“You were too young to remember, but your mother did try and there were periods where she stayed on her medication and did fine. When she got really bad, I’d admit her to a psychiatric hospital. The cycle never ended. From good to okay, from okay to bad, from bad to the hospital and then back to good. One night I came home from visiting her at the hospital and I found Ashley reading to you in your room. You sat on her lap, played with her hair and looked at her like she hung the moon. She helped Aires with his science project and recorded his basketball game. She even cooked you guys dinner and warmed me up leftovers.
“Ashley brought a sense of normal into a house where normal was hard to come by. I swear, Echo, neither of us meant to fall in love. Sometimes life happens.”
Maybe my father and I were more alike than I’d ever imagined. We both craved normal. Nerves swelled inside. “Am I like Mom?”
He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Is this a trick question?”
My eyes pleaded, hoping he wouldn’t make me spell it out. He rubbed my shoulder again. “You have her beauty, her artistic talent and her tenacity if that’s what you mean.”
Was he saying I was stubborn? Wait until he got to know Noah. “Anything else?”
“Your mother never would have uttered to anyone those words you just said to Ashley … or to me. You’re your own person, Echo, and I’m proud to be your father.”
The nerves went away and I rested my head on him. “Thanks, Daddy.”
“Give me another chance. I promise to let you run your own life. Anyhow, I think Ashley is going to be overwhelmed with Alexander. She didn’t start babysitting you until well after you were potty-trained.”
What a crazy, crazy world I lived in. My teenage babysitter, turned nanny, turned stepmother, had given birth to my new brother. I wanted so badly to give my dad the answer he wanted and make him happy, but then I wouldn’t be true to the person I was beginning to believe I was. “Honestly, Daddy, it has nothing to do with chances. That house is full of memories. Some of them are wonderful and some … aren’t. I spent years hoping and praying and plotting for a life I never really had to begin with. I’m scared if I stay, I’ll keep looking back and never look forward.”
“Funny.” But he didn’t laugh. “Aires said the same thing when he enlisted. Promise me you’ll come home and visit. You’re my baby, too.”
I wrapped both of my arms around him and he hugged me. “I promise.”
NOAH
In a tent set up in Shirley and Dale’s backyard, Echo lay on her stomach studying a huge map of the United States. Because of the warm April night, she’d pulled her shirt up a few inches to expose her skin. At least that was the reason she gave when her fingers inched the material of her blue tank away from the small of her back. Personally, I think she did it to drive me insane.
“Sorry,” Echo said. “I’m not an ocean kind of girl. Birds and sand and seaweed.” She shivered and stuck out her tongue. “Not my scene, but we can go there if you want.”
A week ago, I’d held her hand in the hospital and wondered if she’d ever come back to me. Tonight, I watched her in complete awe. Echo was here and she was mine. Sitting beside her, I traced patterns on the exposed skin of her back. “I’ll go wherever you want, baby.”
The light from the old camping lantern the two of us bought flickered and she raised an I-told-you-so eyebrow. Echo was not a fan of the treasures that could be found at Goodwill, nor was she a fan of sleeping outdoors. But she’d promised to give camping a shot on our trip this summer.
“The tent’s in good shape,” I said to prove my point. “It would have cost us a hell of a lot more at a real store.”
“If you say so.” She moved her finger west of Kentucky. “I want to see snow-capped mountains.”
I brushed her curls away, bent down and kissed the nape of her neck, loving how her muscles relaxed as she leaned into me. I whispered into her ear, “Then that’s what we’ll see.”
“Noah,” she moaned in equal parts pleasure and reprimand. “How am I supposed to schedule appointments with art galleries if I never plan where we’re going?”
Her sweet smell drove my body higher as I nibbled on the edge of her earlobe. “I’m not stopping you. You plan. I’ll kiss.”
Echo turned her head to look at me over her shoulder. My siren became a temptress with that seductive smile on her lips. A mistake on her part. I caressed her cheek and kissed those soft lips.
I expected her to shy away. We’d been playing this game for over an hour: she plotted while I teased. Leaving for the summer was important to her and she was important to me. But instead of the quick peck I’d anticipated, she moved her lips against mine. A burning heat warmed my blood.
It was a slow kiss at first—all I meant it to be, but then Echo touched me. Her hands on my face, in my hair. And then she angled her body to mine. Warmth, enticing pressure on all the right parts, and Echo’s lips on mine—fireworks.
She became my world. Filling my senses so that all I felt and saw and tasted was her. Kisses and touches and whispered words of love and when my hand skimmed down the curve of her waist and paused on the hem of her jeans my body screamed to continue, but my mind knew it was time to stop.
With a sigh, I moved my lips once more against hers before shifting and pulling her body to my side. “I’m in love with you.”
Echo settled her head in the crook of my arm as her fingertips lazily touched my face. “I know. I love you, too.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t say it sooner.” If I had, then maybe we never would have been apart.
“It’s okay,” she murmured. “We’re together now and that’s all that matters.”
I kissed her forehead and she snuggled closer to me. The world felt strange. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t fighting someone or something. My brothers were safe. Echo knew the truth. Soon, I’d be free from high school and foster care. Hopefully, I’d be admitted on late acceptance to college. Contentment and happiness were unfamiliar emotions, but ones I could learn to live with.