There’d been rumors of a newbie arriving at Abernathy, but I’d never in a million years imagined she’d be a young Elizabeth Taylor. My mama had loved the movie Cleopatra and I’d had a crush on Elizabeth Taylor since before I knew what a crush was.
All those exciting, innocent, and overwhelming feelings came rushing back to me now. I wanted to get to know this lady lawyer, starting with her name and ending with the face she made when I was buried deep inside of her.
But that was gonna have to take a backseat. First, I needed to wrap my mind around the name I hadn’t heard spoken aloud in two decades.
Cheyenne.
My sister.
Shadow.
That was the nickname she’d earned because I’d had a difficult time pronouncing Cheyenne when she was born, and because the girl followed me around everywhere I went.
Memories came flooding back—a small-boned, delicate blonde girl wearing a sundress and sandals, ribbons waving from the end of her braids
In my mind’s eye, I could see the two of us in the yard, me around eight, which would’ve made her five. We were playing with my GI Joes. I was insisting they needed to fight; she wanted to pretend they were a singing group.
Another scene of her falling off of her bike after she tried to keep up with me and my friends popped into my head. Her knee was scraped and bleeding, but she stood up, wiped off the gravel that was stuck in her skin, stood her bike back up and got back on. She didn’t shed a single tear. In fact, she never cried.
Well…almost never.
Another scene came to mind.
My mama’s funeral and the reception back at the house after. All of us bawlin’ our eyes out. Pop, already half in the bottle even though it was well before noon.
A proper-looking older couple with Yankee accents that I didn’t recognize but found out were my mama’s people. My grandparents; that was the first and last day I ever saw them.
Damn, I hadn’t thought about that horrible day since it happened. I must’ve suppressed it, but the scene played out vividly in my mind now.
My grandmother, her face tight with anger, confronts my father. “James, don’t fight me on this. I don’t know why my daughter chose to marry you at all, but I accepted it. Now that she’s gone, I’m taking charge. It’s too late for the boys. They already run around like little heathens, and I don’t see that changing without a good deal of strict home training that I simply don’t have the energy for at this age. However, Cheyenne is a different story. It’s not too late to raise her properly, as a lady. That is precisely what I plan to do.”
“You can’t take my daughter. I don’t know who the hell you think you are.”
I can hear two things in my father’s voice: indifference and slurring. I’m not surprised, just scared. He doesn’t seem to care about much since Mama died. Except for drinking. Now, it seems like he doesn’t even care that much about Shadow getting taken away.
I wrap my arms around her a little tighter as she buries her head against my neck and cries.
The woman reaches under the kitchen table and pulls Cheyenne out of my arms. I yell in protest and try to hold on, but I’m only eight. No match for the strength of an adult.
“James, we are taking Cheyenne home with us to Connecticut today. If you feel you have a chance and can muster up the wherewithal, I welcome you taking us to court. I have no doubt the judge would see things our way.”
Throughout this speech, Cheyenne is reaching for me, crying. I naively think my father is going to stop them. But he doesn’t.
When the woman turns, still holding firmly to Cheyenne’s arm, and marches away, Cheyenne lets out a shrill, piercing scream and tries to scramble out of my grandmother’s arms. I run out from under the table and try to pull her back to me. I scream, “You can’t take Cheyenne! You can’t take Shadow!” but the older man, my grandfather, who’s been silent this whole time, simply picks me up and sets me aside.
And just like that, they’re gone.
I look to my father for help, but he lets his shoulders sag and walks away.
I feel like yelling at the top of my lungs. I feel like punching through a wall. First I lost my mama and now my sister, my shadow. It hurts so much I don’t know what to do, and I think I might just go curl up in a corner and die, like a dog who knows its time is up.
I squeeze my eyes shut as tight as I can. I decide in that moment that nothing and no one is ever gonna hurt me this bad again, because I’m not gonna let ’em. Love sucks. It makes you feel like you got punched in the gut about a thousand times by Hulk Hogan.
I push down my feelings. Push down my memories. They’re too painful. So I forget.
I blinked as the recollection finished playing in my mind, like it was being projected onto a movie screen. I was truly astonished that I really had gone all these years without bringing it to mind, but now it was as clear as if it’d happened yesterday.
A connection zapped into place in my brain, and I suddenly recognized the delicate blonde young woman who’d been sitting in the back of the conference room. I’d noticed her when I’d walked in and assumed she was there to take notes or something, that she worked for the law firm. Honestly, I’d been so captivated by the other woman in the room, I’d barely given the blonde in the corner a second thought.
Until now. I turned to her then, and I saw that she was looking at me, too. Her face was filled with a mixture of hope and fear that made me instinctively want to wrap her up in my arms and protect her. That was when I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, no pun intended, that I was right.
A slow grin spread across my face. “Well, hey there, Shadow.”
Her eyes filled with tears, and she gave me a small wave.
Damn. Of all the things I’d expected to get today, my little sister back hadn’t been one of them.
I heard a clearing throat and turned forward, and my eyes lit on the sexy lady lawyer, who was shuffling through her paperwork again.
Hmmmm…now, there’s another unexpected gift.
CHAPTER 4
Reagan
I stood at the head of the conference table, stuffing papers back into the case file as the parties mingled and made small talk.
When I’d walked into this room over an hour ago I’d expected a simple, short proceeding that would fade into memory as soon as I sat down at my desk and started drafting my next brief. What had actually happened was about as far from that as I could imagine.
I’d witnessed a surprise family reunion between long-lost siblings, who even now were chatting warmly with one another. Well, warmly might be an exaggerated description. But they were all being pleasant, if not a little bit reserved and wary.
Except for one. The middle brother. William…no, Billy. That’s what his family had called him.
Apparently none of the Comfort men used their given names. Henry was Hank. James was Jimmy. And William was Billy.
The one that I’d thought was so rude and disrespectful when he’d disappeared without explanation before the reading, and so hot and sexy when he’d finally walked in the room. He alone, out of all of the siblings, looked purely joyful to see his little sister. There was no wariness at all in his eyes.
They drifted toward the door as a group and paused near me to say their goodbyes. I shook hands with Hank and Jimmy as they each took their leave. Then Billy wrapped his arms around Cheyenne and squeezed tight. “You sure you don’t want to come to lunch, Shadow? We got twenty years of catchin’ up to do.”