She jerked away. “I have to go.”
A photograph of his dad’s truck wrapped around that tree had been in the Cupid’s Bow Chronicle. The image seared him. He didn’t want her driving while she was upset. “Can I take you home?”
She shot him a withering glare.
Right. That had been a dumb-ass question. “Can I call Leanne to pick you up then?”
“I’ll be fine. I just don’t want to be here.”
Didn’t want to be anywhere near him, she meant. He didn’t blame her. He deserved her contempt. “Will you at least text me when you get home, so I know you made it safe?”
She nodded tightly, climbing back into the car without saying a word.
The girl who’d wanted to see the world had lost her scholarship because he’d been so petty he’d tried to frame Reggie George for a juvenile crime. So much guilt and self-loathing surged through him that he half expected to choke on it. I was an idiot. Even if Reggie did get in trouble for the prank, it wouldn’t have changed the years of bullying that came before. It wouldn’t have brought back Grayson’s mom. Or resurrected his father. It had been an empty gesture that had harmed one of the sweetest people he knew.
He staggered blindly toward the house. Basic muscle memory carried him through a shower, his mind reeling. He got shampoo in his eyes but didn’t care. The second he stepped out, he reached for the phone to see if Hadley had texted. But it took another ten minutes before he got her message: I’m here.
I’m sorry, he typed back. Apologizing again felt hollow. It didn’t fix anything. But he couldn’t not apologize.
Three dots appeared, as if she was responding, but then they vanished. No answer ever came. And he supposed he deserved that, too.
* * *
HADLEY CHUCKED HER cell phone onto the couch, not wanting to exchange further messages with Grayson. Not tonight. She was too infuriated by what he’d told her. Too infuriated by the memory of his teenage self, the guy who’d rebuffed her the couple times she’d tried to reach out to him. Now, she regretted ever feeling bad for him. He hadn’t just been some misunderstood loner having trouble finding his crowd; he’d been a mascot-stealing bastard who’d jacked with her future.
To hell with Grayson Cox.
I’m going to write. She punched the power button on her laptop, looking forward to murder. One of her characters would not survive the night. Maybe more than one.
She paced the living room while she waited for the computer to boot up and found herself pulling her favorite romance novel off the cluttered mantel. What’s with the book, Lanier? She was enraged, not in the mood for a sentimental happy ending.
Nonsense. Calm logic came from somewhere deep within her brain, below the churning emotions and sense of betrayal. It’s always a good time for a happy ending. The world needs more happy.
Grayson Cox had needed more happiness in a childhood filled with loss and hurt. Do not make excuses for him. Plenty of people faced challenges without resorting to grand-theft donkey. What he did was not justified.
The house phone rang, and she jumped, dropping her book. Hardly anyone called her landline anymore, especially at this hour. She glanced at the display screen on the cordless phone. Lanier, Wanda. “Hey, Mom. Everything okay?”
“I wanted to thank you for taking care of Bear,” her mother said. “Tried your cell first. Is it silly that I worried when you didn’t answer? I know you’re a grown woman, but with you living all alone...”
Hadley’s house was outside the more expensive cluster of subdivisions in town. Her closest neighbor was half a mile away. “Sorry. I’m...” Avoiding the good-looking cowboy who destroyed my dreams. “Charging my cell. Didn’t hear it. How was the meeting?”
“Good, good. Bunny Neill raised a few eyebrows, though, when she suggested a toga-party theme for the Watermelon Festival. I couldn’t tell if she was just messing with people or if she actually thought it was a good idea. She said it reminded her of her college days.”
College. Hadley’s vision blurred as tears stung her eyes. She had her diploma from a much cheaper, closer university than she’d planned to attend. She’d lost her first choice just like she’d lost her ability to play ball. She’d loved softball. It had brought her out of her shell. It had brought her closer to her family; they hadn’t always known how to relate to her wild imagination or her love of getting lost in a book, but they knew how to cheer like the proudest parents in the bleachers. Grayson had screwed that all up for her.
“Hadley, dear? Are you still there?”
“Sorry, Mom. Just tired, I guess. I should go—big day tomorrow with work and the reunion afterward.”
“All right. Good night, then. I love you.”
Hadley hung up the phone thinking about the fights she used to have with her sister when she was in grade school and Leanne was in middle school. Their mother would admonish them to forgive each other, “not for your sister’s sake but for your own. Forgiveness is so much healthier than anger.”
Hadley believed that. She wanted to forgive Grayson. She just didn’t know where to start.
* * *
THE BOYS WERE asleep when Vi got home. Grayson was relieved. He couldn’t bear to face the twins tonight. Being their guardian made him want to be the best possible role model—Blaine had left big boots to fill—and he’d never been more ashamed of himself than he was tonight.
He helped Vi carry in the boys. He tugged off their shoes, but let them sleep in their clothes, almost envying their soft peaceful snores. Grayson doubted he’d get a wink of sleep tonight.
“How was your first day of work?” Vi asked softly as they left the room.
Honestly, he hardly remembered a thing about his day before his confrontation with Hadley in the yard. He couldn’t believe he’d hurt her. Had his actions had other repercussions he’d yet to learn about? Dread trembled through him; the time to confess had come. Would Aunt Vi ever look at him the same?
“I have to talk to you,” he said haltingly.
She frowned. “Okay. You look awful. Whatever it is, we’ll work through it tog—”
“I don’t deserve your help.” He sank onto the sofa, cradling his head in his hands. “I’m a terrible person.”
She sat next to him. “That’s not true.”
“You don’t know. When I came to live with you, after Dad died, I was so angry. I hated everyone. I hated this town, and I did stupid things. Stealing, graffiti, vandalism.”
She sucked in a breath. “Then Jim was—”
He jerked his head up, startled. What did her ex-boyfriend have to do with this? “Violet?”
“Nothing.” She bit her lip, her eyes troubled.
He’d never done anything to Jim. At least, not directly. “Did I hurt him somehow?”
“No. He was suspicious, though. Tried to warn me that he thought you were up to no good. But we’d been having other problems, and I thought... Well, I didn’t believe him.”
His stomach knotted. “Please tell me that’s not why you broke up.” The consequences of his actions were so much worse than he’d known. “If I hurt you, too...”
“Who did you hurt?”
“You remember how Hadley lost her scholarship because of injuries? She got hurt because of a dumb-ass prank that I pulled. I didn’t know until tonight. I stole our rival school’s mascot and put it in Reggie George’s family shed as payback for years of torment.” The irony was brutal. One of the reasons he’d hated Reggie was because he’d always been able to weasel out of getting in trouble. His father had seen to that. Reggie had never taken responsibility. Now, Grayson realized he was just as bad. Worse, maybe.
“Grayson.” Vi’s voice was heavy with disappointment.
“Hadley didn’t know the donkey was in the shed. How could she? She startled it, it kicked, she fell into a shelving unit...” He was choking on t
oo much regret and self-loathing to keep going. “I don’t know if she’ll ever talk to me again.”
His aunt squeezed his hand, and the gesture of comfort left him weak with relief and humility.
“I am so sorry, Violet.” His voice broke. “I was a rotten kid.”
“You were a wounded kid, suffering multiple tragedies. I should have seen how—”
“Please don’t blame yourself.” This was what he’d feared when he came back to Cupid’s Bow and first considered coming clean. He’d wanted to be honest with her, but not at the expense of hurting her. “You did the best you could to turn me into a good person.”
“You are a good person. Hadley knows that. I have to believe that, in time, she’ll forgive you. And you’re not the only one who made mistakes. There’s something I should tell you,” she said raggedly. “Before I do, it’s important that you know Jim and I, much as we loved each other, had problems before I got custody of you. He always seemed to want a little more than I could give. On the one hand, he praised me for caring about other people, but then he’d complain that I had more time for volunteering than I did for him. So we could’ve self-destructed even if you’d never come to live with me. But we did have a huge fight once over a lie I told you.”
“A lie?” He had no trouble imagining Vi telling a fib for someone else’s own good, but he couldn’t think of anything big enough that it would cause a real fight.
“A lie of omission. A secret I kept.” She took a deep breath. “A week after your junior year started, Rachel showed up here.”
“Mom?” It was an oddly familiar word to use when he could barely picture what she looked like. “My mother came here?”
“While you were in school. She showed up at the front door in tears, said she’d only recently learned of your father’s passing, cooed over my pictures of you like a proud mama. And we cried over our dad dying, too. For a moment, I thought she was going to come home, that we’d all be a family.”
Family. He had so many mixed reactions to the word. It was both what he’d craved and what had always hurt him the most, with Aunt Vi as the only exception. And now he was even regarding her with wary misgivings, waiting to hear the rest of her tale.
“She finally told me about her new husband in San Antonio and mentioned that they’d been trying—unsuccessfully—to get pregnant. She didn’t want to come back to Cupid’s Bow, she wanted to take you with her. And you might have picked that, if I’d given you a choice, but I saw red. I was furious she might try to use you as a Band-Aid in her marriage, providing her husband with a convenient son to watch football with and take fishing. So I threw her out. The first time she left you, it was her own selfish decision. But the second time? I decided. I was so scared she would take you away, scared she’d hurt you all over again.”
It took him a minute to find his voice. “And she just let you? You tossed her out and she went without a fight?” He was Rachel’s biological son, and Vi had been young. Odds were, his married mother could have easily won a custody battle—if she’d cared enough to initiate one. Why should it sting that she hadn’t? He’d known for most of his life that he wasn’t a priority for the woman.
“I haven’t talked to her since that day,” Vi continued. “But she left a phone number. I have no idea if it’s still good or not. Her new name is—or was—Rachel Nance, and San Antonio was her last known location.”
All those years, wondering if his mom was hiking through the Rockies or living the beach life in Cali or off somewhere in Europe, and she’d been right here in the freaking state?
“I should have told you sooner,” she said tremulously.
Probably. But, as she’d said, people make mistakes. The difference was, her mistake came from a place of caring and trying to protect someone she loved. Grayson’s had been malicious, fueled by vengeful anger. “I don’t know how I would’ve reacted if you’d offered me the choice to go with her. But I do know, you’ve been there for me from the very beginning.”
“You’re not mad?”
“You were young and trying to do the best you could. I can relate.” He glanced down the hall toward the boys’ room. “I want to be better. I want to put good in the world.”
What he really wanted was to take back the past, but no amount of wishing for good intentions would undo what he’d done to Hadley.
* * *
CONSIDERING THE LACK of sleep he’d gotten, it was amazing Grayson was even awake at seven in the morning, much less pulling up to the Cupid’s Bow park.
Last night, he’d told Vi about his idea of doing anonymous good deeds. She was torn between approving and worrying that it counted as trespassing. “If you get busted on someone else’s property,” she’d said, “at least I’m on good terms with the sheriff. I did a webform for his wife so her piano students could schedule lessons online.” But Violet had encouraged him to think bigger when it came to his community payback.
“You have a lot to make up for,” she’d said. “Maybe you should start with teenagers making the same kind of bad decisions you made.”
“You mean volunteering to supervise your mentorship program?”
“I was thinking something more immediate. There’s a trio of high schoolers picking up litter at the park first thing in the morning. They were assigned community service in lieu of suspension. I was going to chaperone, but you could fill in for me. Plus, the church food pantry can always use volunteers to sort through donations and weed out expired goods. But do you know what I think would be really fitting penance for you?” She’d grinned with sudden mischief.
“I am literally afraid to ask.”
“You should be on the Watermelon Festival committee!”
“A festival? Dear Lord. Anything but that.”
But he knew he would give in—just as he’d agreed to be here this morning, in the parking lot with a clipboard of names and participation forms, waiting for his three felon-teers.
As a parent dropped off a surly teen with a goatee, an ancient sedan drove up and parked nearby. The kid who climbed out was built like a linebacker and all but snarled when he saw his classmate. According to the paperwork, these must be Chet Isley and Darren Babineaux, dragged into the principal’s office for fighting. Ten years down the road, would Sam or Tyler be in similar circumstances? I’ll be raising teenagers. Heaven help him.
A moment later, a girl biked into the lot, joining them after she’d securely chained her bicycle. She was nearly as tall as Grayson, her head shaved on one side, and she had what looked like a tattoo on her forearm, but once she stood next to him, he realized the lines were drawn on with pen and beginning to smudge.
“Mona Flores?” he asked, checking the list. “Here for skipping class.”
“Ma-ath,” she said, drawing it out to two disdainful syllables. “I’m going to art school, not joining an engineering program. So what if I ditched one period?”
“One?” The burlier of the two boys snorted. “Half your teachers couldn’t pick you out of a lineup.”
She leveled a glare at him. “Funny you should mention lineups, Isley. Heard your brother was arrested again. You keep starting fights, the two of you can share a cell. It’ll be like a family reunion!”
The kid with the goatee—Babineaux, by default—laughed, and Isley shoved his shoulder. Grayson promptly inserted himself between them before hostilities could escalate. “Knock it off. If the three of you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’ll be spending a lot more weekends together—and that’s a best-case scenario.” He handed Mona a pair of gloves and a bag. “Getting expelled could hurt your chances of getting into art school. Stick with your classes. All of them.”
As she tugged on the gloves, he added, “When I was in school, I hated physics. It’s not like I was going to be a scientist and Mr. Sherman was the most boring man alive.”
Babineaux groaned. “Sherman is the
worst.”
“Well, when I started doing professional rodeo, I discovered that force and acceleration are part of successful bull riding. Learn everything you can while you’re in school, you never know what you might need later. Mona, if you’re no good at calculating time spent and supply costs, how will you know what to charge people for your brilliant artwork?”
Her lips twitched. “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Equipment in hand, she headed down the sidewalk.
He turned to the other two. “As for you—”
Isley rolled his eyes. “Is this where you tell us we should put aside our differences and become buddies?”
“Do I look like an idiot to you? Don’t,” he added when Babineaux opened his mouth to respond. “What I was going to say was, it’s a big park. Plenty of room for you to split up and focus on collecting litter instead of antagonizing each other. Frankly, I don’t care if the two of you get along or not.” At seventeen, nothing in the world could have coerced him to befriend Reggie George. Hell, he wasn’t sure he could bring himself to buddy up to the man now.
But maybe he owed the man an apology for that stunt with the high-school mascot. Previous years of Reggie being awful did not excuse the awful thing Grayson had done. Would the man be attending the reunion tonight?
The only person he knew for sure was going was Hadley. If you change your mind, come say hi. When she’d issued that invitation, only days ago, she’d still liked him. The thought that he might’ve lost her friendship ate away at him like an acid burn. If he went to the reunion, he could apologize in person. She might see that he was trying to face his past, trying to do better.
Or she might throw a cup of punch in his face. Only one way to find out.
Chapter Eight
The high-school gymnasium had never looked more festive. Alumni entered through a balloon arch in the school colors, and everything inside was decorated with tiny twinkle lights. Hadley, who’d treated herself to a new dress from the local boutique, felt appropriately elegant. But hardly festive.
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