“So you and Cole finally getting along again?” Maggie asks, stirring the pot.
I smile. “You can say that.”
“Hmmm,” she badgers with a knowing smile. “Does that mean you’ll be making babies soon?”
“Umm...no, that’s not what it means at all,” I reply, resisting an eye roll. “We’re taking it slow.”
“Slow?” she laughs. “Since when have you known Cole to take anything slow?”
I laugh. “Okay, fine. He just moved in with me and Aubry.”
She throws her head back in laughter. “That boy has been crazy about you since the minute you stepped foot in this house.”
“Still am, Mags. Still am,” Cole booms as he walks into the conversation. Our eyes lock, and he gives me his wide smile, showcasing the dimple on his right cheek.
“Boy, you better take care of her heart. That’s all I’ll tell you. She was so hurt all those years. I could hear her heart breaking from across the table during Christmas dinners,” Maggie chides.
“Her own fault,” Cole replies, sticking a piece of bread in his mouth. “She broke up with me, remember? And she never wanted to give me another chance.”
I roll my eyes at his statement.
“Cole, stop talking with your mouth full. It’s disgusting,” I groan. “And please let’s get off the topic of how I broke up with you and how you took advantage of that to sleep with every girl that acknowledged you. Let’s drop it.” I sigh. “Maggie, I have some things I need to ask you. Important things. Actually, we both do.”
Maggie takes a deep breath. “I always knew you’d come back asking questions that I don’t have answers to,” she says sadly.
“I brought photos to show you. It’s...it’s very complicated, and we can’t tell many people about it,” I explain.
Maggie turns off the stove and sits down. “Photos of what, exactly?” she asks while wiping her hands on her apron.
I ask Cole to run upstairs and get me the envelope I brought. When he comes back, he hands it to me with a kiss and sits beside me. My chair squeaks loudly on the hardwood floors as he pulls it closer to his.
“Photos of my childhood...our childhood,” I clarify, looking at Cole.
“Both of your childhoods?” Maggie asks with a frown. “Your Aunt Shelley didn’t bring you here as a child.”
“Maggie, that’s why I said it’s complicated,” I interrupt as I hand her one of the photos of Cole and I standing next to each other by some chickens in the barn.
She gasps loudly and places her hands over her mouth, her brown eyes looking at us in complete shock.
“Holy mother of pearl, that’s Cole,” Maggie says as she gapes at me. “Is that you, Blake?”
“Yes, that’s what we’re trying to tell you. We knew each other before we met here,” I start. “We need to know. Who brought Cole here? You said it was his father, but we’re pretty sure it wasn’t.”
She sighs and closes her eyes. “I got a call from a man that said he knew me—or of me—I can’t remember which. It was around 4:00 in the morning, maybe later, when he called. I thought it was a prank caller because I’d been getting a lot of calls from teenagers that used to mow the lawn here. Anyhow, I hung up twice before he called back again and begged me to listen to him. He sounded like he was crying, so I stayed on the line. He said he was a friend of Liam’s…” she pauses and gives me a pointed look that I don’t understand. “And Cory’s, so I stayed on the line. He told me that he was going to be dropping off a four year old boy. He said he’d explain everything to me when he got here. We hung up, and I still wasn’t sure if it was a fib or not—until I heard knocking on the door. The young man was dressed in all black. He looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him. He had the clearest blue eyes. I just couldn’t get over how young he was. He looked so scared and terribly sad. When he saw me, he started to cry. Really cry. I held him for a bit.”
“He told me that he didn’t know where else to go. He’d gotten my phone number from his mother, and he needed to separate the two children. He didn’t give me too much information. Really, he was just upset and rambling on about needing to keep them safe. He left Cole with me. He told me his name was Cole Murphy and that his parents left him for dead. I didn’t think to call the police. Well, I did think of it, but the man told me that Cole would be in danger if I did that. He gave me information to a bank account and told me that he would deposit money in that account and in my own until Cole turned eighteen. That was it.”