When We Go Back Again (Mason Brothers Book #1)

Chapter 1

EDEN

I feel like I should be clicking my red sparkling heels and chanting, “There’s no place like home.” After almost thirteen years of living in California, I’m on my way to my childhood home in Colorado. I’m not just going back to visit, my small car is packed to the brim with the only things that really matter right now and I’m getting ready to start over. I’m still not sure if I’m making the right move, but San Diego doesn’t have what I need anymore. Change is good, at least that is what I keep telling myself.

Glenwood Springs was my home for the first fifteen years of my life, but I was uprooted when my dad, a hotel tycoon, gained full custody of me and moved me to San Diego where he was getting remarried and starting his second life. I never came back to visit and have had very little contact with anybody here. It probably sounds crazy to move back on a whim, but I’m always one for adventure.

My parents were only married for the first four years of my life. They met when my dad moved to Glenwood Springs to build a huge vacation resort. He never planned on staying, but they fell in love decided to get married, and then had me. After their divorce, my dad went nomad and traveled all around settling just long enough to build his new hotel, and then came back to visit for a few months,

Wash, rinse, repeat this cycle for most of my life until one day he decided that he wanted to be a full-time father. Rather than move back to Glenwood Springs and put his roots down there, he fought my mom for full custody and won. My things were packed and we moved within a few days of the court ruling.

Of course, that was hardly the story that he told me. I was led to believe that my mom no longer wanted to take care of a rowdy teenage girl and she was sending me to live with my dad. I probably should have known better, but he said all the right things and my mom never tried to get back in touch with me so obviously he was right.

Fast forward to after he died, I was going through his house and found a box full of cards, letters, pictures, and things that my mom had sent me all those years. I did some more digging and found out that my mom wanted me so badly, but on a librarian’s salary, she was hardly able to fight my dad’s panel of experts and piranha-like lawyers.

I’m not sure whether it was irony or coincidence, but I soon found myself in a very similar situation as my mom was in. The only difference is that, unlike my mom, I had a good amount of money to my name that was left to me after my dad had died. Caleb, my ex-husband, was more than happy to sign over all of his parental rights in exchange for everything. He liked money more than family, a huge part of the reason for our divorce.

When I called my mom for the first time she was shocked to hear from me. We talked on the phone for hours that first night. She told me how my dad frequently called her and said that I wanted her to stop sending me things, but my dad never gave me any of the things she sent and sold me a lie of a heartless mother. We shared a lot of tears in those first few phone calls. I couldn’t believe my father would betray us both through his lies.

Missing out on all those years with my mom is something that I can never forgive my dad for. Because of him, I grew up thinking that my mom didn’t love me and I was nothing but a problem for her. The truth couldn’t have been more different. So perhaps it was a little hypocritical that I had taken Joseph away from his father, but I told myself that it was different and as I glanced in the rearview mirror at the boy with long eyelashes and the pouty lips, I know I made the right choice.

At only four years old he doesn’t really understand why we moved away from Daddy, but when he spoke on Facetime with my mom, he was beyond excited to finally have a grandma. Caleb’s parents were mostly uninvolved and my dad passed before Joseph had a chance to get to know him. After talking almost every day for a few weeks, I decided that once the divorce was finalized, Joseph and I were heading to Glenwood Springs. Back Home. I was going to give him a childhood that would be better than one here. I wanted him to get to know his grandma and grow up in a smaller town and less fast pace than San Diego living.