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“Now is not the time,” Zack said, giving a nudge to his brother. “You can argue any other day, but not right now.”
“Fine,” Cooper said, carelessly shrugging. “I won’t say another word. You’re right. This isn’t the time, and I’ve already said what I think a million times.”
Joel took a step towards Cooper but then halted.
“Someday you’re going to realize that I was never your enemy.”
“You certainly aren’t my friend.”
“I’m your father. Being your friend wasn’t an option.”
Tate stepped in front of them, casting a warning glance over his shoulder.
“Can you tell us what you know?”
“I hardly know anything,” Joel said. “They’ve found human remains, and they need to examine them. That’s pretty much it. I came straight out here when I got the call.”
“You didn’t call us?” Zack pointed out. “And who called you?”
“One of the members of the council,” Joel replied. “And I didn’t want to get you upset if this turned out to be another dead end.”
Zack’s gaze wandered to his aunt who was still crying with her friends.
“Kim seems upset already.”
“This was supposed to be a magical time for her. The wedding is tomorrow so of course this is upsetting.”
“A magical time,” Cooper repeated, derision in his tone. “Christ, Dad. You’re not actually thinking of still having a wedding tomorrow, are you?”
Joel Winslow didn’t answer, but then he didn’t need to. The expression on his face said it all.
The wedding was still on. Whether their mother had been found or not.
“Jesus, Dad,” Zack said. “I think Cooper has a point here.”
“Your mother—”
“Stop,” Tate commanded, his tone so sharp that several heads turned in their direction. “Just stop that shit. You’re always trying to tell us what Mom would have wanted, but it’s also coincidentally what you want, too. Seems a bit sketchy to me. If that’s Mom that they’ve found—”
“We don’t know that,” Joel said. “And we may not know it for days or weeks. We can’t put our lives on hold. Life is for the living, son.”
Zack had heard his father say that before. He didn’t disagree with his dad, but this action seemed rather callous. If it wasn’t, then it was at least tone-deaf. But then Joel Winslow didn’t give a rat’s ass what people thought about him.
“Welcome home, big brother,” Cooper said. “You’ve come back to town for the saddest, most hypocritical wedding in the history of Winslow Heights. And that’s saying something because we’ve had some real assholes in our family.”
With that, Cooper turned on his heel and headed back to the car, leaving Tate and Zack with their dad.
And some giant tension that hung in the air around them.
It was usually there all the time, but at this moment it was especially nasty.
“Dad, you need to think this through,” Zack finally said. “I get that you want to move on, but the optics on this are going to look terrible. If you don’t care about your reputation in town, think about Kim. I think she cares about it. Don’t make life harder on her than it has to be.”
For a split second, Zack thought his father might be listening, but then a forbidding cold mask came down over his features.
“The wedding will go on as planned.”
Zack couldn’t help someone that didn’t want to be helped in the first place. His dad didn’t think that this was a problem? Fine, Zack would step back and let the chips fall where they may. There was a remote chance that he was wrong, and that no one would care.
