Shelby took a step down to see another photo, one showing Meredith Wilde in a hospital bed holding two swaddled bundles—the twins—and beaming at the camera with toddler-sized versions of Greer and Reece at each arm. Unlike the other brothers, who all strongly resembled their father, Reece took after his mother. He had her hazel eyes, her aquiline nose. And while he was by no means a small man, he was the smallest of his brothers, having inherited Meredith’s long, lean form rather than David’s bulk.
Another photo—Meredith holding a baby with a tuft of dark hair. The twins were still toddlers in diapers and sitting on their father’s lap. Greer would have been six when this photo was taken and Reece, already wearing glasses, would have been about three. He appeared utterly fascinated by his new baby brother, Jude.
They were all so happy. So…complete. A real family.
An ache Shelby didn’t want to explore lodged in her belly, and she spun away from the wall of memories and stalked down the stairs. She didn’t know the whys of her sudden burst of anger, but she embraced it. “Why bring me here, Reece? The real reason.”
Reece glanced away. “I’m not sure. I don’t often come here myself.”
“I’d like to go now.” The walls were closing in on her, all of the happy smiles like a mockery of her pathetic childhood. And if the hot pressure kept growing behind her eyes, she was going to embarrass herself and ugly-cry all over him.
“Okay.” Reece picked up her coat and held it out to her. As soon as she accepted it, he grabbed the notebooks he’d set down on a table and strode toward the front door like he was in just as much of a hurry to leave as she was.
But she didn’t move. Her boots stayed glued to the floor, and she found her gaze tracing over all of those photos once more.
Eva wanted this. She’d never understood her sister’s drive to find a man and start a family—until now. Staring at the Wilde family photos, she got it. She felt like an unwelcome stranger from the wrong side of the tracks, but she totally got it.
And, goddammit, she wanted it, too.
She just couldn’t have it with Reece.
Reece waited on the front porch for Shelby, but she barely looked at him as she strode from the house. She’d been rattled ever since that kiss upstairs in his bedroom, though he couldn’t put his finger on why.
Had he done something wrong?
The car door slammed shut behind him, and he winced. He must have. Why else would she be angry with him?
And this was exactly why he’d avoided relationships. Women were just too damn confusing.
Sighing, he took one last look around the living room of his childhood home.
Why had he brought her here? He didn’t know, except that he’d wanted to show her…himself. The real Reece and not the one he projected to the world. He kept expecting time to dull the pain, but the hurt never went away. Every time he came here the grief slapped him again. Because his parents should still be here, excited that Jude and Libby were trying to give them grandbabies, happy that Cam had finally married Eva, whom they’d have loved. They should still be here, dancing in the kitchen together.
But they weren’t.
Maybe it was time to pack everything up and sell the old house…
But his heart lurched at the thought. As painful as the bad memories were—he’d been standing right over there at the bottom of the stairs when Greer answered the door to the cops the night their parents were killed—there were far more good memories here, and he wasn’t ready to let them go. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
Reece shook his head and started to close the door, but a strange smell stopped him.
Smoke?
At first it was only a drifting curl of scent in the air, and if it had been summertime, he might have brushed it off as a nearby bonfire. But it was the middle of winter, with temps hovering in the low twenties, and nobody would be having a bonfire now. And it was close, the scent of burning wood becoming heavier, acrid.
No.
Heart dropping like a stone, he stared at the house. No, no, no. Not this house. Please, not this house.
“Fire!” he yelled to Shelby over his shoulder. “Call 911!”
He dropped his notebooks and raced back inside, through the living room, toward the kitchen, where there was a fire extinguisher under the sink. Flames danced across the back porch, casting orange shadows over the kitchen floor where his parents used to dance together after dinner. The dead ivy vines clinging to the side of the house—the ones he’d been meaning to pull down since summer—went up like kindling in a flash of heat and light, climbing toward the roof.
Holy shit. It shouldn’t be spreading this fast. Already it was too big, and his little fire extinguisher wasn’t going to do a damn thing, but he had to try.
He had to try.
If the fire reached the roof, the house was done.