“Baby, you gotta get a hold of it.” She hiccupped and then sobbed, shoulders jerking with the force of the emotion driving her. “Oh, baby.”
“All gone, every one of them. They’re all gone.” Twisting, she buried her face against his throat, and he felt the wet heat of her tears on his skin. “All of them.”
“Baby, you aren’t making any sense. Who’s gone?”
“First my Tabby. Little Tabby who would have never hurt a fly. Gone before she even lived.” She shifted, cupping the back of his neck with her palm. “Then Darrie, and that was so sad. He never got his feet back underneath him after he came home.” She sobbed again, and he tightened his arms. “And now Mikey. Oh, Gabe. Why? What could have…I’m so pissed at him. Why?”
“Why won’t ever be answered, baby.” He shifted, scooping an arm underneath her legs. “We should go to bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.” Standing, he lifted her with him, keeping his grip tight.
“Juanita. God, I can’t imagine.” She shook her head, arms twined around his neck. “He was her whole world, has been since he found her. What will she do?”
“She’s got two girls to look after. That’ll keep her somewhat occupied.” He angled them through the doorway and stepped into the bedroom, placing Bethy on the mattress. “We’ll sort it all out, tomorrow.” He slipped off her shoes, then unfastened all the buttons on her jeans. She lifted and wiggled as he pulled them down her legs. “Tonight, we’re going to sleep.” He wadded the jeans up and tossed them to the side, near the wall.
“Bella, does she know?” He nodded, leaning in to brush a strand of hair back from her face. She looked as exhausted as he felt, and all he wanted to do right now was get her to rest for a few hours.
“Tater, the brother she’s hooked up with, he got a call so he could break it to her gentle like.” Pressing his lips to hers, he pulled back. “Diamond is with Mela. He got a call too. They should be at the compound by now.”
She sat up, nearly bumping his nose with her head. “Ty! Oh my God, Ty. He and Mikey were tight. I need to call him.”
“Tomorrow,” he soothed, taking advantage of her position to grip the hem of her shirt and lift, forcing her to raise her arms. “We’ll call him tomorrow.” He glanced at the clock. “It’s going on midnight, baby. Let him have his rest. Tomorrow is soon enough.”
“Will you go to Kentucky with me?” She looked up at him as he crumpled the blouse, tossing it on top of the jeans. “His family plot is there, so that’s what he’d want.”
“I’ll go anywhere with you, baby.” She smiled, the expression so sad and wan it made his chest clench. “Climb under the covers. Let’s go to bed.” Staring down at her, he was struck again by how lucky he was. Never would have called this one, not in a million years. The idea that she could be here, with him, in his bed? Impossible. That she could have forgiven him so easily, put aside the lies and betrayal, because she loved him? Even more impossible.
In his bed, dressed in the sexiest set of lingerie he’d ever seen, the woman of his dreams. Pinch me. She moved, pushing up near the pillows to shove the blanket and sheet down, slipping underneath. “I’m gonna go lock up. Be right back.”
She smiled and smoothed the pillow next to her head in clear invitation, then gave him a gift he never would get accustomed to receiving. “Love you, Gabe.”
“Love you, too, Bethany.” He bent, pressing his mouth to hers then stood. “I’ll be right back.”
***
Bethany
She was still, curled small as she could manage while Gabe lay wrapped around her. He’d come back to bed as promised, then succeeded in distracting her wonderfully for a length of time. Sweaty and out of breath, he’d gathered her close to his side, caressing her with fingertips and lips until slumber claimed him. With heavy limbs, he’d turned in his sleep, his movement forcing hers. Then he crowded close like he did every night since she’d come to find him. Even in sleep he kept her close.
The third day in Fort Wayne, the first she’d surfaced from being with Gabe, Willa had sought her out. Mason’s wife had become a friend and confidant, reaching out often just to keep in touch, doing a much better job than Mason or Bethy had ever done, lending them both her innate resilience and strength in different ways. Willa’s son, Garrett, was the spitting image of Mason, something Bethy had been very glad to see given the timing of the pregnancy. She’d never asked and Willa hadn’t offered, but the relief had been clear on her face when Bethy had come to visit and could answer that yes, Garrett looked a lot like Mason’s baby pictures as she remembered them. Willa doted on the boy, taking him everywhere with her, even to work once she started back.
So when Willa showed up at Fury’s without Garrett, Bethy knew it was an orchestrated visit. She smiled at the memory of how Willa paled when asked her reason for visiting. One thing about Willa was you knew exactly where you stood with her, and Bethy knew Willa liked her, but at that moment, she hadn’t liked Fury at all.
“Why don’t you come with me? We can go get some coffee or something.” Willa leaned her shoulders against the door, seemingly unwilling to move away from the opening. “I brought the car and everything.”
Bethy eyed her sister-in-law for a moment, taking in the level of discomfort showing on her features and then slowly nodded. “Let me just change clothes and tell Gabe where I’m going.” Willa’s face scrunched up, a movement Bethy would bet money the woman didn’t know she was doing, but it coincided with Gabe’s name, and surely telegraphed her feelings louder than a shout. This was an intervention.
Not that she hadn’t expected one. To the outsider, this would seem intensely fast, because most people only knew about Lamesa. To the uninformed observer, her tracking him to Indiana then Ohio and facing down her brother, and then turning around and calling Gabe “her man” would seem the highest of folly. Those people, Willa and Mason included, had no clue about what had happened sixteen years ago. They didn’t know she and Gabe had a history, good and bad, and to Bethy, the good outweighed the bad by a large measure.
So, sitting in a café across from the woman her brother loved more than breath, his words, she laid it out for Willa. Not all the bad, there was no reason for anyone to know that part. It would forever be between her and Gabe. But talking about the holler and how he’d been the sweet boy who was her best friend’s sorta brother figure, and then how he’d happened on her in Nashville so many years ago. How they’d fallen into a sexual relationship that was just getting deeper when business tore them apart. She spoke about how she’d dated since, finding herself measuring every man against Gabe. Him always coming out ahead, even though he wasn’t there.
Willa had nodded at that and smiled, shyly sharing her first encounter with Mason and how, even if she’d put herself out there to give him her number, that hadn’t gone anywhere for months. How, when they started seeing each other, there was always something getting in the way, something pulling them apart. Bethy knew in that moment that Willa got it, she understood, and she’d do her best to make Mason understand, too.
So with that handled, they spent the next hour talking about Willa’s pregnancy, how that was advancing. Willa was excited about the chance to build their family, but her stories about Mason’s nervous concerns were hilarious. Bethy grinned, knowing she’d be leaving this little sit-down with a dozen new jabs in her arsenal.
“Do you have siblings?” Bethy watched as Willa’s eyes warmed, her face softening as she shook her head.
“Always wanted a brother or a sister.” She twisted the handle on the mug holding her decaf. “Gar has Chase, of course, and I couldn’t ask our sons to be better brothers.” Bethy smiled to hear her say it like that, liking how Willa took ownership of Chase. “But there’s a huge age gap.”
“Mason and I have eight years between us, and we seem to get along.”
“Chase and Gar have twice that. Once this little one comes along, I’ll have to figure out how to keep Chase from feeling like he’s part of a
different family.” Willa frowned, then set her shoulders back, lifting her chin. “I’ll do it, though. He’s too good a boy to need to wonder where he fits into the whole family.”
“If…” Bethy paused and took a breath. “If I tell you a secret, can you keep it from Mason, just for a little while? I want to tell him myself.” Willa frowned again, this time more exaggerated, not hiding how that request made her feel. “Just for a couple of days until I can figure out how to tell him.”
“Are you pregnant? Because that would be kind of a miracle if you already knew, unless it’s from Texas?”
Bethy laughed, shaking her head. “No, I’m not pregnant. Can you keep my secret, Willa?”
“Just for a couple of days?” Bethy nodded. “Promise?” She nodded again. “Okay.” Willa held up her hand, palm first. “Unless it means you’re putting yourself in danger. I can’t stand thinking of something happening to you.” She reached across and cupped Bethy’s hand, wrapping her fingers around and holding on tightly. “We’ve been through too much together. I can’t stand it, Bethy.”
“Promise you it’s nothing bad. It’s something from years ago, but I need to sort things first, then tell Mason.”
“Okay,” Still holding Bethy’s hand, Willa lifted her other one and sketched an X across her chest. “Cross my heart.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t say the rest. I’m way over any kind of wanting to die.”
“Agreed.” Bethy took in a deep breath. “I have a son.”
Head tipping to the side, Willa repeated her words. “You have a son?” Bethy nodded. “A son.” She nodded again. “As in a flesh-and-blood boy, not a wooden Pinocchio thingie?” With a laugh, she nodded a final time. “Jesus. How old is he? What’s his name?”
“Michael, his name is Michael. He’s sixteen this year. His birthday was just a few weeks ago.” Willa squeezed her fingers. “Michael Tyrell Marshall.”
Willa’s head tipped the other direction. “Marshall? Not Mason?” Frowning, she shook her head. “Wasn’t your husband’s name Taylor?”
Bethy dropped her eyes to the tabletop, not wanting to see Willa’s face. “Yes. But that marriage was annulled, and a farce. You don’t know how bad it was, Wills. Michael…I was sixteen. Same age he is now. I didn’t know much, coming from the holler like I did.” She darted a glance up, then back down. “I never even graduated high school. I was in a town I didn’t know, living with a man I didn’t know, and about the only thing I did know was I was in no way equipped to raise a child. So, I found a couple who wanted a baby and were willing to do an open adoption. That way I could stay in his life, even a little bit.” She swallowed hard, then rushed to defend the Marshalls. “They’ve been great, better than I could have ever expected or asked. They invite me to everything, and I’ve seen how much Martha and Rodney love him. But he found out about Mason a couple of weeks ago, and now Michael wants to meet my family. He’d been thinking I was alone, and now that he knows differently, he wants to meet everyone.”
She’d finally run out of steam and words, and the silence collected between them, the gap bridged only by Willa’s unwavering clasp on Bethy’s hand.
“You and your brother are so much alike. More than you’ll probably ever know.” Bethy looked up, seeing tears on Willa’s face and realizing her cheeks were wet, too. “Holding your secrets close to the vest, not wanting to give anyone any ammunition to hurt you. I hate how you were raised.” Willa’s voice quivered with anger, red rising to flush her cheeks. “I hate your daddy. I’m glad he’s dead. Never thought I’d say that about anyone, except…you know.” She drew in a noisy breath through her nose. “I hate him. He hurt the two of you so much, and in ways that still seep poison. Wounds running deep and keeping you from helping each other heal, because what if that pain is contagious. God.”
“We just do what’s needful,” Bethy told her, surprised when Willa flinched.
“I hate that word, too. It’s a cover for things that hurt, for pain.” Willa shook her hand, thumping Bethy’s knuckles on the tabletop. “He loved Mica, you know that? Mason. He loved her but wouldn’t let himself go there, and I’m thankful every day, even as I know he loves me more. I know he loves me more, because though he loved her, he never told her about you. He didn’t tell her about Chase, either. He held close the people he loved the most, not letting even Mica have an ounce of knowledge about you two. But—” She leaned forwards, shaking their hands again. “—he told me. You’re right. You have to be the one to tell him. If I said anything, it would be a breach between you that would take years to heal. I love you both too much to see that happen. But you have to tell him.”
“I will.” Willa narrowed her eyes, wrinkling up her nose in exaggerated disbelief. Bethy smiled, feeling it waver for a moment before settling into place. She told Willa, “I promise.”
She hadn’t though. One thing led to another and then he was caught up in business that didn’t have a place for her. Tears clogged her throat and she forced down a sob, holding herself to a rigid silence as she wept. Mikey never knew. Never knew she’d loved him so much she’d given his name to her child.
Tomorrow, she would force herself on Mason, even if it was a phone call, and tell him. Things that matter shouldn’t wait. Then once she told Mason, she’d find a way to tell Gabe.
Meeting Michael
Bethany
Bethy lifted the laundry basket to her hip, navigating the door into Gabe’s home. “Hey,” she called, hearing a muffled response from deeper in the house. She stopped in the bedroom doorway, not sure what she was seeing. Gabe stood at the foot of the bed, rolling a pair of jeans before he stuffed them into the open bag in front of him. “Whatcha doin’?”
She crossed the space to the bed, setting the basket on the mattress. Her suitcase lay next to his, clothes already packed except for the couple of shirts she had just pulled out of the dryer. Gabe flicked a look up at her, gaze steady behind the fall of hair across his forehead. “Packin’.”
“For what? Where do you have to go?” Tucking the last articles of clothing into her suitcase, she lifted the other clothes from the basket, carrying them to his dresser. In the weeks she’d been here, she’d shifted his things around to create space for hers, and he hadn’t said a word. She smiled as she pulled what she now thought of as “her drawers” open and put away things.
“Nashville.” Turning, she looked at him, taking in the serious expression on his face.
It was a week after Mikey’s funeral, and true to her vow, she hadn’t wasted any time talking to Mason. Catching him between other business calls while he was still in New Mexico, she’d petitioned for ten minutes of his time, scheduling through the guy who seemed to run most of her brother’s life, Myron. That ten-minute conversation turned into more than sixty because Mason had a wealth of questions, once he got past the initial confusion and anger about how she could have been strapped with what he saw as such a burden for so long. With everything else going on, he’d given her his time generously, listening as she cried with the guilt of never telling one of the men who had mattered so much to her. Mason waited until she’d cried herself dry, then reassured her they’d be revisiting this topic, and ordered her to bring Michael to the funeral in Cynthiana.
She’d demurred, arguing that throwing a sixteen-year-old boy into that kind of intense emotional situation wasn’t the best idea, and to her surprise, Mason had backed down. Before the call had ended, he’d garnered her promise to bring Michael to Fort Wayne the following week. Mason would be going to Chicago after the funeral, but he would be back with Willa within a couple of days.
Then Bethy had made an error in judgment. She later blamed it on the extreme situation, but still could have kicked herself. She’d sought out Gabe without thinking, crawling into his lap and only then calling the Marshalls, talking first to Martha to secure permission, and waiting impatiently while Michael came to the phone. Telling Michael she’d talked to his Uncle Mason had caused Gabe to go still underneath her, his
arm around her waist turning into an inescapable band. Turning away from him, she’d continued the conversation, discussing the timing of his visit to Fort Wayne.
That phone call had been uncomfortable, but what came next surprised her.
“Already knew you had a boy, Bethy.” Plucking the phone from her hand, Gabe didn’t release her but didn’t try to make her face him, either. He told her in his own way that she had the right to hold Michael close. “Wish I’d known you then like I do now. Things would be different, baby. Can’t change the past. Can’t, so it’s not worth arguing or worrying about, yeah? Looking to the future, if we can swing it, he’ll be in our lives however makes you happiest. Whatever that looks like, I’ll make it happen. You know all my secrets, every dark corner I could dig out I’ve shown you. You know, more than anyone else, what it’s taken from me to be where we sit today.” He paused, and she twisted, leaning in to rest her forehead against his, the heat from his breaths ghosting across her skin. “Know where all my skeletons are buried. I’ve known about Michael for a while, and any decisions you had to make to get him where he is, and get you to the woman in my arms, you have my full backing. All confidence in you, baby. No matter the road, you’ll do what’s needful.”
She knew then why Willa hated that word. It was used in so many ways by the people she’d grown up alongside, covering all manner of things people raised differently would be shocked or terrified of. In Gabe’s mouth, it meant he knew she’d work her fingers to the bone to take care of those she loved. “I love you,” she said, then shook her head. “I don’t want you to ever think that’s not something I think about before I say it. It’s not something to fill a silence, Gabe. It’s me—when I say it, that’s me giving you me.”
“I know, baby. Take you as you can give yourself. And part of that was you needing time to tell me about Michael. I want to meet him, too. You know that, right?” She nodded. “Now, we need to sort out getting ourselves to Cynthiana. I don’t want to ride down. We’re gonna take your car. Wanna be with you and have you where I can keep my eyes on you. We leave tomorrow night, we’ll get there about the same time as Mason and the men riding in from Las Cruces.” He gave her a squeeze. “You need to make another call, baby. Call Juanita. She needs to hear from her girl, and you need to talk to her.” Pulling her close, he handed her the phone back. “Stay right where you are, let me take as much of this from you as you can give. Hadn’t reconnected with him long ago, but I’m gonna miss him. Let me grieve with you, pull it from both of us, yeah?”
Rebel Wayfarers MC Boxset 4 Page 54
