Page 26 of All Our Secrets

“Look. I’ve got to go.”

“Don’t hang up. Listen, I need you to give me your granny’s house keys.”

I stiffened. “Why?”

“Danny and I aren’t together anymore. I need a place to stay.”

“No. Besides, electric and everything is cut off.”

“Then call and have it turned on.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Silas, I’m your mother.”

“Gram gave that place to me so you could never sell it.”

Mom scoffed. “That place was falling apart years ago. I’d hate to see it now. Weshouldsell it, but right now, I need a place.”

It’s not falling apart.I’d been slowly rebuilding the two-story home from the ground up. She’d know that if she had been to the place at all since Gram passed. My biggest regret was not having the financial means to fix it while she’d been alive. But I promised her I would, and she trusted me.

“The answer is no.”

“Then I guess I’m staying at your house.”

“Keys are under the mat,” I muttered and hung up.

Chapter Twelve:

I’m tired

Peyton

“Ican’t believe it.” T.J.’s big eyes were on Sarah as she spoke. Her fingers lightly stroked the few blond strands on his bald head. “If King hadn’t told Devin, we wouldn’t have known at all.”

The worry on her lips and furrowed brows caused fear to creep up my spine. It was easy to forget that my home had been invaded when I focused everything on my little dude. But the second the subject came up, my stomach twisted into knots.

“It’s nothing.” With a shaky hand, I tucked some loose hair behind my ear and focused back on my son. “T.J. has taken a liking to you.”

Sarah looked down at him and cooed. “All babies love me.” He blinked, and she glanced up. “But someone breaking into your home isn’t nothing, especially if King spends the night. He never stays overnight anywhere. The man won’t even go on vacations with us.”

I frowned.True.Silas always refused FCR’s seasonal trips to Tennessee and would never rent a cabin or hotel with us. My chest tightened at another reminder of yet more things T.J. would never do with Theodore. Road trips and vacations.

But Silas… Silas was something else completely. I had to constantly remind myself totryto appreciate that he had come to my aid while also tryingnotto argue with him. Between the cold shoulder he’d given me over the last few years and his confusing actions now, there was so much about the grump I didn’t understand.

Silas King rubbed everyone the wrong way. That narrowed slant in his gaze and his lack of care for how his actions bothered other people, for starters. One thing was certain. Silas was a bulldozer. He flattened people with his words. But could that be his way of showing he cared? He looked after me by making sure I didn’t do anything strenuous or dangerous, which got beyond ridiculous sometimes. I was perfectly capable of packing my groceries, but the sight of me lifting a single thing or hearing about it drove the man mad. Who left work to reprimand a pregnant lady?

I exhaled. “Silas was a little overbearing throughout my entire pregnancy…”

Sarah snorted. “I’ll say. But don’t you think King’s a little strange?”

I felt my nose crinkling. “What do you mean?”

“It’s just… he doesn’t date or anything.”

“Silas dated Becky for a while,” I said. But they weren’t a good match. She was too sweet for his personality. Every time I told Theodore this, he disagreed.

“I don’t know. It felt forced—fake even—on his part. I mean, Becky was so happy and had those googly eyes for him, but King was so cold.”

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