“No buts. If they change their ‘wicked ways’ to make you happy—to keep you from being appalled or shunned by others because their love doesn’t look the way you think it should—will they ever truly be happy?”
“Seth…” she mumbled, shoulders sagging.
“They won’t. And they’ll resent you for the rest of their lives. If sharing their love with one woman is what they want, who am I, you, or anyone else to say it’s wrong? That they should be forced to conform to someone else’s wishes? Who are we to shame and disown them for following their hearts?”
Grace sent him a pleading stare, her carefully constructed composure finally cracking. “But the Bible… God… The church…”
Seth felt his heart break a little at the genuine anguish in her voice. “Your God. Your Bible. Your church, Mom. What about other religions? Take fundamental Mormons, for example.” Mentally, he excluded the sect Beck had grown up in; they were crazy. “Those men take multiple wives and have dozens of children. Do you think they believe God sees them as perverts?”
“No,” she grudgingly admitted.
Seth took both her hands now, feeling how they trembled. “Mom, you can’t make the twins choose between you and whoever they love. If you do, you’ll lose them forever. Can you honestly imagine not having them in your life anymore? And what if one day, once they’ve chosen a wife, they have babies with her? I know you. You would never reject your own grandchildren.”
The tears Grace had been holding back finally spilled over. She shook her head, unable to speak.
“Even though none of us boys are innocent anymore, we’re still your babies, Mom.”
Grace choked out a laugh through her tears. “Yes, you are. I just... I don’t know if I’ll ever understand how or why the twins could desire the same woman. It seems so…”
“You don’t have to understand it.” Seth’s voice was soft but firm. “You just need to keep loving them.”
Grace wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I do. I love all you boys. I always will. I’ll work on trying to accept…the life they’re pursuing. Just…don’t expect me to get there overnight.”
She was thinking. That was a step in the right direction. “I can’t ask for more now. Just…try to see this from their perspective, too.”
Grace sniffled. “I’ll do my best.”
Seth stood and lifted Grace from her chair, hugging her tightly. For the first time since arriving in New York, he felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe, when the time came to tell her about Beck and Heavenly, she’d remember this conversation. Maybe the groundwork he’d just laid would make his eventual confession a little easier to swallow.
Grace wiped her eyes and blew her nose, then checked her watch. “I’m babysitting Anna for a few more hours. She’s sleeping upstairs. I was planning to make lasagna for dinner, but I need to run to the store for a few things. Would you mind staying here in case she wakes up?”
“Not at all.” Seth smiled. “Do what you need to do.”
Grace grabbed her purse and keys, pausing at the door. “Seth? Thank you. For everything. Your father would be so proud of the man you’ve become.”
As the door closed behind her, Seth sagged into his chair. He’d just argued for his brothers’ unconventional love life…while hiding his own. The hypocrisy was killing him, but everything he’d said about Jack and Connor held true for him, too. If she wanted her oldest son to be happy and remain in her life, and if she wanted to know his kids, then she needed to accept that love didn’t always fit into a neat box.
Seth bounded upstairs to his childhood bedroom, so he’d be close enough to hear Anna if she woke. Inside, he kicked off his shoes, then put them in the closet when he spied the cardboard box that represented his biggest failure in life. He’d shoved it away and tried his best to forget, but some things he couldn’t bury.
His hands trembled as he reached for it and lifted the lid.
Inside, he found his father’s case files, filled with everything about the drug ring he’d been investigating before he’d been killed. Manila folders, newspaper clippings, photographs, and a notebook filled with pages of his father’s careful handwriting stared back at him. The contents of the box had consumed years of Seth’s life—and had ultimately cost him his wife and infant son.
The conversation he’d had with Liam less than a week ago echoed in his head.
“Sometimes the things we think we’ve resolved have a way of resurfacing when we’re on the verge of something new.”
Seth still didn’t know what that meant, but he couldn’t open this goddamn can of worms again. He hated leaving his father’s murder unsolved, hated letting whispered suspicions about Michael Cooper being on the take tarnish his otherwise sterling legacy. But Seth had once given everything short of his own life to figure out whodunit. He couldn’t fall down this rabbit hole again. The past was a fucking graveyard—and if he didn’t walk away, it would bury him, too.
He shoved the box back into the depths of the closet and closed the door with more force than necessary. If he didn’t dredge up this cold case, the past couldn’t come back to haunt him. Besides, like Beck and Heavenly had pointed out, he wasn’t the same man he’d been then. He didn’t have the same job. He wasn’t chasing the same demons. He was on a different coast with different priorities, like building a happy future with the ones he loved.
Who’d bother coming after him eight years later?
“No one,” he bit out as a soft cry sounded from down the hallway.
Seth bolted out the door and rushed to Danny’s old room, now a cheerful nursery with pastel yellow walls, stuffed animals galore, and the usual rocking chair, changing table, and baby bed.
“Hey there, sweet girl.” He lifted his nine-month-old niece from her crib.
