Page 19 of What I Should Have Felt (Anchors and Eagles #4)

FORD

S moke curled around my head as I puffed on a cigarette.

The heat of the day still clung to my sticky skin despite the sun beginning to sink upon the horizon.

I’d dropped Azelie off a week ago without a word to Colette, merely watched Azelie walk into the restaurant and hug her mom through the window, before riding back home.

Little else had consumed my thoughts since discovering that Azelie was Colette’s daughter and had heterochromia.

With the lack of capacity to process much else, I’d also avoided town other than to set up security cameras at night when no one was around outside both the restaurants.

Luckily, so far neither O’Connor nor his cronies had shown up anywhere.

I doubted the LeBlancs even knew the cameras existed, and it was on my list of things to tell Colette.

Later.

I couldn’t face her. Not yet, even though I knew I had miles of groveling and not just for the fact that I’d been a deadbeat dad for fifteen years to still cover.

So instead, I simply left a fresh bouquet of spider lilies in the cabin every day and snuck some into her bedroom a few times as a peace offering.

Bracing against the wooden railing surrounding the porch, I watched an alligator slither slowly beneath the surface of the bayou.

It was coming for me, or more for the marshmallows I kept randomly dropping into the water.

But at some point, I would need to confront Colette for either confirmation or denial, and I wasn’t quite sure which one I was ready for.

Disappointment if my suspicions were wrong, or the reality that I’d missed fifteen years of a life I helped create.

Fifteen years not spent with the woman I still craved to this day.

Part of me also wasn’t ready to accept that I was actually excited about the possibility that I might have a child, something I never thought would be an option for me in this life.

Especially considering every fucked up thing I’d done whether by my choice or by orders.

I wasn’t even sure if I was worthy of such an important role in this world.

I’d already missed nearly fifteen fucking years of it.

With a deep drag on the cigarette, I let the burn from the smoke coat my throat as I dipped a hand into the half-empty marshmallow bag.

What a fucking strange turn of events. The issues with O’Connor seemed so small now compared to learning what I had yesterday.

I dropped a marshmallow into the bayou and heard the gator’s jaws snap.

A massive swamp puppy was all this guy was, as he slunk beneath the surface of the water again. I knew if I gave it a few minutes, he’d be back up, ready for another snack that was as sweet to him as it was to me. But I wasn’t craving anything sweet. I was indulging in something to dull my senses.

The gentle breeze lifted my crudely made black cutoff, tickling my sides as if taunting me to actually admit out loud what thoughts had kept me silent for over a day and a half.

The sliding glass door scraped as it was pushed open, but I didn’t turn.

Bare feet slapped against the wooden planks that served as our porch.

Slabs in need of a good refreshing stain, and I took a mental note to fix them.

“Dinner will be ready soon,” my mawmaw said.

And everything in me crumbled.

I was eight years old again, with wide eyes of wonder for the world. Everything that had broken Colette and me hadn’t happened yet. Every bridge I’d set fire to was immediately doused with a bucket of water.

“Mawmaw,” I cried out and pushed off the railing. Before I’d even had a chance to face her, her arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me against her.

I squeezed my eyes shut and collapsed into her hold. Even though it was her head resting against my chest instead of mine against hers, there was something about my mawmaw holding me. I was thirty-three fucking years old and felt like a child in his grandma’s arms.

“Want to talk about it?” she tenderly asked.

I squeezed tighter, not ready to release her. My mind and body begged for just one more minute before speaking the words I was suspicious of.

“Is Mom still mad at me?” I whispered instead of voicing what truly bothered me .

My mawmaw’s chest expanded, and she slowly pushed out of my embrace.

“Oh, honey, I don’t think she’s ever been mad.

She’s in shock. Could you imagine how it would feel to lose your child for years and then have him just waltz back in?

Fifteen years of not knowing. Fifteen years waiting for someone to show up at her doorstep, more likely chaplains from the military than her son. ”

I swallowed stiffly and faced the bayou with my head hung as it hit me.

“Life’s got a cruel sense of humor,” I muttered.

I could understand—sort of. I’d also missed out on fifteen years.

Grief and regret were a heavy burden to carry, and I’d forced them upon my mother the way they were now thrust upon me.

By a choice I’d been forced to make as a kid myself.

For the person I was at eighteen was certainly not a man.

Not like I was trying to be today. I rocked the cigarette to the other side of my mouth as the sun sank low, painting the pink sky a deep, burnt orange.

The greens of the swamp around me shifted to black, and the gator swimming below the porch became a ripple in still water.

“Worry for your mom is not what’s got you out here, now, is it?” Mawmaw continued as she turned and rested her forearms against the railing and clasped her fingers together.

No, that was certainly not it. I loved my mom, and of course I worried, and of course I owed her years of apologies, just as I did Colette.

But no, my mom was not the reason I was out here.

I dug into the marshmallow bag and pulled out another treat.

Leaning forward, I stared at the water below and waited for the alligator’s nostrils to breach the surface .

“What life mystery are you attempting to solve this time?” my mawmaw asked as the swamp puppy pierced the water, and I dropped his reward in front of his jaws. “Something that turned this big dreamer boy rather quiet, it seems,” she gently added.

“I just…” I inhaled deeply as my mawmaw dug into the marshmallow bag herself.

I was grateful she was the one out here.

She would be the easiest to confess to, but that didn’t make the situation easy.

“I just don’t know,” I muttered as she placed a marshmallow into her mouth and dropped a second one into the bayou below.

Mawmaw pushed away from the railing and faced me. Her eyes danced up my arm, over my shoulder, and down the portion of my torso exposed by my homemade cutoff. “Those are pretty,” she said, and pointed at the tattoos.

I furrowed my brows, glancing over at her, but remained quiet.

“Colette still hasn’t forgiven you?” she asked, and I closed my eyes.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got fifteen years of groveling to make up for,” I replied with a tight smile.

“But why not just tell her the truth?” She placed a hand on my arm, and I turned to face her directly.

“I can handle her being mad at me, but this is her parents we’re talking about.”

“She’s upset at you for not giving her a chance to choose, right?”

I nodded.

“Then, Ford, honey, is this not doing the exact same thing?”

I rolled the cigarette between my teeth and took a long drag.

“Yeah, well, it seems we’re both fucking good at taking the other’s choice away,” I grumbled and blew some smoke through my nose.

The burning sensation in my nostrils had long since gone numb, but the action helped dull the anger that bubbled in my veins.

Anger. That was a new emotion. I hadn’t been angry about losing out on these years until now. Sad, yes. Tired, yes. Hurt, yes. But angry?

Anger felt good. Anger, I could control. Rage was something I’d fed for years.

“What are you talking about?” Mawmaw asked as she took a cautious step away from me.

I narrowed my eyes and stood upright. “Have you ever met Azelie?”

She slowly shook her head as she frowned. “No, but what does that—”

“She’s got my eyes, Mawmaw. One green eye and one hazel,” I interjected, and she froze in place. Every muscle on her body tensed.

“What are you saying?” she whispered, unmoving.

“I’m saying I met Azelie, and she asked me if I was ever bullied for my heterochromia.

I said no, and she showed me that she wears a colored contact that’s an exact match to her green eye.

Her grandparents told her she has to, so she doesn’t get bullied.

I’m saying that Liam didn’t have heterochromia, and heterochromia is either genetic or a result of some super traumatic experience, but Azelie’s had it since birth.

I’m saying that she’ll be fifteen in just a bit, so that means Colette was pregnant before I left, Mawmaw,” I blurted out, letting every thought in my mind loose upon my tongue.

And the anger left with every word, shifting back once again to the grief that I now understood had ripped my own mother’s heart apart.

My shoulders sagged, and my bottom jaw trembled.

“I’m saying I’m pretty sure that’s my… daughter, and I didn’t get to—” My voice caught in my throat as I stared at my mawmaw, begging for her to understand what I no longer could say.

“Oh, Ford,” she whispered and immediately wrapped her arms around me.

I closed my eyes, soaking in the warmth of her embrace and the gentleness of her caress.

“Oh, my sweet grandbaby,” she quietly muttered again.

“Everyone thought Azelie was Liam’s. You left, and then a bit later, her parents suddenly took her out of town.

They came back, but she didn’t. Her parents told everyone she was away at college, which wasn’t entirely false, and then when Colette did return, she came back three years later with a man and a toddler. ”

“I get it, you know,” I said, tucking my face into her shoulder. “At least a little bit, I get what I did to Mama.”

She inhaled deeply and then placed her hands against the outside of my arms, pushing me gently away from her. “But she’s not who you need to go talk to right now. She’ll be here when you get back.”

I swallowed and stepped back with a deep gulp. “This is going to change everything, you know that—right? I mean, I still have years of making up to do, and now I’m gonna go tell Colette that I know.”

Mawmaw reached up and tenderly patted my cheek. “Everything had already changed, Ford. You’re just now finding out about it.”

With a nod, I turned and walked toward the sliding glass door.

“I would’ve stayed, you know. If I’d known that Colette was pregnant, I would’ve stayed, despite what her parents did.

I thought that it—” I paused with my hand on the doorknob and glanced back.

“I’d always planned to come back, too. I did come back. ”

Her brows stitched together as tears welled up in her eyes, and she tightened the shawl around her shoulders. “Wh-what?” she whispered.

“I figured if I pretended to be afraid of their threat, it would keep her safe. And you guys. And then I would come back for her. I just…” I gave her a tight smile. “I was just too late.”

Her fingers flew over her mouth as a tear slid down her cheek, and I slipped inside the house.

If only I’d returned a year or two earlier. Before Colette met Liam.