Raw Deal (Larson Brothers #1)(59)

She wasn’t sure why she thought of that terrifying time as she pulled into their drive, except that it was one example she could think of where her family had pulled together and leaned on one another. They’d had to flee everything they owned and watch the city they loved become mired in death and destruction, another one of those scars that time couldn’t seem to fully heal.

They’d gotten through that. Scarred, yes, different, surely, but they’d gotten through it. She hoped to God they could get through this too.

Along with thoughts of the hurricane came inevitable memories of Tommy, the way he’d been like a rock for them during that very dark time, and she found herself pleading with his image in her head, even if doing so was a sort of sacrilege in itself. A little help here, please, brother? You always handled them so much better than I could.

Yeah. Tommy would probably remain silent on this one. She really was on her own.

As she was trudging to the front door with a warm breeze blowing in off the lake, her phone rang from the depths of her purse. Mike. She pulled it out and shot him a quick text letting him know she would talk to him later. If he knew where she was going, he might start to worry. She didn’t want that.

There were few formalities at her parents’ house; she had a room there (for now, at least) and could always come and go as she pleased. Opening their front door, she called out a “hello” she hoped was cheerier than she felt and left her bag and phone in the foyer closet. There near the front door was the same family portrait she had at home, the Dugas family smiling in the sunshine. For perhaps the first time in a while, though, she focused on her own image, the fifth wheel, noticing how her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“In here,” her dad called from the living room. He didn’t sound himself, but neither did he sound as if he was in a thunderous rage, so that was a positive. She plastered a smile across her face as she entered the room, but felt it freeze in place when the couch came into view and Rowan was sitting on it, her face red, her eyes teary. She didn’t meet Savannah’s gaze, instead keeping her own trained on the wad of tissue she was worrying in her hands.

Regina sat beside her, one leg tucked beneath her, one hand on Rowan’s shoulder.

Play dumb. For now. “Is everything okay?”

Her dad stood and gave her a long hug, which she returned fiercely, still looking worriedly at Rowan and her mother over his shoulder. “Are you okay, Van?” he asked her, using the nickname he’d given her when she was knee-high to him.

“Oh, sure, I’m making it,” she said cautiously as she released him and looked into his assessing eyes. Hell, if they knew about Mike, what did they think? That he had abused her somehow?

“Sit down. We need to tell you girls something.”

Surprised, Savannah perched on one of the wing-back chairs as her dad reclaimed his own across from her. It was weird and pretty icky that her parents were probably about to lecture her about her sex life. She wanted to run from the room, but somehow resolved to keep her butt on the chair while her dad exchanged glances with his wife as if they weren’t sure which of them should speak first.

Savannah also noticed that Rowan looked a little confused as well. And she realized that whatever her parents were about to drop on them, she was as in the dark as Savannah. “What?” she asked weakly, looking back and forth between them.

“It was never our intention,” Regina began, “to not tell you girls everything about how Tommy died, it just worked out that way. He was gone, that’s all that mattered. It was a brain bleed. But what the doctors told us while he was still hanging on in ICU—you weren’t there, Rowan, you were inconsolable at his side while we spoke with the doctor in the hallway—was that it could have been second-impact syndrome.”

“What does that mean?” Rowan asked, her breathing picking up, a high, hysterical quality entering her voice.

“It means that their scans showed he might have suffered a light concussion in the weeks leading up to the fight with Larson,” Savannah’s dad said. “It could have been something simple, minor, something that happened in training that he barely even noticed, or just ignored. But all it took was the right hit in the right place a few weeks later, and not even a hard hit. It’s rare, they said, but it happens. He never should have been in the fight. He had a ticking time bomb in his head.”

“But Mike Larson set it off!” Rowan said, shooting an accusing look at Savannah.

“It’s not as black and white as that,” Savannah shot back, completely forgetting her play dumb strategy. “This could have happened no matter who was in the cage with him. Aren’t you listening?”

“Stop,” Regina snapped, and both of them fell into a sullen silence. “It would break Tommy’s heart to hear you two fighting like this, don’t you know that?” Her eyes were filling with tears. “It broke us to pieces to hear it was something that could have been avoided, and we spared you from it. We all know how stubborn he was. Never in a million years did we ever think something like this would come up where you would need to know that it was just a horrible accident. Rowan?” Regina took her daughter-in-law’s face between both her palms, making her look at her with streaming eyes. “It was an accident. It was a terrible, senseless, freak accident.”

Savannah hadn’t realized before now that she was crying as well, a little from relief, mostly from sadness at what they all had lost.