The Road to Rose Bend

by Naima Simone

  “It’s a pain in the ass is what it is,” Wolf grumbled, shoving a hand through his long, dark brown hair, pushing the strands out of his face. “Besides, I’m not coming from the inn,” he said, referring to Kinsale Inn, the bed-and-breakfast his family owned and ran. “I was over at The Glen, finishing up the stage. I was calling to see if you wanted to come down and make any last-minute changes.”

  Since Rose Bend had hosted its first motorcycle rally fifteen years earlier, The Glen, a wide, open field on the edge of town, had become the epicenter of the activities. For two weeks, both world-renowned and local musicians would grace the stage, playing everything from rock to country to R&B. Vendors from all over the country would also travel to town to set up booths and sell merchandise to the many riders that flocked to Rose Bend. The annual rally and ride had become huge, and unlike its cousins in Sturgis and Daytona, it’d retained a festival atmosphere where families could—and did—attend.

  Proceeds from the event benefited the This Is Home Foundation, an organization that ran the youth home for foster children in town. The charity held a special place in Cole’s heart. Not only because if he hadn’t been blessed with Dad and Moe in his life, he could’ve easily ended up in the foster care system. But three of his siblings had been adopted from that home. One of his goals as mayor was to ensure the rally and ride continued to thrive and grow. It’d been one of his promises when he’d run for the office. Because more revenue meant more funding for the youth home.

  “I went over there yesterday, and everything looked great. Better than great. Did you still need me to check it out?”

  Wolf shook his head. “No. Jasper Landon happened to drop by. And when he complained about it being too large and vulgar, and how it wasn’t how they’d always done it, I figured it was perfect.” Cole smothered a groan but must not have been too successful in schooling his expression because his brother grinned. “Yeah. Good luck. I’m sure he’s going to drop by your office tomorrow to complain.”

  Shit. Jasper Landon, former mayor of Rose Bend, hadn’t taken well to losing to a younger, less experienced and—hell, might as well admit it—Puerto Rican candidate. And he hadn’t been quiet about his criticism of Cole since he’d taken office seven months earlier.

  Bottom line, the man was a sore loser—and an asshole.

  And another reason Cole had decided to run for mayor. He had become a lawyer to do his part in ensuring everyone received fair representation under the law. Everyone. Regardless of race, culture, sexuality or religion. And the people of Rose Bend needed someone who would do the same for them as mayor. They needed a person who would go to bat for all of its residents. Not just those from a certain tax bracket or with low melanin.

  “Anyway,” Wolf continued, “when you didn’t answer your phone, I went by the firm and city hall. Since you weren’t at either of them, I came by here.”

  “I’m fine, Wolf,” Cole murmured, hearing the “to make sure you were okay” even though it’d been left unspoken.

  “No, you’re not, Cole. You can run that bullshit by some people, but I’m not ‘some people.’ You haven’t been fine in two years.”

  One thing he’d always admired and loved about his brother was his ability to cut through lies and get right to the heart of a matter. Today was not one of the days when he loved that ability.

  “Guess who’s back in town?” Cole asked, switching the subject he had no intention of touching. Crossing the few feet to the door that led to the kitchen, he pushed it open and entered, leaving Wolf to follow.

  “Okay, I’ll play along for a few minutes,” Wolf said as Cole pulled open the refrigerator and grabbed another bottle of water. His brother shook his head, when he stretched one out to him. “Who’s back?”

  “Sydney Collins.” Cole twisted the cap off and drank deeply.

  Wolf frowned. “Leo’s friend? Luke and Patricia’s youngest?”

  “The very same.”

  “Well damn. It’s been a long time since she’s set foot in Rose Bend. Is she still sexy as hell?” Wolf asked, propping his hip against the counter and crossing his arms over his massive chest.

  “She was a teenager when she left here,” Cole snapped, his fingers tightening around the water bottle. “Why the hell were you noticing if she was sexy or not?”

  “Because I have eyes. And a dick,” Wolf replied. “And she was eighteen. Legal.” Wolf cocked his head to the side, peering at Cole in that way he had when studying a piece of wood. Measuring it. Seeing beyond the block to what lay beneath it. With cedar, that scrutiny was inspiring, mesmerizing. Focused on Cole, it was unnerving, intrusive and a pain in the ass. “Why do you care what I call her or how I looked at her? Because it definitely seems to—” his gaze dropped to the bottle Cole clenched “—bother you.”

  Fuck. It did.

  But damn if he could explain why. Maybe because she had been so vulnerable beneath that tough-girl exterior? Maybe because she’d been his sister’s friend? Or because he understood how it felt to question if you belonged?

  His family was wonderful; his parents had never differentiated between him and their biological children. He’d never doubted their love for and dedication to him. But still... He was a Puerto Rican boy, now man, adopted by white parents in a diverse, unusually tolerant but still predominantly white town in the very Caucasian Berkshires. Every town had its racist assholes and Rose Bend wasn’t any different. He’d been called names that had no place in supposedly progressive and enlightened twenty-first-century America. So yes, he’d doubted if he belonged before. But he’d had a support system in his family, and then in Tonia’s, that had eased those uncertainties. From what he’d witnessed with Sydney’s parents, she hadn’t experienced that comfort.

  Maybe it was that affinity that had forged a sort of connection with her.

  At least, with Wolf’s probing stare pinned to Cole’s face, he was going with that.

  “She’s pregnant,” Cole stated. And watched as surprise, then a terrible, pitying understanding flared in his brother’s eyes.

  Cole hated that understanding. Detested the pity more.

  “She’s what? In her mid to late twenties now? Old enough to know about and have sex. And isn’t she married? That’s usually a thing married folks do. And you’ve been around pregnant women since Tonia died. So, I repeat,” Wolf murmured, his too-gentle voice belying the almost callousness of his words, “why do you care?”

  I don’t fucking know!

  The shout ricocheted against Cole’s skull, gaining speed and volume with each bounce. He fisted the fingers of his free hand and barely contained the urge to hurl the water bottle across the small kitchen.

  Because he lied to himself.

  He knew why seeing her rounded belly had made him run like a man possessed. Had driven him home to pound on the punching bag.

  Because she was pregnant—and he’d gotten hard for her.

  Behind the old Catholic church, his body had stirred like Rip Van Winkle, awakening and stretching, coming to life. For someone who wasn’t his wife.

  Still hadn’t stopped him from staring. From fucking throbbing in want.

  And the guilt. Jesus, the guilt...and the fear. He might have been able to escape Sydney today, but he couldn’t outrun the crushing weight of shame or the visceral terror that tore at him. Guilt over his betrayal of his wife’s memory, of the love they’d shared. And fear for Sydney. For the childbirth that could snuff out her life as it’d done Tonia’s. Fear for himself, if he ever let himself get attached to another woman who could be stolen away so easily.

  Yes, he was a coward. He had every right to be.

  “I don’t care,” he lied to Wolf, turning away on the pretense of downing the remaining water in the bottle and throwing it away. “Just that you’ll most likely see Leo before I do, and you can let her know. I figure Sydney could use a friend about now.”<
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  Wolf remained silent for several seconds, and when Cole turned back to him, his brother’s gaze snagged his, as if he’d just been waiting for Cole to look at him.

  “All that lying must get exhausting,” Wolf murmured. “When you’re ready to be honest with me and yourself, I’ll be here. I’m always here.”

  With that parting shot, Wolf pushed himself off the counter and strode out of the room. Leaving Cole alone.

  Always alone.

  Just like he preferred.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THERE WERE ALL kinds of disasters in life.

  Like coming down with mono right before the senior prom.

  Or going on vacation to a tropical island only for a tsunami to hit.

  Another season of Keeping Up with the Kardashians.

  So many more cataclysmic events than sitting down and sharing dinner with one’s parents.

  But for the life of her, at this moment, Sydney might risk all those other disasters rather than this hell.

  Because this. Was. Hell.

  “So, tell me again why you packed up, left your husband and returned here with no plans, no means of support?” her father demanded, setting down his knife and fork on either side of his plate and apparently forgetting about his perfectly cooked, medium-rare steak.

  “And pregnant,” her mother added, her silverware clutched in tight fists. Her gaze dropped down Sydney’s torso to the table that blocked her stomach. Then, as if she couldn’t bear the evidence of Sydney’s transgression—divorce, single motherhood, she didn’t know—her mother jerked her scrutiny back to Sydney’s face. “Sydney...”

  Okay, here we go...

  In spite of the circumstances, and her doubts, when she’d first arrived at her childhood home, Sydney had been happy to see her parents. It’d been three years since they’d last visited North Carolina. And that had been because her father had been on his way to Charleston, South Carolina, for a medical conference. As strained as their relationship was, she loved them. And until setting eyes on them again, she hadn’t realized that she’d missed them.

  Initially, her parents had been shocked to see her on their doorstep. That shock had quickly melted into confusion and then the expected disappointment when Sydney informed them of her divorce and her pregnancy.

  Yes, she’d anticipated their displeasure, but witnessing it had still been a strike to the chest. She should be used to it by now, letting them down. And not because of her rebellious behavior as a teen. No, she’d failed them years before then.

  When she’d refused to save her sister’s life.

  “God, I could use wine right now,” she muttered, staring a resentful hole through the water glass in front of her plate.

  “This isn’t a laughing matter, Sydney.” Dr. Luke Collins scolded her in the same tone he’d used when he’d caught her sneaking back in the house after curfew. Most times, she’d felt like a difficult patient for whom her father had struggled to determine the correct diagnosis. Instead of what was causing her cough, though, he couldn’t figure out why she wouldn’t just act right. “That’s always been a problem with you. Everything’s not some careless joke. People are hurt by your rash decisions. Daniel, his parents, not to mention your child.”

  God, there was so much to tackle in those few sentences. But she focused on the last part first. “Trust me, Dad.” Hah! her brain crowed. Trust me. Good one. “My decisions about filing for divorce and having this baby weren’t rash. I understand your shock because you’re just finding out about Daniel and me, but we’ve been done for six months. If I’m being truthful, a while before that. Some marriages don’t work out. And unfortunately, ours was one of them.”

  “Then why are you having a baby with him?” Patricia Collins demanded, an eyebrow arched high.

  Because of a self-sabotaging mixture of loneliness, why-the-fuck-not sex and Moscato. Somehow, she doubted her mother would appreciate that answer or consider it a good excuse.

  “It just happened,” she said, inwardly cringing at the cliché reply. Dammit, she sounded like the irresponsible teen they’d known rather than the capable woman she’d become.

  “It just happened,” her mother repeated, that eyebrow arching higher. “Not rash at all.”

  “What do you want me to say, Mom?” Sydney leaned back in her chair. “That one night my ex-husband and I had ‘one for the road’ sex that resulted in an unplanned child?”

  “Sydney,” Luke snapped.

  She sighed, briefly closing her eyes. How quickly they’d fallen back into old patterns—the stern, censorious parents and the recalcitrant child. This...dysfunctional dynamic was part of the reason she hadn’t returned to Rose Bend in eight years. And why her parents’ visits to North Carolina had been sporadic at best. The middle ground they’d once shared no longer existed. So, they constantly fought over the scraps. She’d come back here with hopes that the unconditional acceptance and love they withheld from her, they could give to her baby. Her parents were capable of it. She’d witnessed it.

  Lifting her lashes, she shifted her gaze to the framed pictures on the far wall and focused on one in particular.

  Carlin.

  Her sister couldn’t have been older than ten, and it must’ve been one of her healthier periods. In this image, the cancer that had plagued her since she was a toddler hadn’t sunken her skin or made it appear sallow. Her eyes were bright, shining, not fuzzied by the pain or medications. Her cheeks were full, her little body slim but not fragile—not bones draped in damn near transparent skin.

  Yes, the picture captured a happy moment in Sydney’s older sister’s short life.

  What kind of woman would Carlin have been if she’d survived? Brilliant. Charming. Kind. Loving. Oh no doubt, Carlin would’ve been successful, perfect—the kind of daughter her parents would’ve been proud to brag about, to shower with their unconditional adoration. Carlin would’ve been a great woman...

  If only Sydney had given her the chance.

  “I don’t understand why you and Daniel can’t work it out,” Patricia said, and when Sydney glanced back at her mother, she just managed not to look away again from the quiet pleading in the dark brown depths of her mother’s eyes. “No marriage is easy, Sydney. It requires work. And now you have more of a reason than most to try.” Her gaze dipped down Sydney’s body again. “A baby deserves two parents. Stability is as important to a child’s well-being as love. You and Daniel could give that to your son or daughter.”

  “And what about love for each other?” Sydney countered softly. “What kind of stable environment would it be to raise a child in a loveless home? You don’t think he or she wouldn’t notice that? Wouldn’t be affected by that?”

  Forget that her dignity, her very person, would die a slow death if she remained in a marriage that suffocated her independence, her voice. Her choice. What kind of example would that be to a child? To a little girl, especially?

  But she didn’t vocalize those thoughts. Not when she would be accused of thinking of only herself, her needs.

  Mercenary.

  That had been the word Daniel had flung at her, along with selfish. She was willing to sacrifice their child’s future for her own.

  Of all his accusations, that one tormented her the most. When she’d rejected his proposal to remarry, he’d called her selfish, and it’d dug beneath skin and bone, excavating old hurts and insecurities. For years, she’d been proud of how she’d matured. She wasn’t the rebellious girl she’d been when she’d left home all those years ago. But with one hurled insult, Daniel had relegated her back to being that teen. Still... His words wouldn’t have shaken her, if somewhere, in the darkest corner of her heart, she didn’t already question herself.

  Pain and, God help her, a sliver of shame sliced through her chest, straight to her heart. Because his accusation had contained a kernel of truth.


  An image of Cole standing so alone in that cemetery snapped to mind. No doubt he and Tonia would’ve raised their child in a warm, nurturing family. Because even as a teen she’d witnessed their love for each other—had even been envious of it. No one would ever accuse Cole of being selfish. The kind of devotion he possessed for his wife wouldn’t allow room for it.

  It seemed unfair that he’d lost his marriage by the whims of Fate, and she’d thrown hers away.

  “We all make sacrifices for those we love, Sydney,” her father said, and she ground her teeth together against another blast of pain.

  Who was he referring to? What loved ones? Daniel? Their child?

  Carlin?

  Because Sydney had sacrificed. For her marriage. For her sister. Over and over. But in both circumstances, it hadn’t been enough.

  “So, what’s the plan, Sydney? You haven’t been back home in almost ten years,” Patricia reminded her with a shake of her head. “What do you plan to do? Where are you going to live? How are you going to support yourself and a baby? What about prenatal care...”

  “No, I haven’t been back here in a long time, and I admit it. If not for being pregnant, I don’t know if I would’ve returned. But I’m here. Regardless of my personal experience in this town, it’s a good, safe place to raise a family. I want him or her to have that sense of community, that tight-knit closeness that’s next to impossible in a city. I want my baby to have...family.” She wanted her baby to have them. To be loved and accepted by them. Needed them to give her child what they hadn’t been able to give her. It couldn’t be more abundantly clear that she and her parents shared a strained relationship and that might not change. But she knew them; they wouldn’t take their disappointment out on an innocent baby. They would love their grandchild.

  She’d bet on that when she came home.

  Home.

  She thought of the house she’d passed on the drive into Rose Bend. A white, two-story Victorian on a corner lot. Gorgeous—with a steeply pitched roof, a lovely turreted tower, wide bay windows and a wraparound porch. It’d been breathtaking, yet still managed to appear homey, welcoming. Perfect for a loving family. A pang of longing echoed in her chest even now, as it had then, and she rubbed her knuckles against the ache. She would love to raise her baby in a house like that with both parents. A house meant to be filled with laughter, joy and affection. Maybe she couldn’t give her baby that house or two parents, but she could offer her child the unconditional love of a mother, security and stability.