Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 498(@200wpm)___ 398(@250wpm)___ 332(@300wpm)
Landon grinned around his pint glass and after taking a sip, set it down. “If you tell anyone I said this, I’ll deny it, but you’re a decent guy, Hayden. I’m kinda proud you’re my brother.”
Landon was a war hero. He’d fought and sacrificed for his country. For him to be proud of me was beyond anything I could hope for. “I won’t tell a soul,” I replied and clinked my glass against his. I might be terrible at relationships with women and I might have become a paranoid control freak, but my brother and I had something in common: we were men of action and we didn’t stop until we’d got what we wanted. I’d make things right with Avery. It was the least I could do.
Thirty-Five
Avery
The bruises on my heart still ached as if I’d last seen Hayden yesterday. I’d expected Sacramento to revive me, to make me forget the weeks that had come before. But a month at home had passed too quickly and I was dreading leaving for Miami later that day.
“Come over here and have breakfast with me and your brother before you go,” my dad said.
I glanced over at them both. “Sure. Has the mail come yet?”
My dad cocked his head to the counter top where a stack of mail lay unopened.
“Dad!”
Since I’d gotten back from France, I’d spent all of my free time on the internet, finding charities that supported people in our situation and talking to them about what had happened, writing to apply for grants from foundations and trusts, investigating what I could do to appeal the health insurance company’s decision regarding my brother’s care. I’d been busy and it had started to pay off. Some donations were just a few hundred dollars, but yesterday we’d received a check for five thousand from a sports injury charity. It wasn’t going to go far, but it had given me hope and more than anything, that was what I needed.
My father had seemed content to accept what had happened, as if he knew the odds had never been in our family’s favor, knew that the house always won. He’d shrugged and done the best he could with what he had.
That was his coping mechanism.
Michael and I hadn’t talked about it at all.
The way I dealt with it was to try to fix it. It was who I was—I fixed things for people and the five thousand dollar check yesterday was evidence I could fix this too.
I grabbed the mail from the counter and dropped into a seat at the table, sorting through the envelopes. Most of them were junk.
“You want juice, honey?” my dad asked as he held the jug over my glass.
“Sure, thanks,” I said, sawing my finger across the sealed top of a brown envelope. “You’re going to have to check these when I’m gone. You know that, right? You can’t leave it for me to come home to in five months. Some of them you need to respond to right away. Those you should just scan to me and I’ll deal with them.” I unfolded the letter. I didn’t need to read the line and a half of writing—anything that didn’t require at least two paragraphs was a no.
“I can email you on this boat you’re going on, right?”
“Yes, and call me. I’ll have my phone with me. It will be much better than last time.” I wasn’t sure it was the relief at being able to contact my father that made my shoulders sag or if it was the thought that if I had my cell my guest wasn’t Hayden Wolf.
I’d tried not to think about him, but he was still there, haunting me at the edges of my smile as I settled back into Sacramento, and in that time just before I fell asleep when I couldn’t press down the memories of him anymore. I hoped that if I could block him out for long enough, eventually I wouldn’t have to try, and he’d dissolve into a pot of bad decisions and might-have-beens.
My rage had faded, at least.
I couldn’t be angry at him for his accusations. They’d hurt. They still hurt but I understood it. And I deserved it. For a second I’d been tempted. And it hadn’t been how I felt about Hayden Wolf that had stopped me. I just couldn’t do that to my father or brother. Neither one of them would have forgiven me if they’d thought any money they’d received had been from a source like Cannon. It was hard enough for my dad to accept the checks that had been coming from charities and foundations since I’d started applying. He was a man of honor and principle and I wouldn’t sully his legacy by taking money for stolen secrets. I wanted to be worthy of calling him my father.