She knew that things had not gone well with his parents. His mother had admitted to using Vanessa as a way to keep Erik and Laire apart, and also to knowing that Laire was likely telling the truth about being pregnant with his child. In response, Erik had essentially disowned them, forbidding them to ever reach out to him or to try to know their granddaughter.
It was a terrible thing that Fancy Rexford had done to her son and granddaughter, but Laire, as a mother of her own precious child, had split feelings about her actions. Did she forgive Fancy for threatening and frightening a pregnant eighteen-year-old? No. But she understood that inherent, visceral need of a mother to protect her child from evil or danger, no matter what.
Still, she grieved that Erik wouldn’t have a relationship with his parents. She hoped that, over time, maybe he would learn to forgive them, and perhaps—if they were truly penitent and eager to know their granddaughter in a real and loving way—he’d be able to find a place for his parents, however controlled, in their life.
Mending family relationships didn’t happen overnight. It had taken Laire six years to return to Corey, after all. Sometimes it took years. Sometimes a lifetime. And sometimes that healing was simply impossible.
As she thought back to her reunion with her father and sisters on Tuesday, she knew that their relationships with one another would never be close again. Her father had welcomed her home, but after a brief reunion filled with hugs and kisses and tears, it turned out that they didn’t really have that much to say to each other.
Her father filled her in on the fishing industry, and her sisters complained about motherhood and their husbands. They had six children between them and Kyrstin was due with her third any day now. They kept Pop-Pop busy, and—if her father’s grins were any indication—happy too.
Laire’s plan to live in New York and spend summers at her condo in Hatteras was met with blank stares. Any reference to Ava Grace led to averted eyes and awkward silence. It hurt Laire that no one asked about Ava Grace, though she’d sent her father and sisters pictures of her daughter every Christmas. At one point, Issy looked meaningfully at Laire’s empty ring finger and asked if Laire would ever move back to Corey. When she said that she wouldn’t, Issy seemed relieved.
Laire received the message loud and clear: she was an outsider now.
For all intents and purposes, she was probably worse than a dingbatter.
She had transformed into someone worldly, someone who’d turned her back on their island ways and chosen the wicked, wider world over a good and simple life on Corey Island. And though she was grateful for the hugs hello and waves good-bye—she finally felt a certain sense of peace where her father, Isolde, and Kyrstin were concerned—there was an inevitable feeling of disappointment as well. Gone were her dreams of summer weeks spent with her sisters and their kids, her father bouncing Ava Grace on his knee.
It’s not that they wished her harm. They just wished her away.
Whoever said “You can’t go back” had been right. But lucky for Laire, the only real direction she was interested in moving was forward.
As she washed the last of the dishes, she was blinded by the bright headlights of an incoming car, and she blinked, quickly rinsing a soapy Frozen cup and plate, and tearing the rubber gloves from her hands.
He’s here. He’s here. He’s finally home.
When she heard his key in the lock, her throbbing heart burst with joy. She whipped open the door, giggling with glee as he stepped inside and grabbed her around the waist. She clutched his cheeks, drawing his lips to hers before they even exchanged hellos.
His tongue swept into her mouth as he pushed her against the door, slamming it shut with their bodies, his lips hot on her face, sliding down her neck, landing on the valley between her breasts. Panting as he looked up at her, he started unfastening the buttons of her blouse, cupping her flesh through the lace of her bra as he paused in his work to kiss her again.
She reached for the buttons and finished them, shrugging the shirt from her shoulders, then reaching for his, pulling it from his waistband and sliding her hands underneath. She sighed as she touched the warm, taut skin of his stomach, her breath hitching, her heart skipping.
His lips, brushing gently over the swells of her breasts, paused.
“Ava Grace?” he whispered.
She slid her hands out of his shirt and reached up to thread them through his thick, black hair, looking into his fierce, black eyes. “Asleep.”
“Fuck, I missed you, darlin’.”
“Me too.”
She whimpered with need, pulling his face down to hers as he slid his hands under her ass and lifted her easily. With her back against the door and her core flush with his, she could feel his erection pushing urgently through the tented gabardine of his charcoal trousers, and she arched her back to position his length of muscle as close to her clit as possible. But it wasn’t close enough. All she found was frustration, and she bit his lip gently in retaliation.