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CHAPTER1
KNOX
This was it.
This was the opportunity I’d been waiting months for. Maybe a lifetime.
Even though my timing sucked, if I didn’t level with these people now, I didn’t know when I’d get a better chance. It was random luck that I’d ended up on the Rusty Anchor beer patio at the same time as the entire Henry family in the first place, and now all the other customers had cleared out, so it was just the Henrys, their significant others, and me.
I glanced around at each person, all of them jovial about Cash and Ava’s engagement announcement. None of them suspecting there could be more to their family.
Simon Henry, with his wife, Faye, at his side, glowed with happiness now that the four children he’d raised had found their life partners—Hayden with Zane, Holden with Chloe, Seth with Everly, and Cash with Ava.
I stepped up to the group, between Ava and Hayden and across from Simon Henry, my heart about to hammer right out of my chest.
“Hey, everyone,” I said above their conversations. “I’m sorry to intrude on a private family moment, but I have something I need to say.”
The Henry family quieted relatively quickly, expectant smiles and welcome expressions focused on me.
That would change in a heartbeat.
I cleared my throat. “I know this isn’t the best time, but I need to level with you all about the reason I came to this small town in the first place.”
I was semi-aware of Ava clasping on to my wrist. “What’s going on, Knox?”
Focusing fully on the patriarch of the group, with his gray-brown hair and warm eyes, who stood mere feet from me for the first time, I said, “I found out a few months ago that you, sir, are my biological father.”
For three full seconds, there wasn’t a sound other than a frog or two in the distance. I wasn’t sure anyone in the group of ten had breathed.
Then Ava, my closest friend in town as well as my writing partner, squeezed my wrist tighter and breathed out, “Wow.”
I kept my eyes locked on Simon Henry, my father, holding my own breath as I waited for his reaction. There was confusion, then shock. Then he glanced toward his wife, who wrapped herself around his arm supportively.
“Holy shit,” Holden said from somewhere to my right.
I didn’t divert my attention from the sixty-eight-year-old man in front of me, my heart pounding harder with every second he remained silent.
Finally, with the slightest tilt of his head, he said calmly, “Who is your mother?”
“Janet Breckenridge.”
Simon blew out a sharp breath, and his gaze became unfocused, his eyes widening. “I didn’t think anything of it when I heard your last name…”
“It’s a common name,” I said.
“You know this Janet Breckenridge, Dad?” Seth asked.
Seth was the second oldest of my half-siblings. I’d gotten to know him over the past three months and considered Holden, the third oldest, a friend. I was older than all of them, even Cash, who’d only recently become civil toward me. He stood on the other side of Ava, and I didn’t have to turn my head in his direction to sense the antipathy emanating from him.
“I did,” Simon answered. “How old are you, Knox?”
“I turned forty-two in February.”
I could see him doing the math in his head. I knew it would work out. I didn’t have anything to go on except my mother’s revelation after her death, but I trusted her. She didn’t have any reason to make this up.
“I…” Simon blew out another breath.
I didn’t know him, hadn’t laid eyes on him in person until this evening, but I could tell he was shaken.
