Page 9 of Chasing Forever

I gave up trying to get him to say the word correctly. “How about you just call him Mr. Tristan? I bet he’d be okay with that. And I’m not sure, little dude. You’ll have to ask him.”

We pulled up to the trailer Ozzy and Levi lived in a few minutes later, and my stomach sank like a boulder at the sight of it. The single-wide had never been in the best shape, but it seemed even worse than it had before I left town two months earlier. The skirting along the bottom was either missing or chewed through by large rodents. Rusted beer cans and empty liquor bottles lay strewn about the overgrown front yard. It looked like the crispy grass was in a losing battle with the weeds threatening to choke it out.

Beyond a set of rickety wooden steps and a front stoop with missing boards, the screen door swayed precariously in the breeze, only the bottom hinge keeping it from breaking off completely. Yellow police tape stretched across the doorframe, the sight of it twisting my stomach into knots.

This was no place for a child to live—hell, it wasn’t fit for the rats that probably infested it—and I couldn’t believe Ozzy had been okay leaving his son in a mess like this.

A piece of my heart broke off as I threw my car into park and turned off the ignition. It felt like swallowing glass when I forced down the tears trying to claw up my throat.

“My wrestlers!” Levi cheered, bouncing up and down in his booster. “Can I get out now, Aunt Merri?”

I checked the mirror to make sure Tristan was also parked and pushed my door open. “Yeah, sweetie. But stay on the path and wait for me.” I didn’t want him running through that calf-high grass and getting bitten by a snake or something. There wasn’t a single place that was safe for a kid to play.

Levi made sure to stay on the path, skipping over the cracks like he was playing hopscotch as I rounded the back of my car, meeting Tristan there.

“I can’t believe they were living like this,” I said quietly, a knot forming in my throat and making my words come out in a croak.

I felt Tristan’s gaze on the side of my face, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the dilapidated trailer that looked like it was going to crumble to the ground at any moment.

“It didn’t look like this last time you saw it?”

I shook my head, an abrasive laugh breaking free. “It’s always been a shithole, but it somehow got a million times worse since I left. The outline of the structure grew bleary as tears formed in my eyes. “And I left him to this. I just left him.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Tristan said, his words coming out in a hard clip that had me twisting my neck to look up at him. “This is on his dad. You need to remember that while you work to give that boy the good he deserves.”

His tone was so ardent, his features going from soft to stone in an instant as he said them, that his words actually worked to loosen the muscles in my shoulders. It shouldn’t be possible for a complete stranger to put me at ease, but there was something about Tristan Fanning that seemed to defy logic... at least for me.

I nodded, blinking rapidly to break the spell the swirling blue of his eyes pulled me into. God, he really was too handsome. If that were even a thing. His blond hair looked like it was a couple weeks past needing a cut, but somehow, instead of looking shaggy, it added to his appeal. Prominent, masculine brows sat over those beautiful eyes. His nose and cheekbones were sharp, but his square jaw evened everything out so he was still a hint more rugged than pretty. His button-down hugged wide, solid shoulders before tapering down to a lean waist, hiding what I was sure was a six pack, at the very least. He wore the shirt more casually than Warren did, open at the collar to reveal a hint of tanned skin at his throat, and, with his sleeves rolled up, putting a set of forearms roped with muscle on perfect display while his slacks covered strong, thick thighs.

Beneath the clean-cut trappings was something powerful, and while there was a little niggling in the back of my mind telling me I should be frightened, I couldn’t stop going back to those eyes. It was the kindness in his blue eyes that put my fear at ease. Those eyes were likely to get me into trouble if I didn’t watch myself.

If I wasn’t careful, I could do something epically stupid, like develop a crush on this man, and thatcould nothappen.

“It’ll be a quick in and out,” he said like he was trying to reassure me I could do this. “We’ll head straight to Levi’s room, get what he needs, then get the hell out of here. Sound like a plan?”

Before I could answer, Levi’s voice rang out from the middle of the path. “Come on, you guys!” he said in exasperation. “You’re goin’ so slow, and I wanna meet the dog.”

I curled my lips between my teeth and bit down to keep from laughing while a deep, raspy chuckle rattled from the chest of the man beside me.

Damn it, even his chuckle was attractive.

Giving Tristan a nod, I said, “Sounds like a great plan. Let’s get this over with.”

Chapter Six

Merritt

This time, as I wound my car through the streets of downtown Hope Valley and into a quiet residential area, Tristan was the one doing the leading.

The trip to the house I would never allow Levi to step foot into again had taken even less time than I’d anticipated. Turned out, my little guy hadn’t had much... and most of what he had was barely a step up from trash.

A lot of his clothes were worn out, stained, or had too many holes and tears, and most everything else was too damn small. As it was, the pants he was currently wearing rode up higher on his ankles than they should have.

I didn’t have much in the way of savings, but I’d take it all out if it meant getting Levi clothes that fit him properly.

He hadn’t cared all that much about clothes and toiletries as we were gathering up his things. While Tristan and I went through to pack up the items a seven-year-old boy would need for everyday living and basic hygiene, my nephew had been stuffing his precious wrestling figures into his backpack. Problem was, he’d dumped out all his school work and supplies to make room for them.

It took a few minutes to convince him that school stuffwasessential, no matter how much he might’ve hated math and science, but we finally got everything squared away and left that shitty trailer behind us.

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