Page 19 of Sterling Stone

As I approach the edge of the driveway, Cort instantly lifts his head, greeting me over Vale, who leans into him, with a short, sharp, “Stone.”

I tip up my chin, still finding it difficult to say his name after all this time. My heart is no stranger to wounds, but some cuts are deeper than others. Cort’s betrayal has dulled, but still aches on occasion. I’ve asked Vale to give me time to wrap my head around their relationship. I don’t want to ostracize my sister for her love match, even if I don’t particularly like it. She’s a grown woman. Her heart. Her choice.

“Stone Sylver, it’s been too long.” Mary Haven’s voice cuts off the staring contest between Cort and me and yanks me back, like a yo-yo, to being a kid. To a time when I hung out at the Havens’ home more than my own. Her voice gets me every time I see her around town, asking how I’m doing, asking if I need anything, like I’m still a twelve-year-old boy, living with a father who shut down after our mother’s death and left me to raise a baby along with a few toddlers.

Mary must be somewhere in her late sixties by now, but she looks as young as ever with a short, white bob in loose curls. She lost her husband about ten years ago.

I welcome her embrace, overwhelmed by a hug I remember almost more than my mother’s. Mary was like a second mom because Cort and I had been inseparable as children. From cradle to college, he was a brother from another mother, and as important to me as Clay and the rest of my siblings.

Eventually, I pulled back from the rest of the Havens because of Cort. For my own sanity, I had to let them all go.

And now wasn’t the time to work through the emotions brought about by our slowly developing reunion.

“Thank you for having us,” Mary addresses me when she ends our embrace, but keeps her hands on my shoulders, eyeing me like the mother she is. Like she knows I’m struggling with this new development.

Cortland and Vale. My former best friend and my sister.

“Of course,” I offer her the strongest smile I can muster, and then greet Trinity and Clinton, while watching Clinton’s little girl, Ruby James, run toward my niece, June. The two girls hug like long-lost friends when they are only five.

“Now, where is Trudy?” Mary questions, looking around my shoulders. “I heard she and I are team moms. One for each.”

This is the first I’ve heard we will have even more guests, and I mentally calculate if we have enough burgers and brats for everyone. Then again, I left Vale in charge of food shopping for today’s meal, so I smile at the mention of Trudy Wallace.

Trudy had been our mother’s best friend since high school. She’s a pillar in this community. Once a foster parent to her nieces and nephews, and anyone else who needed a place to stay, she would have adopted all of us Sylvers if it hadn’t been for our father’s intervention. And even once he passed away, she suggested taking in the younger set so I could follow my dream.

Instead, I chose the road already traveled and stayed. Trudy had enough responsibilities.

Cort chuckles at the mention of Trudy. “We’re a little old for team moms.”

“Says the man hiding behind his,” I mutter, knowing Vale’s invitation to include Mary Haven was intended to soften Cort’s attendance.

My comment wasn’t meant to be heard by everyone, but somehow, it was. An eerie silence falls behind me when only moments ago the baseball field was full of chatter and the sound of a ball hitting a bat for batting practice.

“Don’t be a dickhead, dickhead,” Cort says. His tone is light, teasing even, cautious. Like he’s offering me an olive branch through a joke. Through a comment we might have said to one another when we were still inseparable teens.

“I’m not a dickhead, dickhead.” My face is tight for a second. Jaw clenched. Back teeth snap together, but I can’t seem to fight a smile.

We might be too old to tussle in the yard like we once did, but I feel a little like a middle schooler as we toss insults at one another.

“Okay now,” Mary says, swinging her gaze from her son to me and back. “That’s enough talk about dickheads.”

Spoken like a true mother.

“Mom,” Trinity barks before laughing. Cort’s younger sister falls somewhere between Knox and Ford’s age. The short blonde is a force as the only sister in the Haven clan.

“I brought my famous lemonade with me.” Mary winks at me. “One for the kiddos and one for adults who aren’t dickheads.”

I choke on a laugh while my mouth waters. There is just something special about Mary’s lemonade. She makes it from scratch with the right combination of real lemons, sugar, and ice, and a pinch of something I can never discern.

“I call Mary,” I holler, slipping my arm around her shoulders, claiming her as my team’s mom.

Our family teams are led by Clay and me, which feels about right as he often played good cop to my bad. Ironic that I’m now the town sheriff, but once upon a time, we needed a family disciplinarian, and that role fell on me, while Clay was the softer, more philosophical side of our pair. We took on the roles we thought a mother and a father might offer our younger siblings.

I would never have survived raising the younger set without Clay.

As I’m escorting Mary to the actual ball field, another car pulls into the driveway. Assuming it’s Trudy Wallace, I pause and turn back toward the drive, while Mary continues onward.

The back door of a sedan flings open, and a young boy rushes out like he’s been sprung free from a cage.