Page 19 of DOG Part 2
She cocked her head, considering. “It’s hard to be disappointed when I understand why he joined.”
“But they’re involved in criminal activity.Andhe hasn’t been home for months. You told me that yourself.”
She swallowed hard and I saw for the first time that she was near tears.
“I’m sorry,” I said hurriedly. “I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s not my place.”
“No, it’s all right.” She blinked away the tears that hadn’t gotten a chance to fall. “Kane stays away because of a lot of reasons. It’s hard for him. There are a lot of memories in this house. Some of them too happy to face, I think.”
“Because of Amanda?”
“Yes.”
“She broke his heart?”
“In a way. She died.”
My entire body froze up and my heart constricted. “Oh. Wow,” I said softly. “He never... I mean, I didn’t know.”
“I doubt he makes a habit of talking about it.”
I sat there, absolutely frozen while I absorbed the new information. Kane with a serious girlfriend.Thatwas unexpected. Kane losing said serious girlfriend forever. Even more unexpected, but not implausible. He was human after all, with very human experiences. It was just that crediting those kinds of experiences to a motorcycle club president who I had assumed made a habit out of banging every girl that moved was... Strange.
“What happened?”
“She was hit by a stray bullet when there was an armed robbery downtown. Wrong place at the wrong time. Kane was in Afghanistan at the time. It was just a month before he came home.”
I blinked heavily. My limbs felt like lead and the words just wouldn’t seem to come. Adele gazed at me, seemingly trying to read my face.
“Oh my God,” I finally whispered, the words coming out on the slightest breath.
“Kane isn’t so complicated once you know about his past,” she continued. “He distrusts authority. It’s almost funny considering how much he used to revere it. He’d wanted to join the military ever since he was in middle school. He thought that was the way he could make a difference in the world. We even tried to convince him to try other avenues. Peace Corps, volunteering at home, but he was adamant.”
“So why did that change?”
Adele leaned back in her chair. “Amanda’s killers were never brought to justice. In fact, from our perspective the police never even tried. The case was closed almost as soon as it was opened. Kane has never really gotten over that.”
“So he distrusts the whole system,” I slowly continued, fitting the pieces together.
“He also carries a lot of guilt over not being there when it happened.”
I snorted. “But that’s silly. There’s nothing he could have done.”
“That’s Kane. He thinks he needs to take care of everyone and everything. It’s one of the reasons he keeps his distance with us. He wants to keep us safe. He doesn’t want to get us drawn into the motorcycle club world.”
I looked down at my lap, at my hands resting listlessly there. I hoped he wouldn’t do the same with me, separate himself from my life in order to keep me safe. The more I saw of Kane the harder it became to imagine life without him.
Then again, he couldn’t possibly care for me the way he had for Amanda. That smile, the way he leaned close into her in every picture... That was a man I’d never even seen a glimmer of.
Kane’s heart had shut years ago, and it was likely to never open again. Unfortunately that just made me want him even more.
Adele patted my knee and stood up. “I’m going to go grocery shopping. Care to come? It might do you some good to get out of the house. We’ll plan a nice meal and have a good time getting it together. Who knows, Kane may be back tonight. We can make one of his favorites.”
“All right,” I nodded, closing the photo album. I didn’t want to get my hopes up and expect Kane to come back so soon, but there was no use pretending I still wasn’t on edge waiting for him to come and retrieve me. At least moving my feet and getting my hands busy had the potential to distract me for a little bit.
“So what’s Kane’s favorite meal?”
“Anything without vegetables.”
I threw my head back and laughed. “So I guess in some ways he’s still a little kid.”
“When you’re a mother your children will always be your little kids,” she answered as she grabbed her keys from a hook in the foyer.
I followed her down the front steps, doing everything I could to forget about the photo albums still sitting on the kitchen table. It wasn’t easy. In just a few minutes everything about Kane had been explained. His life story had been opened and revealed to me and that wasn’t something one could easily move away from.
God help me, it made me want him even more. It made me want him with an aching throbbing that filled my body and my soul and made me feel that I was going to explode.
Before climbing into Adele’s Honda I took a second to pause and close my eyes and offer up a prayer to whoever might be listening.
Please protect Kane, I silently begged.Bring him back to me.
