“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t need you. Matty is home doing the new Dad thing. I know you need the money.” Jet draws out into a long pause to allow me time to run through every reason why I swore I’d never even turn my truck down that road again. Never mind help the man fix his house or whatever he wants to hire my brother for. Lucas Marchand is the reason I lost the only girl I ever loved.
But Jet’s right. He wouldn’t ask if he didn’t actually need the help.
“Fine,” I say, low and noncommittal, grabbing a bottle of water from the passenger seat. “I’ll head out now.”
#
As I turn up the Lorry road my phone buzzes again, but I leave the device face down in my passenger seat where I tossed it. I hate that stupid thing anyway. My siblings finally sat me down and forced a phone on me for emergency purposes. I still never check it because why should I be available to everyone at all times. It’s absurd watching people wander around with their noses pressed to the thing. I dropped my old cell in a lake eight years ago and never replaced it.
I roll down the window to catch the fresh spring air and the crunch of tires on gravel road. It doesn’t take long to get to the Marchand Acreage and the tightly packed trees begin to thin out until I see the driveway. This is a driveway I know intimately. I used to park my dad’s car at the edge and sneak in through the shadows until I met Briggs. I can’t stop the image of her hair streaming behind her as would run at me the moment she saw me, leaping into my arms, legs around my waist, lips on mine with no other word.
No one had ever lit up at the sight of me like she did. Like I was the center of the universe. The thought used to motivate me to believe in more, now it’s a harsh reminder of my naivety. Guys like me have a place in this world, and it’s not with girls like her.
With a growl, I scrub at my face with my palm as if I can actually peel away the memories playing behind my eyes. I was actually getting good at not thinking about her, granted my racing thoughts moved from Briggs to Gus and now they’re both hammering me. Nothing about the last twenty-four hours has gone my way and nothing I’ve done has dampened this low-level dread that lingers in my gut.
The driveway is long and winding before opening into a huge valley, the mountains in the distance jut into the sky like a jagged fortress wall. The tree covered hills converge onto a grassy valley and in the middle of it all is a huge three-story farmhouse complete with wrap around veranda and vintage shutters. Jet’s going to get a boner working on this place. My brother loves detail work and he’s always loved the Marchand house.
Me? I loved the girl who lived there. Before she carved out my heart and took off to Vancouver without warning—leaving me and everything else in Raston behind her. The sting of her last words still singe in my skin.
I park my truck next to a vintage motorhome thinking it must be what Lucas is downsizing to. Retiring and becoming a full time RVer didn’t really fit the burly cop but whatever. I’ll be happy to have the last of her memories gone.
The breeze funnels through the valley, bringing with it a cool glacial air that contrasts the burning heat of the noon sun. Voices carry along the breeze and my skin prickles with recognition. Jet’s using the tone of voice he uses with our youngest brother Zeke when he’s doing something reckless or stupid, or usually both.
“Let’s be reasonable, okay?” Jet says, his voice getting louder as I move around the side of the house. My heart thunders and I’m not sure why, and that’s when I hear it.
“I’ll chain myself to the fucking door. You’re not taking down this greenhouse.” Her voice whips around me like a tornado and the thunder in my heart goes dead silent. I hold my breath, stepping around the house to see her.
I blink a few times to be sure but there she is. Small and feisty and as beautiful as the last time I saw her. There’s a hardness to her stare I don’t recognize, but it’s been ten years. A decade since I saw her last.
Her gaze flickers over to me and immediately the color drains from her face. Her fear settles in my gut and shame washes through me hard enough to physically hurt. My stomach twists up as all my good happy memories make way for all the skin shredding anger of our last conversation.
“Xan?” she says and my name across her lips is a shock to my system.
“Briggs?” I stumble over the word having not spoken it aloud in so long.
“You really need to start checking your phone,” Jet cuts in, his arms folded against his broad chest. “I tried to warn you. Briggs is home and she’s as bullheaded as she’s ever been.”
Briggs glares at Jet still standing in front of her mother’s greenhouse. Her eyes keep flickering back to her treehouse and I can see the panic in every tense bit of her. My breathing returns to normal and slowly I pack up all my shock and shame and fear around Briggs and shove it down so I can think. I need to be able to think.
“You’re not taking down this greenhouse. It was hers.” Briggs snaps but the conviction in her voice falters.
Jet throws up his arms in frustration. “Fine. You take that up with your dad. I’m adding it into my quote though.”
He points at Briggs and they lock into a battle, something that used to amuse me. The two most stubborn people I’d ever known.
A shadow catches my attention and it belongs to a young girl running barefoot through the grass her face shadowed by a low baseball hat, long pigtail braids hung down over a loose t-shirt.
Briggs’ face pales further as the girl crashes into her and throws skinny arms around Briggs’ waist.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” the young girl says to Briggs and Jet pauses with his hands in his hair, looking at me then the girl. It takes my brain a moment to realize the girl called Briggs Mom.
Everyone is staring at me. Why is everyone staring at me?
“Nothing, sweetheart. Everything is fine.” Briggs hugs the girl to her side, her eyes burning with visible fear.
“Who are you?” the girl asks my brother and me and I finally focus on her. She’s maybe nine or ten years old, with the same big gray eyes as my sister Del, the same pointed lips as Briggs, the same high cheekbones as Pris...the same deep brown hair as me. Memories hit me from all sides.
“It’s already done. It’s taken care of.” Amalie stabbed me in the chest with her finger. “Leave her alone.”
Why do I feel like I’m going to pass out? No matter how hard I try I can’t get air in my lungs.
I glance over at my brother who looks as shocked as I feel.
“You know you’re not ready. How could you of all people be a good father?” She spewed hatred with each word.
Why does this little girl look like me? Ten years since I saw Briggs. Ten years old.
“It’s not your decision, Alexander. It wouldn’t have mattered what you thought. It wouldn’t have changed her mind.” Amalie took me in like I didn’t matter, like I never mattered.
Holy fucking shit.
“If you really love her, you’ll walk away. You’ve already destroyed my family enough. Do the right thing and let her go.”
She lied to me...
Chapter Three
BRIGGS
Even if anyone said anything in the painful five minutes of Xan and Millie staring at each other I wouldn’t have heard it. The fear I expected rushes through my body but I’m not afraid for any of the reasons I thought I’d be.
Xan tilts his head and pinches his eyebrows in confusion, but his mouth hangs open slightly and his eyes are wide and unblinking. It’s that expression that tells me everything I need to know.
He had no idea Millie exists.
I tuck my daughter closer to my side as if I can protect her from this knowledge. There’s no protecting anyone now. It’s the moment of truth, no turning back. My biggest fear stands right in front of me. I knew it was coming, I thought I’d have time to prepare.
Xan slides his hands over his face and into his hair, moving from Millie to me with a hard-accusing stare that drives guilt straight through my chest.
He didn’t know I had the baby. How did he not know I had the baby? We fought about it. I’ve sent him pictures for ten years on her birthday.
I don’t get time to ask him because he takes three giant steps backward, spins on his heel and storms away, leaving me standing there alone clutching my baby for the second time.
“Mom,” Millie says, already close to my height, but the depth of her understanding is deeper than I want it to be. “Who was that?”
I can tell she already knows. It’s hard not to, she’s an exact replica of a Ryker, inside and out. With my temper...
I tuck her closer and kiss the side of her face, not trusting my ability to speak. Jet still stands there, stunned. His hands are shoved awkwardly into the pockets of his flannel jacket and I wish he’d leave. Give me space with my girl. I must have communicated my wishes with my expression because he also backs away slowly.
“Right,” he says clearing his throat. “I’ll, uh, get back to it then.”
Millie keeps her gaze on me, her bushy dark eyebrows furrowing beneath the brim of her baseball cap. “Mom?” she says, firm but with a slight quiver.
She wants an answer. She deserves an answer.
“That was your father.” It’s the hardest sentence I’ve ever had to push from my lungs.
After a long pause her shoulders sag. “Is he angry about me?”
Her words break my heart in a thousand shards and I take her cheeks in my hands. “Sweetheart, no one is ever angry about you. We surprised him is all. He didn’t know we were here. He’ll come back. I promise.”
That dreaded word crosses my lips and I simultaneously hate and fear making the promise. He better come back. I’ll make him come back. I’ll chew up my own nerves and stomp out my fears and Xan and I will figure it out. I’ll do anything at this point to make the distant sadness on her face disappear.
Even confront the most painful night of my entire life.
#
I quietly wash and dry the dishes at the large sink in front of a bay window that overlooks the mountains behind the acreage. The tapping sound of Millie’s pencil as she does her homework mixes with the slosh of the dish water and clink of ceramic plates.
My daughter pushed out the thoughts of Xan after about fifteen minutes but I’m slowly being consumed by him. Where is he? Why isn’t he calling? Why can’t he put on his big boy pants and talk to me about this?
But most of all I can’t figure out how he didn’t know about her. I very distinctly remember being sixteen, clutching a pregnancy test in one hand while the other dialed his number. As soon as I heard his voice, I burst into soul shattering sobs and he demanded to meet me at out spot—the small creek that cut through the forest separating my house from the town of Raston.
That day was as clear as if I lived it yesterday. I sprinted through the trees driven by the need to see him, by my fear of the life growing inside me, my confusion about what it meant for my future. I told him he was going to be a father through heaving breaths and tears that ran faster than the creek water surrounding us. He sat with me in the dirt until the sun disappeared and the air cut through my skin sending ripples of shivers through my body.
He held me and kissed me and wrapped me up in his warmth.
“Everything is going to be okay, Babe. We’ll figure this out like we do everything. Together.”
How does he not know about her?
“Mom,” Millie says, her voice shattering my trance. A glass slips from my hand and smashes against the tile floor.
“Fucking hell,” I shout and then press my lips together tightly. Millie frowns at me like she always does when I swear in front of her.
“Sorry, Sweetheart,” I continue and bend to pick up the bits of glass. “Stay there. I don’t want you to cut your feet, okay?”
Millie tucks her feet up on the large wooden bench of the breakfast bar. “What were you thinking about?” she asks. “I called you like four times.”
“Nothing. Just got caught up in the mountains.”
My daughter is no dummy, she knows I’m lying. We live in a twenty-five-foot motorhome and spend almost every moment together traveling North America for my work.
Dad hobbles into the kitchen. “What’s going on in here?”
“Nothing, dropped a glass.”
As I carefully step over the small bits of glass, I realize my father’s place in all of this. He’s been here all this time. He knows that I have a kid. Even though my father has hated the Ryker’s for as long as I can remember surely, he could’ve mentioned something to Xan.
“Hey, Millie? Can you go outside before it gets dark and clean up your stuff from the treehouse, please?” I gesture toward the back door, tracing out a safe path with a sweep of my hand.
“Okay,” she says with a slow wary tone. For a nine-year-old she’s extremely empathic. No matter how good I am at hiding my emotion on the outside, she feels it. Since she was a baby, reading a room was her superpower.
“We’ll talk later. You know I’ll tell you the truth.”
I grab the broom and dustpan from the small closet by the back porch and Millie smiles for the first time since she saw Xan. I live for that lopsided toothy grin.
There’s never been a need to lie to her about our situation. I told her everything as she began to get older and question why we lived differently, why she didn’t have a dad. Sure, I edited it a bit to protect the huge heart that lived inside her small body. I told her that her daddy wasn’t ready to be there for her. I told her that having a baby was a big responsibility that some people could handle, and some people couldn’t, especially so young. I wasn’t going to tell her that he abandoned me, ghosted me and forfeited his right to our daughter through being the world’s most giant asshole. I didn’t tell her father was a coward.
I told her that we were on our own. That we had each other and took care of each other. I proved to her that we didn’t need him, that I could love her enough. That I could protect her.
The thought sends a shudder through my body. Protecting her is becoming increasingly difficult with threats now hovering in on two sides.
“Love you, Mom.” Millie says and I set aside my worries and reach for any semblance of calm I have left.
As soon as Millie’s out the door I spin around on my dad, still standing in the doorway leaning on his crutches. His face is strained and red, exhausted from the effort of lugging around a broken leg and huge heavy cast.
“Why did Xan look like he had no idea that Millie existed?”
“Pardon?” Dad says but I’m unsure what’s happening behind his stone-faced expression. Something he’s perfected being a small-town cop. Neutrality.
“When Xan saw Millie. He was shocked to see her. Like he didn’t know that she was alive. He knew I was pregnant, Dad. Why was he so confused?”
Emotion flickers across my father’s face and his tell is obvious even from across the room. My father licks his bottom lip any time he’s about to tell a lie. That’s something only Mom and I knew.
“He was probably shocked that you came home. Even if he knew you were pregnant, seeing a nine-year-old girl that looks like you is bound to be pretty disorienting.”
“He wasn’t disoriented Dad. He was completely terrified.” Even after ten years I know Xan. I know his tells as well as I know my father’s.
“Mom,” I whisper as it all became clear. Watching my dad lower his gaze and hunch his shoulders solidifies my suspicions. “Mom told him I had an abortion, didn’t she?”
My father says nothing—as usual—but it’s as good as screaming from the rooftops. We were the kind of family that fought with silence and coldness–like all good white families. We buried our feelings and talked about the weather, we went to church in our Sunday best and polite pleasantries but at home felt hollow and disconnected. We were the family that drove into town and gossiped about people like the Rykers but then smiled sweetly to their faces at church and asked them how they’d been.
“Dad,”
I say more sternly, and he sighs, hobbling to the table and lowering himself on the bench.
“Your mother’s plan was to convince you that keeping the baby was wrong for you. Her plan was to send you to Aunt Jane’s in Vancouver no matter what. You would either have an abortion or give it up for adoption.”
Anger flares through my body and I aggressively dump the glass into the trash can.
“What you call it is outside playing in your yard right now. She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“I know,” Dad says waving his hands in defense. “But you knew your mother. She was determined to separate you and the Ryker boy. A baby would only tie you to him forever. She had a plan and even after the accident I followed it. I sent you to Jane’s. I kept my mouth shut about the baby. I didn’t know for sure what Amelie told him. But it makes sense that she would have said that. It would be the only way to get him to actually leave you alone. After you two fought that night she tore out of here with a desperation that I’ve never seen. All she wanted was what was best for you. You were sixteen. You were so blindly in love with that boy.”
I sink down into the chair across from Dad and replay the painful memories of my last moments with my mother. The ones where we finally tore open the polite restraint that oppressed our family and we screamed at each other over the fate of my beautiful girl. In a small conservative town like Raston and a family like mine that cared so much about reputation, if I took a few steps back it was almost comical that my mother was trying to force me to get an abortion. I wholeheartedly believed that every woman should choose for herself what happened to and with her body. I chose Millie. That was my choice.
Never once have I regretted it.
“I called him when Millie was born. I called him to tell him about her. I wanted to give him a chance to do the right thing. I spoke to his father, but he wouldn’t let me talk to Xan. All of you were working against us.” It feels like the truth. I’ve never before had a moment where the truth was palpable. I can taste it, feel its texture on my tongue. Xan’s parents wanted us apart as much as my own did.
Wildfire Page 2
