“Open wide and say ah.”

From her spot on the edge of the exam table, Frankie did as she was told, opening her mouth so wide I didn’t know how he wasn’t looking at the inside of her stomach. She gurgled an elongated ahhhhh that was mixed with a giggle and did her best not to fall into a fit of laughter when Kale put a depressor against her tongue and shined a light on her throat.

“Oh, no.” If Kale weren’t acting a fool, exaggerating his worry, I would have been on him in a flash, demanding to know which of the bajillion horrible illnesses could be the actual culprit for her symptoms.

So yeah.

I’d tumbled down the rabbit hole of internet searches on my phone while I’d been watching her sleep her fever away this last weekend.

Apparently, Google was the number you were actually supposed to multiply your worry by.

Because that shit was scary.

But Kale was being Kale.

Tossing out teases at Frankie like they were candy.

Frankie’s eyes went wide. “What’s it, Uncle Kale?”

He dropped his voice to a secretive whisper. “Don’t tell anyone, but I think there are monsters living in your throat.”

Frankie giggled harder and lifted her shoulders to her chubby cheeks. “Nu-uh. There no monsters livin’ in my throat.”

Kale huffed dramatically. “And how do you know that? I’m the doctor here.”

“My daddy told me there’s no such fing as monsters.”

“And your daddy is smarter than I am?” With the way Kale cut me an evil eye, I wondered how much of his offense was feigned.

“Course he’s smarter than you. He’s the smartest daddy in the whole, whole, whole wide world.” Her arms pumped up higher every time she repeated the word. She glanced over at me. “Right, Daddy?”

I shrugged from where I was leaned against the wall with my arms crossed over my chest. “My daughter is the smartest kid around. She knows her stuff.”

He quirked a brow. “And that stuff is that you’re actually smarter than I am?”

My lips twitched. “Guess so.”

This time Frankie threw her arms all the way in the air. “I know all the stuffs.”

“Is that so?” He poked her belly. Instantly, she was howling, grabbing at his hand.

“It’s so! It’s so! It’s so, so, so.” She kept chanting as he jumped into a full-fledged tickle attack, and my chest was doing that crazy thing where it felt too full and too proud and too content, which happened just about every damned time I looked my daughter’s way.

I was telling no lies.

She was my light.

The life inside me.

She sobered about as quickly as she’d collapsed into laughter. “Am I alls better, Uncle Kale?”

He touched her chin with his knuckle. “All better, pumpkin pie.”

Her face scrunched. “I don’t likes punkin’ pie, Uncle. I likes cherry pie.”

Of course she did.

Incredulous, his brow lifted. “You want me to call you cherry pie?”

He was holding back laughter, looking over at me like he was just waiting for me to bust up.

“Uh . . . can we not?” I said, pushing from the wall, irritated because I knew exactly where Kale’s mind had gone traipsing. Right to that damned Warrant video Ollie had made us watch on repeat for the entire summer between third and fourth grade. Apparently, fourth grade was right about the time when Ollie had decided girls weren’t exactly gross.

Or maybe I was irritated simply because the mention of cherry pie had my mind traipsing straight to thoughts of Rynna.

Neither of us could seem to resist whatever the fuck that insanity was that burned between us. No question, she was just as much a prisoner to the ruthless energy that thrived between us as I was. This violent need. Growing stronger every time it forced us together.

Irresistible.

Stupid.

Reckless.

God knew that was what touching her had been.

Reckless. Just because you knew something that didn’t make you wise.

And I swore that touching her had scored the very depth of me.

It’d been too much. Too good. Too right when I knew every second of it was so goddamned wrong.

Most terrifying part was I wasn’t sure I’d ever wanted a girl the way I wanted her.

Not in all my life.

Watching her walk away with all that understanding on her face? That had been a kick to the gut. Hurting her when it was the last thing I wanted to do. But the only thing I had to offer her was the fucking mess I’d made.

I shook myself from the thoughts. “Everything look okay?”

“All’s good, my friend.”

From under the arms, Kale lifted Frankie, hoisting her into the air and making her squeal and flap her arms like she was flying, before he set her on her feet. He patted the top of her head. “Good as new, right, Frankie Leigh, Cherry Pie?”

He winked at me, and I elbowed him in the side. “Don’t even, man.”

Gasping through a laugh, he clutched his ribs. “Dude, not cool. Not cool. I’m just messing with you. Why so serious all the time?”

Frankie started skipping around the small examination room. “Rynna makes the bestest cherry pies ever, ever. Daddy even said they mights be better than her grammy’s.”

Kale looked down at her before looking at me with something gleaming in his eye. “Rynna, huh?”

“Yep,” Frankie answered, not having a clue that Kale’s question was actually directed at me. “She bringed me one when I had the sicks and her pots pie made me all better. Oh, Uncle Kale, it was soes good!”

“This Rynna sounds really nice,” Kale said. Again, eyeing me like the bastard he was.

“Mm-huh! She’s so, so nice. She even wrotes me a letter.” Frankie rambled off all the details I sure as hell didn’t want Kale to have as he opened the door. She kept at it as she capered down the hall, alternating between skipping and twirling and leaping, which she’d learned at ballet yesterday.

When we hit the waiting room, she darted for the children’s play area set up in the corner. The small space was packed with a ton of kids, their parents, most of them their moms, sitting around in the bright plastic chairs waiting for their names to be called.

I turned to Kale. “Thanks for doing this, man. Know it’s not standard for you to do follow-ups in here like this.”

Blowing out a long breath, he glanced over at Frankie, who had already struck a conversation with a little boy about her age. Swore the kid didn’t have a shy bone in her body. Always making friends wherever she went. Social in a way that made me itch. I always had to watch her like a hawk. Not that I wouldn’t anyway.

“I was happy to, Rex.” He shifted back to look at me, the amusement he’d been wearing since the moment we’d stepped through the clinic doors replaced by his worry. “It’s time you stop thinking you have to go this alone all the time. I’m here for her, too. I love that kid. You have to get that.”

On a sigh, I roughed a hand through my hair, my attention moving back to my daughter, who had climbed the steps to the short plastic slide and was propelling herself down. “I know, man. It’s just—”

“It’s just that you think you’re supposed to,” he cut in, his arms going across his chest. “You think if you give up even a second of the responsibility, a second of the worry, you’re betraying your daughter in some way.”

“That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? Hell, I’m surprised you even let your mom take care of her in the afternoons when she gets out of preschool.”

I let a smirk climb to my mouth. “I’m kind of questioning that, actually. She’d look pretty dammed cute with a hard hat on the job, don’t you think?”

His eyes narrowed. “I’d be laughing right now if I didn’t think you might actually be serious.”

I chuckled, head shaking with a bit of amusement before I dropped my gaze toward my booted feet. “Nah, man. I . . .”

Kale set his hand on my shoulder. “You’re a disaster, man. Know you don’t want to hear it, but you have issues, and I’m worried about you.”

“It’s just . . . it’s so goddamned hard to let her out of my sight. Feel like I’m always scrambling to stay in front of everything, trying to stay one step ahead to make sure she’s safe.”

His voice softened. “You know that’s not always going to be possible.”

Dread curled in my stomach. That same old misery that stalked me in the day and hunted me in the night. The helplessness and fear and agony that had scraped and scraped at my spirit.

Perpetual torture.

I wondered how there was anything left of me.

“You’ve got to understand, Kale.”

“Of course, I understand. I was there, man. I went through it, too. But you can’t spend the rest of your life a prisoner to that time.”

How the fuck were we supposed to move on from it when that time was unending?

“I’m trying.”

“Are you? Then why don’t you come clean about what’s going on with this Rynna girl? The smoking hot chick who just so happened to be at the emergency room—at three-thirty in the morning—with the guy who refuses to accept help from anyone other than me, Ollie, and his mom, and barely even then.”

Unease stirred through me. That same feeling that had been nagging at me for days. The dread and the need and confusion. “Battery was dead in the truck.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?”

“You’re an awful handy dude for having to ask a woman for help in the middle of the night.”

“Frankie was sick. Didn’t have time to spare.”

“You needed someone, and you went to her.”

Fuck.

He was right.

I needed someone. And I went to her.

I went to her.

Agitation had me shifting on my feet.

He squeezed my shoulder a little tighter. “Tell me what’s going on with you two.”

My attention was locked on Frankie as I rubbed a hand over my mouth, trying not to think about the way I’d felt pressed against Rynna. The way her heart had beaten and mine had come alive for the first time in years. “Only thing that’s going on is shit that can’t be.”

“And why’s that?”

My chest tightened, and I looked to the ground, voice dropping so low I wasn’t sure he could hear my confession. “It feels like cheating.”

I could feel Kale’s sympathy all mixed with a bolt of exasperation. “And who exactly are you cheating on? Because that bitch left you and Sydney is gone. They are both gone, man, and they aren’t coming back.”

My entire being flinched. Anguish and this blinding guilt that ate me up from the inside.

Kale’s voice dropped to match mine. “You need to tell Ollie, Rex. Fucking get this off your chest once and for all so you can finally move on.”

“I’m not sure how to do that.”

Question was, did I really want to?

Rynna’s face spun through my mind. I swore I could feel that place that had ached forever transform. Grasping for something different. Something better.

And that scared the shit out of me.

I glanced over at Kale. When I caught his expression, my irritation came back full force. “Why the fuck are you grinning?”

“Oh, you know . . . because it’s super entertaining to watch you realize you just might want something but the thought of it makes you want to crawl right out of your skin.”

“Always such an asshole,” I mumbled.

“Who doesn’t hesitate to say it straight. Admit it. You like her.”

“I don’t like her. I don’t even know her.”

“But you want to.” The jackass had the audacity to sing it as he twirled his finger in a circle in front of my face.

I smacked it away.

He was worse than a thirteen-year-old girl.

“Come on, man. Admit it. You want to.” He flashed me one of those ridiculous smiles that had every girl in town dying to lock that shit down. All fucking dimples and bright white teeth. “Tell me about that pie.” He waggled his brows, keeping right on with the ribbing, having no idea the knives he was driving into raw flesh. “Tell me how badly you want her to eat yours.”

My throat bobbed, that guilt rising around me like jagged cliffs. Guilt for giving in. I had already made more mistakes with her than I could make excuses for. Had already gotten deep enough that I wasn’t sure I was ever going to climb out.

“Oh shit,” Kale muttered under his breath. “You lucky bastard, you already did. And you’re over there pouting about it.”

I shifted away, not needing to pretend I was keeping a close eye on Frankie. “Not like that . . . we just . . .”

Visions assaulted me. The ecstasy on her face when she’d come with the sun shining on her gorgeous face. How good she’d tasted. How right she’d felt in my arms.

“Just what?” he pressed.

I blew out a frustrated breath, voice barely a gritted whisper. “It was just a kiss.”

Kale laughed. “Just a kiss, huh? Considering you haven’t touched a girl in years, I’d bet the pink slip to my car, which you know is my baby, that it meant a whole lot more to you than it just being a kiss. You have some kind of superhuman strength or balls of steal or some shit, because those fuckers should be so blue they’d have fallen off by now.” The guy knew me better than anyone, and he didn’t hesitate to pull punches.

“You think you regret whatever you’re feeling now? Just wait to see how much regret you feel when you don’t do anything about it.” He sighed. “It doesn’t have to be a big thing, Rex. Test it out. Hang out with her as a friend. See how it goes. It’s not like you’re asking her to marry you.”

I flinched with that, and he snorted, shaking his head before he spun all the way around and waltzed over to the reception desk. Two nurses behind it immediately tuned in to whatever the flirty bastard had to say as he rested his forearms on the counter and leaned toward them.

And I wondered how he’d done it.

Managed it.

Overcome it.

Or maybe I was the one who’d really been at fault all along.