Page 18 of What I Should Have Felt (Anchors and Eagles #4)

FORD

I remained staring long after they’d left the parking lot.

Long after the dust settled, I simply watched.

I wasn’t sure what was rolling through my head, if I was being honest with myself.

The control I’d exhibited was fading with every thumping heartbeat.

I’d never been so blindly enraged before, despite all the fights I’d been in.

No, there was something else that had seeped from my skin.

My hands had begged to rip him apart. I wanted to snap every bone in his body, one by one. I wanted to hear him wail in agony caused by me. I thirsted for it. It wouldn’t have been a fun or fair fight. Three barely legal guys drunk and high off their asses, I could handle that in my sleep.

It was who and what they were threatening that had me barely able to see straight.

To even toy with the idea of talking with a minor in that way…

I closed my eyes and dived into the boiling red rage within me.

It kept at bay the casualties that I hated to admit had ended up on the opposite end of my gun muzzle a time or two.

It allowed me to live in denial of what we’d sometimes been asked to do.

That killing someone who wasn’t even eighteen had never happened.

Maybe this rage was redemption for things I’d been ordered to do that still haunted me.

Maybe I was no better…

Maybe…

Just… Maybe…

Rage felt better than the hollowness that I bathed in most nights. Sleep was neither comforting nor provided me as much reprieve as I wished it would.

“Ford?” a gentle voice slithered through my dissociative thoughts.

A voice that sounded all too much like Colette.

All too much like the woman who had no choice but to be stubborn, and anything but gentle.

I’d caused all those walls at first, and then instead of manning up and keeping an eye on her, I’d what?

Stayed away because she’d found someone new, which, yes, had been the respectful thing to do.

Except he’d fucking died six months after I’d returned for her. It was all my fucking fault. And now, here I was, expecting her to still have some tenderness to her when love had done nothing but destroy her and leave her alone. She’d spent eleven years raising a daughter—

My eyes snapped open, and I spun around. It wasn’t Colette. It was her daughter. It was Azelie. Azelie had spoken.

“Sorry. I—” I began, but couldn’t find words to continue.

Her brows knitted together as I finally took a moment to look at her.

“You really look like her,” I whispered.

The same cherry-red hair with untamable curls wrapped in coils around a face that wasn’t quite as slender and oval as her mom’s, though.

No. Freckles littered a wider face with cheeks that hadn’t matured yet.

Her eyes weren’t quite as bright green as Colette’s, but the lashes were just as thick.

“And you’re nearly as tall as she is. Aren’t you fifteen?” I continued, a little louder this time. She was skinny as a stick and tall, much different than Colette yet all the same…

Azelie smiled. “Almost. I’ll be fifteen in a couple weeks.”

I scanned her companions who had yet to move. Whose mouths all still hung open. “Cory and Thomas?” I nodded at the two boys who stood off to my left.

“Y-y-yes?” Cory slowly said, finally clamping his lips together.

“You did good,” I said.

“Did good? They would’ve eaten us alive,” Thomas replied, and his shoulders fell.

“You still stood up to them. That’s what matters. Anyway, I’m gonna get Azelie back to her mom. Are y’all good or do you want me to wait until the rest of your folks show up?”

Macy shook her head. “I don’t think they’re coming back.”

“Yeah, we’re good,” Cory said and finally rolled his neck. “Besides, my brother should be here in like one minute. We’ll have him wait with us until Macy’s mom gets here.”

“All right.” I scanned the group one last time and then glanced back down at Azelie.

She gave me another wide smile. Without a word, she skipped toward the exit, and I tagged along, giving myself one more second to scan the surroundings again.

I hated leaving three kids alone, but my conscience was eased as an old 90s single-cab truck pulled into the parking lot.

Returning my focus to the teenager I was tasked with bringing back, I took a couple of large steps and closed the distance between us. Without saying anything, I guided her to the left and down the hill where I’d parked off to the edge so it wasn’t out in the open, just in case.

“So, how do you and my mom know each other? Everyone says that you’re the Thibodeaux son that left, and I thought us LeBlancs were in some sort of rivalry with you guys,” Azelie suddenly said.

I smiled to myself as a small chuckle danced in my throat. “We technically are. I mean, my parents and your grandparents are definitely feuding.”

“But not you and my mom?”

Raising a brow, I stared at the blue, cloudless sky. “Nah, though I’m pretty sure she’s not too pleased with me either.”

Azelie stitched her brows together. “But she sent you to get me. That means she trusts you to protect me.”

“Or she had no other options that wouldn’t send up red flags with your grandparents.” I glanced at her, and she shook her head.

“You’re not going to tell me?” Azelie asked and narrowed her eyes.

With a grin, I shook my head. “Nope. I’ve already been stabbed by your mom, so she gets to tell you what she wants.”

“You’re being metaphorical about that, right?” Azelie continued.

I simply chuckled. This was strange, murky water I was wading through.

Colette had no idea I knew Azelie was her daughter, not sister, which seemed to be something Colette had been avoiding telling me.

I’d flat-out said “sister” to Colette, and she hadn’t corrected me.

Part of me also swam in a river of shock.

“Can I ask you something else?” Azelie said, pulling me out of my thoughts again as we wandered off the grass and onto the sidewalk.

I nodded and glanced at her. She kept her gaze forward, but as her brows scrunched tighter together, it was as if the wheels spinning in her head were visible to the naked eye.

“Did you ever get bullied for it growing up?” she asked.

“Bullied for…what?” I replied.

“Your heterochromia. You know, your two different-colored eyes.”

I stopped walking and studied her. She took a couple more steps and then turned back to face me. Innocent eyes lifted to my face and locked onto my gaze.

Slowly, I shook my head, racking my memories for any moment I could remember some kid being an ass about it.

“No, not really. I got bullied in middle school ’cause I hadn’t hit puberty like the other kids, but never for my eyes.

” Tipping my head, I studied her gaze intensely.

Something strange swirled behind her gaze, something that pleaded with me that I couldn’t quite decipher.

“In fact, especially in high school, I got some…what’s the word y’all use these days?

Clout? Is that what it is? They gave me clout. ”

Her shoulders drooped forward, and she finally pulled her gaze away from mine. But she remained quiet. I wasn’t sure if that was normal for her or not, considering this was our first real interaction that wasn’t just me seeing her down the street at her family’s restaurant.

“We don’t say clout, but I get what you’re saying,” she mumbled with a soft giggle .

“Why do you ask?” I pressed.

She looked back at me and then reached up toward her face. Closing her eyes, she pinched her right eyelid and then opened again. “Because I’ve never met someone with eyes like mine.”

One hazel eye and one green eye stared back at me.

I couldn’t stop my jaw from falling open as she released her eyelid, blinked a couple times, and then upon reopening, her green colored contact had slid back into place.

Complete heterochromia just like me. She had two different colored eyes.

A hazel one just like I did. All words left my mind as I simply stared at her.

She watched me quietly, but said nothing and made no move to shift her stance.

This wasn’t possible, was it? Heterochromia was either genetic or caused by some traumatic experience.

Did Liam have heterochromia? I mean, I hadn’t gotten a good look at his eyes the one time I’d seen him. It had been way too painful watching Colette smile at him the way she had. So, it was very possible it came from him. Or was it from something traumatic?

“How long have you had it?” I asked.

She furrowed her brows. “What do you mean? My whole life.”

“Heterochromia can happen from a traumatic experience, so I was just…” My voice trailed off as I stared at her eyes.

“Oh. Well, no. It’s always been this way. The moment I was old enough to wear contacts, my grandparents bought me ones that matched my green eye and forced me to wear them, saying that they don’t want me to get bullied for it.” She shrugged her shoulders like it was no big deal .

But it was. It was a big deal. Not the whole thought she might get bullied for it, but the fact that she had heterochromia in the first place.

“Did Liam have heterochromia?” I asked.

“Liam? No, why?” she replied. Her brows raised as innocence dripped from her words.

She was nearly fifteen. She was Colette’s daughter. She had heterochromia.

I ran a hand over my mouth and jaw, unable to speak. There was no way. My heart raced in my chest. It couldn’t be real. Colette would’ve said something to me.

“Have you—” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat. “Have you ever met my parents?”

She shook her head. “No. Grammy and Pop Pop never let me anywhere near them as a kid, and now as a teenager, they obviously can’t keep me as far away as before, but they still intervene anytime I’ve ‘almost’ crossed paths with them. Why?”

I swallowed stiffly and finally filled my lungs with the oxygen they’d been deprived of. “Nothing. Let’s get you back to your mom before she chews my ass out for taking too long.”

“She’s gonna chew your butt out for saying ‘ass,’” Azelie replied with a grin.

“Well, then don’t tell her I said that.” I nodded at the Harley parked alongside the road.

Her eyes lit up, and her grin widened. “Probably shouldn’t mention the whole three dudes showing up thing, either? I mean, they’re not some guys with O’Connor or whatever, right?”

“That I know of. Maybe mention it, but only when she’s in a really good mood and make sure to put in a plug for how fucking awesome I was.” I paused beside the motorcycle and grabbed the helmet off the seat.

“Now you said—”

“Don’t you repeat it. Just put this on. Otherwise, your mom will have my behind for not keeping you safe on the bike.” I pushed the helmet against her stomach lightly.

She laughed and pulled it from my hands. “Better.”

With an eye roll, I smiled. She was a pretty good kid.

A kid with heterochromia. A kid whose mom was Colette. A kid who was almost fifteen. And a pregnancy takes nine months.

There was a feeling in my gut I couldn’t shake.