Page 66 of Unraveled Love

“Roger. Out.”

I turned to Addi. “Want to go have some fun?”

“Can we?” Her brows rose with hesitant excitement.

I flashed her a cocky grin. If I could give her a few hours of helping her forget everything, it’d be the best way to spend my time. “We can do whatever the hell we want.”

We took off, driving past the range and around another bend. There were cliffs and creeks, some iced over so I avoided the worst of them, but I wasn’t shy about going through the water when we could see the bottom. Addi shrieked occasionally as the Jeep angled and tilted to degrees that would have had my regular truck stuck and half-drowned.

Even though we weren’t going fast, it was the most fun afternoon I’d had since leaving Kansas. Our laughs were equally boisterous, and every time she shrieked out a laugh, I felt like a champion of professional proportions.

“Look at that.” Addi pointed in the distance, to an upcoming cliff. “Can we get out?”

It was barely forty degrees and we weren’t dressed for cold weather outside the sweatshirts we both wore, but I figured what the hell.

“Sure. We can walk a bit if you want.”

I stopped the Jeep in an area that didn’t look muddy and hopped out. Addi was still working on climbing down from the lifted vehicle when I got over to her, so I gave her my hand and kept hold of it while she stepped out and started walking.

This view…it stole my breath, relaxed me.

“It’s so incredible up here,” she whispered next to me, almost as much in awe as I was.

“I could live here,” I said, pointing across the valley where we stood. “Right out there. Build a place like Jaxon’s, although maybe smaller. Come up here all year long to get away from the city.”

“You sound like you miss Kansas.”

Sometimes I did. My family mostly. Old friends. “I miss being able to see forever. City sunsets and sunrises aren’t the same when you’re surrounded by buildings.”

“I could see that.” She rested her head against my shoulder, and for a minute, the two of us stood there. Birds chirped and water rushed nearby, trees swished and whispered from the breeze, but other than that, it was silence, with gorgeous blue skies and only a smattering of clouds. “I used to walk to the shore in Charleston, out to Waterfront Park so I could watch the sunrise. Probably not as pretty as all that farmland, definitely not as gorgeous as this, but it was peaceful.”

I dropped her hand and slid my arm to her lower back, pulling her tight to my side. “I’m guessing you didn’t have a lot of peace and needed that.”

She was quiet for a moment, pushing her lips out to one side. “I think up until a few years ago, I just had expectations to fulfill and I was willing to do so, so I didn’t think too much about why I needed that, but you’re probably right. Some days I feel so stupid I didn’t try harder to get away sooner.”

“You’re not stupid.”

“No, but I was complacent for the most part, and that still eats at me.” She turned and kissed my shoulder, needing that intimacy as much as I loved being the person she took it from, and she burrowed into me, wrapping her arm around me like mine was to her. “When I ran into Jillian at that wedding last summer, it’s almost funny because I asked her how she escaped life down there, how she wasableto escape, and she looked at me, almost full of pity, and said,I went to college, not the moon.Like I was some sort of idiot for not realizing I could justdo that.”

Shit.Her pain hit me deep in the chest, and a part of me thought the same thing. You don’t like your life? Do something about it. But my parents had raised me to be independent and my own man. She’d been raised to be a clone of her parents and her family before them.

She pushed off me and tugged the tie out of her ponytail before redoing her hair. I wanted to reach for her, bring her back into my hold, but it seemed like she was struggling with this part of herself, the obedient girl versus who she’d always wanted to be. If she needed a moment to think through that and process, I’d be here for her, at her back. Always.

There were times when I would fight tooth and nail to protect her, but Addi learning who she was and the strength she had needed to come from her own realizations, even while I wanted to wrap her in my arms and shower her with affection.

Tilting her head up to the bright sky, she heaved a breath that forced her shoulders to her ears before they fell. “I feel so stupid. So naive. I even tried to fight against my dad, but I always went back…always did what I was told.”

“Not always. Not when it really counted. You left, honey, and that’s something to be proud of. All the choices we make in our lives grow us into the people we are today, and standing next you, I’m damn honored to know you and who you are, regardless of the regrets you carry.”

“Again with the perfect words,” she teased. “Come on. Let’s walk a bit before we need to head back.”

She turned to move away, but she wasn’t getting away that easy, not with her sweet smile and the sun making her eyes the color of the pine trees. I grabbed her hand and yanked her to me, and she came, slamming her hand to her chest right as her foot fell into a wet patch of mud.

“Ew.” She groaned and lifted her foot that had sunk all the way to the top of her shoe. She pulled it out and made a face before squishing her nose up at me. “My socks are wet and gross.”

I’d have felt bad for knocking her off balance and sending her into the mud if she didn’t look so damn cute.

“Walk’s over then?”

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