a step to follow her, and then another, all the way out to the car.
A moment of hesitation at the open door, where it all hangs in the balance. He sucks in a huge breath and slides into the seat beside her. Round one. She still has a battle to fight, because as much as she hates her father at this moment, she is not going to Canada with Aunt Alexandra, and he is the only one who can save her from that.
Chapter Five
BRADEN
Braden is in desperate need of a drink.
The church was bad, worse than he’d anticipated. There had been a photographic memorial to endure, for one thing. Lilian, still beautiful but aged by life and responsibility. Trey, young and vibrant and golden. In every picture, he was surrounded by friends, always laughing, eyes looking directly out at Braden.
Where were you? Why did you miss this?
Impossible to imagine that face, that energy, confined to a casket. As for Lilian . . .
God. He and Lilian were married in that church. Every time he closed his eyes to blot out the stark reality of those two coffins, he saw her in her wedding dress with pearls starring her dark hair and her sweet lips murmuring “I do,” in response to the minister’s question. She’d looked like a goddess to him, so far above him he’d nearly knelt before her, worshipping her more than the God who presided over the union.
Well, he’s been punished for that, and now he’s being punished again.
Which is only fair. Of course he can’t expect to just walk back into Allie’s life as if he never left her. He deserves all of the rage his daughter can aim in his direction. The only thing that matters is whether or not he can be of any help or comfort to her.
For all she’d said she wants to talk to him, she utters not a word all the way to the cemetery, keeping her face turned toward the window. Alexandra, on the other hand, holds nothing back.
“You have plenty of nerve showing up here today, Braden Healey. All of these years you’ve left Lilian alone to do everything. Raise two kids on her own, work, manage the house. And now here you are, waltzing into the funeral as if you own the church. You have absolutely no right to be here. No right to grieve.”
The venom finds its mark, dropping him into a flashback as dramatically as if he’s just stepped into a sinkhole.
The car vanishes and he sits in a different church, staring dry eyed at a different coffin. His hands are swathed in bandages. His face feels stiff and lopsided, still swollen from a laceration on his cheek, the stitches pulling tight with any change in his expression. Beside him, his sister weeps for her dead husband, her shoulders shaking, but Braden has no tears.
I’ve got no right to grieve.
Mitch lies in a coffin because of him. There’s a gap in his memory you could drive a tractor through, but he knows it’s his fault.
“Are you even listening?” Alexandra pokes him with a sharp elbow.
“Sorry,” he says, shaken, trying to surface. His entire body feels cold. His cheek throbs, as if the injury is still fresh. His hands are shaking.
The limo turns into the cemetery. Crown Heights. He’s relieved to see that there are trees, that Lilian and Trey will be resting in a beautiful place.
A teenage girl is waiting when the car draws up. Black hoops in her nose and eyebrows, black eyeliner, stark black hair. Braden remembers her from the church; she was standing at his daughter’s shoulder. Now she flings both arms around Allie’s neck in a tempestuous hug.
“You okay?”
“Ish.”
The girl stares unabashedly at Braden. “He doesn’t look like the pictures. I mean, he does, but he doesn’t. You know?”
“Steph!”
“Right. Just saying—”
“Perhaps we can chat later,” Alexandra suggests. “We need to move to the graveside.”
She leads the way. Allie and Steph follow, and Braden trails behind, wishing he could blend into the anonymous crowd rather than stand with the family. He catches a glimpse of a woman who jars his memory. Unusually tall; thick waves of auburn hair. She turns her face away before he can place how he knows her, and then he sees the burial site and that consumes all of his attention.
The two coffins, suspended by a series of straps and pulleys over the waiting holes in the raw earth, are brutal. In an agony of helplessness, he sees the