The Son & His Hope Read online

  The Son

  &

  His Hope

  by

  New York Times Bestseller

  Pepper Winters

  The Son & His Hope

  Copyright © 2019 Pepper Winters

  Published by Pepper Winters

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Libraries are exempt and permitted to share their in-house copies with their members and have full thanks for stocking this book. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Published: Pepper Winters 2019 [email protected]

  Cover Design: Ari @ Cover it! Designs

  Editing by: Editing-4-Indies (Jenny Sims)

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  www.pepperwinters.com

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  OTHER BOOKS AVAILABLE FROM PEPPER WINTERS

  Ribbon Duet

  The Boy & His Ribbon

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  Pennies

  Dollars

  Hundreds

  Thousands

  Millions

  Truth & Lies Duet

  Crown of Lies

  Throne of Truth

  Pure Corruption Duet

  Ruin & Rule

  Sin & Suffer

  Indebted Series

  Debt Inheritance

  First Debt

  Second Debt

  Third Debt

  Fourth Debt

  Final Debt

  Indebted Epilogue

  Monsters in the Dark Trilogy

  Tears of Tess

  Quintessentially Q

  Twisted Together

  Je Suis a Toi

  Standalones

  Destroyed

  Unseen Messages

  Can’t Touch This

  The Son & His Hope

  Contents

  BLURB

  PART ONE

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PART TWO

  INTERMISSION

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  PART THREE

  INTERMISSION

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  EPILOGUE

  EXTENDED EPILOGUE

  PLAYLIST

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  BLURB

  “Things you should know about me from the very beginning:

  I was born to true love, witnessed the destruction it causes, and vowed never to let such agony happen to me. I am not a story-teller like my father. I am not a writer like my mother. I am just a son—their son.

  I am happy being alone.

  And that is all I ever want to be.”

  JACOB

  The day he was born, Jacob learned his hardest and longest lesson.

  It wasn’t a lesson a boy should learn so young, but from his earliest memories he knew where happiness lives, so does tragedy. Where love exists, so does heartbreak. And where hope resides, so does sorrow.

  That lesson carved him from the kid to the teen to the man.

  And nothing and no one could change his mind.

  HOPE

  I first met him when he was fourteen at a movie premiere of all places. A movie based on his parent’s life.

  He was stoic, strong, suspicious, and secretive.

  I was only ten, but I felt something for him. A strange kind of heartbreak that made me want to hug and heal him.

  I was the daughter of the actor hired to play his father.

  We shared similarities.

  I recognised parts of him because they were parts of me.

  But no matter how many times we met. No matter how many times I tried.

  He stayed true to his vow to never fall.

  *****

  PART ONE

  *****

  PROLOGUE

  DELLA

  * * * * * *

  TODAY I MUST watch my husband die all over again.

  I tried to refuse. I pointed out how cruel it would be to relive the worst part of my life—the life that never managed to heal. I don’t have the strength to watch my love story, curse my life story, cry at my broken romance.

  In a way, I wish I’d never penned our tale—that I’d kept it treasured and secret. Then again, the words I chose were just for us—it was Ren who decided to share. Ren who immortalised our love in page and movie screen.

  I had him all to myself for thirty-three years, yet for the past four, I’ve had to share his memory with countless strangers.

  Our tragedy is tattered pieces of history that I’m never free from. And I don’t want to be free from it because there will come a time
—soon but not too soon—when we will meet again. That belief—that faith—is what keeps me going on the darkest of days.

  One of those days being today.

  I wish I could fast-forward, claim illness, be firm enough to say no.

  But it’s expected.

  The invitation was sent. The date set in stone.

  And so, I’ll go.

  I’ll swallow my tears, bind my lonely heart, and be brave, all because he is brave. So eternally, amazingly brave.

  Jacob.

  Our son.

  He is no longer a boy, but he isn’t quite a man.

  He has so many things to learn, yet somehow, he’s wise beyond his age.

  He is extraordinary and brilliant, and now...he has his own tale to tell.

  Jacob is just beginning his story, and I still have a part to play—at least until he no longer needs me. When that time comes, his existence will eclipse mine. His successes and mistakes will take centre page—a new generation of heartbreak.

  Ren and I…we are no longer needed.

  But I’ve said too much; taken up too much of your time.

  This book isn’t about me—it’s about him.

  And don’t worry, I have no warnings to give you. No caution-filled paragraphs or ominous foreshadowing.

  You don’t need anything to fall in love with my son.

  Our son.

  Because he’s special.

  Just like his father.

  And just like his father, the love he has to give comes with torture and torment, and I pity the poor girl who falls for him.

  CHAPTER ONE

  JACOB

  * * * * * *

  Fourteen Years Old

  I WAS FOURTEEN when the movie came out.

  Fourteen when I was forced to watch my dad die all over again.

  And fourteen when I met Hope, only to curse her name for the rest of my life.

  Thanks to being a teenager, I believed I knew better than everyone. After all, my father ran away from horrors and looked after himself and a baby when he was only ten. If he could survive with nothing and no one that young, then I was sure as hell old enough to protect my mother.

  I’d done my best to prevent us from being here. I’d seen her fear about attending. Even Grandpa John and Aunt Cassie had stood by my side and told her it wasn’t weak to refuse. That just because her first three objections weren’t accepted didn’t mean she couldn’t ignore them.

  Ever since she was contacted about movie rights, I’d tried to keep the actors, screenwriters, and directors away from my family. I’d even gone as far as placing animal snares around Cherry River, snagging a producer’s ankle before he could barge into our home, armed with a spiel to guilt-trip my mom into allowing my father’s death to be glamorised by Hollywood.

  In the beginning, Mom said hell no, Cassie threatened to sue them, and Grandpa John got his shotgun. It didn’t matter that Dad had all but prophesied this would happen and written the final scene of the movie himself.

  But then the social media pressure began. The constant emails, letters, tweets—all of it begging to have The Boy & His Ribbon transformed onto the big screen.

  The offer kept growing in digits, and the producers became more insistent until finally, Mom agreed. But only if the money went to the kids who’d been hurt by her parents, the evil Mclarys.

  That alone earned her more news time than a local political scandal—catapulting our family into the spotlight and guaranteeing that the tragic love story of my parents was one of the most anticipated releases this year.

  Filming began the moment Mom signed their nasty paperwork. That day, I’d used my slingshot to fire pebbles at a few of the suited execs as they left, smug and patting themselves on the back. I might have also stabbed a BMW’s tyres with the Swiss Army knife Dad gave me on my tenth birthday.

  Afterward, things were quiet for a while. Mom pretended the movie wasn’t in the works, and I did my best not to plan revenge on the men who’d badgered her until her ‘no’ became ‘yes.’

  We’d all agreed to stay well clear of everything to do with it, but that was before the phone calls started. The ‘oh, we were just wondering what sort of backpack Ren carried you in, Della?’ ‘By the way, how old was Ren again when you first found the Wilsons?’

  To start with, Mom was polite and answered them. But then the phone calls turned to visits, then literal kidnapping as they stole her away to offer set advice on a farm only a few miles down the road.

  They’d deliberately filmed the movie so damn close that history reached out and sucked Mom into the past. That wasn’t the only time they asked for her help, and her visits on set always left her shaky and strung out. Her eyes haunted with memories; her thoughts distracted and sad.

  I hated those movie people.

  I cursed what they did to her—making her relive the beginning, the middle, and the end. And I hated them for my sake too. I loved my parents. I missed my dad like crazy, but to see actors play out scenes where my parents were my age made me feel weird—like I shouldn’t be seeing such things.

  Plus, I despised the actor who played my dad. I hated the way he smiled at my mom. I hated how he talked to her like someone would talk to a timid animal. I loathed how his eyes lingered on her when she made excuses and extracted herself from their painful conversation.

  “Jacob. You’re going to crack your teeth.” Mom’s fingertips tapped my jaw where I clenched as hard as I curled my fists.

  Her touch dragged me from the past year of hell and into our current nightmare. “Can’t we just leave?”

  “You know we can’t.” She sighed heavily. “A couple of hours and this will all be over. They’ve finished filming. They’ll leave us alone now.”

  “Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes. Didn’t she get that the premiere was tonight, which meant the movie was only just releasing? We were in for a whole new world of awful once the public claimed it as their own.

  “Stop looking like you want to murder everyone.”

  “Can’t hide the truth,” I muttered, eyeing up the actors in front of us as they oiled their way up the red carpet. We stood in the shadows, waiting for our turn to walk the paparazzi gauntlet. I wished there was a back entrance. Better yet, I wished I was at home away from this madness.

  Mom looped her arm around mine, tugging me forward.

  I pulled against her for a heartbeat, fear and anger a rich recipe in my chest.

  Touch.

  The worst curse in my life.

  My new black blazer was too tight—probably from breathing so hard. My glossy shoes too stiff—most likely because they weren’t my scuffed-up paddock boots.

  “Come on,” Mom whispered, pulling me into a walk. “Let’s get it over with.”

  My feet unglued from the ground, and I moved with her.

  Walking toward the flashing cameras, I was no longer a kid hating everyone. I was a son protecting my mother from leeches.

  I stood taller, glowered harder. I was my mother’s date and bodyguard.

  For four years now, I’d taken the place of my father—keeping my promise to him. My oath that I’d given while we’d sat squished together on the tractor on a long summer night a year or so before he died.

  He’d told me, man to man, that he needed me to look after Mom. That he expected me to be there for her when he couldn’t. I’d kept my tears at bay and shook his hand solemnly. I’d sworn that I’d never let him or Mom down and would do whatever it took to make her smile when she was sad and keep her safe when she was in danger.

  And Dad had trusted me because he knew I wasn’t a moronic kid who didn’t have the skills to uphold that promise. He’d taught me to be self-sufficient. He’d made me exactly like him.

  “Smile, Jacob.” Mom pinched me as the first cameraman angled his intrusive lens in our direction. I smiled, but my thoughts were still in the past. Still lingering on that summer when Dad dropped the pretences of treating me like a kid and trained me like a man.
r />   Around Mom, he chose what he said—to stop her scolding him for telling me things I shouldn’t know at such a young age.

  But when it was just us?

  It didn’t matter I’d been a quarter of his size and worshipped the ground he walked on. I was worthy and wise in his eyes, and he told me things in black and white.

  No protecting me. No faking or lying.

  He’d told me about puberty and sex on my seventh birthday; his cheeks pink with a story of how he’d wished someone had been able to tell him. He’d sat me down and discussed death when the kids at school horrified me with tales of him dying and coming back to eat me as a zombie.

  He’d let me fall, allowed me to make mistakes, and permitted me to figure things out before stepping in if I needed his help or staying out of it if I didn’t.

  He’d prepared me for the day when he wouldn’t be there.

  He’d done a good job, but it didn’t mean the pain was any less. That his loss didn’t hurt every damn day. It didn’t prevent my eyes from tracking to the blown-up photo in the living room of him, Mom, and me when I was five, all dressed tidy-like against the barn. We were smiling, even knowing what we were about to face.

  He was the best person I knew, and this damn film was a mockery to his memory.

  He should never have published Mom’s book. He should never have hired a ghost writer to type his dictated chapters. He should never have gotten sick and died.

  “Della!” a cameraman yelled. “Mrs Wild, this way. Are you looking forward to seeing the meadow scene?”

  Another called, “Will you cry when Graham Murphy playing Ren and Carlyn Clark playing yourself find each other again?”

  An awful one shouted, “Do you wish you could die so you could stop being so sad?”

  I jerked.

  What a jackass.

  I was standing right there!