Page 32 of Heart Strings & Hotlines
He doesn’t move an inch, but he takes up the entire staircase with his large frame.
“Thane?”
He swallows hard, and it sounds painful. “Ah,” he mumbles, then licks his lips. His gaze struggles to stay focused on my face.
Shit. The tank top. Crossing my arms, I step closer, until we’re nearly touching. “What did you say to her, Thane?”
“You’re so fucking beautiful.”
I have no way of containing the blush creeping across my skin, so I stare at the ground. “To Kara, Thane. What did you say to Kara?”
His head snaps up, then he steps aside so I can walk down the stairs, and we scan the yard side by side. “Ah, something about a skunk, or maybe it was a raccoon. Either way, it didn’t go over well, and Rafe was in the shower so…”
“So she ran out here.” Propping my hands on my hips, I scan from the corner of Thane’s yard, back toward mine, then toward the lake. “Let me talk with her.”
“You—you see her?”
“No, but I bet I know where she is. Hang here. I’ll bring her back. I’m pretty sure she didn’t leave the property, just may be hiding.”
“I’ll wait for seven minutes.”
That seems like a random number.
“It takes three minutes to walk down to the lake. Two if you walk fast.” He’s staring at me as if that explains it all. “Seven minutes, Lottie, then I’m coming for you both.”
WTF. That should not excite me, but my body reacts like it didn’t get the memo. I want to ask if I ran, would he chase me, and that’s all kinds of messed up, so instead, I turn on my heel and speed walk toward my bench on the lake.
“Six minutes,” he calls to my back, and I nearly run, but I’ve already spotted her silhouette on the dock that splits the property lines.
“Kara?” I call quietly as I get closer. She instantly pulls up the hood of her sweatshirt. “Thane told me what happened. Maybe I can help?”
Her shoulders tremble as if she’s crying, and my chest aches with a pain I haven’t felt since I stopped searching for parental figures in my life. I was thirteen, same as Kara.
“Sweetheart? Can you show me?”
She shakes her head, so I walk along the dock and sit beside her. It’s freaking cold down here.
“He—he didn’t even ask if I was okay. He said I looked like a rabid raccoon and asked what the hell I did.” She hiccups, then slowly lifts her head.
Mascara has melted off with her tears and formed big, dark rings around her eyes. Okay, so now I understand why he’d say what he said, but he’s got to learn to use a filter.
“And—and I ruined my hair, and I don’t have anyone to help me. I’m all alone. Everywhere I go, I’m alone. I grew up being the girl without a mom. Now I’m the girl without a dad too, and I know Thane’s trying, but…but…”
“It’s hard being a girl without a mom.” My own heartbreak bleeds into my words. The dock creaks, and I find Thane standing at the end with his hands pressed tightly to his hips. Kara hasn’t seen him yet, so I hold up my palm and gently shake my head.
Thane steps back but doesn’t leave. It’s as much privacy as we’re going to get.
“I never knew my mom.” She sniffles and wipes her nose on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “She left when I was a baby… Pretty sure my dad paid her to leave and never come back.”
Her father is as much of a monster as my own. I swing my legs beneath me, my toes nearly touching the water, and tuck my hands under my thighs.
“My mom passed away when I was ten. One day she was here and the next…she wasn’t.”
Kara questions me with watery eyes.
“The doctor said she had a stroke, but she was young—too young, or so I thought. My father went from bad to miserable to unbearable in the span of a week. My brother tried to shield me, but that’s probably a story for another time. I have a feeling we’ve walked a similar path.”
“Does your brother at least like you?”
