Just as I closed my eyes my bedroom door opened, and I turned to see my mother standing there with a look of horror on her face. Was my dad home? I stood up as fear gripped me, and I met her gaze. “What’s wrong, Momma?” I asked. “Is Daddy here? He is, isn’t he?”
She nodded. “We’re all here,” she said, then put her hand on her heart and took a deep breath. “That’s not . . .” She stopped and closed her eyes. I let the blanket fall to the ground and started to go to her. She was scaring me.
“Momma, tell me what’s wrong,” I begged.
She lifted her eyes, and I saw the unshed tears shining in them. “It’s Dustin, sweetheart.”
“Dustin?” I asked, stopping and grabbing the first thing I could find to steady myself.
She nodded. “Your daddy just got off the phone with the pastor. He’s on his way to the Falcos’ now. Dustin wrapped his car around a tree,” she said, her voice trailing off.
He wrapped his car around a tree? How did he do that? I had just been with him two hours ago. “But is he okay?” I asked as the sirens continued to mock me. With all those emergency vehicles out there, how could he be okay?
Momma shook her head. “No, Sienna. He’s not okay. He’s . . . he’s gone, honey.”
Chapter One
Six years later . . .
SIENNA
I never expected to step foot in Sea Breeze, Alabama, again. When my parents had packed my bags and shipped me off to live in Fort Worth, Texas, with my mom’s sister, who I hardly knew, I had been told I would return to Sea Breeze after the baby was born. What I hadn’t been told was that they weren’t planning on my baby returning with me.
I glanced back at Micah, asleep in his car seat with his Darth Vader action figure clenched tightly in his hand. Our life hadn’t been easy, but we had each other. I wouldn’t go back and do it any other way. Micah was my life. He had healed me when I was sure nothing ever could.
Keeping Micah meant being disowned by my strict religious parents. My aunt wasn’t the most affectionate person in the world, but she’d disagreed with my parents’ decision. I had been expected to work and pay my own way, but at least she’d given us a roof over our heads.
Giving up on high school and getting my GED was my only option. My aunt Cathy was the principal at the local high school and helped me get a trade school grant, so when Micah was eighteen months old, I enrolled in beauty school. Before his third birthday I had a degree in cosmetology.
I owed my aunt more than I could ever repay her.
Micah and I moved out just last year and finally got an apartment of our own. I didn’t date because I didn’t trust anyone around my son. I also felt guilty paying for a sitter when we needed that money for more important things, like rent, day care, and food. It didn’t keep men from flirting, though, and trying to get me to go out with them. Janell, the owner of the salon where I worked, said that the men all thought I was playing hard to get. It just made them more persistent.
The truth was, I was lonely sometimes, but then Micah would smile and I’d see his father in him and I’d remember that for ten years of my life I’d had someone. A very special someone. And now I had Micah. I didn’t need anything more.
When the call had come two months ago from my mother to tell me about my father’s heart attack, I hadn’t known what to feel. He had never met Micah, and now he never would. My mother had used Dad’s life insurance money to move to a retirement community in central Florida. She’d given her house to Micah and me.
Not one time did she apologize for deserting me when I’d needed her most, or for turning her back on her only grandchild. But the fact that she had given the house to us meant something. I only hoped one day she would realize what she was missing by not knowing him.
Janell had helped me by giving me a glowing reference, and I had managed to get a job in Sea Breeze working at one of the most elite salons in town. I would be making more money, and I wouldn’t be paying rent any longer. Our life would be better in Sea Breeze. Micah would get to grow up in the small coastal town that I loved.
My only fear, and the one reason I almost didn’t come back home, was the idea of the Falcos seeing Micah. Once I’d realized that my parents hadn’t been planning on me keeping my son, I sent a letter to Tabby Falco, Dustin’s mother.
She never replied.
The first year of Micah’s life I wrote them countless letters and included pictures of him. He looked so much like his father. I wanted them to see that Dustin wasn’t completely lost to us. He had left a part of himself behind.