Page 6
The knife slipped from my hand and skittered across the counter. Lance was dead? If Farrah was back, did that mean Cole was as well? Eyes bulging in shock and heart thundering, I raised my eyes to meet Liz’s.
“Does… uh… does that mean you know who is back in town?” I asked.
Liz lifted a hand to cover her mouth. “Oh, Lord. Sweetheart. I didn’t even think. If he is back, I haven’t seen him. I don’t run in those shifter circles, so I’m not plugged in. All I can say is I haven’t seen him.”
“Holy shit,” Stormy whispered. “Can you imagine ?”
“I don’t want to,” I said.
Not only had my plan to introduce Ashton to his grandfather suddenly been tossed in the trash, now I had to figure out how to tell him his grandfather was dead. I’d been back in Harbor Mills for only a few hours, and nothing was going right.
When the sandwiches were done, Liz got a few bags of chips out, and we went about eating lunch.
I poked at my food, my appetite suddenly gone.
All I could think of was the possibility that Cole was back in town.
I hadn’t seen him since the night he up and left without a word.
When I told Farrah I was pregnant, she came back a few days later and relayed his message to me.
He wanted nothing to do with me or the child growing in my belly.
To this day, I still couldn’t figure out what I’d done to make him leave me like that.
I’d never loved any other man the way I’d loved Cole.
Not even Perry. I was never head over heels in love with Perry like I had been with Cole.
I was only twenty when Cole left, still just a kid, but we were soulmates.
More than that, I was his fated mate. When Cole left, my heart had shattered in a way I’d never thought possible.
If Ashton hadn’t come along a few months later to give me something to live for, who knows what might have happened.
My phone rang around the time we were done eating. Ashton was catching up with Stormy and Liz, who he hadn’t seen in several years. I went into the den to answer the call.
“Ma’am? This is Tammy. We spoke earlier?”
The woman from the water company. “Yes, is my water turned on yet?”
“I wanted to let you know our man has everything going. He’s double-checking the meter to make sure it’s in working order, but he needs you to sign off on everything.”
“Ugh, is that really necessary? I’m visiting friends.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, it’s protocol. That way, we can ensure the reconnection was ordered by the actual occupant of the residence, and the job can be signed off.”
“Fine,” I said in a clipped tone. “Tell him he can wait. We had to wait days, he can wait for an hour.”
“That makes total sense, ma’am. I’ll let him know to sit tight until you get there.”
“Thank you,” I said. “We’ll be home in an hour.”
“I’ll tell him. You have a good day.”
I hung up and went back to the kitchen, enjoying the familial and comforting nature of the group.
Shiloh was eating small pieces of ham, turkey, and cheese that Ashton had torn up for her.
My son kept glancing over at me, an unasked question in his eyes.
Forty minutes later, I told him we needed to go home and see if the water was on.
“Can we come back tomorrow?” Ashton asked as he tried to get Shiloh to let go of his finger.
“Maybe. We basically live next door, so we’ll see everyone a lot.”
“Make sure you remind him about my famous chocolate chip cookies,” Liz said. “They’re much better than Stormy’s. You come by any time, and I’ll make you a batch.”
Stormy rolled her eyes. “Wow, thanks, Mom.”
Liz shrugged. “Sorry, but you know it’s true. I tried teaching you for years, but you just don’t have the magic touch.”
We said our goodbyes and got in the car. Ashton didn’t even wait until we were out of the driveway to jump into questions again.
“I know you said to wait until tomorrow,” he said. “But I have a question.”
“Of course you do.” I sighed. Would this day ever end? “What is it?”
“Um.” He winced in embarrassment. “Uh, I got up to get Shiloh’s sippy cup earlier, and, uh, I might have heard you all talking.”
An icy ball of lead seemed to slip into my stomach. “You heard what we said?”
“Yeah. So, that Farrah woman, she’s my aunt, and my grandfather is dead?” He looked sad at the prospect.
“She is. And yes, it sounds like your grandfather passed away a couple months ago.”
I knew what was coming next, and nothing I could do would stop the question from coming.
“Do you think my dad’s back in town? Do you think I’ll get to meet him?”
After nearly fifteen years, I’d never had the heart to tell Ashton the truth.
I didn’t tell him that his father didn’t want anything to do with him, that he’d refused to come home even after he’d been told I was pregnant.
The only story Ashton knew was the one I’d crafted to spare him the heartache of not being wanted.
I’d told him that Cole left town before I got the chance to tell him I was pregnant, and I had no way of contacting him.
In Ashton’s mind, his father had no clue he had a son.
I bet he had fantasies of meeting the man and reuniting in some weird, joyous moment.
My own heart shuddered in terror at what might happen if Cole really was here and saw the son he hadn’t claimed.
Would he be aloof? Totally uncaring? Would he sneer at Ashton like he was some unclean half-breed?
Every situation I imagined ended with heartbreak and misery for my boy.
It was so awful to think about, I even contemplated going straight back to the house, packing up, and leaving again.
We could always find a different town where we could set down roots.
“Mom?” Ashton prodded. “ Hello , are you there? Earth to Mom.”
I blinked. We were nearly back to the house, and I hadn’t heard a word he said while I was going over worst-case scenarios in my head. As I turned onto our street, I said, “We’ll have to see.”
It was a lame response, but it did enough to placate Ashton.
That was good because I needed to think.
With Lance dead, and Cole, hopefully , still out of the picture, the only contact I had with the pack was Farrah.
Ashton still needed to be introduced to everyone, and he needed some sort of mentor to guide him through the changes.
As we pulled up the drive, I noticed, with great relief, a work truck parked on the street. A big man hunched over a clipboard, his head turned to the passenger seat.
I’d give this asshole a piece of my mind in a minute. Not bothering to get out in the driveway, I pulled into the garage and closed the door behind us.
“Can I watch TV?” Ashton asked.
“If you can figure out how to work that ancient thing, sure,” I replied. “I’m gonna talk to the technician. I swear to God, he better have the water on.”
Ashton sat on his knees in front of the television, gaping at the knobs and dials.
The thing had been there since I’d been a kid, and even then, I’d thought it looked like something from the ’60s.
The first thing I did was walk into the kitchen and lift the lever on the kitchen sink. Cool, clear water poured out of it.
“Hallelujah,” I muttered.
A moment later, there was a knock on the door.
As I walked to the door, I did my best to talk myself down. A stern talking-to would be enough. I didn’t need to lose my shit unless absolutely necessary. I opened the door and nearly fainted.
Standing there, a somewhat bashful grin on his face, was Cole Garrett. The world tilted, and for a moment, I thought I might stumble backward as my past slammed into my present. This was more an earth-shattering revelation than a simple surprise.
“Hey, Aves. Been a while,” Cole said.
From the look on his face, he was less shocked to see me than I was to see him.
His button-up shirt had an embroidered logo on it: Harbor Mills Water Utility.
A vague and distant memory resurfaced. His father had something to do with one of the service companies in town.
We’d never gotten into specifics. Cole and I had been too wrapped up in each other, desperate to learn about all our deepest wants, desires, hopes, and dreams to worry about what his father did for a living. Now it made sense why he was here.
The initial surprise burned away in an instant under the intense heat of my anger.
“ Hey, Aves ?” I snarled, keeping my voice low, all too aware of Ashton in the living room. I stepped out and jammed a finger into his chest, his eyes widening in surprise. “You disappear on me fifteen fucking years ago, and all you have to say to me is Hey, Aves? ”
I’d liked the cute little nickname he’d used on me back then. Now it made my blood boil.
“Easy,” Cole said, holding his hands up in surrender as I pushed him out onto the front porch, farther from Ashton’s ears. “I’m sorry. I came to tell you I was sorry. That’s why?—”
“Bullshit, you asshole,” I hissed. “You didn’t apologize back then.
You walked out, leaving me heartbroken and alone.
” Tears threatened to form in my eyes, and that fact pissed me off even more.
I did not want to cry in front of this man.
Jabbing my finger into his chest again, I said, “No letter. No call. No text. Nothing. Not even a fuck you.”
Cole’s face fell, and there was real, heartrending regret there, but I had no time or patience for that.
He wasn’t the one who was raising a son—a shifter, no less—by himself.
Cole wasn’t the one navigating life and a career, all while figuring out daycare, doctors’ appointments, sports practices—all of it alone.
No support. I clenched my eyes shut, willing the tears away.
“All I ever got was that bullshit you told Farrah,” I hissed. “Telling me to forget you? What pathetic cowardly crap was that?”
“Farrah?” He frowned at me, confusion in his eyes. “What?—”
“Mom?” Ashton’s voice came from the foyer.
My stomach sank, twisting into knots. When I turned to look at him, I wanted to throw up. He was gazing at Cole in surprise. I turned a bitter glance toward Cole, and what I saw there stopped me dead in my tracks.
Cole, undoubtedly seeing the uncanny resemblance, stood there, arms slack, jaw open, left eye twitching. That was not the look of a man seeing his son for the first time after knowing about him for years. It was the face of a man seeing the son he never knew he had .
“Ashton, go to your room,” I said.
“But Mom?—”
“Go to your room now, dammit,” I growled, barely keeping my words from turning into a shout.
Ashton sighed in the pissed-off way only teenagers could manage. He turned and grumbled under his breath. “This is bullshit.”
I let that go, too concerned with dealing with Cole to chastise him for language. When I turned back to Cole, he was still staring at the spot where Ashton had stood a few seconds ago.
“Why were you looking at my son like you’ve seen a ghost?” I said in a low, quavering voice.
My words snapped him out of whatever trance he’d been in, and he turned his eyes to me, the shock giving way to anger and confusion.
“Avery? What the fuck is going on? Who’s that kid?”
“You know who he is,” I snapped. “You’ve always known.” I was willing it to be true, unwilling to accept what I was beginning to realize.
“I’ve known? Known what?”
“Your father and sister told you. I told Farrah I was pregnant, Cole,” I said, my voice rising in desperation. “I told her to contact you, so you’d come back. She told me you said you didn’t want anything to do with a baby, that you wanted me to forget you.”
As I spoke, the anger in Cole’s eyes ignited further, but this time it wasn’t directed at me. He reached forward as if to put his hands on my shoulders, then stopped himself.
“Avery, I never knew,” he whispered. “No one ever told me. I would never have told you that. If I’d known, I would have come home. You have to believe me.”
There it was. He’d always been a terrible liar.
I could see the truth in his face, hear it in his voice.
Cole never knew he had a child. We’d both been lied to.
All these wasted years being angry at him, and it had all been a lie.
He’d left me, yes, but he hadn’t left us .
My son had gone fourteen years without his father because of a lie.
My rage, a roaring inferno now, threatened to overwhelm me. And as I studied Cole’s face, I saw that rage reflected back at me.
Table of Contents
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- Page 6 (Reading here)
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