Would Dillon get it in time?
What if something happened to his mom before Dillon got the message? Shit, shit, shit. He suddenly remembered that Dillon and Luke were flying back to the ranch.
He sat there squeezing his cell phone until his hand went numb before charging toward his vehicle.
Not long thereafter, he pulled up and parked in front of his mom’s house. Out of his SUV, he was on the porch and knocking softly on the door.
No answer. Heading around the side of the house to the back screened in porch, he opened the screen and stepped inside the enclosure.
The musky, damp odor of the back porch hit him hard. Dillon had had it redone and treated to kill the mold, but it still smelled damp to Isaac. Maybe that was his memories of the numerous times he’d stood freezing on the back porch waiting for his mother to open the door.
“Mommy, let me in! Please, mommy.”
“Isaac.” Dillon had come up behind him and closed his arms around him and pulled him into the small alcove between the washer and dryer unit. He’d been so small, he’d easily tucked into the space, pulling at Dillon.
“Hide with me!”
“I don’t fit, Isaac.” Dillon tossed a coat over the top of his head. “Now be quiet.”
A car backfired and he jumped, slamming his elbow into the door with a crack. The porch came back into view.
He retrieved the key from inside one of the numerous planters lining the back porch and slipped it into the lock.
The washer and dryer now sat just inside the door, not the same old yellow set of days of old, but the new industrial set that Dillon and Luke had bought. He remembered Dillon passing around pictures of the gift and the remodeling to move them inside the house.
Heading through the laundry room, he stepped into the brightly lit kitchen.
It stood empty as far as he could see. The quiet was the first thing he took in, and then the faint scent of breakfast, potatoes and bacon.
Maybe it was habit, but he pulled his small personal weapon and aimed it upward, elbows bent before he made his way through the kitchen. The den was empty and he suddenly felt like an idiot for pulling his gun.
His only defense was that the last time he’d been in this house, he’d prayed for a gun to shoot his father dead. Just thinking of the old drunken bastard set his teeth on edge.
“Mo-” he choked, coughed, and tried again. “Mom?”
There was no return answer and he had expected one. The silence sat like lead in his gut. She had always answered, no matter what. How could he have forgotten that? Ever since he was tiny, she had always answered him. “Wait for me, Isaac,” or “One minute, baby. I’ll be right there.” He swallowed and walked through the living room. The doors in the hallway were closed except for the bathroom and when he paused in the doorway, the decor had changed, but it still had the same lime green sink and white and green tile on the counters. Everything else had changed, from the paint on the walls to the new flooring.
He walked back into the hallway, not opening his room door or Dillon’s. He stepped past them to the door at the end of the hallway.
Fear lodged into his throat as he reached for the knob and pushed the door open.
She sat near the window where the sun shone brightly on her light hair. Across her lap draped a knitted afghan keeping out any chill that the warmth of the room didn’t provide.
She’d changed from the pale pink house dress into one of a bright blue and when her head turned, eyes the color of his own stared back at him. The oxygen tank sat next to her chair and the line fed air to the small piece of plastic tubing beneath her nose.
Did she recognize him?
“Isaac?” her voice wobbled.
“Yeah, momma,” he ground out, tucking his weapon away before he moved across the room to her.
“I was afraid when Annie didn’t show up,” she whispered.
“I’m here, everything’s okay.” He sent a text to Dillon.
Fucking Christ, how had he not known she was on oxygen? Had she taken a turn for the worst? He was suddenly reminded that Dillon had wanted to talk to him on his birthday and then again earlier, but each time he’d cut his brother off.
Gritting his teeth, he moved to her and sank down next to the chair. She looked like an angel in her nightgown with tiny yellow flowers on blue.
“Oh momma.”
Memories came crashing back in this same room of how he’d hidden beneath the bed while she tried not to scream. He clenched his teeth, his lips pulled back, and he stared upward trying to hold back the storm inside. He’d stuffed his memories so far down that he’d forgotten half of what she’d done for him. How she’d protected him.
Now she was dying and he’d turned his back on her. On the years they could have had together. He placed a hand on her knee.
“My baby boy, I’m so glad you’re here.” Tears streamed down her pale cheeks.
“I love you, momma.”
He patted her hair and laced their fingers together, blinking his eyes, but not stopping the fall of his own tears.
Zane
“Zane Gannon as I live and breathe,” Whiplash Tauber said from behind the dark hardwood bar.
“Don’t you ever work?” Zane kicked the snow and gravel from his boots on the mud mat before he advanced into the main room of Tauber’s Pool Hall with a smirking smile for the owner.
The warmth inside went a long way to ease the sting of cold on his cheeks.
“On occasion.” The sexy US Marshal laughed and came around the bar to yank him into a hug.
His throat tightened and he gripped his friend hard. He hadn’t seen Whip since they’d buried a good friend several months
