April stood in her kitchen, staring bleakly out the window at the most glorious purple- and blue- and red-streaked sunset she’d ever seen. Not that she could enjoy it, not when she stood there waiting for Tae to come home, listening to the clock on the wall tick, tick, ticking. Like an impending bomb.
Andy sat at the table behind her, drinking coffee. They’d agreed to tell Tae the truth together, instead of April doing it herself. At the time it’d seemed like the smart thing to do, but at some point while waiting for Tae to come home—during which she’d opened her refrigerated store-bought cookie dough and baked the entire tub—she’d changed her mind.
So now she was drowning in guilt and stress and . . . 120 cookies. But she had clarity. She knew Tae better than anyone, and doing it this way with Andy here was not the right way to do this. Tae was going to feel ganged up on, and if there was one thing her daughter hated more than lies, it was walking into a situation she wasn’t prepared for.
“No,” she said, and shook her head, turning from the window. “This is wrong. I’m sorry, but you being here is going to blindside her, which is way worse than me telling her by myself.”
Andy nodded. “I hear you, and you know her best, but, April, we’re both at fault. I don’t want you to be the bad guy. Ruining your relationship with her is the last thing I want.”
“I really don’t understand why you’re worried about my relationship with her.”
He drew a deep breath and pushed his coffee away. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but this isn’t about just you. It’s also about the relationship I want with my daughter. I—”
Tae came in the back door. “Oh my God, do I smell cookies? Like actual baked cookies? What’s the special occasion?”
Andy stood.
Under any other circumstances, April would have laughed. A baker she was not, and they both knew it. “Tae,” she said softly instead, heart in her throat.
Tae looked up from her phone and froze at the sight of the man in April’s kitchen. Unlike at the lake, he wasn’t wearing sunglasses or a ball cap. He was clean-shaven, hair still military short, standing there at parade rest, looking very much like the young soldier in the photo on April’s mantel.
“Who are you?” Tae asked slowly, like she already knew.
“You met him at the lake,” April said, her heart in her throat.
Tae never took her eyes off him. “Yes,” she said. “But you’re also . . . him.”
Andy nodded. “Yes.”
Everything about Tae’s demeanor changed in an instant. She went from smiling and carefree to tense as a sheet of glass in a hailstorm. Smile long gone, her eyes unreadable, she whirled on April.
And in that moment, April knew. She’d indeed waited too long and was about to lose the only thing that had ever mattered in her life.
“I’m going to give you and your mom some private time to talk—”
“Wait.” Tae’s eyes were narrowed as she took him in. “How dare you show up now, after all this time. We thought you were dead. You lied to my mom, left her to raise me without any help—”
April shook her head. “Tae—”
“No. Get out,” Tae said to Andy, pointing to the door. “Just get the hell out and don’t come back.”
“Tae.” April moved to block the door so Andy couldn’t leave.
Tae whirled on her, her expression going from anger to shock to a heart-stopping betrayal that took the air from April’s lungs.
Tae stared at her. “You . . . invited him here?”
“Yes. Because we needed to tell you something. Something I did.”
Tae moved close and took April’s hands in her own. “Mom? What do you mean?”
That even now, staring the truth in the face, Tae would side with her, comfort her, made it almost impossible to speak. But she was done hiding the truth. She gently squeezed Tae’s hands in her own. “I’ve made such a mess of things, baby. A long time ago, I made a very rash decision, one that led to a lie, which led to another, and then another. And now . . .” She sucked in a breath. “Now . . .”
Tae blinked, dropped her mom’s hands, and stepped back. “Does this have anything to do with why my birth certificate doesn’t have a name listed under ‘father’?”
April closed her eyes for a beat, then opened them again. She’d known this day would come. “Yes. And it’s . . . complicated. I—”
“No.” Tae held up a hand. “Did you know all this time I was actually afraid to ask you about it because I didn’t want to bring up a painful time for you? That it never once crossed my mind that you’d lied to me? I thought by staying quiet until I had the answers that I was protecting you, but wow. The joke was on me.”
Heartbroken, April drew a breath. “Tae—”
“Just tell me one thing. Whose decision was it to lie to me about him being dead?”
“Both of ours,” said the “him” in the room.
April knew it would be so easy to let him shoulder some of the blame, but she couldn’t do it. This was her chance to own up to everything, regardless of what Tae did with the information, even if it meant Tae leaving her. She had to allow her daughter to make her own choice. “No, this was my mistake, Tae, and my mistake only. He wasn’t the liar. I was.”
Tae closed her eyes, and when she opened them, they were ice. “A mistake? That’s what you call the lie that has affected every single day of my entire life? Are you serious right now?”
Aril reached for her, but Tae backed away. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. You not only knew the truth, but you also kept it from me.”
Throat aching, April nodded. “Yes. But—”
But nothing. Tae spun and walked out the door, slamming it in her wake.
April started to go after her, but Andy stopped her. “Give her a minute to think. She’ll come back.”
She could barely speak with the sheer amount of emotion choking her. “How do you know?”
“Because she’ll want answers. And you’re the only one with those answers. Plus,” he said, giving her a very small sympathetic smile, “I’ve seen the way you two love and care for each other.”
April shook her head. She knew better than anyone love wasn’t always enough. Once upon a time, her parents had loved her. Until they hadn’t. Same with every man she’d ever fallen for. But she had always believed she and Tae would be forever. She had to fix this. There was no choice. “I’m going to do whatever it takes to earn her trust back.”
Andy nodded, his eyes filled with the same resolve she felt. “That makes two of us.”
“YOU’RE PACING THE wood floors bare,” Jake said.
Riggs ignored him as he continued to prowl around the living room. It was late, nearly ten o’clock, and he’d heard nothing from Tae. He’d called, texted, gone by her place . . .
She’d vanished, and he had a very bad feeling deep in his gut.
When he’d been knocking on Tae’s door, April had stuck her head out of her side of the duplex, her eyes red, skin blotchy. “She’s gone,” she said.
“You told her.”
She’d nodded and shut the door.
Riggs had driven home, berating himself. He should’ve told her everything two days ago, when Ace had given him Andy’s address. Then he’d compounded his error by agreeing to wait for April to tell her. He’d made himself complicit. An accomplice.
She’ll always resent you now. You’ve screwed this up the same way you’ve screwed up everything else in your life. When will you learn to be content being alone?
But God, he was sick of being alone.
“Not trying to repeat myself here, but you really should have told her,” Jake said.
Riggs gave him a death look.
“If you’re wondering if you can take the first swing at a man in a wheelchair, you can try . . .”
Riggs heard himself snarl and took a step toward his brother, but Carolyn slipped in between them, her back to Riggs as she glared at her boyfriend. “Really? You’re going to kick him when he’s down?”
“Be honest,” Jake said. “If I’d pulled something as stupid as what Riggs did, holding back something important, something that involved you directly, you’d—”
“Kick your ass,” Carolyn said smoothly. “But let’s face it, you’ve made plenty of your own mistakes with me and I’m still here.”
“What kind of mistakes?” Riggs asked, needing to know if there was any hope for him at all.
Jake didn’t respond.
Carolyn snorted. “He told me his life didn’t lend itself to relationships. That he didn’t believe he could even fall in love because he wasn’t made that way. He left me on our first anniversary because he got freaked out that he’d somehow ended up in a relationship in spite of himself.”
Riggs went brows up at Jake.
Jake ignored this as well.
“Should I keep going?” Carolyn asked.
“Yes,” Riggs said.
“No,” Jake said.
“Shit.” Riggs shook his head. “We’re both so stupid.”
“Well, give the man an A plus,” Carolyn said. “A Copeland male with some self-awareness.”
Jake gave a tug on her hand, and she landed in his lap. He wrapped her up in his arms and nuzzled his face into her neck. “Thanks for not giving up on me.”
“Never.”
“I just wanted to get her some answers,” Riggs said to the room. He’d thought that if he made sure Tae’s dad was a good guy, she’d see how much he cared about her. How much he loved her. Maybe she’d also understand the mistakes he’d made and forgive him.
But that was a whole lot of maybes to hitch his heart on.
“You did get her answers,” Jake said. “You just kept them from her.”
True. And in the process, he’d thoroughly screwed himself. Tae was a whole lot of really great things, but trusting? Not one of them. Nothing hurt her like betrayal, and that’s exactly what he’d done.
Someone knocked at the door. Please be Tae. That was his only thought as he yanked it open.
And it was Tae, trembling and looking utterly devastated. She’d reached her breaking point. She needed answers, and she didn’t care what it would cost her. He knew what it would cost him.
Everything.
He felt a pain so deep in his heart that he didn’t think he could survive it. This was his fault. He had done this.
“It was all a lie,” she said thickly. “My dad’s not really dead.”
Heart aching, he reached for her. “I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
Behind him, he heard Jake and Carolyn discreetly move into the kitchen and out the back door, and a minute later, Jake’s truck roared off. Riggs moved Tae inside and held her close. She was gripping him like he was her lifeline, and then suddenly she stilled, slowly lifting her tear-streaked face to his. “Wait. You . . . knew?”
In his head, he could hear pounding. The hammering of nails in his coffin as he sealed his own fate. But he would tell her everything he knew and give her everything he had.
TAE STARED UP at Riggs, still shaking, still locked in misery, and now holding her breath for his response.
He met her gaze, regret swimming in his, and she knew the answer before his husky voice said, “Yes.”
And here she’d thought she couldn’t hurt any more than she already was. “Oh my God.” She whirled back to the door, no idea where she was heading, just that she had to leave. Now. She was just barely holding herself together, but she could feel the cracks inside widening. She was going to break.
But she’d save that for when she was alone.
“Tae—”
“No.” She whipped back around. “Did everyone know? Was I the last to find out?”
He didn’t have to answer, it was all over his face. “And you didn’t tell me.” She put a hand to her heart, thinking maybe pressure would keep it from shattering. “Why? It’s my life, Riggs, and it’s not like I’m some fragile peach.”
He held a hand out to her, but she stepped away, putting a hand up to hold him off, because no way was he going to touch her right now.
Or ever again.
“How long have you known?” she demanded.
“Tae—”
“How long?”
He looked as devastated as she felt but she did. Not. Give. A. Crap. “Did you know that day in the school library?” she asked.
“No.”
She stared into his eyes and decided that was the truth. “How about last night?”
He winced. “I—”
“When, Riggs? When did you find out?”
“Two days ago, when Ace located your dad’s address. I wanted to go meet the guy to see if he was on the up and up.”
Her mouth literally dropped open. And, as it turned out, red-hot fury gave her heartburn. Good to know. She put her hand to her chest and pressed. Answers first. Heart attack later. “Ace?”
“He’s a great investigator. He can find anyone and anything.”
“So he found my dad—clearly at your request, even though I told you I wanted to do this on my own—and then you went to go see him. Without me. Do I have that right?”
She had to give him credit, he held her gaze. “Yes.”
She drew a shaky breath. “I introduced myself to my own dad at the lake.”
Again regret crossed his face. “I didn’t know he’d show up. I told him it was up to you to make contact, not him.”
“You told him . . .” She stopped and shook her head, confused on top of furious, and hurt on top of all of it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He drew a deep breath, like he was stressed. “Your mom made me promise to let her fix this. I agreed to give her a day. I told her if she didn’t tell you everything, then I would.”
And the hits just kept coming. “Is any of that supposed to make it better? You withheld info that you knew I was seeking. You knew that my father was alive and my mom was a liar.”
“Tae, I didn’t do it to hurt you. Neither did they. I really believed the truth would be less painful coming from your mom.”
“Well, you thought wrong.” She turned to the door again, then closed her eyes, letting the pain seep into her, and the realization that not only had her relationship with her mom just gone up in flames, but her relationship with Riggs had as well. “Not only did you lie to me, you found my dad alive and met him before I did. You stole that moment from me, Riggs.” She set her forehead to the door and willed the tears off for another minute. That was all she needed. A minute.
“I’m so sorry,” he said softly, with more emotion than she’d ever heard before. “I was trying to protect you.”
She shook her head and turned to face him. “No.” She jabbed a finger at him. “You had no right.” She tore her gaze from his face, the person she’d come to trust more than anyone else, and hugged herself. “Dammit,” she whispered. “It was good with you, so good. Better than good. I really thought we had something—”
He stepped closer, into her. “We do.”
She shook her head and gave him a little shove, while also keeping her hands fisted in his shirt, her mind and body at war again. With a sigh, she let him pull her into him. He kissed her forehead, and she closed her eyes. “I’m so mad at you,” she whispered through a thick throat.
“I know. I just wanted to protect you, but I can’t. Not from something like this.” He sounded genuinely remorseful for not being able to spare her this pain and causing her more. He was big and warm and solid, and, dammit, comforting.
She wanted nothing more than to lose herself in him. He could do it too, make her forget. But she couldn’t allow herself to forget. Not this. After a far longer moment than she should’ve allowed herself, she pulled away.
“Tae, don’t go.”
Surprised at the vehemence and emotion in the words, she tipped her face up and looked into his eyes as her entire heart turned over in her chest, exposing its underbelly. But her spine snapped ramrod straight. “I don’t want to,” she said truthfully, then had to swallow hard. “But you didn’t trust me. And now, I can’t trust you.”
His expression was grim. And pained. He knew it was over. He lowered his head and kissed her, sweet and loving, with the same spark as always, and she clung to him for one more minute before stepping back. For good this time. “Goodbye, Riggs.” And then she did what for the first time in her life she didn’t want to do. She walked away.