Caspian (Carolina Reapers 8)

I sighed, finishing off my water and crunched the bottle with one hand. I earned a chiding look from my mother for that, but could she really blame me? “Mom,” I groaned, not reaching for the magazine despite being seriously tempted to. I wondered if they had a master welding course… “We’ve talked about this.” I shook my head. “That ship has sailed.”

“Bullshit,” she said, and I raised my brows at her response. “You love sculpting. Welding. Creating. It’s what you were born to do—”

“I’m running the hardware store,” I cut her off. “That’s what I love to do.”

She flashed me a look that screamed she knew better. “You know I can do that on my own.”

“You retired before Dad died,” I reminded her. “And besides, I would never just leave you to—”

“Be a fully grown adult by myself?” she asked sarcastically. “How ever did I manage to live my entire life without your help?”

I huffed a laugh. “Well, at least we know where I get my sarcasm from.”

She patted the magazine. “You’ve loved building and creating since you were a little girl, Ryleigh,” she said, like I may have somehow forgotten that. “You were always in the barn with your daddy, begging him to teach you how to use any tool he owned, and convincing him to buy plenty he didn’t need.” My heart ached with the swell of memories that hit me in the chest.

“I miss him,” I admitted on a breath. The thing about grief? Didn’t matter if you’d completed all stages of it, didn’t matter if you’d come to terms with living your life without that constant presence, it never wholly went away. It merely changed. It no longer crushed the breath from my lungs to miss my dad, but it was a constant ache in my chest I’d never lose.

“I know you do,” she said. “So do I. So does Evan, but you don’t see him throwing away his dreams to live out some life under the guise of it’s what your father would’ve wanted.”

My lips parted open. “Dad was so proud of me,” I said, a bit sharper than intended. “He couldn’t wait for me to have that house, that life with Chuck. Raise babies and have dogs, all of it.”

Mom pinched her brow before shaking her head, a sweet but sad sort of smile on her face. She reached over and laid her hands over mine. “Honey, he was proud of you no matter what you did.”

“He looked at the land with me, Mom. You didn’t see the look on his face when he saw the land I’d build my and Chuck’s dream house on.”

“Oh, you mean the look he always wore when you were doing anything you loved?” she asked, and I tilted my head at her. “He would’ve been just as excited and proud if you’d taken him on a tour of the art school campus and talked about your master’s program all day long.”

Denial rose up in my chest, but I squashed it. She wasn’t wrong. Dad had always supported me, but…the house, my life with Chuck, it was one of the last things we’d talked about before he died. We’d laughed and joked, and I’d pictured a future in that house, with him and Mom visiting on the weekends, all of us drinking tea on the front porch. Happy…I’d pictured a future with a whole family, and ever since he died, that picture was unraveling. I kept desperately trying to cling to those fraying strings, but the harder I tried the faster they slipped through my fingers.

“It doesn’t matter,” I finally said, and Mom drew up in her seat, pulling her hands away from mine. “I’m running the store. I’m going to get that house—”

“Oh, darling,” Mom cut over me, shaking her head. “You cannot possibly tell me it doesn’t matter. You have a passion, a dream, and you’re holding yourself back and blaming your father’s last wishes on it.” The words made me flinch, but she didn’t stop. “Evan is going to school to take over the family store,” she said. “That has been his dream since your dad took him in there when he was seven and showed him how to use the register. He’ll be home soon, and I can manage it until then. Stop holding yourself back. You have no idea how far you can fly if you just let yourself leap.”

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, the words getting tangled in my throat. I knew my brother wanted the store and would take it over once he finished his business degree, but I always thought when he did, I’d start my life with Chuck. But after what happened with Caspian? I could barely see the future Chuck and I had planned. It was like someone else’s dream covered in fog and painted in greys.