Page 115 of Branded (Breakers Hockey)

Forty-Four

Jules

Tall pines covered in snow.

A winter wonderland that had once brought me peace, but as Cas drove us through the roads, the snow piled up high on the sides of the road from the plows, the mountains that were home and life and pain grew closer.

And closer.

My dad was dying.

But he still hadn’t reached out to me, not even after all this time, not even when he was dying, and I didn’t know what in the fuck I should be doing, should be feeling.

He’d hated me.

He’d treated me like shit.

And I was dropping everything to run to the airport, jump on a plane, and see a man who hadn’t loved me enough…if at all. Uprooting my life, bringing my son .

Putting him at risk.

“This is a mistake,” I whispered.

Cas glanced in the mirror, probably checking on Ethan.

But my boy had fallen asleep almost the moment he’d been buckled into the booster seat at the airport.

A moment later, he glanced forward, back at the road again, and reached across the console, lacing his fingers with mine.

“I think you need to do this,” he said, keeping his voice soft, making certain not to wake my boy.

“Not because it’ll all work out and you’ll necessarily get the father you deserved.

There’s nothing he can do or say to make up for the childhood he gave you.

” A squeeze of his fingers. “But I think you need to get closure, need to see him and make peace with it all.”

My lungs inflated on an inhale, released on an exhale. “Make peace with what?”

He paused at a stop sign, glanced at me. “That none of what went down in your childhood was your fault.”

I froze as the words washed over me, his fingers slipping free to complete the turn onto the even narrower road. The road that was painfully close to my childhood home. The road that I’d walked on and driven on enough times growing up that my body automatically braced for the turns.

But even as I distantly recognized that, the words were…

Something I’d thought before. Something Lake had told me more than once. Hell, even Nate had told me the same during the good times we’d had together.

But there was something about Cas telling me right then that struck hard.

Maybe because I was in a different place in my life. Maybe it was because Cas had come into my life and Beth and Smitty and Theo and Ace and Joanne and the others, and I finally felt what it was like to be in a family that wasn’t dysfunctional.

Maybe it was because I had Ethan and I knew, knew I would never treat him the way I’d been treated.

“I don’t know what it will be like now,” I whispered.

His hand coming back to mine. “What do you mean, gorgeous?”

“I mean,” I said, still soft, “I just…” A breath. “What if I walk into that house and I become her again?”

That little girl who was broken and vulnerable and took her father’s vitriol at face value.

Who thought I was to blame for my mother’s death, for everything that had gone wrong in our lives.

Cas knew exactly what he meant.

Of course he did.

He’d always seen too much when I hadn’t wanted him to, but now that he was in my heart, that thoughtfulness, that insightfulness, the fact that he knew each and every part of me was a gift.

“You won’t, sweetheart.” A squeeze of my fingers.

“Because you’re not her. I don’t think you ever were—otherwise, you wouldn’t be the woman I know and love.

” I inhaled sharply, and his fingers tightened again.

“But I also know that you won’t be that girl because Ethan and I are here with you and we have your back, gorgeous. ”

I shook my head. “He’s a baby and I’m potentially exposing him to—” Another sharp shake of my head, trying to clear away the past. “I should have left him at home.”

“He needs to be here. Yeah, he’s young,” Cas said when I started to protest. “But he saw how upset you were. He knew that you were rattled. If you’d come without him, if you’d left him at home, then he would have worried all weekend, sweetheart, worried about you because he’s old enough to see that you’re upset.

Bringing him, giving him that comfort, at least, was the right call.

” He released my hand again to make a turn, and I saw that we were there, that we were pulling into the long, dark driveway that led up to my childhood home.

“And I promise you,” he said, slowing in front of the house, “I promise that at the first sign of this going bad, we’re out of there.

” A beat, his eyes hitting mine. “ All of us.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“And if it goes bad, gorgeous,” he said, pulling to a stop in front of the garage, “you’ll have your answer.”

He saw too much.

Knew too much.

Knew even more than I’d known herself.

Because I had held on to a question, buried deep beneath everything else, for a long, long time.

What if my father had changed?

The house hadn’t changed.

Old leather furniture, the smell of smoke and whiskey. Dark wood and dust in the corners and worn paint covering ancient walls.

Only it was worse than when I’d left.

Because back then I’d been trying to keep the polish on, to make it so that…

My father would love me.

But no one had cared for this place for a long time.

Not the soft-spoken nurse who’d answered the door and then disappeared down the hall to give us privacy, and not my father.

Who was on a big, hospital-grade bed in the middle of the living room.

Looking at me.

I sucked in a breath. He looked old . Six years had passed from when he’d kicked me out of this house, left me with a bag of clothes and toiletries on the snow-covered porch.

That night, I’d walked to Nate’s place.

Who’d delivered another blow.

Then I’d gone to Lake and—my eyes stung— he’d been the one to help me.

But the eyes staring at me weren’t the frozen, angry eyes that had glared at me that night, venom having soaked through the blue irises, turning them ice-cold.

They were…well, I didn’t get a chance to see what they were because then they turned to Cas.

No. To Ethan.

My heart squeezed hard, and I took a protective step toward my still-sleeping son, shifting, putting my body between my father’s gaze and my baby.

And that was when I knew that Cas was right.

I wasn’t going to turn into a weak, simpering woman. Not now. Not ever.

Cas’s fingers brushed my lower back, a slight movement barely discernible because he was holding Ethan and wouldn’t risk waking him. I turned, let my gaze show him what I’d realized, felt the warmth he had inside wash over me.

It would be okay.

No matter how it turned out.

“You came.”

Two words that had my focus swiveling back to my father. I nodded.

“Lake tell you I’m dying?”

I nodded even though I was rooted in place by the dry words tinged with a shadow of cruelty.

God . His voice hadn’t changed, even though his body had.

He was thin—so fucking thin—and he looked so frail it was almost shocking that he managed to lift a hand and point it at the couch.

“You can put the kid there if you think he’ll be more comfortable. ”

Cas brushed my back again, then moved by me, laying Ethan out and spreading the blanket my son had brought from home over him. A moment later, he was back at my side and I’d managed to shore myself up, to get myself to move closer to the bed.

Another point to the couch. “He looks like you.”

Ethan was on his side, eyes closed, body curled up, and my dad was right.

Ethan did look like me—his face, anyway.

His body was all Nate. Which meant that Ethan also looked like Cas.

Something that was obviously coincidence and not genetics, but not something that my father knew because he hadn’t heard—or rather, listened to—anything more about my pregnancy aside from the fact that I was pregnant.

Then everything had exploded.

And I hadn’t seen him until now.

“And you,” my father said to Cas, clearly noticing the random quirk of genetics. “He yours?”

“Yes,” Cas said firmly, and I felt his warmth settle over me. Ethan was Cas’s. So was I. The man lying in the bed in front of me had no bearing on that.

He’d given up all rights to that long ago.

“I thought you’d die.”

That had me rocking back on my heels, my breath seizing in my lungs, making it impossible for me to speak.

My father didn’t have that problem.

“Like her.”

My throat went even tighter.

“You’ve always looked like her.”

“And I took her away from you,” I said. “I know.” I pressed my lips together, released them.

“There’s nothing I can change about that.

And I know you were stuck with taking care of the kid who was the cause of your pain, and I looked like her and that must have been hard.

But I was a child, and I didn’t deserve that. ”

Silence—long enough that the words formed in my mind and I was able to unload the rest of the old hurts, the rest of the old pain.

“I was innocent ,” I said, slamming a fist to my chest. “I did nothing, and you were a shit father.” I swung a hand toward Ethan. “I’d never do that to him, never treat him like you treated me.”

More silence.

Cas took my hand, held it tight.

“And he’s amazing and kind and bright and full of life and I was those things too— am those things—and you missed out on them, on knowing me and all the good I am because you were too caught up in the past.”

Still more quiet, for long enough I almost told Cas to grab Ethan, almost declared we were going to go.

“I thought I could do it.”

That had me blinking, looking away from my son and back to my father.

“She loved you so much,” my dad said. “I tried to do the same for you.” His eyes held mine. “I couldn’t.” A beat. “And I still can’t.”

I inhaled, Cas’s hand spasmed, his body going taut, and I hated that my father’s words still had the power to hurt.

“Right,” Cas growled, drawing me to the couch, scooping Ethan up. “We’re done.”

My father just said, “I can’t love you.”

“You’re not nice.”

Blinking, I realized that Ethan wasn’t asleep, that he was sitting up, staring at my father.

“Grandpa Ace is nice,” Ethan said, grabbing his blanket and moving to my side. “And he only says nice things about my mom. He says I’m lucky to have her and to be nice to her”—my eyes stung—“and you’re not nice. You’re not like Grandpa Ace.”

Something sharp across my father’s face, and I opened my mouth, ready to order Cas to take Ethan outside.

“You’re right,” my father said. “I’m not nice.” A beat. “And I’m not like your grandpa.”

“Let’s go,” I whispered to Cas, who nodded, took Ethan’s hand, and turned to the door.

“But you’re a good boy, Ethan.” There was something broken in his voice that drew my gaze.

Despite the pain, the old hurts, the shittiness of this situation, the ravaging need to go .

“I wish I could be that man.” His eyes held mine, and for the first time ever, I saw regret instead of anger and grief.

“And your Grandpa Ace is right. You’re lucky to have your mom.

” He looked away, gaze going to the wall. “Remember that.”

My lungs were tight, heart pounding.

Then Cas’s arm was around my waist, drawing me away.

“Dad,” I whispered.

He met my gaze. “Don’t waste time looking back, Julie. Just live your life.” A rasping cough that was a powerful reminder of the cancer riddling his insides. “And let an old man wallow in his regrets.”

Said in a cold, harsh tone.

But the words…they didn’t undo everything.

Hell, they didn’t really undo anything.

But they did allow me to nod.

And to walk out the door.