Feisty Red (Three Chicks Brewery 2)

Clara’s heart panged as Sullivan gave a pained expression. She simply gave a smile she hoped reassured him. Done with the pain and all that was stolen from them, she spoke the truth. “He didn’t want me to go.”

“Is that why you never told him about your son?”

“That’s a complicated answer,” Clara said in all honesty. “First, Sullivan had just left to play for the Red Sox, and I was sad and confused. I wanted to tell him, but I also wanted him to achieve his dream of playing professional baseball. Ultimately, I suspected if I told Sullivan, he would have come home. But I think his father would have sucked every bit of life out of Sullivan until there was nothing left. I chose to keep Mason’s identity a secret to protect Mason…”

“From me,” Sullivan finished.

Mindy’s gaze cut to him. “Because emotionally, you weren’t well?”

Sullivan sighed dejectedly then answered with a small nod. “I haven’t been well for a very long time, and my latest suspension clearly shows that, but I’m working on dealing with the trauma from my past and am doing well.”

“You’re doing amazingly well,” Clara said before Mindy could respond. “And we’re immensely proud of him. Facing the past is hard. Especially when that past is filled with abuse.”

“Thank you.” He smiled a smile just for Clara, soft and sweet that spread warmth between them. Obviously not caring Mindy was with them, he cupped her face before planting a gentle kiss on her mouth.

Clara lost herself in the kiss, feeling every bit of his affection he put into it, as well as the cold void when he leaned away. Wanting to melt into him and get wrapped up in his arms, but also needing to finish what she’d started here, she said to Mindy, “Life is messy. It’s good and bad and sometimes really ugly. Sadly for us, we had to deal with really ugly when we weren’t old enough or mature enough to deal with that. We made choices. Hard ones. And we’ve lived with those choices, but now I know, we did what we thought was best, and all those choices came from love.”

“Deep love,” Sullivan agreed, his soft features implying a calmness she’d never seen before on his face.

For that alone, Clara would have told this story a thousand times over to a thousand reporters. Now she knew that Sullivan needed to face his story completely, as much as she needed to not let him run. The damage his father had placed on Sullivan was melting away before her eyes, slowly replaced by only the warm love his mother gave him.

“Wow,” Mindy breathed slowly, leaning back in her seat and wiping a tear off her face. Her gaze flicked between Clara and Sullivan before she shook her head. “Just wow.” She looked at her laptop’s screen for a moment, cleared away a few more tears.

Confused, Clara glanced at Sullivan. He just shrugged.

The ding of the cash registered followed the shuttering sound of the till tape paper printing before Mindy finally closed her laptop and set it aside. “I’m not this horrible paparazzi reporter who wants to ruin either of your lives. I’m just out of school, needed a job and some writing experience, and this is where I ended up.”

“Okay,” said Clara, having no idea where Mindy was going with this.

She pressed her hand against her chest, her fingers splayed out. “Your story is really touching. Complicated and emotional, but even I can see all the love in there. So, I promise I’ll write just what you told me and make sure to keep your son’s best interests in mind.”

Sullivan lifted an eyebrow. “And your editor will agree to that?”

“I’ll get her to agree,” Mindy said, speaking into the recorder like she had nothing to hide. “Because some stories need to be told, and yours is one of them.”

Heat radiated through Clara’s chest as she turned to Sullivan and smiled. “She’s right, you know, our story does need to be told.”

The noise, the customers, even Mindy disappeared as Sullivan cupped her face, moving closer. “No more hiding. No more pretending. We protect Mason the best we can, but let’s move forward. We’ll do this, together.”

She brought her mouth close to his and promised, “Together.”

16

One week had gone by since Sullivan sat next to Clara as she told a version of their story to the reporter in the coffee shop, who later printed the article. An article that bled the truth in all its rawness and had showed all the love between the hard times. The past days had been good ones. Clara and her sisters had decided to sign with Ronnie after getting the exact terms she asked for. And Ronnie had joined in the celebratory dinner, including meeting his nephew for the first time. In the coming months, Foxy Diva would find its way into stores and restaurants throughout North America, and Sullivan had no doubt the success would only continue from there. He’d requested another couple of weeks off from his coach to get things settled in River Rock before returning to Fort Myers, and the request had been granted. In a surprise that he had never seen coming, he received kindness not scrutiny from the article and the press, and the truth was, with Sullivan becoming an instant-family man, the focus had shifted off him and moved on to the next hottest bachelor in baseball who they could get their claws into. But that new family of his was the reason he and Clara were bringing Mason to Sullivan’s old childhood home.

After he unlocked the front door, he let Clara and Mason enter the house first.

“I’m checking out back,” Mason yelled, running through the house.

“Be careful,” Clara called after him.

Sullivan stepped farther in, and just the smell, a little dusty but familiar, brought Sullivan back to good memories with his mother and his father before everything changed. He tried hard to think of the before, remembering the good, not the bad, as Elizabeth had taught him. He decided to stay in therapy, and when he couldn’t see her at her office in River Rock, they planned to talk over Zoom. He moved down the hallway where shattered family pictures and memories once lay. Now all of that was gone. He entered the living room with the big bay window on the front that had once displayed flowered curtains, but now lay empty. The only thing left was the old brown carpet. And even that needed to go.

Clara sidled up next to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. He gathered her in his arms as she said, “After your dad passed away, I sold all the furniture in an estate auction. I figured, even if you came back, you wouldn’t want the money, so I put it all in Mason’s education fund.”

He kissed the top of her head. “That was exactly the right thing to do with the money.”

“But I did keep some of your mother’s things. We can pull those boxes from the attic.”