Every Time We Touch: A Redeeming Love Novel (Book 5)

by Parker, J. E.

  Though the words I spoke were the truth, I felt guilty saying them. Ever since Kyle burst into my life, he’d become my person, the one human I wanted to spend time with above all others; my sister, Daddy, and friends included. On more than one occasion, I’d found myself lost in thoughts of him as I spent time with them.

  It made me feel lower than worm poop.

  I had never been the type of person that changed their inner circle as often as they changed their underwear, but when I met Kyle, he flew to the top of my VIP list, overstepping everyone.

  The worst part? Everyone who was anyone to me knew it.

  For a long time I feared they would become angry, but none of them had. In fact, most—Heidi included—had been thrilled for me. Without so much as a single complaint, they stepped aside, making room for the man I was certain I would one day marry.

  The only person who had given me grief was Daddy.

  Well, him and Grandmama.

  Despite the sass she tossed my way, the Crazy Old Biddy only pretended to be upset over me stealing her man, as she claimed Kyle to be. As snippy as she acted at times, it was all in good fun. In reality, she was over the moon that he and I had found each other; even if she liked to bust my hump over it.

  “That’s good, baby,” Kyle replied, caressing my jaw with his thumb. “Because I sure as hell like spending time with you.”

  “Does that mean I get to spend all day with you tomorrow too? I’m off and—”

  My senses went on high alert when Kyle’s entire body stiffened. Quickly snapping my mouth shut, I sat up, feeling a mixture of confusion and self-consciousness. Unable—more like unwilling—to look at him, I diverted my gaze, choosing to focus on the fire that danced in front of me.

  At his continued silence, a million questions slithered through my brain.

  Among them: why wouldn’t he want to spend the day with me?

  I didn’t understand.

  When he dropped his hand from my face, my panic kicked into overdrive.

  Horrible irrational scenarios, each worse than the last, played out in my head.

  Am I being too clingy?

  Does he need space?

  I gave him my virginity—is that all he wanted?

  My chin wobbled as a familiar ache bloomed in my chest, stealing my breath. “Did I…” My voice trailed off as my throat swelled. “Did I do something wrong?”

  Regret crossed his face. Wrapping a second arm around me, he pulled me closer, holding me tight. “No,” he replied, his voice full of hurt. Where it had come from I wasn’t sure. “You did nothing wrong, Princess.”

  His answer did little to calm me. “Then what is it?”

  He glanced up at the night sky before turning his face toward mine. “I have to take my Mama somewhere tomorrow. I don’t want to, but it’s not like I have a choice. I’m all she’s got”—he chuckled humorlessly—“though that isn’t saying much.”

  On reflex, I smacked his arm. “Don’t say that,” I snapped, my brows furrowing. “You’re always selling yourself short. It drives me crazy.”

  “Carissa, you don’t understand.” His jaw ticked. “If you only knew—”

  “Then explain it,” I interrupted.

  I thought I was prepared for whatever he was about to say.

  Turns out, I wasn’t.

  Kyle dug his fingertips into my calf and whispered, “My Mama hates me.” I gasped in shock and disbelief. “Has since I was twelve years old, and most likely will until she takes her final breath.”

  Oh God, I thought. That can’t be true.

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I mean every word.”

  “How—”

  “Lily,” he interrupted. “She hates me because of what I allowed to happen to Lily.”

  Every ounce of the fierce protectiveness I’d felt the day before came roaring back. I wasn’t sure what it would take for Kyle to understand that what happened all those years ago wasn’t his fault, but the time had come for me to dig in my heels and fight against the demons that haunted him.

  The words I’d spoken before may have gone in one ear and out the other, but that wouldn’t happen this time. Didn’t matter what I had to do, or what I had to say, he would hear me, along with the truth I spoke.

  One dang way or another.

  Jumping up from his lap, I stood and peered down at him, my fire-filled eyes locked on his. “What you allowed to happen to Lily? Is that what you just said?”

  Kyle cursed under his breath and looked to the side, breaking eye contact.

  “Answer me,” I snapped, every ounce of the gentleness I normally possessed gone.

  Jaw clenched tight, he remained mute. “We’ve already had this conversation.” His voice was calm despite that chaos that danced across his features. “It doesn’t matter what anyone says, I know the truth about what happened to my sister.”

  “Doesn’t matter what anyone says,” I repeated his words, my voice flat, monotone. “Not even me?”

  He reached for me, but I took a step to the side, evading his grab. “Baby, you don’t—”

  “Understand,” I finished for him, having heard the same thing before. “I know.” I took another step back, my heart cracking right down the center. “But that’s where you’re wrong, Kyle. I understand a lot more than you think.”

  “Princess—”

  “I see it all the time.”

  “See what?”

  “The denial, the guilt, the need to blame someone—even if it’s oneself—for something awful that happened.”

  “Carissa—”

  “When I look at you, I see it. When I look at the women who live at the shelter, I see it,” I interrupted, not letting him get a single word in. “And when I look in the mirror every morning, I see it.”

  Needing to be closer to him, even if it was for my own sanity, I stepped back between his spread legs and dropped to my knees. Cupping his cheeks, I forced him to look at me. “I understand why you feel the way you do, but honey, you can’t blame yourself for someone else’s actions. Just like I can’t blame myself for urging Mama to let go of life when she was so eaten up with cancer that she could hardly take a single breath without crying out in pain.”

  Kyle said nothing.

  Part of me hoped it was because he was finally starting to understand, while the other part screamed at me to keep going, to keep talking, no matter how much it hurt me to do so.

  If I wanted to free him, to absolve him of his guilt, I needed to do the same for myself.

  Preaching to Kyle about letting stuff go when I carried around my own bag of repressed feelings, and breath-stealing guilt made me a hypocrite.

  I wasn’t okay with that.

  “I think it’s time I tell you a story.” With all the strength I could muster, I let the words he needed to hear spill out. “When I was sixteen, my Mama was tired, Kyle… so tired.” A torrent of tears streamed down my face, but knowing more would fall before this story was over, I didn’t bother to wipe them away. “She’d been fighting cancer for so long and her body, along with her spirit, had long since worn out.” I took a shuddering breath before saying the words I never allowed myself to think, much less speak. “And I was tired too.”

  Shame bared down on me, crushing my soul.

  “Not once have I admitted this aloud, but toward the end, I stopped praying for her to get better, and I started praying for her to pass.” A sob tore from my throat, making it hard to breathe, but I kept going, laying my darkness out for him to see. “Daddy was drowning in medical bills, we were about to lose the house to foreclosure, and Heidi couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. And I told you, Mama was in so much pain.” I dropped my hands from his face and hung my head, unable to look at him any longer. “Even before we found out she was terminal, I prayed for it all to stop. I just…” The words died on my tongue as Kyle lifted me into his arms and held me close to his chest. “I j-just wanted it to end,” I stuttered, barely able to speak. “So, one nig
ht, I dropped to my k-knees, and I prayed for G-God to fix it.”

  It was something I regretted with every fiber of my being.

  You see, God did fix it.

  Just not the way I intended.

  Letting the memories play out in my head, I took a shuddering breath, fighting for calm. “The next day, Mama’s oncologist told us there was nothing left they c-could d-do.”

  I lifted my head, looking my guy in his eyes.

  “What happened to Lily wasn’t your fault, Kyle. You were only a kid; one who should’ve never been in such a situation to begin with. But me? I practically prayed for my mother, the woman who gave me life, to die. If anyone should be punished with never-ending guilt and agony over the things they’ve done and the mistakes they’ve made, it should be me. Not you.”

  “Don’t say that,” Kyle said, burying his face in my hair. “Don’t you ever fucking say that again.” His words were harsh, his tone heartbroken. “You do not deserve to be punished,” he added. “Ever.”

  “I killed her,” I cried, clutching his forearm for dear life. “I prayed for it to end. It was my fault—”

  Rocking me back and forth, Kyle held me tighter. “It was not your fault, Carissa.”

  My entire body shook as sob after sob racked my frame.

  “It wasn’t yours e-either. Nor Ty’s,” I cried, willing him to believe the truth. “It was that mans, the one who took your Teacup a-away.”

  I felt rather than saw Kyle’s tears fall into my hair, dampening the strands and wetting my scalp.

  Chest heaving, his bare abs clenched.

  “His name was Edgar Louis,” he whispered, his voice raw, “and he was a monster.”

  I burrowed into him harder, willing him to keep talking. “Tell me about him,” I whispered. “About the monster.”

  Lifting his head, Kyle wiped away the tears that covered his cheeks and jaw. It was the first time I’d ever seen him cry; something I doubted he often did. “He was a registered sex offender.”

  I froze.

  Spine rigid, I stared at him with wide eyes.

  “Before kidnapping Lily, he’d been convicted of taking indecent liberties with a child under the age of twelve in North Carolina.” More tears fell from his eyes. “The little girl’s family had only been living next door to him for a few weeks when he started to groom her, making her trust him.”

  My stomach rolled.

  “Only reason he got caught was because the little girl told her cousin what was happening, and the cousin told a teacher.”

  Seriously, I was going to puke.

  “He went to prison for an entire eighteen months.” The disgust lining his voice was unmistakable. “Not long after getting out, he moved to Georgia. Two weeks after getting here, he saw Mama and Lily at the grocery store.”

  My chest tightened.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  “That first day, he walked up to Mama and asked her if he could give Lily a lollipop. Mama thought nothing of it, so she let him. That’s where it began.”

  My throat was drier than the Sahara. Still, I asked, “Where what began?”

  “His obsession.”

  “Oh my God,” I whispered, feeling my chest crack wide open.

  “For weeks, he stalked her. On the way to school, on the way back home.” His eyes slid closed. “I should have seen him, should have noticed something was off.” When his eyes opened again, they were filled with so much anguish I didn’t understand how he could even speak. “She was always with me. Always. If only I’d paid better attention, maybe I would’ve—”

  “No,” I interrupted. “Don’t, honey. You were just a boy.”

  He nodded the slightest bit before continuing. “That day at the park, Lily asked me to come play with her, but I didn’t. I was so caught up in wanting to beat Ty at a game of one-on-one that I blew her off. I told her I’d play in a minute, but I had to knock Ty down a peg or two first.”

  Again, oh my God.

  “Parked next to the curb, Edgar watched as I turned my back on her.”

  “It wasn’t your fault,” I said for what felt like the millionth time. “Kyle, I swear it wasn’t—”

  Eye glazed over, he kept speaking, cutting me off. “When Lily saw him get out of his truck, she ran straight to him. The police thought she recognized him as the man who’d given her the sucker and felt safe approaching him.”

  “How do you know that?” I asked, unable to stop myself.

  “Know what?”

  “That she ran straight to him.”

  “First Baptist, the church next to the park had security cameras affixed to the roof. They caught everything; including the moment he forced her into his truck and drove away.”

  “What did he…” Unable to speak the words, I let the question die on my tongue. “I mean, he didn’t touch her—” I paused “—like that, did he?”

  Please say no.

  Please say no.

  Kyle shook his head. “He didn’t have time.”

  Relief washed through me.

  “What Ty and I told the cops wasn’t much, but the cameras gave them everything they needed. Knowing who they were looking for, they set up roadblocks, and had two choppers fly in from Atlanta to help with the search.”

  Though I was young when Lily was taken, I remembered watching the helicopters from my bedroom window.

  “You know Ty’s dad is a cop, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Yeah, well, he was the one who spotted Edgar’s truck parked in the woods next to Highway 3.”

  I held my breath, waiting for him to continue.

  “He called for backup before approaching, but it didn’t matter. Edgar was already dead.”

  “What?” I gasped, shock racing through me.

  “There was a .38 on the floor next to his feet and a bullet hole through the top of his head. He’d stuck the gun against the roof of his mouth and pulled the trigger hours before he was discovered.”

  “What about Lily?” So many emotions, none of which I could process, consumed me. “What did he do to her?”

  Kyle’s eyes met mine. “He killed her,” stating the obvious. “Strangled her and dumped her body in a wheat field less than a hundred yards from where he was parked.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “I heard one of the FBI agents tell a Toluca PD officer that he panicked when he realized there was no way out. The local cops had reacted quickly, blocking all the roads and shutting down the entire county. Coward knew he’d get caught and killed himself so he wouldn’t be sent back to prison.”

  I don’t understand…

  “Then why hurt Lily? He could’ve just let her go. He didn’t have—”

  “Because he was angry. Angry that he didn’t get what he’d fantasized about since the moment he first saw her.”

  “Kyle—”

  “My father never forgave me for any of it,” he interrupted, speaking of the one person he’d never mentioned before. “Said he couldn’t look at me anymore after Teacup died—” he paused again “—told me it should’ve been me.”

  The heartbreak gripping me vanished in a flash.

  In its place slid anger.

  Red-hot, I’m so mad I could punch someone, rage.

  I gritted my back teeth, hoping I’d heard him wrong.

  “Because of my failure to protect Lily, he walked out, leaving Mama and me behind.”

  What a cowardly man!

  “Did he ever come back? Or at least apologize.”

  Eyes locked on the fire before us, Kyle shook his head. “Nah, baby, he didn’t.”

  My fingers dug into his forearm as uncontrollable fury rolled through my veins, heating my skin. “Well, where is he? Because I’d like nothing more than to shove my foot right up his behind.” Kyle smiled, but I wasn’t joking. “I’m not kidding. This infuriates me. I don’t care what happened, or what he’d been through, a real man would never do such a thing.” I blew o
ut a breath and repeated my question from a second earlier. “So, where is he?”

  “Out on Route 17 where Kissler County turns into Toluca.”

  I stood from Kyle’s lap. “Get up, Hulk. It’s time to pay him a visit, because what he did isn’t okay, and I will be gosh danged if I let him go another day without realizing his mistake.” He didn’t move, and my agitation grew. “Come on, Kyle, seriously. We can be there in an hour and then—”

  Wait.

  “You said Route 17, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Near the county line?”

  Again, he nodded.

  Oh no.

  No, no, no!

  “There aren’t any houses out that way. Only thing out there is Sunset Cemetery.” Kyle said nothing, so I continued. “Is he—”

  Kyle stood and slid his hands into the pocket of his swim shorts, the only clothing he wore, before looking down at me. “Yeah, baby, he’s dead,” he answered before I could finish asking. “Has been since I was 15.”

  My jaw nearly hit the ground. “Why… I mean, how?”

  “Mama swears he died of a broken heart, but his death certificate lists massive stroke as the cause.”

  I had no words.

  Zero.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, wishing I could wipe all his pain with a wave of my hand. “You deserved none of that. If I could go back—”

  Removing his hands from his pockets, Kyle wrapped an arm around my back, pulling me into him. “Nothing for you to be sorry about. None of it is your fault.”

  I knew that, but Kyle’s pain was now my pain.

  Period.

  Resting my shaking hands on his chest, I curled my fingers into his sweat-slicked skin. “I don’t like seeing your heart broken.”

  “Good thing you plan on stitching my broken pieces to your tattered ones then, yeah?” His eyes darkened the slightest bit. “Or have you had enough of me and my problems already?” Dropping his arm from my back, he took a step back, putting a small space between us. “Wouldn’t blame you if you had. Told you my story was fucked up, Beautiful Girl .”

  “You aren’t the only one with problems,” I replied.

  His eyes met mine. “Guess we’re both a little nuts.”

  I forced a smile of my own. “Yeah, but that only keeps things more interesting. Just ask Grandmama, she’ll tell you.”