“Willow,” I said. “Don’t be rude.”
Willow raised her unique brown and blue eyes to me and shifted to regard Wyatt. “Do you have an ouchie?”
“When I was ten years old, I hurt my arm,” Wyatt said matter-of-factly.
“How?” Willow wanted to know.
“There was a fire.”
“Let me see,” Willow said tugging on his cuff.
“I’m sorry, Wyatt,” I began, feeling embarrassed.
“It’s alright,” he waved my apology away, and calmly rolled up his long sleeve. For the first time I saw what he’d kept hidden. The burn scar began at the back of his hand and rolled up his forearm, stopping just above the elbow.
Willow reached out and ran her fingers over the scars. “Does it still hurt?”
“No.” Wyatt said, sitting there cool as a cucumber. “It happened a long time ago.”
Meanwhile I was silently sweating bullets, wondering what—if anything—I should do.
“Mama always kisses my ouchies,” Willow said, and with that she bent over and dropped a kiss to Wyatt’s arm. “There, all better.”
Wyatt had gone completely still. I watched as he took a steadying breath before he spoke. “Thank you, Willow.”
“Do you feel better now?” she wanted to know.
“Yes.” Wyatt nodded. “Thanks.”
Willow began to yawn. “Mama, I’m sleepy.”
“It was a big day,” I said. “Let’s get you into bed.”
“Okay.” She agreed without an argument, which only proved how tired she was.
I glanced over at Wyatt. “This will take me a couple of minutes.”
He picked up his wine glass and stretched out and crossed his feet on the coffee table. “That’s fine. I’ll sit here and relax.”
“’Night, Wyatt,” Willow said around a huge yawn.
“Goodnight, Willow.” He smiled as she climbed off the couch and began to shuffle towards her room.
To my surprise, Willow climbed straight into bed. Obviously all the excitement of the wedding and the rehearsal dinner the night before had caught up with her. I tucked her in, dropped a kiss on her forehead, switched on her nightlight, and left her door cracked open.
When I returned to the living room, Wyatt was sitting on the couch waiting for me. “Is she all settled?”
I sat down next to him trying to figure out where to begin. “Yeah, she was worn out.” I picked up a throw pillow and put it in my lap. “I have some questions. But, I confess it feels a might odd to ask you—I don’t want to put you in an uncomfortable position.”
“That’s alright.” Wyatt nodded.
“Today, when security carted Leilah out, Diego suggested I not say anything to Thomas. So he could have the day without Leilah ruining the wedding for him.” I checked Wyatt’s expression, he appeared at ease so I continued. “That being said, I find myself hesitant to bring any of this up to Thomas, or to Julian.”
“I understand.” He nodded. “Go ahead.”
“My first question is about Leilah Martin Drake.” I hugged the pillow for comfort. “I didn’t even know Thomas had a daughter.”
“That didn’t come out publically until a few years ago,” Wyatt said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“I’m guessing he and Leilah’s mother weren’t married?”
“No.” Wyatt’s crystal blue eyes regarded me calmly.
“I’ve noticed in town, folks get very nervous when anyone mentions the Drake family name.”
Wyatt shrugged. “Small town gossip. It can be nasty.”
“No one speaks of Julian’s mother, that’s sort of odd, don’t you think?”
“Yvonne.” Wyatt said. “She and Thomas divorced when Julian was very young.”
“Is she a part of Julian’s life now?” I asked.
“No.” Wyatt said. “Not that I’m aware of.”
I thought back to the article I’d read online. “How did Duncan’s mother really die?”
Wyatt blinked. “In a fire at the mansion.”
“Again, none of y’all have ever mentioned that either.” I thought about Rebecca attacking Lexie, decided to leave that for the moment and blew out a long breath. “All these secrets. They make me uncomfortable, and it has me questioning Thomas’ motives for inviting me to move to William’s Ford.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, think about it. He disowned his daughter, and his sister perished in a fire. Does he expect Willow and I to somehow replace them?”
“No, he’d never do that,” Wyatt insisted. “I can tell you that it was Thomas who dragged Duncan from the house that night. If not for him, Duncan would have died as well.” Wyatt’s voice was quiet.
“The article I read said that Duncan and Faye Bishop were both injured. What happened to Duncan’s mother that night? Was she trapped?”
Wyatt flinched at my words and I immediately apologized.
“I’m very sorry, Wyatt,” I said, feeling like the world’s most insensitive clod. “I wasn’t thinking. I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories of your own past.”
His brows rose, disappearing under that mop of hair. “I take it someone mentioned that my own parents died in a fire at my childhood home?”
“Thomas told me,” I said. “He explained you managed to save your younger brother, but that you yourself had been injured. That was an incredibly brave thing for a young boy to do.”
“I don’t know how brave it was. Xander wouldn’t jump, so I ended up basically throwing him off the roof.” The side of Wyatt’s mouth curled up.
“You threw your brother off the roof?”
“Xander was only six. He was too afraid to drop over the edge,” Wyatt explained. “So I gave him a shove and he landed in the snow covered yew bushes. They broke his fall…mostly.”
“Yet you were burned anyway.” I nodded towards his arm.
“At first I tried to get to my parent’s room, but I couldn’t. I ran to get Xander and somehow the sleeve of my pajamas caught on fire.”
I took his hand, gave it a squeeze. “You’re a hero.”
“I didn’t feel that way at the time,” Wyatt said softly. “I dropped down after Xander, but wasn’t so lucky with my landing. I managed to break my ankle in the fall. The firefighters hadn’t arrived yet. I could hear the sirens coming closer, and I crawled across the bushes to get to Xander. We huddled together in the snow and watched our house burn.” He took
