“Thanks for giving me time,” she whispers, just for me.
“Course,” I mutter back.
She lets me go, then, and I notice her mom and sister are watching me closely, an odd look on their faces. Approving, maybe. Cautiously optimistic, more like.
I head out to the back deck, out into the field. Way out, where the lights of the house are just distant yellow squares. I plop my ass into the grass, lay back, and do what I did countless nights out on CP in Afghanistan, or on any of the longer missions we took on horseback or on foot—I watch the stars and let my mind wander. Process shit.
She’s intensely close to her family. Cousins, nephews, nieces, uncles, and aunts, she knows everyone and loves each one. I couldn’t even count how many people there were today. But she knows them all, loves them all, enjoyed reconnecting with them. It’s clear she especially missed her mom and Ana.
What would it be like, having a family like that? That many people, loving and being loved? Can’t picture it.
And she seems to think I’m part of it, now. It’s been very little time, her and me being a thing. But she’s just…thrown in with me, all the way. Like she just knows what she wants, and it’s me.
Can’t say I don’t feel the same. I just wonder if I’m cut out for a relationship. If this is real, if I can really depend on it.
Scares the fuck out of me, but I’m gonna try.
I mull over all this for a long time, at least an hour. Figure by then, the ladies’ll have had enough time to talk, probably, so I make my way back. The back door is still open, so even before I head up the steps from the yard up to the deck, I can hear their conversation.
I don’t mean to, but I can’t help listening.
They’re talking about me.
“He’s kind of frightening, Mike,” her mom says. “Not just his build or that haircut. It’s just…him.”
Not the first time I’ve heard that, so it doesn’t bother me.
Myka answers. “I know, Mom. Trust me, I know. He scared the heck out of me, when I first met him. But…there’s a lot beneath that. And honestly, it’s part of what I find so attractive about him.”
“He almost killed Darren,” Ana points out. “Deserved or not, that’s a level of scary that worries me. The violence I sense in him…”
“You don’t know the half of it, Ana.” Myka’s voice is quiet. “But I’ve never once felt afraid of him. The opposite. I feel safer with him than I’ve ever felt in my life. Not only would he never do anything to hurt me, I absolutely believe down to my bones that he’d do anything to keep me from getting hurt.” A pause. “Andthat’shot.”
“Myka Abigail,” her mother scolds.
“Oh, stop, Mom.”
“Are you being pure with him?” Faith again.
Myka’s answer is a long time in coming. “I’m not discussing this with you. It’s none of your business—and Mom, please hear me when I say I mean that with all the respect and love I have for you. But I’m going to make my own decisions on what’s right and wrong for me. You don’t have to agree.” A pause. “And you guys keep nagging me about this when Mal and Kellan aren’t married and are downstairs alone.”
A sigh from Faith. “Meaning, you’re not. You’re living in sin.” A pause. “And they’re engaged to be married. That, at least, is a commitment before the Lord, instead of just shacking up with a man you barely know.”
“Mom.” It’s sharp.
“We raised you a certain way, honey. It pains me to see you straying from that path.”
“I’m not straying, Mom. I’m choosing my own path.”
“A sinful one.”
“Momma,” this is Ana. “I’ve had this conversation with her. You’re not going to get anywhere.”
“Did he lead you astray, this young man of yours?”
Another annoyed sigh from Myka. “Honestly, no. The opposite, if anything. He tried to keep me from being interested in him.”
“Why would he do that? I don’t mean to seem judgmental, but he strikes me as being more of the type to sow his oats rather liberally, if you know what I mean.” Faith again.
