Blood Ties: A Short Story

By Tanja Kimm

Max Harding's life hasn't been the most fortunate one.

After spending five years in jail for a crime he didn't commit, and the loss of his girlfriend, he has built up a new life far away from his troubled past.

Together with Holly, the woman who took him in three years earlier, and her seven-year old son Ben, he lives a quiet, perfect life on a beach in Orange County, California.

Almost perfect.

Secretly, Max has been planning to take matters in his own hand to bring his past finally into balance with his present.

And he won't stop at anything to get back the peace his mind is so desperately craving for.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookRix
• Release date: Jul 4, 2016
• ISBN: 9783739662459

Book preview

I

The waves were throwing themselves against the rocks with no mercy. The foam that crawled across the sand down to his bare feet was cold, and he had to hold his breath for a moment.

   On the other side of the seashore, in the far distance, he saw a couple of children playing in the sand. Some of them were playing tag, others were splashing their feets into the shallow water or building tiny sandcastles. Their parents had taken positions a bit further away, under sunshades, but he had no doubt that they were watching every move of their little ones with eagles eyes.

   He sighed. He wished he could be as blithe as all these children. That he could just turn back time and pretend that all the burdens life had put onto his shoulders were undone. The words. The decisions. The choices.

Especially the choices.

   Hey, stranger, you planning on getting a cold out here?

   The voice startled him. He turned around and looked at her. The sun, slowly setting, bathed her slim body in an orange glowing light, and the wind made her long, blonde hair flow around her head as if she was underwater, waves playing with it, dancing as if it was listening to an imaginary song. Maybe Coldplay. Or One Republic. Yes, One Republic. Way better. He hated Coldplay.

   As he stared at her, a pang of guilt shot through him. She resembled Emma so much. The woman he had loved more than anything or anyone else. The woman who had never given up on him, stayed by his side through the good and bad, despite the odds.

   The woman he had lost.

   Hey, soldier.

   Her voice pulled him out of his thoughts, followed by the snap of her fingers, and he realized he had been looking at her for the past few minutes without really acknowledging her.

   Not to moan about zoning out every now and then, but I thought we agreed on stopping the creepy staring a while ago?

   She approached him, her naked feet shuffling through the sand, and when she sat down next to him, hugging her knees with her forearms, he could see the cheery smile on her face, proving once more that she was teasing him. They knew each other for a long time now, more or less were like brother and sister, and despite the fact that she herself had been through the worst times any woman could face, she had never lost her ability to smile or greet every day with a positive attitude. In comparison to him, she had left her past behind, learned to live with her mistakes and was determined to start over.

   He wished he had the luxury of that attitude.

   Holly, as much as you'd like it, I have to disappoint you. There's nothing about you that makes me want to stare at you for longer than absolutely necessary.

   The teasing was his way of hiding his true emotions. He knew Holly could probably see behind his facade, but nevertheless, he was determined to keep to himself. There were things he had to take care of if he wanted to finally move on. And he had promised himself never to let anybody else as close to him as Emma. Losing her had almost killed him, numbed him inside.

   Ever since he had met her, his life had changed for the better. Falling in with the wrong crowd when he was barely in his teens had taken its toll. Not only had he disappointed his own mother, who had still been struggling with his father's tragic death when Max had been six years old, but also, he had dropped out of school due to his lack of respect for authorities. He had felt like the loss of the only father figure who could've taught him right from wrong was an injustice that could only be outbalanced by choosing the wrong side of the law. Not to speak of the excitement he had felt when he had been accepted into a group of good-for-nothing guys who represented a whole new level of freedom from the restraints society and his mother had put on him. The only time his heart felt a real rush of adrenaline had been whenever he and the other boys had gone out, shoplifting or breaking into cars just for the fun of it.

   Until he ran into Emma on his way to a meeting with his friends, sending the coffee she had held in her hand flying, dropping its contents all over her floral dress.

   The second he had looked into her bright eyes, the sun glistening inside their irises, time seemed to have stopped around them. Soon after, they had become a couple that appeared to have been joined at the hip, and more and more, Max had turned away from his criminal past, had gotten closer with his mother and had even started to take evening classes to catch up on a college degree. After years of feeling left alone by his father, wronged by the universe, his world had finally shifted in his favor.

   Until that one fateful day when Billy Madden had called and asked him to join in on some fun at the local gas station that ended