Evelyn's dream of securing a scholarship to America's top ballet school shattered when her mother was brutally murdered during her teenage years. Determined to make a difference, she became a detective, ready to take on the world. Assigned to invest...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
--<3--
Jeremiah hadn't expected to see the detective at the hospital, not today of all days. The moment his gaze found her, his chest jolted as though his heart had leapt forward without asking permission. For a fleeting second, he thought about running to her, about catching her expression and asking if she was all right. But then he noticed the older man beside her. The resemblance was undeniable, the same sharp bone structure, the same eyes, even the same nose. She was her father's echo.
"Is that the detective I've heard so much about?" she teased, her voice thin but carrying a mischievous lilt that still warmed him like a childhood lullaby. Jeremiah tore his eyes from the brown-haired woman and forced them onto his mother's smiling face. Around them, the hospital throbbed with motion, yet all of it blurred until only two worlds existed: himself and his mother, and Evelyn with her father across the corridor.
"How did you know?" he asked, keeping his tone soft. He'd always spoken gently to her. She had suffered too much already, more than anyone deserved. She was the reason he was still standing, the one who shielded him when his father's rage had burned hot and merciless. So many times they'd tried to escape, only to be dragged back, punished harder for their defiance. To Jeremiah, his mother was no ordinary woman, she was a survivor, a hero.
"The way you look at her tells me everything I need to know." Her words sank into him, curling like a secret he didn't want to acknowledge. He swallowed against the dryness in his throat. All she had ever wanted was to see him happy, and he knew if the cancer stole her away, her last wish would be that someone else carried that torch for him. Jeremiah dragged his gaze back to Evelyn. She sat close to her father, their heads tilted together in conversation.
"I don't think she feels the same, Mom. She asked me to leave her alone the other day." His voice broke into a rough whisper, raw from the sting that had carved into him that day. Since then, every hour without her had felt heavier, pressing him deeper into the fear that she simply didn't want him.
"Have patience, my son." His mother's fingers pressed into his arm, a fragile squeeze filled with the iron of her spirit.
"She's been walking one path for a long time. You can't expect her to leap onto another overnight and pretend it's easy. Those codes she follows are strict, they define her world." Jeremiah's jaw tensed. His eyes lingered on Evelyn's profile, memorizing the curve of her cheek, the intensity she listened to her father. His mom began to shuffle forward, step by step, her gaze fixed on the detective and her father. Jeremiah blinked in alarm.
"Mom..." He didn't need to ask where she was headed; her intention radiated from every movement.
"I want to meet my future family," she declared with certainty, as though fate had already whispered the outcome into her ear. A low huff escaped him, part groan, part reluctant laugh. She'd never been the kind of mother to shove women at him, never the meddler some of his friends complained about. But today his luck had run dry. He could already picture the heat rising in his cheeks when she said something outrageous.
