Memory Lane (Sons of Scandal, #1)

by Becky Wade

The two of them were very different, but in ways that had made them more compatible, not less. Jeremiah had street smarts; Jude had book smarts. Jeremiah was ambitious, Jude strategic. Jeremiah could be wily in pursuit of what he wanted; Jude was firmly ethical. Jude was the one who got the boring things done, the one everyone else relied on, the one who picked up the pieces.

“Answers to prayer don’t always look the way you expect them to. My sadness isn’t gone but it’s much better, you know.

seasons of emotional hardship are like storm fronts. Powerful, yes. Damaging, yes. Scary when they’re on top of you. But also passing.”

The cruelest trick of motherhood was that your children exhausted you when they were small . . . which hindered your ability to appreciate them at that age as much as you should. She deeply appreciated them at that age now. But now those little boys were gone. They’d grown into capable, headstrong adults who didn’t require much from her. She’d grown into the one who required things of them—their presence, communication, and fondness.

The feisty will that had made her so challenging when young now made her the sibling who championed the rest, the one who bent over backward to help them, the one who always fought for their best.

“Why are you here?” “Because this is where you are.” He looked her straight in the face while gently extracting an inch-long curl of wood from her topknot. “If this is where you are, then this is the only place I want to be.”

It was rapidly becoming clear that some level of embarrassment would be unavoidable. Closeness was vulnerable by definition.

look a gift horse in the mouth.

Love had to be given without the assurance of reciprocity or a lifetime of security under its umbrella.