Silent questions pouring free.
Is he healthy?
Does he carry your disease?
God, how could you let this happen?
I lifted my hands and gave her the only answer that I could.
HIS NAME IS EVERETT. EVERETT CHASE.
Everett Chase who I hadn’t known existed until three nights ago.
Everett Chase who had been thrown into my arms in the middle of the night with a plea and a warning.
Everett Chase who I didn’t know but was determined to protect.
Whatever it took.
* * *
It was surreal pulling into my parent’s circular driveway. Massive trees stood like age-old sentries around the property, sheltering its borders, a vast canopy that stretched out to protect the big white house tucked at the back. Yard immaculate. As immaculate as the wrap-around porch that fronted the first level.
Nostalgia whipped through my entire being as I pulled to a stop. It was in the same neighborhood where Frankie Leigh had lived. Where her parents and brothers still lived two houses down and across the street.
After my mom and Kale had gotten married, they’d purchased this place. Frankie’s father, Rex, and his company had come in and renovated it.
Made it better than brand-new.
Putting my car in park, I scrubbed my face with my palms, hoping it might break up the disorder.
Blowing out a strained breath, I cranked open the door and climbed out. I went straight for the back-passenger door, and I swung it open to Everett who was smiling so big at me it made everything hurt.
My heart and my spirit and my mind.
Guts twisted.
How the fuck did this happen?
The kid was sixteen-months-old. All emerald eyes and dimpled, chubby cheeks and trusting face.
“Hey, Chunky Monk.” I rumbled the nickname I’d given him that first night when I’d held him for hours to try to calm him down because he freaked the fuck out every time I’d tried to set him down. As I’d comforted him and he’d clung to me and I’d paced for hours as I’d tried to figure out what to do.
Probably should have gone straight to the police, and somehow, I’d shown up here.
Everett made a bunch of sounds that I felt rather than heard.
His sweetness skating my skin. Fisting my heart in a tight clamp.
I undid the buckles of his car seat. “It’s going to be okay, Everett. I promise I’m going to figure out what the hell is going on. Promise I won’t let anything happen to you,” I swore to him, not even sure if the words coming off my tongue were making any sense, while he babbled a bunch of indecipherable things that I wanted to read like Braille.
To be able to get to know this kid—for him to know me—and wondering the whole fucking time if he was going to be ripped out of my life as quickly as he’d come into it.
A wall fought to go up around my heart every time I thought of it, a guard against the coming pain, and the kid knocked it down every time he looked at me with all that trust.
Awkwardly, I hauled his little body against mine and slammed the door shut just as I felt the energy erupt from the house, and I looked up to see the front door bang open.
Kale barreled out, his chest heaving and his demeanor wild, so different than my dad who’d always had it together.
He came to a rigid stop at the top of the five steps that led to the house, staring down at me in outright disbelief.
In grief and hope and confusion.
The man who’d become my father when I was eight years old.
The man who’d saved my life.
Literally.
It was one thing to be deaf.
It was another to know your days were numbered, your heart metered with a timestamp.
But Kale?
He’d given me more days than I’d been destined to live.
I clutched Everett to me.
Making some kind of statement.
Taking a stance.
I didn’t know.
Only thing I knew was I wanted to wrap this kid up and protect him for all my days.
My throat bobbed heavily while Dad stood up there like he wasn’t sure how to breach the space.
E-V-A-N.
He signed my name like a petition. Like desperation. Like terror.
Could feel all of them rushing down.
Slamming into my being.
A reminder of what I’d done.
Everett buried his face in my neck. No doubt, he’d felt the force of it, too.
I rubbed his back. “It’s okay, sweet boy. It’s okay. I’ve got you. It’s all going to be okay.” Just prayed it was the truth.
I edged for the wooden steps, meeting my dad’s eye.
Dad’s hand clamped down over his chest, like looking at me caused him physical pain. “Evan.”
Emotion clogged my throat, and I blinked, trying to see through the years. “Dad,” I forced out.
Shame written in the word.
A plea.
“God.” His lips moved. Distraught. Overwhelmed.
And then he was stumbling down the steps, his eyes flickering frantically between me and my son.