Page 20 of New Hope, Old Grudges

“Harrison,” my mother snapped, sounding the closest to mad she’d ever been. “Don’t speak to your sister that way.”

“Someone has to,” he scoffed. “Someone has to hold her accountable for her actions.”

“Oh, the golden boy coming at me because I didn’t stay here and get married and have a family,” I replied, going on the defensive even though everything he was saying was right.

“If there was a golden child, it was you,” Harry shook his head. “You were dad’s best friend. He said it openly and freely, and it never bothered me. Not until the day we buried him without you.”

My chair screeched as I pushed it back, unable to hear any more.

“You’re right!” I yelled. “I fucked up. I failed him. Failed you. Failed mom. And I’ll hate myself until the end of time for my cowardice. But guess what? I got my karma. I lost everything. Every single thing I owned, every single thing I’d accomplished. The man I thought I loved. All the people I thought were my friends, except one person. I have nothing.”

Tears were streaming down my face.

Harry’s face didn’t soften. “You don’t have nothing,” he said quietly. “You have this.” He held his hand out to the table. “You have a family. But that’s never been enough for you. You’ve never seen that.”

The words punctured my already soft skin, dropping like a bomb in the room. My mother didn’t even step in to argue with Harry on this because he was right. He was totally right. This short time at home, the encounters with Brody Adams, the memory of how his father had treated him… It all served to remind me of what I had, what I’d always had and taken for granted.

Maybe, just maybe I could repair things with my mother, but the task was infinitely harder with my brother. And my father? That chance had come and gone, and I’d never get to tell him how much I loved him, how important he was, the part he played in creating everything I was. I’d never get to tell him sorry.

All of it was too much.

So I did what I did best… I ran.

ChapterSeven

BRODY

Workingon Thanksgiving wasn’t a chore to me. In fact, it was a relief since I didn’t have anywhere to go. My mother had been an only child, and everyone from her side of the family was dead. My father’s side was scattered around the country, none of them close. I’d never had fond memories of the holidays. It was always a quiet dinner with my father getting more and more drunk, wailing on about how I took his wife from him.

He’d either pass out or smack me around.

Yeah, those memories weren’t fond. So being at the station was preferable. We usually didn’t get a whole bunch of calls. An accident every now and then. Unfortunately, some domestic violence calls too. There were plenty of families—even in the predominantly upper-middle-class town of New Hope—that had holidays similar to the ones I’d had. I’d found that violence inside the family home penetrated every class, every income threshold.

Luckily, we didn’t get any of those calls today.

What we did get was a call to the Watson household. One I rushed to answer.

Though I didn’t know her beyond the unfortunate memories of our high school past and the angry ones from recently, Willow had been on my mind constantly. The woman was doing something to me. I wouldn’t rest until I earned her forgiveness, until she smiled at me. Until she warmed my bed.

My feelings toward her ran deeper than they should’ve, considering our history and her disdain for my existence. Therefore, I was worried when I pulled up to her family home. It was always interesting, always something new to look at. Her mom was known around town for being ‘quirky’ but also one of the kindest people you’d meet.

Fern was opening the door before I’d even made it up the front step, the place lit up for Christmas with colors sparkling against the snow.

“Come in out of the cold,” she ushered me inside, shoving a steaming mug in my face. “Here, this will warm you up.”

I smiled at the woman, the one who radiated a motherly energy even though she looked the furthest from a conventional mother I’d ever seen.

I took a sip of the mug, thankful, then coughed. It was delicious, tasting of apple, cinnamon and booze. A lot of it.

“As delicious as this is, I can’t drink on the job, ma’am,” I told her, regretful of the fact since it was damn delicious.

She put a palm to her head. “Right,” she took the mug back. “They frown on that these days.”

“That they do,” I replied, hiding my smile. “But I’ll be happy to have a mug of that when I’m off the clock.”

Her friendly grin suddenly vanished. “I’ll gladly do that. I promise I won’t even poison it once you get my daughter home safe and issue her a world-class apology for the way you treated her in high school.”

I could feel the blood drain from my face as the warmth from the cider dissipated. I’d had dealings with Fern over the years, mostly because I’d been here seeing her husband. Neither of them had shown me anything but kindness, nothing to hint at the fact that they knew anything about my history with their daughter.

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