Page 15 of The Locksmith’s Promise (The Promise Duet #1)

Anchored

B axter

Keith and Laurie lived in the last house on a dead-end street, woodland flanking them on both sides. It was a beautiful home, a family home, and it stood in vivid juxtaposition to the darkness standing at the ready to swallow me.

Deja Vue wrapped around me like a tourniquet as I slowed and parked at the side of the road. Like stepping into a nightmare from the past, I hoped to God I might finally get it right and never have to revisit this moment in time again.

Swinging down from the truck, I stood in the same spot I had claimed for three grief-stricken days more than a decade earlier.

For the past ten years, I’d floated from one place to the next, doing my utmost to thwart my demons. Since my return to Moose Lake, the past had risen up like a band of Lilliputians and taken me down to the ground, tethering me to all that I was, all that I’d wanted to be, and everything I lost.

Here, I couldn’t hide from the sins of the past.

They swirled around me with the force of a gale wind.

When I woke up that morning beside a very naked Jenny, I was horrified nearly out of my mind. In my haste to get out of bed, I fell out onto the floor on my knees with my back on fire.

I had no memory of the night before.

It was far from the first time I’d gotten black-out drunk, but usually I remembered why I got myself in that state.

I rolled up to my feet, a process that took far longer than usual, and dragged my heavy limbs out of my bedroom.

My stomach made all kinds of threats, but it was the stabbing headache that marked the worst hangover I’d ever had before or since. I barely noticed the flames licking my spine.

I put them out of my head now just as I had before.

There was nobody else in the house, but I couldn’t leave Jenny in case my father returned. Fortunately, she stumbled into the kitchen not long after I did.

I tried to talk to her, but she waved me away with a mumbled, ‘home.’

In the shower, I scrubbed my body, looking for evidence of activity from the night before. I knew I had to tell Maggie. Based on my history with Jenny, a history I’d sworn to her was ancient, the outcome seemed locked in.

My breath stuttered in and out, my heavy heart bleeding out now as it had then.

I thought I had time to pull myself together. A few hours to settle my stomach and ease the pain in my head before talking to Jenny to find out what the fuck happened, but I’d fallen back into bed and slept for hours.

By the time I dragged myself to Maggie’s house that night, she had already left with her mother, and her dad wouldn’t tell me where they went.

I slept in my car outside her house for three days, waiting, hoping, and praying she’d come home.

Her dad came out at intervals, his disgust slowly giving way to pity. Finally, he walked over and confronted me.

I stepped out of the car, my heart in my throat, to meet him.

He shook his head, face drawn. “You can’t do this. Not to her. Not to yourself.”

I dropped my face into my hands. Barely having anything to eat or drink, the confusion I woke up with that morning had clung to me like a burr. “I know it doesn’t look like it,” I replied thickly, “but I do love her.”

“Are you worthy of her?” he challenged softly. “Are you worthy of her like this?”

I shook my head. On that point, the truth was clear.

He placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.

Instinctively, I jerked back and drew back my fist.

His eyes remained steady on my face as I snarled at him, my blood rushing in my ears as I assessed the threat. A wave of shame lowered my fist.

His eyes hardened. “Your father’s a right bastard. I’m sorry I didn’t intervene more often than I did.”

Intervene?

He dropped his gaze. “I’ll carry that regret until the day I die.”

“It wasn’t your problem,” I wheezed, adrenaline pumping through me.

He was quiet, staring at the ground, then said something that shook the foundations of my world.

“There’s no one on this earth who wants you to pull it together more than I do. Get away from him. Make something of yourself.” He raised his chin and stared into my soul. “Then come back for her.”

I’d had every intention of listening.

I spent the past eleven years wishing I had.

If I’d left then and there? Everything would be different.

I might have won Maggie back, somehow explained what happened.

I wouldn’t have lost my son.

Lost in the past, I didn’t register Maggie and Corwin standing on the driveway until Corwin called my name.

“Dad!”

My head shot up so fast, I gave myself whiplash. My eyes met Corwin’s wide, shocked, ones immediately.

My palm slapped down on the hood of my truck.

“Sorry!” He slapped his hands on top of his head, jerking poor Jeff’s leash and making her yelp. “It just came out!”

“I’m okay with that,” I rasped, nearly choking on the lump in my throat.

Afraid to look at Maggie, I pinned my attention on my son and made sure he heard me clearly.

“I’m 100% okay with that. And if you need to call me Bax for a while longer, that’s okay, too.”

“But Dad is good,” Maggie murmured, running her hand over Cor’s tawny head. “After all, he is your dad. And it’s not his fault he didn’t know about you.”

Grace.

I didn’t deserve it, I never had, but she extended it always.

Until I screwed up so bad she couldn’t.

I swallowed my regret, pushing the past aside to make room for the joy of the present, because my son had just called me dad for the first time.

About ten years later than most kids, but we got there.

His next words near cut my legs out from under me.

“Do you think of me as your son?”

“God, yes,” I exclaimed roughly, my knees going weak. “From the moment I first saw you.”

Not for a single second did I want him to doubt his place in my heart and in my life.

“You stepped back,” he countered. “When you first realized who I was, you stepped back.”

This was not a conversation I ever imagined having, especially not separated by the length of Keith and Laurie’s driveway.

“He was shocked, Cor,” Maggie answered softly. “And I’m guessing pretty devastated because he’d lost out on knowing you for ten years.”

“It’s not your fault, Mags,” I blurted. “Back then, everything was a mess. We got our wires crossed.” I swallowed and focussed on Cor. “I had to leave Moose Lake because of my father. I thought your mom was better off without me, so I stayed away from her as well.”

Eyes reflecting the responsibility of an only son to a single mom, he asked, “Is she still better off without you?”

I stared back at him.

To move forward with Maggie, I had to allow myself to have her.

And that meant forgiving myself for the past.

“No. And I’ll make it my life’s work to ensure she feels that.”

After assessing me for a moment longer, he offered a brief smile before tugging on Jeff’s leash. “Come on, Jeff. Let’s go see Grandma and Grandpa.”

Colour washed over his round cheeks. Soon the softness would hollow out and give way to downy whiskers. But for now, he was still a child.

His eyes flitted to mine before dancing away. “Mom and Dad will be in in a minute.”

I fell back against the side of my truck and pressed my lips together.

Maggie waited for the front door to close behind him and Jeff before jogging down the driveway, not stopping until she plowed into my chest.

Fisting her sweater in one hand, her hair in the other, I dragged her into my body and hung on. My chest heaved as I curled around her, blowing like a racehorse as I fought back the pain lacerating me.

Her fingers dug into my back as she arched into me, the length of her soft, curvy body vibrating against mine.

This was her pain, too.

I sucked in a deep breath and gentled my hands, cupping the back of her precious head, splaying my hand over her back.

I closed my eyes, focussed on her, pliant and warm against me.

Feeling everything.

Waves of grief.

And a tsunami of gratitude.

Tossed back and forth on the whims of the past, and Maggie, as always, my anchor.