addy honed in on the bedside table where she’d left her backpack. When she saw it was missing, I was surprised she didn’t ask about it, and even though it tugged at my heart, I followed her lead because I didn’t want to upset her, because I was just the coward Sadie had teased me of being days ago.

As Addy climbed into bed, I felt the need to distract her from the bag’s disappearance, so I asked if I could read one of her books to her. She hesitated and then nodded. I leaned up against the headboard next to her, reading without using the voices Maddox was so good at, but at least it was me, sitting next to my daughter and sharing this time together.

After I closed the book, full of dragons who were brave enough to save the universe, I knew I had to man up and tell her the backpack was gone. I met her gaze and told her it had been wrecked in the water break, which was the excuse my parents had given for why I’d left the ranch so suddenly.

“I’ll get you a new one. What color would you like?”

She stared for a moment, as if she knew I was lying. She looked sad in a way I hated, and a tear escaped her eyes that she brushed away. Finally, she just shrugged. What did it feel like to lose everything you knew and loved. Other than the damn Switch that was now evidence and a handful of clothes, Addy had nothing left from before. She’d been forced out of her cocoon into a new life.

“If you ever want to talk…” I spoke past that semi-permanent lump in my throat. “About your mom, or your old life, or just anything…you know you can, right? I may not always have answers or be able to soften the blow of your loss, but I can listen. I can be here for you.”

More tears rolled down her cheeks, and suddenly, she was crawling into my lap and clinging to me. I hugged her tight, ran a hand over her back, and tried to let the unexpected and overwhelming love I felt for her encompass both of us.

Eventually, she stopped crying, and when her breathing grew even again, I realized she’d fallen asleep. I sat there for a long time, lost in the feel of having her with me. My daughter was alive. She was here. I may have lost the first seven years of her life, but I had the entirety of our future to look forward to. I’d love on her. I’d make sure she knew she was wanted and adored and cherished.

When my neck started to kink, I was forced to move. I lifted her and tucked her in, drawing the covers up close to her chin. She never even opened her eyes, and knowing she’d felt safe enough to fall asleep on me filled me with more pride than I’d ever had before. More than turning the ranch around.

Addy was the most incredible little person I’d ever met. So damn brave.

I kissed her forehead and left the room with a heart brimming with mixed emotions.

The lights were off in most of the house, allowing me to easily see the glow coming from under Gia’s door, announcing she was still awake. I wanted to knock and ask how she was. I wanted to pick her up, carry her down the hall to my room, and give us both a reprieve we desperately needed.

Instead, I turned and went to my room alone, sliding into a bed where the taste of Gia’s lips followed me into my dreams.

? ? ?

For the next three days, our life slipped into a routine. We drove to the ranch in the mornings, with a team of officers unobtrusively following us. After the stress of the break-in and our suspicions about Addy’s family ties to the Lovatos, the only reason I could leave her doing schoolwork with Rianne at the farmhouse was because I knew we had people watching over them. And even then, I checked in on them more than was probably healthy.

When Gia wasn’t pulling guard duty, she worked on her computer in the ranch office, scouring the internet for information on Ravyn and the cartel. Enrique and some of my brother’s deputies picked up the rest of the protective detail, hovering along the perimeters, keeping watch while I worked with Dad, Shawn, and Ramon on the two cabins.

Unaware of the extra guards, Addy seemed to be coming out of her shell a little more each day with our set routine. She opened up the most when Mila was around, but she’d talk in full sentences to me at times, and she slept in her bed and not on the floor or a shelf. And even though I’d replaced her backpack with a bright-purple one, she hadn’t loaded it up with clothes and wasn’t bringing it with her as if she was going to need to run at any second.

Every night, she played games with Gia and me. Laughing more, even teaming up with Gia to make sure I lost, getting a kick out of the pretend tantrum I’d throw when I did. I finally got a glimpse of the humor Ravyn had spoken about in her letter. I got to see her devotion to the woman who’d pulled her out from under a bed as well, because if I ever tried to pick on Gia during the games, Addy wouldn’t let me.

When we walked next to each other, Addy would often tuck her hand in mine, and she hugged me of her own volition every night at bedtime since the backpack disappeared. In those moments, when Addy chose to reach out to me, I felt like I was the smartest, bravest, most loved man on earth. The fact that she trusted me with her words and affection filled spots in my soul I’d never thought would heal. Spots I thought would always be a gaping wound.

And she wasn’t the only one healing me.

Every night, after Addy was tucked into bed, Gia and I found each other, all in the pretense of staying updated on the case. Except, there wasn’t much progress to report. Gia said the task force was frustrated with their inability to break Ravyn’s encryption on the data from the Switch, and they had no clues about the guy who’d broken into my house. The dead guy who they thought killed Ravyn had been seen by Enrique’s gang contacts, talking to a big burly Mexican in Lexington before he’d wound up dead. Enrique was trying to chase that person down, but without driving back and forth five hours round trip to Kentucky, it was hard to work his contacts while staying with us in Willow Creek.

So, while we always started our evening talks with an update about the Lovatos, the truth was we would have sought each other out anyway. We were drawn to one another. Electrical charges seeking an outlet. I hadn’t kissed her since our argument over the DNA test, which meant those charges were growing, festering to an unhealthy level that would end up exploding at the worst moment.

Every night, after talk of the Lovatos wound down, we often shared personal things. Talk about our families and our past. We were both careful never to talk about the future. It was too uncertain.

I learned Gia spoke three languages and had been in more countries than I’d been in states. I learned how her love of spy movies and books like James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Ryan had driven her into her career, and how she’d been determined that there’d be more women filling those roles.

For every truth she gave me, for every window she opened up into her soul, I reciprocated by doing the same. I told her about my time at the University of Knoxville, and even showed her some of my early architectural drawings I kept in an overflowing portfolio. But it wasn’t the buildings that caught her eye. Early in my life, I’d had a love of the fantastical and had drawn scenes from some of the stories my siblings and I had made up about the hollow by the creek being a haven for pirates and fairies. Spurred by the smooth tales Ravyn had crafted from those stories, I’d drawn more. It was those sketches that Gia spent the most time scrutinizing, knowing they gave her more insight into me than the drawings of buildings ever could.

They showed my belief in true love. My belief in fairy tales no grown man should rightly claim.

Tucked in where I’d forgotten them were a few black-and-white drawings of Ravyn. Gia had stared at them for a long time before asking if she could send one to Rory. She thought it might help refine the reconstructed picture Rory had created. I told her she could do whatever she wanted with the sketches, not because I wanted them gone like I would have wanted weeks…hell, days ago…but because I wanted to do anything I could to end the storm waiting in the distance for us.

One night, when we were sitting side by side, without touching, but still sharing little intimacies of our lives, her phone buzzed. Her brother’s name flew across the lock screen before she silenced it.

“Your family really doesn’t know you do this for a living?” I asked.

“My father suspects I’m undercover, and he might have used his position as Vice Chief of the National Guard to ferret out where I work, but my mom and brother know nothing.”

“You said it was so they wouldn’t worry. Is that truly the only reason?”

She shifted, uncomfortable with the question. We both knew I had no right to ask, no right to delve into the depths of her mind, but I needed to know why she lied to those she loved most. Needed almost desperately to understand it so I could believe she wouldn’t do the same to me.

“It’s the easiest answer I can give. Because I really don’t want them to worry. Mom spent so much of her life stressed about Dad being in the line of duty first in the Army, then in the Secret Service, and finally with the National Guard. I saw it eat at her soul a bit. And Holden was single-minded in his determination to join the Secret Service from the time the Twin Towers fell, and he watched our dad protecting President Bush on TV. Holden’s job added worry to her shoulders, and I guess I told myself she didn’t need me giving her even more.”

“What’s the real answer, darlin’?”

She rolled her eyes at the endearment and then sat there for a moment, looking inward, as if trying to find the answer deep inside her. And that, if nothing else, made me believe she wasn’t lying anymore. “The truth is, I liked that this aspect of my life was completely mine. I didn’t have my brilliant, strategist of a father or my perfect, protective brother looking over my shoulder, telling me how to do it better. I don’t know…” She trailed off before picking her thoughts back up a second later. “I liked the super-spy vibe of it. The dual life. One in the light, and one in the dark. It was like living in a James Bond movie. It was exciting.”

I picked up on the past tense even if she didn’t, and I pushed on it, not quite daring to hope that maybe her time here, her time with me was changing how she felt. “Was exciting? It’s not anymore?”

Her gaze settled on my lips for a few heartbeats before journeying back to meet my eyes. “The movie always ends, you know? When it’s over—when my career is really over—I’m afraid I’ll feel empty inside. I’ll be nothing but a shell with nothing to show for my years of service but a pile of memories I can’t share because they’re all deemed top secret.”

The idea of Gia feeling empty—of the bright, fiery woman in front of me being an empty shell—made me want to prove to her just how full her life could be.

Except, what exactly did I think that life would look like?

No matter how she was talking to my soul and making me wonder if I could, in fact, give my heart to another woman, this wasn’t Gia’s world. She was a fish out of water. And if she stayed here, she’d be gasping for breath before too long. There’d be no evil villain for her to catch once the Lovatos were gone.

So, no matter how much I wanted to touch her, embed myself in her, make her mine, I couldn’t do it. She couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t trail after her as I might have if Ravyn had asked me to go with her. Back then, I would have given up everything to keep her and my baby. I would have even given up the ranch and my family. But nothing was that simple anymore. Things like Phil’s death proved how unexpectedly life could change, and I didn’t want to miss the years my parents had left. Even more, I wanted Addy to grow up here, surrounded by love and stability, not tagging along after some secret agent like she’d been forced to tag after Ravyn. I didn’t want her learning to hide and run when she could spread her wings, knowing she had a safe spot to land.

My little girl was now my number one responsibility.

The possibility of having something with Gia couldn’t trump that. Even if it meant once again retreating into the life of bachelorhood Sadie had tried to taunt me out of.

So, every night after we talked, I left Gia at her bedroom door without attempting to kiss her again, without relieving the growing tension that zapped through us. And every morning, when she appeared in my kitchen, ready for the day, sometimes beating me there and starting breakfast, I reminded myself of what she’d said. These moments were just a few scenes in the movie of Gia’s super-spy life, and when it ended, Addy and I would be left to fill the holes her absence created.

? ? ?

On Friday morning, I dressed in the only dark suit I owned, wondering why the hell I was putting it on for Phil. He’d spent his life in jeans at the bar. He wouldn’t expect suits from us. He’d probably be laughing his ass off from the other side. But out of respect for Mama and the family, I put it on.

When I walked out into the kitchen and found Gia there with a coffee already poured and pushed across the counter at me, I had to hold myself back, as I had every morning, from kissing her hello. I’d much rather spend the next few hours lost in the scent and feel of her, figuring out what made her gasp and squirm and scream, than attending Phil’s funeral.

“Thanks,” I said, picking up the coffee while she took me in from head to toe.

“Is that Armani?” she asked.

I shrugged. It was, but admitting I knew that was more than I was willing to give this morning.

“You clean up pretty good, cowboy,” her voice dipped, and the sensuality in that nickname made my pulse quicken and my dick respond.

“Just because we live in a tiny town in Tennessee doesn’t mean we’re clueless.”

Her gaze landed on my mouth. “Definitely not clueless.”

The air burned between us for several seconds, tempting me, calling to me. I’d clean up for her anytime she wanted if she’d put action behind those words.

“You’ll catch me cleaned up even more tomorrow. I rented a tux. Do you have a dress?”

Her brows furrowed. “Damn. The gala? I completely forgot about it.”

Images of Gia in a sexy dress that clung to her lean curves filled me, making my body react even more. I wanted to pull her against me, slow dance with her, run my hands along her hips, and press myself into her.

Days and nights of wanting her had pushed me to my limits.

While I was thinking of her in a dress and what slowly removing her from it would be like, Gia was obviously not. Instead, her face held a faraway look I’d come to acquaint with her puzzling out the mystery of the cartel and her job.

“What are you thinking?” I asked.

“Anna’s assassin died in Lexington, Laredo’s place is in Kentucky, and your place was broken into after he showed up at the ranch.”

I shook my head, seeing where she was going. “Jaime is your typical millionaire. Egotistical and arrogant, but he’s not running a cartel from his place outside Corbin.”

“He have a sister?”

“None that he ever mentioned.”

While Ravyn and Jaime shared some resemblance, it could easily be accounted for by their similar heritage. They both had dark hair, dark eyes, and warm skin, but Ravyn had been small and curvy with fairylike features, and Jaime was tall and lean with a long rectangular face.

I glanced at the clock on the microwave, knowing I needed to leave, but I was reluctant to do so. Not just because I didn’t really like funerals, but because I wanted to stay here, talking with Gia. I wanted to spend another day with her and my daughter, and now I was walking out the door without either of them.

We’d agreed taking Addy to the funeral wasn’t a possibility, not only because we couldn’t tell the town about her yet but because we weren’t sure how she’d react to seeing the coffin buried. She hadn’t talked about her mother or the life they’d led. And other than when she’d helped Gia with a sketch of the assassin, Addy hadn’t mentioned the day she’d been killed again.

Just like the charge building between Gia and me, I knew that Addy’s emotions were building too. That holding them in for too long wasn’t good. That she’d need help. Someone with a degree and the experience to guide her through what she’d witnessed. But until we could ensure she was safe, I couldn’t take her to just anyone.

If this thing with the Lovatos went on too long, I’d make sure Gia found an NSA-approved therapist for her. I’d have to do something.

But nothing could be done about it today, so as much as I hated it, I was leaving Addy with Gia and Enrique while I attended the funeral and celebration of Phil’s life. I wouldn’t be far, just a few miles, and yet it felt like too much. It felt wrong when I hadn’t gone anywhere without them in the last week.

As if she read my worry, Gia closed the distance between us, squeezing my shoulder. “She’ll be fine, Ryder. We’ll read some of the books Rianne brought her and play some games. You’ll be home before dinner. If you had a regular job and she was at school, it would be the same.”

Gia was right, and yet something in me still resisted.

I almost leaned in and kissed her cheek. I almost pulled her to me and inhaled the scent that seemed to calm me and wind me up all at the same time. Instead, I grabbed my hat and my keys and headed out the door without saying good morning to my daughter. Because if I stayed even a moment longer, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to leave without dragging them with me. And that would be selfish. That would be for me and not them.

Unlike the generations of Hatleys who were buried in a family cemetery on Hatley land, the McFlannigans were buried in the graveyard of a stone church on the edge of town. My family was already there when I drove up.

My sisters and Mama were in simple but stylish black dresses. Gemma had flown in late last night, and I hadn’t had a chance to see her yet. Her long blond hair stood out from Mama’s and Sadie’s dark heads. Gemma and Maddox had inherited their hair coloring from Grandma Hatley, but Gemma was the only one of us who’d gotten Granny’s hazel eyes. The rest of us had a shade of blue like our parents. My sister looked thinner than normal, and while her expression was sad for Phil, I suspected it also had to do with her recent heartbreak. As I squeezed her in a tight hug that she returned, Dad and Maddox came out of the church in dark suits that matched my own.

We stood on the steps, greeting what felt like the entire town, before leading the crowd inside where they squeezed into the pews. The church filled until there was standing room only, and even that was packed tight. Uncle Phil may have raised a few hackles, but he’d also been an icon in our community, and Willow Creek had come out to say goodbye to one of their own.

The last McFlannigan.

That hit me so hard in the chest I had to fight back tears.

Carrying Phil’s coffin from the church to the graveside with his bartender Ted, my dad, my brother, and the mayor, choked me up again. It was hard to imagine Phil being gone. Hard to imagine the bar without him.

The journey from the cemetery to McFlannigan’s was made on foot. A solemn parade where Mama’s sniffles and Sadie’s quiet sobs seemed to echo through the cobblestones. All the stores and restaurants along Main Street were closed this morning as everyone paid their respects to our uncle.

Sadie had taken care of the arrangements for the party at the bar. She’d been pulling her weight with the funeral all along while my mind had been wrapped up in Addy and Gia. I needed to thank my baby sister for stepping up, for being the one Mama could count on most these days.

Even though it was barely eleven by the time we all crowded into McFlannigan’s, the booze was already flowing. Phil would have enjoyed that. Just like he would have gotten a kick out of the fact that there were so many bodies in the room that even the fire marshal, who he’d long since paid off, was looking at the numbers dubiously.

Over the next couple hours, people raised their glasses repeatedly, “To Phil!” as story after story was told that made us all laugh and swear. I could just imagine Uncle Phil’s pleased, snarky grin at the talk. He’d be proud as hell that he’d left his mark on the town, one way or another.

As the crowd started to thin, Mama corralled my siblings and me into a table at the back. She squeezed Sadie’s hand and said, “Now that we’re all here together, we wanted to give you an update on Phil’s will.”

My sister shifted uncomfortably, a look of guilt spreading over her face, and all my senses went on alert.

“Phil was concerned about the bar’s legacy, but he also knew most of you had already built careers and lives that wouldn’t allow you to just drop everything to manage it, so he chose to leave McFlannigan’s to Sadie.” Mama pinned us all with an eye that dared us to be upset.

I looked over at Maddox and Gemma, and neither of them seemed to be. I wasn’t upset because he’d left us out. Hell, I wanted nothing to do with the bar other than having a chance to slide onto a stool and drink a beer from time to time. I also wasn’t upset at Phil’s attempt to keep the bar in the family. What did upset me was the idea of it tying my baby sister to this town and a business when she should be out creating her own dreams, following her own path.

I held my tongue for the moment, knowing it would upset Mama if I said so, but remained determined to talk to Sadie alone.

“If you thought we’d be upset, Mama, you’re wrong,” Gemma said.

“Sadie has put a lot of time and effort into the bar. He was right to leave it in her hands,” Maddox said.

Everyone’s eyes fell on me. “You won’t get any fight from me. Damned if I’d know what to do with a bar. I’ve got my hands full with the ranch and Addy.”

Sadie wiped her eyes, and her shoulders sagged in relief. I was surprised she had thought we’d be upset. “He left the house to Mama, told her to do with it what she wanted but asked that we go through the storage shed out back here and the attic in the house and take what we want from all the detritus and crap the family has gathered over the years.” Gemma’s eyes narrowed at Sadie’s wording. “Those were his words, not mine. We’ll need to go through it all together. Make sure you get anything you want.”

Tillie from the café down the street approached, her long gray hair tied into ponytails and her tunic dress falling to her feet covered in flowers. She apologized for interrupting, saying she needed to skedaddle in order to open the diner for supper. She gave Mama a hug, flicked Maddox and me on the shoulder, and said her goodbyes. That broke up our table, all of us going in separate directions as more people came to pay their respects before heading out.

I held Sadie back with a hand to her elbow before she could disappear.

“You don’t have to keep it,” I said quietly.

“What?” Sadie turned sad eyes on me.

“Look. Fighting to keep our family’s heritage is something I know a bit about. I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished at the ranch, but this is different. The bar is always going to be a bar, sucking up your evenings and your life. If you keep it, you’ll be tied to it and this town, just like Phil and Granny and every McFlannigan before them. I just want you to know you have options. None of us are going to question you if you sell it and go live your real life.”

She tilted her head, taking me in. “Is it so strange to think that I might want to do this?”

She had been spending a lot of evenings here with Phil. She’d been the one to reinstate karaoke night. I’d thought she’d been doing it out of boredom while she healed and decided what she was going to do next, but maybe it had been more than that. “If that’s the case, I can try and get on board with it. I just think there’s more for you out there than this. You had big dreams, Sads. Winning the World Darts Championship, maybe even a triple crown. You talked about a physio degree.”

She patted my chest. “Dreams change. You should know that better than any of us.”

“It was my choice. I wanted to lead the ranch in a new direction. I’m happy here.”

“This is my choice too,” Sadie said. She slid her arm around my waist and rested her head on my shoulder. I squeezed her to me.

Maddox’s loud laugh drew our eyes to where McKenna was pressed into him. He leaned down and kissed the side of her head. It was a sweet, impulsive gesture I wasn’t sure he even realized he’d done. It spoke of intimacy and love. And for not the first time when I watched them, I felt the hole in my life that Ravyn had left. A partner. A person to go through it all with.

I found myself wishing I hadn’t left Gia and Addy at the house all over again. If Gia was here, she’d harass me out of my dark mood with her words and a look. I wished I could pull her to me and feel the comfort of her embrace just like my brother did with McK.

“I see the way you look at her, you know,” Sadie said softly.

“Who?”

“Don’t be dense,” Sadie said, pinching me through my suit jacket, and I rubbed at it with a grunt. “It’s like how Maddox looks at McK and Mama looks at Daddy. You look at Gia like she’s the piece you’ve been missing.”

Her words echoed my thoughts, and it continued to twist those emotions and desire that had been building inside me for over a week.

“She isn’t staying, Sads. She’ll be here until they can find a way to stop the cartel from coming after Addy, and then she’ll go back to her real life.” But hadn’t Gia told me the life she’d been living felt fake? A movie that was drawing to a close and that would leave her empty afterward? Maybe I could offer her something that would fill us both. I shook my head. It wasn’t possible. It was a lust-induced dream. Maybe that was all I really needed—to sleep with her and discharge this built-up energy so it would release us both from its grip. So I could let her go without regrets clinging to me.

Then, why did that idea hurt me more than any thoughts of Ravyn’s absence did these days?

“Let me guess, you’ve made no attempts to ask her to stay?” Sadie asked with a raised brow.

“We’re not an item, Sassypants. She’s not my girlfriend. We haven’t even slept together.”

“But you’ve kissed. You’ve kissed and felt the world tilt, right?”

“What would you know about making the world tilt?” I started then waved a hand. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. This is where Addy needs to be planted so she can grow. She’s already come out of her shell in just a handful of days here. She needs the stability this life can give her. One she never got with Ravyn. One that following an undercover analyst around the globe wouldn’t give her, and I’m not going to beg Gia to give up her life for us. Asking someone to give up everything is a surefire way for them to resent you in ten years.”

“Chicken,” she tossed back.

“Being realistic isn’t the same as being chicken.” But it wasn’t the first time in the last week my baby sister had called me a coward, and it rankled some.

“If you don’t let her know how you feel, if you don’t tell her and show her how important she is, she’ll leave because she doesn’t think she matters to you. You don’t have to beg, but telling her you’d like her to stay, that you’d like to make something work, at least gives her options, allows her to choose which life she’ll live instead of just going back to the only life she knows.”

How had my baby sister gotten to be the smartest one out of all of us? Maybe being shot, thinking you might not make it, changed your chemical makeup somehow. Maybe it gave you a hint of something that existed beyond this world and a wisdom that came with it.

Deep down inside me, I knew she was right.

I had to talk to Gia. I had to at least put out the offer. Had to extend my hand rather than hide it away. I had to have the courage to risk my heart even if it was risking Addy’s too. Maybe we both needed Gia to complete us.

“I gotta go,” I said, fishing in my suit pocket for my keys. I glanced over to where Mama and Dad were surrounded by townsfolk. If I tried to say goodbye, I’d be there an hour at least before I could extricate myself. I didn’t feel like I had an hour. I had a desperate need to tell Gia what I felt before the courage left me, before I let reality eke away at the fairy tale.

Sadie snickered. “I’ll say your goodbyes for you. Just go.”

I wrapped my arm around her neck, pulled her into me, and kissed the top of her head.

“Don’t tell the others, but you’ll always be my favorite.”

“I’m everyone’s favorite,” she teased back.

I huffed out a laugh, let her go, and took two strides away before turning back. “Sadie?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget you have options too.”

“Yeah, yeah. Now, shoo.”

And I did because every fiber of my being was pulling me home to the two females who were waiting for me.