Prodigal Son: A Sexy Single Dad Romance: Book 2 in the Marked Men 2nd Generation Series (The Forever Marked Series) Read online

  I knew the feeling well. If you took her shiny, bright brilliance out of my life, there was nothing but endless darkness I stumbled around in like an idiot. She was always the light I followed to find my way out of the pit of misery it was so easy for me to fall into.

  “You have to promise to keep her safe. You have to promise that you won’t let her hurt herself anymore when I’m gone.” It sounded stupid when I said it out loud. I was the reason Remy was near death now. If I was gone, she wouldn’t have a reason to make everyone worry. She could focus on herself, on getting the help she obviously needed, and get back to living her adventurous and often out-of-control life.

  Remy’s mom gave me a sad smile and held the flowers I handed over close to her chest. I saw her lower lip quiver when she looked through the window at the tiny, scarily still figure in the bed. “I would never ask something so big of someone else if I didn’t plan on making sure we’re never in this situation again. Her father and I will make sure Remy gets help. I promise.”

  I shoved my hands deep into the front pockets of my jeans, trying to imagine having a conversation with my parents about not only leaving, but doing something as drastic and life-changing as committing my life to the military for at least four years. They were going to be devastated and disappointed. I doubted they would understand. But at the end of the day, they would support my decision, because that’s what they always did. No matter how lost and lacking I felt, my parents never seemed to think I fell short in any area. They loved me unconditionally, and I often wondered if it was because of how hard they both fought to keep me.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll keep this conversation between the two of us. It doesn’t make any sense for Remy to hate both of us.” Her mom was trying to do whatever she could to protect her daughter. I didn’t fault her for that. The two of them were very close, and almost carbon copies of one another physically. It would be another loss if Remy lost such an important connection and champion because of me. I’d already taken too much from her. I couldn’t be the reason she lost her relationship with her mother as well.

  I was shocked when Cora reached out and wrapped me up in a hug that would’ve crushed me had she been bigger and stronger. The tears she was holding at bay finally started to spill, and she sniffed loudly, the sound echoing in the empty hospital hallway. “You’re a good kid, Hyde. If she could care about you in a normal way, I couldn’t ask for her to fall in love with a better guy. If her love wasn’t going to end up killing her, I’d beg you to stay instead of pleading with you to go. If you need me to have a conversation with your parents about what’s going on, I absolutely will. It isn’t fair to them that they have to lose you so I can keep Remy.” She seemed truly distressed, but very aware of just how monumental what she was asking me to do was.

  I patted her back awkwardly and removed myself from her hold as gingerly as possible. “I’ll talk to my folks. It’s fine. I’ve been aimless for too long, as it is. I need to find a direction for myself. And it’s not like I’m leaving forever.” Eventually, Remy would heal, I would figure my shit out, and we wouldn’t be two people who could only hurt each other anymore. Maybe we could start over as friends, or even as enemies, if that’s what she wanted after she was clear of this mess. Either way, it would be better and healthier than this toxic tangle we’d been caught in since we were old enough to recognize that our feelings for each other were not the same.

  Cora swiped a hand across her face and let out a shaky breath. It was hard to not be affected by seeing such a strong woman so close to breaking down. “You’re right. Nothing is forever… even love. The way we love someone important to us has to change and adapt along with the person those feelings are attached to. The way I loved Remy’s dad when we first got together is nothing like how I love him now. When we were young, I didn’t know what a good father he would be. I didn’t know how important our family would be to him. All of those things made me love him in new ways. Remy can’t see anything beyond the way she loves you right now. She feels like she has nothing without those feelings fueling her. But eventually, she’ll know she’s so much more than how she feels about you, and so are you. You deserve to be more than the boy she’s been crazy about her whole life, Hyde. It’s just going to take some time.”

  I also wanted to be more than the boy who continuously broke her heart and eventually drove her to drastic measures to end the pain she couldn’t escape. I wasn’t sure any amount of time or distance would make this situation less tragic, but there was only one way to find out.

  Now I just had to break the news to my parents that I made up my mind about enlisting.

  After mumbling a hurried goodbye, I made my way down the hallway, my mind full of a thousand whirling thoughts. I was so caught up in my own head, I didn’t see Remy’s dad until I was almost on top of him. He was a massive guy with an intimidating presence. It was saying something that I was unaware that he was there until I nearly slammed into him. I apologized quickly and froze on the spot as his cool, blue gaze felt like it stripped the skin from my body.

  A garbled apology was on the tip of my tongue, but the words never came out. Instead, the large man in front of me was the one who offered solemn words of contrition.

  “What happened with my little girl isn’t on you, Hyde. It’s no one’s responsibility to take care of Remy but me and her mom. And that girl,” Rome Archer grunted and shook his head. “She’s always the loudest in the room. The one who makes sure all eyes are on her, but she didn’t say one word about how messed up her head and her heart were. She suffered in silence. I thought she trusted us more than that. If I couldn’t see it, there is no way you should be expected to. Don’t let my wife run you out of town. She’s going to regret asking you to leave when she’s not so worried about Remy. She isn’t thinking straight at the moment.”

  I had to clear my throat before I could speak without fear of my voice cracking or wavering. I pulled my damp hands out of my pockets so I could wipe them on the legs of my jeans.

  “Whatever I decide to do, it will be because it’s best for me, as well as for Remy. She’s always put me first in everything she does. It’s about time I return the favor.”

  Even though I couldn’t love her the way she wanted, I still loved her in my own way. My way was a bit broken and so was any love I had to give. Remy wouldn’t be able to see it initially, but leaving her was the best way for me to prove to her that she was special to me, and that I cared about her as deeply and as intensely as she cared about me.

  Remy

  8 Years Later

  “HAVE YOU HEARD the rumor that Hyde Fuller is moving back to Denver?”

  My younger brother dropped the tool he was using on the engine of the brightly painted motorcycle he was crouched in front of. He shot a careful look in my direction over his shoulder. I couldn’t help but notice that the older Zowen got, the more he resembled our father. Both were distractingly handsome. And both had a serious, intense sort of presence that let anyone in their orbit know that still waters did indeed run very deep. I would bet good money that half his college campus was chasing after him and declaring their undying love on a daily basis, because it was well-known that good looks like his, mixed with his broody demeanor that ran in the family, were a lethal combination. And because Zowen was so much like our dad, I knew he didn’t drop that question as part of a casual conversation or out of general curiosity.

  My little brother was forever the one I leaned on the most, and I relied on him to be brutally honest with me. He worried about me and tried to put himself between anything he thought might hurt me ever since the night he saved my life. Even when I was several states away and forgot to check in with him regularly, he still somehow knew when I needed him and would show up out of the blue like a white knight on an imported street bike instead of a white horse. It was like he was the older sibling and I had to run everything by him instead of the other way around.

  My little brother knew good and well that not too long ago
, the mere mention of Hyde Bishop-Fuller was enough to send me into an emotional tailspin. Sometimes it was depression and regret that clawed into me. Other times it was white-hot rage that exploded within me when I heard the name that haunted me.

  I was an emotional creature by nature, but the fact that I’d been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder when I was in the hospital as a teenager explained why the things I felt were so intense and so over the top. My feelings about others and myself were in a constant state of hyperdrive, and they were often skewed through the lens of a chemical imbalance in my brain. So, while it had been years upon years since the fateful night that Hyde left without so much as a goodbye, it was only recently that I’d finally managed to get ahold of myself and my emotional reactions when I thought about him or when he was mentioned in passing. Hyde’s name no longer triggered me. He was no longer an open wound, but more of a sore spot that was only tender when deliberately poked. It was a pain I’d finally grown accustomed to living with.

  I bent to pick up the tool Zowen dropped and straightened to put it back in its rightful space in his shiny chrome toolbox. I rolled my shoulders and forced a tight smile as he continued to look up at me with unvarnished concern in his two-toned eyes. The mismatched gaze was the only way one would be able to tell he was my mother’s son. Everything else was pure Archer genetics.

  “It’s not a rumor. I ran into his cousin, Joss and her kids, at the grocery store last week. She mentioned he was more than likely moving back to Denver at the end of the month.” She’d tried to tell me more, but I’d cut the conversation short in an almost rude way because Hyde was far from my favorite topic to reminisce about, and all I wanted to do after hearing he was coming home was to get blackout drunk or eat my weight in ice cream. My way of thinking about difficult things might’ve matured and developed over the years, but my coping mechanisms still weren’t the greatest. I was a work in progress.

  I left the store with three different pints and memories of Hyde hot on my heels.

  I crossed my arms over my chest and lifted an eyebrow at him. Zowen wiped his greasy hands on the legs of his dirty and stained coveralls. I could tell that he was uncomfortable having this conversation, even though he was the one who brought up Hyde’s name.

  “Don’t worry. It’s been a long time.” I tried to reassure him. It’d been nearly eight years since I last saw Hyde, to be exact. “I’ve had a lot of therapy and never miss my medication.” I was generally more aware that my brain and emotions didn’t work like other people’s. I made my mental health a top priority rather than letting the ups and downs I used to think I had no control over rule my every waking moment. “I’m not going to do anything dramatic just because my childhood crush is coming home. It doesn’t matter to me.”

  At least, that was the mantra I repeated to myself over and over again since bumping into Joss. I was pretty close to having myself convinced it was actually true. However, I still couldn’t say, or even think, the phrase ‘he doesn’t matter to me.’

  I poked Zowen’s shoulder with the toe of my sparkly tennis shoe. “You should be worrying about yourself. If Mom finds out you’ve been illegally racing on that death machine, she’s going to break both your legs so you can’t leave the house.”

  My brother and I were as tight as two siblings could be. It was pretty hard to keep secrets when you shared a life-and-death situation, so I was the only one in our family who knew exactly what he was doing on the weekends when he came home from college. Neither of our parents would approve of him doing something so risky, especially since he was street racing without taking precautions, and he had zero safety measures in place beyond his helmet and leathers.

  Zowen heaved a deep sigh and stared at me with obvious concern on his handsome face. “For real, Remy, if you aren’t okay being in the same city as Hyde, it’s okay for you to leave. If you have to get some space, do it. You need to do whatever is best for you. Forget about him.”

  I copied his sound of frustration and reached out to pat the top of his head. His nearly black hair was thick and soft. I could only reach his head if he was sitting and I was standing. While Zowen inherited our father’s height and build, I was pretty much a clone of our petite mother, minus her odd-colored eyes. I wasn’t quite as short as she was, but that wasn’t saying much. My brother started towering over me before he hit his teens, and hadn’t stopped getting bigger until recently. But no matter his size or protective attitude, he was still my little brother, and I was supposed to be the one looking out for his well-being, not the other way around.

  “I don’t want to forget about him. If I do, there’s a chance I’ll also forget how messed up I let myself get because of him, and that can never happen again. I have to remember the person I was before I hit rock bottom and got help. I can never be that girl again.” I couldn’t put Zowen through that kind of trauma or scare my parents that way ever again. I loved them too much. I’d also learned to love myself enough to know that I never wanted to be in such a low place for my own well-being.

  I ruffled his hair and leaned back after he gave me an annoyed look I was all too familiar with. “Besides, I’ve seen Hyde when he’s home on leave since that night. Everything was fine. I’m immune to him now.”

  Things were always tense, awkward, and slightly hostile, but still fine. We exchanged pleasantries and empty words, but there were no more longing looks or easy camaraderie. The few times he’d been back to Denver since that night and our paths had crossed because our parents were close, the world hadn’t caught fire. We were barely more than strangers. He’d gone off and transformed himself into a soldier, and I… I wasn’t the girl I used to be, but I hadn’t magically become someone else either.

  I accepted that there would always be a pang deep in the center of my chest when I thought of the way he disappeared when I needed him the most. However, over the years, I’d learned how to ignore the twinges. Time worked wonders to heal old hurts, and so did outrunning all the memories and moments that chased after me. It wasn’t a surprise that Zowen told me to go without any qualms just now. I’d spent most of my early twenties on the move, never settling down in one place, never getting attached to anyone or anything. There was less chance of me going off the deep end again if wherever I was and whomever I was with didn’t matter to me at all. The more indifferent I remained, the safer I was, which was kind of a sad and pathetic way to live. The realization that my whole life felt empty, even if I managed to maintain an even-keel, was why I’d suddenly decided to come back home to Denver after years of putting as much space between me and the Mile High City as possible.

  I pushed a curly piece of blonde hair off my forehead and muttered, “Don’t you remember that the last time he came home when he had leave, he brought a girl with him? It’s not the same as when we were young, Zowen. We’re different people now.”

  We lived separate, completely different kinds of lives. I doubted there was a single speck of common ground we could find to stand on after all the time we’d spent apart.

  The only reason I knew about the women in Hyde’s life was because my cousin Daire told me. I could tell she was hesitant to mention that Hyde was back and hadn’t come home for a visit alone. Fortunately, I’d been living in Arizona at the time, so it was much easier to pretend the news of Hyde moving on and living his life like normal wasn’t as devastating or hurtful as it may have been if we were still in the same city. Daire wanted to give me all the details, but I convinced her it didn’t matter one way or the other. I was over Hyde, and I was over being the girl who had loved him with everything I had while getting nothing in return. He’d made it clear when he listened to my mother and left that I would never be as important to him as he was to me.

  That was another reason I’d been unable to settle anywhere and place firm roots. As much as I wanted to get away from my mom, I still missed her and felt a hollow spot in my heart where all my trust in her used to be. I knew that my mother had a hand in sending Hyde aw
ay that fateful night, and even though I now knew it was for the best and understood she was acting out of soul-deep fear and love, I still hadn’t managed to fully forgive her for her interference. Now that I was back in Denver for the foreseeable future, I was doing my best to let her make amends and work on healing the tattered remains of what was once an all-important relationship. I hadn’t only lost the boy I’d loved all my life the night I was unable to stop myself from taking things way too far. By losing my faith in my mom, I also effectively lost the person who’d been my role model and closest confidant. I couldn’t look at either my mom or Hyde the same way when the truth came out, but it wasn’t like anyone in my family looked at me the same after that night either.

  We were all a mess.

  My brother finally looked away, and this time when he sighed, it was silent, and only his massive shoulders moved. They slumped forward a little with resignation because he knew me better than anyone, and if I said I was staying to face this new hurdle head-on, then nothing on Earth was going to change my mind.

  “Just let me know if it gets to be too much or if you start to have a hard time. If he’s really moving back, there’s no way you won’t run into him at some point. Our families are too close. If you start to hurt or feel bad, or if seeing him with someone else becomes too difficult, don’t pretend you’re okay. I mean it, Remy. You can lean on me. I’m not going to crumble under the weight of your demons. I’m bigger and badder than most of them these days anyway.”

  I kicked the toe of my sneaker against the concrete floor of the garage, frowning when a black scuff mark ended up on the tip. I wanted to laugh at his lame joke, but I was honestly really touched by the sentiment.

  “I really lucked out in the baby brother department. I mean it. Not just because you saved my life. And not because you still love me even though I nearly broke you back then. I missed you more than anything else when I was hopping from place to place. I’m very proud of the man you’re becoming, Zowen. I need you to believe me when I tell you that you don’t need to worry about me all the time anymore. I promise I’m much better at taking care of myself these days. It’s time you let me worry about you breaking your neck instead of you constantly being on the lookout for me having another breakdown. I’ll never get to the point where you have to save me again. I can be the big sister you deserve if you give me a chance.” I wanted him to trust me more than anything else in the world. I wanted to prove to both of us that I’d earned it back over the years.