Wind Chime Wedding (A Wind Chime Novel Book 2) by Sophie Moss

a way of busting big fat holes through his defenses.
    He’d spent most of the day alone, declining his father’s invitation to join him and Natalie at church that morning. He’d never been particularly religious and he had no desire to be part of the obligatory photo op at the charity event afterwards. Holidays, in his family, had always been more about how to gain a political edge over an opponent than anything else.
    Besides, he thought, as he closed in on the last driveway at the end of the street and caught a glimpse of his childhood home—a three-story brick mansion with white columns and a sweeping view of the Severn River—he knew better than to show any signs of weakness around his mother.
    He turned into his old driveway, passing under ten evenly spaced, perfectly pruned maple trees. Rolling to a stop beside the brick walkway, he cut the engine and stepped out of the truck. A curtain moved in one of the downstairs windows as he walked up to the door and knocked.
    He waited, listening to the sound of her footsteps getting closer.
    When the door swung open, his mother took one look at him and her expression turned stone cold. “You’re not welcome here.”
    “It’s not a social call.”
    She tried to close the door in his face, but he’d been expecting it, and stopped the heavy mahogany panel with his palm.
    “What do you want?” she asked coldly.
    “To talk.”
    “I have nothing to say to you.”
    “Then you can listen.” He pushed the door open the rest of the way and walked past her into the house. “Because I have a few things to say to you.”
    His childhood home looked exactly the same—the cold gray interior, the white leather furniture, the polished marble floors and glass tables. The windows were shut, the air set to sixty-eight degrees, just as it had always been, even though the weather outside was perfect and everyone else had their windows open to let in the fresh air.
    Two steps into the living room, he froze when he saw the pictures.
    Of Hayden.
    Everywhere.
    Jesus.
    Hayden blowing out the candles on his third birthday cake. Hayden learning how to ride a bicycle. Hayden winning first prize at the school science fair. Hayden posing with his prom date on the front steps. Hayden graduating from high school.
    There were no pictures of Hayden in his uniform, after he’d joined the Navy at eighteen. And there were no pictures of Colin, not even in the background of any of the shots.
    Colin looked back at his mother.
    She regarded him coolly, her arms crossed over her chest. “Do the pictures make you uncomfortable?”
    “No,” he lied.
    “They should.”
    Every muscle in his body clenched, walling off the grief. He tried not to think too much about Hayden. He’d never thought too much about the scrawny kid who had followed him everywhere, like a shadow, when they were growing up. By the time his brother had finally earned his respect, and a tentative bond had begun to form between them, it had been too late.
    Five years had passed. Five years, three months, and seventeen days since Hayden’s P-3C Orion had been shot down in Iraq.
    His mother had cut him out of her life that day, the final resounding click in a door that had begun to swing shut a long time before that. It was hard to believe that this woman, this stranger, had ever loved him. But she had. At least for the first eight years of his life.
    Until Hayden had come along.
    Her miracle child. The child she had given up hope of having so many years before. The child who, if he had come along earlier, would have been all his parents had needed.
    Instead, they’d resorted to adoption. And they’d gotten Colin. Because power couples like Nick Foley and Lydia Vanzant needed at least one child to soften their image, to gain the respect of other hardworking mothers and fathers, to tap into those deep-rooted family values that lived in the hearts of so many U.S. voters.
    The memories reached up through the floorboards, cold fingers of