Letting Go (Vista Falls #3)

by Cheryl Douglas

  “I was so young when I got pregnant with you,” she said, wringing her hands. “Barely eighteen.”

  He’d heard this story before. “I get that it couldn’t have been easy for you, but lots of young mothers—”

  “Find a way to be good parents.” She shook her head. “I know.”

  “Why did you marry him?” Colt had always wondered about that. He’d seen pictures of his mother long before living with his father had started to take its toll. She had been beautiful.

  “I didn’t think I had a choice. My parents kicked me out when they found out I was pregnant. They hated your father—”

  “I wonder why.” That explained why he’d never had a relationship with his maternal grandparents.

  “They tried to tell me he was bad for me, but I was too stubborn to listen. I loved him.”

  Colt couldn’t understand how anyone could love a man like his father. It seemed inconceivable. The last time he could remember loving his father or wanting the old man’s love in return, he’d been about four, ready to start school for the first time. In a rare show of emotion, his dad had sat him down and tried to ease his fears about his future classmates. Colt was pretty sure that was the only paternal act his father had ever performed in thirty-plus years of quasi-parenting.

  “But why did you stay? When you realized what he was like—”

  “It was too late.” Her hand trembled as she balled a tissue in her hand instead of using it. “I couldn’t go back to my parents. I’d alienated my friends because of him. I had no degree, no skills. I’d never had a job. He didn’t want me to work. I think he feared if I had any independence or a life outside of this house, I’d find a way to leave him. He thought I’d develop friendships with people who’d convince me to leave him or maybe even find another man… one who would treat me better.”

  Colt suspected anyone would have treated her better than the old man had, but he saw no reason to point that out. She already knew. “Speaking of this house, why the hell would you stay here?” The house was on a good chunk of land, which meant she could have sold it and bought something newer and smaller in town. Something that would have been perfect for her without all the memories.

  “I like it here.” She smiled at his shocked expression. “After your father moved out, I got to know some of my neighbors. They’ve become my friends. And I have vegetable gardens in the back. I love that. I sit out back at night with…”

  Colt watched his mother’s face light up as a white cat slithered into the room. She’d always loved animals, but his father had been dead set against bringing any mangy beasts into his house.

  “Who’s this?” he asked, bending to scratch beneath the cat’s chin when she brushed up against his leg.

  “This is Brandy. She’s been with me ever since your father left.”

  Colt knew the old man hadn’t gone willingly. He’d gone in the ambulance kicking and screaming, according to Colt’s friend, the sheriff. From the hospital, they’d transferred him to the nursing home when his mother told the doctors she could no longer care for him at home.

  “It’s nice that you have some company.”

  “I’m glad he’s gone,” she said, watching Colt pet the cat. “It may sound terrible, but I’m glad he’s locked away where he can’t hurt anyone else.”

  Colt didn’t think it sounded terrible. He felt the same way. At least he and his mother had that in common. “Do you see him anymore?”

  She shrugged. “I visit him when he’s having a good day, but he doesn’t want me there. I honestly don’t know why I keep punishing myself. I guess it’s that sense of duty. I was raised to believe that you marry once, for better or worse.”

  “Even when he beats you?” Colt curled one hand into a fist and closed his other hand around it as he remembered all the times his mother hadn’t been able to lock herself in the bathroom in time.

  “There were no women’s shelters in Vista Falls then, Colt. In fact, there still aren’t. If I’d called the police, your father would have been carted off to jail. I couldn’t have stayed here then. How would I have paid the bills? And what would have happened to my children? You probably would have wound up wards of the state.”

  Colt had wished for that plenty of times, thinking that may have been better than living with his father.

  “You must have had other options,” he said, trying to put herself in his position. “No woman has to stay with a man who abuses her and her children.”

  She choked back a sob. “I’m so sorry about that, Colt. As the oldest, I know you took the brunt of it, and that broke my heart. If there was anything I could have done to help you, I would have, but I couldn’t even help myself back then. I felt so helpless, so weak, so ashamed…”

  Colt wanted to be angry with her. He wanted to blame her, but she looked so remorseful that he couldn’t. Maybe if he’d walked in here today and seen the same woman he remembered—a cigarette hanging from her bony fingers, her mousy hair looking as though it hadn’t seen a brush in days—he could have stayed angry, but that woman was a distant memory. His mother looked lovely in a pair of white shorts and sandals with a lavender tank top. Her silver-white hair was cut short and carefully styled, and if he wasn’t mistaken, she was even wearing a bit of makeup.

  “You’re not the same person you were then.”

  “No, I’m not,” she said, seeming pleased that he’d noticed. “And you’re a big part of the reason for that. I tried to call to thank you, but you never returned my calls.”

  Colt refused to feel guilty for cutting all ties to his family. He’d done it out of self-preservation. “All I did was write checks.”

  “You did so much more than that,” she said, reaching across the painted white coffee table to grasp his hand. “You gave me a way out. You helped me get your father out of this house so I could finally start building a life for myself.”

  Colt had never thought of it that way, but he was glad his mother had benefited from his decision to pay for his father’s care. “Some swanky old age home is too good for him, you know. He deserves to be locked up. But not in there. He’s a criminal, and he got away with it for too damn long.”

  “I know that.”

  At least she wasn’t trying to defend him anymore. Colt acknowledged that as progress. “Tell me more about what you’ve been up to.” Instead of rehashing the past the way he’d thought they would, he was tired of talking about the emotional scars the old man had inflicted. He wanted to focus on the positive changes his mother had made, hoping maybe that was possible for him too.

  “Well, you’ve seen what I’ve been up to.” She laughed self-coconsciously as she gestured around them. “My little decorating projects around the house. Mosaics, cooking, baking, walking, gardening—oh, and I have a part-time job at the library.”

  He remembered how much she’d always loved books. Whenever there was a moment of peace in their house, which was rare, his mother would escape to her room with a book.

  “Good for you.” He glanced at the pretty frames decorating the photos she clearly treasured. “You made those?”

  “I did,” she said proudly, picking one up. “At first I was terrible at it, but I got the hang of it eventually. I took a class at the local community center mainly just to get out of the house and get involved with people in some small way. I couldn’t go on being so isolated. It wasn’t healthy.”

  Colt couldn’t imagine how hard it had been for her to put herself out there given her husband’s reputation in their small town. “That couldn’t have been easy. How did everyone treat you?”

  “Some people thought I was guilty by association.” She shrugged. “I just tried to ignore them because there were enough people who were nice to me, who really seemed to like me.”

  Imagining this version of his mother making friends wasn’t difficult. She was warm and seemed compassionate, interesting even, with her varied hobbies. “I’m glad things have gotten better for you.”

  “How
about you?” she asked, seeming hesitant. “How have things been for you been since you got back to town? I heard you were here for a brief time last year. Since you didn’t stay, I assumed all the bad memories chased you away.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t stop by for a visit.” He still felt guilty about that. Even though they’d never been close, she was still his mother. “I meant to, but I left town kind of suddenly.”

  “It’s okay.” Her sad smile said she was trying hard to understand. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to set foot inside this house again. I wouldn’t either if I were you.”

  “I have to admit,” he said, looking around. “This looks nothing like the old place. I wouldn’t even have recognized it.”

  “I’m glad,” she said, linking her hands. “That’s what I was going for—a clean slate.”

  A clean slate. Those three little words hung between them, and Colt knew his mother was wondering whether that was possible for them. A new beginning, maybe. “I hate him. I never hated you.” It wasn’t an admission of love, but it was something.

  “I’m glad to hear that… that you don’t hate me. But, honey, it worries me to hear you say you hate your father.” She raised her hand, shaking her head. “I’m not saying that he didn’t give you plenty of reasons to feel that way. Lord knows he did. He gave all of us plenty of reasons to hate him.”

  “Are you saying you don’t hate him after everything he did to you?”

  “That would be giving him too much power over me, and I swore to myself a long time ago that those days were over.”

  He remembered how powerless the old man had made all of them feel. They were all weaker than he was, and he’d never failed to remind them that he could hurt them with one swipe of his huge hand.

  “Maybe you could teach me how to do that then,” he said, his smile more of a grimace. “Because I haven’t figured out how to stop hating him for what he did to us.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why do you pay for his care if you hate him so much?”

  Wes had asked him that question, and Colt had given him the same response. “If I didn’t, he’d be the state’s responsibility, and it didn’t seem fair to bilk taxpayers out of their hard-earned dollars to pay for him. He’d been a burden to us for all those years. Why make him a burden to everyone else too?” There were days when Colt felt he should double the man’s caregivers’ salaries just for putting up with that vicious old bastard.

  “Did you do it for me?” she asked, her voice soft as she looked up at him through tinted lashes.

  “I guess in a way I did. I wanted to put him away. Since I didn’t have the guts to call the police when I should have, this seemed like the next best thing.”

  She smiled. “You know, it’s a lovely facility. A lot of people love living there.”

  “I’m sure they did until he arrived.”

  “He’s mellowed a lot. That’s the only reason I have anything to do with him anymore. He has his bad days just like he always did. But now he has a few good days mixed in there too, and the good ones are better than they ever were. He’s facing his own mortality. That can’t help but change a man, I guess.”

  Colt couldn’t imagine anything changing his father, not even the prospect of a visit from the Grim Reaper. “I want to forget him, to put him out of my mind completely. But I’m not going to lie, I’ve had a hard time with that.”

  “Maybe you should go see him, get it all off your chest. That might help. I know it did for me.”

  “You told him off?” Colt couldn’t imagine his mother standing up to his father even if she was stronger and he was weaker than they’d been when he was a child.

  “I told him how I felt about what he did to his children… and to me,” she said, sitting up straighter. “I told him that he should be ashamed of himself, that a real man doesn’t treat the people he claims to love that way.”

  Colt rolled his eyes. “You don’t honestly believe that he loved any of us, do you?”

  “I know it may not seem like it, but I believe in his own way he did. He was afraid of losing us. He thought if he kept tearing us down, we’d stay because we believed we needed him. I guess in my case it worked. But I’m so glad you kids got out when you did.”

  Colt was almost afraid to ask the question that had been haunting him for years. “Did it get worse after I left?” Since he’d often borne the brunt of his father’s anger, his father had been too spent to hurt his wife and other children.

  “It was strange, but he seemed to retreat inside himself after you left. He watched a lot of TV, didn’t talk much. We were all happy about that. If we weren’t talking to him, we couldn’t upset him.”

  It was a hell of a way to live, being afraid to speak in your own home. “I’m glad that you’re alone here now. You finally have freedom.”

  She smiled, reaching for his hands. “And I have you to thank for that.”

  “No thanks necessary. It makes me feel good to see you doing so well.”

  “I’d like to see you happy too.”

  Colt wondered if his unhappiness was as obvious to everyone or if she had a sixth sense because she was his mother. “I’m working out a few things. I hope it’ll all come together.”

  “Maybe it would help if you went to see him,” she said again. “No pressure, but if you want, I can call you when he’s having a good day.”

  Colt frowned. “How would you know that?”

  “I have the nurses call me when it’s a good day. That’s when I go to see him. Sometimes he’s out of it by the time I get there, but more often than not, he’s still lucid. I could go with you, if you want.”

  “Let me think about it.” He stood to give her a hug. “It was good to see you, Mom. I’m glad I stopped by.”

  “Me too, honey,” she said, patting his back. “Me too.”

  Chapter Eight

  Gabby was in the midst of making a dozen floral arrangements for a small wedding when Colt walked in with two cups of coffee.

  “My hero,” she joked then inhaled deeply as the strong scent of coffee filled the air. “I was just thinking about closing up for a few minutes to go and grab one of those. How’d you know?”

  “I’m a mind reader.” He set one of the cups on the glass counter between Gabby and her cash register so she wouldn’t risk knocking it over while she worked. “You look busy. You did all these by yourself?”

  “Yeah, my part-timer was supposed to come in and help for a bit,” she said, reaching for her coffee and peeling back the plastic lid, “but she was feeling a little under the weather, so I told her to stay home and get some rest.”

  “I’d offer to help,” he said, eyeing the white-and-pale-pink arrangements, “but I’d be way out of my element.”

  She laughed, thinking about how cute he’d look arranging flowers. “Why? Are you worried someone might walk by and see you?”

  “You know I don’t care what anyone else thinks.” He rested his forearms on the counter, leaning toward her. “Just you.”

  She closed her eyes when his lips touched hers briefly, a subconscious signal that she hoped he would take it further even though they were in plain sight of anyone passing by.

  She’d already had half a dozen customers ask her about Colt since their impromptu dinner at the diner. Word got around town fast, especially when the subject was its favorite bad boy. Reactions were mixed from those brave enough to voice their opinion. The little old ladies warned her to steer clear of Colt. He’d hurt her once, they reminded her, and he’d do it again. Those a little closer to Gabby’s age, married or not, told her she’d be crazy not to jump back in bed with him. When he looked at her the way he was now, she had to agree.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking.” He licked his lips as he watched her do the same. He was still leaning over the counter, invading her space. Not that she minded.

  “Word’s all over town, you know. That you and I were seen together
.”

  He grinned. “Is that so?”

  “You don’t seem too upset about it.”

  “Why would I be? If other guys think you’re off the market, they’ll stop asking you out.”

  She didn’t want to reward his bad behavior with a smile, but she couldn’t help herself. “You’re incorrigible.”

  “Yeah, but you like it.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.” She took a sip of her coffee as he rocked back on his heels, reaching for his own cup. “What brings you by anyhow? Shouldn’t you be holding down the fort with Wes away on his honeymoon?”

  Four more days until he and Sage returned. Not that Gabby was counting or anything. She felt as though so much had happened since her best friend left town. She couldn’t wait to fill her in.

  “They can manage without me for an hour. Besides, I had to come in and let you know I took your advice.”

  “You did? About what?”

  He picked up a single white rose, trailing it along her cheek and down her neck until she snatched it from him. She was wearing a thin cotton sundress, and it didn’t take x-ray vision for him to see the effect he was having on her with that damn flower.

  “What’s wrong?” He rolled his lower lip between his teeth as his captivating gray eyes dipped below her chunky turquoise necklace. “Chilly?”

  “You’re a pig,” she scolded, folding her arms. Even though they’d agreed to try being friends, Gabby knew there would always be a sexual undercurrent to their conversations that would make it difficult for her to focus on anything besides getting naked.

  “You can’t blame me for wanting you, Gabby. You’re a beautiful woman. And we’re good together.” His voice dropped even lower, intensifying the quiver in her belly. “Real good.”

  She couldn’t deny he was right. It would have been stupid to try. Neither one of them had suffered amnesia since their last encounter, though she suspected he’d had plenty of other women warming his bed since, trying to erase her from his memory. Unable to quash her curiosity, she asked, “How soon after we were together last did you sleep with someone else?”