Pieces of Us (Confessions of the Heart 3)

But his heart was in the right place. I knew Grace well enough to know that was all that mattered. Still, my boy was about to have his own meltdown. I needed to get my ass over there and do it quick.

“Hurrying as fast as I can. Be there in like ten.”

“Ten? Come on, asshole. This calls for sirens and lights. Straight-up emergency.” I could almost see the wry grin pulling to his smug face.

A light chuckle rippled out. “Pretty sure you can handle it. Take a deep breath and count to ten.” I was only half teasing when I said it. “What happened to that tough-as-nails attorney I used to know?”

Soggy cries were still coming from his kids, though somehow the volume had decreased by a decibel, the guy no doubt managing to soothe them.

“Uh . . . that asshole got disbarred and then went and got married and inherited a brood of kids. He’s been unmanned.” His words left him on a self-deprecating chuckle.

“And you need me to rescue you? Whisk you away to safety?”

Or more likely, hit up Monty’s, our favorite bar in Charleston. Of course, now that he’d moved back to Broadshire Rim, those nights spent bellied up to the bar came fewer and farther in between.

More laughter, softer this time as the hiccupped cries of his children faded. “Nah, man, wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

There was nothing but tenderness in his voice.

Couldn’t help the way gratitude stretched across my chest.

Ian used to spend his nights living the fast life.

Now he was living the good life.

That was the thing though . . .

Sometimes it was the hardest fall that cracked the mold and opened us up to something greater than we ever imagined. And Ian had slipped, shattered, and broken at Grace’s feet.

She had been exactly what he’d needed, what he’d had no clue he’d been looking for. She was the one who’d been there to make sure when he’d healed, he healed with a whole heart.

It was one of the things I’d wanted most in this life—to see Ian and his older brother Jace find joy outside the unfair brutality that had been our childhood.

It’d been so fucked up, it was a damned wonder that any one of us were still standing today.

Maybe it was the fact I was thinking about us in high school, or maybe it was the simple fact my ass was in Broadshire Rim on a diaper run, but the second I even cracked my mind open to that time, a flood of memories came rushing up through the fissures.

It was a wave of that old bullshit I never allowed myself to agonize or fret or fucking brood over.

What was done was done.

I’d made my own choices. Followed the path that was set.

Even if it wasn’t the one I’d wanted to take, I was committed to it. Knew it was what I was meant for. Proof of that was the badge in my pocket and the gun strapped to my side.

I shook off that bullshit and pasted on a smile. “Hold tight, brother. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

Ending the call, I shoved my phone into my front pocket and went for my wallet.

There was only one woman ahead of me who was unloading a few things she had from a small, hand-held basket.

I wasn’t really paying all that much attention, but there was something about her that had me doing a double take.

Gaze getting tossed from my wallet to the shape in front of me.

My heart rate kicked, a smack of uneasiness slamming into my senses.

But that was the thing about the past. It liked to haunt you. Just like it’d been doing not twenty seconds before. That’s what happened when you let the shit you couldn’t control get to you. When you let the past remind you of what you’d lost and what you’d never fucking have.

She loaded her things onto the conveyor belt, a couple boxes of cereal, apples, oranges, and bananas. She seemed to waver before she tossed a lipstick onto the pile, like she wasn’t quite sure if she should buy it or not.

Maybe it was the price or the color or the necessity. Or maybe she was just throwing off the vibe that she was questioning everything.

Just. Like. Me.

Because my mouth felt sticky, and my head felt light. That crazed feeling of being willing to do anything to protect a girl welled so fast I felt it like the surge of a storm.

With her back to me, I took her in from head to toe, trying to slough the familiarity from my bones. To remind myself that it just wasn’t possible.

Still, my eyes were held, taking her in.

Lush locks tumbled in loose waves down her back. This crazy, wild mix of blondes and browns that shimmered like bronze beneath the light.