Page 96 of Forever in the Country

“I love you too.” She pauses and then pulls back. “Even though you’re stubborn as hell.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a blessing and a curse.” I sigh, “Just pray for me now that I have to go talk to Rhea.”

Her eyes sparkle as they meet my gaze. “How long do you think she’s going to make you eat oatmeal raisin cookies?”

I laugh and push her away from me. “Not at all if I play my cards right.”

“And what cards are those?”

“Trust me, Marlee Girl, you don’t want to know.”

43

RHEA

The front door opens and Sorren fills the doorway. He’s so handsome in the dark gray T-shirt that stretches across his expansive chest, hiding the tattoos I love so much. He looks tired and relieved and uncertain all at the same time.

“Are you okay?” I ask gently.

“I talked to Marlee,” he says as he drops onto the couch and rubs his palms over his face. “I told her everything.” He holds his hand out to me and I take it, letting him pull me down next to him.

Sorren drapes my legs over his and then threads his fingers through mine. We’re quiet for a while, and I can feel the enormity of this moment warring with him. Decades of pain and grief andguiltmanifested into this single event.

“Is Marlee okay?” I ask finally.

“She’s better than I expected,” he says with the ghost of a smile.

“Sometimes knowing, even if it’s hard, is easier than the not knowing.”

He nods but regret is written all over his face. “I told her they weren’t going to take her—that they were only going to take me and…” He swallows hard as his eyelids fall shut.

“Oh, Sorren.” The words are a whisper, and my heart breaks for the boy that landed in Clementine Creek all those years ago and for the man who had to carry that secret for all these years.

“I want to tell you…”

“I’m here.”

His eyes search mine before he leans in and places a soft kiss on my lips. Maybe it is for comfort or strength, I don’t know, but over the next hour he tells me about his childhood.

He tells me about the tension while his mother was pregnant with Marlee, the spiral she went through after Marlee was born, and how he’d never experienced true, unconditional love until he held his sister for the first time.

He recounts the years of taking care of her, doing odd jobs—mowing lawns, raking leaves—to make sure she had more than just the bare minimum. His eyelids fall closed again as he tells me about the night Marlee hid at the top of the stairs and overheard his mother saying she didn’t want them.

How he’d vowed in that moment at only fourteen years old to get them both out of there—to keep his sister safe.

Tears fall freely down my face, and I don’t try and wipe them away. I don’t dare take my eyes off him because I know he needs this.

He needs me.

I sit there and listen as he recounts talking to the court, about coming to Clementine Creek, and the first time he met Gran and Pop. He doesn’t hold back the emotion as he talks about his late grandparents and the safe haven they provided—the love they showed Marlee and him.

He talks about his time in the military, the feeling of brotherhood and being a part of something bigger than himself. He tells me about being injured and how my father came to visit him in secret when he was in the hospital after returning to the states.

Sorren said Mama was furious he wouldn’t let her go too but that it would have been too much. His career had all but been confirmed over, and he couldn’t handle knowing she’d be heartbroken for him too. He needed my father’s calm, and he needed the reassurance only Vincent Thayer can provide.

He told me about the stress of coming home and having to field the questions, learning to live with the stares and the well-meaning comments that sent his hackles up.

I’m wrung out emotionally by the time his gaze finally meets mine again, and I grip his hand harder when the corners of his mouth tip up into a sad smile.

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