CHAPTER 1
Max
Fifteen years earlier
I stared up at the ceiling, thankful for the silence. It was much different from the night before when my dad was on one of his drunken tangents. He and my mother had spent the entire night arguing over the electric bill, the dinging sound coming from the engine of my mother’s car, and even the damn TV remote. When he was on the sauce, there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t argue about. I couldn’t understand why my mother put up with his bullshit. I knew she loved him. Unlike me, she still remembered the man he used to be, the man she was proud to have by her side and loved wholeheartedly.
He was one of the best Major Generals in the Corp, and everyone knew it. He led his men with honor and pride, but that all changed the day he’d almost gotten himself killed. Without any warning, his troop walked into enemy fire, killing most and severely wounding the rest. While he was medically discharged and had no choice in the matter, he felt like he was less of a man when he left the corp. It changed him, inside and out. He took to the bottle to help him forget the pain—both mentally and physically. Apparently, last night, the mixture of memories and liquor got to be too much, and he’d acted like more of a dick than usual.
Over time, my sister and I forgot all about the good, honorable man my father used to be. To us, he was just a Grade A asshole, and we wanted nothing to do with him. While my sister spent most of her time next door at our grandmother’s, I kept myself busy working or hanging out with my best friend, Brody Campbell.
I’d made plans with Brody to go to his folk’s place for the weekend. On Saturdays my parents slept in a bit later, which I was banking on, because I really wanted to slip out before they woke up. I pulled myself out of bed and headed for the shower. Once I was dressed, I grabbed my duffle bag and started down the hall. Just as I got to the front door, I heard my mother call, “Maxwell Lanheart!”
With an exasperated groan, I stopped and slowly turned to face her. “I’m gonna be late, Mom.”
“Where the hell is he going?” my father bellowed from the next room.
Ignoring him, she whispered, “You do not leave this house without telling me goodbye. You know that.” She tiptoed over to me and gave me a quick hug. “It’s one of my—”
“Deal-breakers. Yeah, I know.” I looked over her shoulder, making sure that Dad wasn’t coming. “I’m sorry, but I need to go .”
She stuck her hand in her robe pocket, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill and placed it in my hand. “Give this to Glenda or Tom. I wish it was more, but it’s all I have on me.”
“It’s fine. Keep it. I just cashed my paycheck last night. I’ll give—”
“No. I don’t want you using your money, Max. That’s for something more important.”
“Like what?”
“Save it, sweetheart. You never know when you’ll need it.”
“Okay.” I took the money and shoved it in my back pocket, then I leaned over and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I gotta go, Mom.”
“Be careful.”
“You know I will.”
I’d just made it out to my truck when she called, “Hey, Max! Anna Kate wants to go to the mall with some of her friends Tuesday night. I was hoping you—”
“Mom. Really ?”
“It would mean a lot to her. You know how hard it is for her, especially with those girls.” She gave me one of those looks—the kind I never could refuse.
“Fine. But only for a couple of hours. I’ve gotta work.”
“I’ll let her know. Thank you, pumpkin.”
Grumbling under my breath, I climbed into my pickup and headed over to Brody’s place. He lived on the coast on Long Beach Peninsula where all the high society folks flocked together. You’d think by the size of their house, with its outstanding ocean view, and all their fancy cars, the Campbell’s would be a bunch of stuck-up assholes, but they weren’t. Until seven or eight years ago, they’d lived in middle Tennessee where please and thank you just came naturally.
When I pulled up the long, cobblestone driveway, I found Harper, Brody’s little sister, sitting on the front steps of the house. Even though they were siblings, they couldn’t have been more different. Brody was always sporting khakis and a button-down with a smile on his face. He was definitely a confident guy; but then, being the star quarterback and having a pocketful of cash would make anyone a little arrogant. Harper, on the other hand, was a tomboy through and through with scraped kneecaps and freckles dappled across the bridge of her nose, wrinkled t-shirts and cutoff denim shorts. When she wasn’t climbing a tree, she had a book in her hand. Harper was shy and easy to annoy, and I loved giving her a hard time.
I got out of my truck and she never looked up as I walked over to her. “What’s shakin’, Freckles.”
“You’re late. We already ate breakfast.”
“I guess that’s my bad luck.”
“Maybe, but it was good luck for me. I actually got to eat pancakes this morning before Mom’s personal garbage disposal came in and ate everything in sight.”
“That hurts, Smalls.” I teased.
She glanced up at me for a moment, her eyes skirting over my body as she complained, “I don’t know where you put it all. You’d think you have a parasite or something.” Her eyebrows furrowed as she studied me, then she bit her bottom lip as she tried to fight her smile. “You know, that could be it. You could have worms like Ditto.”
Ditto was their old, ornery gray cat that drove them all crazy. I got along with most animals, but that cat was too out there even for me. “I don’t have worms, Knucklehead. I’m healthy as a horse.”
“Well, you definitely eat like one.” She slammed her book shut as she stood up and started walking towards the front yard. “FYI … Brody’s in the garage.”
“Thanks, Half-pint.”
When I walked into the garage, I found Brody’s ass in the air and his head buried under the hood of his car. The guy didn’t even know how to check his own oil, so I knew he didn’t have a clue what he was looking at. “You lose something in there?”
A loud bang rang through the garage when he stood up and bumped his head on the hood. “Damn it.”
I laughed as I patted him on the back. “That had to hurt.”
“Thanks for caring, bro.”
“What are you doing anyway?”
“I lost my keys.”
“And you’re looking in the engine for them?”
“No, smart ass. I put a spare in one of those magnet key holders somewhere in here, and I’m trying to find it.”
“You know the way you drive, that thing’s long gone.”
He groaned. “I know. But without my keys, we’re stuck riding with Mom and Dad.”
“If the car’s here, they’ve gotta be here somewhere.”
“No shit, Sherlock. But where?”
Brody was a good guy, one of the best, but he wasn’t always the sharpest tool in the shed. Most times, it didn’t matter that he didn’t have the commonsense that God gave a gnat. He got by with his good looks and charming smile, but sometimes it just wasn’t enough—times like these were a perfect example as he searched for his missing keys again, or last Wednesday afternoon, when he got lost in the mall. “Let’s go back to last night. Where’d you go?”
“After I worked out, I ran by Penny’s for some—”
Penny was his girlfriend, at least for the time being. Brody was always looking for the next big score, and even though he’d think each new girlfriend was the one , it was only a matter of time before he dumped them and moved on to the next. “Don’t need to hear all the details, man. Fast forward to what you did after coming home.”
“Well, I’d worked up quite an appetite at Penny’s.” He snickered. “So, I went to the kitchen to get something to eat.”
“Okay. Now, we’re getting somewhere.” I started towards the door and said, “Ten bucks says that’s where they are.”
“Nope. I already looked,” he argued as he followed me inside.
Ignoring him, I opened the back door and headed into the kitchen. Over the years, I’d gotten accustomed to the enormity of their house. It no longer fazed me that their kitchen was three times the size of ours, and their appliances alone cost more than every piece of our furniture combined. With its floor-to-ceiling, white cabinets and black marble countertops, it was the kind of kitchen you’d see in those fancy home magazines, but even with the high price tag, it still felt like home. As I started opening the stainless-steel refrigerator door, I turned to him and asked, “What’d ya eat?”
“I made a turkey sandwich.”
When I didn’t have any luck finding the keys in the deli meat drawer, I walked over to the pantry and checked the shelf where they kept the bread, then further down, I pawed through the chip basket. Still nothing, but I wasn’t ready to give up. I went over to the drawer that held the utensils, and as soon as I opened it, his red keychain was sitting on top of the knives. I picked them up and dangled them in front of him. “Do these look familiar?”
“How the hell do you do that?” He groaned as he grabbed the keys from my hand.
“What can I say? It’s a gift.”
He rolled his eyes as he started for the door. “Grab your stuff and let’s get out of here. I want to get to the house before the others do.”
“Others?”
“Harper talked Mom into letting her bring Nat, and Dad has some people from work coming by the beach later.”
“You sure it’s okay for me to—”
“You know it is. Now, get your ass in the car.”
I grabbed my bag and tossed it into Brody’s trunk. I was just about to get in the car when I noticed Harper in the front yard. She was staring up into their big, old oak tree with a worried look on her face. I turned to Brody and said, “Hold up a minute.”
As soon as I started walking towards Harper, he whined, “Come on, man.”
“I’ll just be a minute.”
When I reached Harper, she was still staring up at something in the tree and talking to it. “It’s okay. You can do it.”
I looked up and spotted Ditto sitting on the edge of a branch, then laughed as I told her, “You know … if she got up there on her own, she can get back down on her own.”
“But she’s up so high. What if she falls?” she asked, never taking her eyes off her cat. “We’ll be leaving soon, and I don’t want to leave her up there all alone.”
“She’ll be fine. A cat always lands on its feet.”
She turned to me with a hopeful expression. “Are you sure?”
“I’m positive, but if it’d make you feel better, I’ll get her down for you.”
“Really?”
“I’ll be right back.” I ran over to the garage and ignored Brody’s grumbling as I grabbed the ladder. Leaning it against the tree, I started up the first rung and turned to her, teasing. “Catch me if I fall.”
With a serious expression on her face, she replied, “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She’d said stuff like that before, but something about the way she said those words made me believe her. I knew it was crazy. I was older and twice her size, but I liked the idea of Harper having my back. I reached for the growling cat, grabbing her even though she scared the hell out of me with those fangs and sharp claws, and lowered her down to Harper. “There you go. All safe and sound.”
“Thanks, Max.”
After I put the ladder away, I jumped in the car with Brody. As we pulled out of the garage, I found myself staring over at Harper. A smile spread across my face as I watched her hold Ditto close to her chest. As she noticed we were driving by, her eyes searched for mine, and when they met, she smiled. It was the kind of smile that would stay with me for a lifetime.