“Stop it.”

She scowled at me and swatted my bicep as I put her back down on her feet. “Stop what?”

“Whatever you’re thinking. Just stop. I’m trusting you to come back. You gotta trust me that I’m just taking care of my family. Your crystal ball shows us, remember?”

She made a face at me and sighed. “I know. She’s just so broken and you’re just so sweet and want to make everything better. I just had a brief flash of doubt is all. I know you’re the best person to help her heal right now. You’re the only person I trust with her.”

I bent so I could kiss her on her sassy mouth. She always tasted like the best of everything. I loved the way she just melted into me and the way her tongue twisted and curled along mine. I pulled back and rested my forehead against hers.

“You know how you said you wanted to still be the first at some things so you could surprise me?”

She laughed a little and nodded, bumping our heads together. “There is a really important first I want you to do for me while you’re in Texas.”

She pulled back so we were staring at each other and I think she had to have seen in my gaze how important my request was because she agreed without me even telling her what it was.

“I’ll do whatever you want me to, Rowdy.”

I gave her a lopsided grin and explained to her what I needed for her to do for me. By the time I was done, we both had tears in our eyes and needed to hold on to one another for just a second.

The doors behind us whooshed open and Poppy was wheeled out looking like a shattered doll. I would help her heal and so would everyone else in my errant family. We were made up of the fragmented and damaged and it was only together that we learned the value of ourselves and what unconditional love and acceptance looked like. It was the perfect place for Poppy to forget about the past and find her peace and her future.

I helped load one Cruz sister into the taxi and kissed the other one good-bye with everything I had in me. It was oddly reminiscent of ten years ago. Once again I was taking care of Poppy and watching Salem go off to do her own thing. Only I knew this time it had a different ending, and instead of cursing fate and bad luck, I was thanking both of those things for bringing these women into my life for better or worse.

Whatever happened from here on out, I would always be grateful for every single moment I had with everyone I loved.

CHAPTER 20

Salem

I HADN’T STEPPED FOOT inside of a church since I left Loveless a lifetime ago. I didn’t have anything against religion. I believed that faith and the trust in something bigger than yourself was an important part of people making peace with how hard and trying life could be at times, but leaving my old life behind also meant leaving behind hours spent in a pew listening to my father piously lead his congregation.

It was an odd feeling to be back as an adult. It felt different knowing I could get up and leave at any point in the sermon that I wanted to. Now that I was out from under his control, lived a full life beyond him and this town, his words seemed so hollow. Where I always thought my father was full of religious conviction and driven by faith, as I watched him at the pulpit now I wondered if it was all just an act.

Sure he was just as passionate as he always had seemed. His words echoed from the wooden rafters and the people surrounding me were obviously moved, but there was something there, something I could see clearly now that time had passed, and he no longer seemed so intimidating or all-powerful like he had to my young eyes. His smile was just a little too bright. His eyes were just a little bit too wide and the cadence of his voice was just a little too practiced and theatrical to ring true. All his words about love and respect, about doing God’s work and living a life of sacrifice, hit a chord in me as I realized he was very much preaching “do as I say and not as I do.” It was hypocritical and I wished instead of being wrapped up in my own misery at home when I was younger I could have seen him and his dictates for what they were. I felt like it probably could have saved me from making a lot of mistakes along the way.

My mom had caught sight of me when I entered at the beginning of the service and took a seat in the back. She kept shooting nervous looks over her shoulder at me like she was worried I was going to jump to my feet at any given moment and lay all my family’s sins bare for all of the loyal parishioners to judge. I just kept smiling at her with a lot of teeth. I didn’t see any reason to put her mind at ease, not after the way she had sold Poppy out to a murderous creep under the guise of trying to do what was best for her. Every time she caught my eye, she gulped and nervously looked back at my father.

I figured he knew I was there as well. His entire sermon centered on forgiveness and sin. The sins of the body. The sins of the mind. The sins of the well-meaning and the sins of parents and children. He talked a good game about nothing in this world being unforgivable by God and then turned my stomach when he offered a prayer for Oliver Martinez and reminded everyone sitting inside the picture-perfect, small-town church that it was only up to God to forgive and judge Oliver for his misdeeds. Not one word about Poppy or the horror she had suffered and he most definitely didn’t mention that he was the primary reason Oliver had found my sister in the first place.

I wanted to get up and march up the aisle to the front of the church and knock him off the altar. I wanted to stand on the pew and scream that all these innocent people were listening to a fraud and that my father really thought his opinion and his beliefs were just as important as the deity he claimed was the only one that could sit in judgment. I didn’t do anything. I sat there with my arms crossed over my chest and watched him through narrowed eyes.

I knew he was trying to get a rise out of me in front of all of these people he considered his sheep, his blind followers. He had long since declared me an embarrassment, a loss, a wayward soul that was godless and not worthy of his guidance and tutelage, so I wasn’t about to prove him right in any way, shape, or form.

My phone vibrated from where I had it stashed and I pulled it out to glance at the text.

Love you.

It was simple. It was sweet. It was a reminder that after this was all said and done, I had somewhere to go. I had someone that would always want me. I had never returned to anything or anyone in my entire life, so it sent warm and gooey threads of love and happiness shooting all through me so that I absolutely couldn’t wait to get back home. I wanted to get back to Rowdy. The days I had to spend apart from him felt years longer than the decade we had previously spent separated.