Sunlight (Haven River Ranch)

I felt Jax behind me. I had for the past ten minutes. But I kept walking. And he kept following.

He’d probably seen the letters. He’d probably taken one look at the ugly red words scribbled over my notes and thought the worst. Maybe he believed Eddie’s words.

That I’d left him. That he hated me.

It was strange that for months I’d been this weepy, sniffling, hormonal mess. But on a day like this, with my heart broken and aching, my eyes were dry.

I couldn’t cry.

So I kept walking. Down the road that led away from the lodge. Past the cabins that we rented to guests. Toward the grove of trees and the bend in the road where I’d gotten my car stuck in the snow this winter.

Step after step after step.

FUCK YOU

YOU LEFT ME

I HATE YOU

It hurt. It hurt so much I could barely breathe. But I did because I had to breathe. I drew in the air, holding it in my lungs as the tennis shoes Jax had helped me tie this morning crunched on the gravel beneath their soles.

In and out. Breath after breath. I held in the clean, crisp fall air the way Jax had told me to breathe months ago when he’d walked me into the meadow behind the house.

It smelled like grass and earth and last night’s rain.

I’d been at the Haven River Ranch for nearly a year. I’d experienced every Montana season. And I could say now that autumn was my favorite.

The trees around us were a riot of color from gold to green to orange.

“When I was a kid, I used to make place mats.” The moment I spoke, Jax walked up to my side, matching my pace.

It wasn’t fast. I was too tired, my heart too heavy, to walk fast anymore.

“Place mats?” he asked.

“Yeah, out of leaves. Did you ever do that? Go on a nature walk and pick up pretty leaves. Then smash them between two pieces of wax paper with a bunch of crayon shavings. My mom would iron it all together, and we’d have place mats.”

“I think we did that in school once for an art project.”

I slowed and veered to the side of the road where the leaves lay undisturbed on the rocky shoulder. It wasn’t easy to bend to the ground, but I managed to pick up a perfect, spade-shaped yellow leaf. Pain shot through my side that made me wince, but it eased as I stood tall.

“Did you see the letters?” My gaze stayed on the leaf as I twisted the stem between my fingers.

“Yes.”

The air rushed from my lungs. Maybe it would be easier this way. Like having Jax tell everyone I was pregnant, those letters would be the introduction to Eddie.

Not a great first impression.

All this time, nearly a year, and I’d wanted to talk to him. I’d waited and waited and waited for any scrap of attention he’d throw my way. How many times had I called Micah?

Did Micah know about this? Had he condoned such a ruthless, soul-crushing reply?

Eddie hadn’t just written me a letter. He’d taken all of mine, every single one that I’d written, and thrown them in my face. He hadn’t even bothered to find his own paper.

FUCK YOUR BABY

If he’d left that one out, maybe I’d be crying right now. But he’d gone too far. He’d crossed a line.

So Eddie wasn’t going to get my tears. Not today.

“Sasha.” Jax plucked the leaf from my fingers. “Talk to me, babe.”

There was worry etched on his face. The last time someone had looked so worried about me was years ago. Before the accident. Before Mom and Dad were gone. They’d worried about me. But since then?

No one. Not really.

Not until Jax.

I loved him because he worried about me. I loved him for a lot more than that, but the worrying was important.

I worried about him too.

I loved him.

So I took a deep breath of the cool Montana air and told him the last secret.

“Eddie.” It hurt to say his name. “He’s my little brother.”

Jax blinked, like the world had flipped on him. “You have a brother?”

“I have a brother.” I nodded. “He’s eleven years younger than me. My parents hadn’t wanted other kids, but he was an accident.”

Not a mistake. I’d never heard Mom or Dad say the word mistake.

“They used that word sometimes when he was around. It was always teasing or in jest. They’d say things like ‘our accident baby’ or tell people he hadn’t been planned. I don’t think they realized he’d remember it. They probably figured he’d forget.”

Eddie had never forgotten. Accident wasn’t exactly a word you wanted associated with your entire being.

If anyone could understand, it was Jax.

“Maybe if they hadn’t died, if they’d been around for longer than the first seven years of his life, he would have learned to laugh about it too. He would have realized it was just an expression that adults really shouldn’t say. But . . . they died. And of all the things he remembers about Mom and Dad, I really wish that wasn’t one of them.”

Understanding crossed Jax’s expression. “That’s why you told me we’d never call Josephine an accident.”

“Yeah.” I gave him a sad smile. “Not ever.”

He took my hand. “Not ever.”

“Can we . . .” I turned, pointing to the lodge.

I’d already walked too far. Another step in the wrong direction and he’d have to carry me home.

Jax would do it. He’d sweep me off my feet and hold me in his arms for miles. So we needed to turn back before he decided on my behalf that I’d walked too far.

“Yeah.” He took my hand as we headed down the road, one slow step at a time.

“Eddie was so little when Mom and Dad died. He was in second grade. We didn’t have any grandparents. My mom had a sister, but they hadn’t spoken in a long time. I guess my aunt didn’t like Dad, so I decided I didn’t like her. Dad was the youngest in his family, and my two uncles lived with their families on the East Coast. After the accident, Dad’s oldest brother offered to take Eddie, but he didn’t know them. I didn’t know them. And Eddie was my brother. I couldn’t imagine not having him around.”

I’d been enrolled in college when Mom and Dad died, but I hadn’t started school yet. I hadn’t moved out. I’d never lived anywhere else but our house. And after the funeral, I just couldn’t leave.

“So you took custody,” Jax said.

“Yeah.”

“You were eighteen.”

“Yeah,” I repeated, my voice quieter this time.

“Fuck, Sasha. That’s . . .”

Too much.

I’d been too young to be Eddie’s parent. We’d both gotten lost in our grief. The responsibilities I’d shouldered hadn’t helped.

“I should have let him go to my uncle. Maybe. I don’t know. I’ve second-guessed that decision so many times I’ve lost count. My uncle offered, but he didn’t act like he really wanted Eddie. The last time I talked to him was the day I told him I was going to petition the court for custody. He didn’t contest it.”

“And everyone else?” Jax asked.

“No. No one objected. The last time I spoke to anyone in my family was at Mom and Dad’s funeral.”

They’d all disappeared from my life. Not that we’d really had them before, either, but they’d left us to grow up alone.

Jax’s jaw ticked, but he stayed quiet.

Maybe sending Eddie with our uncle would have been worse. He might have ended up exactly where he was today. But I’d always wondered if that was the first wrong decision in a long line of wrong decisions.

“I worked as hard as I could. Mom and Dad didn’t have much money. They were the type who’d rather take us on a trip than squirrel away cash for a rainy day. So I got a job at a hotel, cleaning rooms. I took classes at night to get my degree. I was gone a lot. Eddie was mostly on his own. He’d hang out at friends’ houses. I enrolled him in every after-school program I could find. On days when I needed help, I’d beg the neighbor to let him hang out. But that was mostly when he was younger. Once he got a little older, he was alone most of the time. He was alone too much.”

It had been easier to ignore the grief. I’d made sure I was so busy I didn’t have time to face it. To feel it.

Meanwhile, Eddie had been a little kid, left with nothing to do but miss our parents.

“I tried so hard to manage it all. When I say it out loud, I sound like a deadbeat mother. Leaving a little kid to his own devices. But I swear, I was trying so hard.”

It was important that Jax knew how hard I’d tried. How hard I would always try for our daughter. I’d burn myself to the ground trying not to fail her the way I’d failed Eddie.

“Hey.” His hand tightened in mine. “I know.”

I didn’t deserve his faith in me.

“So you stayed in your parents’ house?” he asked.

“Yeah. For about six years. The bills began to stack up. I got credit cards and used them to keep afloat, only paying the minimum amount every month. I couldn’t afford the mortgage and insurance and taxes. And it was so hard, Jax.”

I still felt the weight of those years on my shoulders. “Living in that house, hearing their voices, going into the kitchen expecting to see Mom and finding a stack of dirty dishes instead. Seeing Dad’s golf clubs in the garage collecting dust. We were living with their ghosts, and one day, I just . . . I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed a change.”

I regretted that decision to move. But at the same time, I didn’t.

Eddie had been thirteen when we moved. Could I have lived in that house for another five years until he turned eighteen? Financially, maybe. It would have been hard and grueling. But emotionally? Never. Those walls had been suffocating me, little by little, each day.

“I found an affordable apartment. I sold most of Mom and Dad’s stuff to pay off my credit cards. The important stuff, I kept. Dad’s clubs. Mom’s favorite books.”

“Where are they?” Jax asked, probably because he hadn’t moved golf clubs.

“Storage. I really should get rid of the locker, but it’s cheap, and I wasn’t sure where I’d go after Montana.”

Jax stopped walking. “After Montana? You were going to leave?”

“Yes.”

“Not anymore.” His grip on my hand tightened.

“Not anymore.” I leaned into his arm, drawing from his strength, stealing the surety that had lured me in from that first day in the grocery store’s parking lot.

“What happened after you moved?” he asked.

“Trouble.” That was the only way to describe it. Eddie had spiraled into trouble.

Looking back, it had all been him lashing out because I’d taken us from the house and his school and his friends.

“His grades started slipping until he was barely passing. Once he got into high school, he made friends with the worst possible kids. He was getting into fights. They were accused of vandalizing a car, though the school couldn’t prove it. And when he was at home, which was rare, we fought all the time.”

I’d ask him to do his laundry; he’d call me a bitch. If I told him he had to do his homework before seeing his friends, he’d tell me to fuck off and storm out the door. Whenever I’d asked him to talk, he’d blown me off. And he’d started referring to himself as the accident. The mistake.

For Mom and Dad.

For me.

“Everything just spun out of control. Until it got so bad . . . we landed here.”

“We?” Jax asked. “Your brother is here?”

“He’s in Montana. That fight I told you about? It was Eddie. He got into drugs. Mostly weed, but some painkillers too. He got into that fight because the guy that Eddie went to buy pills from tried to steal his cash. So Eddie beat him up.”

“Eddie was the guy who knocked you down when you tried to break up the fight?” Jax’s nostrils flared. “That’s how you got the concussion.”

“It was an accident.” How many excuses had I made for Eddie’s behavior? Even now, when he’d been guilty, I was still defending him.

It wasn’t black and white. Maybe that’s why I could empathize with Emery. It wasn’t an easy task to cut out a person you loved from your life.

“That was about a year ago. He was sixteen. Angry. Strong. He got arrested. So did the dealer. The judge took pity on Eddie, mostly because of his age. Rather than send him to juvenile detention, we were able to get Eddie into a camp for troubled teens.”

“A camp? What kind of camp?”

“I didn’t even know they existed until then. But it’s a camp and a school. It’s here, in Montana, about four hours away.”

Eddie had tutors who’d help him catch up on school. It was an alternative to high school in a controlled setting. There, he’d have peers who shared a lot of his feelings. Friends, I hoped, he could relate to.

“It focuses heavily on wilderness therapy. It’s secluded, and the kids live on the property. They spend some time living in the school itself, but other times, they go into the woods and camp with counselors.”

Every morning, the kids would pack up camp, then set out on a hike. Once they found their next stopping point, they’d build camp for the night, cook meals, and talk. Then they’d go to sleep, and the next morning, do it all over again. For weeks and weeks.

“It’s supposed to help them reset. Shut away the world and give them a chance to feel.”

Maybe I needed a wilderness camp.

Actually, I guess I’d found one. The Haven River Ranch.

“Sometimes kids stay for six months before they go back to live with their families. Other times, they stay longer. Micah, that’s Eddie’s therapist and my liaison with the school, told me he thinks Eddie should stay even longer. They don’t have the typical school year calendar, but he’s had some behavior problems, and he still isn’t doing well academically.”

So he’d stay until either Micah gave the go-ahead for him to leave. Or until Eddie turned eighteen and he could leave without anyone’s permission.

“I haven’t talked to Eddie since the day I dropped him off. I’ve called and spoken to Micah, but he doesn’t think Eddie is ready to talk to me yet. Instead, he asked that I write letters. Today was the first time I’ve heard back.”

Jax blew out a long breath, then let go of my hand to throw an arm around my shoulders. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Me too.”

All these months I’d been questioning Micah’s choice to keep us separated. But given what had shown up through the resort’s mail today, clearly, I hadn’t been giving Micah enough credit. The distance he’d imposed between us must have been more necessary than I’d realized. Eddie was angrier than I’d realized.

Was this part of the therapy? Letting Eddie send whatever he wanted in reply? Or had those letters been sent without Micah’s knowledge?

“He’s so mad at me, Jax.” My heart cracked, thinking back to the seven-year-old boy who’d clung to me at Mom and Dad’s funeral. The boy who used to jump off the bus and run into my arms whenever I had a day off and was waiting for him at home.

We’d had good days. There’d been plenty of good days. But somewhere along the way, I’d failed him.

“The camp is a private facility. It feels like a last resort. It’s not exactly cheap either. But if it keeps him out of jail, then I’ll pay.”

“Is that why you were sleeping on an air mattress?”

Yes. “I didn’t mind.”

“Sasha.” Jax let me go to drag a hand over his face. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”

“I failed Eddie. I was his parent. And I failed. What if I fail with her too?”

What if I wasn’t capable of being a mother?

“You won’t.” Jax hauled me into his arms, holding me on the side of the road. “It’s not the same, Sasha.”

“I’m the same.”

“Yes, you are. You’ll be the best mother in the world. You have sacrificed everything to give your brother the best possible chance. You haven’t failed him. Not in the slightest.”

God, I wanted to believe it.

He took my face in his hands, tilting it up until our gazes locked. “I’ve got you. When it comes to the baby and life and all things. I’ve got you. Do you have me?”

The emotion I hadn’t been able to find earlier came rushing forward, and my eyes flooded. “I’ve got you.”

“Together.” He stroked his thumb across my cheek, catching a tear. “We do this together.”

“Okay,” I whispered, collapsing into his chest.

“Come on, sweetheart. Let’s go home. Want me to carry you?”

“No, I can walk.”

So we set off on the gravel lane, slowly, thanks to the flash of pain in my side.

A pain I ignored because it dulled compared to the pain in my heart.