AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Eliza?”
My head whipped around to Denny.
“Denny?” Mom’s eyes grew wide. Her jaw dropped for a moment, then her face twisted abruptly with rage. “Well, I never. You worthless, conniving—”
“Stop it!” I stepped between her and Denny, tired as I was confused. My mother’s very presence here was like a flash-bang in a crawlspace. How did she know Denny? How did he know her? In that moment, it hardly mattered. She’d only just made her entrance, and I was already done. “I am sick of your name-calling. I’m sick of your tantrums, and your thinly veiled, ham-fisted manipulations, and I am especially sick of hearing you put other people down. This man risked his life to bring my sons back to me. I don’t know how you know each other. I don’t care. I will not have you bursting in here and speaking poorly of him or at him. Do you understand?”
“Eliza,” Denny said again, his voice heavy with warning as Mom marched toward me.
“Oh, don’t you Eliza me, Dennis Kerry,” she snapped at him before locking her gaze on me. “You don’t know how we know each other? You don’t care? What do you think, Denny? Should you tell her, or should I?”
“Eliza, just slow down for a second,” Denny groaned. “For fuck’s sake—”
“I’ll do it, then. You see, Felicity, this man has been lying to you. He’s not who you think he is.” She glared in Denny’s direction. “You wear so many hats these days, don’t you? Shifter, bounty hunter, savior of poor, defenseless babies… and yet, you never thought to come back to Evergreen and meet your own.”
“That’s enough, Eliza,” Denny said.
“Agreed.” Xander pushed between us, grabbing my mother by the shoulders. “Why don’t you step outside until you can calm down?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked, looking helplessly between Denny and Mom.
“He’s your father,” Mom spat. “Your no-good, lying, cheating—”
There were more insults, but they turned quickly into protests as Xander pushed her out the door and down the hall.
I was left alone in the room with Denny, every muscle frozen.
“Is it true?” I asked him, and he nodded.
My heart lodged in my throat. After all the days we’d spent together, all the time he’d spent with Xander and me while we tried to find our sons…
“When did you know?” I forced the words out. It suddenly felt ridiculously hard to breathe.
“Sometime between the second I first knocked on your door, and the second you opened it.”
“From the start, then.”
“Yeah. From the start.” He lowered his head. “I’m sorry it came out like this, though. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, for what it’s worth.”
“Denny… You didn’t tell me at all,” I pointed out. “If my mother hadn’t showed up and lost her shit when she saw you… would you ever have told me?”
“Honestly?” He shrugged. “No idea.”
My jaw dropped. His candor stunned me.
For thirty-two years, I’d gone without a father. Without even the knowledge of whether he was alive or dead.
Now that I finally knew who he was, I wasn’t sure which was worse: that he was a liar, or that he was willing to tell such harsh truths.
“Look. I already spent the last month lying to you by omission. I’m not gonna lie to you now,” he said. “I’ll never know if I ever would’ve told you or not. I thought about it a couple of times. Always decided against it. Maybe, with enough time, I would’ve spilled the beans. Maybe not.”
It was a sort of honesty, I guessed. Harsh truths. I preferred it to lies.
I moved a little closer to him. “What stopped you?”
“Guilt, mostly. Awkwardness. I dunno, kid, you were already going through so much shit. Part of me didn’t want to dump more on your plate. Another part of me thought that sounded like a pretty good excuse.” He snorted. “Plus, what if I told you and you hated me?”
“I still might.” It was an empty threat. Denny had bled for me. He’d thrown himself in the way of danger to keep Xander and Ryder safe.
