“You know your mom was from Montana. I think she’d love it that you’re going to be raised there, too.”

“And Momma Whitney?”

“I think she’d like it, too.”

**

Cormac couldn’t sleep that night. His bed was large, the mattress new and ridiculously comfortable, his sheets and duvet equally luxurious and soft. His bedroom windows were open, welcoming the fresh sea air, carried in from the breeze off the Pacific Ocean. And yet he was restless. His mind wouldn’t shut off.

Frustrated, he yanked his pillow out from beneath his head and smashed it into a different shape. It was past midnight and he craved sleep—craved escape—but his thoughts raced, his conscience working away at him. Guilt. Sorrow. Regret.

Daisy was asking for Whitney again. She clearly missed Whitney, or at the very least, wondered about her.

It wasn’t the first time Daisy had asked about Whitney. Whitney came up every three or four months, usually whenever Whitney sent a gift or if Daisy played with the toy sent by Whitney.

Now he found himself wondering if Whitney was supposed to be in her life.

Not true.

He did know.

Whitney had been a huge part of Daisy’s life before April and Daryl died. She should have remained a huge part of her life even with them gone. But the logistics had been hellacious. Whitney there in Denver. He here in California. And the grief over the accident, as well as the constant guilt…

He’d escaped the accident. Whitney hadn’t. She’d still been in the limo when it was struck by the truck. In hindsight it was a blessing she’d been thrown from the limo, because it’s what allowed her to survive. Daryl and April had been trapped in the limo in the fire.

Cormac stretched his forearm over his face, shielding his eyes.

Remembering the accident still made him sick. Whenever he remembered Las Vegas he wanted to throw up.

And now he had Daisy, and even though he loved her, and even though he tried to be everything for her, he wasn’t enough. He’d never be enough.

He was hard. Ruthless. Selfish.

He hadn’t always been this way, though. His mother used to say that of all her boys, he was the sweetest. Cormac was her sugar and cinnamon spice. He’d blocked out a lot of memories of his childhood but he remembered loving to cuddle with her when he was small. He could still see himself nestled on her lap as she rocked him in the chair she kept in her sewing room.

He’d loved his mother so much that it had made his older brothers tease him. If they found him on Mom’s lap, they’d pull him off her lap and throw him down, wrestling him into submission.