From where I stood at the sink washing the container, I could hear Hope through the walls. Her words indistinguishable and ambiguous.

But that didn’t matter. I could hear what was important, anyway.

Joy.

There was so much of it. Because that was what these two were.

Joy.

My chest tightened when I realized the magnitude of what that actually meant.

That somehow they had become my joy.

My home when I hadn’t realized I’d been looking for one.

It should scare me. Terrify me that I had gone into territory I’d sworn I’d never go.

But standing there in the comfort of Hope’s kitchen, being all sorts of domestic like Rex had pointed out?

Nothing had ever felt so right.

I’d denied myself even the idea of this.

Family.

Thinking I couldn’t have it.

Didn’t deserve it.

Old fear trembled in my bones.

I went rigid against it.

Rejecting it.

Because I refused to fail these two. The past was the past and I was leaving it there. Hope and Evan were my here and now.

My future.

After finishing washing the container, I rinsed it and placed it on a dishtowel, drying my hands at the same time.

In my periphery, my sight caught on the stack of mail that rested at the far end of the counter. My head jerked violently in a double take.

I wasn’t trying to be nosy. I wasn’t. Overstepping my bounds.

But the name . . . the name on the top envelope was all wrong.

Dread sank like a stone to the pit of my stomach, and a freezing cold chill slicked like ice down my spine.

My vision turned hazy, and my eyes narrowed. I swore, my damned heart was beating so hard I could hear the roar of it thundering through my veins.

I inched that direction, my subconscious flailing and thrashing in a disturbed awareness.

The closer I got, the more that distress grew, scraping across my skin like a razor-sharp knife.

At the edge of the counter, I froze, gulping around the knot in my throat that cut off air.

Staring down at the envelope on top of the stack.

I gave an aggressive shake of my head. Like it would clear up the picture.

Because fuck.

I had to be seeing things. Making shit up.

It was all those old memories and regrets and sorrow rising and playing cruel, sick tricks.

Tormenting me with a stark, glaring reminder of my greatest loss. It all pressed down, the soul-crushing fear of losing him the same obscene way.

But it didn’t matter how long I stared at it.

All the letters remained the same.

Harley Gentry. Harley Gentry. Harley Gentry.

The room spun. Faster and faster.

My new world crumbling out from under my feet.

Hands ripping at fistfuls of my hair, I stumbled back.

No.

Fuck.

No.

Panic surged. Bouncing from the walls.

Ricocheting.

Gaining speed.

I couldn’t breathe.

“What’s wrong?” That understanding, tender voice hit me from behind, filled with soft concern.

Slowly, I turned to look at her.

Those green eyes went wide with surprise when she got a look at me, my spine rigid and my face pale.

She took a surging step forward. “Kale? Are you okay? Are you sick?”

Care. It radiated from her like the goddamned sun.

My eyes squeezed closed because looking at all the light hurt. It hurt so goddamned much I felt my stomach clench in a roil of nausea that lifted to my throat.

“Who is he?” I demanded, eyes still pinched closed, not wanting to see her expression when she said it.

Not sure I could handle it.

This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be real.

“What are you askin’?” she wheezed, a slip of that country drawl seeping into her worry. “We already talked about this.”

I shot across the floor and grabbed her by the outside of her arms.

Her eyes widened. A bolt of fear. A vat of confusion.

“Tell me who he is. Your ex. What is his name?”

“Kale,” she pleaded, her eyes searching mine.

“Tell me,” I grated, losing my goddamned head.

“Dane. His name is Dane Gentry.” It was almost a whimper.

A blow.

A gunshot that rang through the air.

Deafening.

I choked over the confirmation. My hands releasing her like I’d been holding fire.

I had. I had. I had.

I’d been holding fire in the palm of my hands.

My head shook. “No . . . no. Your name is Harley Hope Masterson. Masterson,” I almost begged.

She winced. “Masterson is my maiden name.”

Sucking for nonexistent air, I fumbled away from her. Panic burning me up from the inside.

No.

Oh, God, no.

Hope reached for me, brow pinched tight. “Kale . . . please don’t look at me like you don’t know me. I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”

Fumbling away, my back knocked into the kitchen wall next to the arch.

“I . . .” Glass abraded my throat, the raw cuts refusing words.

This couldn’t be real.

A plea took to Hope’s unforgettable face. “I’ve been trying to erase him from our lives. You’ve got to understand that. I told you I would do anything to protect my son.”

Hope’s explanation became frantic, desperate, the woman edging closer, too close.

So close I could taste her on my tongue and feel her on my skin.

Her rushed words fell on my ears. “I didn’t tell you his name because I was afraid you’d do something you’d regret later on. Standing up for Evan and me. Because you’re a good man, Kale. Such a good man, and I knew you’d do whatever you thought you could do to protect us. I was protecting you, too. It’s just a name, Kale. It’s just a name. It doesn’t change anything.”

But that’s where she was wrong.

It changed everything.

“I have to go.” It raked from my raw throat.

I had to get out of there.

Run.

Melody.

I squeezed my eyes when I was suddenly assaulted with memories.

Her smile. Her laugh. Her pleas. Gone. Horror. Grief.

I choked.

Hope’s face pinched in a brutal kind of pain. “What?”

“I can’t do this,” I told her, nothing but a coward when I tried to get by her without looking at her face.

Without looking in those earthy eyes to see the beauty that waited there.

The hope and the joy and the belief.

She grabbed me by the wrist.

That roar in my veins cracked.

A thunderclap.

“Tell me what’s happening,” she begged. “What is really going on?”

I blinked at her, but all I could see was her face.

Melody.

Compression after compression. That fucking flat line. “You did this. You did this. She’s dead because of you.”

Evan’s sweet face flashed.

Lifeless.

“I can’t do this.”

Not again.

Hope tightened her hold, refusing to let me go. “You don’t get to do this, Kale Bryant. You don’t get to just walk out. You promised.”

My eyes squeezed closed again.

Looking at this girl and knowing I couldn’t keep her was the most brutal tease I’d ever endured.

Just another fucking failure.

Her words dropped to a wispy plea. “Where did you go, Kale? Where did the man go who is wonderful and generous and kind? The man who ten minutes ago told me he’d be right here, waiting for me? Where is he? Follow me back . . . come back to me . . . because I’m right here. I’m right here.”

Grief crushed me on all sides.

Pressing down.

Destroying.

Because if I could, I would follow her anywhere.

“I’m sorry,” I forced out, because I was. So fucking sorry.

I twisted my arm free from her hold and stepped back.

Her expression twisted.

Horror and grief.

The hurt so blatant.

“You promised,” she begged on a breath.

My head shook, and I slowly backed away, looking at her standing heartbroken in her kitchen.

A cascade of red hair, tearstained cheeks, bloodshot eyes.

The girl the best thing I’d ever seen.

I committed it to memory.

What I did. The ruin I inflicted.

Hope had spent years fighting the stigma that her son wasn’t enough.

But that stigma was meant for me.

Because I would never, ever be enough.

I spun on my heel and bolted.

Out her door and into the fading light.

I stumbled across the porch. Gasping for a breath, the entire world spinning and the ground canting to the side, crumbling out from under me.

I wheezed, desperate for relief. But all the air had been sucked from the sky.

A hollow, vacant vortex that consumed everything in its path.