He was still withdrawn and quiet when I bundled him up in his coat and brand-spanking-new Batman hat and loaded him into his seat in my truck. There would be snow on the ground soon and that meant my baby was going to have to go into storage for the winter. She was pretty, but she sure didn’t like to get her wheels dirty and she was the only girl on the street that could make a child’s safety seat look badass.

I reached across the bench seat and clapped my son on the back of his neck and gave him a little squeeze. He might not want to talk in front of everyone else, but I knew when we were alone he would spill why he was so sullen and remote today.

“Why so quiet, buddy? Grandma was so happy to meet you, and Joss talked about playing with you all week long.”

He shrugged his tiny shoulders and kicked his feet like he did when something was bothering him. As if on cue, he sucked in his lower lip and looked out the window.

“You can tell me, Hyde. You can tell me anything, and if you don’t want to tell me what’s bothering you, that’s okay, too, as long you know I only want to help if I can.”

He was silent for a few more minutes and then turned so that he could look at me. “I’m coming to stay with you soon, right?”

I squeezed his neck again. “You bet. This is the last weekend where we hang out during the day and then you get to come stay overnight at my place. Not every day just yet, but that will happen really soon.”

“Okay.” His voice sounded thready and thin. When I looked down at him he appeared to be holding back tears.

“Hey, if you aren’t ready for that you don’t have to come stay with me, Hyde. I want you with me, but you have to be all right with it.” That was some heavy stuff for a five-year-old, but I wasn’t exactly sure what was wrong with him. “I’ll wait until you’re ready.” It seemed like I was going to wait on everyone I loved to be ready for me.

He lifted a hand and rubbed it across his eyes. I palmed the back of his head and contemplated pulling over on the side of the road so that I could give him a hug.

“Are you going to leave me alone in your house when I come stay? My mom used to leave me alone all the time and it was scary. I hate the dark and I was hungry. Auntie Echo would come over and take me to her place so I wouldn’t be scared. You take me places all the time now, and people are always around, so you can’t leave me alone. I don’t like to be alone.”

Talk about a knife right through the heart. I did have to pull over because I was shaking so hard and was so full of regret and wrath that I could hardly respond to him. It took a solid two minutes of deep breathing and mentally talking myself off the edge before I could reply. I was so lucky he had survived his mother’s neglect. I was beyond fortunate I even had a chance to love him and care for him.

“I won’t leave you alone, Hyde. I won’t leave you alone at my house or anywhere else. In fact, if you ever even feel alone I’ll show you how to use my phone and you can call your aunt Echo, you can call your aunt Beryl and Joss, and you can call your grandma because even though I’m there, you still might feel lonely, okay?”

He nodded and sniffed up what I was sure was an epic amount of snot. He rubbed his eyes again and blinked lashes that were spiky with spent tears at me. “What about Sayer? Can I call her if I feel alone?”

The kid was going to kill me. “You want to call Sayer?”

He shrugged again but this time he had a smile on his mouth and that dimple that matched mine flashing in his cheek.

“She’s really pretty and nice. She smells good and she plays with me. She’s a princess and I like her.”

I bit back a groan. She was all of those things . . . well, maybe not a princess, but that aside, I liked when she played with me, too. “I like her, too, and I’m sure she would be happy to talk to you if you were feeling lonely. She really wants you to be happy.”

He nodded like a little grown-up and gave me a full grin. “She wants you to be happy, too. She told me.”

I lifted my eyebrows up at him and pulled the International back onto the street so that I wasn’t late dropping him off back at the foster home.

“She did? What did she tell you?”

“Hmm . . .” He kicked his feet again and laughed at me when I growled at him because he was tapping his chin like he was thinking hard about the answer. He giggled uncontrollably when I reached out and tickled his ribs with my index finger until he gasped, “Okay, okay! She just said that she was working hard to make sure I got to go home with you because it’s what was best for both of us. She said I made you happy, which made me happy, which made her happy.”

Five-year-old logic at its finest. “You do make me happy, kiddo.”

“You make me happy, too, Zeb.”

We just needed to get the third member of that happiness tripod on board with all the good things we were feeling so we could be complete.

“When did she tell you all of this?”

He shrugged. “When she came to the house to play with me. She’s always dressed up.”

Which meant she must have stopped by after work to see him. I didn’t want to be jealous of my kid, but I kind of was.

She might not know it or be willing to admit it, but she was going to choose us . . . both of us. Her actions said as much.

Again that tiny spark of hope, that thing I was clinging to with every ounce of strength I had, pulsed bright.

CHAPTER 15

Sayer

It had been nearly a month since Zeb walked out of my bedroom, leaving me shattered and pooling into a puddle of misery that was entirely of my own making. I was drowning in every single choice that had led to that point, and every word he uttered to me as he walked out wrapped around me and cocooned me in his harsh truths.

I still had to talk to him about the case. The court had wanted Social Services to check out his place before Hyde went to stay the night, and I felt like a boulder dropped on my heart when he’d told me they could come up and that he didn’t think I needed to be there for the visit. He answered every text I sent him asking about how Hyde was settling in with one word like: “fine,” “okay,” “good.” Every email I sent asking if he had already talked to the school district and made sure Hyde’s vaccination records were up-to-date was answered with one that had only the facts and copies of the documents I would need to show the court if they asked for proof about how proactive Zeb was being as a parent.