The Forgotten One (The Heirs #2)

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Let’s take a drive.”

The absolute need to get behind the wheel and go, just go ... overwhelmed and consumed him.

Miss Abigale stood on her porch, waving as Max and Sarah drove away.

They’d sat in the woman’s home for two hours, drinking hot cocoa and eating cookies.

The moment he walked through the door, a flood of sensations poured into his veins. There wasn’t a time in Max’s life, or any that he remembered, in any event, when simply walking through a door made him feel safe.

The faded memory of Miss Abigale was more of a blurry image from his dreams. Dreams that repeated at times of stress, over and over.

Miss Abigale told him how happy she was the day his mother brought him home from the hospital.

She spoke of his life like no one had before.

The many group homes and semipermanent placements all had one thing in common.

Zero history.

Miss Abigale recounted his life with a smile and genuine warmth.

It wasn’t until she proposed that he look around the back house that Max suggested they leave and come back the next day.

The prospect of him returning put an even greater smile on the woman’s face.

Now Max sat staring out the windshield of the rental car, contemplating if he should turn left ... or right.

“Where do you want to go?” Sarah asked.

He turned to look at her. “I don’t care. I’ve been cooped up all weekend and need to get out.”

“You grew up here—I’m up for whatever.”

He turned left.

“Miss Abigale is a sweet woman,” Sarah started. “It was good of you to save her feelings by downplaying your childhood.”

Max nodded. “I followed your lead. You’re skilled at telling half truths.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment.”

He wasn’t either.

Sarah waited a beat. “Can I ask you something?”

Max glanced over, then back to the road. “Isn’t that the cornerstone of this relationship? You asking questions?”

Sarah slapped her lips together and stayed silent.

That probably wasn’t the right thing to say. “What do you want to know, Sarah?”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“You flew all the way here with me ...”

She huffed out a breath and twisted in her seat to look at him. “How was it growing up in the system? How many families did you live with?”

How could he tell her without looking like he was pining for her sympathy? “I don’t remember the first group home. I couldn’t tell you how long I was there. I vaguely remember the first foster ... a couple.” The memory of roasted chicken filling the house with the scent of garlic rose like a clouded memory. “I think they had another kid. Might have been theirs, or another foster. Don’t know. I do remember bits and pieces of the second group home.”

“When you say ‘group home’ ... what do you mean?”

“A home that takes in a bunch of kids until a more permanent foster parent steps up.”

“Like an orphanage?”

“They don’t have those anymore. Not in the States anyway.” Max shrugged as he weaved through the outskirts of Phoenix and into the canyons.

“What happened with the first foster family?”

“I have no idea. I suppose the fact that I did have a living parent that could come back into the picture and obtain custody might have been a deterrent for permanent placement. Either way, by the time I was in the second group home, I was ... five, I think.”

“That’s so sad.”

“I wasn’t lonely. There were always kids around. Problem was, just when you got comfortable, the group foster home would have some kind of an issue, and they’d shuffle you somewhere else. Or a family brings you in, but then changes their mind, and then you’re back to a group home. The reality is, babies get adopted. Toddlers ... they have a chance. The older you get, the harder it is.”

“That sounds like a screwed-up system.”

“Growing up in the system and not on the streets was a plus. Of course, I didn’t know that until I ran away from my second-to-last home.”

“You slept on the streets?”

Max nodded once. “It wasn’t long. It gets cold here at night in the winter.”

“Sounds awful.”

“I was a kid. It felt like freedom. I was no longer at the mercy of the adults in charge of taking care of me, pointing across town and telling me to ‘go there.’”

“God, Max ... I’m so sorry.”

Max pulled off the main road and into a parking lot where people staged for the local hiking trails.

“It was a long time ago, Sarah. The only reason this is even being brought up is because of my current circumstances. It’s only a matter of time before one of your colleagues gets ahold of my social services record and plasters it all over the place.” He put the car in park and turned the engine off.

“Sad, but true.”

“I want to get my hands on it first.”

“Didn’t Alex and Chase say they knew about your records?”

Max nodded. “They have the CliffsNotes version. I want the official records.”

“Why? You know your story better than anybody.”

“I don’t want to read about me in a magazine and question if it is right or wrong. I want to know if someone is making shit up.”

The larger truth, which he didn’t share with Sarah, was that he’d closed the door on his childhood with no intention of opening it back up. He’d spent thirty years of his life convinced that parents didn’t matter. Family didn’t matter.

And then strangers knocked on his door and changed all that.

Max met the next day with a lightness on his shoulders that he hadn’t felt in a while.

Wearing a pair of trusted jeans and a flannel shirt added to his ease, along with his plans for the day.

The double-room suite had come in unexpectedly handy the night before.

The weight of the previous day continued into the night, making any physical connection with Sarah feel forced. He knew, on some level, that he was falling into a pattern. One where his inability to control the world around him shut him down.

There hadn’t been a woman in his life that didn’t tell him he was emotionally unavailable or that he was a shitty communicator.

Most of the time, he accepted these things as fact and did nothing to try and change. It didn’t take a psychologist to figure out why he acted the way he did. Only now that Pandora’s box had been opened, Max considered what it might be like if he did let someone in.

He wasn’t sure if that person was Sarah; it was way too new for that. But he did know that her presence while he unwrapped the layers of his life offered some sort of balm.

And he didn’t want her to bail.

Max woke early and ordered room service.

He googled his name to see if the media had a hint of where he was.

So far, all he read was the highlights of the press conference his siblings had given.

Most of which was about Stone Enterprises and how Max’s presence changed nothing about how the company was run.

When the personal questions were brought up, the quotes were positive and bright.

Chase and Alex were excited to get to know their half sibling and welcome him into the family. No, they weren’t upset about sharing Aaron Stone’s estate, especially since they never thought they’d inherit it in the first place.

They told the press that Max had one reporter he was sharing his story with and answering questions. And one only. “If you happen to find my brother,” Alex said in a quote, “he isn’t going to talk to you. You’re better off following the latest Hollywood train wreck.”

The questions swung back to the company and speculations ... which Alex answered like a practiced politician.

Max was finishing up the last of his breakfast when he heard Sarah stirring in her room.

The sound of running water prompted him to order another pot of coffee.

When she emerged, her red hair falling in wet curls around her face, Max was closing the door behind the latest order from the kitchen.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Morning.” Max glanced over, felt that the bruising around her eye had lost some of its color during the night. It was still a mess, but not what he expected had the doctor been right and she’d fractured something. Max was a long way from a medical professional, but he’d seen his share of broken noses ... could count two that he’d caused himself. And they didn’t fade as quickly as Sarah’s. “How did you sleep?” he asked.

“Like a rock,” she told him.

Sarah pulled a chair out from under the dining table, took a seat, and reached for the pot of coffee.

She eyed the metallic cover that room service used to protect the food from the elements as it weaved its way up from the kitchen to the guest rooms. “What did you order?”

“Eggs, bacon ... breakfast stuff. And fruit. Not sure what you wanted.”

“None for you?”

He glanced at his watch. “I’ve already eaten, been up for two hours. The day’s half over.”

Sarah pulled one foot onto the chair where she was sitting, her bent knee up to her chest, and sipped her black coffee. “Your idea of half over and mine are two very different things.”

It was five minutes shy of eight in the morning. “When does your workday start?” Max asked.

“It’s flexible when I don’t have a meeting. As long as I write my stories and make my deadlines, Patrick could care less what time we show up ... well, maybe not care less, but he doesn’t pitch much of a fit.” Sarah lifted the lid to the food and snagged a dry piece of toast.

“When does Patrick expect your next story?”

“Yesterday. But he’s not getting anything for two weeks.” She bit off a piece of her toast and chewed.

Max found the movement of her jaw mildly fascinating and found himself staring. She wasn’t wearing makeup, which felt intimate. Something that a woman sharing coffee in a hotel room with a lover would do. He was used to women that overly painted their faces until their clothes were tossed on a bedroom floor. After that, makeup was an option. But before sharing pillow space ... no.

“What’s on the agenda today?” she asked between bites.

“Miss Abigale’s.”

“To look through the back house?”

“Probably.” Abigale had told them that there were a couple of boxes of his mother’s things in the small attic space. Stuff she would have brought down if she trusted herself on a ladder. But she didn’t.

As tempted as Max had been to retrieve those boxes the day before, he knew he needed time to process.

The mantra of more than one state-appointed counselor whispered in his head. “Think before you act. Take a breath, take a day ... when anger, stress, worry, anxiety ... anything that triggers you is set off, give it time before you react.”

That advice was ignored in his teens, considered in his twenties, and made sense now.

“What do you mean, ‘probably’?”

“Her yard is neglected. The porch is falling apart. And the weeds in her driveway have taken over the concrete.” And Max needed to work. Physical labor. Something he hadn’t done since the zeros had shown up in his bank account.

Sarah dropped the hand holding her toast slowly. “We’re going there to play gardener?”

He pointed to his chest. “I’m going there to play gardener. If you want to come, great. If not, I get it. I wouldn’t expect you to swing a Weed Eater around. You saw how she was moving.” Whether it was age, weight, or arthritis, it didn’t matter. Miss Abigale needed to have something done, and Max needed to do something.

“You’re not anxious to find your mother?”

“She’s been missing from my life for thirty years, a few more days isn’t going to hurt.”

An hour later Max followed the rented car Sarah drove in a rented truck he picked up from Home Depot.

In the back were hand tools, power tools, bags of mulch, and raw lumber.

Two of the day laborers that could be found at just about any hardware store parking lot had jumped into the cab with him when Max pulled out a couple of hundred-dollar bills.

They were Hispanic, which was the norm in Arizona.

Hector, the younger of the two, had a good grasp of the English language. Luis did not.

While Max could muddle his way through Spanish, it was a lot easier when someone else did the talking.

Sarah parked on the street in front of Miss Abigale’s house, and Max backed down the driveway.

Max and the other two men jumped out of the cab of the truck and stared at years of neglect.

Luis whistled, said something to Hector.

“What do you want done?” Hector asked.

“Everything. We’ll start close to the house and make our way out.”

The sound of a screen door slapping against the frame made Max look up.

“What on earth is going on out here?” Miss Abigale called from the porch.

Max excused himself from his helpers and strode her way. “I need you to tell me what you like and what you don’t in this yard.”

“Excuse me?”

He placed a hand on the railing by the steps leading up to the house. “This is a hazard. You can’t trust it with your bad knees. And if we don’t get this yard under control, you’re liable to find yourself face to face with a rattlesnake hidden in the weeds.”

Sarah walked down the driveway with her hands full of bags.

Max took several from her and walked up the steps.

“You’re going to clean up my yard?”

“We are, and you can’t say no,” Sarah said as she walked around Miss Abigale and into the house.

“Child, I am no fool. I’ll take all the help I can get.”

Max winked at Miss Abigale’s smiling face before following Sarah inside.