He was still standing, tense and immovable.Sam supposed he looked a little haunted, but whatever emotions he felt were locked down.
“And she didn’t want us wondering,” Cal added.He sat in a chair, his gaze seemingly on nothing at all.“Glenda made that promise to Mom, because neither of them wanted us to wonder.”
Sam couldn’t make sense of that.“Wonder what?”
“Why Mom saved him,” Landon supplied with enough pain in his tone, Aly crossed to him.Wrapped her arms around his waist.
But it was Nate who spoke the words that hurt the most.“And not us.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Hotel in Livingston, Montana
Bo Lake feltwrung clear out.He’d known he might find some bad answers out here looking for the truth.That was always the risk of trying to find out where you came from, especially if you couldn’t remember the first five years of your life.
But he hadn’t known how much the truth could hurt, confuse.Make him feel… he didn’t even know.Like he was someone else.A stranger to himself.And completely utterly alone, even though he now had… brothers.Sort of.
He’d called his mom, wanting some semblance of an anchor.She didn’t approve of him wanting answers, and still she’d listened to him.She’d reassured him.She’d cried and told him he could come home.Begged him to stop now and come home.Be safe, Bo.Please come home and be safe.
He’d wanted to cry a little then too.
All his life, he’d felt a bit abandoned, but his adoptive parents had loved him, and even in the complication of knowing he’d been adopted, having people stand in his way of knowing how or why, he’d known love.
Mom was still showing it to him now, even though it hurt her.Because she wasn’t being selfish.She wanted him to be safe.Not in the dark.Safe.
How the hell had he waded into danger?But he wasn’t sure he could wade out, no matter how Mom had begged him.
He lay on the lumpy hotel bed, wondering what the hell to do next.Part of him wanted to run home.His life back in Wisconsin didn’t seem so bad now.Everything here felt way worse.
Abusive, murdering asshole.That was what the one in a green sweatshirt had said.Cal.Cal had been in green, Nate had been in black, and Landon had been in navy blue.That was how Bo had been keeping them straight.
The three men who looked like him.And each other.
Brothers.He had brothers.Threebrothers.Full brothers.
Ifhe could believe Glenda Harrington, who’d made her granddaughter read that.She’d used her hands to communicate, so Bo had finally come to the conclusion she was, well, not deaf because she could hear what was going on around her.So she just… couldn’t talk.
And she was Dad’s second cousin.Mom had confirmed that.Dad had some extended family in Montana, though Mom hadn’t known much about them.But she’d said Stevie might.
Stevie was Cody’s mom though, and something about the way Glenda had wanted to know whohelpedhim made him think about all the ways Codyhadhelped him.She made him question those very nice, friendly offers of support.
Which made him feel gross and confused too.
Why should he listen to some crazy old lady who couldn’t talk over the people who’d taken him in?Who’d loved him like their own?Why hadn’t that been enough for him?
Bo stared at the ceiling, going over the past year in his head even though he didn’t want to.But that lady had put the idea in his head.
Hadhesuddenly seen Dad’s death as an opportunity to find out about his past without making Dad mad… or had Cody put that idea in his head?
It left him feeling sick to his stomach, because he wasn’t sure.He wanted to believe he’d started that conversation, and Cody had just supported him because they’d always been as much friends as cousins.
But he just couldn’t remember for sure.Everything felt jumbled, thanks to all these people.All thesestrangers.
If it wasn’t for Sam, he’d probably head home right now.There’d be no reason to see this danger through.
He didn’t know why, or if it was dumb, but he trusted Sam.She seemed to be the only one who cared about the truth.Without any emotions or baggage tied to it.She was the only one who could get him answers, real answers, without tears and pain and everything he felt inside of him.
From both sides—his adoptive family, his blood family.
