Chapter 4
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— Lilac —
Three days. Three days since the grocery store. Three days of jumping at every motorcycle engine, of scanning every parking lot for a black leather vest, of lying awake at night seeing his face.
Three days of pretending everything was fine while my whole world tilted on its axis.
“Mama, you’re not listening.”
I blinked and refocused on Knox, who was sitting across from me at the kitchen table with his homework spread out in front of him. His brow was furrowed in that particular way he got when he was trying to be patient with adults who weren’t paying attention.
“I’m sorry, baby. What did you say?”
“I said, what’s ten plus six?” He tapped his pencil against the math worksheet. “Luca says it’s fifteen but I think it’s sixteen.”
“Sixteen,” I confirmed automatically.
“Ha!” Knox shot a triumphant look at his brother, who was sprawled on the living room floor with a book. “Told you!”
“Whatever.” Luca didn’t look up from his page. “Math is stupid anyway.”
Normally I would have corrected him—math wasn’t stupid, it was important, all the usual parent speeches. But I couldn’t summon the energy. I was too busy listening for the rumble of a motorcycle that might signal the return of a man who claimed to be my husband.
My husband.
The word still didn’t feel real. I’d been married. I’d had a life before Betty’s spare bedroom, before the boys, before everything I knew about myself. I mean, of course I did. I just assumed it was unremarkable since nobody looked for me.
Turns out it wasn’t so unremarkable after all, and I couldn’t remember any of it.
Betty had called Graham the day after the grocery store incident.
He was riding up from Pittsburgh—nearly three days on the road, she’d said.
He’d be here tomorrow. The man who’d saved my life, who’d carried me bleeding and broken to a stranger’s door, who apparently knew the truth about what had happened to me.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“Mama?” Knox’s voice pulled me back again. “Are you okay? You keep getting that look.”
“I’m fine, sweetheart.” I forced a smile. “Just tired.”
“Is it because of that man?” Luca had abandoned his book and was watching me from the doorway, his expression too knowing for a six-year-old. “The one from the store?”
My stomach clenched. “What makes you ask that?”
“You’ve been weird since then. Jumpy.” He crossed his arms like he was the one who needed to decide if I was okay. “Is he going to come here? To our house?”
“No, baby. He’s not going to come here.” I didn’t know if that was true. I didn’t know anything anymore.
“Because if he does, I’ll protect you.” Luca’s jaw set in that stubborn way that reminded me of—
I froze.
That was what had been nagging at me. That set of his jaw, the way he planted his feet, the fierce protectiveness. I’d always assumed he’d gotten it from me, from watching me fight to build a life for us out of nothing.
But I’d seen that same expression three days ago. On a man with green eyes and a leather vest.
“Mama?” Knox was staring at me now too, both boys watching me with matching concern.
“I’m fine,” I said again, but my voice came out strange. Thin. “Why don’t you boys go play outside for a bit? Get some fresh air before dinner.”
They exchanged one of those twin looks—the silent communication I’d never learned to decode—and then headed for the back door without argument. They knew something was wrong. They were giving me space to fall apart.
When had my six-year-olds become the ones taking care of me?
I waited until I heard the back door slam, then dropped my head into my hands and let out a shaky breath.
?
“You need to eat something.”
Betty set a plate in front of me—grilled cheese, cut into triangles the way she’d been making it since I first woke up in her house. I wasn’t hungry, but I picked up a triangle anyway and took a bite to make her stop hovering.
“Graham will be here tomorrow,” she said, settling into the chair across from me. “He’ll have answers.”
“What if I don’t want answers?” The words came out before I could stop them. “I liked my life better when I didn’t know there was a man out there who thinks I destroyed him.”
Betty was quiet for a moment. Then she reached across the table and took my hand.
“I’ve watched you build something beautiful out of nothing, Lilac. A life, a career, two wonderful boys. Nothing that man says can take that away from you.”
“He looked at me like I was a monster.” My voice cracked. “Like I’d done something unforgivable. And I don’t even know what it was.”
“That’s because you didn’t do anything.” Betty’s grip tightened. “Whatever happened seven years ago, whatever he believes, you were the victim. Graham made that clear when he brought you to me. You were hurt, Lilac. Badly. You didn’t run away from anything—you were running for your life.”
I wanted to believe her. But I’d seen the hatred in Colt’s eyes, heard the accusation in his voice. Got yourself knocked up by some prick and couldn’t face me?
He thought I’d cheated. Thought I’d stolen from him and abandoned him. Thought I’d kept his—
I stopped chewing. His. Not some other man’s. His.
“Betty.” My voice came out strangled. “You said Colt is the boys’ father.”
“Yes.”
“But he thinks they’re someone else’s. He thinks I cheated on him.”
Betty’s face went pale. “Oh, sweetheart. He doesn’t know.”
“Of course he doesn’t know!” The laugh that escaped me was wild, bordering on hysterical. “He doesn’t know anything! He thinks I walked out on him pregnant with another man’s babies, when really I was—what? What happened?”
“We don’t know exactly what happened,” Betty said carefully. “Graham will—”
“Graham will tell us I was beaten nearly to death and my husband never came looking for me.” I pushed back from the table, the grilled cheese suddenly making me nauseous.
“Seven years, Betty. I was in a coma for a month, and then I was awake, recovering, pregnant, alone. And he never came. He never even tried to find me.”
“We don’t know that. We don’t know what he was told, what he believed—”
“He believed I was a bitch who cheated on him and ran.” The bitterness in my voice surprised me. I didn’t have memories of this man, didn’t have any reason to feel betrayed. “He gave up on me. On us. On—”
On his sons.
I couldn’t say it out loud.
Luca and Knox didn’t have a father because their father had believed a lie. Had spent seven years hating me for something I was sure I didn’t do.
And now he was here, in the same town as us, and he still didn’t know the truth.
?
That night, after the boys were asleep, I sat on the back porch and watched the stars.
I’d done this a lot in those early months after waking up. When the not-knowing became too heavy, I’d come outside and look up at the sky. It helped, somehow. The stars didn’t care about my missing past. They just kept burning, steady and ancient, indifferent to human drama.
Texas.
The word surfaced unbidden, bringing with it another flash—brief and disorienting.
The same heat, the same smell of dust and motor oil.
But this time there was more. A porch like this one, older and more weathered.
A man’s laugh, low and warm—and something about that laugh made my stomach flutter in a way that had nothing to do with fear. The clink of beer bottles.
“Best view in the world, Lil.”
“It’s a parking lot.”
“I meant you.”
I gasped, gripping the porch railing as the vision faded.
That voice. That laugh. I knew them, the way you know a song you haven’t heard in years—familiar but just out of reach. And I knew, too, the feeling of those large hands cupping my face, gentle despite their roughness.
That was him. That was Colt.
Not the angry stranger from the grocery store, but… someone else. Someone who’d called me Lil and thought I was the best view in the world.
The tears came without warning. I was crying for a man I couldn’t remember, for a life I’d lost without ever knowing I had it. For whatever had happened that night seven years ago that had stolen everything from me—my memories, my husband, my sons’ father.
“Mama?”
I turned to find Knox in the doorway, pajama-clad and sleepy-eyed.
“What are you doing up, baby?”
“I heard you crying.” He padded across the porch and climbed into my lap, even though he was really getting too big for it. “Are you still sad about that man at the store?”
I wrapped my arms around him and pressed my face into his hair, breathing in the familiar scent of his shampoo. “A little bit,” I admitted.
“Luca says he was a bad man. Only bad men yell at mamas.”
“Luca’s protective of me. Like you’re protective of him.”
Knox was quiet for a moment. “He looked sad.”
I pulled back to look at my son’s face. “What?”
“The man. He was angry, but underneath he looked sad. Like when Luca pretends he’s not upset about something.” Knox tilted his head, considering. “Maybe he’s not a bad man. Maybe he’s just sad.”
I hugged Knox tighter and didn’t answer.
He was right though. Colt hadn’t just been angry at the grocery store. He’d been heartbroken. But why? What did I do?