His life was a nightmare, his world was frightening and he hurt me. The first night he met me, he kicked me out of his bed without a glance back and took another woman to it the very next night. Then he immediately commenced playing games. I needed to see these red flags for what they were and steer well clear. I knew it.

I knew it.

But that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt.

I loved my Uncle Marsh and one of the things I loved most about him was his stories.

But sitting beside him on my deck, the kind of time I would normally cherish, I wasn’t listening.

“You got a head full of biker.”

I blinked at my backyard then looked at my Uncle.

“What?” I asked.

His eyes went from my yard to me, “Honey, you got a head full of biker. You know I know it. You’re miles away. And you know I know it’s not about you and your Aunt being kidnapped by the Russian mob.”

These were words I never expected my Uncle to say. Or anyone, for that matter. Then again, I never expected to be kidnapped by the Russian mob.

I pulled in breath through my nose and looked back at my yard.

“It’s over,” I said softly, hoping that would end it.

I should have known better. This was Uncle Marsh. He had something to say, he said it.

So he said it.

“That might be but the day after you get kidnapped by the Russian mob, my guess, as it’s never happened to me, you’d normally have a head full of getting kidnapped by the Russian mob. Not a head full of biker and a face that says you just got your heart broken,” Uncle Marsh returned.

This was true.

I didn’t reply.

“How long were you with him?” Uncle Marsh asked.

I counted it down.

Then I answered, “Not long.”

“He seemed rooted here, Tyra,” Uncle Marsh noted, my heart squeezed at his words and my eyes went back to him.

“Pardon?”

“Him, his kids, pancakes in your kitchen. None of what I saw yesterday said, ‘not long’.”

Damn.

He was right.

“Maybe so, Uncle Marsh, but –”

He shook his head. “Don’t know the man. Do know he’s not going to win father of the year. That said, doesn’t mean he doesn’t think the world of those kids. He does. One thing about that man is clear. He loves his kids. And you don’t have family pancake mornings with your kids in the house of a woman you’re going to be together with for ‘not long’.”

I hadn’t thought about that and, thinking about it, Uncle Marsh was right about that too.

Oh boy.

“We weren’t actually even together-together,” I shared. “We weren’t actually anything.”

“Maybe you weren’t but he sure as hell was.”

I blinked.

Then I repeated, “Pardon?”

Uncle Marsh leaned into me and said softly, “I’ll be honest with you, honey. I’m not sure about that man. Circumstances weren’t such that he made a good first impression. So, truth be told, you telling me this morning that you two were over, I felt relief. You moping all day…” he trailed off but his hazel eyes held mine. “I don’t know what happened. I do know I’m surprised that the man I saw in this house yesterday morning is no longer with my niece. He was comfortable here. Rooted. Him and his kids. All of them comfortable… with you. Makes matters more surprising is you got kidnapped and that may be part of his world but it isn’t part of yours and my guess, he knows it. So I don’t understand why he’d let you go the night you had that happen to you.”

“Because I asked him to,” I whispered.

Uncle Marsh shook his head. “Man’s any man at all, that kind of shit doesn’t fly.”

“That’s exactly it, Uncle Marsh. He’s that kind of man and that scares me. He didn’t want to let me go. I made him.”

“That kind of shit doesn’t fly,” Uncle Marsh repeated.

“He can’t make me stay with him. He wanted to but I didn’t let him.”

Uncle Marsh leaned further into me. “That kind of shit does… not… fly.”

I stared at my Uncle.

He kept talking.

“Something matters to you, you do not let it go. Ever.”

My heart clenched again.

Uncle Marsh kept talking.

“Man I saw here yesterday morning, the situation we walked into, not good. Way he was with his kids, way he looked at you, I could let it slide. You mattered to him yesterday. No man who’s any man at all has something, especially someone matter to him one morning and that night, she doesn’t. No matter what happened, what was said, who was hurt and how. Your aunt tried to walk away from me, told me to let her go, I wouldn’t. I’d find a way to make her stay. Because she matters and it’s worth whatever I have to do to make her stay. That’s the way it is, Tyra. Simple.”

God, I loved him but he was killing me.

“This isn’t helping, Uncle Marsh,” I whispered because, well, it wasn’t. It was making it worse.

“It isn’t now, honey, and I know that. But it will when it sinks in. I’m telling it like it is. I’m telling you what you should expect. You matter, Tyra, and that’s what you should expect.”

I felt tears sting my eyes and turned my head away.

“I take it I should come back.”

This was Aunt Bette from behind us and I took in another huge breath, turned in my chair and aimed a big, fake, bright smile in her direction.

“No, it’s all good,” I lied then pushed up from my chair. “Take a load off. I’ll go in and see what I can rustle up for dinner.”

Aunt Bette stared at me then she looked at Uncle Marsh.

“Biker road kill,” she remarked.

So Aunt Bette, cutting right to the chase.

“No truer words were spoken,” Uncle Marsh muttered.

“Guys, can we let this go?” I requested. “You leave tomorrow. We’ve had shrieking women attacking my door, mob kidnappings and a breakup of a non-relationship that was more relationship than any relationship I’ve ever had. Not the happy-go-lucky surprise visit to sunny Denver you were expecting, I’m sure. Let’s just enjoy the rest of the time we have. Sound like a plan?”

Uncle Marsh opened his mouth to speak.

Aunt Bette got there before him.

“Marsh.”

His eyes cut to his wife.

“Let it go,” she ordered softly.

Uncle Marsh held his wife’s eyes. Then his came to me.