I called Nebraska home, at least for now. Jack and Sam had asked me to move here and build their house, giving Jack and me time to get to know each other. I’d built Jack’s house and finished Ryder’s. Now I was starting on Cash’s house. He and Kytten were having twins. And with Grace pregnant, I assumed King’s house would be next. It kept me busy and put money in my pocket, but I had no illusions that anyone on this compound, aside from Jack and Sam, wanted me here.
I had to remind myself that this was temporary. Nothing good in my life ever lasted long.
Eventually, I’d fuck it up like I did everything else in my life. It was only a matter of time before I said the wrong thing, made the wrong move, or let my demons get the best of me again.
Haizley, Gunner’s old lady, had been working with me on my past and the shit I’d done. She was patient, more patient that Ideserved, sitting with me week after week as I unpacked all the shit I’d carried around with me for decades.
The day I found out Sam was pregnant with Charlie was the second biggest regret of my life. I clenched my hands around the cup as the memory of what I’d done to Sam flashed through my mind.
Still, my biggest regret was walking away from my kid.
I never wanted kids. Never wanted to be like my old man. The thought of becoming a father terrified me because I knew I’d end up just like mine. He was a bastard who beat me and my mother without mercy or reason. Some nights it was because dinner was cold. Other nights he was simply drunk and mean. There was always a reason, and there was never a reason at the same time.
I’d always known somewhere inside me, in that quiet place you kept the truth you didn’t want to face, I had a brother or a sister out there somewhere. A forgotten memory that lived in my bones, a missing piece I couldn’t quite name.
On the day my mother died, as she lay bleeding in my arms, she confirmed I had a brother. Her voice was weak, barely a whisper, but her words hit me like a freight train.
A brother she’d given away. One she’d saved from the hell we lived in. She never saved me, though. Never thought I was worth the effort. I had to do that myself, had to claw my way out of that house and that life with nothing but sheer will and determination.
And I did it.
The day I turned eighteen, I left. Grabbed what little I owned, stuffed it in a duffel bag, and walked out the door without looking back. I never asked her about the baby she had when I was six. Never wanted to know who or where they were. Not that it would have done any good. She didn’t know either. She’d made sure of that.
When my mother gave birth to my brother, she left him at a fire station, wrapped in a blanket. Just laid him down and walked away, hoping someone would find him and give him a better life than she could. She died, never knowing if he lived. If he’d had a good life or a bad one.
She would be happy to know he was alive and well. And that we were together. I still couldn’t believe it myself. After what I’d done, how he and Sam could forgive me was inspiring. Despite all the work Haizley had done with me, I still couldn’t forgive myself.
I met Sam when I was twenty-five years old and she was barely seventeen; I married her when she turned eighteen. God, how I loved that woman. Everything had been perfect, except everything had been a lie. I’d never told Sam I’d had a vasectomy. I knew she wanted kids. She would have left me if I’d told her, and I didn’t want to lose her.
She reminded me of my mother. She was sweet and loving. No matter how much I fucked up, Sam always forgave me. The way my mother forgave my father for every slap, every cursed word.
The day she told me she was pregnant, I lost my shit. She cheated on me and tried to pass the baby off as mine. She spoke those words filled with joy and excitement, but the anger and the hurt I felt made her disappear until all I saw was my father. Gone was the woman I loved, replaced with the man who had taken everything from me. He was the reason I couldn’t have kids. The reason I couldn’t trust myself not to lose my shit and beat the hell out of them.
Instead, I’d done it to Samantha. I was just like him. When the rage had finally worn off, Sam was lying on the floor, bloody and broken. I walked out the door and left her there. Not trusting myself to help her, not trusting myself to touch her again.
I never knew how she’d gotten help, but when I came home hours later, she was gone. Every day I expected a knock on the door. I waited for the police to show up and throw my ass in a cell—just like my father. But they never did.
I didn’t hear from Sam again for five years, until I got the divorce papers, surprised she’d waited so long. But what surprised me more was that she’d had the baby and put my name on the birth certificate. Though I guessed she didn’t have a choice since we were still legally married.
When I saw the paper asking me to relinquish my rights to her daughter and have the birth certificate changed, I knew she was with the man she’d cheated on me with. What I hadn’t known until I came to Diamond Creek was, that man was my little brother.
What were the fucking odds?
The baby boy my mother gave away was the man my wife cheated on me with. Once I saw him, I knew why she’d chosen him. He looked so much like me, Sam must have thought I would never know.
It also reminded me of the little girl I lost.
The one I’d given away trying to keep her safe.
I’d lied to Sam when I told her I’d had a vasectomy when I was eighteen. I hadn’t done it until I was twenty-five, just before I met Sam. Not long after Marsha told me she was pregnant. I would have done it sooner, but it just never occurred to me.
Marsha knew I didn’t want kids. I didn’t know how she’d gotten pregnant, but the woman was bat-shit fucking crazy. I walked away, giving her money to get an abortion. A few years later, a woman knocked on my door, telling me I had a daughter in foster care.
She’d said I could take responsibility for her, or I could sign away my rights and let another family adopt her. A judge hadalready stripped her mother’s rights away after two years of abuse.
I was all she had left.
I couldn’t raise a child. Not on my own, and certainly not with my father’s blood running through my veins. But I went to see her. I held my daughter in my arms for a few minutes and said goodbye.
