4. Zach
Outside, the heat of the day was gone, but I was still riled up inside. As I walked to the corner, I pulled up Chance’s number to give him a call.
“Hey there, cuz—what’s up?” he said as he answered, and I couldn’t help chuckling a little. I still wasn’t used to having cousins, even if the McCallister brothers insisted that that was what we were.
It had only been a little over a year since Chance’s father, Ray, had died, leading to the discovery—thanks to some old letters hidden away in a closet—that Ray had a half-brother he hadn’t spoken to in years. That brother, Admiral Peter Anderson, was the same man who had fostered me and my brothers. The Admiral had already been three years gone by then, so there was no opportunity for Chance or his siblings to get to know their uncle firsthand, but they’d been surprisingly determined to welcome me, Colin, and Alex into the family. They’d even insisted on me moving into what had been their childhood home while I found my feet in civilian life.
Chance and I were the only ones currently living in Springwell—me in the old McCallister house, Chance with his wife, Mandy—but we had a family group chat with the three McCallister brothers, plus their significant others, and the three Vales, and we all kept in touch as regularly as we could. Chance had also, personally, made it clear that he wanted me to come to him whenever I needed help with anything—and, in fact, that he’d be pretty pissed off if I didn’t. It took a little getting used to not being the default oldest in the family anymore, but I had to admit, I kinda liked having an older cousin to look out for me.
“If you’re not too busy, could you come give me a lift?”
“Sure thing, just let me clear it with the boss lady. You know what a dragon she can be,” he said, his tone warmly teasing in a way that I knew meant his wife—also his boss, and the owner of the garage where he worked—was standing right there.
“Please get him out of here before I beat him over the head with a wrench!” I heard Mandy call out, laughing. “You wouldn’t believe what a pest he’s being. And make sure to send him back with ice cream!”
“Sounds like I’ve got my marching orders. Where do you need me to come get you?” Chance asked. I gave him the address, and he pulled up just a few minutes later.
“Hey, man, thanks for this. I appreciate it,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat.
“No problem,” Chance said. “Mandy wasn’t kidding about me being a pest. Don’t think she was kidding about coming after me with a wrench either.”
“Still driving her crazy with the hovering, huh?” I asked.
Chance grinned, wide and easy. “Well, that and she just looks so damn hot pregnant. Kinda hard to keep my hands to myself. But I might have been a little too distracting while she was replacing a transmission, so I’m kinda in the doghouse now. But don’t worry, I know exactly what ice cream to buy to get back out of it.” Their first baby was due in December, and Chance was over-the-moon excited about it.
“That works out. I need you to take me to my car. It’s downtown, by All That Sparkles—which will put you right by Sweet Peach Creamery.”
Chance gave me a sharp look before putting the car into gear. “All That Sparkles, huh? Isn’t that your ex’s shop?”
“Yeah. I got called out there earlier today for work. They needed a sniper.”
That got Chance’s attention in a hurry. “A sniper? What the hell?”
I explained about the thief and everything that had gone down. Chance let out a low whistle, shaking his head. “Sounds like something out of a movie,” he said. “But I’m glad it had a happy ending and that no one was hurt—aside from the thief.”
“Yeah, well…there was one more plot twist,” I said. He must have heard in my tone that this was serious, because even though we’d gotten downtown by then, instead of pulling over to let me out, Chance pulled into a parking lot, put the car into park, and turned to give me his full attention.
“What happened?” he asked, voice dead serious.
“One of the hostages in the store was Carolyn’s baby. Our baby.”
I told him the whole story. He knew she was my ex, knew a little about our break up, but it had all happened before we’d connected as family, so he didn’t have the full scoop. Everything spilled out, from the fight that had ended in our break up, to the miserable state I’d been once it was over, to the new phone number, the attempts to move on, the shock over seeing her again, the gut punch of realizing that we had a child she hadn’t told me about, and finally, the conversation we’d just had.
I pulled out my phone to look at the screenshots, and we read through the messages together. They started out a little tentative. Hey, we need to talk about something. Could you give me a call? But after a few more, they started getting angry. Answer your damn phone, asshole. I don’t want to tell you this news in a text. There must have been some voicemails too—she mentioned them in her messages—but it seemed like her last communication had been a text, along with a picture. Your son was born this morning. The doctors say he’s healthy. I’ve named him Austin. And since you’ve made it clear you want nothing to do with either one of us, this is the last you’ll be hearing from me.
“Well…shit,” Chance said after he’d read through them.
“Yeah,” I agreed with a sigh. “Shit.”
“So…what are you going to do about it?”
Wasn’t that the million-dollar question? “I want to be part of my son’s life,” I said. That much, I knew for sure.
“And his mother’s life?”
I shrugged helplessly. “She’s the one who ended things. We were engaged, and I was so sure that we’d be together forever—and then out of nowhere, she was telling me that she didn’t want to be with me anymore.”
“Was it really out of nowhere?” Chance asked. “Because I gotta say, from what you described, you and Carolyn sound a lot like Mandy and me.”
For a minute, all I could do was stare. “Are you kidding me? The two of you are the most solid couple I’ve ever seen. Nothing’s ever going to break you up.”
“Not anymore,” Chance agreed. “But we did split up for years after high school. You didn’t know about that?”
“No, I…I had no idea.” Chance was three years older than me. We’d gone to the same high school, but I’d been a freshman when he was a senior, so our paths hadn’t really crossed. I’d known in a vague way that he and Mandy had been together back then and had just assumed that they’d gone the distance together all these years.
“I signed up for the Navy and then went to tell Mandy, so excited for the life we’d have leaving this town behind, going to live on military bases all over the world. There was just one thing I forgot.”
“What was that?”
“None of that was her dream,” Chance explained. “She didn’t want to go away. She wanted to stay right here, with her dad and their garage and the life she’d imagined for us. But she didn’t want to spoil my dream for me either and force me to stay, so she broke up with me. I was blindsided, heartbroken. I carried a lot of hurt over that for a damn long time until I came back for Dad’s last days and she and I finally worked things out. I’d spent years trying to figure out why she dumped me, and when I finally got the answer, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it sooner. I knew how close she was to her dad, how much she loved the garage. Not to mention, there were a million little things she’d said over the years to show that she saw our future here in Springwell. And I’d managed to ignore all of it because I was so focused on what I wanted our lives to be.”
“You think I did the same thing with Carolyn?”
“I don’t know,” Chance said. “Did you?”
Did I? It wasn’t quite the same—Carolyn had stayed with me for years while I served. But had I ignored the signs that she wasn’t happy, having me away most of the time? Had I missed the hints that she was reaching the end of her patience with our lives moving along separate tracks? Maybe so. It seemed like Carolyn and I had a lot to talk about—not just about Austin, but about what had happened between the two of us.
I wasn’t in the Navy anymore. I was ready to start a new life…and I wanted that life to be with her and Austin. Was there any chance that she might want that, too?
I only snapped out of my thoughts when I felt a warm hand clasp my shoulder. “Take your time, think it over—and then see if you and Carolyn can talk things out, okay? That’s my advice.”
I mustered a smile for my cousin. “It’s good advice. I appreciate it.”
He grinned at me. “Anytime, man. And hey, congratulations on being a dad! Once things have settled down, you know you can count on me and Mandy as babysitters, right? Gotta get some practice in before our sprog comes along.”
“I might take you up on that,” I said, unfastening my seat belt and opening the car door. “Thanks again for the lift. And don’t forget Mandy’s ice cream.”
“Oh, no danger of that,” Chance said with a wicked smirk. “I have plans for that ice cream.”
There was nothing for me to say to that, so I just laughed and headed to my car, giving Chance a final wave before he disappeared into the ice cream shop.
A little while later, I pulled up across the street and a little ways down at a spot that gave me a perfect vantage point of Carolyn’s house.
Whether she liked it or not, I protected my own, which meant my son and my son’s mother. The situation with the robber had me uneasy. Yeah, the guy was out of the picture, but I didn’t consider the case closed yet. Not until we knew for sure that the guy had been working alone. So for now, better safe than sorry. I settled in for the night. I’d never struggled to keep alert while on a mission. That night, my mind churned with thoughts, making it easy to keep my eyes open and my focus sharp. Periodically, I slipped between her property and the neighbors’ to check the back of her house. It remained peaceful.
At dawn, I drove home to grab a few hours of sleep before work.