He pulled up in front of his mother’s house to see a van with Secure Safe Systems printed on the side.
His eyes narrowed at the men installing new locks on the front door.
And suddenly his anger shifted from his father to his mother. She knew. She’d known fordaysthat his father was in town, and she hadn’t said anything.
He climbed out of the Audi and stormed inside. He checked the kitchen and living room. Upstairs, he checked his mother’s bedroom.
Nothing. Where was she?
Then he looked out the window.
She was trimming her hydrangeas. He shouldn’t be surprised. The garden was where she retreated when things got hard. It was where both of them had spent almost the entire first eight years of his life while his parents were still married and Gordon lived with them.
His mother turned her head when he stepped outside. “Colt, you’re home.”
That was it? She wasn’t going to mention the new locks on the doors or the new security system being installed? Or hell, the fact that she’d seen hisfather, a man who’d tormented them both for years?
She turned back to her hydrangeas. “Shouldn’t you be at the park? I’m sure there’s so much work to do there.”
“What are the security guys doing out front?” He wanted her to tell him herself.
“Oh, just upgrading a few things. It was time.”
Frustration squeezed his insides. Then he saw it…his mother’s pistol. She’d clearly tried to hide it behind a potted plant, but he saw the grip poking out.
“You weren’t planning to tell me, were you?”
“Tell you what?”
His jaw clenched as he tried to holster his anger. “That you saw him.”
He didn’t need to say the name. She knew.
She paused, the muscles in her back visibly tensing before she slowly straightened and turned. “How did you know?”
“Well, first Indie saw him, and she told me that you spotted him in the grocery store.”
His mother’s brows flickered. “Indie doesn’t even know what your father looks like.”
“You’re right. ButIdo. So I knew exactly who I was looking at when he walked out of The Tea House this morning.”
Her mother’s chest rose, fear and panic swirling in her gray eyes. “You saw him?”
“I did. And I wanted to kill him, Mom. I wanted to murder him right then and there.”
She paled. “You didn’t—”
“No. But I could have. You should have told me.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t want to alarm you.”
“Alarm me? You don’t think it was pretty damn alarming to run into him while I was walking with my wife to get coffee?”
His mother’s mouth opened and closed. “It’s not a big deal. He’s returned a couple of times over the years, and I always call Ben to shadow me and scare him away.”
Colt gaped at her. “He’s come back before?”
“Yes. But like I said, Ben makes him leave.”
