Page 35 of Unlucky in Love
“You weren’t nothing, Taylor,” he said finally, his voice low and hoarse. “You were everything I couldn’t let myself want.”
Her chest clenched. “Because of Emma?”
He nodded once. “She was my kid sister. You were her best friend. I was already the older guy, already leaving for college. You were seventeen. I told myself the best thing I could do was stay away. Pretend I didn’t see it.” His mouth twisted. “Pretend I didn’t feel it.”
Taylor’s heart slammed. “You felt it?”
Ryan’s gaze locked with hers, unflinching. “Of course I did. I wanted you, Taylor. God, I wanted you so bad it scared the hell out of me. But you deserved better than me at the time I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and I knew I couldn’t take you with me. For me, it would always be you, but you deserved to experience more than just me.”
Her breath hitched, hot tears stinging her eyes. “So you thought leaving me behind was better?”
“I thought it was the only way to protect you.” His voice broke, the honesty raw. “I thought I’d ruin you if I stayed. And then…I kept going. Deployment after deployment. Orders. Operations. I told myself you’d move on, that it was better for you if I stayed gone.”
Taylor shook her head, her voice fierce through the tears. “You didn’t protect me. You hurt me. Do you have any idea how small I felt when you wouldn’t even look at me? How stupid I felt for wanting you?”
Ryan’s thumb brushed a tear from her cheek, his own expression pained. “You were never stupid. I was the coward. I left because I was too scared of what it meant if I stayed.”
The words cracked something open inside her. The years of silence, the ache of being unseen, the longing she’d buried. And suddenly she was kissing him again, desperate and fierce, because no explanation could erase the hurt, but the truth at least made the wanting real.
When they broke apart, gasping, Taylor pressed her forehead to his. “Don’t leave again.”
Ryan’s grip tightened at her waist. His answer came without hesitation. “I won’t.”
Chapter 11
Ryan
Ryan had been in loud rooms before. Barracks. Airfields. Briefings that turned into arguments. None of them prepared him for the sound that hit when he and Taylor stepped through Emma’s front door together.
“They’re dating!” Emma shouted from the foyer like a town crier announcing a royal decree.
Taylor made a distressed noise that might have been his name. Ryan bit back a laugh and shut the door behind them, bracing for impact.
The impact arrived in the form of his mother first. She swept in with her apron still dusted in flour, eyes bright and already glossy. “Sweetheart,” she said to Taylor, taking her hands. “Finally.” Then to Ryan, with a pointed look. “About time.”
His father clapped him on the back hard enough to rattle a rib. “Took you long enough, boy.”
“Good to see you too, Dad,” Ryan said, steadying himself.
Cousins popped up from the living room like prairie dogs. An uncle leaned over the back of the couch. Someone whistled. Someone else said, “Pay up,” and a crumpled ten changed hands near the mantle.
Ryan arched a brow. “You people placed bets?”
“Of course we did,” Aunt Lila said cheerfully, pulling Taylor into a hug. “We are a family of realists. And romantics. Realistic romantics.”
Taylor’s face had gone pink. She mouthed help at him over Aunt Lila’s shoulder. He grinned and held up both hands in surrender. He had warned her. There was no gentle entry into a Carter dinner once Emma had a piece of gossip.
“Kitchen,” Emma said, steering them like a tugboat, the baby balanced on her hip and glee in her eyes. “Mom made three chickens, two pans of potatoes, and whatever that green thing is that appeared next to the salad.”
“Green beans,” his mother called. “Do not fear them.”
The table was already set, candles flickering, platters steaming. Ryan pulled out a chair for Taylor and took the seat beside her. She gave him a quick, grateful look that tugged at something in his chest he did not want to examine while relatives hovered.
“Ground rules,” Emma announced, planting herself at the head of the table like a general about to brief her troops. “We will keep teasing at a level that does not make Taylor run away. There will be no baby name suggestions yet. And no one is allowed to say I told you so.”
A cousin raised a hand. “Counterproposal. One I told you so each.”
“Denied,” Emma said.
