“We’ll be up late,” Jase replied. “So if you need anything, just call.”

“I bet you will be,” I replied dryly.

Grinning, he pushed off the wall and circled around Teresa’s waist from behind. He winked at me as he dipped his head, kissing her temple. “Come on, sweetheart, let’s hit the road.”

Teresa folded her hands over his arms as he started to walk backward, toward the door. “Don’t forget about tomorrow! If you and Jax are up for it, we all can go out to eat before we head back. All right?”

“I won’t forget.” I followed a rather desperate-looking Jase to the door. They’d been here for hours after Cam and Avery had left to go do whatever adorable couples do on their down time. “It should be fine. You guys have fun.”

Jase’s grin turned downright wicked. “We will.”

Teresa’s eyes rolled as he all but dragged her out of the door, but at the last moment she sprang free, ran back to where I stood at the threshold, and hugged me again. “I’m glad everything is going to be okay,” she whispered, and then she whirled around on her good leg.

Teresa took off and jumped from the top of the short set of cement steps. Jase, who was at the bottom, cursed as he caught her and staggered back a step. “Jesus, you’re going to give me a heart attack.”

She giggled as she wrapped her legs around his waist. When he turned to head to their car, she waved at me over his shoulder. I wiggled my fingers back, thinking they were going to give Cam and Avery a run for their money.

I closed the door and made my way back over to the couch. Kind of tired from spending most of the day with my friends and Jax, I yanked the blanket around me and curled up on the end of the couch. It didn’t take me long to drift off to sleep and I did so, as cheesy as this sounds, on a cloud of happy thoughts.

Today had been good, great even. It had been normal—my new kind of normal—full of laughs, smiles, conversation, and kisses, lots of sweet kisses and then not so sweet. I could get used to this and I would. It would be hard when I went back to Shepherd, but we’d make it work. That cloud of happiness would keep on being all fluffy and awesome.

I didn’t know how long I slept, but I came to, lured out of sleep by the soft sweep of cool fingers along my cheek. Blinking open my eyes, I expected to see Jax beside me, thinking I’d slept longer than I had.

But it wasn’t Jax sitting next to me.

Heart leaping into my throat, I sat up so fast I pulled at the tender skin on the side of my stomach and winced. “Oh my God.”

Mom was here.

Thirty-three

I stared at her for what had to be a freaking hour before I found my ability to speak. “How did you get in here?” I asked, craning my neck to see if Jax was anywhere, but we appeared to be the only two people in the house. Maybe that wasn’t the best question to start with but I was caught off guard, absolutely floored.

She drew away from the couch and stood. That’s when I noticed she was wearing the same clothing I’d last seen her in, and when I inhaled deeply, my heart . . . God, it ached like someone had reached inside and wrapped their fist around it. She smelled like someone who hadn’t seen the inside of a shower in days.

God.

Rubbing her left hand down her right arm, she glanced around. “I let myself in.”

“How?”

“The back door. It has one of those old locks. No dead bolts. I picked it.”

“You . . . you picked a lock?” When she nodded, I just stared at her. “You know how to pick a lock?”

She nodded again as she stopped rubbing her arm. Her hand stayed around the inside of her elbow, though. “Baby, I don’t have—”

“You left me.” Snapping out of my stupor, I rose to my feet as her gaze swung back to me sharply.

Mom blinked rapidly. “I need to tell—”

“I don’t care what you have to tell me.” And that was true. As terrible as it was, it was completely true. “I got shot. Did you realize that?”

“Baby—”

“Stop calling me that!” I shrieked, my hands balling tight. “Answer my question, Mom. Did you realize I’d been shot?”

Her cracked lips opened, but she didn’t speak. Instead she ducked her chin as she started scratching her right arm.

Hurt swelled in my throat like I’d swallowed a bitter pill. I stared at her, my mother, and it was like seeing a ghost. “You knew I’d been shot and you left me in the parking lot, bleeding. I was in the hospital for two days. I had internal bleeding. Do you even care?”

Chin jutting up, her watery gaze met mine for a fraction of a second and then her gaze darted away. “I care about you, Calla. I love you. You’re my daughter. I just . . . I . . .”

“Love getting high more?” A fissured laugh broke out of me. “Story of my life and your life. Drugs have always been more important.”

She didn’t say anything at first and then she said what I knew deep down in my heart she would say. “My babies are gone, Calla. Kevin and Tommy, they—”

“They’re dead!” I shouted as tears pricked at my eyes. Air rattled in my lungs as everything . . . everything came out. “They are dead, Mom. They have been dead for a long time. And you know what else, Dad has been gone for a f**king long time, too. You’re not the only person in this whole damn world who lost them. And no amount of shit you put in your body is going to bring them back.”

Her legs backpedaled like she could escape what I was saying, but this wasn’t the first time I’d said this to her. But I knew it was going to be the last.

And I was on a roll. Years and years of frustration, disappointment, and hurt balled up inside me, exploding over like a shaken bottle. “You stole from me, Mom. Do you even remember that? You drained my account, racked up over a hundred thousand dollars in debt in my name, and now I have to take out financial aid to finish school!”

Mom flinched.

“Not only that, but you almost got me killed. Like really dead—dead as in I’m totally f**king dead, Mom.” She recoiled again, but it couldn’t be like this was the first time this crossed her mind. “Clyde had a heart attack because of the people pissed at you who were messing with me. He almost died.”

She moved her mouth, but I didn’t hear her.

“My entire life has been turned upside down. Again.”

Shaking her head, she looked around Jax’s living room as stringy, ratted strands of hair knocked off her gaunt, sallow cheeks. “I thought . . . I thought I could get the money back.”

“Yeah, by stealing he**in from Isaiah. Well, that didn’t work out, did it?” I was breathing heavy, my heart pounding with fury and a ripe kind of sadness. “You know, he was here. He said you can’t even be in this state. Do you know what that means, Mom?”

“I’m leaving,” she rasped, her gaze flickering away from me, over the walls. She was as twitchy as a cornered mouse. “I got some friends in New Mexico I’m hooking up with. I wanted to see you before I leave.”

She was leaving, like really leaving.

Okay.

Wow. That wigged me out more than I thought it would, which was stupid.

I figured this would have to happen. The only other option was her staying, which equaled certain death, Mack-style. I watched her move in a slow, random circle in front of me, digging at her arm with her dirty nails. I pressed my lips together, cutting off what would’ve been a sob.

“You’re high right now, aren’t you?”

She picked up her pace in the little circle she was making. “I’m not high. I just needed something, baby. Things aren’t good.”

I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath. So much anger rose inside me, eating away at me like a cancer. And it was a poison that had been inside me, pecking away since I was a little girl. That was nothing new, but as I opened my eyes and watched her scratching her arm as she trekked a path in the floor, I was suddenly too exhausted to hold on to the more razor-sharped edges of the anger. After tonight, I was never going to see my mom again. She would be gone. Over the last couple of years it was like she was dead, but now it would be even more real. Before, I knew she was here or at least in the general vicinity of here, but after tonight, I’d have no idea where she’d be. If she got hurt or something worse happened, there’d be no Jax or Clyde to call me. I’d never know. She would be seriously gone.

I sat down, exhaling.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

My gaze lifted and she was closer now, still pacing and still scratching at what were most likely track marks. I tensed up. “I know.”

She stopped, looking at me like a deer in front of a speeding semi, and then she started walking. Frowning, I twisted around and watched her make her way toward the dining room table I doubted Jax had ever made use of.

There were a couple of sheets of paper.

With trembling hands, Mom swept off the paper and she turned to me. She started forward, stopping a few feet behind the couch. “This is . . . yours.”

Brows knitting, I stood and came to her. “What is it?”

She wiped at her sweaty forehead with the back of one emaciated arm. Temperature was set to ice box in his house. “It’s your life back.”

I stared at her, having no idea what she could’ve meant by that. Then she extended her arm, holding the papers out to me. Preparing myself for anything, I took them and quickly glanced at them.

Then I really took a real long look at them.

The papers turned out to be only three sheets, and one was longer, folded, and as I unfolded it, my breath caught. “Mom . . .”

“It’s yours. The house,” she said, and as I glanced up, she was running both hands down the sides of her cheeks. “There was never a loan on it. I never took a loan out against it. I . . . I just left it alone.”

I hadn’t known that. I assumed there was a loan she was many months behind on and the place would be foreclosed on at any minute. The fact that she hadn’t used the house as a source of additional funds blew my mind. I looked down at the papers to make sure the words hadn’t changed. Nope. Still a deed. Still signed by Mom and some guy whose name I didn’t recognize.

“All you have to do is sign it, but it’s done.” She moved away from the table and then stopped. “The house is yours. Sell it. You’ll get at least a hundred grand for it.”

My hands shook and it felt like the floor moved under my feet. I couldn’t even process this. The house was mine—if this was legit—the house was mine. I could sell it, make back almost if not all of the money to pay off the debt. My life would be back where it was, but better, shinier, because I had so much more in my life now.

I looked up at her, the ball of emotion back again, but this time the size of a basketball in my chest. “Mom, I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t thank me. Whatever you do, don’t thank me.” She swallowed hard. “You and I both know I wouldn’t deserve it.”

My lower lip trembled. “Mom.”

“I love you, baby.” She took a step forward, got within arm’s distance of me, but then backed away quickly. “I know it doesn’t seem like that, but I do love you. I’ve always loved you. I always will.”

I closed my eyes as I inhaled shakily.

“You make me so proud,” she whispered.

My body rocked and my eyes shot open. She was standing there, staring at me as she slowly walked backward, away from me, and I knew I could hug her. It would be the last time I saw her in maybe forever. I should hug her. She was my mom and as much as I hated her at times, I loved her. I would always love her.

But she didn’t give me the option.

Mom walked away, going to the back door, and I knew this was her way of saying no touching. She was leaving and with my heart firmly lodged in my throat, I watched her open the door—the one she had picked the lock to open.

And then I thought of Mona’s.

“Wait,” I called out, holding the papers close to my chest. And I knew it wasn’t so much my concern for the bar that had me calling out to her. I was delaying the inevitable. “What about Mona’s—the bar?”

Her dark brows pinched. “What about it, baby?”

Okay. I doubted she had forgotten about it. “The bar, Mom. What are you doing with that? If you’ve left me the house, did you sign over the bar, too?” Because that bar only passed to me in case of her death, and I sure as hell didn’t want to say or think that.

Mom shook her head. “Baby, I don’t own the bar anymore. I haven’t in . . . a year or so.”

The floor shifted again. “What?”

“I sold it for . . .” She barked out a dry, weak laugh. “That doesn’t matter. I sold it and it’s in good hands, baby.”

The hair on the back of my neck rose and a weird rush of goose bumps raced across my skin. I suddenly thought I should be sitting.