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“Why were you on the kitchen counter?”
“I was trying to get glue off the top of the fridge so I could attach my Matchbox cars to the coffee table.”
“I bet you were a mess of a toddler.” And got away with everything. No mother would’ve been able to resist those eyes. “Do you have siblings?”
“Three. Two of them own a kick-ass resort on the Kona coast. Obviously, I’ve never been to visit. The other is in med school at USC.”
“You’re the baby?”
“Yep.”
I tickled him, hoping he’d tickle back, because that got his hands near the places I wanted them. When he didn’t, I kissed him and slid my hands up the back of his shirt.
“Hallie. We need to talk about today. I don’t want you to swallow the truth. It’ll burn a hole through you.”
“Why can’t we act like everything is normal?” I removed my hands, put them in my lap. “Just for today?”
“Don’t think I wouldn’t rather be kissing you.” He laid one on me that made my toes curl for posterity. “Because I would. But I’d also like to be kissing you next week and next month and next year. If we can’t figure this out, that won’t—”
“Next year.” I leaned back to look at him. “You want to be kissing me next year?”
“Yes.” Straight and true. “But you have to be here.”
“You think there’s a chance I won’t be?”
When he didn’t answer, I pushed away from him to go to the window. To calm my breathing. So I didn’t have to see the truth on his face.
“You aren’t the only one who loses if this situation goes wrong,” he said. “I didn’t see you coming, and then you were there, and now … you’re everywhere.”
“I never wanted to belong to someone.” After Benny, I never wanted to risk loss like that again.
o;I kept that information from him,” Teague argued back.
The rip grew wider, going around us instead of flowing over us. I put my hand on the small of Hallie’s back. I needed to get her out.
“I tried to protect you, Hallie.” Teague’s voice trembled.
“Really?” Hallie laughed without mirth. “Don’t pretend like you have feelings for me. You’ve never cared for me the way a mother should care for her own child, because you didn’t give birth to me; you bred me.”
“I created you.”
The smell of manure blended with the sounds of livestock, all of it too close.
“Hal, we’ve gotta go. It’s growing too fast to—”
The rip world moved like lightning, swallowing Hallie, and then Teague.
I did the only thing I could.
I followed.
Chapter 20
Hallie
Suddenly, I was staring up at a bright blue sky rather than the gray one that had been there ten seconds ago.
A crowd of rips gathered, staring at me, just like ones we’d encountered in the alley in the French Quarter.
