Crossroads

by Sasha Goldie

  I didn't say another word all the way back to Brady's house. Max never mentioned seeing Brady's truck and neither did I.

  "Thanks, really. You're a lifesaver," I said as I stepped out onto the curb in front of Brady's.

  "No problem. I'll see you around." He gave me a little mock salute and pulled away as soon as I closed the door.

  Back in the house, I plopped down on the couch and finally let the tears fall.

  Why was I surprised? It was my life. As soon as things looked up, something would come along and kick it right in the ass. Nothing would ever change for me. My life was destined to be a total shitshow and always would be.

  Brady's phone ringing interrupted my sorrow and tears.

  "Hello?" I said in the nicest voice I could muster, sniffling and hiccupping.

  "Corey? I can barely recognize your voice. What is wrong?"

  "It's been a bad day," I whispered.

  A voice I'd not heard in over a decade cut into our conversation.

  "Did you say Corey?" My father. No.

  "Yeah. Why do you ask?"

  "Brady!" I shouted. "Do not tell him I'm here."

  He didn't respond. I heard shuffling over the line as if he was holding the receiver away from him or had his hand over it or something. "Brady!"

  I shouted his name repeatedly, but he must not have been able to hear me over the music. Damn it. No matter what happened now, I was going to end up going to jail.

  "Corey."

  Finally! Brady came back to the line. "Brady, listen to me. Do not tell those people anything about me."

  "Corey, I looked up your record today. But we need to talk. Do you trust me?"

  His question stopped me in my tracks. My anxiety froze while I considered his question. "Yes," I said firmly. I did trust that he cared about me, that he loved me even. He wouldn't do anything to hurt me.

  "Stay there. Wait for me, okay?"

  Looking around the silent house, I considered running, taking off for town. Surely I'd find someone there to be able to drive me to Bend for a bus. I could pay them. I could call a cab. The options raced through my mind.

  "I'll stay," I said. There wasn't another option, not really. I trusted him, and that said everything.

  "Don't freak out. I'll be right there." He hung up the phone and left me standing there in the living room, holding the phone with my emotions in total shock mode.

  My parents had completely rejected me when I was fourteen.

  The last words my father had said to me rang in my head. I'd never forgotten them, never been able to move past them. "You're the biggest disappointment of my life." How does a man say that to a fourteen-year-old?

  Throwing the phone into the receiver, I paced the living room and set in to battle the anxiety until Brady got there. He'd help me fix it. Somehow.

  Brady

  "Okay, he's going to stay there until we get there." I turned and looked at Corey's parents. His mother had tears rolling down her face.

  "Don't cry," I said softly. "Follow me, I'll take you to your son."

  Waving to Carson, who had been helping me look for Corey before I'd come inside to call and see if somehow he'd gotten home, I quickly went outside. Once the Buckners got into their car and pulled up behind me, I took off for home.

  "Wait here," I said. "Let me prepare him. He's a little bit panicked."

  They nodded and sat down on the front porch. I just hoped Corey hadn't seen them pull up with me. I'd pulled to the curb instead of going into the garage, hoping he wouldn't hear and bolt. He was really freaked out.

  I shut the front door quickly behind me. Corey was hunched over on the couch but jumped up when he heard the door close. "What is going on? Did you talk to them? You didn't tell them, did you?"

  "Corey, you've got it all wrong."

  Striding forward, I put my arms around him. "I finally looked up your record."

  "What?" he asked, pulling his head away from my chest and looking up at me. "What was it?"

  "It's not a warrant, you paranoid man. It was a missing person's report."

  Corey jerked away from me. "What are you talking about?"

  "Sit down," I said gently. He sat stiffly on the couch. Gently, I lowered myself beside him and put a hand on his knee. "Your parents filed a missing person’s report years ago. I'm guessing the only reason it didn't flag you when you went to rehab and almost died was that maybe the systems weren't so connected then as they are now. The Portland police must not have had access to the report from your hometown."

  "When did they file it?" he whispered, his eyes full of tears.

  "The date is in the file, but your mother said it was the day after you left."

  Tears rolled down his cheeks. "They've been looking for me all this time?"

  Nodding, I pulled him into my arms. "Don't be mad at me," I whispered. "But they're outside." It had been a hard decision to let them follow me home, but I thought I'd made the right one. Corey deserved his family, even if they'd made a colossal mistake. They could spend the next decade making up for it.

  He'd been robbed of his childhood, but he didn't have to be robbed of a caring family for the rest of his life.

  "Do you think it would be okay if they came in?"

  Corey blinked several times. "There's no warrant?"

  "No." Looking him deep in the eyes, I tried to show every ounce of my love.

  "They've been looking for me?" The pain in his eyes broke my heart.

  "Yes," I whispered.

  Taking in a deep, shuddering breath, he nodded. "Okay."

  I jumped up and opened the door. "Come on in," I said, smiling at Corey's parents. His dad had his arm around his mom. She looked like she was about to break down.

  They shuffled into the house, where Corey stood by the couch wringing his hands. I hurried back to him so I could put my arm around him and give all the support I could during this emotional time.

  Turned out I didn't need to. His mother nearly knocked me over as she rushed past me and around the couch to her son. She threw her arms around him, sobbing. "I'm so sorry. My Corey, my sweet boy. I'm so, so sorry."

  Chad and Clara Buckner had nearly bowled me over at the brewery when Chad heard me say Corey's name in the phone. He'd only just walked up to the counter when I spoke into the phone. He'd quickly explained he was looking for his long-lost son. After what I'd seen on the police report, I knew he was telling the truth, so I had to decide whether or not to take them to see Corey.

  Chad stepped more calmly around me and put his arms around his wife and son. "That goes double for me, son."

  Corey disentangled himself from his parents. "Please sit down."

  They sat on the couch, and Corey positioned himself on the edge of the oversized chair across from it. I stood beside him, my hand on his shoulder to provide support. He squeezed it as he spoke. "What happened?"

  "We want to ask you the same thing," his mother said, tears still falling. I stepped over to the bookshelf in the corner and grabbed a box of tissues, setting them on the coffee table.

  Everyone grabbed one.

  "You told me to leave. You said I was your greatest disappointment," Corey said, pain in his voice. I gave him my hand again. This wasn't going to be easy.

  "My biggest disappointment was ever uttering those words to you," Chad said. "I'm so sorry. You were not a disappointment. My inability to deal with your difficulties and your pain was. I should've helped you. I should've done everything in my power to help you."

  Clara wiped her tears and sucked in a deep breath. "You left, then you didn't come back the next day. You always came back the next day. We waited one more day before calling all your friends, but nobody would admit to knowing where you were. By the time the police tracked down who you'd stayed with, you were long gone. The trail went cold in Portland."

  "That's where I was. For years," Corey whispered.

  "How can we express to you how sorry we are?" Clara asked.

  "I don't know," C
orey said. "I'm a little shocked."

  "Well, I'm going to make tea," I announced when nobody said anything for several seconds. They just stared at each other.

  I had no idea how to facilitate such a reunion, but tea sounded like a good excuse to let everyone separate and breathe. "Corey, help me?"

  "Yes, of course," he said and stood, still stiff and tense. I followed him into the kitchen, where he collapsed against me, sobbing into my shirt. "Thank you," he said. At least, I was pretty sure he said it. It was muffled by my chest and his sobs.

  "It'll get easier," I whispered. "It'll become more natural." I had no idea if my advice was correct, but I had to say something.

  Depositing Corey into a kitchen chair, I handed him a paper towel to mop up his face and started tea.

  Carrying the drinks into the living room, we sat down and tried to talk again, but the conversation was difficult. There was just too much to say. Eventually, the Buckners decided to leave.

  “One thing I never was clear on,” I asked as everyone stood. “How did you know he was in Three Lakes? Did you just happen to be here on vacation?”

  Corey’s dad chuckled. “I wish it could’ve been that easy. The missing person’s case was set to notify the detective back home if Corey’s social security number was accessed in that system you use to do background checks.”

  "Would it be okay if we come back tomorrow?" Clara asked. "This is difficult, but I absolutely won't give up. We want to be a part of your life, Corey. A big part."

  He squeezed my hand. "I think that would be nice," he said. We all exchanged phone numbers, and then Corey and I stood on the porch waving as they drove away.

  When their car was out of sight, Corey turned to me on the porch. "Can I keep you?" he asked.

  Laughing, I pulled him over to sit on the porch swing. The evening was beautiful, and we'd be able to see the sunset from the porch soon. "Of course."

  With his head on my shoulder, he sighed. "I mean it. I've decided to stay, especially know that I know there's no warrant."

  My heart swelled. He was staying with me. "I love you," I whispered.

  "I love you, too."

  26

  Corey

  "Hey, puddin'," I said to Brady as he walked into the room. The construction for the new kitchen had just begun, and Carson and I were busy making appliance selections. "What are you doing here?"

  "Looking for you." He smiled at me, and his face lit up like Christmas morning.

  The past three months with him had been bliss. I'd started work at the brewery right away, learning the ins and outs of the business as Carson and I plotted and planned the extension. I wanted to know every part of the place. Carson had expanded my responsibilities. I was to be his manager, not just in the kitchen, though the kitchen would be my primary responsibility. My goal was to free Carson up so that if we finally found him a potential relationship, he’d be free to take some time and pursue it.

  I had no high school diploma, though I was working to gain one online. I had no college degree, though who knew? Maybe I'd go for one in the future. I had one hell of a past. In Three Lakes, I'd found home. In more ways than one. The friends and family I'd gained had been invaluable.

  My parents had surprised us the week before with an announcement. They were selling their house and moving to Bend. They wanted to be close to me, but not so close that I'd feel smothered by them. They said when we had grandbabies, they might move closer. I was okay with that. Small steps for now.

  "What's up?" I asked, dying to know what had his face so animated.

  "I've been scheming with Carson," Brady said with a mischievous smile.

  "What have you done?" Excitement fluttered in my stomach. He was in a surprise Corey sort of mood. He loved doing that.

  With a flourish, he pulled an envelope from his back pocket and set it on the desk in front of me. Carson had rearranged his large office to put a desk in for me. That had been one of Brady's surprises, a fancy new desk for my part of the office.

  I opened the envelope to find two tickets to Bali for a week's stay.

  "Oh, my god," I whispered.

  "You can travel now," he exclaimed. "There's nothing to stop you from getting a passport."

  My jaw dropped as I realized he was right. There was nothing in the world holding me down, and nothing but love lifting me up.

  Get ready for book 3 in the Love In Three Lakes Series, Making Peace

  Available Soon!

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  Crossroads

  Love In Three Lakes: Book 2

  Sasha Goldie

  © 2019

  Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and events are all fictitious for the reader’s pleasure. Any similarities to real people, places, events, living or dead are all coincidental.

  This book contains sexually explicit content that is intended for ADULTS ONLY (+18).