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That couldn’t happen. I couldn’t let it.
And yet the truth was, it had already happened years ago. Now it was just re-emerging from the depths and planting its roots. Her roots. Roots I wanted to tear out—and at the same time nurture.
I’d avoided her, the kid, and the cabin for the last three days by running, and when I wasn’t running, I was working on the house. Whenever I heard the light ping of her guitar at night, I put on my headphones and ran harder. Farther. Faster.
I jerked the truck into gear and pulled out of the driveway, but I didn’t get far. I stopped at the fork in the road, the low purr vibrating through me as I stared toward the cabin. The travel mug that had fallen off the roof of her car was laying in the middle of the driveway.
I tightened my jaw before swinging the Raptor left and heading for the cabin.
I stopped beside the stainless-steel Thermos cup, climbed out, and pick it up. I strode up to the cabin and set it on the tree stump on the porch.
Then I folded myself back into my truck, did a three-point turn, and drove out.
It was a twenty-five-minute drive to Hettie’s house on Minnesota Street. I’d delayed visiting her long enough, and if I did it any longer, I wouldn’t put it past her to take out an announcement in the local paper that I was back. And I’d prefer it if I didn’t have Callum James knocking on my door.
Not that he’d knock. No, the bastard would likely bust it down and have a shitload of guns pointed at my head.
I pulled into the cobblestone driveway and parked behind Hettie’s Mustang. She lived in the same Queen Anne Revival house that she’d grown up in. It boasted stained glass windows and a grand porch, and there was an enormous oak tree with branches that canopied the house like an old man’s arms stretched out to protect it from nature’s fury.
Or protect us. Because that’s what this place had done.
But it was more the woman inside who had done that.
She’d never scolded us or lectured us for fighting in the underground, and she never told the cops where we were when they knocked on her door in the middle of the night, even if she knew damn well we were there. And if we took a beating, Hettie was the one who bandaged, cleaned, and stitched us up.
Her one request was that we show up for dinner on Sunday nights. That was it.
And we did. Well, three of us did religiously. North did if his father was in the city for work, which he often was, but otherwise he had to be at home, in the gym, or on the ice rink. Callum had to head back to boarding school on Sunday nights. But once he got his driver’s license, he stuck around for dinner, then drove back afterward.
The white sheer curtain over the front window parted, and Hettie glanced out. It was where her favorite blue velvet chair sat. She’d sit and read in that chair until all hours of the night while waiting for Jaeg and me to come home. She’d never admit she was worried, and she’d never give us shit. No, she’d just make sure we came home, and then head upstairs to bed.
I took my gun out of the holster and placed it in the console along with the knife strapped to my left calf.
I climbed out of the truck, feeling the neighbor’s eyes on me as I strode toward the house. I didn’t bother turning around to see which neighbor or if I knew them. I was accustomed to being watched and feared.
The door opened as I climbed the porch steps.
Hettie stood in the doorway wearing taupe, knee-length shorts with a white-and-lavender scarf-like apron tied around her waist. She had on a short turquoise linen jacket over a white shirt and red sneakers with black laces on her feet. The outfit was vintage. Artsy. And grunge.
She hadn’t changed, but then, I hadn’t expected her to. She didn’t conform to society, fashion rules, or the norms on how to raise kids—in Hettie’s case, her grandchildren and a fucked-up teenager. Hettie had her own policies and never judged. She accepted you the way you were, which was probably why, even though I had been a fucked-up teenager with a shitload of trust, control, and anger issues, she managed to get inside my head and make herself at home.
“Hettie,” I said with a nod.
“Don’t ‘Hettie’ me, young man.”
I inwardly smiled at the familiar sound of her raspy voice. Despite all the shit in my life, Hettie was the one good part, even if I’d been too fucked up to notice it at the time. “Needed a few days to get my head straight.”
“Was it on sideways and you couldn’t find your phone?”
“Something like that,” I replied.
She knew what I meant because Hettie was the only person I’d told about my past and what had happened in the sewer.
There were two things she didn’t know, and I’d never tell her either one, for very different reasons in each case. One of them was meeting Macayla when she was five, and subsequently showing up every year, except for one, on her birthday until she turned sixteen.
And the other was the situation with Callum’s older brother, Aiden. We’d all agreed never to tell her. She might be forgiving if she knew why the five of us had done it, but it would crush her to know what that bastard had done. She’d known Aiden had a cruel streak in him, and that was why he’d never been in her house. I suspected it was also why she’d always had a soft spot for Callum.
She didn’t attempt to pull me into a hug, even though it had been years, and I knew she was dying to. She respected my issues with being touched.
