“She’s smiling,” Rod murmured behind them.
“Wouldn’t you be with a dad like that?” Andy replied.
“That’s a sign of danger in these fraught situations, though, right? I don’t want to get blasted. It looks like it hurts.”
“Good call.”
The sound of shuffling meant everyone was scooting back. Everyone except Devon.
“He thinks I’m someone else’s!” She laughed and threw her arms around Devon. “God, I hope he’s right.”
Devon squeezed her tight, reviewing what Walt had said. One thing stuck out like a sore thumb.
Roger hadn’t sent someone out here a couple of weeks ago. Not even a couple of months ago. He’d tried when they’d first found Charity and elected to wait to try again until she could go herself.
So if it wasn’t Roger, who was checking up on Charity’s past?Chapter ThreeCharity shuddered out a breath as she stepped over Walt’s foot. She couldn’t properly express the hope that this disgusting sack of crap wasn’t her flesh and blood. She guessed that was probably sad to say, but there was no use denying it.
“Why wouldn’t my mom say anything, though?” she wondered aloud, pausing in the living room to look over the crushed cans and empty whiskey bottles littering the floor. Papers and magazines were strewn across the coffee table and couch. Upon closer inspection, none of them had been sent to this address. “When he was yelling and cursing and we were hiding in the bedroom, or when we escaped for the day to the park, or just when I got older—why didn’t she ever mention he wasn’t my real dad?”
“Maybe she thought you wouldn’t take the news well.” Devon stepped in with her before making a gesture to the others. He wanted them to stay outside.
A part of Charity relaxed a little. She wasn’t ashamed of her upbringing, but she’d moved past it. With the encouragement of Devon and the pack, she’d blossomed into someone else. To share the horrors of her past now, when she was trying to move forward, would scratch the surface of embarrassment. The only reason she was allowing Devon inside was because he needed to see where her scars had come from.
Not that she’d be able to chase him away. His alpha protectiveness was in overdrive right now. She could tell he wanted to rip her out of this place.
She smiled a little to herself. It felt good to be protected by someone bigger and badder than she was. Not many could fill his shoes.
“The smells in here are…” Devon crinkled his nose.
“What?” she asked, stopping at the entrance to the kitchen. Her heart sank. The faded yellow countertops had felt like her portal into high-dollar kitchens, where culinary magic was just around the corner. Now, they were covered in empty food containers, wrappers, and crumbs. The trash can in the corner was spilling over. Her shoe stuck to the floor, something yellow having been spilled and not cleaned up. More stains covered the faded linoleum at the bottom of the fridge, where a smear of crusty red interrupted the white. “That looks like blood.”
“I smell blood, though not much. Urine, something rotting, mold—this place is a petri dish for gross.” His hand curved to the swell of her hip. “Are you okay?”
“This was my favorite space. It’s where I taught myself how to cook. He never came in here after he started on the whiskey.” She took a deep breath and turned away. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to see.”
Silently, she moved to the two bedrooms at the back of the house. If her mother had wanted to hide anything from her, she would have hidden it in the bedroom she’d shared with Walt. Lord knew there wasn’t anywhere else in the tiny house.
Memories accosted her when she stepped inside. Of her mother in the bathroom, doing up her hair. Of the nights she’d snuggled in here with her mother, knowing Walt was passed out on the couch.
Of the day she’d found her mother’s goodbye note.
“I asked her once why she’d married Walt—she hated when I didn’t call him Dad. She laughed and made an off-handed remark about fortune-tellers and their crystal balls.”
Charity’s gut pinched, that comment suddenly having a lot more weight than it used to. It hit very close to home, given Charity had received a reading herself not that long ago.
She shook it off. Her mother viewed tarot card readings and fortune-tellers as a means of distraction—as entertainment. If it was anything more, she would’ve talked about magic through the years, a topic that never came up.
“She said Walt didn’t always used to be like this. That the alcohol took over and changed him. So I asked why she stayed. I’ll never forget the look on her face. It was the look of a broken woman. A woman beaten down by life. She just shook her head and turned away. I didn’t understand it at the time—I still don’t, truth be told, but it was clear that some things were just beyond her. She’d hit a wall in life, and she couldn’t figure out how to scale it. I never asked again. Then, a year later, she was gone. It’s that look that still haunts me. It’s why I finally forgave her.”