“You had enough to deal with, and I didn’t want anyone to start hollering instead of talking to me.”
“What can we do?” his father asked. “Have you seen a specialist?”
Grant nodded. “There’s nothing that can be done, but I’m fine. I just didn’t want to lie to you anymore.”
“We appreciate that,” his father said. “I know that we just handed you a burden you didn’t deserve, and you have every right to be angry at us. But I don’t want to keep widening the rift between us. I realize you have to get to work, but when you have some time, if you can trust me enough to let me in, I’d like to sit down and have a cup of coffee with you and hear about your life and how it’s changed.”
“Yes,” his mother agreed. “Grant, if you are mad at anyone, it should be me. I’m the one who kept the secret and upended our family.”
“I don’t want to be mad at anyone, Mom. I’m sick of it. I just need to think about where to go from here.” He turned to leave, and Jules’s voice whispered through his mind. You have to start somewhere, and then maybe, eventually, you’ll find your way again. He turned back to his parents. “I have a few minutes before I have to go.”
Grant didn’t stay long, but he filled them in on all that he’d been through, and just enough about his relationship with Jules to let them know he was serious about her. By the time his parents walked him to the door, the tension that had haunted their relationship wasn’t quite so awful.
“We’d love it if you and Jules would join us for Thanksgiving next week, but we understand if you’d rather not,” his mother said as she embraced him.
“I don’t know, Mom. I’ll let you know.”
For the first time since Grant was a kid, his father pulled him into his arms without hesitation. “I am sorry, son, for everything.” It wasn’t the awkward embrace that Grant was used to, of a father who didn’t understand his son and an angry son wondering if he was ever wanted. It was the hopeful embrace of a father who didn’t want to lose any more of his son than he already had and the uncomfortable embrace of a confused man processing everything he’d heard.
Grant headed outside and climbed into his truck feeling better about the misunderstandings that had plagued his relationship with his father—and devastated at the prospect of not being his son.
He had an overwhelming need to see Jules, to hold her in his arms. He started the engine, and a text from Titus rolled in. Give me a ring when you can. I need to pick your brain about the rescue mission we did a few years ago in Somalia. Grant couldn’t even think about that right now.
Everything he knew to be real wasn’t. He couldn’t think of anything but getting to Jules, seeing his beautiful girl, whose feelings were as real as the truck he was sitting in. He drove away from his mother’s house struggling to bury his frustrations and confusion so Jules wouldn’t get caught up in his nightmare.
By the time he reached her shop, he felt more in control. The bells above the door announced him as he walked in.
“Hi! Welcome to—” Jules looked over from where she was straightening a display of pillows. A wide grin lit up her beautiful eyes as he closed the distance between them. “Grant! What are you doing here?”
He swept her into his arms, kissing her hard, and something inside him cracked. He shifted his head beside hers, holding her tighter, longer.
“What’s wrong?” she asked softly.
He’d hurt her that morning by shutting her out, and as much as he wanted to say nothing, he wasn’t going to do that again. “I went to see my parents.”
Chapter Twenty-One
JULES AWOKE TO the sounds of Crash meowing. She opened her eyes and found the cat staring at her in the darkness. He was sitting on Grant’s pillow, and Jules realized she was alone in bed. She sat up and reached for Crash, but he leaped onto the floor and ran out of the bedroom. She glanced at the clock on the nightstand—3:30—then at the bathroom. The light was off and the door was open. Grant wasn’t in there. Heartache trampled through her. He’d tried to act tough when he’d told her what had happened with his parents, but there was no hiding the tortured sound of his voice or the new shadows in his eyes. He’d been restless all evening. He’d tried painting, they’d gone for a walk, and he’d worked out hard enough to come back inside drenched in sweat, but nothing had helped. Until he’d come out of the shower and found her reading on the window seat and had carried her into the bedroom and made love to her. Only then had he been able to settle those ghosts.
“Grant?” she whispered into the darkness.
Answered with silence, she climbed off the bed and put on Grant’s long-sleeved shirt that he’d left on the chair last night. She padded out to the living room, but he wasn’t there, either. Crash scratched at the studio door. She picked him up and knocked. There was no answer. She opened it slowly and found Grant sitting on the stool in front of his easel wearing only his boxer briefs, his paintbrush flying over the canvas. He was wearing his prosthesis. She must have been fast asleep when he’d gotten up for her not to hear him or feel the bed moving as he put it on.
She couldn’t see what he was painting, but he didn’t seem to notice her. She set Crash down and walked into the room. Her heart sank as the painting he was working on came into focus. It was a young family playing at the edge of the water and another little boy standing a good distance away, watching them.
“Hey,” she said softly, and he whipped his head to the side, eyes dazed, jaw tight. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
His brow knitted, as if he were trying to focus on her. “Hi, babe. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“You didn’t. But I missed you when I woke up alone. Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he said tightly, turning back to paint.
Tension radiated off him. She should probably leave him to his painting, but the idea of Grant suffering alone broke her heart. She stepped closer and pressed a kiss to his shoulder. “Do you want to talk?”
“Not really.” He continued painting.
She ran her fingers lightly down his arms, aching at how rigid he was. “Is that your family?”
He shrugged, his jaw tightening.
She dusted kisses on his head. “You know, even if he’s not your biological father, he’s still the man who raised and loves you.” Grant stilled, and she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and kissed his cheek. “I know you probably feel like you don’t know what’s real right now, but my feelings for you are real, and I want to help you through this.”
He leaned his head back against her chest and sighed. “I might not be my brothers’ and sisters’ real sibling.”
“You’re still real siblings even if you don’t have the same biological father. Being a half sibling doesn’t make you any less of a brother. Your relationship with your brothers and sisters isn’t based on blood. You were there with them from the moment they came home after they were born. Your relationship was nurtured from the love you have for each other.”
He tossed the paintbrush onto the palette and pushed to his feet, pacing. “It’s so frustrating. I feel like I just got my father back, and then I was dumped into this black hole of an unknown. I don’t know what to do with that. What if I’m not his biological son?”