Chapter 7
* * *
Penny had barely made it past the front door before her phone started buzzing again.
It had been three days since the confrontation at the hospital.
Three days since Baron told her about Antonio showing up to speak to him—uninvited, intense, and trying to make his case.
Three days since her world tilted just enough to make everything else feel uncertain.
She toed off her shoes with one foot, dropped her bag by the stairs, and stared at her phone.
Sara Ann Calling.
Penny sighed, dragged her body toward the couch, and answered with a soft, tired, “Hey.”
“Okay,” Sara said without preamble. “I’ve hacked the Matrix. And I’ve got info. So you better be sitting down with wine or snacks—or ideally both.”
Penny blinked. “Hi to you too.”
“Don’t distract me with pleasantries,” Sara huffed. “I’m emotionally invested in your peace, and I’ve been online for like two hours deep-diving into Antonio’s digital footprint. I even made a burner account just in case his Instagram was private.”
Penny snorted. “You didn’t.”
“I absolutely did. @JusticeForPenny84.”
“Oh my God.”
“Don’t judge my methods. Judge my results.”
Penny curled up on the couch, grabbing a throw pillow like it could protect her from whatever was coming. “Okay. Hit me.”
Sara took a breath. “So. Antonio Bruno. Thirty-nine. No serious dating history since you. No flings, no press photos, no thirsty comments on other people’s selfies—though someone did tag him in a photo two years ago and he untagged himself within ten minutes.”
Penny blinked. “That’s oddly specific.”
“I told you. Deep dive.” Sara paused. “He’s also been donating to a few women’s shelters in different states under an alias, which I only found because I cross-referenced the financial records of his company and—”
“Wait, what?”
“Yup,” Sara said. “They weren’t under his name. But the company made the donations, and I traced the shell LLC back to his firm.”
Penny sat up straighter. “So he’s… what, trying to make amends?”
“I think he’s trying to be better.” Sara’s voice softened. “It doesn’t excuse anything. But… it looks like he’s been working on himself.”
Penny was silent.
Sara let the moment stretch before continuing.
“I still don’t trust him,” she said. “I still think he deserves exactly zero crumbs of grace and a lifetime subscription to loneliness. But I also think you deserve truth, not just comfort.”
Penny exhaled. “That’s why I love you.”
“I know,” Sara said smugly. “Now tell me what you’re thinking before I guess and get it right anyway.”
Penny was quiet for a long moment.
Then she whispered, “I don’t want him in my life. I don’t want to open that door again. But…”
Sara waited.
“…I don’t know if I have the right to keep him out of Matilda’s.”
Sara didn’t say anything at first. Just breathed out, slow and steady.
“She’s mine,” Penny went on. “She’s my girl. I raised her. Protected her. Loved her through every scraped knee and weird fever and bad dream. She doesn’t even know he exists.”
“You made that choice to protect her,” Sara said gently. “No one gets to fault you for that.”
“But what if she finds out later and resents me for it?” Penny’s voice cracked. “What if she wants to know him? What if he shows up again in five years and she’s old enough to ask questions and I have no good answers?”
Sara’s voice dropped to that softer register—the one that only came out when she stopped being sarcastic and started being a big sister.
“Penny, you’re not wrong to be afraid. But don’t twist yourself up trying to predict the future.
You have time. Time to prepare her. Time to talk to Baron. Time to breathe.”
Penny closed her eyes, throat thick. “He said he regrets everything. That he never stopped thinking about me. That he… misses her, even though he never met her.”
“And do you believe him?”
Penny hated how fast the answer came.
“Yes.”
Sara sighed. “Then the real question is: what do you do with that?”
“I don’t know,” Penny admitted. “I look at Matilda and I see the best thing that ever happened to me. But I also see every fight, every tear, every time I wondered if I’d ever feel safe again. I can’t separate the two.”
“You shouldn’t have to,” Sara said. “That’s motherhood. That’s trauma. That’s love and war tangled into one little curly-haired masterpiece who thinks you’re a superhero.”
Penny let out a small laugh. “She told her class I’m part-witch, part-vet, part-avenger.”
“She’s not wrong.”
“But what do I tell her?”
“When you’re ready,” Sara said, “you tell her the truth. In pieces. With love. With boundaries. And if Antonio wants to see her? He has to earn that. Slowly. Carefully. With your rules. Not his.”
Penny leaned her head back against the couch and closed her eyes.
“I just don’t want to lose what I’ve built.”
“You won’t,” Sara said with absolute conviction. “Because what you’ve built is you. And you’re not fragile anymore. You’re not scared. You’ve got Baron. You’ve got your voice. You’ve got me, Matilda, and an entire squad of Jones brothers ready to throw hands if Antonio even breathes wrong.”
Penny smiled. “You’re really ride-or-die, huh?”
“I’ve got sneakers, snacks, and surveillance apps. Let’s go.”
They both laughed, the tension finally breaking.
And for the first time in days, Penny didn’t feel like the weight of the world was hers alone to carry.
* * *
The room was quiet, save for the soft rustle of curtains and the occasional tick of the antique clock on the dresser. The late-afternoon sun painted everything in a warm glow, stretching gold across the hardwood floor, the quilt on the bed, the lines of Baron’s face.
He sat beside his mother, long legs stretched out, one hand cradling a lukewarm cup of tea he hadn’t touched. He hadn’t meant to stay this long, but Betsy had drifted off again—and he couldn’t bring himself to leave. Not yet.
She stirred with a soft sigh, lids fluttering, and when her eyes opened, they were startlingly clear.
“Baron?” she rasped, voice dry but strong.
He leaned in. “Yeah, Ma. I’m here.”
She blinked up at him, smiled faintly. “You’ve got that look again.”
“What look?”
“That heavy one. Like you’re trying to carry the whole world in your chest.”
Baron exhaled and looked down at his hands. Big, calloused, steady—yet right now, they didn’t feel steady at all.
He hadn’t planned to say it.
But something about the way she was looking at him—seeing him—cut through his usual reserve.
So he just said it.
“I’m in love with her.”
Betsy’s smile widened slowly.
“I haven’t told her yet,” he continued. “She hasn’t told me either. But I know. I feel it. Every time she walks into a room, it’s like the air changes. Like my bones remember something my heart hasn’t caught up with yet.”
Betsy nodded gently, her eyes glistening.
“She laughs and I want to memorize it. She worries about everyone except herself. She makes coffee and sings off-key in the morning and pretends she doesn’t get flustered when I touch her. But I see it. I feel it.”
He set the cup on the nightstand and ran a hand down his face, jaw tight.
“She’s not just beautiful,” he said. “She’s real. She’s soft in all the places life didn’t harden. And even with everything she’s been through—everything she’s survived—she still gives love like it’s safe. Like she hasn’t had it weaponized against her.”
Betsy reached out, and he took her hand, careful and reverent.
“She’s scared, Ma. She’s trying to navigate what it means to let someone in again. To let someone love her and her daughter. And now her past is showing up at the door, trying to confuse all the progress she’s made.”
Baron’s voice went lower, tighter.
“And I—”
He swallowed.
“I’m terrified of pushing too hard. Of making her feel cornered. So I’ve been trying to give her space. Trying to do the right thing.”
Betsy’s fingers squeezed his.
“And it’s killing you,” she whispered.
He nodded.
“I want to do right by her,” he said. “But the truth is… I want to fight for her. Not just sit in the shadows and wait. I want to be the man she runs toward, not the one who politely waits for permission to matter.”
His mother watched him, her face soft, proud.
“I keep thinking maybe I should back off. Let her breathe. Let her figure things out. But then I imagine walking away from her—and it feels like ripping out something I didn’t know I was allowed to have.”
His voice cracked just slightly. “It feels like leaving home.”
Betsy blinked slowly, eyes shimmering with tears.
“Your father,” she said, voice raspier now, “used to say that real love was stubborn. Not stupid. Not loud. Stubborn. The kind that waits when it has to… and steps up when it’s time.”
“He used to chase me every damn day when we were young. I’d tell him no, throw shoes at him, ignore him for weeks at a time. I was scared. Stubborn. Thought I wasn’t good enough. Thought he wasn’t right for me.”
She chuckled. “He didn’t care. He just kept showing up.
Brought me fried pies from his mama’s kitchen.
Carried my groceries when I was too proud to ask.
Sat on the porch and waited for me to talk when I was mad.
And one day…” She smiled wider. “I realized he wasn’t going anywhere.
He was home. And I was tired of standing outside of it. ”
Baron looked at her.
“He was stubborn about me,” she continued, a smile tugging at her lips. “Chased me through half of Mississippi and waited three years for me to admit I loved him. He said the day I finally let myself believe I deserved him was the day he felt whole.”
She squeezed his hand again, firmer this time.
“Don’t give up on her, baby. Penny is the kind of woman you fight for. Not the kind you tiptoe around.”
Baron’s eyes burned.
“I’m scared I’ll make her life harder,” he whispered. “That with everything she’s carrying, I’ll just be one more weight.”
“No,” Betsy said, shaking her head slowly. “You’re not her burden, Baron. You’re her safe place. Her steady ground. The one she can finally lean on.”
A long pause hung between them.
Then she said it: