Chapter 34
Hunter
P apa!” Ellie screams, running into my arms. I squat beside her, raking my eyes over every inch of her tiny body to make sure, but then—” Anger burns from within me as I take in the blood on her face.
Garrison has smartly shoved away from Devyn. I was about ten seconds shy of beating his entire fuckin’ body through his own damn door if he hurt a single hair on her head. And that’s how I feel again when I see the blood on my little girl’s cheek.
Blood that was put there by his son.
“Your boy do this to my daughter?” I spit at Garrison, peering around a sickly calf to get a look at the Presley boy. It’s always that same boy. But my feet stop their crunch along the gravel when I see he’s covered in bruises and cuts worse than hers.
“Ellie?”
“She did it to him,” Devyn says. I don’t miss the way she clutches the railing. He’s scared her shitless. From the looks of it, he’s been in one of those drunk throes he finds himself in once or twice a month.
Crumpled on the steps, tears and dirt coating his swollen eyes, red-faced and shaking.
He thinks his wife is burning alive.
Because of my fuckin’ brother. I clench my fists so hard I wouldn’t be surprised to find blood on my palms when I open them.
None of it gives him any excuse for who he’s become. It just…it is why he’s become this person. The reason our families have never aligned.
Why he can’t stand the sight of my kid. Or his own .
Not after what Samuel did.
A low growl forms in the base of my throat, and I force myself to look Ellie in the eyes.
“Did you beat up the Presley kid?”
She nods, and I curse.
“This is just what we need right before custody.” An assault to the mayor’s great nephew under my guardianship. I can’t lose Ellie. And even though this is all a technicality, and I’m surer than shit the kid deserved it, I can’t condone this behavior either. I’m no better than Samuel if I don’t steer her in the direction she needs to break the generational curses that stain us.
She’s supposed to have everything we couldn’t.
How can I give her that if she’s not under my care?
My heart pounds in my chest. Anxiety? Fear? I’m certain it’s both, but I can’t rein it in. I’m broken when it comes to Ellie.
I can’t go through the loss of a child again.
And no, it’s not fair to blame anyone for this, but somehow, I do.
I blame her.
I blame Devyn .
My eyes roam the scene wildly. Bloodied children, stolen livestock, Garrison-fucking-Presley, drunk and throwing accusations at my nine-year-old, who is already walking a tightrope frayed to bits when it comes to social services and their rules. My mouth foams. Words are coming out, but it hardly feels like I’m the one speaking them. Words that sting.
“How could you let this happen?” drops from my lips.
“ Me? ” She gapes. “I showed up after all of this happened. I’m helping.”
“You think this is helping? Coming here to rub it in Garrison’s face that she hit his kid? Right the fuck before a placement hearing.” I glance at Garrison, but he’s barely coherent. Drooping against the frame of the door. He won’t be conscious much longer.
I’ve seen him do it before. At least he won’t remember the fight. And if that’s the case, maybe we’ll still have a shot at covering this up before it reaches Katie. Or worse, the fucking mayor.
“You should have called me the second you found them so I could warn you against coming here. And alone?” I wring my hands through my hair, pacing in front of them. “Do you even know what could have happened to you, Dev? To both of you?”
Her eyes flare in shock and then flick to the ground. They stay there, and I know that can’t be good for me, but I gotta sort this other shit out. I’m a father first. I don’t have the luxury of playing it safe where Ellie’s placement is concerned.
“Gary,” I say, stalking forward and pulling him up by the shirt collar to look me in the eyes. He’s a sloppy mess, but my heart still tenses. I get it.
He’s me, before Ellie gave me something to live for.
But Jonathan? He stands far away from his father right now…holding Ellie’s hand .
I’ve missed some serious parts to this story.
Devyn wraps her arms around the kids, and I know instantly I’ve made a mistake. Hell, I knew it before I even spewed those words at her. I take in the tears streaming down her cheeks. Ones she very rarely shares with the world.
But there they are.
Because I hurt her.
She’s been here dealing with something Ellie got herself into, something that wasn’t even her responsibility, and I wasn’t here for that. She put herself in harm’s way with a drunk farmer she barely knows for my daughter.
And all I did was let the custody battle blind me from seeing how close we are to being something more than Ellie and Me…or Me and Dev.
It could be us.
And I may have messed it up in one solitary moment.
I groan as another problem rises to the surface of my mind. I can’t leave Jonathan here with Gary tonight. He’s wasted. Lucky for me, or unlucky for me, I’m not sure which, he’s too wasted to protest anything I say.
“Your boy’s stayin’ at my place.” I nod at Jonathan, bending down and sniffing the air to see just how much his father’s had. A lot.
“You can get him tomorrow when you’re sobered up. We’re gonna talk then. You hear me?”
“She’s gone, Isaac. Jusss fuckin’ gone .”
I know who he means, and I feel a tug at my heart.
Gary and I are one and the same. He lost someone much like I did. Too soon and much too fast.
Guilt creeps over me, and I grind my teeth as I shove my arm underneath him. I gave up trying to help him years ago. I tried to get him to see he’s got a damn son to live for, just like I had Ellie. But how do you get someone to see what’s right in front of them if all they ever do is look behind? I know all too well where this path Garrison is on could lead him, and I can’t bear to think it’s all because of our fucked-up family history. Not when I see his son, the same age as Ellie, begging him for more.
He needs help.
I breathe in, lifting his heavy frame.
I’m going to help him.
“I know. I know she is,” I tell him, hoisting his entire body over my shoulder with Jonathan’s aid and easing him into the house.
Jonathan gathers an overnight bag, and I take the private moment to look around. It’s not dirty, but it’s not clean. Not dark, but not bright. There’s food and clothes and furniture.
But it’s missing something.
Hope.
Something Ellie brings into my own home. That bright, shining sense of wonder and possibility that Devyn’s since enhanced.
I deposit Garrison’s limp body on the sofa next to a picture of Annabelle, a beautiful woman with brown hair and the voice of an angel. When she’d sing at church, Gary couldn’t look away, always braggin’ to the rest of us that her voice is as good as her cookin’, and her cookin’ is as good as her lookin’. They were so in love, they’d barely popped out the first kid before she was carrying their next.
Samuel’s my younger brother. I think I’ll always feel a sense of responsibility for the things he did that plague so many, because no matter what you do in the present to right it, the past is always the past.
And the dead don’t return.
I make sure there are no candles burning before we turn out the lights and go home.