Page 55 of Crossroads of Love

“Excuse me? How does Lena not know this?”

“I don’t know. Henry was adamant that he would get it straightened out and that she didn’t need to know the extent of it. I’m baffled Aaron was able to keep it all a secret, especially from me.”

I’m gripping the chair so tightly that I’m certain it will break.

How could my brother do this to her?

How could my father keep it from her?

This is Dad’s fault. He told me to stay away from her, and this is what he did to her.

“How did you find out?”

“Sometime last year, the woman showed up here in my office. She told me that she believed Aaron was named Gavin, who was a day trader who worked a lot and came to see her when he could. It wasn’t until she saw his face plastered all over the television after his death that she realized he lied to her. She didn’t know that Lena existed until then. She played innocent about it all and stated that she wanted her son to be taken care of but didn’t want to blow up Lena’s and Jayla’s lives.”

“And you haven’t told Lena? Why?”

“We had to research to see if any of it was even true. Henry had an inkling, of course, but scammers do this all the time. They chase obituaries and try to claim paternity and whatever else in hopes that someone will pay them off to keep them quiet. You have the town sheriff married to the town mayor. We thought she was looking for the payout and full of lies. In the meantime, she reached out to the Public Safety Board and his life insurance company to reroute everything.”

“That’s fraud. Why did she wait a year to come to you?”

“She says that’s how long it took her to find who was handling the estate. I think she was getting pushback from theboards about the benefits and was looking to play innocent and get information.”

“Is the child Aaron’s?”

“Yes, originally, it was your name on the birth certificate because that’s the name he gave her. It’s since been changed.”

“Excuse me?”

This piece of shit used my name and life to swindle this woman? To cheat on Lena and…

I can feel that my face is bright red as more rage fills me. I would beat the shit out of my brother right now if it were possible.

“Does Tatum know?”

“Hell no! I have kept this to myself while I continued researching what I could. Lena has been ignoring dealing with anything in regard to Aaron’s death. Tatum would have already told her. She was not a fan of Aaron as a husband and father.”

“She wasn’t? But why? I’m just…I don’t understand at all. Their marriage was perfect. How could he…?”

“Their marriage was far from perfect, Gavin,” he says dryly. “You’ll learn this at some point, so I’ll go ahead and tell you now. Things will make more sense. Lena caught him cheating on her before. He apologized and said it was over; she believed him and took him back for Jayla’s sake. He and I had gotten into a big argument about it because I caught him with another woman just before he died. I never told Tatum or Lena that. Also, I just…I don’t think it’s very easy for the mayor and sheriff to get a divorce in a small town, and things stay cordial, you know? Aaron would have never allowed her to move on.”

The way people depict their lives to you and on social media really isn’t the same as what happens behind closed doors.

I’m dumbfounded.

How could I have been so wrong about everything?

“What do you mean by he would never have allowed her to move on?”

“Our time in the Army really changed him. That happy-go-lucky guy, the good man who held to his morals and was all about upholding the law and being a good soldier, disappeared at some point. Not a lot of people knew it, but Tatum and I were always with them, and he was pretty controlling of her. It was all about putting on a show for the town because of their positions.”

Held to his morals? Did he even know my brother at all?

Aaron had always been the one who drove my father over the edge. I usually stayed pretty low-key, with my head down. Aaron always had to push the limits. From what I’m learning from my dad’s stuff, he got Aaron out of a lot of trouble, even when he was in high school. He didn’t join the Army because he wanted to—it was that or jail time.

I hadn’t even known that.

“He didn’t show me any of that,” I lie.

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