The Truth About Us (The Truth Duet Book 2) Page 20

  After we’d moved to Seattle, Penn had followed through on slipping a ring on my finger. First, a freaking rock of an engagement ring. And then, three months later, at a quiet ceremony in our giant, picturesque backyard, he slipped another ring on and made me Cora Pennington.

  A few days later, when I’d gone to the DMV to get a new driver’s license, I’d burst into tears at seeing something other than Guerrero as my name. I’d loved Nic, but Penn was right. He’d left his diamond in a junkyard. And I had been stuck there every day, waiting for someone to find me. I’d fought and struggled to stay at the top of the heap. But, if it hadn’t been for Penn, I’m not sure I would have lived long enough to get out.

  One day, they would have caught me stealing the money.

  One day, Marcos’s backhand would have landed wrong.

  One day, Dante wouldn’t have stopped.

  And, one day, I’d have died, leaving my diamonds—River and Savannah—in that junkyard too.

  Instead, I’d found a gorgeous man who loved me and my girls unconditionally and gave me a last name I could feel proud of. And then, two years later, he gave our daughter, Hope, his last name too.

  I’d once said nothing had disappointed me, broken me, or destroyed me quite like hope. But that was before I married Penn. Hope no longer felt like the impossible. It felt like the future, and that’s exactly what that little girl gave us all. She was eight now, and she had my blue eyes, her father’s brown hair, and all of River’s attitude. She also had a pretty pink bedroom, a warm bed, and not a single lock on her bedroom door.

  “Mom,” River called, fighting with the zipper. “Can you get me some tweezers? Maybe I can use those to tug it up.”

  I hurried to my mother-of-the-bride emergency kit and found three different pairs—you know, just in case. Then I carried them all back to her.

  For the first few years before Hope was born, River seamlessly alternated between calling me Cora and Mom. There was no rhyme or reason for what she called me or when. It wasn’t like she had to hide it anymore. But as soon as Hope was old enough to talk, I was never Cora again. And it wasn’t until then that I realized how much I’d missed by letting her call me Cora for all those years. But no more. I was mom. Just mom.

  There was a pop before Savannah’s dress sagged.

  “Oh my God, what was that?” she yelled

  “Oh, shit,” River breathed, lifting the metal zipper tab hanging off the end of the tweezers.

  “What did you do!” Savannah yelled.

  While my girls still fought like cats and dogs and loved like sisters, they were all grown up now.

  River was twenty-three, taking the slow path through college, living in an apartment across town, and majoring in graphic design. She’d yet to bring a boyfriend home, but she made no secret of leaving her birth control on the bathroom counter so I knew they existed. This could be because she’d learned from Savannah’s mistakes and gained a healthy respect for Penn’s twitching forehead vein.

  Savannah had met a guy her first year at the University of Washington. He seemed nice enough to me, but Penn wanted to string him up by his grungy jeans and long, unwashed hair. Luckily, that guy ended up screwing her over. Obviously, that was not the lucky part. Through heartbreak, she buckled down and focused on her schoolwork, and she ended up falling in love with her professor’s dashing teaching assistant, Matthew Lintz. I mean, I couldn’t blame her. He was a handsome kid. The problem was that he wasn’t really a kid—he was a twenty-two-year-old pre-med student heading off to dental school in the fall. Which, hey, good for him. They were both in college, so I was fine with it. Penn, however, wanted to string him up by his khaki slacks and preppy crew cut.

  In the semi-end, the professor found out. Matthew almost got kicked out and ended up switching schools the last semester before he graduated.

  In the real end, we were standing in a church, the zipper on Savannah’s dress halfway up, stuck, and now officially broken. All of this happening twenty minutes before her wedding to aforementioned Dr. Matthew Lintz, DMD.

  Seriously, the kid could not do anything without drama.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” Savannah cried.

  “I told you you should have gotten the one with the corset back,” River taunted.

  Oh! And Savannah was pregnant. This news came a year after the engagement and only three weeks before the wedding, hence the only reason Dr. Matthew Lintz, DMD, was still alive and not buried in my backyard while Penn’s muddy boots sat on my back deck.

  “Okay, simmer down. I’ve got this. It’s no big deal.” I did not have it and it was a huge big deal, but I was good in the face of turmoil.

  I took the tweezers, shook off the metal tab, and pinched them right onto the head of the zipper. “Okay, suck in for a second.”

  “I am sucking in!”

  River laughed. “Okay, then tell your demon spawn to suck in too.”

  “Can someone please just go get Dad? He’ll know how to fix this.”

  Savannah had never called Penn anything but dad again. In the beginning, she had done it to tease him. Then, as the months turned into years, she did it to annoy him. But then she started doing it because I think she wanted it to be true. With the way she’d grown up, it was easy to understand why she’d latched onto Penn. And, not surprisingly, Penn had latched right back.

  River walked to the door and pulled it open. “Penn, your majesty needs your help.”

  “She dressed?” he asked cautiously.

  “That’s uh…kinda what she needs help with. But yeah, she’s not naked. Come in.”

  It had been over a decade since he first walked through the door to my apartment, but I still got chills when he entered a room—the smoking-hot gray suit he was wearing didn’t hurt, either.

  We were different people now. And Penn wasn’t wrong. Different was not bad.

  Penn had gone back to investing in real estate, dabbling with a few new builds along the way. And I’d graduated from college and started working as his bookkeeper. I went on maternity leave when I had Hope, and then four years later, I quit altogether when Shane was born. That aptly named little boy looked just like his father. Not even kidding, the child came out scowling. Where Hope had always been a chatter box even before she’d had words, Shane was quiet and stoic, always observing the world around him.

  “Hey, baby, what’s going—oh, wow.” His eyes got wide as he slid his gaze down her strapless, white wedding dress. It was so tasteful and classic that not even over-protective Penn could find something to complain about.

  I had never seen Penn cry. Overwhelmed with emotion, absolutely. He’d done the laughing-and-smiling-so-big-your-eyes-start-to-water thing the days Hope and Shane were born. But Savannah was different for him. She had never been a baby, but she was his first daughter to wear a wedding dress.

  “Jesus,” he breathed, scrubbing a hand over his cheek. “You look beautiful.”

  She crumbled as he pulled her into a hug. “My dress is broken.”

  “No crying. Your makeup will run!” I told her as I took off to get a tissue.

  When I got back, Penn was already at the back of her dress. “Oh, it’s fine. It’s not broken. I got this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some kind multipurpose tool. “I need a hair pin, a mint, and a hockey ticket.”

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  “It was a joke, Cor.” He waved me off as he bent to pick up the broken piece of the zipper off the floor. He pinched it back onto the dress, gave it a hard jerk, and zipped it the rest of the way up like it was the easiest thing in the world. Dads were good like that.

  “Oh, thank God,” Savannah breathed, patting over her heart. She turned, placed a peck on Penn’s cheek, and then took off to the bathroom, calling out to River, “I have to pee! It’s your duty to hold my dress.”

  River groaned. “You’ve been in the dress ten seconds. Why didn’t you pee first? I’m not holding your freaking dress.” But she said it w
hile walking after her and would no doubt hold her freaking dress.

  My husband stole my attention with his lips at my neck. “I’m not sure the mother of the bride is supposed to be this hot.”

  I laughed. “I’m not sure the mother of the bride is supposed to be thirty-nine and a soon-to-be grandmother, either.”

  His hands found my hips and he pulled me against his front. “Don’t remind me she’s having a baby if you want me to get through this ceremony without castrating Matthew.”

  I grinned, Penn’s warmth encompassing me. “Truth or lie.”

  “Truth,” he whispered, leaning down to rest his forehead to mine.

  “Truth: You did this. Her being here. Happy. Healthy. Getting married to a good man, who I really believe will be almost as good of a dad as she is a mom. You did this, Penn. I love you for a lot of reasons. But today, seeing her—I love you especially for that.”

  His eyes gentled. “Baby, you did this. Me, you, Savannah, River, Hope, Shane. We all have a good life because you never gave up fighting for yours.”

  My nose started to sting, so I reached up and caught the moon necklace he’d wrapped around my neck the day we arrived in Seattle. River wore my star now—not because Penn had asked me to take it off, but because that was the moment I realized I’d lied to Nic when I’d told him that I only wanted him and the stars.

  All I’d ever wanted was the moon.

  Penn was still as gorgeous as the day I’d met him.

  His powerful presence still cast his shadow far and wide.

  His skin was still tan, and his short, brown hair was still rich with natural flecks of mahogany and chestnut as though he worked in the sun.

  He still had the nose of a Roman gladiator, distinguished and slightly crooked from battle.

  His jaw was still composed of sharp, regal angles masked by a thick layer of scruff.

  And intricate, black tattoos still traveled down his arms to the backs of his hands.

  But there was one thing that had changed about him.

  Penn’s eyes were no longer a heavy blue—deep and hollow.

  Now, Penn’s eyes were actually the color of freedom.

  For both of us.

  I pushed up onto my toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. “Truth: I love you, Penn.”

  “Truth: I’ll always love you, Cora.”

  THE END

  Coming in 2019

  The Ways We Lied

  Drew and Catalina’s story.

  Sample of THE DARKEST SUNRISE

  * * *

  Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me.

  Whoever coined that phrase is a bald-faced liar. Words are often the sharpest weapons of all, triggering some of the most powerful emotions a human can experience.

  “You’re pregnant,” were not the words I wanted to hear when I was starting my first year of medical school.

  Yes, I was well acquainted with how the whole reproductive system worked, but a drunken one-night stand with a man I’d met exactly one hour earlier wasn’t supposed to end with a broken condom and me carrying his baby.

  “It’s a boy,” the doctor said as she placed that bloody, beautiful mess on my chest nine months later.

  I wasn’t positive his gargled wail could be considered a word at all, but that sound changed my entire life. One glance in those gray, unfocused eyes and I wasn’t just a reluctant woman who’d had a baby. I was a mother on a primal level.

  Heart. Soul. Eternally.

  “Lucas,” I whispered as I held all seven pounds and two ounces of the little boy who was forever mine to protect. I knew down to the marrow of my bones that there was nothing I wouldn’t do for him. But, as I would learn so many times over the years that followed, not everything was in my control.

  “Your son will eventually need a heart transplant,” the doctor said as we anxiously sat in a cardiologist’s office after a long night in the emergency room. In that moment, I could have given Lucas mine, because with those words, it felt as though my heart had been ripped straight from my chest. I was well aware that not every child was the picture of perfect health. But he was mine. I’d grown him inside my body from nothing more than a cluster of dividing cells and into an incredible, tiny human who would one day blaze his own path through this crazy world.

  Ten fingers. Ten toes. My raven hair. His father’s dimpled chin. That baby had gone from something I never wanted to the only thing I needed. I refused to accept that he could be sick.

  After the doctor walked away, Brady stared at me from across the room, our son tucked against his chest, and assaulted me with more words.

  “They can fix him, right?”

  But it was my reply that cut the deepest.

  “No.”

  I knew too much about Lucas’s diagnosis to believe that anyone could fix him. One day, likely before his eighteenth birthday, his frail heart would give out and I’d be forced to helplessly watch the sole reason for my existence struggle to survive. He’d be added to a mile-long donor registry and we’d start the agonizing—and morally exhausting—task of waiting for someone to die so our child could live.

  Knowledge was not power in that situation. I’d have given anything to be ignorant to what the doctor’s words meant for us.

  Hundreds of people on that donor registry would die before they were ever matched. And that’s not to mention the ones who’d die on the table or those who’d reject the organ and pass away within hours of receiving it. In medical school, we prided ourselves in the statistics of people we saved. But this was my son. He had only one life. I couldn’t risk that he’d lose it.

  That I’d lose him.

  Through my devastation, I attempted to remain positive. I faked smiles, pretending to accept words of encouragement from our friends and family, and I even managed to offer Brady a few inspirational words of my own. He didn’t bother offering any in return. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. Turned out, fully clothed, we had little in common. However, after Lucas was born, we’d become something that resembled friends. And, with the prospect of a future spent in and out of hospitals on our hands, that bond strengthened.

  That is, until six months later, when one innocent word ruined us all.

  Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never harm me.

  Lies.

  Syllables and letters may not be tangible, but they can still destroy your entire life faster than a bullet from a gun.

  One word.

  That was all it took to extinguish the sun from my sky.

  “Shhh,” I cooed, reaching over the stroller handle to push the pacifier hanging from a blue-and-white-polka-dot ribbon, monogrammed with his name, back into his mouth.

  He’d been in a mood all night. It seemed being six months old was an impossible job. I couldn’t imagine the pure torture of an all-you-can-eat milk buffet and a team of people responding to your every whim—including when said whims were nothing more than to puke or pee on aforementioned people.

  It was the first morning of fall, but the sweltering Atlanta summer still lingered in the air. Between clinicals and Lucas’s nonexistent sleep schedule, I was barely clinging to consciousness.

  My boy loved being outside, and I loved the way it made him drowsy regardless of how hard he fought. So, with hopes that we’d both be able to sneak in a morning nap, I’d strapped him into the obnoxiously expensive stroller Brady’s mother had bought me for my baby shower and taken him for a walk through the local park.

  That quaint playground less than half a mile from our house was one of my favorite places in the world and exactly why I commuted the extra fifteen minutes to school every day. I enjoyed watching the children play while imagining what it would be like when Lucas was that age. Images of him racing across the monkey bars to escape a horde of giggling little girls paraded through my mind, making me smile. Would he be social like me? Quiet and reserved like Brady? Or sick, stuck in a hospital, waiting on a heart that might ne
ver come? I pushed those thoughts out of my head when a desperate shriek from a woman stopped me in my tracks.

  “Help!”

  One word.

  I stepped on the brake of the stroller and whirled to face her, my throat constricting as she lifted a limp toddler off the ground.

  A blast of adrenaline shot through my system, and on instinct, I sprinted the few yards over to her.

  “He’s not breathing!” she cried, frantically transferring her lifeless child into my open arms.

  “Call nine-one-one,” I ordered. My pulse quickened as I laid his small body on the top of a picnic table, years of training flooding my mind in a jumbled mess. “What happened?” I asked, tipping his head back to check his airway and finding it open, but no breath was flowing through it.

  “I…I don’t know,” she stammered. “He just fell… Oh God! He’s not breathing!”

  “Calm down,” I barked. Though I wasn’t completely sure which one of us I was talking to. It was my first emergency situation, and while I was a hell of a lot better than anyone else in that park, if I’d been in her situation, I would have wanted someone more qualified to be standing over Lucas.

  But, as a group of moms congregated around us, not a single one stepping forward to offer help, I was all she had. So, with my heart in my throat, I went to work, praying that I was enough.

  Within a matter of minutes, a weak cry streamed from the boy’s blue lips.

  His mother’s sob of relief was a sound I would never forget. Deep, as though it had originated in her soul and merely exited through her mouth.

  “Oh God!” she screamed, her hands shaking as she bent over his stirring body to tuck his face against her neck.

  As his cries grew louder, I inched away to give him some space. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the miracle of this child who had, minutes earlier, been nothing more than a vacant body. Now, he was clinging to the neck of his mother.

  With a quivering chin and tears pricking the backs of my eyes, I smiled to myself. I’d been struggling. Balancing the rigors of med school and the self-doubt of being a single mother was hard enough, but combined with twelve-hour days only to come home and study for six more, I was fading fast. I’d gone so far as to contemplate taking a few years off until Lucas got a little older.