Hailey’s lip was quivering, and Heath’s face was frozen solid with belligerence. I was making a huge mess of this. My news wasn’t going over well at all. I looked to Easton for help.

“Hailey, Heath, I’m sorry I wasn’t in your life earlier. Don’t blame your mother. She simply didn’t know. And you had a great dad. Now I’m here not to fill his shoes but to be a different kind of dad, the kind only I know how to be.”

Hailey shook her head so hard her blonde curls slapped against her face. “No. No. No! You’re not my daddy. My daddy is gone. I want him back. I want everything back the way it was. I hate this place. I hate you both. I want Nana and Grandpa. I want to go home.” Hailey wailed with the pure emotions of a child, the pain so obvious I felt it in my heart and deep to my soul. Tears flowed down her face and huge sobs racked her small body. Heath threw his arms around her and glared accusingly at us over his shoulder. Hailey jerked away from him and ran down the hall to her bedroom.

Heath started after her and stopped. His eyes narrowed. “I want to go home too. Let us go home and live with Nana and Grandpa. We don’t want to be here.” He sprinted down the hallway and slammed his bedroom door.

For a long moment, Easton and I were silent, then our eyes met.

“That went well,” Easton quipped. I wasn’t in mood for levity and merely scowled at him.

“I need to talk to them.” I started to get up, but Easton held me back with a gentle but firm hand on my arm.

“Give them time to absorb everything. This is lot for them to process.”

“But I—”

He shook his head to silence me. “Give them a little time, honey. They’re hurting, and I agree we shouldn’t leave them alone too long.”

“I shouldn’t have told them yet. It’s too soon. And you and I, they aren’t going to like us together and we’re—”

“You’re not going to run on me again, are you?” Easton’s brown eyes narrowed as he watched me intently.

“Run on you?”

“Kick me out. Tell we can’t see each other. We’re in this together, Caro. We agreed on that. You don’t have to go through this alone.”

“No, not this time,” I admitted.

“We’ll weather this storm together because that’s how a family does it.” He smiled, not one of his huge light-up-your-world smiles, because the situation didn’t call for it, but a better-things-are-coming and a trust-in-me smile.

Tears slid down my cheeks, and he pulled me into his arms. I needed him, and that was okay. I’d tried so hard since Mark had died to be everything to everyone and to be independent, I found it hard to admit maybe I did need someone. That together we were stronger than we were apart.