Roxie’s tough heart stumbled a little bit. “Maxie and Lexie do, too.”
Maxie shrugged shyly. “I have a flower shop.”
“Oh, I love lilacs,” Alexis said.
“They’re my favorite, too.” Maxie squeezed Zac’s leg, and he rubbed his hand over hers.
“What about you, baby?” Dex asked Lexie.
Her sister finally left her father’s embrace for Cam’s. “We just started a new business for recycling toys. It’s going really well.”
“Of course, it is,” he said, brushing the tip of her nose. “You always were the thinker.”
Skeeter helped Charlie carry over the drinks. By now, everyone in the place was watching them. Everyone from Whitey to Old Martha to the rough-looking guy with the tattoos who always sat alone. There was nothing like a good soap opera to intrigue people. The jukebox had been turned silent, and even the pool table was absent of activity.
Everyone waited for what would happen next.
Only now that they were here, now that they’d found each other, hugged, and shared a drink, nobody knew what to say. Roxie certainly didn’t know what to do. She’d thought about this moment her entire life. It had been that secret dream she’d never told anyone about, but this was as far as she’d ever let herself imagine. Now that it was really here, she didn’t know how to proceed.
She’d always said she wanted answers.
She still did, but there was that niggling fear that all this could be ripped away. Whatever those answers were, this was the happiest she’d ever be. She wanted to freeze this moment in time, just lock it away and walk into the sunset with Billy.
But time moved on, and the truth had to come out.
It was Lexie who finally downed her bourbon, took a shuddering breath, and turned in her seat. “What happened?” she asked, point-blank. “Why were we split apart?”
Tension settled over the room like a heavy, dark cloud.
Dex looked at Alexis, who bit her lip. Their dad’s free hand fisted and he stared at the floor. Roxie was a bit surprised when it was their mother who started talking.
“Dex and I met when we were teenagers. He was a basketball star for West Cobalt, and I was a cheerleader for East. One game he chased a ball, trying to save it from going out-of-bounds, and he crashed into me. We literally fell for each other right then and there.” Lifting their joined hands, she kissed her husband’s knuckles. “We started dating, but our parents didn’t approve of the match. We didn’t care. We got serious really fast. Everyone told us it was puppy love and it wouldn’t last, but we knew better.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and her gaze dropped. “That talk all stopped when I got pregnant.”
Dex cleared his throat. “When we found out we were having triplets, we didn’t know what to do. We loved each other, but we were only sixteen.”
Roxie glanced at Maddox. Younger than him. Younger than even she had been when she and Billy had thought they were expecting.
“My father—your grandfather—was a powerful man in town,” Alexis explained. “He and my mother were horrified that I’d gotten knocked up by a boy from the wrong side of the river.”
Dex grumbled underneath his breath.
“Your grandfather owned the local newspaper, and he did everything in his power to keep anyone from learning that I’d gotten pregnant,” Alexis continued. “The doctors and nurses were excited about identical triplets, but he made them sign nondisclosure agreements. He used his power to keep it out of the press. The news stations didn’t pick it up. All my friends and schoolmates thought I’d gone away to boarding school.”
Roxie bit the inside of her cheek. That was why she hadn’t been able to find any news articles or birth announcements.
“My mom wasn’t much better,” Dex confessed. “She was a single mother who never really had any maternal instincts. She’d tried to trap her boyfriend into marriage by getting pregnant. When that didn’t work, she resented having to lug me around everywhere. There was no way she was going to help raise more babies that weren’t wanted.”
“But we did want you,” Alexis said firmly, clearing up that matter right then and there. Her voice turned fierce. Some might even say mama-bearish. “We loved you so much, even before you were born.”
Dex finished his bourbon and Charlie went to get him another.
“There were fights and a lot of yelling, but I refused to go away,” he said. “They didn’t know how to take that. Here I was, a kid they hated, but I was standing up and doing the right thing. Or trying to.”
Alexis sighed. “I don’t know what upset my mother more—that I refused to give my babies up for adoption or that I was pregnant out of wedlock.”
A corner of Dex’s mouth curled upwards. “In that regard, their conservative principals worked to our advantage. They gave their approval for us to get married, and my mother hopped on that bandwagon. She thought I was marrying into money.”
“Like I would have touched any of it,” Alexis hissed. Her jaw hardened, but she pushed her hair back and took a deep breath. “So then we were sixteen and married.”
“Happily married,” Dex added. He comforted his wife with a kiss on the temple and glanced around the table. “I’m not advocating teen sex or early marriage, but you can’t control when you’re going to fall in love. It worked for us, and it’s still working.”
Roxie only remembered to breathe when Billy ran his hand up and down her side. Their life was mirroring her parents—or vice versa. She understood more than they could know. With her and Billy, it had been the two of them against the world.
With her parents, it had been the two of them and their babies.
Her, Lexie, and Maxie.
“We lived in my parents’ house, which wasn’t easy, but we were so happy when you arrived.” Alexis smiled weepily across the table at Maxie. “You were perfect in every way. Tiny, beautiful, and so loving.”
“But then the fights started up again about giving you up,” Dex said roughly. “Everyone kept telling us that we couldn’t care for you the way you needed.”
“That we didn’t know what we were doing,” Alexis added.
“That we were ruining our lives and yours.”
“And we were being selfish trying to keep you.”
“I finally had it,” Dex said, his voice like a rapier. “You were my kids, she was my wife, and I loved all of you. We belonged together.”
Alexis’ chin lifted. “So we moved out.”
Dex shook his head, but there was a smile on his face. He was deep in memories. It was clear both of them were, and Roxie was just as rapt as her sisters.
“We made a go of it,” he finally said. “It was tough with three little mouths to feed, diapers to change, and the rocking… So much rocking…”
He raked a hand through his thick hair, and more auburn highlights jumped out. “I took on two jobs while Allie stayed home to take care of you.”
Alexis chuckled, sharing a glance with her husband. “We didn’t get much sleep, but we were young. We could handle it, especially since we were happy and in love. The three of you were so cute together.”
She reached over to squeeze Lexie’s hand. “Now you’re so beautiful.”
“We held it together for a long time, but we couldn’t avoid the truth,” their father said flatly. “Food was scarce, and we weren’t living in the best neighborhood. It was all we could afford. Your grandparents had cut us off in an attempt to make your mom do as they wanted. They kept pushing her to give you up. They wanted her to come home, finish school, and start over.”
“I refused,” Alexis said. “We were doing all right. We would have continued to be all right if…”
She went silent. They both did.
Dex finally cleared his throat. “If one day we hadn’t made a mistake.”
A knot formed deep in Roxie’s gut. These were the answers she’d always wanted. These were the facts that she’d been demanding her entire life. Now, she didn
’t want to know.
But she had to.
“What happened?” she breathed.
Her dad looked at her, his eyes so sad. “You got away from us.”
You.
Not you, as in all of them, but you as in her.
A tremor went through her. No. Billy’s arms came around her, strong and warm, but it gave her little comfort. Please, no.
Her mom caught her hands. “Don’t. Don’t you dare go there. It wasn’t your fault, honey.”
“Damn it.” The curse burst from Dexter’s lips. He stood and rounded his chair. He stared at the floor, hands on his hips, before coming back. His fingers turned white against the back of his chair when he bent over it. “If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine. One moment you were there, and the next you were gone.”
“I… I ran away?” Roxie tried to understand. “You couldn’t find me?”
He shook his head. “I knew immediately where you were. You were only two, but you were fast and you were curious. There was a puppy next door that you’d been dying to pet. The problem was that that puppy was a short-tempered, ill-treated, full-grown German shepherd.”
Maxie gasped. “Oh, no.”
Her dad smiled at her concern. “Oh, yes. Fortunately, the snaggletoothed thing took a liking to the baby who wandered within the reach of its chain.”
“Took a liking?” Alexis scoffed. She rubbed Roxie’s hands, feeling how cold they were. “That thing adored you. He let you pet him and hug him and kiss him. We nearly had heart attacks.”
Dex pointed at Maxie. “I barely caught you before you tagged along right after her.”
Maxie bit her lip, and Zac wrapped his arm around her shoulders.
None of it made Roxie feel any better. Billy murmured something to her, but she didn’t hear what it was.
“We couldn’t get you away from him,” Alexis said, her mood darkening. “He’d snarl and snap at anyone who came near. Dex knows; he got a piece of him.”
Their dad pulled back his sleeve to show a scar near his wrist. “I would have gone back in, but I was upsetting him and I didn’t want him to turn on my kid.”
His kid. Roxie felt tears clog her throat and her eyes.
“The police were called out and then Animal Control,” Dex said, his voice going rough. “And then Social Services.”
He went quiet, and the pain on his face made Roxie look away.
“They deemed us negligent.” Alexis clenched her hands in her lap, and her foot cocked back on its heel. “They saw the way we were living, hand-to-mouth. Our inattention had put you in danger. They didn’t want it to happen again, so they took you away from us. They took you all away.”
Misery ran through Roxie, slicing and dicing. “I was the one to blame.”
“No,” her mother said, cupping her face. “You were a sweet, loving two-year-old. It wasn’t your fault.”
“It was ours,” Dex said, stepping up. “If I’d kept a closer eye on you… If I’d distracted you with a toy or a cookie…”
He let out a grating sound and ran both hands through his hair. His wife caught him and made him sit again. It was obvious that the “what ifs” had been haunting him for years.
“My father, the oh-so-powerful businessman, wouldn’t help.” From the look in Alexis’ eyes, that was a wound that hadn’t healed. “It wasn’t exactly what my parents had wanted, but they thought they’d get me back. They honestly believed that everyone would be better off.”
“We were barely eighteen by then,” Dex said. “There wasn’t anything we could do. We wanted our daughters, but we couldn’t get you back. We were in too much trouble ourselves.”
The system. Roxie’s hands squeezed into fists.
“It about killed us losing you like that,” Alexis said, her throat thick.
And Roxie had thought she’d had it bad.
Her mom and dad took a moment, their misery like a dark cloak around them. She realized then why Roux had been so cautious. These two couldn’t have borne any more bad news; they didn’t deserve it.
Alexis wiped her eyes, and Maxie passed her a tissue. She smiled gratefully. “Please tell us you were adopted by good families.”
“So you know we were separated?” Lexie said. Her voice sounded funny, too, and she was leaning into Cam.
Dex caught his fresh tumbler of bourbon. “We found out that much. We were told that they were having trouble placing you together. Allie didn’t want you separated, but I didn’t want you growing up in the system. In the end, we had no say in the matter. We were facing charges. Nobody would listen to us. We eventually signed away our parental rights.”
Lexie cleared her throat. “I was adopted by the Underhill family and grew up in East Cobalt. They treated me well.”
With fancy clothes and material belongings, Roxie thought resentfully. Then her gaze landed on Blaire, and she let it go. And love. Dysfunctional as the Underhills were, there’d been love in that household.
Maxie clasped her hands together atop the table and leaned forward. “I grew up an only child in Indigo Falls, but my parents died when I was seven. My grandmother raised me.”
Alexis inhaled sharply.
“Don’t be sad. I loved them all with my whole heart, and I’ve had a very happy life.” Maxie glanced back at Zac. “Now it’s even happier.”
When her parents turned to look at her, Roxie froze. She felt absolutely sick. For years, she’d dreamt of this moment where she could throw back all the hurt and guilt on the parents who’d abandoned her. But that wasn’t what had happened. They’d been just like her. She understood what they’d gone through better than anyone.
And she couldn’t bear to hurt them.
It was Roux who cleared his throat. “Roxie grew up in foster care.”
Dex jerked as if he’d just taken a bullet. His body tensed, and his fist hit the table. “No.”
Roux looked at him forlornly.
Roxie couldn’t hold her dad’s gaze when he turned to her.
“No!” he said more forcefully, as if that could turn back time. “You were adopted. They told us you’d all been placed. It was the only thing that made us back off.”
Roxie’s foot rocked nervously on its heel. “It didn’t work out for me.”
“God,” he said, leaning forward and bracing his elbows against the table. He looked like he might get sick. Alexis rubbed her husband’s back.
“If I’d known, I would have come to get you, baby,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. “I would have stolen you away and we would have run. The law be damned.”
Alexis was openly crying again, and this time not from joy. “We were told that you were better off.”
That it had been “for the best.”
Roxie took a deep breath that opened her lungs. Reaching past the pain, she latched onto the one thing, the one person, who had always pulled her through. She moved onto Billy’s lap, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly. She leaned into him, needing his strength.
“I don’t regret it,” she said, her voice wavering. “That’s where Billy and I met. I was sixteen when we got married, too.”
Her parents looked at Billy sharply, as if seeing him clearly for the first time—only there was no rejection there. No anger or judgment. There was only understanding, acceptance, and love for the man who’d been at their daughter’s side when they couldn’t be.
Roxie felt the way Billy’s body tensed. A gruff sound left his throat and, in that instant, she loved her parents.
For loving him.
Maxie pushed her hair back, hooking it behind her ears. “We all went our separate ways, and it’s only recently that we found one another. Roxie put up a billboard for this bar and it made us aware each other was out there.”
“That’s what brought me here, too,” Roux said. “You have Mom’s smile.”
Really? Roxie looked at her mom. It was the one thing she’d remembered vividly about her mother, her smiling down at her with those loving eyes. Did t
hey have the same smile?
“We’ve been looking for you, too,” Lexie said excitedly. “Cam hired a detective, Zac’s been using his law enforcement connections, and Roxie and Billy have been searching online. We just weren’t able to make much progress. We were told the adoptions were closed.”
“Closed?” Alexis said. She looked at her husband sharply. “We never asked for that.”
“But who knows what they had us sign?” Dex’s expression turned stormy. “That bastard.”
Alexis’ chest rose and fell. “I’ll never speak to him again.”
“You’d have to start first.”
Okay, her grandfather sounded like a real piece of work; only one thing was still bothering Roxie. The pieces had started to come together in her head. Roux had been the last loop. He was the one that Ingrid had seen in her vision. He’d come into the bar after the new moon. It had been the night everything had gone down at The Ruckus with the police and Landers.
Yet he’d followed the billboard. Who had placed the phone call to Carol the clerk? Had that been a false lead? “Did any of you recently contact Social Services, looking for us?”
“Not lately,” her dad said. “We’ve tried a few times, but ran into so many brick walls. It would put us into a dark place, and that wasn’t fair to your brothers.”
“Roux?” Roxie asked.
“It wasn’t me.”
She frowned. Had her gut been wrong? Had that been someone looking for another family entirely?
“It was me.”
Everyone turned to look at the youngest person at the table. Maddox rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable. “What? It’s been a mystery in our household forever. I wanted to know what happened to my sisters, too.”
Maxie grinned and looped her arm around him. “Well, now you do.”
Roxie clapped her hands. “Now we all know!”
Painful as it had been to hear, it was a weight off her shoulders. She’d wanted answers, but the ones she’d gotten hadn’t been anything like she’d expected. Her parents weren’t bad people. They hadn’t given their daughters up because they hadn’t cared.
Kids in foster care often wondered if they were to blame for their situations, but she hadn’t been put into the system because she’d been bad or because she’d been a burden. She’d had the childhood she’d had because her parents had fallen too deeply in love at too young an age. Nobody had helped them or believed in that love—except the two of them.
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