The Man I Want to Be Read online

  “Is Kenna okay?” Calder asked. “She looked pretty upset. Something happen between you two?”

  He wanted to laugh. Laugh until he ran out of air and it strangled him to death. Then he wouldn’t have to feel what he was feeling now. Yeah, something happened between them. She wanted him. He wanted her. She was pissed at him. He couldn’t be what she needed.

  A real fairy-tale story.

  “What’s going on?” Ash said, coming up on Tyke’s other side. “Why’s Kenna all worked up?”

  He rolled his eyes and took another long drag from his bottle. “Don’t you two have anything better to do?”

  “Cass wanted me to check on you. Said you looked perplexed.”

  “Sam, too.”

  Tyke grumbled. Damn nosy, big-hearted women.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Kenna’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  Luke scanned the area in a wide arc. “Then where’d she go?”

  Tyke glanced at Calder from the corner of his eye. “Do I look like her keeper?”

  “For a while you did.”

  Tyke grunted. “You two don’t know anything.”

  Ash pulled out Tyke’s chair and gestured to it. “Then why don’t you tell us?”

  Bryan glanced down at the item in Ash’s hand, then looked up at his friends. “There’s nothin’ to tell, okay? She went wherever women go to do whatever women do. Ask your fiancées, maybe they know where she is.”

  Ash took his hand off the chair in order to fold his arms. “Sam has a theory.”

  Tyke looked up at the cloudless night sky and exhaled. “Great. Can’t wait to hear it.”

  “Good, ’cause you’re going to.” There was a pause, then Ash said, “She thinks you two still love each other.”

  Calder’s eyes expanded, the whites glowing like huge eggs in the candlelight. “Is that true? Do you love her? And does she love you back?”

  Slowly turning his head, Bryan looked at Luke. “What is this? Days of Our Lives or some shit?”

  “Looks like it the way you two are on-again and off-again every freaking second,” Luke said. “Want to write her a note and have me pass it to her in study hall?”

  In about two seconds, he was going to rearrange Calder’s pretty-boy smile.

  Ash must have sensed the change in cabin pressure because he jumped in. “What Calder’s trying to say is you need to talk to her.”

  Tyke scrubbed a rough hand down his face. “What the hell am I going to say?”

  “Whatever you want. Tell her how you feel.”

  He blinked a few times making his friends’ tall frames grow fuzzy the faster he did it.

  “I know,” Ash said in a mock horrified voice. “I can’t believe I just used the F-word. What in the hell is wrong with me?”

  “You’re in love, Coop,” Luke said, picking something out of his teeth. “Just admit it. I have no issue saying it. Hell, I can’t say it enough. After almost losing Cass, I’m going to tell her every single second of every day.”

  Tyke loved Kenna. He wasn’t afraid to admit that. He’d loved that woman from the second he’d laid eyes on her in third-grade math class. He’d sat behind her and threw little balled-up pieces of paper into her red mane trying to get her attention. It had worked. She socked him on her way home from school with the weakest punch he’d ever felt. So he’d taught her how to throw a proper jab. It was the day he knew she was the only one for him.

  The problem wasn’t love. It was that he couldn’t give her forever. She’d always wanted children of her own for as long as he could remember. They used to name their imaginary kids. After Kenna lost her mom, she and Tyke agreed they’d name their little girl after Mary Lou. They’d wanted to honor an amazing woman.

  But after his accident, all of those hopes for a family were gone. He couldn’t be the one to give her that. And out of any woman he’d ever met, Kenna McCord would make an amazing mother. She was conditioned for it. She’d had the best example in her own mom.

  His stomach dropped, that familiar misery making its rounds again. It ebbed and flowed through his body like a second skin now. It was a part of him. How inadequate he was. He thought he’d finally accepted it. But he was a fool to think he’d ever accept the fact that he loved her and couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

  He dreamed of giving her a child. He’d thought about it as he came inside her each time they slept together. They both could have everything they ever wanted.

  But it was just a fantasy.

  He couldn’t give her a child any more than she could forgive him for their past.

  When his thoughts finally cleared, and he could see straight again, he brought his focus to the two idiots standing in front of him, faces examining his.

  “Yep,” Luke said. “He loves her.”

  “Completely wrecked,” Ash agreed. He slapped Tyke on the back, making Tyke wince from the slight sting in his shoulder that was still healing. “Welcome to the dark side, buddy.”

  “It’s not so bad,” Calder jumped in. “We have cookies.” He grinned, then, “And by cookies, I mean—”

  Tyke threw up a hand. “I got it.”

  “Just sayin’,” Luke said. “You might want to give it a try.”

  Cooper was nodding. “Get your head out of your ass and tell her how you feel. Don’t let her walk away if it’s not what you both really want.”

  The two gave him one last pointed glare before rejoining their fiancées at the bar.

  Tyke dropped into the chair Ash had pulled out and cradled his face in his hands.

  “They’ve got a point, ya know.”

  He jerked his head up to see Estelle sitting across from him.

  “Thought you went off after your niece.”

  “Couldn’t catch her.” She sipped from her drink, then said, “They’re right.”

  “Which part?” he asked, not really wanting the answer.

  “The head up your ass.”

  He laughed despite himself. He already knew that.

  She stared at him with an assessing gaze he’d seen so many times from Kenna. It made him squirm but also comforted him at the same time.

  “I can’t make her happy, Estelle.”

  “So you know what’s in her mind, do ya?”

  He pressed his fingers into his eye sockets. “You don’t understand.”

  “You’re right. And neither does she. That don’t help the situation any, does it?”

  “She’s gonna hate me,” he said.

  Estelle tilted her head to the side to look around the wide white floral bouquet on the table. “Hate to point it out, Bryan, but she don’t exactly love ya right now, either.”

  True. And wouldn’t it be better if she knew why he never came back? Then she’d have a valid reason to hate him, rather than just being resentful for something she didn’t understand. She’d said it herself—she thought he left because she wasn’t good enough. Christ, that was the furthest from the truth. If anything, she was too good for him.

  It was time. Time to suck it up and own up to his past.

  But first, he needed to be shit-faced so he wouldn’t have to remember the look of horror on her face when he told her.

  By the time he headed back to the room, Tyke was so drunk he barely remembered the journey. He cradled his arm against his chest, groaning each time he bashed it into something. Like the wall. Then the door. Tyke pulled out his key card and tried to slide it into the lock.

  He missed.

  Tried again.

  Nope.

  And again.

  Not that time.

  Bending, he closed one eye and slowly glided the card toward the door. It wobbled but finally landed where it needed to. The door clicked, the sensor lit up green, so he turned the handle and entered their dark hotel room.

  Something must’ve jumped out in front of him, because he lost his balance. “Shit.” He stumbled a few steps, his body starting to tilt forward. His hand landed on something soft, most likely the bed
. Turning, he sat and waited for the room to stop spinning.

  It didn’t.

  “Kenna,” he said in a loud whisper. “Kenna, you awake?”

  Silence came from her side of the bed.

  His eyes finally adjusted to the dark, which allowed him to see the outline of her sleeping body, facing the window. She was curled with the blankets up to her neck. That red hair he loved was piled high on her head again, making him want to reach over and pull the tie out to let the strands fan over her pillow.

  “Kenna?” he tried again. “Need to talk to you. Wake up.”

  Tyke scooted back, adjusting himself onto his side of the bed without hurting his shoulder more in the process and rolled toward her.

  “You awake yet?” He waited for a response.

  All that came back was soft, steady breaths.

  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “So sorry. You deserve better. And you’re going to get it. I promise.” He reached down and started to unbutton his shirt so it wouldn’t be wrinkled for the wedding, but he couldn’t get his fingers to cooperate. He leaned to her ear. “You’re so good. I love you so much. But I’m no good for you. You need a real man. Not me.”

  He let out a long yawn. “Nothing like me. I’m no good.”

  And then he closed his eyes, rolled onto his good shoulder, and passed out.

  Chapter Twenty

  The sun felt hotter today. The temperature could’ve increased on the island, or it could’ve been because Kenna was confused as hell, which made her annoyed with everything around her.

  He said he loved her. Loved her.

  But that she deserved better.

  Better how?

  She wanted to ask him about it this morning, but when she woke up, his side of the bed was empty. Which was when she called Aunt Estelle and asked to meet her at the beach.

  The two women lounged on beach chairs, gazing out from under an umbrella at the glassy, blue water. A table full of food and drinks sat between them, and was refilled by one of the hotel workers who knew her aunt by name.

  Kenna eyed Estelle, who seemed cheerful as she sipped her vodka water and popped bits of fruit into her mouth. Estelle’s free hand was draped above her head on the chair, making the flowy sleeves of her colorful cover-up billow loosely around her arms. She wore a black one-piece bathing suit under the sheer fabric with matching black shades and sun hat.

  “You don’t seem very upset about your brooch being stolen,” Kenna said.

  “Huh? What?” Estelle covered her mouth to cough up the small grape that must have lodged in her throat. “Of course I’m upset. You know how much that thing means to me.”

  “I do. Which is why I’ve been thinking,” she said. “We should go back to security. There’s this guy, Al. He—”

  “Why? I thought Bryan was working his spy magic to find it.”

  “He’s a DEA agent, not a spy.” Then she caught herself. She didn’t give a crap if he was the president of the United States. What did it matter? It didn’t. He still couldn’t find her mom’s ring or Estelle’s brooch. It was useless. They’d all leave this island with a piece of themselves snatched away and never returned. “He had a lot of leads but hasn’t found anything besides a bunch of dead ends.”

  “There’s still time,” Estelle said.

  “Time?” Kenna almost laughed. “For what? The thief to get away? ’Cause right now, that’s about all Bear has been good for.”

  Her aunt turned to her with one eyebrow lifted above her wide-rimmed sunglasses. “Really? That’s all?”

  Kenna fidgeted under Estelle’s probing gaze. “Yes. Why do you say it like that?”

  “Hun,” she said and popped a small, round melon ball into her mouth. Chewing, she said, “I’ve been at this game a hell of a long time, so I’ve learned to recognize the glow of a woman who’s been fully sexed up. And you, my dear, have been more than sexed up.” Estelle grinned, wiping a small dribble of juice from the corner of her mouth. “He gave it to you straight up, didn’t he? Like a wild animal? The man’s got vigor, that much is evident.”

  Kenna sucked in a quick, seizure-inducing breath. “Aunt Estelle! He most certainly did not give it to me straight up, sideways, or any other direction. We’re not having this conversation!”

  Estelle shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

  Kenna crossed her arms and let her pout come out in full force. How was her aunt able to read that so effortlessly? Did everyone else figure it out, too? Oh God. Was everyone talking about the fact that she and Bear were back together? That when this week was over, they might give it another go?

  That was most definitely not happening. She wasn’t trusting him with her heart ever again. And she wasn’t going through the embarrassment of pining away for him again.

  She glanced at her aunt’s calculated smirk. “Whatever you’re thinking, get it out of your mind right now.”

  “What?” Estelle said, still grinning like the Cheshire cat. “I’m not thinkin’ nothin’.”

  “You are. I can see it on your face. Stop it.”

  “There might be somethin’ there. He might’ve changed. Any man—even the slow ones—can improve after more than a decade.” She tipped her chin up and in a proud voice, she said, “Kenna, men are like fine wine—”

  She flashed a palm. “No infamous Estelle Vavrino analogies needed.”

  “Okay, but let me add that men aren’t good with fragile things,” Estelle said. “Them and their big, dumb hands. Always fumblin’ everything.”

  “Exactly,” Kenna said. “That’s what I’m saying. Bear—”

  The playfulness in Estelle’s features dimmed and was replaced with something much more serious. It was an expression Kenna hadn’t seen on her aunt’s face before.

  She didn’t want Estelle saying something to make her soften. She didn’t want some wise piece of advice to induce her to forgive Bear. She couldn’t. It would hurt too much.

  “Hun,” Estelle said through a sigh.

  “Don’t take his side,” she snapped. “Don’t you dare take his side.”

  Aunt Estelle’s eyes hardened. “Watch your tone with me, young lady. You wanna beat up that man who loves you, you go right ahead. But you won’t treat me that way.” She paused to narrow her eyes. “He did finally tell you he loves you, right?”

  Kenna slumped back in her chair and harrumphed. “He came in drunk last night and said it.”

  “Huh. I figured he’d pickled himself so bad he’d be useless.” Estelle let out a small chuckle. “Always nice to be wrong for the right reasons.” She turned to Kenna. “So? What did you say back?”

  “Nothing. I pretended to be asleep.”

  The older woman sat up, facing Kenna with her bare feet planted in the sand. “Why the hell would you do that?”

  “First of all, he was drunk,” she said. “I wasn’t going to have that conversation with someone who wouldn’t remember half of it later. Plus, I was still pissed at him. He hurt me, Aunt Estelle. Bad. I can’t just—”

  “You can,” she said, reaching across for Kenna’s hand. “You can let it go. In fact, you need to.”

  This was the one person Kenna thought would understand. How many men had Kenna seen come and go in her aunt’s life? None of them staying very long before Estelle was done with one and moving on to the next. Aunt Estelle knew how stupid and untrustworthy men could be.

  She spun on her chair so fast, it was a wonder she didn’t topple onto the sand. Meeting Kenna’s stare, Estelle said, “Don’t be like me. Don’t let days, months, or years pass without sharing yourself with someone. One special man. Don’t wake up my age and wish you’d done something sooner. You get one chance at doing this right. I don’t wanna see you end up like me.”

  “But…but you’re fantastic.” Kenna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She’d be honored to end up like the woman in front of her when she was old and gray. “You’re funny. Off the wall. Spontaneous. Strong-willed.”

  “And lonely.�
�� Estelle gave a forced, half-hearted smile. “I’m lonely, hun. And I’ll be that way until the good Lord calls me home. Don’t follow in my footsteps. Forgive that man and give him your heart. All of it. Love him and let him love you back. Life’s too damn short to be angry forever.”

  Could she do it? Kenna wasn’t sure she could let go of the past that easily. He’d betrayed her trust.

  “But I’m scared,” she said, finally admitting it not only to Estelle but to herself. “I’m terrified to give myself to him again. I wouldn’t survive a second time if he leaves.”

  Estelle’s expression softened. “He took the first step. He’s tryin’ to find your momma’s ring, ain’t he?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “And he told you he loved you.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “But nothin’. Ain’t no man in the world gonna waste his time at a beautiful resort like this to chase down some old ring and brooch if he doesn’t want you back.”

  But forever? He’d said they would only last for this week. They’d agreed.

  Did he want more?

  She did. But she couldn’t dare allow herself to believe it could happen. She wasn’t kidding when she said she wouldn’t survive. It would destroy her.

  “Tyke ain’t the best at expressin’ his feelings,” Estelle said. “Go to him. Tell him how you feel. I’m bettin’ it’ll make it easier for him to open up, too.”

  What if he didn’t want her? “But—”

  “Then you’ll know once and for all,” Estelle said, answering the thought. “It’s always better to know rather than wonder.”

  True. Kenna had spent enough time wondering if Bryan would ever come back to her. It was time to know for sure.

  When Kenna opened the door and entered the room she shared with Bear, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed, staring at his clasped hands. He didn’t look up when she entered, which immediately made her heart leap into her throat.

  Hesitantly, Kenna went in, letting the door slam behind her.

  “Hey.” Kenna stopped in front of him and glanced around, uncomfortable. He was docile. Quiet. She wasn’t used to that side of him. She was accustomed to gruff, mouthy Bryan, who stomped around the room in his boots and said whatever he wanted. “I was, uh, down on the beach with Estelle.”