Page 26 of All Along The Watchtower

I glanced down at Peyton, who’d gone still beside me, her gaze fixed on the floor as if she could somehow make herself invisible. My heart ached at the obvious pain in her rigid posture. “She… died.”

The words dropped into the silence like stones in still water. Mimi lasted all of three seconds before she’d dropped her kitchen towel and closed the distance, scooping Peytoninto a tight, cinnamon-scented hug. Had she been making snickerdoodles when we got here?

“Oh, sweet girl. I’m so, so sorry.” She rocked Peyton back and forth, even though Peyton was almost a head taller already.

I braced myself, ready to intervene in case this was all too much too fast for my daughter. But after only a few moments, she melted, returning the embrace. Such was the great power of Mimi.

On the stairs, Mom’s face had lost the stern lawyer’s set and softened into a warmth and vulnerability few outside of family ever saw. Her eyes held a multitude of questions, but she bit them back for now.

“Right, so I know this is a shock, but we’ve got a lot to figure out, and not a lot of time to do it in. I thought y’all could help with that.” My voice wavered slightly, betraying the nervous energy thrumming through my body.

Mom knelt and gathered up the scattered files, her movements precise and methodical as always. “Well, there are certainly a lot of details that need filling in. I’ll put on the kettle.” Calm. Practical. Let’s do what comes next. These were the traits that had made her the anchor of my childhood.

Mimi kept her arm around Peyton’s shoulders and ushered her toward the kitchen, radiating the warmth she was famous for. “You just come right on in here, sugar. I’ve got snickerdoodles coming out of the oven in ten minutes.” The scent of cinnamon and butter was already wafting through the house.

Peyton shot me a cautiously amused glance, the ghost of a smile playing at her lips. I smiled back and mouthed,Told you. Already, I could see her shoulders relaxing fractionally under Mimi’s gentle guidance.

Mom stopped next to me, fixing me with a meaningful stare. The kind that had always made me feel like she could see straight through to my soul.

“It’s real,” I murmured.

“Oh, I can see that with my own eyes.” She skimmed a hand through my hair in the way she’d been doing since I was no higher than her knee. She had to reach a lot farther now. “I’m guessing we have to set about proving it before things get messy. And they will get messy, won’t they, Ford?”

“You guess correctly.” My throat felt tight with everything left unsaid, everything we both knew was coming.

Nodding, she squared her shoulders, and I saw the lawyer in her emerge—the fierce protector who’d fought for environmental justice up and down the coast. “Then let’s get to work.”

CHAPTER 13

BREE

The benefit of having devoted my every waking minute to the Brewhouse all these years was that I’d pulled together and trained a phenomenal staff. So on the rare occasions I needed to step away, I generally could without much fuss. After the past twenty-four hours, having met Peyton, broken my silence with Ford, and gotten dragged into their little family drama with the search for her this afternoon, I absolutely couldn’t deal with the public tonight. There’d been no downtime. No opportunity to process any of this. I was far too raw to be put on the spot, and I inevitably would be if I were there.

The Brewhouse was at the center of village life for the locals. Whether it was anyone’s business or not—and I was of the firm opinion that it wasn’t—I’d get asked what I knew about Ford’s surprise daughter. The two of them deserved the privacy to figure out their new relationship without being at the center of a public soap opera. Until I was capable of calmly saying so, without telling anyone to fuck off, I didn’t need to be behind the bar.

I also didn’t want to face questions about my own relationship with Ford. What had happened between us was one of the best-kept secrets on Hatterwick. I’d never admitted it toanyone. Neither had Ford. So far as anyone knew, we’d had a falling out over subjects unknown and were no longer friends. People were aware I didn’t speak to him, despite the fact that I’d maintained cordial relationships with the rest of the Wayward Sons and even Ford’s moms. If there’d been speculation—and I was certain there had been—no one had been fool enough to share it with me directly. That was fine by me.

But now Ford was back on-island, and I really needed to process the implications of that.

I opened my freezer door and grabbed a pint of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream. I didn’t often eat or drink my emotions. Having a mom who’d died as a junkie because of her own addictions meant I kept myself on an extremely short leash for indulgences. But this felt like a reasonable recourse in this situation. Hell, after the day I’d had, I probably deserved a whole damn freezer’s worth.

From her spot at the end of the counter, Keeley huffed and stomped a paw as I pried off the top and dug straight in with a spoon. My loyal companion had opinions about everything, including, apparently, my choice of comfort food.

“Don’t you judge me. I haven’t spoken to the man in ten years. Now he’s back, and I have no idea how he’s going to work all this shit out, but I know he’s not going to abandon that kid with his moms while he goes back out on deployment. Which means he’s going to be actuallyback. Which means I have to see him. If that’s not an excuse to have ice cream for dinner, I don’t know what is.” I shoveled another heaping spoonful into my mouth, letting the cold sweetness numb my churning thoughts. “And don’t give me that look. You get treats when you’re stressed, too.”

My pup just stared at me withUh-huheyes, her golden head tilted in that way that made me feel like she could see straight through my bullshit.

“It’s fine. Now that I’ve handed off Peyton, I can go back to not talking to him again.” The words tasted like a lie, even around the mouthful of ice cream.

Keeley looked deeply unimpressed by my logic. She angled her head and gave me a side eye that would make any teenager proud.

“I can,” I insisted, though my heart squeezed tight at the idea of it. It had taken so much out of me to stay away from him all these years. The only reason I’d managed to pull it off was because he’d been gone for most of it. He’d only made it home a handful of days a year, which made avoiding him as easy as checking the calendar for Navy holidays and listening to the town grapevine for when he hit the island. But now? Now he’d be here. Every. Single. Day.

My dog lay down and crossed her front paws with a sigh and an eye roll, as if to say, “Humans.” Her whole body language screamed judgment, and I didn’t appreciate it one bit.

I scowled. “Nobody asked you.” I shoved another big bite of ice cream in my mouth, letting the chocolate chunks crunch between my teeth.

God, it had been so good and so awful to see him up close and personal. I hadn’t let myself look when I’d seen him on-island before, but there’d been no avoiding the reality of him in my front entryway. He was… massive. He’d always been tall, but over the past ten years in the Navy, he’d bulked out in a big way. Yet it hadn’t been his size that had struck me like a fist in the sternum. It was how he’d looked so lost and overwhelmed just before meeting his daughter. That vulnerability had gotten to me in a way nothing else could have. And then he’d come to me when Peyton had disappeared on him. I knew that had more to do with the fact that I knew who she was and that we had sufficient in common that I was the most likely to think like her.But a part of me had felt really good that he’d known he could count on me in a crisis. Even now.

---