The Brightest Sunset (The Darkest Sunrise #2)

“Ew!”

She smiled. “Somebody hurt his baby, and for ten years, he couldn’t figure out who. Now, he thinks he knows. So he is not delaying in extracting his vengeance in your honor.”

“I don’t need vengeance. I need Porter. He’d know all the right things to say to Lucas. He’d stand up to Brady. Tell Tom to take a fucking hike. He’d even be able to keep Mom from swirling herself into a tizzy.”

“Really?” she drawled in surprise. “Porter would do all that? That man does not strike me as an alpha.”

I half laughed, half sobbed again, and this time, it turned into all-out tears. “He’d do it for me.”

Her arms tightened around my shoulders. “Then that’s all that matters. Give it some time, Char. It’s been one day. Stop looking at the big picture and look at the now.

So what… Brady is being a dick. Tom is being overprotective. Your mom is trying to take care of the world. Really, it’s just another day for you.” She patted my chest over my heart. “Focus on what matters in here. Right now, Lucas is inside, and Tanner I’m sure is going home to let Porter know that he’s okay. So stop stressing yourself out with the rest of it. It’s all going to fall into place.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed with her.

But she definitely wasn’t wrong.

I flashed her a tight smile. “He wants us to call him Travis.”

She smiled back and patted my heart again. “Yeah, but he’s always going to be Lucas in here.”





* * *





“Can I get you something to drink?” Brady’s wife, Stephanie, asked as she opened the front door for me. Her long, curly, blond hair hung over her shoulders, and their son, William, was clawing at the ringlets like they were his favorite toy.

“I’m good. Thanks,” I replied, walking toward Brady, who was peering into the backyard from his recliner.

It had almost killed me, but I’d dropped Lucas off at Brady’s long enough for me to go to my office and pass off all of my patient files to Laughlin. It was official. For the first time in ten years, I was taking some time off. Six weeks to be exact. Greg had teased me that it was like I was going on maternity leave, and in a lot of ways, he had been right. I needed time to build a relationship and a bond with my son, and nothing—not even my job—was going to prevent me from making up for lost time.

Well, that’s not totally true. The surprise party of sorts in the conference room definitely took a few minutes of my time. They had cake and sparkling grape juice. Everyone was smiling and congratulating me on not only getting my son back, but taking time off to spend with him. Meanwhile, I stared at the minute hand on the clock, wondering how many gift cards I would have to purchase in order not to feel bad about making an early exit.

“Have you seen this?” Brady asked, passing me a newspaper.

I glanced outside at Lucas and breathed a sigh of relief that he was still there. I was convinced that he was going to disappear again. Every morning, my heart raced as I climbed off my makeshift bed on the couch and hurried down the hall to the bedroom he’d taken over as his own.

Every morning, he’d been there.

Every morning, I expected that to change.

“Seen what?” I asked.

“Your boyfriend has apparently decided to petition the courts for full custody.”

My body grew tight. “Full custody?”

“That’s what it says,” Brady replied, tipping his chin toward the paper. “I left a message on Paul’s voicemail to see if he’s formally heard anything from Porter’s attorney. But, according to The Post, that’s his goal.”

“No fucking way,” I breathed, picking the newspaper up and scanning the article, unsuccessfully avoiding the picture of Porter, Tanner, and Lucas huddled together at a Braves game.

Much like they had the day he had been kidnapped, the media had caught wind of Lucas’s return.

Magically over the last six days, a barrage of pictures of the Reese family had surfaced and started circulating around social media. And, considering that Tanner Reese was a household name, people didn’t take kindly to the idea of his nephew being kept from him.

Judgmental Judys from all over the world started taking sides with people they had never met, all of them gearing up for a down-and-dirty custody battle over an innocent child. I’d never been more ashamed of the human race as I was while reading the hateful and disgusting comments on the one and only article I’d read online about our situation.

Half of them blasting me.

Half of them blasting Porter.

All of them uninformed.

I kept my eyes aimed at Brady and asked, “He can’t do this, right?”

He rested his elbows on his knees, steepling his fingers under his chin, and stated smugly, “You finally ready to listen to me now?”

I pinned him with a glower. “You can stop being an ass. He hasn’t had any contact with Porter.”

And he hadn’t. Lucas asked for Porter more often than not. It had killed, but I’d made up excuses. I’d promised Brady I’d toe the line about contact with Porter, and until the investigation was concluded, I had every intention of keeping my end of the bargain.

“What about Tanner?” Brady shot back. “Any more contact there?”

“It was only that once, and that wasn’t my choice. Lucas had already seen him. I wasn’t going to drag him kicking and screaming away.”

“You’re his parent, Charlotte. Until he’s eighteen, everything he does is our choice.”

I looked back to Lucas, playing with a remote-control helicopter my mom had bought him. His eyes were aimed toward the sky, a huge smile covering his face.

In the six days since we’d gotten him back, I’d seen him smile numerous times, but never like that. His eyes were always cautious, and he wore a permanent mask of unease. But, right then, he had not a care in the world except for getting that brown-and-tan-camo helicopter to stay in the air.

The minute his gaze would find mine or Brady’s, his smile would disappear. Most of the time, he covered it quickly, plastering a new grin on before we had the chance to question it. But, each and every time, for those three seconds, his mask faltered and revealed his true emotions—and they were heartbreaking.

“Tanner’s harmless,” I said to Brady.

“Oh, really?” He scoffed. “You think it’s Porter paying for three new big-wig attorneys and a publicist to spin this whole bullshit social media campaign their way?”

I threw my arms out to my sides. “I don’t fucking know. Okay? I’ve never done this before.”

“None of us have! But a little common sense would go a long fucking way.”