Sophie Oak: Pure Bliss

Hope grinned from her perch on Noah’s lap. Since they had stormed into the cabin hours before, Noah and James had passed her between each other as though neither one was willing to let her go a single minute without one of their hands on her. Noah’s finger brushed against her cheek.

“I wish he could die again. I’d like a shot at him,” Noah said, staring at the bruises.

“Too bad,” she said, leaning over to kiss him. She couldn’t stop. She kissed them whenever she could. “Lucy and I took care of it.” Hope turned to look at Laura. “Has Doc said anything yet?”

Laura came out from behind her desk. “Caleb says all of her wounds are superficial. He’s cleaned her up and given her his best dose of Valium.” She sobered. “He’s going to watch over her. Cam will take her statement later. She needs to rest now. I think we have enough to call this self-defense.”

Cam ran a hand through his sandy hair. “I do. And I called Atlanta PD. They’re sending a rep tomorrow to see if they can close a couple of cases. And they’ll want to talk to Brad back there. We’re on the lookout for the other one.”

The cowboy who had tried to kill her men was safely in a jail cell.

Jesse McCann stepped forward. “Thank you. It would mean a lot to both me and Cade if we could get it on the record that Christian Grady was a criminal.”

Hope turned to him. The superhot mechanics had showed up with her men, guns in hand. “How did you know him?”

She felt Noah’s hands tighten around her waist, and suddenly James’s hand was on her knee, both of her men providing support as though they knew what she was thinking. If Christian had hurt Cade and Jesse, she might have inadvertently aided in some criminal acts against them.

Cade leaned against the wall, his whole body seemingly weary. “Sweetheart, nothing that man did was your fault. Jesse and I grew up in Florida.”

“Tallahassee. But we’re not related or anything,” Jesse admitted. “Not by blood.”

“Sometimes you don’t need blood to be brothers,” James said, his voice deep. He and Noah exchanged looks. Hope felt her heart swell.

Cade nodded, and his breath hitched slightly. “We met in foster care. I’d been in the system for a long time, but Jesse had just been placed.”

“I got lucky,” Jesse said. “So fucking lucky. I got placed with a woman named Nancy Gibbs. She was an older woman. She’d never been married. Never had kids of her own. I thought she was doing it for the money. You know it happens.”

“Not Nan.” Cade shook his head, his lips curving up in a reminiscent smile. “She believed. She really believed she could make a difference. She took care of us. She made me believe I could be something other than a criminal. She made sure we finished high school and got into college.”

Jesse frowned. “If we’d been around, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.”

Hope could guess. “She was an older woman? I ask because Christian loved to talk to older people. He would take tours of retirement facilities.”

Cade nodded. “Our sophomore year she had a little series of strokes, and we put her in an assisted-living facility. Just until summer. We were going to come home and take over her rehab, but she wouldn’t let us quit school. Christian Grady got her to turn over her entire estate. He drained her dry, and when there was no money left, the state shoved her into some piece-of-crap home. We weren’t her blood so no one informed us. We had to find her.”

Jesse continued, his voice low and tortured. “She was our mother in every sense of the word but biology, and we weren’t there when she died of pneumonia. She was an amazing woman, and she died in utter poverty, alone and unloved.”

“Not unloved,” Hope said, tears filling her eyes. “You loved her.”

Noah rested his head on her shoulder. “They know. Our parents always know.”

Hope took a deep breath. “I envy all of you. My mom doesn’t care.”

Jesse stepped forward. “That’s not true. Hope, we haven’t told you everything. When we started looking for the man who bilked our foster mom, we found out about you. We didn’t believe that he was dead. We started looking for you. We went to your mother.”

She felt her eyes widen. “You talked to my mom?”

“Your mom bankrolled a lot of our search. She gave us what she could because she had been looking for you for years.” Jesse got to one knee. “Hope, your mom has regretted that one moment for ten years. She’s been alone. You’ve been the only thing on her mind, finding you. She loves you. She just wasn’t good at showing it.”

A sob tore from her chest. “My mom?” She couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t.

“She wants you, baby,” James said, kissing her forehead. “She wants you. How could she not? Does she know where Hope is?”

“Yes. We’ve kept her updated for the last month, but she’s been afraid to call. She thinks you won’t want to talk to her. She would rather get updates from us than lose track of you again,” Cade explained. “She cried when we told her we’d found you. She cried like a baby and thanked god. She made mistakes before, Hope, but she is family.”

And family meant something. “I want to talk to her.”

“We’ll bring her to the ranch,” Noah promised.

Her mother wanted her. Years of pain slipped away. Mistakes had been made and forgiven. Family was what she made it. Noah and James were her family. Bliss was her family. And her mother was her family. Her heart was a huge, never-ending vessel capable of expanding with each new person she met.

“Thank you.” James stood up and held out a hand to Jesse and Cade. “My brother and I can’t express how much we appreciate your help. She’s everything to us.”

They both shook his hand. Cade gripped James’s and then reached for Noah’s. “We both hope you feel that way because we don’t want to leave here. We’ve only been in Bliss for a couple of weeks, but this feels like home.”

“We love it here,” Jesse said.

“And it seems like you’ll fit right in.” Cam stood up, looking the two new men over. “But you two better just be mechanics from now on. No more vigilantes.”

“Those days are over,” Cade promised. “Just life from here on out.”

Just life. It was all open in front of her. Life. In all its glories and wonders. Life with its brilliant uncertainties.

She wrapped an arm around Noah and reached out for James, drawing him close. Their arms closed around her. Her future was defined by four hands, four loving arms, and two wide-open hearts.

“Take me home,” she whispered.

“Always,” Noah said.

“Forever,” James added.

They took her hands and led her home.

THE END

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