Page 33 of Wanting a Family Man

“I can’t believe Glenda stayed with him.” She fell in behind him as he took the lead.

“Eventually she got tired of his wayward ways, but she’d slept with Dad when he was married to Miriam. She knew how affairs happened. Dad was alwayssorry.” He layered the word with irony, as though that fixed everything. “He wasn’t an outwardly cruel or abusive man, just selfish. He went after what he wanted in the moment and didn’t think about the consequences. He was one of those beg for forgiveness rather than ask for permission kind of guys.”

Yech.“Now I’m wondering why you lived with him for so long,” she admitted.

“Why did you stay with your mom, even though she had issues? You’re a kid and those issues seem normal to you,” he answered for her. “You love them despite their failings.”

It was true. Her mother had always been sorry when she backslid into using. Cloe had got used to believing she just had to get through each rough patch, never thinking it would end with her mom actually dying from it.

“I liked it here,” Trystan continued. “Logan and I were tight when we were young. Not so much after I left. I wasreallypissed over the way he treated Sophie. She never told me exactly what happened, but he’d better not mess her up again. There will be blood.”

“You’re really close with her.”

“I had to make friends with her. She was the only kid my age until we were twelve. She dogged me everywhere, always asking me about Logan.” He spoke with exasperated affection.

She smiled, liking that image. “And Reid? Where was he? Still with his mom?”

“At first.” His voice turned grave. “She had a crisis when he was eight and couldn’t look after him. The good news is, she finally got diagnosed, but it was a long road. He came to live with us, and it wastough. Logan was seven, I was five. We weren’t really aware we had an older brother until he was here. Logan and I were still close for a while. We shared a room, but he and Reid locked horns. Reid didn’t want to be here, but this was a more stable atmosphere than living with his mom. What does that tell you about how hard it was for him when he visited his mom?” he asked over his shoulder.

“It sounds like it was hard for all of you.”

He winced and looked forward again.

“My childhood wasn’tbad. Dad wasn’t the most affectionate man, but Glenda was great, and I could have gone to live with Mom anytime. Reid and Logan resented that. They both felt trapped here. I actually tried living with Mom in Nanaimo when she finished her doctorate. She had a really good job, bought a house with her sister. I lasted four days in that big school full of strangers, trying to fall asleep with a streetlight glowing in my window. Riding back and forth to school on abus.” He might as well have been crawling through a sewage pipe, judging by his tone. “I wanted to be here.”

“The grass is always greener, isn’t it?” she murmured.

“The forest is a helluva lot greener than the city, that’s a true fact.”

“That’s why you came back? Not for your brothers?” If not his father?

He jerked his shoulder in a nonanswer. “Reid and Logan had one foot off the island. Both left the minute they graduated. I wasn’t far behind. We barely talked after that, only texted sometimes to say Happy New Year or whatever.”

That made her really sad. She would do anything to have her one sibling back and he had two who he seemed ambivalent about.

“Here we are,” Trystan said as they broke from the trees onto a rugged beach that thrust out as an arc against the choppy blue water. “Are you awake back there, possum?” He reached back to squeeze Storm’s foot.

She picked up her head, blinking.

He loved his sister. It was sweet to see and made Cloe’s heart pinch with longing, not because he had his sister, but because she wanted to know what it was like to be loved so unreservedly by this particular man.

Don’t, she warned herself, but the thought was there and now it wouldn’t go away.

Chapter Nine

“Ihonestly don’tknow how you ever leave this place.” Cloe shaded her eyes as she took stock of their destination. The breeze pressed her shirt against her curves and her expression softened into sensual appreciation of the whitecaps and Campbell Island across the channel.

“This is false advertising. It rains a metric crap ton.” He made himself drag his gaze away from her to drink in the salty tang in the air along with the sun sparkling on the water.

But yeah, it was beautiful.

He had never, ever,everimagined himself being back here for more than a family visit, let alone working alongside his half brothers, but no matter his reason for being here, this was the place that settled him. The crumpled shape of land changed constantly, yet always looked familiar. The tideline moved up and down, the trees were logged or grew back in, the sky clouded and turned to pewter before opening to bright blue days or indigo nights, but no matter how it looked, it was always home.

A yanking sensation pulled within his chest. Nostalgia? Homesickness? It was the barbed pain that always struck when he left, but he would leave again. He always did. He had to.

“Unemployment is really high here.” He moved to where a tangle of driftwood provided a small windbreak. The breeze wasn’t cold, but he didn’t want any sand kicked into Storm’s eyes. “I fell ass-backward into a gold mine with the videos and felt obliged to maximize the opportunity. If I don’t film my show, I don’t know what else I would do. Get a degree and work in conservation, maybe? That’s what my mother did. It paid the bills, but it comes with a lot of frustrations.”

“Bureaucracy and inaction?”

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