Forbidden: A Ward Sisters Sisters Novel

by Sorensen , Karla

  Nodding, I lowered the phone so I could reach my other hand into my pocket.

  “I’ll take the phone,” he said.

  Passing it to him, I willed myself to stop thinking about anything except replacing that motherfucking fuse because the things running through my head were positively indecent.

  They got worse when he extended his arm behind me to angle the light so I could see more clearly.

  In my head, I had an image of myself as a marionette doll, and he could pull and tug me into the right position simply by plucking a single string. Each corresponding body part would bend to his will. What I wanted was to slide closer and see what would happen if I moved in front of him.

  Would he curl one of those big hands around my hip and yank me back against him?

  Would he drop the phone, wrap his arm around the front of me, slide it down the opening in my shirt?

  Would he slide his arm around my waist? Pluck at the tie of my joggers and shove them out of his way?

  In the light, my hand visibly shook when I lifted it to unscrew the fuse.

  “Hey,” he said quietly.

  My hand froze midair. “What?”

  “Take a deep breath.” I did as he asked. “If you’re nervous to do this, I can take over.”

  Take over.

  I wanted him to take over.

  Why was this happening to me? And with this man? I was always the strong one. The together one. The take-charge one.

  And in that tiny, dark closet, I wanted him to absolutely dominate me.

  Aiden and I were talking about two entirely different things, of that I was certain.

  But still, I slid to the side so that my back was to his chest, and when he inhaled, a sharp quick pull of breath, I felt something powerful course under my skin.

  “Please,” I whispered. I wanted to turn around and face him, whirl in his arms and press myself against his body. “Please take over,” I begged quietly.

  For a beat, the air between us was so thick I couldn’t breathe.

  If this was all in my head, I could hardly imagine facing him again.

  “Shit,” he grumbled, a delicious vibration of sound at my back. I felt his nose next to my hair, and he inhaled. His chest brushed my back, not accidentally, and not quickly.

  The hand holding the screwdriver planted against the wall next to the fuse box, and I arched my neck. His breath hit hot against the skin of my neck. And then, oh, and then, his lips coasted against the shell of my ear. I shivered, and against my ass, he pushed closer.

  Not in my head.

  Not alone in this.

  Because I felt him.

  “Is—” Whatever he was going to say next didn’t matter.

  “Isabel?” Emmett yelled. “I can’t turn any of the lights on!”

  Aiden backed up. The screwdriver fell out of my hand with a noisy clatter, and I moved away from him. I couldn’t even make eye contact as I frantically picked up the screwdriver and held it out to him. He took it.

  I called out to Emmett, “Hang on, bud. We’re working on it.”

  “I’ll finish up,” Aiden said, his voice rough.

  I nodded, escaping into the safety of the hallway. I’d just lifted my eyes to look at him when Emmet slid around the corner with Anya right behind him.

  “Iz? Can Anya stay and play when he’s done?”

  I could hardly even focus on what he said, but I saw Aiden blink rapidly. He might have had shaking hands as he unscrewed the circuit and yanked out the attached wire, but his jaw was tight, his entire frame looked like a string about to break. He was just as rattled as I was.

  “Please, Daddy,” she begged. “I don’t want to hang out at the gym again.”

  Aiden’s eyes briefly flicked to mine, then moved to his daughter. “They might have plans, gingersnap.”

  “We don’t,” Emmett said. “We were just going to hang out here all day.”

  The kids turned their pleading gazes to me, and I tried to force a smile. “It’s fine with me, but I’m leaving the decision up to your daddy, Anya.”

  Aiden fitted the new circuit into the slot, attached the wire, and quickly tightened the screw. When he flipped the main breaker into the on position, the hallway flooded with light. Along with it, some of my tension seemed to ebb naturally. If I hadn’t felt the way he wanted me, I’d have thought I imagined the whole thing. Because when Aiden tossed the tools back into the bag and turned to us, he looked perfectly normal again.

  “You sure she wouldn’t be an imposition?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “If she doesn’t mind frozen pizza for lunch, she’s more than welcome.”

  He ruffled his daughter’s hair. “You win, kiddo.” The kids whooped loudly as Aiden returned his attention to me. “Thank you. I shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.”

  “She’s doing me a favor,” I told him. “Now I don’t have to entertain Emmett.”

  Emmett rolled his eyes. “Come on, Anya. Lemme show you the trampoline we have in the gym room.”

  They darted into the room to my left, and Aiden watched with a slight smile on his face.

  “You’re sure?” he asked now that they were out of earshot, though his gaze stayed firmly on the kids.

  For that, I was thankful.

  I kept my tone light and even. “Now I don’t owe you for the circuit breaker.”

  His eyes found mine.

  “Thank you,” I told him.

  Aiden didn’t answer. But he must have clenched his teeth because that muscle popped again. As I walked him out, neither of us speaking, I knew that I had to pull my shit together. Because the more this happened, the wilder I felt anytime I was around him.

  At the front door, he paused. “I’ll be here no later than one,” he promised.

  I nodded.

  With the door firmly closed behind him, I sank against the wall and let out a deep breath.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Isabel

  Apparently, if I’d ever wanted to delve into the Hennessy family history, all I needed to do was hang out with Anya for a few hours.

  Over frozen pizza hot from a working oven, she told me all about her uncles (Beckham, Clark, and Deacon) and her aunt (Eloise). She told me about her grandparents and their favorite foods and how Eloise bought her pretty princess things.

  She was a sweet girl and shared information in the way that only a girl well and truly loved could. There was no moment of pause as she talked about how she wished she had cousins, and how she slept with a picture of her mommy by her bed.

  “What happened to your mom?” Emmett asked.

  I watched them carefully but didn’t chastise Emmett for asking. I’d learned, from my own experience, that it was something worse when people avoided the reality you’d grown up in.

  Anya finished chewing her pizza. “She’s in heaven. She got cancer.”

  Emmett glanced at me, wide-eyed, and I nodded in encouragement.

  “I’m sorry she died,” he told her.

  “Me too. I only kinda remember her, though.” She shrugged. “My daddy tells me stories about her a lot. So I don’t forget.”

  “That’s a good thing for a dad to do,” I told her. I picked at the piece of crust on my plate. Anya and I shared many commonalities, but the way they played out was very different. Brooke never really talked to us about our dad after he died. Only that his absence left her alone and short of funds. My own memories of him were spotty and certainly nothing that would be told as a bedtime story.

  “He’s the best dad,” she asserted. “He tries to bake her cookies for me even though he can’t get them right.”

  I smiled. “She made good cookies?”

  Anya nodded, then studied my face carefully. “Do you bake?”

  Emmett laughed. “No way, Isabel is the worst baker in the world.”

  “Hey,” I argued.

  Anya’s face scrunched in thought. “I don’t really remember her baking. My grandma told me my mom was sweet a
s sugar and twice as nice. And everyone loved her because she was nice to every person she met.”

  Her words were so innocent, and no matter how much I was feeling for her dad, I felt the pang of what they’d lost. The absence of Aiden’s wife left a ragged hole he was trying to fill by moving here.

  Who was I to think that I could ever attempt to fill it? He’d married this person. Had a child with her. Quit his career at the very peak in order to care for them both, and from what I knew, didn’t hold an ounce of regret in leaving all of it behind.

  “Your mom sounds like she was an amazing person,” I told her gently. “I wish I could’ve met her.”

  Anya smiled, but her eyes were a little sad.

  Emmett pushed his plate away. “Wanna go in the treehouse?”

  “I’ll clean up,” I said when Anya nodded.

  The two scampered outside, and as I loaded the dishwasher and wiped down counters, I tried to untangle everything I was feeling.

  My tendency under normal circumstances would be to hit the bag. To push my body to sweaty exhaustion until I could make sense of what was tumbling through my head. At the moment, it wasn’t an option, and it made me feel twitchy and uncomfortable.

  Anya’s words about her mom had me feeling twitchy for an entirely different reason.

  Memories of the one who raised us, they were murky, not all good. But not all bad either. Briefly, I thought of the bracelet in the metal box.

  I set the plate of leftover pizza in the fridge, and when the door closed, I found myself staring at a photo of Molly and me at a Wolves game. Suddenly, I couldn’t call my sister fast enough, after weeks of not really knowing what to say.

  Hopping up on the kitchen island, I brought up her name and started a FaceTime.

  It was her last couple of days on a work trip, but when she got home, she’d be in the final stretch before the wedding. I held my breath when she connected the call.

  She smiled, but it was restrained, her eyes a little wary.

  I’d done that.

  I started tearing up immediately. “I’m sorry,” I said in a wobbly voice.

  “Oh, Iz,” she sighed. “I’m sorry too. I dumped it on you. I should have known better.”

  “Did I ruin your wedding planning?”

  She laughed. “No. That’s the beauty of having a wedding planner. She’s taking care of almost everything.”

  I nodded. “Good.”

  “You at home?”

  Still, even though none of us lived here anymore, we called it home. I nodded again. “Watching Emmett for a couple of days because everyone has a life except me. How’s work?”

  “Good.” She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Are you okay, Iz?”

  I took a deep breath. “It shouldn’t have taken me this long to reach out to you.”

  “You say that like I’m surprised it did,” she teased.

  I exhaled a laugh. “I’m a little slow to process things sometimes. The twins stopped by the gym, but I think they could tell I wasn’t really ready to talk about it.”

  “Well, if it helps, Logan wasn’t exactly jumping up and down for joy about it either,” she admitted. “But he said that as long as he still gets to walk me down the aisle, he doesn’t care who’s sitting in that church.”

  “For as much as he and I are alike,” I said, “he’s way more levelheaded than I am.”

  “True,” Molly agreed easily.

  I glared at the screen, and my sister laughed.

  “You know what knocked some sense into me today?”

  “So hard to say.”

  I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help but smile. “So much of what I remember about Brooke is just … muddled. When I actually try to remember what it was like when she was our mom, most of my memories are fuzzy.” I exhaled. “And I was listening to a seven-year-old girl talking about memories of her own mom, and I realized that so much of what scares me about Brooke showing up isn’t even based on what I remember of her.”

  Molly’s brow furrowed as she listened, but she didn’t interrupt.

  “I cannot predict, no matter how much I try to imagine it, what she might say or do. And there is nothing more terrifying to me,” I admitted quietly.

  “Brooke is something you can’t control.”

  Eventually, I nodded. “Maybe it doesn’t make sense, but even hearing you, or Claire, or Lia say that I don’t have to talk to her if I don’t want to made it even worse. Because what if she is awful?” I paused. “What if she’s awful to you? Or the twins? I will never forgive myself if I wasn’t right next to you for that.”

  Molly smiled. “Even if she comes, and even if she’s not a perfect guest, we’d handle it.” She shrugged. “That’s what we do, you know?”

  “I would shank her ass if she ruined your wedding day.”

  She laughed. “I know.”

  Emmett ran into the house, breathless and red-faced. “Iz? Umm, we have a problem.”

  “What is it?”

  “Hi, Emmett,” Molly called.

  He ignored her, and a pit yawned wide and dark in my belly. “Anya and I were playing in the treehouse, and umm, she wanted to show me something, and …” He paused, his hands wringing nervously. “She kinda … climbed out on one of the branches, and now she can’t get down.”

  “Oh, shit,” I breathed. “Molly, hang on.”

  Her face bent in concern. “Can I call someone to come help?”

  I threw the slider into the backyard open. “Everyone’s gone,” I hissed. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Who’s on the branch?” Molly asked.

  I gave her a look. “Aiden’s daughter.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  I walked around the tree and saw her. Anya was on a branch even higher than the roof of the treehouse. She was gripping it tightly, her legs dangling on either side.

  “Can you help me get down, Miss Isabel?” she asked, voice wobbly with nerves.

  “Yeah, sweetie, I will be right there, okay? You are doing great sitting there like that,” I answered with way more fucking calm than I was feeling.

  “What can I do?” I heard Molly ask.

  I blinked, my hand rubbing my forehead as I thought. “Umm, I need to hang up, but … listen, if you don’t hear back from me in like, ten minutes, can you call Aiden at the gym?”

  “Of course. Love you, Iz.”

  Eyes trained on Anya, I replied, “Love you too.”

  I hung up and handed the phone to Emmett. Studying Anya’s position, and the size of the branch, I spoke quietly to her as I moved directly beneath where she was. “Have you tried scooting backward, sweetie?”

  She nodded frantically. “It made the branch wobble, and I got scared.”

  “That’s okay. Being scared is totally normal, Anya.” I sucked in a deep breath. “Even if we’re afraid, we can still do brave things when it counts.”

  Anya looked down at me, and I saw tears in her eyes. My heart absolutely turned inside out at the sight of those big eyes.

  “If I climb up there, do you think you’d be able to try again?”

  Anya swallowed, then nodded slowly.

  Emmett looked nervous, and I crouched in front of him. “Okay, here’s the game plan. You hold the phone and keep your eyes on her while I climb up. I think I can reach her where she’s sitting.” I took a deep breath. “Just talk to her normally, okay?”

  He nodded, face pale, cheeks red. “I can do that.”

  I dropped a kiss on the top of his head and then whispered in his ear. “You remember how to make an emergency call, right? We won’t need it, but I need to know just in case.”

  Emmett exhaled. “Yeah. I know how.”

  “Okay, good.”

  I blew out a hard breath as I climbed up into the treehouse. “How the hell did she do this?” I muttered as I reached the entrance. Using the railing around the edge, I braced my foot on the edge of one window, clutched the line of the roof with both hands, and boosted myself up. The
treehouse made an ominous creak as I moved carefully over the roof and found the branch she was on. There was one lower than her, and I pressed my foot against it to test the weight-bearing.

  “Okay, Anya, remember when you said I looked like Wonder Woman?” At her nod, I exhaled steadily. “Well, we’re both going to channel her. I’m going to keep my feet on this lower branch right here and hold onto the one you’re on. Once I’m a few feet out, can you try to scoot back a little? I’ll be able to grab your arm and help you come back all the way.”

  I kept my movements slow and steady, but each inch I moved felt like a mile. Anya watched me with huge eyes, and I made sure to smile encouragingly as I inched closer. Now that I was closer, I did not really like the look of the branch she was on, which swayed as she shifted her weight. Every time she did, her hands gripped even more tightly.

  “Here we go,” I said as I got closer. How I was standing put my head about level with her chest. It wasn’t perfect positioning, but I trusted this branch a lot more than the one she was on. “I’m going to grab your arm, Anya. Keep holding tight to the branch just like you’re doing and slowly start backing up. It’s okay if it’s teeny tiny little movements. Once you’re back far enough, I’ll scoop you right up, okay?”

  A tear slipped down her face, and she hiccupped. “O-okay.”

  “I want you to look at me.” When she did, I held her gaze. “You can do this, sweetheart. You are strong and brave, and once we get down, we will have whatever treat you can find in the pantry, all right?”

  “Even your Pop-Tarts?” Emmett asked. “She really likes you if she’s willing to share those.”

  I managed a strained laugh. “I’ll give you the whole box, kiddo.”

  Anya nodded. “Okay.”

  I took one more shuffle sideways and the branch creaked. With a slow exhale, I extended my hand and gripped her upper arm. But instead of holding onto the branch, like she was supposed to, Anya turned her weight and grasped frantically at my arm with her other hand.

  “Okay, okay,” I breathed, “move slow, sweetie. You’re just fine.”

  But then she swung her leg over, like she was going to try to clamber into my arms exactly as I stood. The last thing I heard before we fell was the violent snap of the branch, and Anya screaming my name.