Page 36 of The Last One You Loved
“She was one, McKenna. She didn’t look like anything but a malnourished baby who’d been living in grime and squalor.”
It was as if I’d hit her. She took a step back.
“Do you really want to do this here?” Ryder asked quietly at my back. “Now? Drunk? Maybe you should sober up and have this conversation in private?”
“You don’t get to have it both ways, McKenna,” I said, ignoring my brother’s warning. “You’re either here, or you’re there. You get your perfect doctor dream world, or you deal with the remnants of your old life, and I know what you’ll choose every single time. It will never be this.” I waved my hand around the bar, but I meant the town…me.
“She’s my family,” McKenna said, but it was breathy, as if she didn’t know how that word could ever apply to her. The only family who’d ever really wanted her, she’d tossed aside.
I scoffed. “What would you have done with her? Hauled her to class with you? How could you have taken care of her while working sixteen hours a day at some hospital? You would’ve had to give up your perfect life.”
“You had no right to make that choice for me!” she shot back.
My lungs burned, and my stomach was so knotted I thought I might toss the alcohol I’d drunk. By the time we’d finally sorted out the truth about Sybil, and the prosecution had pressed charges, I’d already fallen in love with my daughter.
“Who would she have had if she’d been with you?” I demanded. “Some random daycare provider? People in and out of her life? Here, she has people who care about me and my daughter and surround us with love?who give us what we need. You wouldn’t know the first thing about giving her any of that.”
It was cruel, but I just needed her to go. I needed her to scurry back to her real life and leave me and Mila alone. McKenna’s face shut down, becoming a blank slate like I’d seen her do hundreds of times when her mama was yelling obscenities at her.
“I’m not going anywhere, Maddox Parker Hatley. Not yet. Not until I figure out how the hell you got custody of my sister without the state ever contacting me. Where the hell is Sybil? Why would she even give you custody?”
“She would have given her to anybody but you,” I said and hated the sharply inhaled breath she took that proved my barb had landed home. Even though it was the truth, I regretted stabbing at her one more time.
McKenna stepped closer to me, pushing a finger into my chest, and even though it had been years, and she was touching me in anger, I still felt the electricity zap through me at her touch. Awareness of every inch of her made my body lean forward, as if we were going to embrace instead of throttle each other.
“You’ve let your role as sheriff go to your head, Maddox,” she all but growled. “You don’t get to dictate everyone else’s life for them.”
“But I do get to dictate my daughter’s, and you can’t be a part of hers.”
“Mads,” Ryder said gently, a warning in his tone that I was too drunk and too agitated to hear.
“We’ll see about that,” McKenna said, twirling on her heel and storming toward the door.
When she left, there was a low whistle from the table behind us, and someone whispered, “That McKenna sure grew up to be a firecracker.”
My heart was on fire, as if she’d thrown the cracker directly at me, fear brushing through me anew. I had all the right paperwork, so I wasn’t worried McKenna could take Mila from me. It was Sybil’s threats about the father that worried me.
I was about seventy percent sure Mila’s father was one of the West Gears because those were the only people I’d ever seen Sybil with. I didn’t think the father was McKenna’s dad, Trap, who’d been the head of the motorcycle club for years. He’d washed his hands of Sybil after he’d found out about the physical abuse she’d dealt McKenna. What I did know was that if Mila’s father was a Gears member, he would absolutely rejoice in trying to take my daughter from me. They hated me with a vengeance because of the dents I’d been putting in their business.
I slid off the stool, reaching for my hat and having to stabilize myself using the bar. “I gotta go,” I said.
Ryder stood up next to me, throwing cash down.
He followed me out, and the cool wind ripped through me just as the rain started. It was icy and bitter, like the cold fingers wrapping themselves around my heart. Dread and fear and anger at myself for letting McKenna rile me up, for being cruel when I prided myself on being anything but.
Ryder’s stride matched mine, our hats ducked, rain dripping off the brims as we made our way to my house. I was suddenly glad Mila wasn’t home, because I didn’t want her to see me this way. Drunk. Torn. Scared.
I fumbled with the lock before letting us in. We stripped our coats and hats and boots, leaving them in the hall as I headed into my study. I opened my safe, took out the paperwork that said Mila was mine, and sat, elbows on the desk, head in my hands, reading through it for what felt like the hundredth time.
Ryder leaned against the desk and put a hand on my shoulder. “Mads, you’re stressing over nothing. She’s yours. No one is going to take her from you, but…”
My head whipped up. “But what?”
“Maybe you should tell McKenna the whole messed-up story. You know it about kills me to say this, but Mila has a right to know her sister.”
“No,” I grunted out. “She can’t waltz in here, make Mila love her, and then abandon her.”
Even the thought made my chest burn.
