The bow was closed in with a railing and the roof above Jackson covered his driver’s chair and my passenger seat. The two bucket seats in the back swiveled around completely. And the massive twin engines meant it hadn’t taken us long to get to the middle of the lake.
“I hadn’t planned on buying one this big, but when I saw it, I couldn’t pass it up.” Jackson looked adoringly around the boat.
“I’m glad you didn’t.” Fishing next summer would be a blast. “How’s it going, Ryder?”
“Good.” He nodded, staying focused on his fishing pole.
“Are you excited to start school next week?”
“I guess.”
“You’ll get to be in my best friend’s English class. Her name is Leighton and she’s a teacher there. My dad teaches there too, but you won’t have him for a few years. He teaches high school science.”
“If I’m still here by then,” he muttered.
My eyes shot to Jackson. He was just as surprised by Ryder’s statement as I was. Why wouldn’t Ryder be here? Did he think Jackson would get rid of him?
“Why don’t you set that pole in the holder?” Jackson asked.
Ryder shook his head. “I got it.”
“Just for a minute.” Jackson stood from his seat, striding to the back of the boat to help Ryder with the pole. Then he took the empty seat at the back. “Look kid, we gotta talk.”
Ryder’s entire body tensed. “Are you getting rid of me?”
“What? No.” Jackson put a hand on Ryder’s knee. “What did Mom tell you about me?”
“Not much. Just that I had an older brother but he didn’t live with her.”
“Because she dumped me. She took me to New York and left me with her sister. Except her sister didn’t want me so I went into foster care. Long story short, I jumped from home to home until high school. It sucked but I got to meet Hazel and Thea, which eventually led me here.”
“Mom left you too?”
Jackson nodded. “Yeah. She did.”
“But she never came back?”
“No.”
Ryder’s head fell, his entire frame slumping in his seat. “She comes back for me.”
My teeth gritted together. The cold from earlier was completely gone now that I was angry. Jackson had suspected she’d left him before, and he’d been right.
I hated Melissa Page. That woman was such a bitch.
“She’s left you before?” Jackson asked.
Ryder nodded. “She does it a lot. She leaves me for a while, then comes back to get me. She promised me last time was it. That we were coming up here to see you and be a family. But it was just more of her bullshit.”
The curse word from his mouth startled me.
Ryder cussed with ease, so I knew it wasn’t the first time. I didn’t like that it made him sound much older than twelve. He shouldn’t have things to cuss about at that age, not yet.
Though for his mother, I’d say bullshit too.
“So she comes back?” Jackson asked.
“Yeah. She disappears but comes back eventually to take me with her.”
“Not this time.” Jackson shook his head. “She’s not taking you again. You’re here.”
Ryder studied Jackson’s face, like he didn’t believe that could be true. “Really?”
“Really, kid. We’ll make sure she can’t take you again.”
Tears welled in Ryder’s brown eyes. He sniffled, trying to clear them up, but a week’s worth of high emotions was too much. He broke down, slouching in his seat, and cried. Jackson’s hand stayed on his knee the entire time.
Jackson looked at me, his face a mixture of fury at his mother and pain for his brother. I gave him a reassuring smile and hoped he knew he wasn’t in this alone.
Melissa Page might not realize it yet, but she’d lost both of her sons. Now that they’d found each other, they wouldn’t need her ever again.
It took a few minutes for Ryder to calm down, and when he did, he pulled in few shaking breaths before looking at Jackson. “I don’t want to go with her again.”
“You won’t,” Jackson declared. “I’ll go talk to a lawyer on Monday. We’ll figure out a way for me to become your legal guardian. But that means you need to tell us all about the past. I gotta know what happened with you and Mom. No surprises.”
“Okay.” Ryder nodded. “Like what do you want to know?”
“Well, to start, let’s go over where you were living. Las Vegas, right?”
Ryder had given us enough information about his school that I’d been able to call and get the records transferred up to Lark Cove. But other than the school’s name in Las Vegas, we didn’t know much else. They would only transfer the records to the school so I hadn’t gotten to see them.
“Yeah. We lived in Vegas for a while with Mom’s boyfriend. Christopher.” Ryder rolled his eyes. “He’s an asshole.”
“Why’d you guys leave Vegas?”
“Christopher dumped Mom. They got in a big fight one night, and the next morning, Mom loaded us up and drove us to Denver. That’s when she got the idea to come looking for you.”
Because she’d needed a place to leave her kid.
“Where did you live before Vegas?” I asked Ryder.
“All over. Kansas. Alabama. Iowa. I was born in West Virginia.”
Which meant after Melissa had abandoned Jackson in New York, she likely hadn’t gone back to Pennsylvania where he’d been born. She’d slowly made her way out West.
“What kind of jobs did she have?” Jackson asked.
Ryder shrugged. “None really. She always had a guy or something. A couple times we lived alone, but it never lasted.”
“And who’d she leave you with when she’d disappear?” I asked. “Was it other family? Or your dad?”
“No. I don’t know my dad. She never told me his name. Mostly, she left me with her friends and neighbors. It was never for long. A couple weeks and then she’d be back. The longest was a month.”
If that pattern continued, it meant she’d be back and back soon.
As harsh as it sounded in my head, I wished she’d do to Ryder what she’d done to Jackson—leave and never look back. It would be hard for Ryder, but I still felt like it would be better for him never to see that woman again.
“Did she say she was coming back?” Jackson asked.
Ryder shook his head. “Not this time.”
Jackson and I shared a look, wishing for the exact same thing.
We both wanted Melissa Page to just become a bad memory.
The fishing pole in the holder whizzed and the line strung tight, ending our conversation. Jackson and Ryder both jumped into action, springing for the reel. I took out my phone and walked to the back of the boat, videoing the entire thing as the guys brought in a beautiful rainbow trout.
We took a picture, commemorating Ryder’s first fish, then set it free.
After the excitement from the first fish, we didn’t talk about Ryder’s past again or their mother. We just enjoyed our afternoon and looked on as Ryder caught three other fish.
I’d made us peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the boat, but by the time we made it back to Jackson’s house and parked the boat in his garage, I was starving.
“I’m so hungry,” Ryder and I said it at the same time, then shared a look and laughed.
“How about we all get cleaned up and go out to dinner in Kalispell?” Jackson suggested as we all came inside the house and piled coats onto his living room couch.
“Sounds great.” I smiled.
“Cool! I’ll get in the shower.” Ryder disappeared down the hall to his room on the other side of the house from Jackson’s bedroom.
“I know what I want for my birthday,” Jackson said, stepping close.
“What’s that?”
He bent and gave me a soft kiss, pressing his hips and the growing bulge behind his jeans forward. “Shower with me?”
I let out a soft moan. “Well, I might have gotten you a little something else, but a shower sounds nice too.”
I’d gotten him a new pair of boots for his birthday. The soles of his others were coming loose so I’d splurged. These were the same style as the ones he already had, but new and the nicest brand on the market.
“Maybe we should get a little dirty before we clean up?” I whispered as he kissed my neck.
“I like the way you think, Willow.”
“Willow? You jerkface!” I poked his side, trying not to laugh.
He grinned. “Still too soon to joke about that, huh?”