Page 22

“The LeeHy motel.”

“I do hope you didn’t check in last night. Young Derek works nights, and despite coming from a wonderful family, he just came out wrong. All of his brothers and sisters are upstanding citizens, but young Derek is the bane of Roger and Harmony’s existence.”

“Yeah, I met him.”

“You might want to think about changing venues.”

“You’ve read my mind.”

6

“Nice rig.” Lettie smiled. “My husband would approve.”

“He likes GMCs?”

“He has a Chevy truck, so yeah.” Her smile grew wider. She got into the passenger seat of my truck, not needing any help. She’d explained that she drove in with her mother and her husband picked her up from work.

I closed the passenger door, then got into the driver’s seat and followed her directions to her house. I wished I could say that the streets seemed familiar, but they didn’t.

“Take a right at the next stop sign,” Lettie said. “Then we’re going to go five blocks.”

“Sounds easy enough.” I grimaced as I saw all the pink and white dogwood blossoms. My stomach started getting tight. Jesus, did every single house have to have a dogwood tree?

“You okay?” Lettie asked. Her voice was soft. Like she was talking to a girl. A child.

“Fine, ma’am.”

“Lettie,” she corrected me.

I nodded. I couldn’t get a word out, my teeth were clamped closed.

As we got closer and closer, I went slower and slower, until I was only going ten miles an hour as we passed the last stop sign.

“There it is, on the left. Do you recognize it?”

I looked out my window, and I shook my head, then nodded. There was the porch and the four steps. But there wasn’t dirt at the bottom. There was a walkway lined with purple flowers, but I lurched to a stop when I saw the red porch swing.

“Brady, are you all right?”

Again, she was talking to me like I was fragile. Same way they’d talked to me after I’d come out of my coma at Walter Reed. I was a Green Beret, I wasn’t fucking fragile.

“Brady?”

“My name is Kai. I’m fine, ma’am.” I stopped staring at the swing. “I mean, Lettie. I’m fine, Lettie.”

“This is your old house, isn’t it?”

I nodded. My jaw hurt. I opened my mouth, releasing my bite.

“Your brother is going to be mighty glad to see you,” she whispered.

Lettie was a nice enough lady, but I’d had enough. I looked at her and forced a smile. “Where can I drop you off?”

Again, she gave me that smile, as if she knew what I was feeling. She didn’t. She couldn’t.

She pointed to a house with a riot of roses and some other enormous flower on the corner. “I know the woman who’s renting the house. Would you like me to introduce you?”

I looked back over at the red porch swing. It was as I remembered it, only a lot smaller. Which made sense, since I’d been almost four years old when I’d been taken away by dear old dad.