The back of my neck grew hot. Sometimes Bethany asked about her grandparents. Kirstin’s parents lived across the country and weren’t interested in beinggrandparents, just like Kirstin wasn’t interested in being a mom.
That wasn’t fair. She was still in town, but she’d been going to state parks to take photos. “There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Nothing to talk about, but you won’t leave Montana? You won’t leave Bourbon Canyon? Nothing to talk about, but you want nothing to do with my success?—”
“I want you to succeed?—”
“Nothing to talk about, but you sold the ranch because Wren was struggling.” Pressure built at my temples, but she continued. “Nothing to talk about, but you let Kirstin phone it in as a mom?—”
I popped up. Hannah stirred in her blankets.
“Not around them,” I whispered and stalked to the kitchen.
Her soft footsteps followed me. “I’m sorry. I do not want them to overhear, but, Rhys, that time in your life clearly defined you and... and I think it’s keeping you from letting yourself be happy.”
“I am happy.” I spun. She looked so damn young with her hair flowing over her shoulders and her eyes beseeching me to listen, to understand.
The awful thing was that I did. I knew better than anyone what those years had been like. I knew better than all of them. “It wasn’t a good time for me.”
“I know. She wasn’t a good mom.”
“No,” I said, immediately defensive. “I got in the way.” I ground my teeth together. I’d never admitted that much before. Dad had known some of it.
“How in the world could you have gotten in the way? You were a kid.”
The ever-present shame surged through my blood vessels. “I made it hard for her.”
“How?” June’s expression was dubious. She and her sisters and brothers and even many of her foster siblings hadn’t given Mae and Darin Bailey the hard time I had given Angela Craft.
“She had a job.” The inclination to defend my mom remained after all these years. No one else had been there. No one else knew what it had been like for my mom. “Her theater practices were demanding, her auditions unpredictable. She had no family to help, and I did nothing but cause her trouble.”
“You?” She scoffed.
June only knew the mellow me. The Rhys Conner Kinkade who made sure everyone’s lives ran smoothly. She didn’t know the boy who’d made his mom’s life a living hell. The rebellious shit who hadn’t respected the person closest to him.
Maybe I did owe June some of the story. From her point of view, she’d been hurt because of my mom. I had to let her know that it was all me. “If she landed a major role, she’d have more rehearsal. The more I was at a new day care, or with a new nanny, the worse I’d act out.”
Sympathy filled her eyes. “You wanted her attention.”
“I knew better,” I said curtly. “Even at that age.”
She studied me, the doubt still in her eyes. “What else?”
Wasn’t that enough? “If she had an audition, I’d spill my drink, fall and hurt myself, or even run away. Before she brought me here to live with Dad, I got lost on the New York subway.”
Her eyes shot wide. “What?”
“On purpose.”
Again, no recrimination. Understanding welled in those big, beautiful amber eyes, understanding I didn’t deserve. “Oh, Rhys.”
“It was a dick move. I could’ve been hurt. Mom was finally on Broadway, and she’d missed a critical rehearsal because of me. She almost got fired, but the NYPD had called the theater.” I’d known so many details, the police had had no trouble finding her. “I hadn’t wanted to stay gone forever. Just enough to... fuck up Mom’s day.”
“You were still a kid, and those were all cries for help.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. “There’s more.” Since I was baring my soul and remembering those disappointed expressions of Mom’s, I might as well keep going. “I used to tell her that she couldn’t act.”
June’s lips parted.
