But he’d heard the rumors. He’d hired professionals. She left the city after his arrest, had settled in Nashville, worked two jobs until she caught a break. She’d made it without him. She wrote songs that were full of angst and fire, a few that cut a little too close to home for him, but he was proud of his Wildcat, happy that she’d followed her dreams. He could have called. He could have approached, Kona is a coward where Keira is concerned and the words, he knows, would never come. He just didn’t know what to say to her.
Seeing her now, knowing that she is here, feet from him, has that tremble in Kona’s hand worsening and he instantly wants to touch her. He wants to taste her again. He manages a step, but just one before she seems to sense him, to feel the crackle of energy, of eager sensation that they’d always shared. She has to know he is close, that he is drawing her in. How could he not? She’d been his first love. Sometimes he thinks, his only real love.
The smile on her face dims somewhat as her eyes move all around the Market, to Kona’s left, above his head until finally their eyes met. For a moment, time is held captive by the tug of her stare, by the primal desire he feels to move toward her, to touch her, just to see if she moves the same; if she makes the same noises when he runs his hands down her body.
In the clamor of the Market and the stricken heat that flows between them, he touches on those fresh memories, the ones he’d pulled from his mind just this morning and instantly it comes back; how beautiful she was when she sang; the low, soft rasp of her voice when she was sleepy; the arcs and dips of her back, her hips when they moved together.
God. He still wants her. Has he ever stopped wanting her?
Her expression is open; shocked, and he wonders if she has the same quick flash of recollection, if all that they had been is coming back to her as it is to him in the gravid moment that they stare at each other.
He offers her a smile hoping that by now she has forgiven him. It has been a long, long time, but she had a temper, always held a grudge. He hopes she has stopped hating him.
Tentatively, her shocked expression changes and a small shake moves her mouth. He thinks it will be a smile, something sentimental, something he can commit to memory in case they never see each other after this moment. But then, her eyes fly to the left, to a kid jogging toward her and then her almost smile turns quickly to horror.
“Mom!” he hears the kid call and Kona feels an instant wave of disappointment settle in his chest. She’s married? Had she completely forgotten him and made a life with someone else? His eyes follow the kid; a boy around sixteen. He towers over her and Keira has to stretch her neck to meet his eyes. Back to Kona, the boy speaks to Keira, moves his hands, but she does not seem to hear him. Keira’s gaze has already returned to Kona and the look of fear darkens the slight shadows under her eyes.
They are joined by another boy, this one younger than Keira’s boy, with Leann’s strong nose and arched cheekbones. The kids speak to Leann, ask Keira a question, but her answer is brief, hurried as her gaze sticks to Kona’s and that worried, anxious look on her face exaggerates.
Kona wonders what has Keira nervous; what about seeing him has her nodding her boy away, has her distracted when he kisses her forehead and turns from her. And then, Kona sees it. Sees himself. The cleft in his chin, the small, faint freckles on his cheeks, the same shape and color as Kona’s; the wide shoulders, the sloped nose. This boy could have been Kona at sixteen. And when the realization hits Kona, when his eyes follow the boy as he saunters off with the same, distinct gait Kona had never managed to get rid of, he feels his knees buckle and the quick burn of bile clotting the back of his throat.
The boy is his. Keira’s son. His son. He knows it without catching more than a glance at him. It is Kona’s dark, hooded eyes he sees in the boy; younger, brighter. It is Kona’s skin, just a shade lighter than his own dark complexion; it is his frame, wide and looming.
That is his son.
He has a child. He’s had a child for sixteen years and she never told him.
Kona feels the nauseous wave quivering around his gut, but he holds it off, watches the boy disappear into the Market crowd, gaze transfixed by the similarities, how familiar this strange boy is.
Finally, he turns, seeking her out and despite his shock, the unbelievable realization that has him questioning what to think, to say, to feel, he is unsurprised to find Keira standing just in front of him.
How could she not tell him? All this time and she never told him.
“Kona…” she says, a quick, forced smile tugging at the corners of her mouth as though she hadn’t completely betrayed him.