Only Her

“Mom, what happened to Ava? Third birthday she has a cast on her arm,” he shouted to his mother who was in the kitchen.

“She fell off a horse.”

He swallowed hard. “Skylar has been putting her on horses since she was three?”

“No, Brett and Dalton have. She was with them. Skylar about handed them their balls when she arrived at the hospital.”

He chuckled at his mom’s term of choice. She was probably right though; he could see Skylar being tough if they hadn’t protected her as they should have. He could see Skylar’s love for Ava. A love he should have been able to experience as well.

He rose from the sofa and went to the kitchen where his mom was working on cleaning her oven. It was a Thursday. Nothing had changed since he had left home. She still had her routines. Her list of things that she did on certain days without fail. His mother was still a creature of habit. “What’s she like?”

“Ava?” Luna clarified with her head still stuck in the oven scrubbing away. Her oven was old. It didn’t have a self-cleaning option on it.

“Yeah.”

Luna sat back on her heels and thought for a moment. Her voice was soft as she answered her son. “She’s everything that is good about both you and Skylar.”

He nodded, agreeing with his mother. “She looks a ton like you when you were her age.”

“I gathered that from seeing her.”

“She is a little hyper and excitable like Skylar. No sugar or she’ll climb the walls,” his mother warned him.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“She’s a lot like Skylar in personality. Sweet and gentle just can’t sit still. She’s gotten in trouble at school a few times because of it. Ava is very smart and gets bored easily

.”

He had noticed some of those things too. “How was it for Skylar, Mom?”

“Being seventeen, unmarried and having a child in our small town?” He nodded. “Most felt sympathy for her because you left. She dropped out of high school, got her GED. She tried college but it was just too much for her with Ava. So she trained horses like her Daddy did. She’s good at it too.”

“I know she’s never married unless you all were lying about that too but does she date?”

Luna went back to scrubbing her oven. “She’s never been married.”

“Are you avoiding the part of the question about dating Mom?” He asked.

Luna glanced up at her son. “She’s been dating someone for about a year now.”

He nodded. The twisting of his guts let him know how much he hated the fact that another man had touched her. Hell, it wasn’t like he had been a saint himself though but Skylar was his. Had he expected her to not be with another man in ten years? Hell, fucking, yes, he had.

“Anyone I know?” He finally asked.

His mother sighed. “Luka, I hate this you know. You need to discuss these things with Skylar not me. Don’t put me in the middle.”

“She’s dating Tag Richardson,” Dalton offered.

Luka turned and saw his brother standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. His arms crossed over his chest. Damn, Dalton had grown since he left. He was fourteen years old last time he had seen his little brother. Dalton was staring at Luka like he was an alien from another planet.

“Tag? High school quarterback, year younger than me?”

“That’s the one,” Dalton responded. “You visiting or home for good?” He asked with a toss of his head. The arrogant little prick.

“Home for good.” Luka saw Dalton and Luna exchange glances. “I already know about Ava. I stopped by Skylar’s on my way here.”

Dalton’s eyes shot up to his brother’s face. “My guess is that you are pretty pissed off right now?”