Page 63 of Take the Blame (Seaside Mergers #3)

“ Aye, Mija! ” Someone, an aunt if I remembered correctly, said. “Let someone else do it.”

“ Yo puedo hacerlo, tía ,” Alta said. “ No te preocupes .”

I assumed she told them that she could do it, you know, because she could use a fucking knife by herself.

Yet as she leaned in to do just that, holding the knife above the turkey at an angle to cut into the bird perfectly, another older relative decided to add their two-and-a-half-cents.

A man jumped from his seat and bumped Alta out of the way so that he could take over the knife—barely missing her fingers with the slice of the blade.

I’m not the only one who rose from their seat now.

I saw at least two dark-haired boys and one salt and pepper man rise from their seats.

I, however, was the first one there. Laying a hand along Alta’s hip as I squeezed myself in between her and the man, perceptions be damned.

Promptly, I slipped the knife from his hand, holding it down so it didn’t go slashing anyone else, me slashing an accusing look his way instead.

“I know I’m new here, but she looks old enough to use a knife, man.

You can sit down,” I said to the guy that was probably twice my age.

I didn’t care, if he wanted to act like a child he could get set down like one.

Gesturing to his seat, I watched intently as he opened his mouth to say something else before catching the look on my face and thinking better of it.

As he sat I gave him a look, but lifted my voice a little louder for the room just in case anyone else needed the reminder.

“Next time she says she’s got it, listen. ”

Turning, I didn’t wait for an answer as I passed the knife beside me. “Boss.”

She watched me intently, her eyes boring into mine like I was a book she was intent on reading.

I wish she would just ask me her questions.

I’d give her any answer she wanted. I’d let her write the damn answers in herself, but right now wasn’t the time nor the place for that.

So after she successfully took control of the turkey carving again, I just returned to my seat with the enthusiastic thumbs up from Martina Fernandez as my reward.

At least somebody was happy I’m here.

If dinner wasn’t that bad, it was only because it was full of food. That and the tentative hand Alta sometimes placed over my knee when she wasn’t remembering to avoid me.

And after dinner, when I thought I could finally leave, I’d been inundated with requests to join games in the basement, apparently earning the favor of the million-and-one siblings for standing up for Ally at dinner.

The girl herself had yet to say anything about it, aside from the soft squeeze she gave to my shoulder as she got me a refill of the drink I’d been enjoying, or the fact that she served me dessert herself—a crispy sort of pudding, I suspected they’d used the repaired convection oven to brown the top of.

I couldn’t lie that the hope of her attention finally being placed on me didn’t lighten my mood some and make dinner just slightly more bearable, but the appearance of family games was bringing back that foul taste in the back of my throat, and for the life of me I couldn’t help my eyes from falling upon a very unexpected subject .

Dark skin, calm hazel eyes, slim frame, and the same curly hair as my friend—Clementine Ferguson… Fernandez was a mystery to me.

I’d come across the story of her two marriages recently during a meetup with Clay.

At first, he seemed reluctant to tell me the circumstances that brought his sister to the Fernandez family.

He warned me beforehand that they were bad, but I didn’t truly understand until I heard them.

Being bargained away like property was not at all where I thought things were going.

Having it done twice was even worse. Clay had mentioned she barely talked for a year after they finally reunited and it took a long time for her to warm back up to them again and I had to say, I didn’t blame her.

But the part my mind kept going back to was how?

She’d been hurt and betrayed like I couldn’t imagine and still she smiled at her brothers, existed in the same room as her family, even loved the family she was essentially traded to.

I couldn’t even allow myself back into the same state my sister ran away from.

I couldn’t imagine Mar herself ever doing it—coming back and embracing our family as wholeheartedly as Clementine had embraced hers.

Yet isn’t that what I spent every day wishing for?

I must have been zoning out completely, because I didn’t even realize someone was coming toward me until they were sitting beside me on top of the large box that looked like a life-sized karaoke machine. When I looked over, I was surprised to see it was the girl herself.

“Um, hi,” I said, looking around the room to see if somebody had put her up to this. She didn’t seem like the kind of girl to just walk right up to someone she didn’t know. That seemed more Fire-head’s speed.

“Hi,” she said softly. Tilting her head, she looked over at me, her mild face keeping its countenance as she studied mine. When our eyes met and my clear confusion struck her, she let a smile slip through before turning her head back to look at the gamers. “You’re wondering about me.”

My heart stuttered. Maybe I’d pegged this girl wrong. It took guts to come up and call me out like that. And she was Clay’s sister after all…

“I am,” I admitted just as candidly.

“What can I clear up?” she asked.

“Why?” I asked back. “You don’t owe me anything.”

She nodded. “I don’t. But you’re Clay’s friend and you’re Al’s… something. And if people are going to be in my life, I’d rather they have the right idea than form their own wrong ones.”

I peered at her. “You’re surprisingly blunt.”

She smiled. “Call it a side-effect. You’ve met my husband, yeah?”

“Yeah,” I chuckled. “Makes sense, now that you mention it.”

She laughed softly but didn’t let up. “So?”

I was quiet, allowing myself to think for a while on what I actually wanted to say.

I didn’t give two shits about her past or what went down to set that into reality.

We all had our shit, we all had to deal with it.

But there was something I was curious about.

So curious that I might take a stranger up on asking extremely personal questions when I first meet them.

“You came back. After all you went through with your family, you came back,” I said. “Why?”

She looked at me, something too knowing in her eye. “Why, or how?”

I guess I was surrounded by mind readers, because she was right.

Why didn’t matter. If I wanted back in, I wanted back in.

The why had nothing to do with what was weighing on my conscience.

If anything, tonight had shown me my why.

Because I missed the warmth of my past and feeling the warmth of something I was too scared to call a four letter word had shown me that I wanted it back, even as just a semblance of what it used to be .

Yet I had no idea how to walk back into a life I’d left behind so many years ago, so many scars ago. And in a way, I wondered if Mar might be having the same problems.

“How?” I said gruffly, agreeing with her revision.

She smiled, the soft corners of her upturned mouth telling me it was a smart choice. Then she looked out at her family again. “Slowly. With care and patience and a lot of help.”

I grunted, none of those things sounding particularly fun. She chuckled, probably knowing it. “And I forgave myself.

“Forgave yourself?” I asked. “For your past?”

Not that I was blaming that on her. That was solely a self-insert because I had a lot of past to forgive if that was the case.

She nodded. “Yes, but not only that. For the future that I wanted. For wanting a future in the first place, even when I’d botched the job the first time around.

I forgave myself for it and let myself just want something without feeling guilty or cynical about it.

Plus, I took away the God complex that is thinking you know how things are going to turn out when really we never do. ”

“That seems… hard,” I said, my shoulders feeling heavy all of a sudden.

“Well, if it was easy everyone would be doing it.” She smirked.

“But instead, some people live their lives shrouded in hate and bitterness for the things that have already passed. It’s hard for hurt hearts to learn that it’s possible to move forward cautiously without closing off to every opportunity that arises.

You have to identify the opportunities you’re willing to hurt for—work for, and the rest you can leave behind with the past.”

“That is surprisingly harsh, but sound advice,” I said. “What are you Fergusons made out of anyway, titanium audacity?”

She laughed outright this time. Reaching down she picked up the little ball of fur that had been rubbing up against my legs for the past hour.

Petting her head, I pet it too. “I’ll give you the courtesy of confessing that I know about you.

Clay told me about your sister. And I want to say that I can’t tell you what’s going to happen there, I know nothing about stuff like that.

All I know is, when all I wanted was to disappear, I needed help seeing the reasons not to.

And I was just as scared as you are to jump back in feet first. But I did it.

With my brothers. With my husband. With my family, old and new.

Maybe I’m wrong, maybe we all are, but if there’s any chance that she might need your help, heed it. Don’t run, okay?”

“Huh,” I huffed, feeling simultaneously scolded and uplifted as she slid off the music box, cat in hand. “You should write books or something.”

She grinned.

“I’ve written two. They’re cookbooks though, and Alta loves the key lime pie,” she said, then she turned. “Al, I think I broke your boy. Something’s wrong with his eyes.”