Page 14 of Chasing I Do
“What’s a documentary?”
A throbbing started behind his right eye. “You know, like a movie or a TV show, but it teaches you things.”
“Like Angelina Ballerina?”
“Yeah, like that,” he said and,great, now he was lying to small children. “Anyway, they said that although feet were important, it was also about the arms. Ballerina’s needed to have small arms.” He thought about what kind of complexthatmight give a growing girl, then added, “Small but strong arms, that can fit in small, tight places.”
She crinkled her nose. “Like through a hoop?”
“Sure.” He looked at the mail slot. “Or tight spaces like that. Can you reach through there?”
“Ah huh,” she said, but instead of fetching him the letter, she took off giggling down the stairs.
“Hey, Tiny,” Gage called after her. “Where are you going?”
“To get my mom and tell her you’re trying to steal her mail.”
Shit!
At least she wasn’t fetching her dad to tell him some crazy creeper was asking about her small arms. “It’s not her mail, well the top one isn’t. It’s mine. I accidently dropped it in the slot without, ah, signing it.”
Tiny stopped at the bottom step, turned back around, and gave him a look that implied she thought he was full of shit. And he was. But he was also desperate. “Can you help me? No point in giving a letter if it isn’t signed.”
He watched her consider her options: help the stranger or run for help. And just when he thought she was going to walk on the wild side, her eyes drifted to the right—not to the house where her mom, the cook or maybe the cute assistant he’d met the other day was—but to the rose garden, where Darcy was holding a bouquet of roses, pink like Tiny’s tutu, her face frozen in horror.
Everything in his brain seemed to freeze, unable to put together the logical pieces, as he stood paralyzed on the porch of Darcy’s house.
Her home, she’d called it.
Darcy called out, most likely to her little girl, because Tiny turned her head back toward Gage, and when he met those piercing blue eyes head on, his heart stopped—right there in his chest. It gave one hard thump of recognition, then nothing.
Time slowed, rewound to a place where every pain felt fresh, raw, so insurmountable he had to question if what he saw, and what he felt, lined up. It was as if his entire body was holding its breath, waiting for his mind and his heart to search all of the implications, all of the possibilities, and come up with an answer that made sense.
The cute nose, caramel ringlets, and dusting of freckles were all Darcy’s. But those eyes—and this was where the anger made way for anguish—Jesus,those eyes were Easton blue. Filled with excitement and mischief and a little bit of attitude. Even that crooked smile, which said she knew she was in trouble for talking to a stranger but it was worth it, was all Kyle.
A feeling too difficult to articulate and so unfamiliar overwhelmed him as he struggled to get his emotions under control.
“Hey, Tiny. You never told me your name,” he managed past the lump in his throat.
Tiny looked over her shoulder once more, then gave him a toothy grin that damn near made him weep. “Kylie. What’s yours?”
Kylie.
Gage took a step forward, then eased down on the top step, afraid his knees would buckle.
Kyle had a kid.
And Gage had a niece. Who was bright, and beautiful, and liked frosting and all things dancing. Yet, he didn’t know anything else about her.
Not a damn thing.
“Gage,” he pushed out through the emotion squeezing his throat. “My name’s Gage.”
“Gage is that old friend I was telling you about,” Darcy said, her heels clicking up the brick pathway as she took a defensive stance behind her daughter.
Gage wanted to say he was her uncle, and he was sorry for not being there for her, that he didn’t know. He didn’t fucking know. But he didn’t want to scare her, or stir up more animosity with Darcy, so he just smiled like his heart wasn’t in his throat.
“The one you were sad about?” Kylie asked Darcy, her little voice all sweet concern.
