Some Bright Someday (Maple Valley #2) - Melissa Tagg Page 0,89

myself.” Years of hurt-fueled fury rose up in him. “I might’ve deserted the Army, but you deserted your own children. You’re a liar and a—”

“Luke,” Noah wedged in. “This isn’t the way to—”

He spun on the younger man. “Two weeks and you didn’t say a word?” A stream of recollections bombarded him all at once. Noah talking about his father being an Army man. Saying he wasn’t always around, but when he was . . . he was fun. Wheelbarrow races.

It was pathetic, the jealousy that crawled through him now. And lurking underneath it, the pain he’d tried so hard to push away for so long. “You knew and you didn’t bother saying something.”

“Hey, don’t turn on me.” Noah held a hand out toward Lucas’s chest.

Lucas thrust it away. He needed to leave. Now. Before he did something that would prove true what everyone thought about him.

Not everyone.

Jenessa had called him honorable. An honorable man would walk away before this escalated.

Or he’d stay and work this out. Except what was there to work out? His father was as disappointing as he’d always been. His mentee had played him like a fool for two weeks.

He turned to his sister. “Kit, I can’t . . .”

She was glued to Beckett’s side, disbelief still etched into every inch of her expression. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “Go if you need to.”

Beckett nodded. “You need space.” He directed a hard glare toward their father. “We all do. Come on, Kit.” He steered his wife toward the farmhouse, and Lucas took the offering for the escape it was, stalking to his truck and slamming the door.

Dust kicked up from the wheels as he pulled away from the house, refusing to look back at the two men—his father, his half-brother—left on the lawn.

Jenessa didn’t know how to do this.

How many times had she hovered outside of Colie’s bedroom door with this same immobilizing uncertainty? This time was worse, though. This time her own broken emotions would make it all the more difficult to soothe the hurting heart on the other side of this door.

But she had to try.

“Colie, can I come in?”

Nothing.

She rapped her knuckles lightly once more and inched the door open. “Could we talk?”

The sticky smell of paint still lingered in the room, along with the Lysol she’d sprayed earlier today. She’d stripped the bed sheets after Carmen had finally left and hadn’t replaced them yet. Colie was lying on her side on the bare mattress, her back to the door.

There was a softness to the room since they’d painted last week. Colie’s choice of watery blue walls and sheer white curtains seemed another peek into the girl’s tender heart. Had she always tried this hard to hide it? Or had her mother’s death been the thing to create the hard shell around her.

They’d finally broken through that shell in the past week. It killed Jenessa to think today’s news might erect an impenetrable exterior all over again.

If she could just find the right words.

She padded over the carpet to the mattress. It creaked as she lowered beside the girl. She allowed a taut, tentative moment to pass before she lightly touched Colie’s shoulder. “You didn’t come down for lunch.”

“Wasn’t hungry.”

She rubbed Colie’s back. “Does your stomach still hurt?”

Colie shook her head, last night’s curls now limp and matted. “A bubble bath always helps me after a hard and fast illness like what you had. Say the word and I’ll start running one. I’ll even share my favorite lavender bubble bath with you.”

“Maybe later.”

“Can we talk about Carmen’s news? Did you hear most of it?”

Colie rolled over and Jenessa moved her hand before it became trapped underneath her. “She can’t just send us away.”

Jenessa sighed. “The really unfortunate truth is that she can. By law, your father has a right to custody. That is, unless . . .” She couldn’t voice it, the icky hope she’d been harboring for days that he wouldn’t be a fit guardian. That DHS would find some reason to take away his rights. She’d actually prayed about it. What an awful thing to hope for.

And even if that ugly prayer were answered, it didn’t mean the court would automatically award custody to Jenessa either. Temporary guardianship was one thing, but she’d seen the way Carmen regarded her today.

Apparently it didn’t matter that she’d done everything she knew to do to care for Colie, Violet, and Cade. It didn’t matter that she’d provided a comfortable place to live, three meals a