If You Were Mine (The Sullivans #5)(72)

He and Chase were close enough in age to get into it plenty of times over the years, but this was the first time he’d ever seen true concern in his brother’s eyes.

“You know what makes you such a good mechanic? There’s nothing you can’t fix.”

Wrong.

“Congratulations, again,” Zach gritted out to his brother. “I’ll be by to see you guys in a few days.” When there were a half-dozen fewer pairs of eyes on him. And when he had drunk enough booze to forget how badly everything he’d touched had gone wrong.

He grabbed Cuddles and they were almost to the front door when his mother intercepted him. She was fine-boned and delicate looking, but he knew firsthand that she had a spine made of steel.

“Zach, honey.” Her arms came around him and the puppy and he breathed in her familiar floral scent. “I’m glad you’re finally here. I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to give to you.”

She turned and headed down the hall to her bedroom and he had no choice but to follow her. Family pictures lined the walls. Ryan in his first Little League uniform, taking it easy on the pitcher’s mound a beat before he struck out another seven-year-old. Chase and Marcus heading out on windsurfers on the Bay at sixteen. Lori in her first ballet recital, just like Emma would be in a handful of years, so pretty it almost broke your heart to look at her. Sophie with her head in a book, lost in another fantasy world, another adventure. Gabe climbing the tree in their backyard in cut-off shorts with a hammer in his hand to finish building the fort. Smith as the star of the high school musical, his future already crystal clear. Zach’s own cocky grin as he sat in the window of his first race car, certain the whole world was waiting at his feet.

Their mother had been behind the lens each and every time, had taken the picture of his father out on a hiking trail, a baby on his back, a toddler’s hand in each of his. Jack Sullivan was looking over his shoulder at the camera with that same grin that Zach had seen a million times in his own mirror.

All those good times still to come, so much family to watch grow up...and life had still ended for his father in the blink of an eye.

Zach got to the bedroom door just as his mother opened the top drawer of her dresser. She didn’t pull anything out of it right away. Instead, she closed her eyes and took a breath, her pretty face crumpling for a split second before she finally reached for something.

She turned and held out a small black box wrapped in velvet. “I think you should have this.” She corrected herself. “I know you should have it.”

Zach had never run from anything. Not a fight. Not danger. But the thought of opening up the box his mother was holding out to him had him wanting to run as fast as his legs would take him.

“It’s okay, honey.” She held it out so he had to take it. “He would have wanted you to have it.”

Zach pulled the puppy tighter with one hand as he reached for the box with the other. His hand shook as he flipped open the top and his throat tightened.

“It’s your engagement ring.” The ring she’d worn for so many years after his father died. The ring he still could see on her finger as if it were yesterday, as if she hadn’t finally taken it off ten or so years ago. “You need to keep it.”

“No honey, I’ve had it just as long as I needed. The ring is yours now.”

He shook his head. “I don’t—” He was going to cry. Already was, actually. “I can’t—”

She sat down on the bed and patted the coverlet beside her. “After your father died, I would look at you and it was like he was still there. Eating dinner with all of us. Playing ball in the background. Twirling the girls around in circles until they were dizzy.”

Everyone who’d ever known their father had said that to him at one point or another. “You’re the spitting image of Jack.” He’d felt how broken they were over his father’s death. How wistful at a life ended much too soon.

That was when he’d taken to trying to outrun the demons that chased him, but he hadn’t succeeded. Not when he’d known all along that there was no separation between him and his father, because they were one and the same.

Something broke apart inside of him. “You always looked so sad. So damned sad.”

“I know.” Her voice broke. “I know and I’m sorry. Even rattled with grief, I knew it wasn’t fair. I know that you weren’t him.” She reached for his hands, gripped them tightly. “You are not your father.”

“He was a saint.” Whereas Zach had never been anything close to one.

“Your father wasn’t a saint.”

“He was. A great father to eight kids. A wife he loved. The only thing he ever did wrong was die too early.”

He was stunned when his mother started laughing. “Your father couldn’t have given a leap about love and marriage and kids when we first met.”

Zach couldn’t believe that what he was hearing was true, but he’d never known his mother to lie.

“I loved him from the start, of course. He was impossible not to love, but that didn’t mean I had to put up with him. The first time he tried to give me this ring, I threw it at him.” Her eyes went hazy at the memory as she lifted her hand to her left eyebrow. “I clipped him right here, hard enough that he needed stitches. So, no, he definitely wasn’t a saint. Not even close.” His mother’s gaze locked on Zach’s. “But I loved him. And in the end that meant I was willing to give him the room to grow into loving me the way I needed to be loved. Despite everything he did wrong along the way. I know how close you were with your dad,” she said softly. “He loved all of your brothers and sisters, but you were always so special to him. I know how special he was to you, too, honey. But what happened to him—” She searched for the right words. “It didn’t have anything to do with you. It still doesn’t, Zach. He helped make you who you were, but only you can decide who you want to be...and what you want from your life.”