My Beloved: A Thin Love Novella (12 page)

“You know what, Hale? Shut the hell up.”

Kona lifted an eyebrow, impressed, but Mark didn’t back down. Not when Ransom pushed on his chest, not when Kona met him in the middle of the room glaring down at the man. His eyes were hard, steely and Kona knew there was something Mark wanted to say to him. Likely something he’d been wanting to say for years.

“Go on. Get it out there. I know you want to.”

Mark breathed hard through his nose and moved Ransom’s hand from his chest. “Fine. I’ll say it. You never fucking deserved her. Not ever. You still don’t deserve her.”

Arms folded, shoulders tight, Kona could only stare at Mark, face dispassionate, neutral. Finally, Kona closed his eyes, seeing that twenty year old he had been and the stupid shit he had done in the name of what he thought was honor and love. It was all bullshit, nothing to what he was willing to do now for Keira. What he hoped she’d still let him do. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t know.”

Mark didn’t expect that, Kona could tell by the way the hard glare on his face relaxed. “Well,” he started, seemingly at a loss for anything to say.

“Man, listen, I know I fucked up then. I know I fucked up today. I know that there are a million reasons you could give me to stay away from her, but I can’t do that. I won’t. She deserves everything and I want to give that to her. I want to be the person she needs. I just fucking suck at it.”

Kona thought that was as close to poetic truth that he could muster but both Mark and Ransom, held back, glancing away, unwilling to meet his eyes. Then, they laughed, and the awkward tension in the room drained away.

“Whatever,” he said, playfully flipping the bird over his shoulder as he went back to the door to watch Keira. She hadn’t moved and Kona hoped that she was okay, that she wasn’t cold, that she wasn’t working herself into hysterics. He hated when that happened.

He couldn’t just stand there, waiting for permission from Mark to fix the mess he’d made, but when he gripped the handle and began to slide the door open, Mark cleared his throat, standing in front of him before he could walk out the door.

“Ransom,” Mark said, eyes steady on Kona. “There’s a cottage on the next lot. I think it’s a good idea if you stay there tonight.”

“No, I want to talk to my mom.”

Mark’s sigh was long and breathy, and Kona stepped away from him, folding his arms before he leaned against the glass, looking out of it.

“She’s not going to be fit to talk to you tonight. Even if Kona can get her inside, she was pretty upset and wouldn’t stop crying.” Mark walked in front of Ransom, touching his shoulder and giving it a squeeze. “Please, son. Just go and you can come back in the morning. I’ll be over there in just a minute.” He looked back at Kona who ignored him in favor of watching Keira on that rock. “I have something I want to say to your father.”

Again, Kona lifted his eyebrows, moving his gaze to Mark, then to Ransom as though waiting for his dad to make the final call. A quick twist of his chin and Ransom sighed, walking out the front door.

“You wanna say something else?” Kona said, arms still tight across his chest and his eyes squinting toward the beach.

“I do.” Mark pushed back the curtain and stood at the second glass door, hands in his pockets and his breath fogging against the glass. “When I finally made it to Nashville, Keira was about seven and half months pregnant.”

Kona took his eyes from Keira, forehead wrinkling as he stared at Mark. “You were there when she had him?”

A small nod and then the left side of Mark’s mouth quirked up. “She was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.” Kona wasn’t jealous that he’d said that. It was fact. Gay, straight or otherwise, no man could ever deny how beautiful his Wildcat was. “Then, she had Ransom and I swear to God, I thought ‘that’s just not possible.’”

“What wasn’t possible?”

“That something else could be more beautiful than Keira.”

Some of the tension eased in Kona’s shoulders and he relaxed his stance, leaning against the glass. “You stood up for them. He’s like a son to you, I know that.”

“That’s true. He is, but Kona, he’s not mine.” Mark turned away from the window, hands in his pockets as he looked up at Kona. “No matter how much I wish for it, Ransom is yours; face, body, damn stubborn streak. He’s a Hale through and through. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. It doesn’t mean I don’t love her. I do. Johnny and me,” Mark started to look away, a hint of a blush on his face and then he cleared his throat, lifted his chin and stared right into Kona’s eyes. “Johnny and me helped Keira as much as we could. Hell, we were first year residents working the graveyard shift, we barely had anything ourselves. But we changed diapers, we fed him, we made sure they both had food—when she’d take it—and that they weren’t living in too sketchy of a neighborhood. And… it was nice. It was a struggle but we all survived.”

Kona looked down at his shoes, his heart jumping to his throat at the thought of the four of them making a life out the disaster he’d left for Keira. “I appreciate everything…”

“I’m not done.” Kona nodded but kept his eyes down so Mark wouldn’t catch on to his irritation. “We did what we could, but don’t get things backward, Keira worked the hardest, she made us look like amateurs in the child raising department and believe me, she gave us something we didn’t have before. She gave us a family. She made a home for all of us.” He looked back out of the window and Kona watched him, saw the amazement, the respect he had for Keira etched in his features. Kona realized that Mark was as amazed as Kona at the astonishing things she’d accomplished. “We love them both. We all sort of came up together. Three clueless kids raising a baby. They’re my family, Kona. They’re part of me and I’d do anything for them.”

“I’d even let them go if it makes things easier for you.”

That heartbeat in Kona’s throat dropped and for a moment he actually considered asking Mark to go ahead, to back away and leave so he, Kona, could fit in better.

But that wasn’t what a father does.

They don’t trade their children’s happiness to satisfy their own. Mark being out of their lives would crush Ransom, would level Keira—and would devastate Mark. There was no way Kona would be responsible for any of that.

“No, Mark. That’s not gonna happen.” He’d been thinking about this for months, ever since Keira told him Mark had been responsible for her quick escape from New Orleans. He thought about thanking Mark and meaning it, but he hadn’t mustered the courage for that. Not then, not when being around his son, around Keira felt so strange and so right all at the same time. Now he could. Now Kona needed to. “I’m an asshole. I’m a jealous asshole.”

Mark laughed, grin wide. “This is not something I’m just figuring out.”

“I realize that. You don’t have to tell me what a punk I was in college.” Kona shook his head, remembering that little tussle that never quite happened when Mark had taken Keira to Kona’s friend’s party, back when Kona and Keira were just starting to feel the attraction that would bind them together, but before Kona realized just how special Keira really was. She’d looked beautiful. With Mark, she’d looked happy and kid-Kona couldn’t stand to see them together, had hated that it was Mark making Keira double over in laughter. That was the day he started hating Mark Burke. This was the day when he would stop.

“You got more time with them. That’s not on you and there is no way I could ever thank you for stepping in when I couldn’t. They love you, I see that.”

“Kona, they love me, but you’re their family. All of that shit, the wedding, the media, Keira doesn’t care about any of it. That’s not who she is. The money, the fame, the lavish resorts and snooty wedding planners, she doesn’t need any of it.”

It wasn’t the first time Kona had heard that. Ransom had warned him, had told Kona that he thought Keira felt uncomfortable with the lavish plans and stresses that their wedding had brought. Kona was just too stubborn to listen. “I just wanted to give her what I couldn’t all those years ago.”

“You are. You’re here. You’re back and I hope not going anywhere.”

“Definitely not.”

Mark nodded, smiling and this time Kona knew he meant it. “Then maybe listen when things are getting too crazy for her. You wanna keep her happy, then just be with her. Keira isn’t high maintenance. There’s no need for you show off to the world that you’ve got a beautiful woman and a great kid. They don’t care about that shit.”

“I know that.” Tired, frustrated by his own stupidity, Kona rubbed his face, wanted all the scattered thoughts in his head to sort themselves out. “I’m just so… she makes me so fucking happy.”

“Then just be happy, man and let Keira be happy too.”

In all his life, Kona had never seen a more beautiful woman. And he had seen a lot of beautiful women. Movie stars, singers, models—his football career and SuperBowl wins had made beautiful women as commonplace in his life as designer clothes and luxury cars.

None of them could touch Keira.

Kona walked out of the cottage with the bright porch lights and light pole at the front of the house beaming dim light and large shadows across the beach. And in the middle of all that dance of light and dark, Keira sat on a large rock, her tattered wedding dress wet at the hem and her knees curled up for her to rest her chin on.

With each step Kona discovered one
p
iece of silk or another, as though Keira in her anger, her rage, had literally torn apart that dress, leaving bits of fabric behind like breadcrumbs. He followed each one.

He heard her humming, with her cheek on her knees, staring away from him. Her voice was raspier than he’d ever heard it, as though the night air had brought on phlegm and congestion she hadn’t bothered to release. She’d start in on a tune, stop in the middle and then start up again.

When she stopped short and pulled her skirt closer around her legs, Kona walked faster, loving how the moonlight picked up the red streaks in her hair, how her pale, flawless skin glowed against the dark sky and how the elegant swirls of her hibiscus tattoo moved when she breathed, when she moved her strong arms. She’d gotten that tattoo for him, years ago, had it placed right in the center of her back where Kona had always loved to kiss her.

Dear God, how he loved her.

“They call this Magic Beach,” he started, easing his way toward her with slow, cautious steps. “It’s because of all the treasures along the shore—shells that look like silver, ivory. It’s lucky to find something like that.” Kona was careful when he eased next to her, squatting in front of her sitting on that lava rock. “Luka told me once that an ugly troll lived in the cave and took bad kids who swam too far out in the water.”

Keira sniffed, finally moving her chin across her folded arms to look down at him. “What did you have to say about that?”

Kona’s mouth twitched, then slid up slow on one side. “I told him he was a liar because he’d swum out past the cave a hundred times and he wasn’t taken and he was the worst kid ever.”

Kona laughed to himself, not put off or upset when Keira didn’t even smile at him. Next to his leg was a half empty bottle of warm champagne. It had been in their rental unit, a $1500 parting gift from Christenson for his flirty wedding planner.

“This any good?”

She sat up a little, resting her elbows on her thighs. “Not anymore. Too warm now. The fizz is gone.”

He hated this. There was too much silence between them, too much tension. It hadn’t been like that in New Orleans, not in the past few months, not sixteen years ago. But tonight on the beach, with Keira’s eyes out of focus and her bare arms shaking from the cold, Kona felt her distance, the defensive cast of her body that told him she didn’t want his touch.

When she shuddered against a low breeze and Kona saw the immediate shiver and gooseflesh dot over her arms, he took off his jacket and eased it over her shoulders. Her back immediately straightened but Kona didn’t comment, and she couldn’t, no matter how angry she was at him, keep him from kissing her temple. Keira didn’t slap him, didn’t lash out or retreat as though she couldn’t stand his touch. She blinked slowly and for a fraction of a moment when her chin lifted, her glistening eyes met his, rather than sit on the sand, Kona took a chance and joined her on the rock. She protested at first, but without conviction, and made no comment on how closely he sat next to her, and didn’t complain about how tightly he held her against his chest.

“You should go inside. You’re chilly.”

“I like it out here. There’s only the sound of the water.” She leaned away from him and looked across the waves. “Or at least there
was
only the sound of the water.”

He let her little jab go, not willing to risk even a sarcastic comment that would have her pulling further away from him.

“I hurt you.” It was simple, spoken low, but Kona knew she heard him. “I promised you I wouldn’t do that again.”

“Everyone is in pain, Kona. All over the world. No one gets out of life without feeling it.”

“That doesn’t mean I should create it for you. That doesn’t give me the right to break my promises.”