“That’s what you don’t get, Mom, it already has.”
Then I walked away.
From my loving mom.
Caring father.
Nurturing sister.
Protective brother.
I walked into the hospital and they were all there.
My loving mom.
My caring father.
Protective brother—with his second wife who may or may not be his last, I liked her, but you could never tell with him.
And my nurturing sister.
Lying in a bed in the middle of the room surrounded by my family. By warmth. Comfort.
Her husband was slightly removed from the chaos, because that was him. He was the man who was wearing a neatly pressed shirt and slacks after the birth of his child. His hair was combed correctly, correctly to him was within an inch of its life. His strong, tanned jaw was clean shaven. All of this made you sure he’d be a pretentious asshole. Which he was. But he was also a good guy. He treated my sister well.
And that was all that mattered.
He saw me first, smiled and nodded his head.
A greeting decidedly mundane compared to what followed.
My mother, screaming, rushing over to me and snatching me into her arms.
My father cursing about how skinny I looked. My mother letting me go to yell at my father for cursing in front of the baby. My father arguing with my mother that the baby still couldn’t hear yet so he would swear as much as he damn well pleased. And then my mother giving him a look that guaranteed he would not do what he damn well pleased.
At this, my father grumbled and then yanked me out of my mom’s arms for his own embrace.
He squeezed me tight.
Kissed my head.
My brother ruffled my hair.
I punched his arm.
His wife kissed my cheek.
Questions shot at me.
“How did you get here?” “Is the story over?” “Why does your hair look like that?” (Mom) “When are you gonna use that press pass to get me box seats to a Yankees game?” (Will) “Are you hungry?” (Mom).
“Stop!” I all but screeched at my well-meaning family.
They all stopped.
I sighed. Smiled. “I would like to meet my nephew.”
My mom smiled, big and light, a smile I’d never given her because, unlike my sister, I was not light and bright.
They parted to reveal Kate, in her glory. Much like her husband, her hair was styled, she had on light makeup, a tasteful silk nightgown and pearls.
I raised my brow at her. “Pearls, Kate?”
She scowled at me.
But her scowl didn’t stay for long because of the bundle in her arms.
I made it to the bed and discovered she held the whole world in her arms.
My hand was shaking when I brushed his tiny head. He had a scattering of inky black hair on his head.
“He’s perfect,” I whispered.
“I know,” Kate whispered back.
She reached for my hand.
I glanced to her.
“I’m so glad you came, Linny,” she choked out.
I swallowed the lump in my throat that came from that simple statement. “Me too,” I whispered.
And I was.
Despite what it might cost Liam. What it had cost us. What it would cost me. I was glad. Beyond belief.
“Do you want to hold him?” she asked.
I nodded, unable to speak.
Carefully, she handed the bundle to me.
Never had anything been so light and heavy at the same time.
He was sitting on the concrete outside our room in the shitty motel we were staying in. The shitty motel we had to stay in because if we stayed closer to town, where the motels were not shitty, but well-kept and not frequented by adultering husbands and drug dealers, we’d run the risk of encountering someone who would recognize Liam. We definitely couldn’t go to my apartment, with all the visitors that would likely come if they knew I was home. Visitors that included his parents.
And we couldn’t stay separately because Liam was still technically my captor. Here to make sure I was only here for twenty-four hours before going back inside.
I didn’t want to go to my place. That was the strange thing. It wasn’t a home. And I didn’t like the thought of Liam alone at this seedy motel, fighting demons in the sunshine that our hometown offered.
Most people, even people that had known Liam, would not recognize him now. There was no way to connect the scarred, inked biker with the all-American War Hero the town honored every year since his death.
Almost everyone that knew him wouldn’t recognize him.
But his parents would.
My parents would.
His sister.
They’d see those eyes and instantly recognized the son, the brother, the friend they’d mourned. Then it would be over.
It’d be over for Jagger.
I wanted to expose him.
Even after everything I’d learned, and I hadn’t even learned anything really.
The reasons that maybe made a little sense, but a little sense meant less than nothing in the face of the pain he’d put everyone through.
The journalist in me craved to expose him.