Now, she was stronger, in no small part to the lessons she’d learned from Sam so long ago.
From years of practice, Tansy knew how to shield her own feelings and desires from the world. But she was alone and there was no need to shield anything.
So she’d dream of Sam, and then she’d install her panels. Then she’d take a nap.
Sam Young was lost.
Not physically, although he’d never been in this part of the country before, but he was lost.
Nightmares had plagued him for weeks. Heart-breaking, soul-crushing, debilitating nightmares. All centered on a twenty-three-month-old girl who would never have a second birthday.
Because Sam hadn’t been fast enough. Smart enough. Good enough.
Hayley Armstrong.
The name and face would haunt him forever.
The GPS chimed into his thoughts, telling him to get into the right lane for the turn. Not long now.
Winter hadn’t given up in Vermont. Snow hung on in the fields, although the layers were thin.
It wouldn’t be long before spring did its thing, but for now, the budless trees with their barren branches made him feel right at home.
At least the trees knew they’d bloom again.
Sam wasn’t so sure about himself.
Which was why he was here. Searching out the person who’d always grounded him.
The relentlessly optimistic and curious creature who’d plopped into his life when he was sixteen and she was twelve.
A bundle of endless energy wrapped up in soft-brown skin and a cautious smile that could light up the darkest corners when it hit full wattage.
Sam hadn’t been in the Rivera home for long when Tansy and her brother Joe had arrived.
They’d been a motley crew. The Riveras were of Mexican heritage, Tansy and Joe a combination of Hopi and Ojibwe. And Sam’s own mix of who knew what.
Joe and Nico Rivera had been best friends when the Cheveyo parents had been killed by a strung-out driver with bad brakes.
The kids had moved in with the Riveras, despite the family’s previous policy of only taking in boys.
Tansy had intrigued Sam from the start. She’d been younger than the boys and quiet as a book. Smart as one, too, if the book happened to be an encyclopedia.
Even in the depths of the grief that had been visible in her eyes, she’d been a force. Searching for answers. Searching to make things better.
For everyone.
Sam’s previous foster home had fallen apart when the couple found out they were pregnant with their own child. They’d had no use for the substitutes then.
Sam hadn’t expected the Rivera home to be any different from the ones he’d lived in most of his life. Born to an addict hadn’t made for many positive childhood memories, but he’d never been abused. Hadn’t been through some of the horrors of the other kids who ghosted through the system. His father had been an asshole, but he’d left early.
Sam’s lasting memory was of him calling his son a waste of skin as he slammed the door on the way out.
On the second night after the Cheveyo pair had shown up, Sam had been sitting in the backyard, staring at the stars. The night sky had always soothed him and he’d been trying to figure out how to not screw up this home so he could stay with these people.
Tansy hadn’t seen him when she’d walked out with a briefcase.
At twelve.