Page 20 of Take Me Back
Would she have cautioned me against falling in love? I don’t think so. Even after everything that happened, I think she would have told me to go after happiness with everything I had, regardless of the risks.
Like always, thoughts of her bring an ache I can feel all the way to my bones. I move to the bed and sit, drawing up my knees and wrapping my arms around them.
She would be so disappointed in me.
The battle is not lost until your will is.I can almost hear her speaking the words.
The door to the bathroom opens, releasing a cloud of steam. Dane steps out, a towel wrapped low around his waist, just under those last two abs most men never achieve. But Dane seems superhuman in many ways.
He’s always been gorgeous, starting with that first day he walked out of the ocean like some kind of god from the sea. But that wasn’t why I fell in love with him.
Why did I fall in love with him?
Because he was another escape. Because he made me laugh. Because he made me happy at a time when I thought I would be pretending to smile for the rest of my life. Because instead of just fakingliving for the moment, he taught me how to do it for real, even though he didn’t know he was doing it.
He frowns when he sees me curled into a ball on the bed. “Hey, what’s wrong?”
That’s a loaded question. More like, what isn’t wrong?
Dane closes the distance between us and sits on the bed beside me, reaching out a hand to rest on my knee. “I’m sorry I was such a dick on the flight. This hasn’t been easy for me either. I just can’t keep going like we are, Kat. We’re better than this.”
I inhale, snuffling back the tears hovering just below the surface. “We probably could’ve been better than this, but I screwed everything up. It’s all my fault.”
He drops his head, and I lose sight of his eyes. “It’s not just your fault. This is on both of us.”
I shake my head, wiping away the tears that trickle over.God, who goes on vacation and wants to cry the whole time?
“There’s so much I haven’t told you.”
Dane’s chin lifts, his gaze intense when it meets mine again. “What do you mean?”
“I haven’t been honest since the beginning.”
* * *
Three and a half years ago
“I have to get back to work, but I’m going to talk to Dad so we can come up with a plan.”
I helped my mom into the house when we returned from an appointment with her doctor. I wanted to strangle my father for not making time to go with us so I wouldn’t have to repeat everything the doctor had told us this time.
With every appointment, they seemed to get worse. My mother, more stoic than any war hero, had taken the news without bursting into tears, which was more than I could say for myself. My tears didn’t burst, per se, but they tracked down my cheeks during the entire thirty-minute appointment.
Life as we knew it was over.
“Dad?” I called out as we entered the house.
The kitchen was quiet and his keys were gone. I’d have to check the garage to see if his car was missing too. Before I could go look, my mother laid a hand on my arm.
“He’s gone, Kat.” Her tone was quiet but certain.
It didn’t dawn on me what she meant.
“I don’t want to leave you alone right now. When do you think he’ll be back? I’ll make some coffee and work from here this afternoon.”
I moved toward the kitchen but my mom’s grip, already shaking, tightened.
In a voice that should be anything but calm, she told me, “He’s not coming back.”
