Page 218 of Holding On To Good

“I couldn’t,” he repeated, then inhaled deeply, about to admit one of his biggest secrets, his greatest shame, “because I thought about letting them.”

Verity recoiled, her face going white.

“Jesus,” Toby said under his breath.

“What the fuck?” Miles growled, stabbing a hand through his hair.

But the only person Urban cared about at the moment was the young woman staring at him with tears in her eyes.

“Because you didn’t want me,” she said softly, her expression solemn and sad and so goddamn resigned, as if a truth she’d always suspected had just been proven.

“Because I was twenty years old and terrified. Up until that point my only focus had been myself, and the two people I counted on more than anyone else, the two people who’d always been there for me to help guide me, were suddenly gone. I had no job. No education. No way of knowing how the hell to parent myself, let alone five other people. I just…” He stopped. Swallowed. “What if I messed up? What if I failed you?” He looked at his brothers. “Failed all of you?” Tears burned his eyes and when he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper and gruff with emotion. “What if I failed them?”

It’d been a constant fear that he wouldn’t live up to his parents’ expectations of him.

That he’d let them down.

“Is that why you kept me?” Verity asked, her tear-streaked face killing him. “So you wouldn’t fail Mom and Dad?”

He shook his head. “No. They were why I almost gave you up.”

She hugged her arms around herself. “You mean they would’ve wanted Aunt Min and Uncle Greg to have me?”

“They would’ve wanted you to be happy. To be loved the way they loved you. And I thought the only way for that to happen was to give you another set of parents. A mother and father who would give you the life you would’ve had, should have had, with them.” He nodded at his brothers. “The type of life we had with two doting, loving parents. I knew I couldn’t give you that.” He wiped his damp palms down the front of his thighs. Cleared his throat, but his words still came out thick and unsteady. “I knew I wouldn’t be enough and I thought the only way to give you the life you deserved, was to give you up.”

“But you didn’t,” she whispered.

He lifted his hands helplessly. “I couldn’t. I needed you.”

She snorted. “Yeah. Right.”

“You clung to me,” he said, remembering those awful first weeks after their parents’ deaths. “You wouldn’t sleep in your room so we brought your bed into mine.” Although half the time she ended up crawling into bed with him. “I had to carry you everywhere. If I set you down, you’d curl up into a ball and cry so hard and for so long, I thought you’d pass out. And when you were tired or hurt or afraid and wanted Mom and Dad, I was the only one who could comfort you.”

Her hand shook as she wiped away more tears. “I don’t remember any of that.”

“You only wanted Urban,” Miles said, his own voice gravelly. “Pissed me off.”

Toby gave a sad smile. “Me, too. He hadn’t even lived here for two years and rarely saw you, but when you woke up the morning after the accident, before you even knew what had happened, you crawled onto his lap.”

Urban still remembered holding her. She’d been so small. Her bones delicate, her skin warm from sleep, her hair a mess and smelling of baby shampoo. “When you asked where Mom and Dad were,” he said gruffly, “we were the ones who told you they were gone.”

She hadn’t understood. Not really. How could she? She’d been barely more than a baby. But she’d known something was wrong. That some things were never going to be right again.

It hadn’t helped that he and his brothers had been a mess. Huddled around the kitchen table, eyes red from crying, four of them still kids themselves, suddenly orphaned and lost and scared with no idea what to do next.

So they’d done what they’d always done, what they’d been taught by their parents.

They’d counted on each other. Leaned on each other.

Urban hadn’t known how the hell they were going to get through it, but he knew they’d do it together.

“Sounds like I needed you all more than you needed me,” Verity said.

“I needed you,” Urban said quietly. He glanced at Toby and Miles. “I needed all of you. As much comfort as I gave to you, you gave back to me. But more than that, you” —another glance at his brothers— “all of you were a part of me. A part of Mom and Dad. And I knew losing just one part would mean losing them all over again. It would mean losing another part of myself and I couldn’t do it. You belonged here. You belonged with me.”

The tip of his nose stung and he had to clear his throat before continuing. “I told Uncle Greg no. He threatened to petition the court for custody of you. I told him if he did, he was going to have one hell of a battle on his hands because I wasn’t giving you up.”

He’d been angry at Greg for threatening him, threatening his family that way. Hurt that someone he’d known and trusted his entire life would do that.

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