“Mom.”
She holds up a hand. “Let me get this out. It’s the last time we will discuss this.”
I nod, letting my gaze land on Laiken as she drops to the sand with Trace.
“You were eight years old when Nadene, Rhodes’s mother showed up at our house. Your father didn’t think I knew, but I knew he’d slept with her on and off for years. She shared his habits, which made them both toxic.”
Bastard.
“I was standing at the kitchen window when she told him.” She blows out a slow breath. “That Rhodes was his son.”
Her confession baffles me. “What?”
“Her husband had taken off. Left her with nothing. She needed help, and your father stood in that yard and told her it wasn’t his problem. That she was just a whore looking for a meal ticket.”
I swallow down the urge to lash out. At him. At every adult in this situation. The ones who were supposed to protect us.
“But you’ve seen him.” She looks over at me. “He has your father’s eyes.”
Thinking back to the times I’d been close enough to see them, they did seem familiar. A muddy brown. Dark and haunting.
“That means…”
“That he’s your half-brother.”
Fuck.
Nausea swirls in my stomach. The fact I share DNA with someone who could be that hateful. Someone who hurt the people I love.
“We moved the next week. As angry as I was at him for being the way he was, I was angry at myself. Maybe if I forced him to get better, he wouldn’t have stepped out to any other women.”
“His actions are not on you, Mom. Those arehischoices.”
“I know that now. But then, I was young and scared.” She shrugs a shoulder. “Deep down, I felt bad for Nadene. She fell for the false charm just as I did. Butmyson wasn’t getting left behind.”
The pieces start falling into place. Rhodes must have found out at some point.
“It wasn’t much, but I sent checks to her for the next eleven years,” she admits. “Your father might be a monster, but I wasn’t.”
Damn this woman’s heart. So big. So full of love. Even to people who wronged her.
“Is that why you never came back?”
She wipes a tear that escapes her eye. “Here I’m free. Free of judgment. Free of your father’s bad decisions.” She watches the waves roll in. “Here I have peace.”
Her confession sits heavy. The connection to Rhodes. His connection to Laiken. To Trace.
A part of me understands how he turned out the way he did. That sometimes, the odds are stacked against us. But the other part, the protective part, wants him to suffer for his actions. Brother or not, Rhodes McDowell’s days are numbered.
Chapter forty-seven
Laiken
“Wow,” I breathe out.
I’m speechless. I could tell something was on Parker’s mind during the drive back to Mayson Ridge. He waited until we were about an hour outside of town and Trace was asleep before he told me the conversation he had with his mom. The truths she revealed. I wasn’t sure how to process it, so I know it must have been a difficult thing to digest for him.
“How do you feel about all of this?” I ask.
