Tainted Forever

by Terri Anne Browning

  “Why didn’t Emmie help?” Gray asked, brows lifted.

  “I ran my mouth,” I muttered. “She’s pissed at me now.”

  “Do you have a death wish?” he yelled at me. “You don’t piss off the fire-breather for any reason. Ever.”

  “Thanks for helping, Kin. I’m sure it wasn’t easy and my brother has probably eaten up the last of your sanity and patience.” Kassa grabbed my forearm. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep him out of trouble from now on.”

  Kin gave her a tight smile. “It’s okay. I was happy to help. It was my fault anyway.” She lifted her purse strap over her shoulder. “But I do need to go. I have some work to do before I get into the studio next week.”

  “So you made up your mind?” Gray asked her before I could. “You’re signing with Petrova?”

  She nodded. “Looks like it. And it also looks like you’ll have company for the winter tour. Think you can put up with me?”

  Gray snorted, but I could tell he was happy for her. “You need a guitarist until you get a band?”

  She patted him on the arm. “Aunt Emmie is getting me sorted, but thanks anyway.”

  “Kin,” I reached for her just as my phone rang. I groaned, knowing exactly who it was.

  “Talk to Alicia,” she urged. “I’ll…see you around.”

  Blowing out a long sigh, I nodded and pulled out my phone, answering it as I watched her walk away.

  “Jace?” Alicia’s voice filled my ear. “I want you to come home. Now!”

  “Yeah,” I told her as Kin glanced back at me over her shoulder. “I’ll be there as soon as I get a flight out.”

  “Just you,” she said, sounding tired. “We…We really need to talk, honey.”

  Chapter 22

  Kin

  One month later

  The wind bit at my cheeks as I walked past the line of limos and got into my rental. As I started the car, my gaze caught the view, and I had to pause to take in the beauty of the mountains in the distance framed by the kaleidoscope of brown, yellow, red, and orange leaves on the trees.

  Today had been harder than I expected. Watching the pain on Cash’s face as he laid his grandmother to rest brought back memories of my mom’s funeral. My gaze turned, and I could almost see Mom’s headstone. My fingers trembled, and I wrapped them around the wheel tightly to keep them steady.

  After I got into town the evening before, I went straight to Mom’s grave with flowers, knowing there wouldn’t be time today. The last time I was home, I didn’t get the chance to visit her, and I just wanted time to talk to her on my own before the craziness of the media took hold of everyone for Doris Mathias’s funeral.

  My passenger door opening had me gasping with surprise. Putting a hand to my chest, I expected to see Angie sitting in the seat beside me, but I was surprised to find Jace there. I’d been so lost in thoughts about my mom, I’d completely zoned him and everything else out today.

  “Hey!” I punched him in the arm. “Warn a person before you just jump in their car, dickhead.”

  He rubbed at the tender spot where I’d hit him. “Jesus, baby. That fucking hurts.” He groaned and leaned back in the seat, pulling on his seat belt. “You headed for the airport?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t have a flight for another two days.”

  His relief at my answer was evident in the way his face relaxed slightly. Turning his head, he glanced out the windshield, swallowing hard. “Do you mind driving me back to Bristol? I know it’s out of the way, but I need to talk to you.”

  “About…us?” I didn’t know how I wanted him to answer.

  Fuck, I didn’t know much where he was concerned these days. The past four weeks, I hadn’t gotten so much as a text from him.

  What I did know? I missed him.

  He flexed his fingers on his thighs, but he shook his head. “As much as I would love to talk to you about that, I have something else I need to discuss.”

  Concerned, I reached for his hand. The tone of his voice told me something was wrong. He hadn’t been in California as far as I knew. He flew out to Bristol the day after he’d been arrested for fighting with Nate, and he didn’t come back. Kassa said he was just decompressing with Alicia, but I wondered if she even knew what her brother had been doing.

  Jace turned his hand over, his fingers intertwining with mine and squeezing for a moment. But then he was releasing me and shifting back into the seat so he could face me better. “Thanks, Kin.”

  He was quiet until I got on the interstate, but he didn’t seem like himself at all. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or just upset from the funeral.

  Hating the silence, I cleared my throat. “You’ve been in Bristol all this time?”

  “More or less. I wanted to be close to Alicia.”

  There. I could hear it, the change in his voice, the sudden tension that was starting to spill off him. My heart rate picked up, and my palms began to sweat. “Is everything okay? I mean, I know Nate got off with just paying a fine, but did you get in more trouble for the fight?”

  “Nah, it’s all straightened out. Don’t worry about it, babe. Alicia is still a hell of a lawyer. She got me off with just paying a fine like Nate.” He gave me a tight smile, and I chanced a glance at him. His eyes were so full of agony it made my heart squeeze painfully.

  “Jace, you’re scaring me,” I whispered.

  “I’m scared too,” he choked out, running his fingers through his hair.

  The next exit was coming up, and I took it. I didn’t stop until I found a McDonald’s and pulled into a parking spot. Unbuckling my belt, I threw my arms around him. I felt his hands on my back, and I thought they might have trembled a little.

  “What’s wrong?” I didn’t know why I was crying, but the tears were suddenly blinding me, and there was a huge lump in my throat.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he whispered, his voice breaking.

  “What about, baby?” I asked, pulling back so I could see him.

  His throat bobbed, and it took him a few seconds before he could speak. “It’s Alicia. You remember all those headaches she was having a while back?” I nodded, my gut clenching as I waited for him to continue. “She kept telling us it was just migraines brought on from stress at work. Fuck, there were all kinds of excuses. We were worried, but she played it off like they were nothing. And then Kassa came to live with us, and we all thought Alicia was relaxing enough that the headaches went away.”

  “They didn’t?”

  “It was never just a migraine.” The tears were flooding out of him now, his forehead pinched. “She has a mass. It’s in a part of the brain they can’t get to without causing more damage than good.”

  “No,” I whispered, not wanting to believe it.

  He nodded. “She didn’t do a scan until like six months ago because she’s so stubborn and was busy with work. But the headaches got worse and she passed out one day, so she went back to the doctor. She…she has a tumor.” His head fell back onto the seat, his eyes closing.

  My own tears were flowing freely now, a sob trapped in my chest. Alicia was an amazing person. There was nothing she loved more in the world than Gray, Kassa, and Jace. She treated me like one of her own from the first time Jace brought me home to meet her. It didn’t seem fair that she was going through this.

  “Do…Do the others know?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head adamantly. “And you can’t tell them. Fuck, Alicia swore me to secrecy. She doesn’t want to worry Kassa and Gray, especially with them planning their wedding. I don’t think she wanted to tell me, but I found her in bed covered in sweat and her own puke. She confessed everything to keep me from calling an ambulance.”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I had to swallow hard before I could speak. “Why are you telling me?”

  Jace cupped my face in both hands, his fingers trembling even more now as his damp blue eyes met mine. “Because this secret is killing me
, Kin. I needed to share it with someone, and I’ve wanted to share it with you from the moment Alicia told me everything. I knew you would understand, that… Fuck, I don’t know. I just need you.”

  Despite how much my heart was breaking, it didn’t feel so beat-up all of a sudden. But instead of letting myself think about that, I kept us focused on Alicia. “What’s going to happen with her now?”

  He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against mine. “I don’t know. She wants me to go back to California, but I can’t. Not yet. Gray and Kassa are driving down before they head back, and I want to tell them so badly, but I also get why Alicia doesn’t want them to know. If they know she is so sick, they would cancel their wedding to take care of her. And that’s exactly what she doesn’t want. You know how independent she is, babe. She can’t stand for people to hover over her. She can barely tolerate me there because I freak out if she so much as yawns.”

  “We’ll figure this out,” I promised him, stroking my hands down his arms.

  I needed to touch him, to comfort him, to make this better for him. Rationally, I knew there was no stopping the inevitable. If the cancer was becoming aggressive, there might be nothing else the doctors could do. But the part of me that loved this man, that never wanted him to feel the pain of losing a parent, that part of me wanted to make it all better.

  “I don’t want her to die, Kin,” he said, his voice hitching with a sob. “She and Kassa are all the family I have, you know?”

  “I know, baby.”

  He pulled me closer, pressing his face into my shoulder, his breath hot on my neck, his tears soaking into my dress. “I’m sorry, Kin. I don’t mean to put all this on you. I just—”

  “No,” I cut him off. “I’m glad you told me. I want to help you through this, if you don’t mind?”

  Jace lifted his head, his eyes drilling into mine. “Are you sure?”

  Wiping a few of his tears away with my thumb, I nodded. “If you’d called me, I would have flown out to help you.”

  “It took all the courage I have just to tell you today,” he confessed, his eyes closing as he leaned his head back into the seat. “Kin, you know I can’t keep a secret.”

  It was a running joke among everyone who knew Jace that he couldn’t keep a secret to save his life. Which was why it was so difficult to believe he’d kept Eden to himself for as long as he did.

  “I know,” I said in a voice barely above a whisper. “That’s what made it hard to digest when you kept everything with Eden a secret. If you had just told me about her when you first met her again, we might not have broken up.”

  Who was I kidding? We wouldn’t have broken up if he’d just been honest with me. That he was confiding in me now, when Alicia, who was just as important to him as Kassa, had made him promise not to tell anyone, was a game changer for me.

  Leaning back into the driver’s seat, I glanced out the back window. The parking lot was pretty bare, but the smell of coffee coming from inside McDonald’s was enough to catch my attention. “Let’s get something to drink, and then we can get back to Alicia. I’ll stick around until you figure out what you want to do. Okay?”

  “Yeah.” His eyes opened, and he gave me a tight, pain-filled smile. “Thanks, babe.”

  Giving him a smile I hoped was reassuring, I reversed the car and went through the drive-thru. Ordering large coffees for both of us, I insisted on paying and then got back on the interstate.

  --

  Kassa and Gray were already at the house by the time we got there. When I walked in with Jace, the three people sitting in the living room couldn’t keep their mouths from dropping open in surprise.

  I gave them all a small smile, waving. “Hi. Sorry to drop in like this.”

  Alicia got to her feet, and if I hadn’t known just how sick she was, I never would have realized. She gave me a warm smile as she pulled me into a hug. “You’re always welcome here, sweetheart. I’m so glad you could come see me.”

  I hugged her tightly, my eyes burning with tears that I quickly blinked away before anyone could notice them. “Do you mind if I spend the night?”

  “Not at all. You can sleep in Kassa’s old room if you want. It’s not like she uses it anymore.” She urged me to sit, and I took the smaller couch where Jace was already sitting.

  His blue gaze met mine, and my heart twisted at the paleness of his face. This secret was eating him up, and all I wanted to do was hug him. I touched his arm, silently offering him all the support and love I had to give, before dropping my hand onto my lap.

  “Did you two talk?” Kassa asked, getting straight to the point after watching her brother and me for a few minutes. “You left the gravesite service so abruptly when Jace tried to talk to you that I’m a little concerned for you right now. Did he kidnap you? Are you here under duress? Be honest. I’ll let Gray kick his ass, just say the word.”

  My eyes met Jace’s again. “You tried to talk to me at the gravesite?”

  He shrugged. “Yeah, but you must have been lost in your own head.”

  “I was just having flashbacks of Mom’s funeral,” I told him, my voice quiet, and his eyes softened. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to ignore you.”

  “I’m starving,” Gray announced, pushing to his feet. “You want fruit, babe?”

  “I’ll make us some sandwiches,” Kassa said as she followed him toward the kitchen. “Kin? You want one?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not hungry, but thanks.”

  As soon as they were out of the room, Alicia turned to Jace. “You told her?” she hissed.

  With Kassa and Gray gone, Alicia suddenly looked very tired. Now that she had no one to have to pretend for, I could see behind the mask she put on for the world. Alicia was in pain even right then, and I wanted to cry.

  Jace sat there, staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched, his throat working.

  “Please don’t be mad at him,” I told her before she could start yelling at her adopted son. “He needed me.”

  “I’m not mad,” she said, tears filling her eyes. “If anything, I’m relieved. He’s been stressed out ever since I told him, and that was the last thing I wanted. That’s why I didn’t want him or the others to know at all. But if you know—”

  “Jace, you want turkey or ham?” Kassa called, sticking her head out of the kitchen.

  “Both,” he yelled back. “No tomatoes.”

  “I know, I know,” she complained, stepping back into the kitchen.

  Alicia looked at the spot where Kassa just was, her eyes so sad I had to lower my gaze before I lost the control I had on my tears. “Please don’t tell her.”

  “What do the doctors say? Can they treat this?” There had to be something they could do. I didn’t want to lose Alicia like I lost my mom. I didn’t want Jace to have to go through that. No matter what was going on between us, I loved him. His pain was mine, and I would have given anything for him not to have to say goodbye to the only mom he’d ever really known.

  “I’ve already started chemo, and we’re doing some experimenting with a few new drugs, trying to find the right dosages. The last couple weeks have been a roller coaster because it’s a guessing game what will work without making me so sick I can’t even get out of bed.”

  “She doesn’t want me to stay,” Jace muttered, slouching beside me, his hands balled into fists as he glared at the ceiling.

  “You have the winter tour to prepare for,” Alicia reminded him. “Besides, you’ve been under my feet for too long as it is. If you ask me if I’m okay one more time, I’m going to strangle you.”

  I lifted my hands, drawing both their attention back to me. “I think Jace has a right to be concerned, Alicia. You can’t expect him to be okay with being thousands of miles away when you’re in this condition. Chemo…” Fuck, I hated that word. Just speaking it aloud made me shudder. “Chemo will drain you, make you so sick you can’t lift your head.”

  “This is nonnegotiabl
e. I’m not interrupting his life and career because I’m sick.”

  Jace muttered a curse that had her swatting at him, while I just sat there, trying to find a compromise that would make them both comfortable. But before I could come up with anything, Gray and Kassa came out carrying plates of sandwiches and a bowl of fruit.

  Kassa handed Alicia one and the older woman gave her a thankful smile, but I could see the way her face turned slightly green. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

  Jace took his plate with a nod in thanks. Lifting a half of one of his sandwiches, he put it to my lips. “Eat, baby.”

  I wasn’t hungry until I bit into the sandwich. I took it from him, eating it slowly while the others talked about the funeral earlier. Cash and his father hadn’t said a single word to each other. Nothing strange about that as the two hadn’t spoken in years as far as I knew. The Mathias’s hadn’t even acknowledged Amara, though, and she was pregnant with their granddaughter.

  “Speaking of babies,” Alicia commented. “How is Hayat doing? I’ve been seeing all kinds of beautiful pictures Harris sends Jace.”

  “She’s growing like a weed,” I told her with a genuine smile as I remembered my goddaughter. “I see her every few days, and I can’t get enough. She’s started smiling at everyone, and every time I see those dimples flashing at me, I fall in love with her all over again.”

  “And Lucy? Has she recovered fully yet?”

  “She’s been good for a few weeks now, but you wouldn’t know that because Harris treats her like she’s made of glass.”

  Alicia laughed. “As he should. That boy knows how to treat his wife as she deserves.”

  “Is that a crack at me?” Gray grumbled.

  “It’s a crack at men in general,” his aunt told him with a roll of her eyes. “We all know you treat Kassa like a princess.”

  “Actually, since we’re on the subject of babies,” Kassa said, her voice shaky with nerves. “Well, the thing is…”

  “What my little butterfly is trying to say is that we are pregnant,” Gray announced. “We weren’t sure if we should tell anyone yet because she’s only a few weeks, and after what happened last time… Yeah. But since we’re all together now, we wanted to tell you in person, Alicia.”