Page 70 of Sweet Sin

I can’t fault his logic or his observation. He’s exactly right.

“I won’t say anything to your grandmother, Mr. Bellamy. But know this. I love her as if she were my own mother, and I won’t allow anything to happen to her.”

“You don’t love her any more than I do, Lawrence. But I appreciate your concern.”

My grandmother’s ashes sit on my mantle.

I suppose they should probably be at my parents’ house. My father was her only child, but I was lucky enough to get off on furlough for her funeral a year ago, and when I requested her ashes, my father simply nodded.

He knew, as well as I did, that I held a special place in my grandmother’s heart as her first grandchild.

And I knew, as well as he did, how she died very disappointed in me.

I think back to that time, when I asked her for the money, and she didn’t bat an eyelash.

She gave it to me, no questions asked.

She believed in me.

But Lawrence knew.

He cared for her deeply, and he never told her. Then when I went down for manslaughter and got sent away to prison, my grandmother never came to visit me.

My father told me she was just too old to leave the house, but I know better.

She blamed herself. She felt that if she hadn’t given me that money, I never would’ve gone to prison.

She’s wrong, of course. If she hadn’t given it to me, I would’ve gotten it somewhere else. It just might have taken longer because my father didn’t keep cash in the house the way she did.

She was from a different era. She remembered when people didn’t trust banks.

Leif and I haven’t talked much since the ladies went to make dinner in the kitchen.

Instead, I’m standing in the family room, staring at the urn that contains my grandmother’s ashes that sits on my mantle in the family room.

Dad held the ashes for me while I finished out my last year in prison, but it was the first thing I grabbed when I moved back into my house on the family property.

“You called me over here for something,” Leif says. “So what’s with the silent treatment?”

I suck in a breath, look away from Nana’s urn. “Just a lot to think about.”

“I hear you, Falcon. I want to help you. I’m sorry about—”

“Don’t. I don’t know why I got so bent out of shape about it. I mean, why would you change your plans just because I fucked up? So you went into the Navy without me. You served your country, and you didn’t visit me because you weren’t here.”

“That’s not exactly true. I’ve been back in the US for the last two years.”

He’s right, but I don’t say it.

“You’ve got your demons,” he says, “and I’ve got mine.”

Again I don’t say anything. There’s no need for a response.

“So this thing with Savannah…” Leif begins.

“What thing?”

“I see the way you look at her, man. It’s the way I looked at Kelly when I met her.”

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