Delivering Decker

by Kelly Collins

  “My crooked toe, huh? That has to be love.”

  I slid from his lap and curled up next to his body. My eyes were drooping shut after a long night...,but they snapped open when a woman rushed into Decker’s room.

  “Decker, what the heck happened? I’ve been worried about you.” A dark-haired woman dressed for high tea hovered over us. Her hands flew to his face. “Look at you.”

  “Mom, I’m all right.”

  This wasn’t how I imagined meeting his mother. In fact, I hadn’t given the scenario much thought. Was I the type of girl Decker brought home? With his wealth and position, I imagined not. When I closed my eyes and envisioned Decker and another woman, it was like lancing my own gut with a rusted, dull blade. But in all honesty, I didn’t see him with someone like me. His girl would have had a golf club or a mimosa in her hand, not an order pad or a butter knife.

  He said he loved me, but could I trust that? Maybe he had a savior complex, and I was his next project.

  His arms pulled me closer, and I wasn’t sure whether he was shielding me or I was shielding him.

  Finally, his mother noticed he wasn’t alone. Her eyes fell to my face. “Are you Hannah?”

  Her knowing smile immediately destroyed every shred of doubt that had burrowed inside me minutes ago. My heart soared free, but only for a second.

  Those old seeds of doubt returned as fast as they’d vanished, digging into my skin like a splinter and threatening to fester inside my fleeting sense of calm. Maybe it was John who told her.

  I lifted my head from Decker’s chest and faked a heart-warmed smile. “I am Hannah. You must be Decker’s mom.”

  She didn’t give me stink eye or look at me like I was some gutter tramp. A genuine grin crossed her face. “I’m so excited to meet you. Although—” She gave Decker an accusatory look. “—I would have preferred that it not be in the hospital.”

  After inching myself free from Decker’s hold, I slid off the bed to my sandaled feet. I was still dressed in the pretty pink sundress he’d bought me. I wondered what she’d think of me if she saw me dressed for my normal world, in worn blue jeans and an apron.

  “I should be going so you two can talk. It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Riley.” Saying her name created warmth from the memory of the moments I pretended to be the same.

  Decker’s head was already shaking. He held his hand out to me, but I remained out of reach.

  It was his mother who caught me by the arm. “You don’t need to go, sweetheart.” She pulled me to her side. “For goodness’ sake, call me Peggy.”

  “I really do need to go. I have an early morning shift, and I still need to take care of a few things. Besides—” I looked at the man I knew I loved, “—he has a fan club waiting outside to see him.”

  I broke free of her touch and walked toward the door. Like a mime, I lifted a fake phone to my ear. “Call me once you’ve rested.”

  I was only a step out the door when I heard his mom say, “Your father is fading fast, but he’s been asking for you. Where have you been?” I stopped for a second to listen.

  “Clearing my head. Spending time with Hannah. Thinking about my future.”

  “This must be so hard for you,” his mother crooned, and I could almost see her sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling him in for a hug.

  Feeling guilty for eavesdropping, I left and joined the others in the waiting room.

  All eyes were on me when I entered. “He’s going to be okay.”

  A collective sigh was heard throughout the room.

  “Marty,” Mona said, “we’re out of here, then. I need pie and coffee in that order.” The two had become connected at the hip—Marty’s bad hip. What a pair they were. She was blind, and he used a walker. I wasn’t sure who was in worse shape, but they went together like spaghetti and meatballs. One was less without the other.

  I hugged the old couple. Mona always smelled like melted chocolate while Marty was mothballs dipped in Old Spice.

  “Are you taking care of yourself, young lady?” Despite her macular degeneration, Mona still managed to cast a meaningful glance at the exact location where my mom sat with Tanner.

  “Yes, ma’am. My mask is safely secured for the first time in a long time.”

  She lifted her dark glasses and looked into my eyes. At least I imagined that was where she was focused. It was hard to tell. “You’re going to be okay. My question is … will that boy be once he learns the truth?”

  That was the million-dollar question, and I couldn’t answer it.

  Chapter 23

  Decker

  Mom stayed while my friends funneled into the room. She said hello to each one and cooed at the babies.

  Ryker and Silas approached her and apologized for the fight as if it were somehow their fault. As the details came to light and Mom got a good idea of where and how the event transpired, her smile turned into a frown. I got the feeling that there was more to her concern than the fact I had eight stitches in my head.

  “I’m going to your father. You need to come soon.” Usually warm and friendly, Mom’s clipped tone caught me by surprise, and I found myself apologizing for the first time in my life for her behavior after she left.

  “She’s just worried.” Ana said as she bounced her chubby baby on her hip. Grace held Blue to her chest and kissed his red hair. Ryker and Silas stood by their women, and I could feel the sense of belonging that weaved through this group.

  Nate leaned against the wall. Two black eyes were already forming, and I was sure his nose would never be the same. “I’m heading out.” He raised his hand in the air and groaned. “Shit, that hurt.”

  “Come by the shop tomorrow. Your bike’s ready?”

  “His bike?” Tanner asked. He and Hannah’s mother had been standing off to the side, holding hands. Weird that the man who’d been there the most for me was hanging out with the woman who hadn’t been there for Hannah. I was glad because Tanner made a difference in people’s lives, and it had nothing to do with selling them a bunch of shit they didn’t want or need.

  “Yes, the Harley Fat Boy I crashed the night I met Hannah.” Best damn night of my life and not nearly as painful as the stitches in my head.

  Everyone nodded like it was normal to crash a bike into a tree, and maybe in Fury it was, or maybe it was expected from a guy like me. No matter what, I was determined to learn how to ride that beast. Like Hannah, it was something that I knew was part of my soul.

  Once everyone left, I made my way slowly down to the ICU. In the hallway, I leaned my tired body against the doorjamb and looked at the man who had been bigger than life. His once strong and imposing frame had withered away to that of a much older, weaker man.

  I wasn’t sure how it was possible for Dad to look any worse than he had days ago, but time seemed to ravage him with speed and efficiency. His skin had taken on the pallor of death.

  “Decker’s here, honey.” Mom patted the crepey skin of Dad’s hand.

  He looked in my direction. His once bright eyes were as orange as the jelly candies Mom ate around Halloween. “Decker, come here.” His words rattled deep and wet. His eyes settled on the bandage on my forehead. “If you’d stayed focused and at work, you wouldn’t be hurt.”

  I touched the strip of gauze and felt the throb of the injury pulse under the bandage. The wound beneath didn’t hurt as much as his words. Never a word of encouragement.

  I pushed off the doorjamb and stalked forward. “What is it with you? I’ve given everything to make you happy. Nothing works. It’s never worked. You’re going to die disappointed in me, and I’m going to have to live with the fact that you hated me.”

  “I don’t hate you, Decker. I just…” He coughed and coughed until the nurse came in to check on him. She hit the morphine button and left. Dad looked up at me with vacant eyes. The kind that drifted to another place even when they were focused on something else.

  “I’m drowning here, Dad. You just what? Hate me?” I shoved my hand
s into my pockets, afraid I would reach for him and shake the words from his graying lips. “How do you hate your own flesh and blood? I’m your son, for God’s sake.”

  Dad struggled to sit up. His eyes drooped, but in them I could see the determination to get the last word said. He looked at my mom. “You have to tell him, Peggy. He needs to know.”

  Mom’s head fell to the bed, and she started to cry. When she looked at me, the sadness in her eyes was like a knife to my heart.

  The scene was like walking into a horror movie. Everyone around me held a bloody knife, and I had no idea who had stabbed me, but intuition told me it would get worse before it got better.

  “What the hell is everyone talking about?” I yelled.

  The nurse walked by, reached in, and shut the door.

  With what looked like his last ounce of energy, Dad said, “You’re not my son.”

  Only the beeps of monitors broke the silence. Mom’s tears stopped, Dad slipped into his drug-induced sleep, and the floor fell out from beneath me. My long legs collapsed. I reached for the wall to help soften the fall and sat on the polished floor, feeling dulled from the pain of years of betrayal.

  “Decker…”

  I held up my hand to stop her from talking. I needed to make sense of the words. To make sense of the moment. To make sense of my life.

  “He’s not my dad?” All the hurt I’d experienced over the years swallowed me. I leaned against the wall for support. “Who’s my father?”

  Mom tucked the covers up to Dad’s neck and leaned in to kiss him. “I’ll be back,” she whispered. She stood above me and held out her hand. “Come home, Decker. There’s a lot to explain.”

  Those four words, “You’re not my son,” changed everything and nothing.

  Mom made tea while I fidgeted with the fake fruit in the bowl on the table.

  While Mom usually took the seat next to me, tonight she sat across from me with a manila envelope pressed so hard to the surface of the table her fingertips blanched.

  “Are you hungry?” Mom’s voice shook.

  “Stop stalling, Mom. I need to know everything you’re keeping from me.” I scrubbed my hands over my face, trying to pump some life into my deadened nerve endings.

  She rubbed the envelope like it was mink. “First off, you need to know that your father loves you.”

  “Which father is that? The one lying in the hospital bed that I manage to disappoint more than please, or the one who impregnated you?”

  She flinched at my harsh words. “Let me start at the beginning.”

  “Perfect,” I said with a large dose of sarcasm.

  She let out a deep rattling sigh. “Your dad … Rip has always been an overachiever. It’s in his very core to succeed at everything, but he couldn’t produce a child.”

  “So he’s sterile, and he blamed it on you?”

  “No, that was my idea. I came up with the hard labor story so you didn’t question not having siblings. That’s not the point.” Mom’s head shook side to side. “The point is, that as an overachiever, he couldn’t give me the one thing I really wanted—a child.”

  “Okay, well, at least I know why he never warmed up to me.”

  “Decker, you’re missing the point. He failed me. Rip Riley can’t deal with failure, so even though you didn’t share his DNA, he was determined to make you his in every other way, but he couldn’t make you love real estate the way he did. Another failure on his part, in his eyes.”

  “Shit, Mom. He doesn’t love real estate. He loves the art of the deal. He loves the kill. He loves the money.”

  “He loves you too. He just doesn’t understand where he went wrong.” Mom wrung her hands together with them hovering over the mysterious yellowed envelope. “He wanted you to have his passion.”

  “He shoved it down my throat every day. I’ve lived, slept, and breathed real estate since I was born. While my classmates headed to summer camp, I was stuck in ethics training with people three times my age.”

  Mom shifted in her seat. “And look at how good you are with people.”

  I slapped my hand on the table, making a fake orange jump from the bowl and roll off the edge. “I was thirteen. Let’s cut the crap, Mom. Who is my father? Have I met him? Does he hate me too, or did you use an anonymous sperm donor?” All the scenarios raced through my aching head.

  She took a lifetime to answer. “As far as DNA goes, I am not your mother either.”

  Her words hit me like a sledgehammer. “What the hell?” Every truth I’d known was a lie, and I couldn’t catch my breath or stop the world from spinning around me.

  “Decker, you will watch your mouth. I may not have given birth to you, but I raised you. You will not disrespect me or your father.”

  I hung my head, and for the first time in years, I cried. That was something I was never allowed to do. Crying showed weakness, and Rileys weren’t weak. But it turned out I wasn’t a Riley. “Were you ever going to tell me?”

  I saw the answer in her eyes before she uttered the words. “No. There was no reason.” She slid the envelope across the table. “Before you open it, you need to know that your early life ended in tragedy.” She shuddered. “Your parents were murdered.”

  A lump the size of Texas lodged in my throat. “How old was I when you adopted me?” I covered the envelope with my hand.

  “Eight months old. You were the cutest, sweetest thing ever. Your dad and I could tell that you were loved by your birth parents. You were so easy and so happy.”

  “What’s in here?” I slid my finger under the edge of the envelope and opened it slowly.

  “Everything. It’s all there.” Mom took the folder from my hands and pulled out a packet of papers. “When you started to go to Fury, I worried. You were getting too close to the truth.”

  My mind raced to the tiny town I felt so comfortable visiting. “My parents died in the massacre there?”

  Mom’s eyes filled with tears. “Yes.” She looked to the packet of papers and set them before me. “You have brothers. We couldn’t take them. How could we go from no children to three? I’m so sorry.”

  I sucked in lungfuls of air, hoping the oxygen would keep me conscious as everything dimmed to darkness around me. I grappled for my tea and took a drink.

  “I have brothers?”

  Mom lifted from her seat and came around the table to hug me. “Decker, I loved you like my own. I will always love you. I thought we’d be enough. I never imagined you would have to know. That’s my mistake. I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t deny that she’d loved me. She was the one constant in my life that I never questioned. “I love you too, Mom. That will never change.”

  “I’ll leave you alone for a few minutes. I’ll be out back if you want to talk about it.” She walked away. I waited for the click of the sliding glass door before I picked up the packet of papers.

  I read through the first page, which was legal mumbo jumbo decorated with a Records Sealed stamp. The second page had my vital statistics. At least they hadn’t changed my birthdate. For that matter, they hadn’t changed my first or middle name, but when I got to the last name, I was paralyzed. Decker Owen Savage. Could it be? No wonder Dad disliked bikers so much. I’d been born into a family of them.

  I gripped my keys and walked out the front door.

  It took me an hour to get to Fury and another thirty minutes of stopping everyone to ask them whether they knew where the Savages lived.

  Standing on the doorstep of Ryker and Ana’s home, I raised my hand to knock and lowered it several times. Did they know?

  My phone buzzed in my pocket for the second time. It was Mom asking where I’d gone.

  I’m okay. I love you. I need a few days to process, I texted back.

  My heart beat so fast I feared it would give out with the exertion. Once they opened the door, what could I say? Hey man, I’m your long-lost brother?

  Just as I turned around to leave, the door cracke
d open. “Decker?” It was Ana.

  “Hey, I was in the neighborhood and I thought I’d stop by and say hello.” What kind of fool was I? Just in the neighborhood worked for people who lived in the next town over, not an hour away.

  She stepped back and opened the door wide. “Come in. Ryker is putting Wren to bed. I’ll get him.”

  “I don’t want to bother your family.” What was I saying? I was their family; they just didn’t know yet. Or did they?

  “Don’t be silly.” She reached for my hand and tugged me inside. “Make yourself comfy. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared down the hallway.

  I stood in the center of their living room. The walls were covered in photos and birds. Actually, photos flanked by birds. My eyes ran the length of the room until I came to an old photo of a happy family—two parents and three boys. And there was no doubt I was the baby.

  Upon further reflection, I realized that I’d never asked about newborn pictures. Our hallways were covered with photos of me from late infancy—which must have been the time Mom adopted me—to now. She called it her wall of love, and it left me with no doubt that she cherished me. If I was on Ana and Ryker’s wall of love, did that mean they too would embrace me unconditionally?

  “Hey.” Ryker came up to me and patted me on the shoulder. “Should you be out and about?”

  “No concussion. Just a flesh wound.” I moved down to a single picture of me. Above the frame was an owl. I pointed to the big blue-eyed baby. “Who’s this?” I already knew, but did he?

  “My baby brother.”

  “Silas?”

  “No.”

  “Me?”

  If it was possible for time to stand still, it did. Then, in slow motion, Ryker’s normally stoic expression cracked. He reached out and pulled me into his arms. “Welcome home, little brother. It’s so good to have you back.”

  Over his shoulder, I could see Ana in the doorway, her sweet smile making her tears look happy.

  Ryker stepped back. “How did you know? Did Hannah tell you?”