Chapter 19

“ What ?” My hand fisted around a cube of cheese, and it squished between my fingers. My pulse pounded so hard in my throat I thought it would explode. “You mean the night Mom died.”

My father nodded. “She died that night too. But you went first.”

“Whoa…” Nash leaned forward on his stool, glancing back and forth between me and my father. “Kaylee died?”

My dad sighed, settling in for a long story. “It was February, the year you were three. The roads were icy. We don’t get much winter weather in Texas, so when it does come, no one quite knows how to handle it. Including me.”

“Wait, I’ve heard all this before.” I dumped the pasta into the now-boiling water, and a puff of steam wafted into my face, coating my skin in a layer of instant dampness and warmth.

“You were driving, and we were broadsided by another car on an icy road. I broke my right arm and leg, and Mom died.”

My father nodded miserably, then swallowed thickly and continued. “We were on our way here, for Sophie’s birthday party. Your mother thought the weather was too bad, but I said we’d be fine. It was a short trip, and your cousin adored you. The whole thing was my fault.”

“What happened?” I asked, my cheesy hand forgotten.

My father blinked slowly, as if warding off tears. “There was a deer in the road. I wasn’t going that fast, but the road was icy, and the deer was huge. I swerved to avoid it, and the car slid on the ice. We wound up sideways in the road. An on-coming car smashed into us. Near the rear on the passenger’s side. Your car seat was crushed.”

I closed my eyes and gripped the countertop as a wave of vertigo threatened to knock me over. No. My mother had died in that accident, not me. I’d been pretty banged up, but I’d lived.

I was living proof of that!

My eyes opened, focusing on my father instantly. “Dad, I remember parts of that. I was in the hospital for weeks. I had two casts. We still have pictures. But I’m alive. See?” I spread my arms across the countertop to demonstrate my point. “So what happened? The paramedics brought me back?”

The truth was looming, a great, dark cloud on my mind’s horizon. I could almost see it, but I refused to bring it into focus. Refused to acknowledge the coming storm until it broke over my head, drenching me with a cold, cruel wash of the answers I’d thought I wanted.

I no longer wanted them.

But my father only shook his head. “They didn’t get there in time. The man driving the other car was a doctor, but his wife hit her head on something, and he was trying to wake her up. By the time he came to help us, it was all over.”

“No.” I stirred the pasta so hard boiling water slopped onto the stovetop, hissing on the flat burner.

Nash’s hand landed softly on mine, though I hadn’t heard him move, and I looked up to meet his sympathetic gaze. “You died, Kaylee. You know it’s true.”

My father nodded again, and when his eyes squeezed shut, two silent tears trailed down his stubbly cheeks. “I had to go in through the driver’s side and pull the whole car seat out. When I picked you up, you didn’t make a sound, even though your right arm and leg were bent all out of shape.” His eyes opened, and the pain swirling there held me captive. “I held you like a baby, and you just looked at me. Then your mom crawled out of the car and took your good hand. She was crying, and she couldn’t talk, and I could see the truth on her face. I knew we were going to lose you.”

He sniffled and I stood still, afraid that if I moved, he’d stop talking. And even more frightened because part of me really wanted him to stop. “You died, right there on the side of the road, with snow melting in your hair.”

“Then why am I still here?” I whispered, but I already knew the answer. “It was my time, wasn’t it?” I flicked on the faucet and held my hands under the warm water, scrubbing cheese from between my fingers as I eyed my father. “I was supposed to die, and you brought me back.”

“Yes.” His voice cracked on that one syllable, and his face was starting to flush with the effort to hold back more tears. “We couldn’t stand it. She sang for you, and it was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. I could barely see, I was crying so hard. But then I saw you. Your soul. So small and white in the dark. It was too soon. I couldn’t let you go.”

I turned off the water and grabbed a towel from a drawer near my hip, dripping on the floor as I dried my hands, then leaned over the bar and stared at him. “Tell me how it happened.”

He didn’t hesitate this time. “I made your mother look at me, to make sure she understood. I told her to take care of you. That I was going to bring you back. She was crying, but she nodded, still singing. So I guided your soul back into your tiny little body. You blinked at me. Then, with your first breath, you sang.”

“I…sang?” The towel slipped from my fingers and landed silently on the tiles, but I barely noticed.

“The soul song.” My father pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes, as if to physically hold back tears, but his face was still wet when he looked at me again. “I thought it was for me. You needed your mother more than you needed me, and I was ready to go. But as I stood there holding you, the reaper showed himself.”

“He let you see him?” Nash interrupted from my side. I’d almost forgotten he was there.

My father nodded. “He stood in the grass, on the shoulder of the road. He smiled at me, with this creepy little grin, like he knew what I was thinking. I told him I was ready to go. I gave you to your mother, and you were still singing this beautiful, high-pitched song, like a bird. I felt so peaceful, thinking that the last thing I would hear was you singing my soul song.” He paused, and this time the tears actually fell. “But I should have known better, because your mother wasn’t singing with you.”

I stared across the countertop at my dad, mesmerized, my supper forgotten.

“The bastard took her instead.” My father’s fist hit the tile hard enough to shake the whole bar, and his jaw bulged with fresh fury. “He just looked at Darby, and she collapsed. I had to lunge for you, to keep you from hitting the ground when she fell.”

“Kaylee, breathe,” Nash said, rubbing my back. At some point during the story, I’d stopped inhaling, and didn’t even realize it until Nash spoke.

“She died because of me?” My hands fisted, and my fingernails bit into my palms.

“No. Baby, no.” My dad leaned forward then, to look directly into my eyes. “She died because of me.” He took my hands and wouldn’t let them go, even when I tugged halfheartedly. “Because I insisted on going out. Because I swerved to avoid the deer. Because I wasn’t strong enough to make him take me instead. None of it was your fault.”

But nothing he said could make me feel better. I was supposed to die, and because I hadn’t, my mother had. And even if she hadn’t, my father would have. Or maybe one of the people in the other car. The bottom line was that I was alive when I should have been dead, and my mother had paid the price.

“So…borrowed time?” I twisted the knob on the stove to turn it off, and moved the pot onto a cold burner, acting out of habit, because I was numb with shock. “I’m living my mother’s life now? Is that what Aunt Val meant?”

“Yes.” My father sat back on his stool, giving me plenty of space. “You’ll live until she was supposed to die. But don’t worry about that. I’m sure she would have had a very long life.”

And that’s when I burst into tears.

I’d held back until then, my sorrow eclipsed by overwhelming guilt over being the cause of my mother’s death. But thinking about how long her life should have been…That I couldn’t handle.

Nash cleared his throat, drawing our attention. “She knew the risk, right, Mr. Cavanaugh?” He stared at my father with a blatantly expectant look on his face. “Kaylee’s mom knew what she was doing, right?”

“Of course.” My dad nodded firmly. “She probably didn’t even realize I’d planned to make the exchange myself. She was willing to pay the price, or she would never have sung for you. I just…wanted to save her too. It was supposed to be me, but I lost you both that night. And I never really got you back, did I?”

I forced back my next sob, rubbing spent tears from my cheeks with my palms. I was getting really good at not-crying. “I’m right here, Dad.” I set the strainer in the sink and dumped the pasta into it, then slammed the empty pot down on the countertop. “You left.”

“I had to.” He sighed and shook his head. “At least, I thought I did. He came after you again, Kaylee. The reaper was furious that we saved you. He took your mother, but then he came back for you, two nights later. In the hospital. I would never have known it was coming if your grandmother hadn’t come in from Ireland after the wreck. She practically lived in your room with me, and she got a premonition of your death.”

“Wait, I was supposed to die again?” My hand hesitated over the strainer.

“No.” My father shook his head vehemently. “No. Your mother and I angered the reaper when we saved you. He came back for you out of spite. Your mother wasn’t hurt in the accident, and you were living on her time. There’s no way she should have died two days after you would have. So when he came for you the second time, I called him on it.”

“Did he show himself?” Nash asked, and I glanced to my right to see him staring at my father, as fascinated as I was.

My dad nodded. “He was an arrogant little demon.”

“So what happened?” I asked.

“I punched him.”

For a moment, we stared at him in silence. “You punched the reaper?” I asked, and my hand fell from the strainer onto the edge of the sink.

“Yeah.” He chuckled at the memory, and his grin brought out one of my own. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen my father smile. “Broke his nose.”

“How is that possible?” I asked Nash, thinking of his sort-of-friendship with Tod.

“They have to take on physical form to interact with any physical object,” he said, fiddling with the long cardboard box the cheese had come in. “They can’t be killed, but they can definitely feel pain.”

“And you know this how…?” I asked, pretty sure I knew the answer to that one too.

Nash grinned. “Tod and I don’t always get along.” But then he turned back to my dad, serious again. “Why did the reaper come after Kaylee a second time?”

“I don’t know, but I was afraid he’d do it again.” My father paused, and his half grin faded into a somber look of regret. “I sent you to Brendon to keep you safe. I was worried that if I stayed with you, he’d end up taking you too. So I sent you away. I’m sorry, Kaylee.”

“I know.” I wasn’t quite up to accepting his apology yet, though the fact that he clearly meant it helped quite a bit. I dumped the pasta back into the empty pot and followed it with two fistfuls of cheese cubes. Then I turned the burner on medium heat and added salt, a little milk, and a spoonful of Aunt Val’s low-calorie margarine.

I stared into the pot as I stirred. “How long are you staying?”

“As long as you want me here,” he said, and something in his voice made me look up. Did that mean what I thought it meant?

“What about your job?”

He shrugged. “There are jobs here. Or, if you want, you could come back to Ireland with me. I’m sure your grandparents would love to see you.”

I hadn’t seen them since the last time I’d seen my father, and I’d never been out of the country. But…

My gaze was drawn to Nash. When he saw me looking, he nodded, but I wasn’t fooled. He didn’t want me to go, and that was enough for me.

“I’d love to visit Ireland, but I live here, Dad.” I sprinkled some pepper into the pot and kept stirring. “I don’t want to leave.” The disappointment on his face nearly killed me. “But you’re welcome to stay here. If you want.”

“I—”

I’d like to think he would have said yes. That he was considering a house for the two of us, hopefully not too far from Nash’s, but plenty far from Sophie and her fluffy pink melodrama. But I’d never know for sure. He didn’t get to finish because the front door opened, and something thumped to the floor, then Sophie groaned. “Who left these stupid bags right in front of the door?” she demanded.

Amused by her ungainly entrance, I craned my neck to see over Nash’s shoulder. My cousin knelt on the floor, one hand propping her up over an old, worn suitcase. I started to laugh, but when my gaze settled on hers, all amusement drained from me instantly, leaving me cold and empty. Her face was shadowed, her features so dark I could barely make them out, even with light drenching her from overhead.

The reaper had come for its next victim.

Sophie was about to die.