One Hot Secret (Love on Fire)

“Will you come back for another visit, son?” she asks me, her voice trembling.

I’m halfway to the door when I turn. I look at my father, and he gives me a lopsided grin. He always enjoyed pissing me off, and it’s sad to see that we’ll never move beyond that.

I shift my gaze to my mother, and my heart goes out to her. She’s not a bad person, but she’s married to a man I don’t understand or even like. Admitting that I don’t like my own father feels like a load off my shoulders.

“I won’t, Mom,” I tell her. “There’s no point to this.”

“But—”

“Let him go,” my father snarls. “He’s never wanted to be around us.”

Maybe he’s right. Whatever the case, I’m a grown man, and I don’t need to keep playing childish power games with my father.

Chapter 34

Kyle

I’m mentally exhausted when I get home, and the only face I want to see is Grace’s. I find her in the sunroom, her concentration so great that she doesn’t hear me when I push the door open. I stay still to watch her as she works. She looks so beautiful and peaceful with her hair held up in a messy bun at the top of her head and wisps of it falling on the side of her face. Her hand masterfully moves the brush across the canvas creating a gorgeous landscape of the snow-white beach.

I take a step closer, and that’s when she looks up, and a smile lights up her face. Then a look of concern replaces the smile.

“Hey there,” she says as she stands up.

“Hi, sorry for interrupting. I just needed to see you.” I open my arms, and she walks into them. I hold her tight against me, losing myself in her softness.

“Don’t even say that. I’ve been looking out the window every five minutes,” she says and squeezes me tight. “How are you?”

“I’m okay, but I could do with some coffee,” I tell her.

“Let’s go.”

Hand in hand, we go downstairs, and I sit on the island stool while Grace gets the coffee machine going.

I let out a yawn. I feel tired, and it’s not two o’clock yet. Grace makes me a sandwich as well and places it together with the coffee in front of me.

“Thanks.”

“How’s your father?” she says sitting across from me.

“As rude as ever,” I tell her, trying to lighten up the moment. I tell her everything that happened from the moment I walked into my father’s hospital room.

In between talking, I eat my sandwich, glad to have a distraction.

Grace is not aware that she has fisted her hands. A range of emotions flits across her very expressive face. Horror, disgust, and then barely concealed anger.

“Your father is a horrible human being,” she finally says. “I’m sorry that you’ve had to deal with that all your life.”

My chest expands with emotion. It’s nice to have someone say aloud what no one had ever said. My father is the one who is flawed.

“I thought they could never say or do anything to hurt me anymore. I was wrong,” I tell her. “It hurt like hell when the first thing my father said to me had to do with money when we haven’t seen each other in years.”

“The people we love have the power to build us or to hurt us,” Grace says. “I wish I was there to hold your hand.”

“I’m glad you were not.” I would not have wanted Grace to witness my father’s meanness and rejection.

“How can someone treat their own son so badly?” Grace says, speaking as if to herself. “What about your mother?”

I shrug. “She was okay, and she scolded him, which was a huge change from how she used to be. Still, the damage was done a long time ago. I always felt as if she was choosing him over me. It’s crazy to feel that way about your parents, but that’s how it was.” The dynamics of our family were weird. We were never one unit. It was always my father against me, which left Mom to pick sides, and she always defended him however wrong he was. That had hurt badly, and it still did.

“I know what you mean. It was weird in my biological family too. The only difference was that I don’t think my parents realized I existed. My mom’s life revolved around my dad’s, and in not paying attention to me, it felt as if he always came first in her life. Which I suppose he did.”

“Why do people have children if they don’t intend to take care of them?” I ask Grace.

She shrugs. “I’ll reward the person who ever gives me an answer to that question.”

That makes me smile. “We’re two fucked up people, Grace.”

“Used to be. We’ve healed each other, and we continue to heal each other,” she says.