“We send him away after the funeral. He asks too many questions.”
Noah squeezed his eyes shut tighter, terrified they would realize he was awake.
But something changed inside him that night.
Fear turned into determination.
From that moment on, my little boy became my protector.
The next morning, Daniel tried forcing Noah to go home with him.
Noah refused.
“I’m staying with Mom.”
Daniel’s smile vanished instantly.
“You don’t get to decide that.”
But Noah stood in front of my hospital bed with shaking legs and tears streaming down his face.
“Yes, I do.”
The nurses exchanged uncomfortable looks.
Daniel grabbed Noah’s arm hard enough to leave marks.
That was when another voice suddenly cut through the room.
“Take your hands off him.”
The room fell silent.
Even through the fog of unconsciousness, something inside me reacted to that voice.
A voice I hadn’t heard in almost ten years.
Ethan Cole.
My first love.
The man I thought had disappeared from my life forever.
He stood in the doorway wearing a dark wool coat soaked from the rain outside, his jaw tense, eyes locked directly on Daniel.
Daniel frowned. “Who the hell are you?”
But Noah spoke first.
“He’s the man Mom used to smile about in old pictures.”
Silence.
