The First Time Again: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 3 by Barbara Meyers Read Free Book Online Page A

take anything for pain except over-the-counter stuff. This cop wanted to give me a hard time is all.” He shot a look at his father. “You don’t have to believe everything you hear about me, Dad.”
    His father fixed him with a stare out of blue eyes the same shade as his own. “Seems like most times what I hear about you is true, whether I want to believe it or not.”
    “Yeah, well, that was the past. Maybe next time you could come and ask me before you listen to the crowd down at the store.” His father owned Hendersonville Hardware, where the local tradesmen gathered each morning for coffee and bits of local gossip. Most of what they gossiped about was based in fact, sometimes a truer version than got printed in the Hendersonville Herald .
    Trey planned to toe the line now that he was home. He’d be Trey Christopher: Upstanding Citizen. Maybe that’s why he’d come back. Because here, with his parents, extended family and the locals watching, he wouldn’t be able to get away with much. They’d make him accountable for everything he did. Maybe he never should have left in the first place.
    “Justin Spoley’s had it in for you since that last championship game,” Andy allowed. “Man, that was some game, wasn’t it? Everyone thought we’d lost it after you threw that interception. But you charged down the field after Spoley and recovered his fumble. I don’t think I’ve ever been so—” The light in Andy’s eyes dimmed when he looked at Trey. He cleared his throat and spoke to his plate of food. “Hard to believe he could hold a grudge that long. Your best bet is to steer clear of him while you’re here.”
    “I’m not going anywhere, Dad,” Trey said. “Ryan Reagle told me the same thing about Spoley.”
    “Did you show him the card from Hayley?” Andy asked Lynn.
    “No.”
    Trey glanced from his father to his mother, noticing the signal she was sending with her eyes, the tightness around her mouth.
    “What was it? The wedding announcement?” he asked, striving for a neutral tone and honestly believing he achieved it.
    “You knew?” his mother asked.
    “She sent me one. We’re still friends, Mom. Even if we’re not married to each other anymore.”
    Andy snorted from his end of the table.
    Trey switched his attention to his father. “What?”
    “Friends. I’d think you’re the last person Hayley’d want to be friends with.”
    “I’ve talked to her a couple of times. She doesn’t hate me anymore.”
    “That doesn’t make her your friend.” Andy forked up another bite of gravy-drenched chicken. “Not after what you did to her.”
    “It’s in the past, Dad. We all know I screwed up, okay? I can’t go back and undo it. Believe me, I tried. I squared things with Hayley as best I could.”
    “That girl was the best thing that ever happened to you.”
    Trey could see Andy didn’t want to let it go. “I know, Dad.”
    “Andrew.” His mother’s tone held a note of warning. The same voice she’d used with Trey when he was a kid and stepped over the line and she included his middle name. Rarely did she call Andy “Andrew”. When she did, there was trouble ahead.
    Andy fixed her with a perplexed look. “What? Why shouldn’t I be able to say what I think at my own table in my own house with my own son? Why shouldn’t you?” He set his fork deliberately on his plate and rested clenched fists on the edge of the table. “You think he doesn’t need to know what it did to us? Sitting on the sidelines helpless while he threw his whole damn life down the drain? You think he doesn’t need to know you cried yourself to sleep night after night worrying about him?”
    “Andy!” His mother stared at her husband as if he’d grown two heads.
    “What?” he shouted back. “Hayley was like a daughter to us. We loved that girl like she was our own and everybody at this table knows it. Including him.” He jerked his thumb in Trey’s direction.
    “Okay, Dad, okay. I get