Page 59

Jaw tight, he set it aside.
“Who do you think paid for your mother to receive treatment when you were in high school? And again, while you were deployed?” Ben pushed aside his plate and steepled his fingers. “It was the only help she would accept, and only because she didn’t want you to get a message while you were overseas that your mother was dead.”
Caleb shook his head. “If what you say is true, then why did she tell me you abandoned us?”
Despite her struggles, Caleb’s mother had never lied to him.
At least he hadn’t thought so.
“That, I can’t answer, Grandson.” Ben placed his napkin on the table and stood. “But I can show you this.” He reached into his suit coat and withdrew folded papers, which he handed to Caleb.
Caleb hesitated, then accepted the documents. Rehab admission forms for a facility in Phoenix. His mother’s name. Payment records. Benjamin Blackwater listed as the responsible party.
What the hell? Why hadn't he known about this?
Why hadn’t his mother told him?
He handed the papers back to his grandfather without a word, unsure of what to say.
Ben placed a hand on Caleb’s shoulder.
Caleb stiffened.
“You’ve always been in my heart,” Ben said. “So was your mother. All I ask is that you consider the possibility that what you believe…isn’t the whole truth.”
He turned to Gia. “Thank you for the meal. It was an honor.”
“I will think about the offer,” she said softly. “You accepted me into this community when I had nowhere else to go. I won’t forget that.”
“You belong here.” Ben patted her on the cheek, then cast another long look at Caleb. “Both of you do.”
Belong? His grandfather dangled belonging in his face like bait on a hook.
What would it feel like to have a family? Roots? A place to call home that meant more than where he rested his head at night?
He told himself it didn’t matter. But deep down, the boy who’d once played with his cousin, ate his grandmother’s corn cakes, and looked up to his stern but loving grandfather knew the truth.
It mattered more than he wanted to admit.
And now, with everything shifting under his feet, he couldn’t help but wonder what else he didn’t know.
What had been kept from him.
What Gia hadn’t told him.
Something cold coiled in his chest.
It wasn’t just the past he couldn’t trust.
It was the present.
Chapter Fourteen
ThedoorclosedbehindBen Blackwater and his security detail with the finality of prison bars, leaving Gia trapped in the silence that followed.
She’d felt the change—a subtle shift in the air, the kind of stillness that came before a storm.
Had been expecting it, ever since Caleb had asked if her lasagna was aWintersfamily recipe.