“They’ll live.”
Rachel stifles a giggle at the nice side of shade my daughter just threw me. Ariel’s not happy, but she does move on. She skips toward Noah’s son Seth, takes his hand, and tells him the ducks are more scared of him than he is of them. The way Seth’s eyes are about to pop out of his head, I’m betting she’s wrong.
At least Ariel walks Seth away from the geese, but I am concerned with her trajectory toward the horses grazing in a nearby field. Ariel talks to Seth the entire time. There aren’t many people who can keep up with her, as she has something to say about everything at any time.
The wedding is at a winery in the middle of nowhere, and it’s about an hour until the start. It’s a beautiful fall afternoon, blue skies and all that, and we’re here early since Rachel has had a big hand in the planning.
Rachel and I own a custom car shop, and my cell is on vibrate in case a problem arises. So far—nothing. We don’t have a huge staff, but those we employ are trustworthy and know how to do their job.
My wife leans her head against my shoulder, and I take her hand. I never knew there could be so much happiness in just sitting with my wife and watching a six-year-old walk. A daisy falls to the ground by my booted feet. I lean down and pick it up, forcing Rachel to straighten.
I take a long look at my wife, snapping a mental picture of how gorgeous she is with her long blond hair curled and hanging around her bare shoulders. Rachel is in the wedding and is wearing a fitted purple dress. I’m not a stylist, but I do my best to tuck the daisy back into my wife’s hair, and the smile I receive in return takes my breath away.
Maybe that’s the next tattoo I should get—a daisy to remember this moment.
Her near violet eyes shift to something over my shoulder, and the spark in them gains my attention. Rachel grabs my hand, squeezes, then motions for me to look. Her silence tells me that if we make a noise, we’ll break the magic.
I glance over my shoulder and watch as Echo stands next to Dalton as he gingerly holds Oliver. Oliver kicks his feet the way eight-month-olds do, and Dalton looks as comfortable as that goose with Ariel.
Dalton is new to our family. Fifteen, gangly, all arms and legs with no muscle, thick glasses and a slight stutter when he’s nervous—which for the first two months that he lived with me, Rachel, and Ariel was all the time. But in the past month, he’s seemed to have relaxed some into our world. I’d love to take credit for that, but I think most of it is due to Rachel’s kindness, Ariel’s insistence that he’s her older brother for life, and Dalton’s twice-a-week appointments with my old high school guidance counselor, Mrs. Collins.
Mrs. Collins no longer works in the school system, but has a private practice. She has three kids of her own now, and most people in the wedding party owe their life to her. When Dalton entered our home, she was the first person we contacted.
Dalton has been in and out of foster care his entire life. His dad is out of the picture, and his mom is serving out her third court-ordered detox. He’s quiet, which I understand and respect. He often reminds me of a turtle with his head tucked into his body, and he’s slowly peeking out of his shell.
Echo has Dalton sit with Oliver, and Dalton holds the baby by the armpits as Oliver jumps on Dalton’s thighs. The baby makes a loud raspberry noise, and Dalton’s face twists as if he doesn’t understand the conversation. Oliver does it again, and this time, Dalton does it back. The way Oliver cackles causes Dalton to crack a grin and Echo to giggle.
I squeeze Rachel’s hand, and she squeezes back. It’s good to see the kid smile. He deserves more carefree moments in his life.
“Maybe, hopefully,” Rachel whispers in my ear, and I kiss her lips in response because I can’t find words to express how this hope of keeping Dalton is killing me. But I don’t regret opening our home to him. I never will.
We want to adopt him and make him a permanent part of our family, but the system is complicated, and so is Dalton’s situation. Regardless, we’re going to be here for him, even if they take him away and place him back with his mom when she’s released.
“Isaiah!” Noah calls. “We need help setting up the chairs.”
I kiss Rachel again and head off to help my best friend set up for the wedding.
Chapter 33
West
It’s weird how the world works. One day you’re speeding down a road until bam—there’s a sign that the bridge is out. You take a left, not really thinking where the left is going to lead, and you keep going. Then it dawns on you that maybe the person you were with may not have taken the left with you and has instead turned right. By then, you’ve both gone so far down your own roads that there’s no turning back.
That’s what happened with me and Haley. We graduated from high school in love, went to different colleges, thought we could make it work, thought we were making it work, until, one day, we realized it wasn’t working.
Through college, I fought my fair share of MMA fights, but I had never been as gutted open and ripped apart as the day Haley and I walked away from each other. There was no yelling, no fight, just a ton of regret and hurt.
I haven’t seen her in years, but I think about her all the time. I’ve been reduced to hearing about her through my sisters Rachel and Abby, who remained friends with Haley after we broke things off. Haley’s a physical therapist now. She has her own practice, and she’s associated with the gym, her brother and cousin, Jax and Kaden, own.
Rachel and Abby say Haley’s happy, and she looks happy. Through the window, I watch as Haley releases a beautiful smile as she hugs Noah and then Isaiah.
Her hair is long, like I remember, but the brown has more of a chestnut hue. I remember the way her dark eyes flashed with fire the first time we met. She’s just as beautiful as she was back then. Today she wears blue. Blue always looked good on her, and that dress she wears fits her in every perfect way.
A snap of fingers in front of my face, and I’m drawn back to the reason I’m here: Abby.
“Young,” Abby says. “Where’s my something blue?”
I raise an eyebrow at her, and I’m tempted to point at Haley, but I don’t. Instead I pull a jewelry box from the pocket of my tuxedo and hand it to her. In a slim-fitting white wedding gown, Abby tilts her head at me. “What’s that?”
“Your something new and blue. I don’t do borrowed, so you’re going to have to live with the disappointment.” That’s what happens when she asks me to be her best man. She could have done the whole maid or matron of honor thing, but she didn’t go that route. It’s Abby so I roll with it.
Her expression softens. “I was kidding. I wasn’t expecting you to get me anything. The whole present thing isn’t why I’m getting married.”
Why she would think I wouldn’t buy her anything, I don’t know. She’s not just like a sister to me, she is my sister. My entire family is here because years ago, during her senior year, my parents adopted her. Abby, the former drug dealer, officially became a Young before her eighteenth birthday and also became a member of one of the richest families in Kentucky.
Since then, she took on the role of a Young better than any of us born into the title. She is even one of my father’s top salespeople.