“All right, guys. As you know, no after-school activities today.” I clapped my hands together and was met with a collective groan from the kids in front of me. “So pack up your stuff, and you can get going.”

I watched as the children in my class chattered away and gathered their things. I had been forced to cancel all the after-school clubs I had been running for the following few weeks because I promised Holden I would bring Hunter home from school every evening to make sure Karla didn’t get anywhere near him. We had played it off as a cute little bonding experience for Hunter and me, and I was keeping my fingers crossed that he hadn’t figured out it had something to do with his nightmare of a biological mother.

The rest of the kids scattered out of the classroom, and I headed over to Hunter, who was peering down into his bag. All those friends he had made earlier, the ones he had hung out with after school, seemed to have dropped away now, much to my concern. He was starting to draw into himself once more, as though he was hiding from something. From Karla. He knew she was a presence in his life now, and I felt pretty fucking awful that he had wrapped his head around that fact. I wanted nothing more than to give him a big hug and tell him it was all going to be all right, but there was no way I could truly promise that and mean it. And that was the hardest thing in the world.

“Hey, Hunter.” I crouched down in front of him and managed to put a big smile on my face, even though it felt false. “You think you’re nearly ready to get going?”

“Yeah.” Hunter nodded, and he hooked his bag over his shoulders and straightened up, his mouth set into a hard line. “Let’s go.”

I let him lead me out of the school and fired off a quick text to Holden to let him know I would be taking Hunter home that evening as we’d agreed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to get him himself or couldn’t be bothered but rather that Karla could have been following his car to figure out the details of Hunter’s day, and the last thing we needed was to give her any more of a tip-off than she already had as to his whereabouts.

I opened the car door for Hunter, and he climbed inside, his face twisted downward as he was struggling to make sense of this. I frowned at him. I wanted things to go back to the way they had been before that woman had turned up. I wished I’d taken Holden seriously right off the bat, instead of assuming he was overstating the seriousness of the threat. It wasn’t until I’d been looking her dead in the eyes that I’d known without a doubt that this woman meant business and that I would be in trouble if I stood in the way of her and her son. Which meant I was about to land myself in a whole damn heap of it, but it was worth it if I could keep Hunter safe.

“Ms. Becks?” Hunter asked suddenly as we turned on to the freeway, and I glanced down at him.

“What’s up, Hunter?”

“Did my dad ever speak to you about my mom?”

I pressed my lips together. I never felt as though I was the one who should be having these conversations with Hunter, but as long as he kept springing them on me like this…

“Did he?” Hunter pressed, not happy with the long silence that followed his question. I chewed my lip.

“Yes, he talked to me about her a little bit,” I admitted.

“And what did he say?” he pressed. “How did he… what did she do? When I was little?”

“I don’t know everything,” I warned him with a shake of my head. “I don’t know if I can answer all the questions you have.”

“That’s okay,” he replied eagerly. “You don’t need to answer all of them. I just want to know the answer to some.”

I glanced down at him and felt that sadness swell in me. Holden had been such an amazing dad to Hunter all those years, but at the same time, he had left so many questions unanswered, left so much unsaid, and now it was coming back to bite him in the ass. No matter if Karla had turned up or not, Hunter would clearly have had worries at the back of his mind about what had happened to his mother and if he had done anything to drive her away.

“Okay, fire away,” I offered carefully. I was playing with fire, but what could I do, roll out of a moving car and hope he forgot about all of it?

“When did she go?”

“When you were very little,” I replied. “A baby, I think. She barely even got to know you.”

“Okay.” Hunter nodded. “And when—have you met her? When she came back again?”

“Yes, I’ve met her,” I replied, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible. No matter how much a part of this family I became, I would never not feel a little angst talking to Hunter about his real mother. Things with Holden were so freshly back in place, and I didn’t want to have to do anything to fuck that up.

“And what was she like?”

“Very different from your dad,” I replied evasively. “And very different from you. Which makes sense.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Not long.” I shook my head again. “And I don’t know her. We met one time.”

“Where did you meet?” he asked, and I racked my brains for a believable lie. No way I could tell him his mother had showed up at the school—that would be far too unsettling for him.

“Oh, just around,” I finally offered vaguely, hoping it would be enough. It seemed to satisfy him for the time being, and Hunter looked back out the window for a long moment, falling silent. I thought I had gotten away with it and those were the end of his questions, but then he turned back to me and hit me with a killer.

“Why did she leave?”

“What?” I almost screeched the car to a halt right then and there, I was so taken aback by what he had asked me.

“Why did she leave?” Hunter repeated simply. It was strange, the questions that seemed so impossible to understand as an adult sounded so simple coming out of the mouth of a child.

“Uh, I don’t know.” I shook my head. “There are a lot of reasons someone might do something like that.”

“Was it because of me?” Hunter asked, his little brow furrowing. That was when I knew I needed to pull the car over and make sure he understood his place in all of this.

I pulled on to the side of the road, thankful that there was a rest stop we could talk in because I couldn’t let something like that slide.

“Hunter, this is very important,” I told him intently. “You did nothing wrong. Do you understand that? You were a baby. Nothing you did or that you’ve done since was what made your mother leave.”

He stared at me for a long moment, and I could tell he wasn’t quite sure if he believed me.

“Will you leave?” he asked quietly, and my stomach dropped. I reached over to give him a tight hug, not caring that it was probably an overstepping of my teacher boundaries. What I saw in front of me was a child in desperate need of some comfort, and I wasn’t going to look that in the eye and turn it down, no matter what.

“Of course I won’t,” I told him firmly. “There’s nothing you can do to get rid of me, you understand that? You’re stuck with me.”

He pulled back and looked at me, and I could tell he was scanning my statements for truth. I offered him a big smile, and he managed to return it at last. A swell of relief went through me, knowing I had managed to banish those thoughts from his mind at least.

“Come on. Let’s get you home,” I told him. “Your dad will be waiting for you.”

I switched on the radio to the channel I knew Hunter liked—it was the one Holden had the radio in their car set to whenever I got in—and we drove the rest of the way down to Holden’s place. I glanced over at the little boy beside me, and I felt it again, that swell of maternal instinct toward him. I wanted nothing more than to gather him up in my arms and tell him everything was going to work out. Which I supposed, in some ways, I had just done.

We arrived at the house, and I watched as Hunter hurried in ahead of me, giving his dad a big hug before plowing up the stairs to his bedroom. I smiled as I watched him go. Being around his father seemed to lift a weight off his mind, and it was a joy to see.

“What are you grinning about?” Holden greeted me, stealing a quick kiss while Hunter wasn’t looking. I shook my head and smiled.

“It’s good to be here, that’s all,” I told him. “I missed you. I missed this place.”

“I missed you too,” he assured me, planting another kiss on the corner of my mouth. “I appreciate what you’re doing for Hunter, by the way. More than you know.”

“Trust me, now that I’ve met her, I totally get where you’re coming from.” I made a face. “I wouldn’t want her anywhere near my kid either.”

He grinned. “Glad we’re on the same page. But still. You don’t have to do that, but you are. We both appreciate it so much.”

I gazed at him for a moment, wondering if I should tell him the truth of what Hunter had been saying to me in the car. I thought better of it at the last minute. He didn’t need to hear that. As though things weren’t hard enough for him as it was.

“You want to stick around for dinner?” Holden asked hopefully, and I nodded.

“Well, I’m not doing all this taxiing around for free now, am I?” I pointed out, nudging him playfully. He laughed.

“And here I thought you were doing it out of the goodness of your own heart.” He shook his head in faux disappointment. “Come on. I have a chicken curry cooking. I could use your palette to figure out what it’s missing.”

“Chili powder,” I replied. “The answer to that is always more chili powder.”

I followed him into the kitchen and paused for a moment to look up the stairs where Hunter had vanished to as soon as we had come in. I wanted nothing more than to go up there and reassure him that we were going to keep him safe and that most of all, none of this was his fault. This was all happening because Karla couldn’t take no for an answer, not because of some poor innocent like Hunter.

But the best I could do for now was show him with my actions, not explain it with my words. He needed to see that I wasn’t going anywhere, and I had every intention of proving it to him.

“Autumn?” Holden called through from the kitchen. “You coming?”

“Right there,” I called back, pushing those thoughts out of my mind and following the beautiful scent wafting through from the kitchen to its source.