Page 9 of Long Road Home

I stepped forward, pushing her back onto the porch and I closed the door behind me. Toby didn’t need to hear this. Not before I talked to him. “Did you tell him?”

Rebecca had always been beautiful. All the Marxs were with their jet black hair, but where Jordan had these eyes that were so light blue they sometimes sparkled like glass, Rebecca’s were almost as black as her hair.

When she glared at me, like she did now, it was frightening. Her lip curled. “Not yet. But you’re going to or I will.”

“I know.” She opened her mouth, but I held up my palm. “I will, but I have to talk to Toby first.”

Tears filled her eyes and her chin wobbled. The sweetness of the look on her face almost made me cry. Damn it. I had royally screwed all of this up. “Toby? Toby is my nephew’s name?”

Shit. Her gaze went to the windows upstairs like she was searching for a glimpse of him and came back to mine. Her chin wobbled stronger. “I have a nephew.”

“Tobias Jordan,” I said, my own tears clogging my throat. “His friends call him Toby.” Sometimes TJ, but that wasn’t as common.

Her mouth formed the words, but no sound came out.

“Listen, Rebecca. I’m sorry. And I’ll make this right somehow. But I need to explain it to Toby first and see what he wants before I talk to Jordan. Can you give me some time?”

All emotion she showed evaporated in a blink. “He’ll want his family. Or at least he better, Destiny, because if I find out you took off with him again and are going to hide him from us, you are mistaken.”

“Rebecca—”

She turned on her heels, holding up her hand. “You can have until tomorrow, but then I’m telling Jordan.”

She ran down the driveway, hopped into a silver truck and took off.

Damn it, damn it, damn it.

The door behind me opened and Toby glared at me. He was shooting daggers out of icy eyes exactly like his father did earlier.

I pressed the palms of my hands to my forehead and groaned.

“Who was that?”

It was time. Do or die. Sink or swim. Time to completely blow up my precious son’s little life. Putting the final nail in my coffin where I unequivocally earned the title of Worst Mom in the World seemed like a fun way to end the worst day ever.

“Let’s go inside,” I said, my shoulders falling with the weight of everything that was bound to come at us. I pulled open the screen door. “I’ll explain everything.”

Toby’s gaze went behind me. “Who was that woman?”

Several moments passed.

God give me strength and not have him run upstairs and slam his door again.

“That was Jordan’s sister.” My voice was so soft I barely heard myself. His icy glare slid to me and his jaw tightened. “That was Rebecca. Your aunt. Can we go sit down and talk?”

Four

Destiny

“I never meantfor you to find out this way.” I slid onto the couch where Toby curled up into one corner, knees to chest, chin on his knees. I took the opposite corner, crossed one leg, foot under my knee, and faced him.

“I used to ask about him.”

For years. Until he turned eight. I thought he’d accepted his dad wasn’t in his life and that was it.

What a fool I was.

“To explain what happened, I need to go back to the beginning.” And how did I explain it all to a ten-year-old boy so he understood when I was beginning to doubt I even understood what I’d done? Tillie was wrong all those years. I wasn’t strong. I didn’t have the strength my mom lacked. I was just like her…with fast feet when life got tough.

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