by Abby Brooks
Beyond Love
The Hutton Family Book 2
Abby Brooks
Contents
Foreword
Prologue
I. Then
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
II. Now
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Epilogue
Wounded Sneak Peek
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Also by Abby Brooks
Acknowledgments
Connect With Abby Brooks
Foreword
Family is a strong theme in all of my books. As is growth and learning to love yourself for who you are, flaws and all.
In some of my other series, the family itself is damn near flawless, and the only things my characters have to overcome are their own weaknesses and misguided beliefs.
That’s not true for the Huttons.
In this series, I want to explore not only the growth of the characters, but also the healing of the family after their father's death. When I came to the end of book one, I realized that in order to really explore the healing, I needed to look at the sickness itself.
While Burke Hutton started out as the perfect image of a father, he fell into alcoholism and slowly devolved into the kind of man that rattled his family to pieces instead of bringing them together.
What was it like to grow up with a man like that as a father?
What scars did it leave on the family, and how can they honestly move forward without spreading the rot he planted in their hearts?
Wyatt’s story starts before his father’s death—which was where book one picked up. In the beginning of Beyond Love, Wyatt is twenty-one, with a good heart, but not enough experience in the world to understand the insidiousness of his father’s manipulations.
It’s only as he is pulled into the lies and deceit that he learns the true boundaries of his morals. Through the crucible of being tested time and again he learns the depth of his strength.
How many times have good people been taken advantage of by some unscrupulous someone? How many times has that person been their father?
Kara (Car-uh, not Care-uh) faces some of the same challenges. Her mother is smart, crazy, and suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. (It’s never diagnosed in the story, but it is the backbone of the character.) This is Kara’s coming of age story, and as she grows, as she falls in love with Wyatt, she learns how all-encompassing her mother’s presence is in her life and slowly extricates herself.
It’s not easy, but I can’t imagine that turning your back on a parent ever is.
In my opinion, quiet strength is the most powerful. It doesn’t need the fireworks of spite and anger. It doesn’t need harsh words, or the satisfaction of revenge. It simply is. A steel-infused spine and a heart clear of doubt…
Through their story Wyatt and Kara learn hard lessons about themselves, about their parents, about the nature and balance of strength. Their obstacles forge them into one heart, beating together.
And as the Hutton family learns everything these two struggled through over the years, they all take one giant step forward in healing from the havoc Burke wreaked on their hearts and minds.
Together.
Prologue
Wyatt
My family knew our father was the villain in our story. What they didn’t know was he had an accomplice.
Me.
Wyatt Hutton. The optimist. The man with a quick laugh and easy smile. The hard-working second son who sacrificed his wants and needs for the greater good of his family.
While that might have been true in the beginning, by the time my father was done with me, it was only a façade. I didn’t just keep his secrets, I helped him bury them. I lied. I cheated. I stole. Under his guidance, I explored the darkest sides of my personality, and as much as they disgusted me, I didn’t turn away. Instead, I embraced them, then covered it all up and put on a brave face for everyone else.
Burke Hutton—the patriarch of our family, publicly beloved for his philanthropy, privately loathed for his alcoholism—had a mistress. A mistress with a taste for the decadent. A mistress with a daughter.
The girl wasn’t my father’s child, though it might have been better if she was.
Maybe things wouldn’t have gone so far.
Maybe my dad would have gotten tired of the woman if it wasn’t for the girl—a child he seemed to love more than his own flesh and blood.
Maybe I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes if it wasn’t for her.
Kara Lockhart. Innocent. Off-limits. And in desperate need of my protection.
She and I existed on the razor’s edge of hate and love.
She was the biggest secret—and deepest regret—of my life.
I
Then
Chapter One
Wyatt
Growing up, my dad’s office was the most foreboding place in our home. Shrouded in shadows and stress, decorated with brooding masculinity and a firm, no-children policy, stepping over the threshold was akin to trespassing and punishable to the furthest extent of the law. As I aged and our home grew from a charming little bed and breakfast into a full-blown resort, I became a welcome asset in the room, but even now, as an adult, I found myself lingering in the doorway as if I needed permission to enter.
My father stood in front of the windows behind his desk, suitcoat draped over the back of his chair, shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows. Seemingly unaware of my presence, he sipped whisky as he stared at the ocean behind the house. Sunlight sliced through the window, catching in his salt and pepper hair and hiding his face in shadow.
It seemed a fitting metaphor.
Darkness overtaking light.
The father he had been devoured by the drunk he had become.
Massive furniture dominated the room. An imposing desk—dark wood and hard angles, with a towering, black leather chair hunkering behind it. Giant bookshelves covered in tomes I doubted he even read loomed against the walls. Mom tried to soften the room by adding plants and flowers, as if the pops of color and life could chase away the dark, but it didn’t help. The darkness always won.
“Jesus, Wyatt. In or out.” Dad sipped his drink, never taking his eyes off the window, his posture dripping disdain. No matter what choice I made, it would be the wrong one. If I stepped into his office, I would be the worst interruption of his day. If I backed away, he would see me as weak and therefore not worth his time in the first place.
The urge to flip him the bird, walk out the front door, and keep on going until I was somewhere else—anywhere else—was strong. It had been for years. But as always, the thought of leaving Mom, Eli, and Harlow to deal with Dad kept me stuck where I was. I chose to stay for them, positioning myself as a buffer between the members of my family. If I left, they would have to d
eal with the asshole my father had become, and they deserved better than that. And so, I pushed those darker thoughts away and focused on my many reasons to smile—health, wealth, and a (mostly) happy family.
As I stepped over the threshold, Dad turned. “Take a seat.” He indicated the chair across from his desk, then lowered himself into his own with a scowl.
Burke Hutton became predatory when he hung out with Jack Daniels. His actions weren’t accidentally cruel. They were purposefully malicious. Crafted with the sole intention of targeting a weakness—one he had personally installed—and striking with enough force to knock me off balance. Over the years, I had learned to read his posture, the curl of his lips, the glint in his eye. His demeanor as he regarded me over his desk warned me to brace myself.
“At twenty-one, you’re almost enough of a man to see the world for what it is. Cruel and hard.” The way he narrowed his eyes made me wonder if he knew he was also describing himself. “Not the fairy tale world your mother lives in,” he added, almost under his breath.
Mom’s consistent optimism had once been a trait my father admired. As the years passed and his drinking increased, he grew to look down on her ability to find the good in anything. He claimed it made her weak. Vulnerable and easily taken advantage of. I often wondered if his anger stemmed from some awareness that he was the one taking advantage. It had to be easier to point his hatred outward instead of looking inward.
Dad cleared his throat, claiming my attention. “It’s time for me to bring you in on a bit of a family secret.”
Though, as he launched into his story, it became clear this wasn’t a family secret.
This was his secret.
And it was terrible.
I listened in shock as my father told me about the mistress he had been supporting for the last three years. A mistress with a daughter—not his, thank God—and expensive taste. When he noticed the rage boiling beneath my surface, he paused long enough to laugh, a sound that buried bitterness in the pit of my stomach.
“You go right ahead and look all high and mighty now,” he said as clouds covered the sun, casting a shadow over the room, “but wait a few years. Marriage is a prison sentence and men—real men—are built for freedom.” He threw back the rest of his drink and spun the glass on the desk. “I’m dying a slow death with your mother.”
“You’re dying a slow death because you drink too much.” My mother was a beautiful woman with a generous heart, someone who went out of her way to help people. She was too good for my father, and everyone knew it—even him, though he would never admit it.
Burke’s eyebrows hit his hairline and I braced myself for his spiteful retort. Instead, he smirked and poured himself another glass. “The sooner the better then, right?”
There was probably a part of all of us that felt that way, though we wouldn’t admit it. There was something awful in knowing hatred filled a heart that should be brimming with love. Instead, we made plans to scatter to the wind as soon as we were able, severing the very ties that kept us strong when we were young.
My older brother Lucas had been so desperate to get away, he joined the Marines the day he graduated from high school. My younger brother Caleb moved out the day he turned eighteen, supporting himself on a part-time fast food salary as he finished his senior year. Eli counted the days until he could do the same. And poor Harlow had basically disappeared into herself, drawing and writing and playing the guitar as if she thought she could find a way to exist entirely in her own head.
While I was lost in thought, Dad continued to drone on about the mistress and her daughter—Madeline and Kara. I hoped he would get to the point quickly so I could decide what I was going to do with this knowledge.
“Man…that Kara…” Dad zeroed in on me, his gaze sharp as he catalogued my reaction. “That girl is something else. Sixteen. Smart. Talented. Good at everything she does.” Those exact words could be used to describe Harlow, but Dad treated her like he would be happier if she didn’t exist. His lip curled as he went in for the kill. “You could learn a lot from her. She’s got more balls than you’ll ever have.”
She also, apparently, had private school tuition that needed paying. A luxury dad’s biological children never had because, in his opinion, we needed a good dose of reality that only public school could provide.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, though I assumed he needed to clear his conscience. Dragging me down with him was just icing on the cake. I was part priest, part co-conspirator—absolving him of his sins as he implicated me in his crimes.
“As I get older”—Dad paused to take another drink—“it’s going to get harder for me to hide these things. Especially the financial stuff. Your mom’s too smart for her own good.”
When he said older, he meant more of a drunk. “And you want me to help you hide it.” The realization was a bucket of ice water poured over my head. I wasn’t built for lies or deceit. Those things planted worry in my stomach and the roots dug painfully through my bones. Love and trust were meant to be honored, not thrown to the side like trash in the gutter.
“My son, ladies and gentlemen.” Dad hefted his glass. “A Mensa candidate for sure.”
I let the barb roll off me like water. Showing Dad he hit a sensitive spot only gave him a place to aim the next time and I was getting pretty good at laughing off his insults. “I won’t do this,” I said. “I can’t lie to Mom. To my brothers and sister. This is your mess. You deal with it.”
The man across from me had once been everything a boy could hope for in a father. Loving and kind. Willing to build his dreams out of sweat and hard work, and competent in teaching his children to do the same. Somewhere along the way, the alcohol burned that man out of existence, leaving nothing but a shell of the person I once admired. The intelligence that had allowed him to build The Hutton Hotel out of nothing but my mother’s hopes and dreams was now allocated to finding new ways to torture his family and further his addictions.
“You have to do this.” Dad glared at me, all joviality falling from his face. “If this secret comes out, it will destroy us. The whole damn family will fall to pieces, and you know as well as anyone that the family is the reason the hotel is so successful. If we go to shit, so does the business, and then what will we have? Nothing. No money. No credibility. We’d lose the house. Lose each other. We’d be done. That’s why I chose you. Caleb’s too weak, Eli’s too dumb, Lucas is gone, and Harlow’s head is filled with fluff. But you…you always do what’s right.” Dad lifted his glass. “Even when it’s stupid.”
An hour later, we pulled to a stop in front of a pretentious condo with manicured lawns, drooping palms, and a price tag so high, it made my head spin.
“What does Madeline do for a living?” I asked as I shut the car door behind me, swallowing a groan as the heat and humidity of the Florida Keys in July stole my breath. Saying her name felt dirty, like I was making room for her in my head and I really didn’t want her there.
“Me.” Dad smirked over his shoulder as he strode up the walk.
Great. So the mistress had expensive taste and no way to support it without dipping into my father’s wallet. I took in the soaring architecture and pristine landscaping, trying to figure out the monthly rent, imagining dollar signs on everything I saw. “Let me guess. You pay for all of this.”
The front door burst open as a bleached-blonde tornado siren came screeching into Dad’s arms. “Burkey!” she squealed, her bright red lips cracking into a crocodile smile.
Dad grabbed the woman’s breast and gave it a squeeze. “Paid for these, too,” he said to me, while Madeline laughed and swatted at his hand. He flashed me a grin like a slap in the face.
Over the years, I thought I had come to terms with the man my father had become. That while he wasn’t perfect, we’d all found a sense of equilibrium, making the best out of a bad thing. But standing on that sidewalk, watching him grope a woman who was not my mother, I realized there was nothing left of the man he
used to be—of the man I secretly wished he would still be.
Madeline required an introduction, clearly unaware that Burke Hutton had kids. “Your son, huh?” She leered at me as thoughts ticked away behind cruel eyes. “It sure is a pleasure to get to know you,” she purred, before calling over her shoulder, “Kara! Baby! Come here! There’s someone you just have to meet!”
The last person I wanted to meet was the girl. I hadn’t wanted to meet the mother, but that seemed a necessary evil as I would now be directly involved with helping her maintain her lifestyle. Meeting the girl—a child who made my father smile when I couldn’t remember the last time any of his real family had managed that particular feat—felt like a step too far.
And the grin on Dad’s face told me he agreed. Why did he take such pleasure in my discomfort? And for that matter, why did I care? He was a bitter old man intent on self-destruction. Instead of letting him drag me down, I focused on a drooping palm swaying in the breeze and the unending stretch of sky behind it until something, this sense of urgency, this knowing, demanded my attention.
Hey, the something whispered. Look up. This is important. Look up. Now.
