by Abby Brooks
Eli ran a hand along the back of his neck. “And yet here we are.”
“He said I would destroy the family if I told any of you.” Dad spun a perfect web of lies and manipulation, capitalizing on my fears, my strengths, my weaknesses. He knew exactly what to say to make me do what he wanted, without question. I tried to explain how the time I spent with him was like playing chess. I would move and he would react, over and over until I was in too deep. “Every time I worked up the courage to tell him I was done, he managed to get me all tangled up again. You have no idea how hard this has been. How—”
“Don’t even consider trying to make us feel sorry for you.” Caleb turned his back, unable to even look at me.
“At least hear what he’s trying to say before you judge him.” Kara’s clear voice rang out, shocking my family into silence.
“You don’t get to speak here,” my brother growled.
My mother held up a hand. “Enough, Caleb. Your brother made a mistake, but no one makes it through life without their fair share of those, and we all know what life was like with your father. Let the girl talk.”
Kara lifted her chin and met my family’s eyes. She didn’t flinch from what she saw there, though I wouldn’t blame her if she had. The day I met her outside Madeline’s condo, I hated her. In my mind, she was as much at fault for what was happening as our parents, and I could see my brothers and sister coming to the same conclusion. They were wrong, of course, just like I had been.
“I’ve always been jealous of Wyatt’s love for you,” Kara said, her sultry voice low, but clear. “Every now and then, I would get a glimpse of what it must be like to have someone love you unconditionally, the way he loves you. He puts his needs aside to take care of yours, and he does it with a smile on his face and a heart free of resentment, so you probably have no idea how much it cost him…”
She outlined the sum of our history together, painting me as a selfless hero. Someone who was always there when she needed me, even when her mother wasn’t. She explained the day I picked her up from jail, my dislike for her so very clear, yet my desire to protect her still making itself known as I couldn’t help but try to keep her from repeating her mistakes.
She explained the night I rescued her from the party when no one else would. How I helped her out of that house and into the car, then held her hair while she threw up. She explained how many times she had texted her mother for help, but when she woke to find water and ibuprofen waiting for her, it had been me who left them. Not her. That she had spent weeks wondering what I wanted from her, because she hadn’t had much experience with kindness that didn’t come without strings attached.
She explained the day I showed up to tell our father to shove his secret up his ass. How she could tell then that he had me so tangled up and twisted that I couldn’t see the path in front of me. She explained the day I saved her from her mother’s boyfriend, the only reason I had shown up at all being that I had finally told Burke I was done, but didn’t want to leave her without an explanation.
“Wyatt is a born protector,” she said, “and that trait extended to include me, even though I never deserved it. Imagine what he’s put himself through, trying to understand the best way to keep you safe from Burke. Was it better to keep the secret? Sheltering you from such a terrible truth? Are you better in any way now that you know, or would you have been happier if it had never seen the light of day? And now, he’s even willing to shackle himself to me, if that’s what it takes.
“He took one look at your face,” she continued, dipping her head toward Mom. “He saw your fear over what might happen if my mother went to the press and decided that, as usual, he would do whatever it took to put things back to rights. Even if that means spending the rest of his life with someone he doesn’t love.”
Even as Kara claimed I didn’t love her, I knew it wasn’t true. I had loved her for years. And listening to her talk to my family proved that she had, in turn, loved me as well. The realization couldn’t have come at a worse time. I schooled my face into something I hoped no one could read, though one glance at Harlow proved she had seen what none of the others had.
“I’m sorry I hurt you,” I said to them. “I’m sorry I’ve broken your trust in me, but I swear, I was trying to do the right thing.”
Harlow nodded her understanding. “I know what it’s like to have Dad’s undivided attention. It’s like you’re drowning. Like up is down and good is bad. It sounds like he was doing that to you, and I’m sorry you had to endure it.” Eli and Lucas nodded their agreement while Caleb sighed. I watched his anger seep out of him as he met my eyes.
“She’s right,” he said. “They both are. I lumped all of Dad’s bullshit right onto you and it doesn’t belong there. He was a twisted fuck, but you’ve always been there. For all of us. I am who I am because of you.”
“That’s not saying much,” Eli joked, giving Caleb a playful smile. The whole family chuckled and their forgiveness wrapped around me. They knew who I was and how much they mattered to me, and they loved me just as much as I loved them.
Mom studied Kara for a long moment. “Will your mother follow through on her threat? Will she go to the press with her accusations about my son?”
Kara dropped her chin. “She’ll go through with it,” she said, looking up. “Nothing gets between my mother and the things she wants.”
Mom’s eyes blazed with the ferocity I used to see when Caleb came home with a fat lip or Harlow spent days in hiding—the look of a mama bear stretching her claws. “She’ll be in for a surprise, then, because nothing gets between me and my family.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wyatt
The conversation moved on to legal matters as Mom distilled what she learned from the lawyers. It became more and more clear that my brothers and sister hadn’t come today with the sole purpose of confronting me. They showed up to hear the story, to understand, and to figure out how to move forward. I left the meeting feeling like I had my tribe at my back.
Kara and I drove back to my place in comfortable silence. She twined her fingers through mine and gave my hand a squeeze, before setting her attention out the window.
“Do you really believe all those things you said about me?” I asked as we pulled into the driveway. Hearing her describe how she viewed my role in her life had been a beautiful thing. I wanted to wrap this woman up in my arms and hold her close, as if my proximity could erase all she had lived through.
“I saved my virginity for you, big guy. Of course I meant everything I said. But don’t go getting a big head or anything,” she replied with a grin.
“Wouldn’t dream of it.”
We climbed out of the car and made our way up the walk. The palm trees in my front yard rustled and the breeze blew the scent of her perfume my way. The sun shone from a brilliantly blue sky and a weight I had carried around my neck eased off my shoulders. Everything was going to be okay, and I had this amazing woman by my side. After dealing in the darkness cast by my father’s shadow for so long, she was the light at the end of the tunnel.
I swept her into my arms and kissed her, parting her supple lips with my tongue. She pressed her body against mine and I felt whole as the pieces of each other that we carried came together. Her hands trailed up my back and I grabbed her ass.
“This is a thing of beauty,” I said, giving it a squeeze. “Sheer perfection.”
It dawned on me that we had never been out as a couple. Never had the luxury of walking the beach, hand in hand, or laughing over the music at a bar as we leaned in close to be heard. Our relationship had blossomed under the worst of circumstances, a flower shoving its way through cracked concrete in the city. Despite the environment, it kept growing, kept blooming, and now, it was a masterpiece of delicate strength.
“You wanna, I don’t know, do something?” I asked, drinking in her beauty.
“I’d like to do you,” she replied, a devilish look in her eyes as a blush crept into her cheeks.
/> I stared at this woman and saw all the years connecting us, tying together our hearts and minds in ways we hadn’t fully recognized yet. I kissed her again, savoring the way her curves pressed softly against my body. “Sold,” I murmured, my lips brushing hers.
She giggled and stepped out of my arms, then leaned on the side of the house while I slipped my keys into the lock.
“It’s amazing how much Harlow looks like you,” she said, gaze locked on something off in the distance, “considering she’s your half-sister.”
I choked back a laugh and gave Kara a funny look, but she continued without pausing.
“Mom said Burke always went on and on about how much he hated seeing another man’s features in her face…” She trailed off as she took in my stunned expression.
I stopped fiddling with the key as all my attention went into Kara’s previous statement. Another man’s features? Half-sister? “What the hell are you talking about?”
She sucked in her lips and her eyes went wide. “About Harlow. And your mom’s affair…”
“My mom’s affair? You’re kidding, right?”
“Why would I joke about something like that?” Her jaw dropped. “Oh, shit. You didn’t know…”
As Kara stammered out apologies and explanations, I thought back over Dad’s disdain for Harlow and it all made a terrible kind of sense. I couldn’t be sure, because my own memories were so foggy, but it seemed like right after Harlow was born, Dad’s drinking got worse. If she was a daily reminder of infidelity, of course a man like that would make sure she knew she would never measure up. Burke Hutton could never see past the act, would never be able to forgive the innocent child who had nothing to do with her parents’ choices.
Kara was still apologizing, but I couldn’t find the brain power to talk to her.
…Mom had cheated on Dad…
…Harlow was the product of infidelity…
…Dad’s alcoholism became a problem because of my mother…
...yet she was comfortable judging me for harboring secrets when she had one bigger than anything I could imagine…
Did Harlow know?
Oh, poor, sweet Harlow…
“Wyatt?” Kara put her hand to my face and it was only then that I realized I was sitting on my porch in front of the door, staring at the peeling white paint on the wooden planks.
I let out a long sigh and shook my head, inviting her to sit beside me. “It feels like I’m losing everything,” I said. “All of it. All at once.”
“I really thought you knew.” Kara curled into me, tucking her head against my shoulder.
“My family is nothing but secrets,” I said, though I struggled to accept that Harlow wasn’t Dad’s. My mother wasn’t that kind of woman. She smiled her way through hard days and fought for people who had less than she did. She was a paragon of goodness. Warm hugs that smelled like fresh bread and the kind of intelligence that could grow a business from the ground up. How could she be capable of something like this?
Kara leaned in to me and I wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “My whole world is upside down,” I said. “But at least I have you.”
A tiny corner of my subconscious pricked up and reminded me that I might not actually have her at all. That she, too, might be as false as all the other women in my life. I ignored it. I had to. All this manipulation was making me sick to my stomach and I needed the hard truth of Kara to pull me through.
For the first time, I understood why Dad chose to drink.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Kara
The next couple days passed in a strange rhythm of work, time with Wyatt, and an ever-growing feeling of rage toward my mother. Considering I never took the time to explain everything Mom did to the Huttons, Brooke put up with my volatile moods like a champ. Though, judging by the way she had slammed around our jewelry store today, full of long sighs and frustrated glances, she had reached the end of her patience.
“Seems like something might be bothering you,” I joked, after she banged a bag of clasps down on a table in the back, then cursed when they spilled and rolled all over the floor.
“Me?” she asked as she dropped down on all fours. “Me? You think something is bothering me?” She peeked over the table and the incredulity on her face faded when she found me laughing. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”
I nodded my agreement. “Sure do.”
Brooke stood, the errant clasps clutched in her fist. “Well, then, funny girl, yes, something is most definitely bothering me. Can you possibly guess what it might be?”
“Hmm…” I tapped the side of my chin with a finger. “Is it the awesome new bracelet I made yesterday? Maybe feeling a little jealous of my superior skill?”
“No…definitely not that.”
“Is it the fact that it’s almost lunchtime and we’ve had exactly zero customers?” Add that to the zero customers we had yesterday and things were starting to look grim. I would captain this ship until the very end, but lately it felt like water was creeping up around our necks.
“No. It’s not that.” Brooke rolled her eyes. “I mean, well, yes, that bothers me. A lot actually. But that’s not the thing I’m talking about.”
I gave my friend a smile and dropped the act. “Look, I’m sorry I’ve been so difficult the last few days.”
“You’ve been just a touch more than difficult…”
“Fine. I’m sorry I’ve been…” I searched for the word that might encompass all I had been feeling since everything that happened with Wyatt and his family. Frustrated. Disappointed. Distraught. There was a rock buried in the pit of my stomach—cold and hard—and the sensation was spreading throughout my body. This all-pervasive sense of something’s wrong and the harder I tried to shake free, the more it clung to me.
Things with Wyatt were good. For so long, we had been on different pages regarding what we were to each other. Finally, we could both agree that the chemistry between us was more than just attraction. More than just the natural side effect of being pushed together through the consequences of someone else’s bad decisions.
And that felt good. Really good. So good, I fell asleep with a smile on my face and woke up still smiling. But that didn’t stop me from worrying because no matter how happy we were together, that rock in my stomach wouldn’t go away.
“Is it your mom?” Brooke asked, leaning across the table with kindness in her eyes.
“When isn’t it my mom?” I explained the situation while she listened with jaw dropped and eyes wide.
“That’s…” Brooke shook her head, as if to clear her thoughts. “How is this your life?”
“How can you even ask that question? You know my mom almost as well as I do.”
Brooke frowned. “You need to talk to her. She has to stop doing this to you. Like yesterday.”
“Believe me. If talking to her did any good, my life would have been significantly easier starting a long time ago. Come on, Brooke. You know this as well as I do. My mom doesn’t see reality. She sees what she wants to see and warps everything so she’s not at fault. If I told her to leave me alone…” I couldn’t imagine a life where that actually happened, my mother keeping her fingers out of my affairs.
“What?” Brooke held out her hands. “What more could she possibly do to you?”
“Well, she wouldn’t listen. I know that much for sure.”
“But what if she did?”
I gave my friend a look. She knew the answer to that question and it was a waste of breath to even ask.
“Fine,” she conceded. “She won’t listen. But maybe you’d feel better. Maybe you could say all the shit that’s eating you up from the inside out and could finally start to heal. And then cut that crazy woman out of your life for good.”
Could I do it? Could I cut my mom out of my life? We barely had a relationship as it stood. The only reason I ever spoke to her was when she needed something or I felt a sense of guilt or obligation to her…
�
�I don’t know, Brooke. What would I say?”
“What wouldn’t you say? You could finally unleash all the ways her narcissistic ass has ruined your life. Start at the beginning, then walk her through it all, step by step until she finally gave you the apologies you deserve.”
“Ha! Apology? Maybe you don’t know her the way I thought you did.”
“Okay, fine, she wouldn’t listen or apologize. But what do you have to lose? The way I see it, the worst that could happen is that she might try and ruin your life. Oh wait…that’s already happening.” Brooke gave me a look.
“And the best?”
“Well, I wouldn’t expect a heartfelt mother-daughter moment or anything, but maybe she would leave you alone and you could stop scaring away our customers by being so grumpy.”
I bobbed my head as I considered her words. I had never stood up to my mother. I had stopped calling her. Stopped reacting to her craziness, but I had never actually told her how I felt about the way she treated me. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it would feel so damn good to say all the things I wanted to say over the years. I knew she wouldn’t hear me. She would spin things around until I sounded crazy and she sounded like a victim, but maybe, maybe I could get it all off my chest and then close the door on her forever. Start a new chapter in my life. One that included Wyatt…
“Do you love him?” Brooke’s question caught me off guard and made me wonder if she could read my mind.
“I do. I think I have for a long time.”
“Does he love you?”
“I think so.” I thought back to the kiss on his front porch, the way he looked at me as if I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. Wyatt was the best thing that ever happened to me and it was past time I stood up to my mom. She deserved to hear what I thought of her and Wyatt deserved to have me tell her exactly how awful she was being.
“I am by no means an expert on love, but if you’ve found it with someone, and if he’s as decent as you’ve always made him seem, then you need to fight for him. You can’t let your mom ruin the first good thing that ever happened to you.”