And taken their mother from them. Why were they here, looking at her with the same ache she’d seen in their eyes the day she left?
She had to calm down. Find out why they’d come. Maybe Jonah had sent them with a message.
“Does Jonah know you’re here?” she asked.
She berated herself. Those shouldn’t have been her first words.
“No,” Jasper said.
“Where does he think you are?”
“The Outer Banks,” he said. “Last week I started summer break from college.”
Raven came to Ellis’s side. She was a sight, wet and muddy, her filthy T-shirt not covering her underpants. Her long legs looked gangly with nothing but her socks and big hiking boots. Ellis realized her own muddy appearance must look bizarre to her sons, and that wasn’t how she wanted them to see her. Their last impressions had been bad enough.
“Hey, Raven,” River greeted her, “or is it Viola now?”
“Raven,” she replied.
River cast a sarcastic look at Ellis. Not much had changed since she last saw him. “You’re okay calling her that?”
She wasn’t. Ellis hated the name. But the young woman who had come back to her after sixteen years wasn’t Viola Bauhammer. Ellis had no right to dictate her name. She’d conceded that after the first day.
“I guess not,” River said when she didn’t answer.
“Is everything all right?” Jasper asked.
“Yes.” She looked down at her muddy clothes. “We must look pretty bad.”
“I thought all Floridians looked like that,” River said.
Jasper gave him a look.
“We were in the marsh,” Raven said.
“In the marsh?” River said incredulously. “What, Friday night gator wrestling? Is that a thing around here?”
“We were hiking,” Ellis said.
River snorted. For good reason. Why would Raven hike without her pants on?
“We need to clean up,” Ellis said. “Do you want to come inside?”
What was she doing inviting them inside as if they were new neighbors come to introduce themselves? The civility of it all felt so off. But what else could she do?
“Our car is blocking the driveway by the gate,” Jasper said.
“It’s no problem,” she said. She had no reason to believe Keith would return, now or ever.
The boys declined her offer of water or iced tea. They waited in the living room while Ellis and Raven cleaned up. Ellis rushed, too manic to compose herself.
She got to the living room before Raven, though she wasn’t sure Raven would come out at all. She mostly kept to herself, especially in the evening. And she’d said she didn’t like her New York relatives.
“I’m sorry about how you were greeted,” she said. “You caught us at an odd moment.”
“That’s okay,” River said. “Who won the match—you two or the alligator?”
“Thankfully, we won. Raven didn’t know she shouldn’t swim in the marsh. I sort of had to haul her out.”
“You’re kidding?” he said.
“She’s from the north. She didn’t understand the danger—or the unpleasantness.”
The boys smiled.
Ellis was surprised when she opened her arms, inviting an embrace. “May I?”
Jasper went to her immediately and squeezed her tight. A man’s embrace. The tears came when she thought of all the little-boy hugs she’d missed.
His eyes were wet when they released.
She looked at River. The last time she’d seen him, he’d refused to hug her goodbye.
“I’m not feelin’ it,” he said.
“River, what the hell?” Jasper said.
“It’s okay. I understand,” Ellis said.
“This is a cool place,” River said. “I’d ask if you like it here, but I assume you do if you never came back.”
“Yes, I like it, but I ended up here by accident, really.” She thought of the stabbing, Keith driving her to Florida while she slept, the panic attacks that had held her captive in Gainesville for more than a year. The edge of it had been dulled by the whittle of years.
“Are you married?” River asked.
“No. What about your father?”
“Nope.”
A strained silence.
“Do you have anything to drink around here?” River asked.
Jasper gave his brother a critical look.
“You mean an alcoholic drink?”
“Yeah.”
“There might be a few beers out in the barn refrigerator.”
“What, for the cows?”
“They’re my boyfriend’s.”
“Will he mind if I hit his stash?”
“He doesn’t live here anymore.” She hadn’t yet said that out loud. It was sinking in.
She got a flashlight and took them down the footpath that led to the barn.
“My business partner is a carpenter,” Ellis said as she pushed open the barn door. “She made the barn into a guesthouse with a full kitchen and bath.”
“This is great!” Jasper said.
“There’s another bedroom up in the loft,” she said. “But the only bathroom is down here.”
“What do you use it for?” River asked.
“My boyfriend’s sister, husband, and three kids came here at least once a year. They’d use this as their home base while visiting beaches or the Orlando theme parks.”
“How long were you with him?” Jasper asked.
“He lived here for ten years.”
“How long ago did you break up?”
“About six weeks ago.”
River figured it out right away. “That was when Raven came.”
“Yes.”
“Why would he leave at a time like that?” Jasper asked.
She wanted to walk away from the question. The truth would hurt them. But she knew walking away caused a different kind of damage. Every time she looked in their eyes, she saw it.
“I never told him I had children,” she said.
Yes, it hurt. A fresh glaze of pain spread into their gazes.
“So . . . you’d basically deleted us like files on your computer,” River said.
“I guess I can see why he left,” Jasper said.
“So can I,” she said. She opened the refrigerator and motioned for River to look at the selection, a six-pack and three bottles of another brand. He grabbed the six-pack.
“You can’t drink all of that if you plan to drive tonight,” she said.
“I’m driving,” Jasper said.
“But why drive?” River said. “Let’s stay
