One

Wilder

Nine Years Later

Through the doorway, I could see my daughter packing the last of her things in a cardboard box. It was physically killing me not to go in there and help her. But she’d asked if she could do it herself. Alone.

My plan had been to stay a week here, give her time after her mother’s funeral to mourn, adjust—hell, I didn’t know. What was an eight-year-old little girl supposed to do after she saw her mother’s casket being lowered into the ground? I was so fucking lost in what it was she needed and what I should be doing.

My daughter wasn’t a normal eight-year-old. She had seen too much over the past five years. I hadn’t seen the signs, and by the time I caught on to what was happening in this house, the damage had been done. Too much darkness, and I blamed myself. I should have known. Sarah was with me every other weekend, two months every summer, and most holidays. But when she was at my place, she was happy. Or I had been too fucking blind to see the darkness she hid in her eyes.

Rubbing my hand over my chest didn’t ease the pain or regret. All I could do was make damn sure her life was picture-fucking-perfect from now on. No more leaving her with someone else. I wanted her with me. If she was with me, I could keep her safe.

Turning, I headed back down the stairs. There was little I wanted from this house. I had lived here the first two years of Sarah’s life with Sylvia, her mother. Our marriage had never been good. The only happiness that had happened here was after Sarah was born.

As my foot hit the bottom step, I glanced over at the hunter-green recliner, worn and faded, sitting in the corner of the living room. I remembered the first night Sarah had come home.

Sylvia had refused to nurse, and I’d offered to get up and do the nighttime feedings. Holding that tiny little baby in my arms, I stared at her in awe. It was a surreal moment. Seeing that face peering up at me, knowing that, only eight months ago, I had thought she was destroying my life.

I hadn’t wanted anything to do with Sylvia’s pregnancy. I stayed gone as much as possible. Worked hours that I didn’t need to. Anything to pretend that I wasn’t about to be a father.

Then, when the day had come and Sarah was placed in my arms, she had become my reason for living. All my joy revolved around her.

The slamming of the screen door jolted me out of my thoughts, and I headed to the kitchen to see who had come into the house. I expected to see Sylvia’s mother before we left. I’d called and spoken to her stepfather about Sarah’s desire to leave today. He had been more understanding than his wife was going to be. Preparing to deal with my ex-mother-in-law, I braced myself for her forthcoming lecture on why Sarah was better off staying with her. That would be a cold day in hell. My daughter was living with me.

When my body had barely made it through the doorway, my eyes locked on a pair that, to this fucking day, still haunted me. Granted, they no longer sparkled with excitement at the sight of me. It was more of a detached expression, and I hated that it even bothered me.

“Wilder,” Oakley said before walking over to the refrigerator and opening it.

I tried like hell not to look at her ass, but, damn, it was hard.

Oakley had been breathtakingly beautiful at sixteen, when I shouldn’t have been looking at her. At eighteen, when she was still too entirely young for me, she owned me. She could walk into a room and become the center of attention without saying a word. The way she could smile and make a man believe he’d fallen in love instantly was a weapon I knew she had used more than once over the years. There was a time that I would have died just to hold her and have her look at me again as if I were the only man she wanted. God, I had lived for that look. To see that smile.

She wasn’t a kid anymore. She was a twenty-seven-year-old woman and a complete stunner. The kind that turned heads, made men stumble when they caught a glimpse of her. The unreal kind of beauty that was unfair to the female population. She was also Sarah’s only aunt and, unfortunately for me, one of Sarah’s favorite people.

Oakley despised me, and she made no attempt to hide the fact. Except around Sarah. My daughter was the only mutual ground between us. Otherwise, she acted as if I were invisible, and I did the same. The best I could at least. Ignoring Oakley Leola Watson was just about fucking impossible for any straight man.

“I was expecting Cleo,” I said when she turned around with a can of soda in her hand.

She smirked, but there was no amusement in her eyes. “That’s why I’m here,” she said, then popped the can open. “I figured you’d need my help.”

My eyebrows shot up in surprise. It had been so long since Oakley had spoken to me. Much less wanted to help me.

A bark at the screen door interrupted what I was going to say. Oakley walked over to open it and let Belladonna—Sarah’s reddish-brown labradoodle—into the house. I had assumed that we’d be forced to leave Belladonna behind. Sylvia had refused to keep her, so for Sarah, Cleo had taken her when she was a puppy. I hadn’t expected Cleo to allow me to take Belladonna.

The dog had looked like a stuffed teddy bear the one and only time I’d seen it. Sarah had run out to the truck to show me her new puppy when I came to pick her up. That was two years ago. Belladonna was huge now. I only recognized her from pictures that Sarah had texted me of her.

“Sarah hadn’t mentioned the dog,” I said, trying to decide if this was a good thing. Letting her tell the dog bye might be more painful for her. “It might do more harm than good, having it here when we leave.”

Belladonna walked inside, and her eyes locked on me as she fell into step at Oakley’s side.

“It’s a she, not an it. Do you have a thing against dogs?” she asked me with an annoyed gleam in her eyes.

“No. I’m worried about Sarah’s emotions,” I replied through my clenched teeth.

I hated that Oakley always assumed the worst about me.

“Belladonna belongs to Sarah. I brought her, assuming you’d want to take her with you. Sarah could use the comfort.”

“Not something I expected,” I said slowly, trying to decide if she had an angle here that I was missing.

Her dislike for me wasn’t one-sided. It was mutual. She’d made damn sure any feelings I had for her were slaughtered years ago. When I had divorced Sylvia, Oakley was one of the reasons I hadn’t been granted fifty-fifty custody. Her testimony in court had swayed the judge’s ruling. I was positive of it. Had I been able to have Sarah fifty percent of the time, then I would have seen what Sylvia was putting her through. That Sylvia was spiraling. And where the fuck had Oakley been when her stepsister wasn’t fit to raise my child?

She took a long drink, then locked those baby-blue eyes on me. “Why?”

Suddenly having someone here to unleash my anger on, I glared at her. “Oh, I don’t know, Oakley. Maybe the fact that you made sure Sarah only saw me every other fucking weekend and didn’t seem to think I needed to know that Sylvia was in a bad mental place. One that was creating an unsafe home for my daughter,” I snapped.

She didn’t need more of an explanation than that. She knew what the fuck she’d done. How she had failed Sarah.

“You now helping me move Sarah to live with me seems odd, considering.”

Oakley took another drink from her can, never taking her eyes off me. Her eyes lit up with her own pent-up fury. I could see it there, shining as she held my glare. A low growl came from Belladonna. Oakley reached down and ran her hand over the dog’s back, whispering something that made the dog ease.

“Make no mistake, this is about Sarah. You’re her father. She wants to live with you, and that’s where she belongs. As for the past, it’s done. I can’t go back and change it.”

It was done. That was her excuse. It was the past, and her actions had harmed my daughter. Maybe not physically, but emotionally. If she thought her coming here to help with Cleo and bringing Belladonna were enough to fix it, she was wrong. So fucking wrong.

“Where is Sarah?” Oakley asked, looking past me.

I wanted to tell her to leave. We didn’t need her. Sarah had me, and she didn’t need anyone else. Especially someone from this family. But I knew sending her away would hurt Sarah. I had to find a way to balance Sarah’s love for Oakley and my hate for her. How the hell I was supposed to do that, I didn’t know. It had been years since I’d had to speak to Oakley. Now, I was Sarah’s only parent that would change.

“In her room, packing,” I replied grudgingly.

“What are you going to do with this place?” she asked me, as if she had a right to know.

I had no answer for her, but even if I did, why should I tell her? It wasn’t her business. I had never signed the house over to Sylvia because I hadn’t trusted her. I wanted Oakley to have a home, a house, a yard, a fucking dog. Even if she couldn’t have two parents under one roof, I wanted to give her everything else I could. I paid all their bills, including the mortgage.

“I don’t know. I guess sell it. My life isn’t here. I can’t move back here,” I replied, wishing those damn eyes of hers didn’t make me talk. Say shit I didn’t have to.

Oakley placed the can down on the bar and stared out the window over the kitchen sink. “Not real sure her memories of this house, at least in the last few years, are some she wants to remember,” Oakley said solemnly. Then, she turned to meet my gaze. “Sell it. Move her to Florida, give her a fresh start. Help erase all … all the bad.”

The bad that I should have been told about. The bad that she wouldn’t have lived through if she had been with me. My hands fisted at my sides.

Belladonna let out another low growl.

“It’s best you stop with the pent-up anger at me. If you want Belladonna to like you, that is,” Oakley said.

I wasn’t going to be threatened by a dog that looked like an overgrown stuffed bear. Ignoring her warning, I scowled. “I didn’t know it had gotten bad. That Sylvia had stopped taking her meds. Sarah never told me anything. I can’t—” I paused and hissed at the ache in my chest. “I failed her.”

I wanted to shout that she had failed her too. But I didn’t. For Sarah’s sake.

For a brief moment, just a tiny fraction, there was a flicker of something other than indifference. As if she might care deep down or simply remember when she had. I missed the girl I had destroyed. She still haunted my dreams. The first time I had seen her, the first time she’d turned those blue eyes on me and smiled. I wasn’t sure I’d ever truly be able to let her go. At least not in my memories. The woman she had become, her actions, that person I would never love. I would tolerate her for my daughter.

“We did everything we could to get Sylvia help. She chose not to take her medication. She chose not to go to the therapist. This was her choice. This wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know. We didn’t tell you. Cleo was afraid you’d take Sarah from Sylvia if you knew. If you want to blame someone, blame us. You deserved to know. It was me who failed Sarah. I was the one who should have told you. Instead, I came to get Sarah and keep her with me, or I stayed here. But I couldn’t always be there for her. I have a job, and it interfered some. She … she should have been with you. I’m the one who has to live with that. Me. Not you.”

I stood there, staring at the girl who had been my sole obsession years ago. I’d have done anything to have her, and I had. She was a light in my darkness. She’d given me fucking joy. Made me want to be a better man. Watching the anguish on her face while she blamed herself for all that Sarah had lived through took some of that hatred in my chest from me. It was hard to listen to her blame herself even if I had.

The man I had been before Sylvia, the guy who had fallen in love with Oakley at first sight, wanted to go pull her into my arms and assure her that this shit was on me. Sarah was my daughter. I had known Sylvia battled with bipolar disorder, but I had thought that she was taking her medication and seeing her therapist. When I asked, she told me she was, and I believed her.

Oakley had known, and she was right. She was to blame. Sarah had suffered, and Oakley could have stopped it. If she’d done something, then Sylvia might not have taken her own life. If she had told me, I could have come back and forced Sylvia to get help. But Oakley had done none of those things, and my daughter’s mother was dead.