Mia lifted one shoulder. “Mom made me promise because she knows Dad wants you home but is too cranky to say it. So I guess we know where you get it from.”
Pike rolled his eyes as he reached for the open door to the truck. “I’m nothing like Dad.”
“I know,” she said, capturing his hand before he could slip into the passenger seat and giving it a squeeze. “And try to stay like that, okay? I love Dad, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t need another Jim Sherman in my life. And you’re…”
“I’m what?” Pike sighed, suddenly feeling the long journey down to Texas and all the sleepless nights beforehand, when he’d lain awake dreading the trip.
“You’re better than that,” Mia said gently, tapping two fingers to the center of his chest. “You’ve got a good heart, Pike. You should let it show more often.”
Pike stretched his neck to the side, trying to ignore the knot of emotion rising in his throat. “My heart’s just fine. Don’t believe everything you read in a gossip magazine, sis.”
“I don’t. I believe your eyes, and what I’ve seen there since you got in today makes me sad. I don’t like seeing you look so…hard. And angry.” She shook her head. “What’s really going on with you, P? Because it seems like something more than stress over being on the injured list.”
Pike’s jaw clenched. A part of him wanted to tell Mia to mind her own business, but he’d already hurt her feelings enough for one night. He and Mia didn’t talk on the phone every week or send birthday cards, but that didn’t mean they weren’t close. There had never been any bullshit between him and his sister. Whenever they were together, they picked up where they’d left off, as close as if they hadn’t spent months apart. He considered her a friend, not simply a family member, and if it had been anything else bothering him, he would have told her the truth.
But Mia couldn’t be trusted with the truth about him and Tulsi. He’d kept the secret too long. Spilling it now would drive a wedge between him and his sister and maybe even Mia and Tulsi and he didn’t want to do that. Mia and Tulsi had been best friends since they were in kindergarten. He still remembered the day Mia had come home from the first day of school, bragging that she’d “saved a short girl’s life.” She’d had Tulsi under her wing ever since and was practically helping to raise Tulsi’s daughter. Pike didn’t have any sympathy for his ex, but he didn’t want to risk damaging one of Mia’s most precious relationships or hurting an innocent little girl.
Which meant it was time to lie. He had to. If he didn’t give Mia something, she’d stay after him like a stubborn little bulldog until she got to the truth.
“My girlfriend and I broke up last week,” he said, casting his eyes down to the gravel, grateful for the shadows that hid his face. He was a lousy liar, and Mia was usually able to catch him when he tried, but, hopefully, the darkness would be on his side. “Bella said it wasn’t working and went back to L.A.”
“Oh, no.” Mia made a soft, sympathetic sound. “I’m so sorry. Now I feel terrible for making that crack about you not being able to find a date.”
“It’s okay.” It really was. Bella had been more of a fuck-buddy than a girlfriend and things had ended amicably between them, but Mia didn’t know that. “I’ve known it wasn’t going to last for a while, but the breakup took me by surprise. On top of everything else, I guess it just…has me a little down.”
Mia reached for him, pulling him into an unexpected hug that made him feel awful for lying, no matter how noble his reasons. “Well, we’re going to do our best to cheer you up while you’re here, okay?” she said. “I love you so much, Pike. And I’m glad you’re home, grouchy or not.”
Pike patted her red curls. “I love you, too,” he said, his throat tight all over again.
He’d let the tension with his dad and his history with Tulsi come between him and the people he loved for too long. His mom and Mia deserved better than one or two rushed visits a year, and now that Mia was getting married, there would be even more reasons for him to return to Lonesome Point. Mia hadn’t said anything about starting a family, but Pike knew she wanted kids someday, and he wanted to be a bigger part of his nieces’ or nephews’ lives than some distant uncle who spoiled them at Christmas. He might never have a family of his own, but he was crazy about kids, and he was going to be even crazier about Mia’s kids because they were hers. She was his goofy, funny, strong, secretly sweet baby sister and he didn’t want to miss out on any more of her life.
It was time to make a change, to stop running away from his past and face it, head on. And if that meant burying the hatchet with Dad and finding it in his heart to forgive Tulsi, then…that’s what he would do. He was old enough to be the mature party in his and Dad’s relationship and seven damned years had passed since Tulsi betrayed him. It was past time to put his anger to bed. The only thing more pathetic than the fool he’d been back then was the fool he was now.
The longer he held on to his bitterness, the more of his life he let Tulsi taint, and he was sick of living in the shadow of that one stupid spring. He was ready to move on and leave those bittersweet memories behind him once and for all.
CHAPTERTHREE
Tulsi
Tulsi pulledinto the Blue Saloon Hotel parking lot at ten after eight to find the church bus already idling in the corner of the lot and the other parents saying their goodbyes while the teenage counselors loaded up backpacks and sleeping bags.
“Crud biscuits,” she said, breathlessly shoving the truck into park. “Move it Clementine or you’re not going to make the bus.”
Tulsi couldn’t believe they’d both overslept. But it had been a big weekend and between bad dreams and dwelling on seeing Pike for the first time in years, Tulsi had barely slept at all.
“I am moving it, but I still can’t find Monster Princess,” Clem said, the last word becoming a three syllable whine. Clem wasn’t usually a whiny kid—something Tulsi was tremendously grateful for—but her daughter had never spent the night anywhere without Snuggly Blanket and the monster princess doll Mia had made for her when she was a baby.
“She’s got to be in there, bug. I know we packed her.” Tulsi unbuckled and slipped out of the truck. “Here let me look.” She helped Clem out of her booster seat and down to the pavement before turning to dig through the duffel on the seat with shaking hands.
She shoved aside the once carefully folded outfits Clem had succeeded in wadding into wrinkled balls as she searched for her doll, digging down to the bottom of the cavernous bag. She found Snuggly Blanket next to Clem’s toiletry case and neatly labeled containers of sunscreen, bug spray, and shampoo, but no monster doll.
“I don’t know, Clem.” Tulsi wiped away the sweat gathering on her upper lip as the early morning sun began to heat up the cab of the truck. “Did you take it out when—” She broke off with a cry of triumph as she found Monster Princess hiding beneath the large Ziploc bag full of socks and underwear. “Found her! Now let’s get you to the bus.”
Tulsi spun around with a grin, doll in one hand and Clem’s bag in the other, to find the blacktop behind her empty.
“Clem?” She turned in a slow circle but couldn’t see any sign of her daughter’s pale blond curls. “Clementine?” she called in a louder voice, drawing the attention of some of the other parents across the parking lot.
“Have any of you seen Clem?” Tulsi asked, doing her best not to panic. “She was standing right here a second ago. She didn’t get on the bus while I wasn’t looking, did she?”