Roxie took a deep breath that opened her lungs.Reaching past the pain, she latched onto the one thing, the one person, who had always pulled her through.She moved onto Billy’s lap, and he wrapped his arms around her tightly.She leaned into him, needing his strength.
“I don’t regret it,” she said, her voice wavering.“That’s where Billy and I met.I was sixteen when we got married, too.”
Her parents looked at Billy sharply, as if seeing him clearly for the first time—only there was no rejection there.No anger or judgment.There was only understanding, acceptance, and love for the man who’d been at their daughter’s side when they couldn’t be.
Roxie felt the way Billy’s body tensed.A gruff sound left his throat, and, in that instant, she loved her parents.
For loving him.
Maxie pushed her hair back, hooking it behind her ears.“We all went our separate ways, and it’s only recently that we found one another.Roxie put up a billboard for this bar and it made us aware each other was out there.”
“That’s what brought me here, too,” Roux said.“You have Mom’s smile.”
Really?Roxie looked at her mom.It was the one thing she’d remembered vividly about her mother, her smiling down at her with those loving eyes.Did they have the same smile?
“We’ve been looking for you, too,” Lexie said excitedly.“Cam hired a detective, Zac’s been using his law enforcement connections, and Roxie and Billy have been searching online.We just weren’t able to make much progress.We were told the adoptions were closed.”
“Closed?”Alexis said.She looked at her husband sharply.“We never asked for that.”
“But who knows what they had us sign?”Dex’s expression turned stormy.“That bastard.”
Alexis’ chest rose and fell.“I’ll never speak to him again.”
“You’d have to start first.”
Okay, her grandfather sounded like a real piece of work; only one thing was still bothering Roxie.The pieces had started to come together in her head.Roux had been the last loop.He was the one that Ingrid had seen in her vision.He’d come into the bar after the new moon.It had been the night everything had gone down at The Ruckus with the police and Landers.
Yet he’d followed the billboard.Who had placed the phone call to Carol the clerk?Had that been a false lead?“Did any of you recently contact Social Services, looking for us?”
“Not lately,” her dad said.“We’ve tried a few times but ran into so many brick walls.It would put us into a dark place, and that wasn’t fair to your brothers.”
“Roux?”Roxie asked.
“It wasn’t me.”
She frowned.Had her gut been wrong?Had that been someone looking for another family entirely?
“It was me.”
Everyone turned to look at the youngest person at the table.Maddox rubbed the back of his neck, looking uncomfortable.“What?It’s been a mystery in our household forever.I wanted to know what happened to my sisters, too.”
Maxie grinned and looped her arm around him.“Well, now you do.”
Roxie clapped her hands.“Now we all know!”
Painful as it had been to hear, it was a weight off her shoulders.She’d wanted answers, but the ones she’d gotten hadn’t been anything like she’d expected.Her parents weren’t bad people.They hadn’t given their daughters up because they hadn’t cared.
Kids in foster care often wondered if they were to blame for their situations, but she hadn’t been put into the system because she’d been bad or because she’d been a burden.She’d had the childhood she’d had because her parents had fallen too deeply in love at too young an age.Nobody had helped them or believed in that love—except the two of them.
And that made her misty-eyed, happy, and so damn free of the anger and self-doubt that had hung over her head for years.
The conversation at the table picked up again as more questions were asked.Maxie pulled the sketch their mother had drawn out of her purse, and they found out she was an illustrator for children’s books.Their father had gone into the military and was now a self-defense instructor.
That made everyone laugh when they looked at the bouncer.
“Don’t feel bad, Skeeter,” Zac said.“You didn’t stand a chance.”
Roxie got up to go to the bar.Her emotions had been through the wringer.She just wanted to concentrate on the good side of life for a while.
