30. Chapter 30

We were too late.

"I'm so sorry, son." My dad pulled me into a crushing hug as my own son held on tightly to my hand.

"I didn't think we'd run out of time to get here," I admitted in his ear as my dad squeezed me hard. His hug, while meant to comfort me, was also a tool he used to try to pull himself back together. After a minute, he finally pulled away and then reached down to snatch my son up from where he stood by my side.

"Hey, little man, how about we give your dad some time here and we go hunt down some cookies?"

"Tookies," My boy repeated as his lip poked out in response to the tears in my eyes. "Daddy!"

"It's okay, J.J. Go get some cookies with your Pop. I'll be there in a minute. Save me one, okay?"

"Tay." He snuggled his head down into my dad's shoulder as they walked away. My heart lurched in my chest. My boy wasn't even 3 years old yet and he already experienced the neglect his mother put him through and then losing his great grandfather.

Even his innocence couldn't shelter him from everything forever. As my dad marched down the hallway with his grandson in his arms, I turned back to the hospital room where the rest of my family had gathered. Despite the room being cramped with family, the only person who registered for me was her. Posie. She stood there looking like a wounded angel, pushing Pops' thin, silver hair back off his forehead.

I got the call late last night that he slipped into a coma and an ambulance was called to bring him to the hospital. "We've been waiting for you," she said without looking away from Pops.

"I thought…" The words were all but a whisper on my lips as I took in the steady beeping of the monitor the old man was hooked to.

Posie shook her head. "The machines are doing the work for him, only long enough for you to get here to say goodbye."

"But…" I was about to argue until my mother's hand came down on my shoulder. She shook her head, as if to tell me not to beg for hope. How could they all be so resigned.

"He has a DNR," Posie explained. "The only exception to the ‘no machines' rule was to keep him here long enough to give everyone closure, time to say goodbye. You're the last one here, so once you say your goodbyes, he will be able to finally rest."

A tear travelled down her face and landed where her hand had joined with Pops' lifeless one. I moved a little closer to the bed.

"Come on, boys, let's give them a moment." Mom ordered as she began to usher my brothers out of the room. Each of them clapped a hand down on my shoulder before leaving the room. Evan stopped and looked me in the eyes, as if he wanted to give me some kind of warning.

‘Don't hurt Posie.'

He didn't have to say verbalize it for me to get the message loud and clear. As Evan left and shut the door, I moved closer to the same side of the bed Posie stood on. "I thought we would have more time," she stated.

"I know. When Devon came to bring me home, I thought there would be enough time to put in for the time off at work, pack up, and plan a week or two back home. If I'd realized…"

Posie shook her head and cut off that thought immediately. "We all knew it wouldn't be long, but I think denial is a bitch sometimes." She chuckled. "Sorry, Dad." She whispered to the man who could no longer hear her. It was weird hearing her call him "Dad". That was what he had become to her in my absence, though. Pops had been her father for the officially for eleven years and probably acted as one well before that too.

"I thought that it was perfect timing, having that idiot cheat on me, so that I could stay home with Dad and not have to feel like I was being ripped apart by someone demanding my attention away from him." She shook her head and sniffled back her emotions before watery eyes turned up to meet mine. "I thought I'd have more than a single day there at the farm with him."

I pulled her into a hug and held on tightly while she fell apart in my arms. My gaze slipped past her to Pops, and I could have sworn his lips tipped up in a smile.

"Don't worry, Pops, I've got her now," I promised. There was no telling if he heard me, or even if it registered to Posie what I'd just said. None of that mattered because I would hold true to my promise to the man I respected most in my life. It was time to figure out how to make my life work, so that my son and the woman I'd been in love with for years, could both be a part of it.

"I'm glad you were able to come," Posie whispered in my ear before backing up and swiping away her tears. "He was so proud of you."

I wanted to deny what she said. How could he be proud of me? The man wanted me to be with the girl he raised, and I'd let them both down. He'd been right all along, she was perfect for me, but I didn't think the opposite was true. By the time I realized that she was exactly who I needed, I'd already screwed everything up and made it damn near impossible.

"You don't have to believe me, but he talked about you often. Trust me when I say, he was extremely proud of you for following your heart, for taking on the thankless job of protecting people and finding them justice. The only thing that would have made it better, was if you'd been closer to home. That was the only complaint he ever made about you, that we didn't get to see you often enough."

"Fuck." The word dragged out in a hoarse whisper. That hurt. She was telling me something good, but at the same time, my heart sank. I should have been around more. My boy should have been able to get to know his great grandfather better before it was too late. It was something I would have rectified, if not for the poor choices I'd made. My son's mother was the point of contention with me coming back to town. She wanted me to pay for her to relocate here, otherwise she would fight me on the move and try to keep my son.

I wish I had fought her harder on everything. If I had, maybe all that time wouldn't have been lost. Not just with Pops, my boy, and me but with Posie, too.

"We should let them come in and take care of him," I finally said as I held Posie in my arms. She bobbed her head and allowed me to move her along out of the room. Just as we got to the door, her head swiveled, and she took one last look at the man who she had come to know as a second father.

"I hope he's sitting on a rocking chair somewhere with your grandma. He missed her so much all these years."

"I bet he is," I confirmed even though I didn't really know fuck all about what happened to people after they died. At least not what happened to their souls. I was the one to bring them justice, sometimes, if they died from a violent act but on the days when being honest with myself won out over the fantasy, I had to admit that there wasn't a single fiber of my being that believed the dead sought out justice for the wrongs committed against them. If there was a better place after all this, then they were enjoying it, not busy concerning themselves with what already happened and can't be changed.

"I'm not sure where you live these days," I admitted as we moved closer to the elevator. I pulled my phone out to text my parents, so that they would keep my son with them for a while. Posie needed me.

"The barn," she said. "But I think I want to stay at Dad's house tonight."

"Okay, we'll go there."

I knew she'd broken up with that tool who had swooped in when my son's mom played mind games with Posie on her birthday, but I didn't think she'd moved back into the barn. Last I saw it, the damn place looked exactly as the name entailed, a musty old barn filled with hay, horse tack, and all the crap projects that Pops thought he'd get to one day. Truthfully, I wondered why Posie had never taken over her own family farm and the house there. Despite what her mother had done, I didn't think Posie let that bother her these days.

"He really was my second dad," she whimpered. "He was everything."

"I know, sweet girl," I mumbled into her hair and then regretted my words as she stiffened in my arms. "What did I do?"

Posie shook her head. "That's what he always called me. That and Petal." She grinned up at me through her watery smile.

"Think maybe he was talking through me, then, because I've never called you that or thought of you as that."

The smile she wore grew wider. "That's good. Like a final goodbye from him." We took a few more steps before she spoke again. "Did you call me Sweet Posie before, though, in your letters."

"It seems so long ago that I wrote those," I admitted. "My brother caught me writing one to you yesterday when he came to tell me it was time to get my butt back here for Pops."

"You still write me?" She sounded surprised.

"I haven't written since you started dating that asshole."

"Oh." The one word came out more like a disappointed huff. I tipped my chin down to look at her.

"I didn't think you'd been reading anything before that anyway."

She shrugged her shoulders. "I may have skimmed them before adding everything to the box."

"The box?"

"I have a box filled with every letter you ever wrote me."

That brought a small smile to my face. "What a coincidence. I have a similar box, only it locks and no one else knows the code to get into it."

She giggled softly. "You keep my letters in a safe?"

"They're the most precious thing I own, so yes."

"Max," she muttered.

"I know. Now isn't the time to get into this. I won't lie to you though. Outside of my son, you are still the most important person in the world to me. The past few years, it has felt like I've been missing a limb by not having those little pieces of you anymore. I missed hearing about your day, how Pops was doing from your perspective, and how my brother would never remember what your characters looked like if you didn't draw him pictures of them."

Her soft chuckle warmed my heart a bit. "That sounds like something I'd say about your brother."

I squeezed her to my side a bit tighter before I realized that neither of us had paid a bit of attention to where we were headed. "I tossed Dad my keys since the car seat and all of J.J.'s things were in the truck. Where are you parked?"

"I'm just over there," Posie pointed, and I followed the direction until I saw an old seventies era Ford Bronco. It had a refreshed sky-blue paint job and somehow felt like the perfect fit for her. When we got closer, I glanced down and noted the license plate. PtlPshr. Posie must have noticed, and she cracked a grin as I tried to puzzle out what it meant.

"Petal Pusher," she said and then cracked up. "Dad almost always called me Petal instead of Posie. It was a little thing he used to do to tease me when I was younger to get me to come out of my shell and cross the road to come talk to him. When I bought the Bronco, he shook his head at me and said, ‘And everyone wonders why…'" Posie stopped mid-sentence and tried to shake it off.

"Please, finish."

She sighed as if resigned to do just that even though she didn't want to. "He said, ‘Everyone wonders why I say you and my grandson would be perfect for one another if you both ever got your shit together.'"

Posie grimaced up at me and then back down at the license plate that started the conversation. "He said I was going to end up pushing the damn thing more than driving it because Ford vehicles were named with the acronym for Found on Road Dead for a reason." She giggled again. "That man was a trip. He dubbed my baby The Petal Pusher. So, I worked out how to get the gist of her title onto a license plate."

"I bet he loved that."

"He did. Every time he saw it, Dad smiled and winked at me." Her face crumpled as she said that, and I pulled her into my arms feeling the ache of missing my pops while she missed her dad.

"Come on, let's get you home for now." She handed me her keys without protest and went to climb into the passenger side. "Will people be headed to the farm?" I asked, not knowing if they'd already planned anything.

"I don't think so. That will most likely happen after..."

Posie couldn't bring herself to say it and neither could I. Instead, I gave her a quick nod and started her truck. The damn thing rumbled to life beneath my fingertips. Part of me was curious about how her idiot cheater ex hadn't heard her pull up to the house in this thing. He must have really been invested in whatever he was getting up to with my brother's ex.

"I can't wrap my head around the fact that he's gone," she whispered.

"I can't either. It fucking sucks. I kept thinking I had all the time in the world, and you'd think when I fucked up and didn't come after you that time that I'd have learned a lesson."

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Never mind," I mumbled as we pulled into traffic.

"Can we not do that? I feel like most of our problems were self-inflicted because one or the other of us has always been afraid of saying the thing that needs to be said. I've learned lessons in life too. It's short. You never know how many years you get, and I'm tired of living with regrets, Max."

I glanced over at Posie's beautiful face that was pulled tight with grief and frustration. "Okay. I knew you came to my house that time and I let my brother talk me out of going after you because I didn't think I was ready for you yet. I still needed to put time in on the job and I figured you needed to stay back home to be able to work with Evan."

"You recognized me?" She asked.

I shook my head and kept my eyes on the road. "My neighbor had a Ring camera on his house that caught part of my front stoop as well. After Jake and I noticed you, and the way you pulled off, I had to make sure it wasn't someone watching my place because of a case I'd worked. I went and pulled the video."

"And you saw me looking like an insane creeper," she groused.

"I never once thought that about you. Myself, maybe, but not you."

"Yeah, okay. Since when has the great Maxwell Carter ever come off as a creeper?"

"The night after your 25th birthday when I sat there on the side of the barn, waiting for you to come back from your date with that asshole. I went there to convince you that I wanted you, but needed to figure out how to get closer to home without J.J's mom pitching a fit about it. I hoped you'd be willing to give us a shot." I shook my head as I remembered that night.

"You looked so happy when you got out of his car. I figured it wasn't fair of me to ask that you put your life on hold when you had the promise of something good. It wasn't fair to ask you to step in and put up with the drama Beth would sling your way, the fact that I had a kid with her, and that we still didn't live anywhere close to one another."

"Wow, we are so freakin' dysfunctional," Posie said before she started to laugh. "No wonder Jack kept trying to drag us together." Our awkward chuckles died down before she spoke again, and what she had to say completely blew my mind. "I would have moved there. I don't know why you thought anything was holding me back. Half the time Evan and I used video chats for meetings anyway because we could never link our schedules up with whatever else we had going on."

I didn't know what to say to that. If that was true, then that meant my brother was an asshole for not telling me it was a possibility. Then again, it wasn't really his place to work out the finer details of my relationship with his business partner. Hearing her say that was a kick in the fucking teeth though. It meant we could have been together this whole time that I had been a stubborn ass about my job and thinking she'd feel the same.

"Are you going to say anything?"

"I'm too busy mentally kicking my own ass for never talking to you about it. I thought I was doing both of us a favor by waiting until I was able to get my time in on the job and come back. If I had known you'd be willing to come stay with me and it wouldn't have fucked up your job… Jesus, Posie. Everything could have been so different. J.J. might have been yours. I know he wouldn't be the same, but we might have had our own."

"You can't say things like. You can never regret your son."

I shook my head. "I regret so much. In my mind, I'm not giving him up to have been with you. He would have just been half you and half me instead of…"

"Half hers," Posie finished for me.

"Yeah. God knows he doesn't deserve a mother like her. He was nothing more than a pawn and a vehicle to control me when she couldn't find another way to make shit happen."

"I'm really sorry for what happened with her, but you two looked really cosey together on my 25th birthday, so forgive me if I don't understand the dynamic. It seemed like you were together again."

"No, Posie. No. We were never together. I don't even remember the one and only time we had sex. I didn't bring her to town for your birthday. Jenn invited her separately, and we just happened to meet in the parking lot. Jenn had told me that you were coming with your boyfriend, and…" I pulled into the driveway headed to Pops' house and detoured to go to the barn instead. As we pulled in, I explained exactly what I'd been thinking and how everything played out that night.

"I used to think it was fate that kept us apart, like we weren't meant for one another, but it feels more like," she paused to search for the right words. "Like," she tried again.

"We're bad at love."

"Yes, exactly that." I watched as a hint of red stained her cheeks when she realized what she just admitted to.

"Let's get inside." Posie hesitated and stared over at the farmhouse. "We can go there instead, if you want."

"No. I think I need to not be there tonight, or I may never leave that house again. Do you want to come in?" Posie glanced at the barn and then back to me and then her truck. "Oh, I guess you can just take my truck and get back to the family. Your son probably needs you."

"J.J. is fine with my parents. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to have you come over and stay with them, all things considered. You are a member of the Carter family, even without Pops here."

"I know. I just don't feel…" She sighed and pulled the door open to allow us both to enter. I followed in behind Posie as she did something with the alarm panel on the wall. Once the barn was secure again, we both moved inside to what had to be the studio where she and Evan worked.

It was the first time I'd seen inside the barn since it had been renovated and I was blown away. "The last time I was here, this place was full of hay, dust, and probably a few field mice."

"Hopefully, the field mice found a new home. I haven't seen any in years." I watched as she hung her keys on a hook along with the sweater she had worn in the hospital. It felt like a magnet pulled me in her wake as she moved through the open space. The floors were some sort of treated concrete now and they shined as though they'd recently been waxed and buffed. The walls were white with dark gray wood beams spaced about every eight or so feet. The truly remarkable thing was the six feet tall by four feet wide panels that were propped against the walls. Each one depicted another scene that I recognized from the graphic novels Posie and Evan created.

"These are amazing." I hadn't even realized that I'd walked over to the first one, closest to the door we'd come through.

"Those are original paintings, not prints," Posie informed as she stood next to me and watched me take in her work.

"I bet people would pay a mint to get just one of these."

I turned in time to see Posie shrug and walk away. "I think I have water, some locally crafted beer Evan brought to try, and orange juice. I haven't been staying over here much because of Dad." She stopped short and the minute her shoulders shook, my feet moved of their own accord.

"Posie, it's going to hurt for a bit, but he's with my grandma now."

"I know. He didn't think I heard him talking to her all the time these past few days." She turned in the circle of my arms, where I'd pulled her into my embrace to offer comfort. When Posie faced me, she offered a watery smile. "I swear, I could feel your grandma around the house. The powdery perfume she used to wear would be all over a room when I walked into it and Jack would be there talking to her as if she was seated right beside him."

"That must have been a little scary for you." It probably would have freaked me out.

"No," she insisted. "In a weird way, it was comforting to know he had her in the end. She was there to welcome him to whatever's next. I think we all wish for a beautiful transition like that when we leave this existence behind."

"I suppose we do."