Almost.
Until it came crashing down at the sound of his voice.
“We’re about to do cake,” Brady announced from the doorway. “You coming outside?”
Tom went on alert as we both spun to face Lucas’s father.
I’d known that today was going to be hard. Every year, I’d dreaded that party like the plague. But this year was different, and I’d been preparing myself more than usual.
His name was William Lucas Boyd. My mother had informed me the day he was born. But the sight of him felt like I’d been hit by a freight train.
My heart ached.
My hands twitched.
My mind screamed.
My conscience wept.
The sight of Brady holding a six-month-old little boy with black hair and brown eyes was worse than any slice from the blade of reality. It was a direct hit from the rusty, jagged knife of the past.
My back collided with Tom’s hard chest as I blinked frantically, trying to stay in the present. Memories of Brady holding Lucas flooded my brain until I was choking on them.
The chill of Brady’s gaze raked over me as he shifted the baby in his arms. “Jesus, Charlotte. You couldn’t take the day off?”
“I…” I smoothed the top of my scrubs down and did the best I could to keep my voice even. “I had a patient. I just came from the hospital.”
“Well, I’m so glad you could find the time in your busy schedule to join us.”
It could have been an innocent statement coming from anyone else. But not from Brady.
It still killed me the way he so fiercely blamed me for everything. It’d been almost ten years and the ever-present disdain still radiated from his eyes when we saw each other. I’d often thought I could have waited a hundred years and he still would have scowled at me from the grave.
Time hadn’t healed his wounds, either.
He hated me. I could have lived with that if he hadn’t been the only piece of Lucas I had left.
And I’d lost that too.
It was no secret that I hadn’t handled the emotional upheaval of Lucas’s disappearance well. Brady had lost his mind when I’d gone back to school five days after our son was taken. But everyone had their own ways of dealing with hardship—or, in our case, life-altering devastation. For me, it was to throw myself into my career.
I couldn’t sit at home, waiting for the phone to ring or a knock at the door from someone saying that they had found him. The what-ifs and regrets of that day were nearly crippling without being forced to relive them for hours on end. Yes, I waited with bated breath for someone to bring him back to me. Praying to any and every god who would ever exist. Crying oceans of tears. Losing parts of myself in the depths of despair. But, no matter how many times I’d bargained with the universe, nothing had changed. I wanted my son back more than I wanted to see another sunrise, but with no leads, there was only so much I could do.
Brady took to the media and worked closely with the Center for Missing and Exploited Children while I desperately tried to disappear into the shadows. Our story had made national news for a brief spell. And the finger-pointing had been more than I could handle.
What kind of a mother leaves their child alone in a stroller?
She deserves to be in jail.
She probably killed him and made up this whole kidnapping thing as a cover.
Those were a few of the most popular comments echoing through the media.
By way of the popular opinion, I was guilty.
I was barely surviving my own condemnation without the entire world casting stones at me too.
So I went back to work, doing everything possible to keep myself from self-destructing. And people misunderstood this as me being unaffected. I’d sacrificed everything for my career. Love. Friends. Time with my family. But make no mistake about it. Without hesitation, I would have given it all up for one second with Lucas.
Straightening my backbone, I refused to show Brady any weakness. My heart was breaking, but I wouldn’t allow him to make that day any more difficult than it already was. “I’m here, okay? Let’s cut the bullshit. Have some cake. And then go back to pretending the other doesn’t exist.”
His jaw ticked as he stared down at me. “Right. Of course. Pretending. The Charlotte Mills way.”
I barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, Brady. I’m the one pretending as you sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to our ten-year-old missing child.”
The words hadn’t escaped my mouth before I regretted them. It was a stupid jab spoken out of anger. I should have known better than to provoke him. I’d become skilled at dodging his insults over the years, but that one statement opened me up for Brady’s signature blow. There wasn’t armor in the world strong enough to protect me from its assault.
I braced.
His face became hard, and his nostrils flared with rage.
It was coming.
The air around us chilled.
“Brady,” Tom warned at my back.
But it was too late…
“And whose fault is that, Charlotte?”
The words tore through me. It was a truth and a fact not even I could deny.
Mine.
It was my fault.
Always and forever.
“Enough!” Her voice breezed into the silent room like the warning whistle of an arrow.
I imagined her walking in like a superhero, her arm stretched out in front of her, the furniture sliding back to the walls at her will. In truth, she tiptoed in on a pair of kitten heels, wearing a pair of crisp, white linen pants and a bright-coral silk blouse that popped in contrast to her dark brown bob. At fifty-eight, she was just as beautiful as she’d been when I was a kid. But, for as petite and proper as she appeared to be on the outside, on the inside, my mother was a warrior. She’d fought the entire world on my behalf when Lucas had gone missing.
“Susan…” Brady started, but he didn’t bother finishing the thought. He was no opponent for the likes of Susan Mills. Not many people were.
“Today is not about you, Brady,” she snapped. “You stand there, holding your son, spewing insults and blame? It’s never too early to teach your children a thing or two about understanding and forgiveness. Be an example for him.” She palmed each side of William’s tiny head, covering his ears, and then hissed, “And stop being an asshole on my grandson’s birthday.”
God, I loved my mom.
Brady shifted the baby in his arms, and without another word or glance in my direction, he backed out of the room, his tail firmly tucked between his legs.
My shoulders rounded forward as relief washed over me.
At five-six, I was over four inches taller than my mother, but when she wrapped me in her arms, I felt like a child again.
“Hey, love,” she cooed, all signs of her hard-ass attitude erased.
“Hey, Mom,” I murmured.
Tom ambled away, giving us space without wandering far.
“You okay?” she asked, stepping out of my embrace.
“I’m fine.”
She kept her hands on my biceps and studied my face for any sign of a lie.
If she found any, she had the graciousness to let it go.
I wasn’t fine. And I hadn’t been in a long time. She’d hated it, but over the years, she’d had no choice but to accept it. The happy and carefree Charlotte Mills she’d raised had died on that fated September morning.
She slid her assessing gaze to the side. “You know, Tom. You do carry a gun. It wouldn’t have killed you to take care of that situation before I got here.”
He lifted his head from his phone, a small—and entirely handsome—smile pulling at his lips. “Not fond of spending my retirement in the slammer, Susan.”
She grinned and then batted her eyelashes. (Legit Betty Boop–style.) “No. I guess we can’t have that, now can we?”
I flicked my eyes between the two of them as they stood there staring at each other, the blatant chemistry damn near suffocating me.
God. I wanted that. With someone. Anyone. Though that would have probably required me to let someone in and allow them to get to know me. In a lot of ways, that insurmountable task seemed harder than finding out who had taken my son.
“Anyway,” I drawled to break their invisible current.
Mom shook her head to snap herself out of it. “I hear it’s time for cake.”