Page 49 of Unbreakable Love

“I know. I did promise that.”

“So what was that out there?”

Her nose scrunched up and her brows furrowed together. “You didn’t say I had to stop wanting Miss Pesco to be my new mommy. You said I couldn’t do anything to help you.”

Well, damn. She had me on that one. Good thing I’d asked for her point of view instead of jumping to outright scolding.

“All right, I get that.” I crouched down and brushed a cupcake crumb off her cheek. “You know that might not happen, though, right? Miss Pesco and I are friends, and that’s it right now.”

“If we’re all friends now, does that mean she can have dinner with us again?”

With all the thinking I’d done about her for the last forty hours, dinner was the last thing I was having with Penny.

“We’ll see, kiddo. But let us make those decisions, okay?”

“Sure.” She shrugged.

I let it go. She agreed far too quickly, but unlike the other night, I didn’t have the energy to fight her again.

“All right, kid. Make sure you get some food in you after that cupcake, okay?”

“After I eat real food, can I have another cupcake?”

I’d already let her break one of my rules. What was the harm of another? “Sure, munchkin.”

“Sweet!”

I helped Josie get food. We went back and watched the game.

The night was perfect. Ava’s family was there. Mine was mostly together. We didn’t want for anything else, and for a moment, a brief one, I wondered what it’d be like to have a woman like Penny there with me, too. I had no time to linger on that thought.

A single second after considering it, everything went to absolute complete and utter shit.

My phone was in my hand, an empty glass of whiskey next to me. Dalton was still awake with me, even though it was coming on four in the morning. My dad was sitting in his recliner, rocking slowly, staring at the blackened television screen we’d turned off hours ago.

None of us could sleep.

My brother Cameron was rushed to the hospital for emergency leg surgery after a completely shitty hit he took in the fourth quarter of his game. An hour after Isaiah had taken his sister, Ava, home, he’d called me with more news that rocked our family.

My mom went to bed, and with Josie sleeping upstairs, I was crashing there anyway. Dalton had been ready to head to his own home when Isaiah called, letting us know that on this night of all nights, Jimmy Morton, the greatest sleazeball New Haven Colorado had ever produced, broke into Ava’s home to assault her.

Fortunately, Isaiah had a bad feeling, turned back around, and stopped it before it went too far, but what did that mean?

The woman, my brother’s woman and a woman who’d grown up family to us all, was badly hurt, and my brother not only didn’t know yet, but he also had his own battle ahead of him.

“Think anyone in town would care if I walked into the police station and shot Jimmy?” Dalton asked, his own whiskey sitting next to him, untouched, which was a good thing since it wasn’t his first.

“I wouldn’t. Shit.” I leaned forward and shoved my hands through my hair and clasped my fingers together at the back of my neck. “How does this happen? It’s all so unbelievable.”

“None of it is fair or right,” my dad mumbled.

“Cameron’s going to lose his mind when he learns.”

For all we knew, he was still in surgery, and none of us had thought to get his teammate, Marlin’s phone number. He’d called Ava earlier before shitty and traumatic event number two happened, so neither of us could call him and ask how it was going.

So we waited. We drank our whiskey and sat in the dark room and waited.

“Someone’s going to need to call Lydia,” Dalton said.

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