“I got lucky,” Jesse said. “So fucking lucky. I got placed with a woman named Nancy Gibbs. She was an older woman. She’d never been married. Never had kids of her own. I thought she was doing it for the money. You know it happens.”
“Not Nan.” Cade shook his head, his lips curving up in a reminiscent smile. “She believed. She really believed she could make a difference. She took care of us. She made me believe I could be something other than a criminal. She made sure we finished high school and got into college.”
Jesse frowned. “If we’d been around, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”
Hope could guess. “She was an older woman? I ask because Christian loved to talk to older people. He would take tours of retirement facilities.”
Cade nodded. “Our sophomore year she had a little series of strokes, and we put her in an assisted-living facility. Just until summer. We were going to come home and take over her rehab, but she wouldn’t let us quit school. Christian Grady got her to turn over her entire estate. He drained her dry, and when there was no money left, the state shoved her into some piece-of-crap home. We weren’t her blood so no one informed us. We had to find her.”
Jesse continued, his voice low and tortured. “She was our mother in every sense of the word but biology, and we weren’t there when she died of pneumonia. She was an amazing woman, and she died in utter poverty, alone and unloved.”
“Not unloved,” Hope said, tears filling her eyes. “You loved her.”
Noah rested his head on her shoulder. “They know. Our parents always know.”
Hope took a deep breath. “I envy all of you. My mom doesn’t care.”
Jesse stepped forward. “That’s not true. Hope, we haven’t told you everything. When we started looking for the man who bilked our foster mom, we found out about you. We didn’t believe that he was dead. We started looking for you. We went to your mother.”
She felt her eyes widen. “You talked to my mom?”
“Your mom bankrolled a lot of our search. She gave us what she could because she had been looking for you for years.” Jesse got to one knee. “Hope, your mom has regretted that one moment for ten years. She’s been alone. You’ve been the only thing on her mind, finding you. She loves you. She just wasn’t good at showing it.”
A sob tore from her chest. “My mom?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t.
“She wants you, baby,” James said, kissing her forehead. “She wants you. How could she not? Does she know where Hope is?”
“Yes. We’ve kept her updated for the last month, but she’s been afraid to call. She thinks you won’t want to talk to her. She would rather get updates from us than lose track of you again,” Cade explained. “She cried when we told her we’d found you. She cried like a baby and thanked god. She made mistakes before, Hope, but she is family.”
And family meant something. “I want to talk to her.”
“We’ll bring her to the ranch,” Noah promised.
Her mother wanted her. Years of pain slipped away. Mistakes had been made and forgiven. Family was what she made it. Noah and James were her family. Bliss was her family. And her mother was her family. Her heart was a huge, never-ending vessel capable of expanding with each new person she met.
“Thank you.” James stood up and held out a hand to Jesse and Cade. “My brother and I can’t express how much we appreciate your help. She’s everything to us.”
They both shook his hand. Cade gripped James’s and then reached for Noah’s. “We both hope you feel that way because we don’t want to leave here. We’ve only been in Bliss for a couple of weeks, but this feels like home.”
“We love it here,” Jesse said.
“And it seems like you’ll fit right in.” Cam stood up, looking the two new men over. “But you two better just be mechanics from now on. No more vigilantes.”
“Those days are over,” Cade promised. “Just life from here on out.”
Just life. It was all open in front of her. Life. In all its glories and wonders. Life with its brilliant uncertainties.
She wrapped an arm around Noah and reached out for James, drawing him close. Their arms closed around her. Her future was defined by four hands, four loving arms, and two wide-open hearts.
“Take me home,” she whispered.
“Always,” Noah said.
“Forever,” James added.
They took her hands and led her home.
THE END
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