Page 13 of Keeping Kaitlyn

Alone, standing in the middle of the lobby of my shop, I let myself do something I rarely give myself permission to do.

I look at her.

She’s everywhere.

No matter where I look, Kait’s in front of me. Standing at the corral behind Northpoint, talking to that damn horse of hers. Sitting on the dock, long, dark hair draped over her shoulder, a half-finished tattoo of a dragonfly on her shoulder. Standing on the front porch, waiting for Damien and me on the first day that we met. Sitting in the kitchen, surrounded by her mountain of notebooks, face hidden by the screen of her laptop.

Not just those. A dozen more.

Every memory I have of her.

Except the dirty ones.

Those I keep just for me.

But the rest…

The rest I framed and put on display so I can pretend that they don’t matter. That the subject of them is just some girl I used to know. No one special. No one who mattered. And then I had to fuck it all up by telling Ryan the truth.

She’s my wife.

Only she’s not.

Kait’s not my wife.

Not anymore.

No matter how many times I draw it for you, no matter how long I spend perfecting every detail, you’ll never see what I see. I could spend a thousand years drawing your face and I’d never even come close…

I never really understood how true those words where until she was gone. I didn’t stop drawing her face because I can’t remember what it looks like. I stopped drawing her face because I do. I remember everything. Every line. Every curve. Everyangle and plane. I can’t close my eyes without seeing it. Can’t go to sleep at night without dreaming about it.

When Kait left, I thought that was it. That she was gone for good. That without me clouding her vision, she came to her senses and ran back to Barrett. Back to her father and the life that she hated. To marry a man who was more prison sentence than husband.

It took everything I had in me not to go after her. Chase her down. Make her look me in the eye and tell mewhy—why she’d choose a lifetime of punishment over what I had to offer. I wanted to—fuck, I wanted to but in the end, I let her go because I wasn’t what she really wanted after all and if I couldn’t accept that, then I was no better than the assholes she ran back to.

Like I said, I don’t entirely understand how she got here. How after six years, Kaitlyn Barrett just… appeared right in front of me. What I do understand is that the boundaries I’ve built and the rules that I’ve followed to keep her out aren’t going to be enough to save me.

Not anymore.

Not this time.

And if I’m going down, Kait’s going with me.

SEVEN

KAITLYN

My wardrobe consistsof nursing scrubs, worn jeans, t-shirts that have definitely seen better days, and a few sweaters, button-downs, andgoing outtops that I collected while in nursing school. I’ve tried on every single one of them—twice. Everything is either too casual, too formal, or screamstrying too hard.

Shit.

Flicking my glance at the reflection of the alarm clock on my nightstand, I start to panic for real. It’s 7:20. Tess said she’d be here at 7:30 and even though I don’t know her as well as I know Grace and Henley, I know enough to know she’s not one for being fashionably late.

Turning away from the mirror, I aim my panic at the dog watching my meltdown from the pile of discarded clothes on my bed. “I could tell them you got sick. That you ate another one of my socks and that?—”

Someone knocks on my front door.

Because he’s a dirty trader, Mookie jumps off my bed with a happy bark and runs from the room, a pair of my underwear hanging from his wagging tail.

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