“I mentioned it before; my family is fucked up. My birth mom, Angela, had a family already. But she’d been fooling around with Allen. First, she had Cash. He’s my full brother. She hid the part about him being Allen’s, so Cash grew up thinking he had a different father. And that guy had no idea Cash wasn’t his. Then she and that guy had Reid. He’s a legit Griffith. But she kept having a thing with my old man, and she got pregnant with me.”
Erin watched in rapt fascination. She nodded for him to continue. “I’m tracking.”
“It’s so convoluted. And just weird.” He sighed. “Anyway, you know the rest. Angela hid her pregnancy, gave birth to me, and handed me off to her sister—Meg Ramsey. I don’t think Meg ever loved me. But her husband had died, and she was lonely, I guess. Plus, it probably made her feel good to know she had her sister’s son from the man she was in love with.”
“Wait. You lost me.”
“See, both sisters loved Allen—my birth father. But Allen only loved Angela. While I was a kid, Allen used to come visit me. Or Meg. I’m not sure which. He loved Angela, but he’d come over to fuck Margaret. He’d play with me some then take off. Once a month like clockwork, for years. Then he stopped coming. And it broke something inside her. She’d always been kind of cold, but after he stopped coming, Meg turned downright mean.”
Erin could see him lost in bad memories, and she hated that he’d been subjected to such nastiness growing up. “I’m so sorry. So, you had no one at all to help you?”
He shrugged. “I had books and comics.” He gave her a strained grin. “I had a pretty good imagination, and I used to dream about being a superhero. How my real parents would one day show up and take me to my home planet.” He flushed. “Sounds stupid, right?”
“Not at all. It sounds like an amazing way to cope.”
“I wasn’t totally awful. I had friends, but not good friends. I was pretty much a loner in school. I got good grades, but I really shone on the sports field. Soccer, basketball, lacrosse. You name it, I played it. And I loved the intensity of competition. I’ve been trying my whole life to make Meg care, even a little bit. And since she was always telling me how much better my cousins were, I strove to beat them.”
She shook her head. “But nothing you did could ever be as good as what they did, right?”
“Exactly. But one thing she’d said stuck with me. I ended up joining the Marine Corps because of Cash and Reid. At the time I didn’t know anything about them. Just that my cousins were so much better than me. The Marines helped. I lived away from her, and I did well. Got promoted up the chain. Saw other countries, learned a lot. But it was never enough for me. When I left, I came home. Thinking maybe things would be different here.”
“They weren’t.” She didn’t have to guess.
“No. And she let it all out, how she wasn’t my mother, about Allen, Cash and Reid, all of it. So, I joined Vets on the Go! to learn about them. And man, I hated those two perfect brothers, my birth mom’s precious kids. She threwmeaway but she keptthem?” The conversation had riled him up, but Erin couldn’t blame him.
She caressed his cheek, and he froze. “I think I might hate Margaret Ramsey.”And I might be seriously falling for you.
Chapter Thirteen
Smith stopped his rant, embarrassed he’d told her so much. Yet part of him felt so much freer getting it off his chest. Someone besides Smith knew the truth. Even better, she was on his side.
“You didn’t have a choice,”she’d said, and that resonated, easing a burden he hadn’t been aware he’d carried for so long.
“I’m sorry. Is that wrong?” Erin asked, her hand still on his cheek as she leaned over the table. “Do you still love her?”
“Hell no.” But he wanted…something…from the blasted woman. Not affection. He’d lost the need for her love long ago. But an acknowledgement of how she’d wronged him, that he craved. “I can’t stand her. But she’s holding a note from Allen—to me—over my head. I have to help her move. If I don’t, she won’t give me the note. I might help her move, and she might burn it to ash. With her, who knows?”
“That’s so messed up.” Erin’s eyes blazed. “She’s an awful person. To treat a child with such cruelty is just wrong. But then to not give you what’s rightfully yours? He was your father, even if he never told you.”
“To be honest, I’m not sure he ever knew.” A sudden thought occurred.
“What’s that look?”
“Come to my apartment with me?” He wanted her to see something. Because coward that he was, he didn’t want to read Angela’s journal alone.
“Sure.” Erin grabbed her keys and locked up behind her.
Once inside his apartment, she settled on the couch while he grabbed the journal and returned to her. They sat side by side, and her presence gave him the strength to open the book.
“This belonged to Angela Griffith, my birth mother. Reid and Cash gave it to me to read, but I only managed a few pages before I had to close it.”
“Oh, Smith. Is it too painful?” Erin put an arm around his waist.
His emotions surged, a powerful longing for Erin to never, ever leave. He cleared his throat to dispel the knot of feeling making it difficult to speak. “Um, no. It’s just fucking bad. She writes all this shitty prose. Like, it’s a very bad daytime soap, but with flowery language and euphemisms all over the place.”
Erin tried to bite back a grin. “I can’t believe it. You’re a literary snob.”
He flushed. “I am not. I read comics and fantasy for fun. I like books—well-writtenbooks.”
