Page 7 of Won't Back Down

“What will you do now?”

That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question.

“Come home. I haven’t figured anything out yet, but this was my first stop when coming back on-island.” I forced a smile that I hoped looked more genuine than it felt. “I couldn’t miss Aubrey’s big seventh!”

“Yeah!” Aubrey pumped her little fist. “Let’s eat!”

As the rest of the assembled guests queued up, Willa didn’t move. “Why didn’t you tell me?” Her soft voice may as well have been a shout for all that I felt her betrayal.

“I didn’t want to worry you.” It was the truth, if not the whole of it.

“And you didn’t think your silence would make me worry?”

I opened my mouth to protest, but she had a point. One I hadn’t considered between surgeries and agonizing PT. “Fair point. I’m sorry.”

A behemoth black dog materialized like a ghost at Willa’s side, leaning into her hip. Her hand dropped to his ruff, and something in her posture relaxed incrementally.

“Clearly, this is Roy.”

“Yep, this is my baby.”

I’d heard about the dog, but this was the first time I’d met him. He was a massive bastard, who could easily take a chunk out of anybody who so much as looked at his mama wrong. His big golden eyes studied me and seemed to say the jury was still out.

Moved along by the rest of the guests, I turned my attention toward filling my plate. I ended up at a table with Bree and Ed. Because she’d been toward the end of the line, Willa seemed to have nowhere left to sit other than next to me. Knowing she’d likely prefer to be at the outside edge, away from the bulk of the guests, I’d chosen the end of the bench closer to the house. It was the kind of concession I’d always made for her, and she glanced at me with something that might have been gratitude before taking her seat.

“It’s a hell of a thing, celebrating life one day and mourning death in the same week,” Ed muttered.

I blinked and looked at Willa. “Your grandfather’s funeral? I didn’t realize it hadn’t happened yet.” Jace hadn’t mentioned that. Then again, Jace hadn’t known a whole hell of a lot when he’d messaged me.

“Granddaddy wanted to be cremated. That took time. We’re having a dual memorial for both him and Grandma in a few days, per their wishes.” She cut a piece of burger and fed it to Roy. “I put it off a bit, hoping Jace would be able to come home. But he’s out of contact on a mission right now, as usual, so here we are.”

No. He’d sent me instead.

Temper flashed that he wasn’t here for her when she needed him. Again.

I knew he had his duties, and that their relationship was strained, but this was fucking ridiculous. He was the only family she had left that she acknowledged, and a funeral likely meant she’d have to face the ones she no longer claimed.

“Are your parents coming?”

Willa stiffened as if I’d hit her with an electric shock. Roy immediately shoved his enormous head under her arm in comfort. “Presumably. They’ve been informed by my grandparents’ attorney. I haven’t communicated with them directly.”

They’d been fully estranged since she’d turned eighteen, but I hadn’t been sure if the recent deaths had changed that. Evidently not. I knew something had happened with her parents during her time off-island. I’d known it that summer I’d joined the Navy, though she’d never talked about it, and I’d left anyway, telling myself that she’d be fine.

She wasn’t fine. And I knew the prospect of dealing with them again, on even a limited basis, would have her wound up in knots that even a sailor would be challenged to untie.

“Okay. Where and when?”

She frowned at me. “What?”

“Jace may not be here, but I am. I’m not letting you face them alone.”

I didn’t want to let her face anything alone ever again. Not if I could help it.

CHAPTER 3

WILLA

“Are we gonna talk about it?”