Hell, it should be a safe subject.

He braced himself for the guilt that came with the answer. “I don’t know.”

Alexis lifted her head. “What do you mean?”

It was harder to put into words than he would have guessed. “It took a long time to put me back together. Even when the doc gave me the thumbs-up, I still wasn’t cleared for duty. I can’t meet the physical requirements anymore.” And he never would again. The failure stuck in his throat. “I know that. But a part of me has been hanging on to that hope. I haven’t been the best employee to my cousin, because I’ve been living with one foot out the door.”

There was no judgment in her eyes. “Sometimes it takes a while to find your feet after the universe knocks you on your ass.”

“Yeah, but it’s been almost a year. It’s time to get over my shit and move on—actually move on. I guess I’ve just been holding on to my anger, instead of looking for something productive to do with my life.” He actually enjoyed working in the shop. There was something satisfying about taking a vehicle that was on its last legs and making it purr. He’d just been fighting that satisfaction every step of the way. “My auntie threatened to wallop me if I didn’t pull my head out of my ass in the next few weeks.”

He felt her smile against his chest. “I like this aunt of yours.”

“She’d like you, too.” He already knew what Aunt Rose would say about Alexis—and that she’d have hit him upside the back of the head with her purse a few times for being such an asshole initially. She would approve of Alexis’s spunk and her ability to drive him up the wall. And Aunt Rose would have respected the hell out of her because she was a survivor. He didn’t have to know the details to know that.

“You’ll figure it out.” Her quiet assurance wasn’t false comfort. She actually believed that he’d be okay.

And in the face of her belief, he started to believe it for the first time, too.

Chapter Fourteen

Alexis’s good mood lasted through breakfast, but took a nosedive when she caught sight of the garish tour bus. It had a picture of Maria and the von Trapp kids painted on the side and was big enough to fit fifty people. As she looked around, there were certainly enough people here to more than fill it. Her parents had done this on what her mother had called their second honeymoon. If she got on that bus, she’d be following in their footsteps.

Except she had beaten the cancer that killed her mother.

Not for the first time, she wondered if maybe their situations should have been reversed. If Mom lived, Yé-yé and Nâinai never would have moved in with Dad and taken over her and Avery’s lives. Avery might be happy now, but she wouldn’t have had to jump through such crazy hoops in her quest for a child. Maybe she and Drew would have seen the light earlier and saved each other a lot of pain. Her little sister would have someone to talk to about relationships and romance and everything under the sun. Their house would have been a home like it used to be.

And Alexis… She would have faded away. She wouldn’t be a constant disappointment to everyone around her.

Even as the thought crossed her mind—the same way it had more times than she could begin to count—it didn’t feel right. It was almost as if she was giving lip service to something she no longer felt. I’m worth more than this. I deserve better.

Her mother was a saint as far as she was concerned, and nothing would ever change that. But for the first time, she tried to put herself in Mom’s shoes. Would she have rather lived if one of her daughters died?

No. Hell no.

Alexis stood there under the warm sun and tried to wrap her mind around the new shape of the world. If she were in her mother’s place, with two daughters of her own, she’d take a bullet for either of them. What was a little cancer in the face of that? The universe didn’t work like that—one life for another—but she wouldn’t have hesitated to bargain with any higher power who’d listen for the lives of her daughters.

She couldn’t believe her mother would feel any differently.

Mom wouldn’t want me to live with regret. She’d just want me to live, to be happy, to move on.

It wasn’t an easy path, but she was on it. Alexis crossed her arms over her chest, suddenly cold. I can do this. It hasn’t been easy and it’s not going to get any more so, but I can do it. She refused to fail.

She caught sight of Luke and—surprise, surprise—he was scowling. “Whatever you’re thinking about, cut that shit out.”

His attitude grounded her, the same way it had at the top of Pulpit Rock. She put on a brave face, though it felt a little fragile around the edges. “I know this might come as a shock to you, but you can’t just glower your way in and demand that people’s thoughts stop offending you.”

“The world would be a better place if I could.” His green eyes were filled with concern. “We don’t have to do this.”

He was so much easier to deal with when he was snapping at her, even if it was a surface-level attitude, and he was offering her a way out. She hadn’t anticipated how raw she’d feel just staring at the bus. What was the tour itself going to do to her?

Desperate for a distraction, she blurted out, “Are your parents alive?”

“Yes.”

Just that. Nothing else. “But you never talk about them.”

“There’s nothing to say.” He shrugged. “I never knew my dad, and my mom was more concerned with her freedom than the well-being of her only child. She bounced when I was seven, and I haven’t seen her since.”

“Oh God. I’m sorry.”

“I’m not.” He hesitated, then seemed to resolve something. “I didn’t go without. My Aunt Rose raised me, and I had a pretty decent childhood. What more can a kid ask for?”

Two living, loving parents. But he was right, in a way. At least he’d had family to step in and take care of him. “Tell me about your aunt. You mentioned her last night, but didn’t really go into detail.”

She needed this distraction. People had started filing onto the bus, and the closer they got to the door, the harder her heart pounded.

For a second, she thought he might turn her down flat. Luke had never had a problem doing that before now, but he sighed. “She’s a nice lady who looks as sweet as the apple pie she bakes, but she ran a tight ship. Still does. She never hesitated to take me to task for tracking in dirt or screwing around in school.” A soft smile curved his lips, and it changed the look of his entire face. He’d been attractive before, but with the obvious love there, he was absolutely stunning. “I was a little hell-raiser, but she was really good at letting me run amok and being there to help me set things right. She was the one to offer the military as an option when I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, and she was the one to pick me up and start to put me back together when they sent me back broken.”

What would her life have ended up like if her family was more like that? Nâinai loved the family in her own way, but she bowed to Yé-yé’s will in all things, and Alexis’s grandfather could barely stand the sight of her these days. She’d failed the family in every way that he thought counted.

Dad had done his best, and he loved her and Avery beyond a shadow of a doubt. He’d been by her side, the same as her sister, every step of the process, even though it’d torn him up in ways she could only imagine to see his daughter go through the same thing that had killed his wife. It meant that sometimes he needed to check out for a few days, and she’d always respected that, because she knew what it was like to have the past rise up and kick her in the teeth.

I did have support and love. What happened that I let my grandparents’ and ex’s negativity block that out?