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“Sure.” I smile, letting Hunter lead the way out the barn’s back door.
My gaze lands on the porch swing. There must be so many childhood memories here for my family. My brothers mainly, since it seems they got a much better upbringing than my own, and now both are gone. I’ll never get to know the things they enjoyed growing up, and a new sadness settles in my chest.
“What’s on your mind?” Hunter’s question pulls me out of my thoughts.
I sigh. “I was thinking about the childhood my brothers had here and how I’ll never hear their stories.”
Hunter gives me a sideways glance.
“What?” I ask. Why is he looking at me like that?
“You really want to know about Miles?” His expression tells me that I’m crazy.
Oddly enough, I do. “Yes. Surely, he couldn’t have always been this bad person he turned into.”
Hunter takes my free hand and gives it a little squeeze. He doesn’t let it go either. “You’re a good person, Little Red.”
This is a different, more friendly side of Hunter. He appears carefree, not the uptight, suit-wearing, stone-faced man I’ve witnessed so many times before. He’s wearing dark blue jeans with a black tee—nice, casual, and damn attractive. The suits are a different level of hotness, but this country-boy look he’s pulling off makes me want to ravage him.
Clearing my throat, I say, “It’s not an easy thing for me to be open with people. With you, I’m trying. Just don’t hurt me.”
I catch the side of his mouth pull up. Hunter walks me into the forest behind the barn, following a cleared path into the trees, not the shrubs I ran for the other night on the other side. This path is clear, and trees and shrubs line the sides, a gravel path leading the way.
“You know, I grew up with Nash and Miles.”
I glance at him with wide eyes. “What were they like?”
“Well, I mostly hung out with Nash. We were joined at the hip, as May puts it.” He laughs. “We were always out the back here, climbing trees, building forts, and just being boys.”
Hearing those memories makes me smile. Knowing that my brothers had a good life makes me happy.
Hunter steals a glance at me, then questions, “Are you sure you’re okay hearing this?”
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? I want to know about my family.”
Hunter is silent for a moment. “Because this would have been your childhood, too, if youweren’t taken away.”
I didn’t really think about that. Now it’s been brought up, I won’t be able to let it go.
“I think growing up how I have has made me a stronger, more resilient person. If I’d simply become your wife after growing up in this life, your life, I may not have had the strength for survival I do now. I know it’s a foolish way to look at things, but I’ve been angry for so long, and now I have a chance to get to know my family.” I chew my lips as a lump forms in my throat.
“Tell me about how you grew up?” he asks gently.
I laugh. “Why are you asking when you probably already know if you’ve kept tabs on me?”
He cocks an eyebrow. “I didn’t always have eyes on you. I knew the area you had been in, and yes, I had people around keeping an eye out for you because I knew one day you’d be special not only to me but to the rest of your family.”
My chest tightens at his words. Clearing my throat, I say, “Let’s just say I’ve lived on the streets and survived because of the friendships I made with other homeless people.”
Hunter frowns. “What happened between you and your foster family?”
“Which one? I was in and out of quite a few homes until I turned eighteen, and I just packed my stuff and left.” I shrug, thinking back to that time when I couldn’t wait to get out of that abusive home.
“I’m so sorry you had to go through that. I don’t think that was May’s or your mother’s mom’s plan at all. What happened to make you leave the last home?” His jaw tenses as he asks.
“The father was a drunk, and everyone in the house, including their biological kids, copped the abuse. If we had bruises, we didn’t go to school. Hardly any food was in the house at times because he would drink it all away, and the final straw was when, because I wasn’t his daughter and I was older, he thought it was okay to try stuff on me, and I wasn’t having any of it so I left.”
Hunter is silent for a moment. That was a lot of information for him to take in and process. I squeeze his hand reassuringly, and this jolts him out of his thoughts.
