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I narrowed my eyes and stood upright. “Have you ever met Azelie?”

She slowly shook her head as she frowned. “No, but what does that—”

“She’s got my eyes, Mawmaw. One green eye and one hazel,” I interjected, and she froze in place. Every muscle on her body tensed.

“What are you saying?” she whispered, unmoving.

“I’m saying I met Azelie, and she asked me if I was ever bullied for my heterochromia. I said no, and she showed me that she wears a colored contact that’s an exact match to her green eye. Her grandparents told her she has to, so she doesn’t get bullied. I’m saying that Liam didn’t have heterochromia, and heterochromia is either genetic or a result of some super traumatic experience, but Azelie’s had it since birth. I’m saying that she’ll be fifteen in just a bit, so that means Colette was pregnant before I left, Mawmaw,” I blurted out, letting every thought in my mind loose upon my tongue.

And the anger left with every word, shifting back once again to the grief that I now understood had ripped my own mother’s heart apart. My shoulders sagged, and my bottom jaw trembled. “I’m saying I’m pretty surethat’s my…daughter,and I didn’t get to—” My voice caught in my throat as I stared at my mawmaw, begging for her to understand what I no longer could say.

“Oh, Ford,” she whispered and immediately wrapped her arms around me.

I closed my eyes, soaking in the warmth of her embrace and the gentleness of her caress. “Oh, my sweet grandbaby,” she quietly muttered again. “Everyone thought Azelie was Liam’s. You left, and then a bit later, her parents suddenly took her out of town. They came back, but she didn’t. Her parents told everyone she was away at college, which wasn’t entirely false, and then when Colette did return, she came back three years later with a man and a toddler.”

“I get it, you know,” I said, tucking my face into her shoulder. “At least a little bit, I get what I did to Mama.”

She inhaled deeply and then placed her hands against the outside of my arms, pushing me gently away from her. “But she’s not who you need to go talk to right now. She’ll be here when you get back.”

I swallowed and stepped back with a deep gulp. “This is going to change everything, you know that—right? I mean, I still have years of making up to do, and now I’m gonna go tell Colette that I know.”

Mawmaw reached up and tenderly patted my cheek. “Everything had already changed, Ford. You’re just now finding out about it.”

With a nod, I turned and walked toward the sliding glass door. “I would’ve stayed, you know. If I’d known that Colette was pregnant, I would’ve stayed, despite what her parents did. I thought that it—”I paused with my hand on the doorknob and glanced back. “I’d always planned to come back, too. Ididcome back.”

Her brows stitched together as tears welled up in her eyes, and she tightened the shawl around her shoulders. “Wh-what?” she whispered.

“I figured if I pretended to be afraid of their threat, it would keep her safe. And you guys. And then I would come back for her. I just…” I gave her a tight smile. “I was just too late.”

Her fingers flew over her mouth as a tear slid down her cheek, and I slipped inside the house.

If only I’d returned a year or two earlier. Before Colette met Liam.

Chapter 17

COLETTE

“Did you brush your teeth?” I yelled down the hall.

“What am I, five?” Azelie sassed back and poked her head out of the bathroom with a toothbrush hanging between her teeth.

I shook my head with a smile and leaned back against the headboard as she disappeared back inside the bathroom. My mind was reeling, and had been for over a week. Where was Ford? I hadn’t seen him since he willingly offered to go pick up Azelie. The silence was slowly killing me.

Glancing to my right, I smiled at the vase of flowers. At least there was some evidence that he’d been thinking about me. Though it was slightly stalkerish because I kept finding them everywhere. Which made me a little suspicious that they weren’t from Ford. He wasn’t possessive like that…Was he?

Closing my eyes, I laid the book I’d been attempting to read for the past hour in my lap. I’d been wrong about Ford before, and everything that was happening now scared me. Part of me felt guilty. I’d been in love with Fordbefore Liam, and then he suddenly showed back up, and I was gushing like a teenager all over again? Was that fair to Liam? To the love I shared with him? And what right did I have for a second chance with Ford? He’d hurt me when he left, yes, but I’d kept a massive secret from him, one that I feared he’d never forgive me for.

The best thing that could happen would be for him to leave without finding out.

But deep down, I’d always wanted him to find out. I’d always begged for some excuse to reach out to him, and there it had been. Or rather, there she had been. I was tired. I was so tired of being alone. Not just because Ford was back, but because for the first time since Liam had passed, part of me felt… safe again. Part of me finally let go of the shield that I clung to.

“Mom?” Azelie’s voice pierced my thoughts as a light flicked on.

Opening my eyes, I glanced at my door frame, and there she stood, dressed in pajamas with her hip cocked and an innocent but worried look forming a crease between her brows.

“What’s up, baby?” I asked and patted the sage green quilt beside me.

She wandered into the room, pushing the door shut behind her as she padded quietly across the cream carpet. My curtains hanging over the open window to my right billowed in the gentle breeze as she climbed onto the bed and crossed her legs. I glanced out at the night sky as the full moon rose high. A silver blanket settled over the yard as if offering a small comfort amidst the secrets that I held.