“Dad’s playing in Florida this weekend, Mom signed me out of school for the day and we’re meeting him there! Baseball and beach time!” Tuck had started calling Gunner “Dad” around the time Gunner and Delilah got engaged. He’d had a tough year, and I was damn proud that the kid had rebounded after everything that had been laid on his plate. In the chaos of it all, he got a dad out of the deal. A professional-baseball-playing dad. The kid was over the damn moon.
Delilah strolled out of the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “You have time to stick around for breakfast or is it a grab-and-go day?” Delilah asked, smiling.
“I can stick around for a few if you’ve got a cup of coffee for me.”
“Sure thing.” Delilah disappeared for a moment, and I took a seat at the closest table. She came back with a steaming mug of coffee, taking a seat across from me, and gave Tucker her best mom stare. “You said you were old enough to pack a bag on your own. When I poked my head into your room this morning and you hadn’t packed, you said it was because you wanted to use the clothes at Gram’s. That the T-shirt you wanted was there. Have you packed?”
I lifted the coffee to my mouth to hide my twitching lips. Tucker grumbled. “No. I’ve got time.”
“We’re leaving for the airport in an hour and a half. Go pack!”
My mom came through the kitchen door, smiling at her grandson. She bent low to place a kiss on my cheek as I unwrapped the breakfast burrito. “Morning,” I said, standing and wrapping her in a tight embrace.
She patted my cheek. “Morning. Be safe at work today.”
“Always am.”
“I’ll take Tucker over to the house, and I’ll make sure he actually packs a bag.” My mom wrapped an arm around Tucker’s shoulders and whispered just loud enough for Delilah and me to hear, “If you pack quickly, you just might find that video game you’ve been wanting.”
“Mom!” Delilah shouted.
My mom waved her hand over her shoulder, ignoring Delilah’s protest. “This is between me and my grandson. He’ll be packed.”
They walked out the door, Tucker with a little more speed than he’d had before a game was promised to him. Delilah groaned, dropping her hands into her lap. “That kid is going to grow up wanting for nothing.”
“Isn’t that the idea?”
“Well, yes, but he also needs to learn to work for what he has and what he wants. It’s not always as simple as packing a bag and getting a new game. Mom and Dad spoil him.”
I snorted. “You and Gunner spoil him too.”
She picked up a potato that had fallen from my burrito and chunked it at my head. “If I remember right, you gave him a skateboard last week.”
“That’s what uncles are supposed to do. That’s why it’s great being an uncle. I can spoil the kid, hop him up on sugar, and then send him home to you. Besides, there’s going to be a new skatepark in town. He’ll want one eventually.”
“One of these days, you’re going to make me an aunt and hell will be repaid,” she promised. I took another bite of my burrito. I didn’t think that was happening anytime soon, if ever. It was easier to have short flings with women with whom I knew there was no future. I refused to go down that path again and relinquish any control or give another person the power to destroy me. Or at least destroy what was left of me. The part that I hid from everyone in my life. I’d been obliterated and not one person knew. There was only one woman in Hawk Valley that could tempt me, and while I had trouble ever taking my eyes off of her or getting her out of my mind, it wasn’t a path I could go down. Makenna was guarded, had just as many secrets as me. Even if the others didn’t see that, I did.
I’d seen where that path led. It was the other half of the reason I’d moved to Hawk Valley.
“I thought y’all weren’t traveling to meet Gunner until next month, when Tuck has a break at school,” I said, taking another bite of the burrito. The homemade tortilla was filled to the brim, stuffed with potato, egg, cheese, avocado, jalapenos, bell peppers, and chorizo. Normally, I had a green smoothie and egg whites for breakfast to stay healthy. But the green smoothie and egg whites had nothing on the breakfast burrito Delilah made.
She sighed, her shoulders slumping. Delilah reached across the table, snagging my coffee, and took a long drink. “Don’t you know what this weekend is?”
I furrowed my brow trying to think of today’s date and then it hit. “Oh.”
“Shayla’s birthday.” Shayla was our cousin, but she had been more like a sister to both of us. Her parents died when she was young and she moved in with us. Before that, the three of us had already spent most of our time together, as close as cousins could get.
“Tucker was asking questions, and I didn’t want to be alone. I wanted to be with Gunner. I know he’ll be busy with practice and games, but it just feels better to be near him. To know that I’ll fall asleep and wake up with him on a hard day.”
She wasn’t only our cousin; she was also Tucker’s birth mom.
“We all knew he’d eventually ask more questions,” I said.
She blew out a breath. “I know, but he seems to hit me with them when I’m least expecting it. He was wanting to hear some stories about her, asked while I was chopping a bell pepper. Sometimes when I say her name, Tucker will change the subject quickly, so I never know what to expect.”
I nodded. Shayla wasn’t an easy topic in the Moreland household. For any of us.
Shayla had become addicted to drugs as a teenager. Rehab, meetings, family support groups, we had tried it all. Until she took off and we didn’t hear from her anymore. I’d searched for her. Before she disappeared, I’d help her. As a cop in Austin, there were times when I’d find her and I would do what I could to make sure she wasn’t left on the streets or spending her entire life behind bars. My family didn’t know that I’d also tried to help her get sober without them. I’d sat with her through detox a few times, supported her financially. Bargained and begged. They didn’t know that I’d seen her once after she left Tucker in Delilah’s hands. She was as good as my sister, and I hated watching the path she was going down. Hated that I was powerless to stop it. Hated that I had no damn control of the situation.
That was just one of the secrets I’d been tight-lipped about.
Some others involved Shayla. The things I’d done to protect her. The things she’d done that exploded my life. Others were just in the aftermath of it all.
Some things were unforgiveable.
3
Makenna
“Thank you so much, Makenna,” Jasmine, the owner of the bistro on Main Street, said. Her gorgeous tightly coiled curls bounced as she leaned forward once more, taking in the sketches and mood board I’d set up for her. She was hosting her daughter’s high school graduation soon and wanted to create a flower wall as a photo background for her daughter and her friends. “I love this centerpiece idea. When Michelle told me she wanted centerpieces on the tables, I thought it would look too formal. Too much like a wedding.”