“Screw you. I don’t belong to you.”
Something crashed, and the walls shook, and he could hear his mama crying behind the man’s mean voice. “That’s where you’re wrong. I own you. Don’t fucking forget it.”
Tears leaked from Ian’s eyes, and he tried to burrow under his covers. To cover his ears. He wanted to disappear when his mama came home from work with a man.
Their voices different but always the same.
Terror rippled through Ian’s spirit, and he wanted to save his mama. But he was too scared.
Quiet footsteps moved over the carpeted floor.
His big brother was there.
Ian breathed out in relief.
Jace pulled back Ian’s covers, crawled into bed beside him, and wrapped him in his arms.
“I’ve got you, Ian. Don’t be scared.”
Don’t be scared.
Don’t be scared.
Scared was the last thing Ian wanted to be.
Eighteen
Grace
I was already out the front door and running for the curb when the car came to a stop. So, what if it made me look desperate and needy. That was exactly what I was.
It really didn’t matter all that much if I was showing an iota of vulnerability, anyway. I should have known it wouldn’t be Reed who’d take the time to deliver his children back to me at the end of their visit.
I refused the spike of anger that wanted to climb into my feelings. Not right then. The only thing that mattered was they were home.
Safe.
Where they belonged.
We were going to make it. We would. Whatever it took.
Reed’s driver, Riggs, put the big sedan in park and climbed out. He really didn’t need to bother. My children were already pouring out, Mallory darting across the lawn with her arms thrown in the air.
My pulse spiked, joy hitting me hard.
I didn’t even stop walking as I scooped her up, hugged her close. Breathed her in.
“There’s my Mal Pal. I missed you so much.”
I knew there was no way she could understand just how much that was.
Her little arms wound around my neck. “I missed you all the way to the moon!”
“All the way to the moon?” I teased. “Well, I missed you all the way to the sun and the stars and right back again.”
“No way. You didn’t have time to get that far.”
“But what if I had a spaceship?”
“A spaceship?” Her little voice lifted in excited awe, as if we were already writing another chapter in our story.
We just might need one for a getaway.
I was holding her as I moved across the lawn and toward the car, my eyes on my Thomas, who looked like he was holding the weight of the world on his little shoulders.
I knew he was.
Our fragile world.
The child trying to be the caretaker, the protector of his sisters while they were away, continuing our stories as if they were here, as if it was me who was whispering in their ears.
He helped Sophie down.
Only she immediately tripped and fell onto her hands and knees.
I was hit with the urge to run for her. To shield her from any pain.
But my wild thing popped back up as if nothing had happened, sending me a smile with a row of her tiny teeth, gaps in between them, happiness radiating from her little body. “I do it, Momma!”
With a brush of my fingers through her hair, I set Mallory onto her feet, and she ran over to Riggs who was unloading her little pink suitcase from the trunk.
Sophie lifted her hands in the air, those chubby legs toddling my direction. “Momma now.”
Momma now.
Momma forever.
I picked her up, filling my nose with her sweet scent, baby powder and the promise of spring. I spun us around, and she squealed, “I fly!”
Soft laughter rolled from me, at one with the peace of the late afternoon air, and I carried Sophie the rest of the way over so I could set my hand on Thomas’s back.
I leaned in to whisper at his ear, “There’s my brave boy.”
He grimaced, and I knew he was contemplating playing indifferent, the big man who shouldn’t show his feelings, which I was sure Reed had fed into his brain over the last two days.
“Sweet boy,” I murmured, trying to reach him.
For a second, he hesitated before he threw himself at me and burrowed his face against my belly. “Mom. I missed you.”
“It’s okay, Thomas. I’m right here. I’m so sorry.” I let him cry, these big, angry sobs that erupted from him, one of my arms around his shoulders while I kept Sophie situated on my hip as I tried to silently give him all the encouragement I could find.
The promise that we would be fine. That this would soon be over.
The faith that it would work out.
No matter what.
Like Gramma had said, some things were just too right to go wrong.
Riggs tried to hide the sympathy in his face, the old man always so kind in all the years I’d lived at Reed’s house.
“Here you go, ma’am,” he told me as he pulled the rest of their things out of the trunk. They had stuff at Reed’s—ridiculous, expensive things—and I made sure to send them with familiar toys and clothes that would make them feel comfortable every time they went.
“Thank you,” I told him, my voice hoarse, part of me wanting to beg him to tell me anything he could. To give me any ammo. I was sure he had plenty.
But his loyalty had always been to the Dearborne family. Born into it, his mother had been Reed’s nanny until he no longer required one, and Riggs had quickly acquired a spot.
“It’s an honor to drive your children.”
“I wish it wasn’t necessary.” The admission hung between us. A bridge I was asking him to cross.
He slammed the trunk closed. “I do hope you and Mr. Dearborne find a resolution soon.”
He glanced at all the children, giving them a soft wave and a big smile.
Mallory giggled when he did. “Bye-bye, Mr. Riggity Rigg! I see you soon.”
At least Mallory could always find the bright side. The child so full of love she didn’t know anything else.
Thomas grabbed his and Sophie’s suitcases and turned toward the house.
My grandmother was there at the end of the walk, arms wide open. “There are the greatest great-grandchildren in all the land.”
Mallory danced across the lawn, doing a twirl and a jump, and landing at my grandmother’s feet like a prize. “Did you see that, Grams? One day, I’m going to be in the Russian Ballet.”
Thomas snickered as he headed toward them. “Don’t you have to be Russian?”
Mallory scowled at him, and I chuckled under my breath, heading back up through the lawn.
The engine hummed as Riggs pulled from the curb.
Halfway to Gramma, I froze.
Awareness nipped at my senses and sent the fine hairs at my neck spiking with electricity, stomach turning itself into a thousand knots.
Oh.
My heart started to race, and I slowly shifted to look over my shoulder.
Wary and terrified and filling right up with the hope that seemed so impossible to find until I saw him standing there.
The most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. The most gorgeous man I’d ever touched.
He was across the road with his hands stuffed in his pockets.
Dressed in a suit, polished, his face masculine and rough.
A perfect package.
A perfectly, imperfect gift.
Nineteen
Ian
I stood on the opposite side of the road with a lump the size of a meteor in my throat. It might as well have been. Knowing the feeling that had put it there was going to completely wipe me out.
Desolate and destroy.
Those eyes were on me.
A blue, mesmerizing sea. Soft and sweet and filled with so much relief that my first inclination was to turn and run.
Especially when I was looking at the evidence of her kids.
The little girl in her arms. Two children standing at the feet of an old woman who was watching me, too.
A chilly breeze weaved through the colossal trees of the quaint neighborhood, while I was pretty sure I was being burned alive.
At the stake.
Grace slowly set the tiny, white-haired girl onto her feet, saying something to the woman who stretched out her hand for the little girl.
The older woman wrangled all three kids, shooing them and trying to get their bags into the house, sparing me a glance before she disappeared inside.