by Beth Flynn
She nodded. “I want to go,” she said in a soft voice. “At least, I think I do.”
A pause. She looked at him with uncertainty and wonder.
Just then, Jason poked his head into the room, breaking the spell.
“Mimi, Mom said c’mon.” They could hear his footsteps as he ran off.
“The guy that Jason mentioned at dinner, James. Is that why you’re leaving? Your Mom is seeing someone?”
“He’s part of the reason. I’m glad my mother has fallen in love again. I want her to be happy, and I just don’t think she can stay here.”
“James who?” Not that he cared. He was just trying to think of conversation to prevent her from leaving, if just for a few more minutes.
“Just James.” She looked away.
Christian nodded. He was honestly happy for Aunt Ginny and respected her privacy. She was a good woman, and Christian thought she deserved some happiness. But her happiness was taking his happiness across the country and out of his life.
“Mimi, I’ve waited too long, and now it’s too late.” His words were quiet.
She’d finally let go of his jacket, and he now held it in a crumpled ball.
She laid a hand on his arm. “No. It’s not too late, Christian. Look—we’re going away to start over. Mom doesn’t want us connected to anything from her old life. I don’t blame her. We’re going ‘off the grid.’” She emphasized the phrase with air quotes. “But it won’t be forever. I know how to get in touch with you, and I will. You’ll hear from me, okay?”
“When?”
“I honestly don’t know. I have to go now. They’re waiting. Trust me.”
She stood on her tiptoes, softly kissed his cheek.
“Mimi,” he called after her. She stopped and looked back at him, her hand clutching the doorknob. “Were you disappointed Slade wasn’t here tonight? You know, to say goodbye?”
He looked at her, then almost shyly at the floor. The tilt of his head caused his long, black hair to fall over his shoulder and hide the right side of his face. When she didn’t say anything, he chanced a glance up, his bright blue eyes in stark contrast to the dark tone of his skin. He wanted to eat his words the minute they left his mouth, but then Mimi smiled at him.
“I don’t think he knew tonight’s dinner was to say goodbye,” Mimi said softly.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
She looked at him a long moment, like she was trying to guess his intent.
“No,” she said finally. “I wasn’t disappointed at all.”
And then she was gone. That was five years ago.
And he’d waited.
And there was nothing.
He went to his parents, who both told him to leave it alone. They didn’t have an address for Ginny in Montana, and even if they did, they wouldn’t be giving it to him. He’d finally come right out and asked the last name of the man Ginny was seeing. He’d pestered them to death, even doing his own feeble research online. The social networks proved futile, not to mention that he totally sucked at it. And Mimi had only said her mom was “seeing” a man. Who knows—that could’ve lasted less than ten minutes. She could be with anybody now. Maybe even nobody.
Days slowly become weeks, which became months and finally stretched out into years, and there was no word from Mimi. She was gone, and he’d never gotten over her. Never gotten over the fact that he’d seen something in her eyes that night. Something maybe she didn’t even know was there herself. Something he’d wanted to pursue and would have—if she hadn’t driven out of his life the next morning.
He was no longer the shy, tongue-tied teenager who couldn’t bring himself to ask Mimi out. He was now a man. A man who knew what he wanted.
He barely noticed when what’s-her-name pouted her way out of Axel’s office and slipped out the back door of the garage. It was a Sunday, and the place was empty.
He absently looked around the small office and wondered if Axel had any liquor stashed. He rummaged through drawers and file cabinets and finally came to the last one. It was an old metal number that had seen better days, and the drawers gave a loud screech when he opened and closed them.
The last and final drawer didn’t contain files. A brown paper bag was sitting on top of something black. Maybe there was a bottle buried in here somewhere. He grabbed the paper bag, but could tell by its weight that it was full of paper. He wasn’t interested and tossed it aside. Next, he came to a black leather jacket. Maybe there was a bottle of booze tucked into its folds. Christian carefully lifted it out, but it wasn’t concealing a bottle, either.
He started to put it back when he noticed part of a patch. Was this Axel’s old club jacket? Standing up from his crouch, he grabbed the jacket by both shoulders, stretching it out so he was looking at the back. His eyes slowly took in what he was seeing. It was a sinister skull with devil horns. A naked woman was draped over the top of the skull. She had dark hair and dark eyes. He knew he was looking at his Aunt Ginny’s image, but he was seeing Mimi.
All the suppressed feelings of his past started to rise to the surface then. She had said, “trust me.” He’d waited. Trusted. And she’d never come back.
Well, he was tired of waiting. He knew he could have someone find her. Yes, he would have someone track her down. Life wasn’t fair, and there were too many rules.
He didn’t play by rules.
It was no secret that Mimi’s real father had Ginny abducted back in 1975. It was no secret that Christian’s father, Anthony, had taken his mother, Christy.
He’d grown tired of waiting. It was now time for Christian to take what he wanted.
And he’d always wanted Mimi.
**********
Two Weeks Later
Ginny
North Carolina
I felt Grizz’s presence as he walked up beside me, carrying Ruthie. He knew not to interrupt the moment I was having with our son. Once again, Ruthie’s twin brother traced each letter in the headstone, proud of himself as he said them loudly and slowly.
“D...I…L…L...O…N.” He lay back against my chest and looked up. “You look upside down, Mommy.”
I smiled and kissed his forehead.
“Who’s ready for our picnic?” I asked as Dillon wiggled around on my lap, his interest already leaning toward what I had packed for lunch.
“Me!” he shouted as he jumped up and ran toward the picnic table, which sat under an outside pavilion.
“Let me down, Daddy!” Ruthie squealed.
She started to squirm, and I could see Grizz was ready for her this time, clasping both of her tiny legs together with his gigantic hand.
“Not until what?” he asked her.
“Please?”
“What else?” His eyes twinkled.
Ruthie puckered her lips and waited for him to lift her high enough so she could press her rosy, pursed lips against his hairy cheek. He grinned and set her down.
“You smell good, Daddy, and your beard itches my lips!”
And then she was off, too, barreling toward her brother.
Grizz reached for my hand and pulled me to my feet. I wrapped my arms around his waist and looked up at him.
“I saw that kick when you picked her up. Still hurts?” I was speaking about a bullet he’d taken in his side back when we’d lived at the motel.
“Only when I get kicked there, which isn’t often, so I can live with it.”
He pulled me closer and rested his chin on top of my head. We stood like that for a few minutes. Words weren’t necessary. I used the quiet moment to reflect on our decision to name our little boy Dillon. We had talked about naming him Tommy, but we realized that honor should be given to Jason, should he ever have a son. I wasn’t ready to dismiss how important Tommy had been to me, to all of us. The wedding band I’d worn while married to Tommy had been safely tucked away for Jason to give his bride one day.
Dillon was too little to realize his older brother Jason had a different father, but
we knew one day we would tell Dillon our story—and all about the man he’d been named after.
Our quiet moment was interrupted when the twins started shouting in unison, “Jason and Pappaw are here!”
We turned to see Jason and Micah walking up from the rear of the little church. They must have come the back way, as we hadn’t heard Jason’s truck. Micah now walked with a cane, but it did little to slow him down.
Jason was now seventeen years old and would be graduating high school soon. He had transitioned extremely well after our move here and had made good, solid friends in our little mountain town. He’d grown especially close to Grizz’s father. We smiled as we heard Micah grumbling out loud to Jason.
“Still can’t believe my grown son thinks it’s okay to look like a woman. Long hair and earring.” Micah trudged toward us. “If I’d-a been the one to raise him, I’d have pushed that nonsense outta his head a long time ago. What’s he going to do next? Put it up in a bun like his Aunt Tillie used to wear?”
Aunt Tillie had died peacefully in her sleep just a year after we’d moved here. We’d insisted that Micah move back into his home to be with us. We were grateful that he’d agreed. He made our family, our home, feel complete.
“Do you have a rubber band or hair tie?” Grizz whispered.
I pulled back and peered up at him. “Don’t you dare! You are just going to antagonize him. I’m not giving you a hair tie to put your hair up in a bun.”
“Why not?” He batted his eyes. “You never know. It might just start a trend.”
“A man bun?” The corners of my mouth quirked. “That’ll be the day.”
I took my ponytail down and handed him the band. I was secretly enjoying the playfulness he was showing. I loved how easily he’d fallen into a relationship with his father. Even when they agreed to disagree about something, there was always an undercurrent of love and respect.
“Where are my kisses?” Micah called as he approached the kids.
They both ran to him, and I noticed Ruthie elbow her brother out of the way.
“Ruth Frances!” I put my hands on my hips. “Tell Dillon you’re sorry and let him hug Pappaw first!”
After giving his Pappaw a kiss and a squeeze, Dillon’s interest immediately went to his older brother, Jason. Dillon adored Jason, and I loved how much Jason adored him back.
I reached for Grizz’s hand to walk toward our family when I looked up at him. The man bun wasn’t looking too shabby on my husband. Actually, it was looking pretty darn hot. I gulped.
We were walking hand-in-hand toward the group when Grizz asked me, “Has Mimi called?”
“No. She’s not calling until she gets to Pumpkin Rest. She has almost an hour until she gets there.”
Mimi was on spring break from college, and like every spring break for the past few years, she’d spent it at a Christian retreat in the mountains. They weren’t allowed to have their cell phones or any link to the modern world. We’d dropped her off the first year, and since we approved of the place and the wonderful people who ran it, we’d let her travel there by herself the last few years.
Not that we had much choice. Mimi would be twenty-two this year and a college graduate. She was an adult. But she would always call us from the last place she could get a phone signal—a tiny little town called Pumpkin Rest—just to reassure us. It consisted of a small grocery store, gas station, pharmacy and diner, all in the same building at the center of a crossroads and very similar to the town we now called home.
We finished our picnic, and I gathered garbage and packed away the leftovers. The kids were in the church playground, and Jason was pushing them on the swings. Grizz and Micah were having a conversation about motorcycles. Micah was speaking in a soft voice and trying to get Grizz to tell him that just because he still rode his bike and we spent an occasional long weekend away from the mountains, Grizz was no longer engaging in anything illegal.
“You don’t have to worry, Preacher,” I heard Grizz tell him. I looked up, and watched Grizz as he added without meeting his father's eyes, “I’ve told you before, I like getting away with Ginny on the bike. I’m not breaking any laws by riding.”
Grizz must've felt my gaze because he quickly changed the subject by asking me, “When is your foul-mouthed, nutty sister coming back up?”
“You’re one to talk,” I grinned. Grizz did his best to keep his profanity at a minimum around the kids, but he still slipped a little. Actually, he slipped a lot. I winked at him. “You know you love Jodi. What, not excited about her visit?”
He hmphed and muttered, “Yeah, I’m shit-the-bed excited, Kit. Your sister’s visit will be the highlight of my year.”
“Stop being such a grump.” I playfully tugged on his man-bun which was starting to grow on me. “You love my sister and you know it. She’s funny and always good for a giggle or two.”
“I don’t giggle, Kit.”
His expression was so serious that Micah and I burst out laughing.
Micah had just asked a question about Jodi’s travel plans when my cell phone rang. Mimi.
“Hey! You’re at Pumpkin Rest?”
The connection was a bit crackly, but her voice was strong and sure.
“Yep! I just filled up and am now eating the best homemade biscuit with honey in the world. You’d love it. Then I’m heading for the camp.”
“You’ll text when you get there? And use the code?” I added.
The camp was so far out of tower-signal range she couldn’t make or receive phone calls; however, oddly enough, text messages went through.
“Yes, Mom.”
I could hear the smile in her voice. We had established a code, a safe word only Mimi knew. I knew I was overly cautious, but who could blame me after the life I’d lived?
“But after that, you know I have to turn in my phone, so you won’t hear from me again for ten days,” she said. “I’ll text when I’m leaving and, of course, I’ll call when the signal improves.”
“I know. I just hate not being able to communicate for ten days.”
“I’m sorry for that, Mom, but you know how important this retreat is for me. And you and Dad have visited the place. We have this same conversation every year.”
The static was increasing, and I knew she must’ve been walking. I was hearing about every third word, but I got the gist of what she was saying.
“Oh, my gosh!” I heard her exclaim.
“Mimi, what is it? Are you okay?” Grizz caught my eye, his body on immediate alert.
“Yes!” She sounded giddy. “It’s fine, Mom. I just ran into a friend! It’s...”
I couldn’t hear the name.
“Who did you run into, Mimi?” I covered my left ear with my hand to block out any noise from my end, but already my heart had returned to a normal thud. She’d said it was a friend. Probably somebody she would be seeing at the camp.
“Mimi?”
“I’m here, Mom.” There was no indication in her tone that anything was wrong.
“What friend did you run into?” I asked, more calmly this time.
Again I couldn’t hear the name she repeated.
“Mom, I’m going to run. I’ll text you when I get there. Stop worrying. I couldn’t be safer. I love you and Dad, and tell the munchkins I’ll have presents for them the next time I come home.”
“Okay, honey. I know you’ll have a great time and—”
My phone gave three quick beeps, and I knew we’d been cut off. I was sending a text to her when one came through.
Sorry. Awful service. Will text you later. Love you.
I texted back, Love you too.
I hadn’t noticed Grizz and Micah had stopped their conversation about my sister and had been listening to mine. I explained the conversation, then looked at Grizz sheepishly.
“I can’t help it. I’m a mother.”
He was sitting at the end of the picnic bench, and he turned so he could pull me down onto his lap. Softly, he kissed the side of my n
eck.
“You are the most wonderful mother a child could ask for. You raised a beautiful young lady. Just the fact that she would rather spend her last college spring break at a Christian retreat than on the beach tells me that. Never apologize for being a mother, Ginny.”
I looked at him and saw not only love but admiration in his eyes. I knew my decision to marry him had been the right one.
I remembered asking him once what had changed him when he came back into my life after I’d worn the bandana. He used to be in such a hurry, so impatient to get what he wanted. And still he’d courted me the second time around with a patience and gentleness I’d never seen from him before.
“I’ve been given a gift, Ginny,” he’d told me.
“A gift? You mean a second chance?”
“Yes, a second chance, but even more importantly, a gift. A gift of time.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Time is the real gift, Ginny, because it’s the one thing you can never get back.”
We had finally come full circle. Back to the way it was meant to be.
He was my first love. He was a true love. And after all the wandering and searching our hearts had done over the years, we had finally found peace.
We had finally found home.
The End
The Iron Tiara
A Standalone Nine Minutes Spin-Off Novel
PROLOGUE
Naples, Florida
1978
Anthony Bear fumed as he sat astride the riding mower and gazed across the large expanse that was the Chapman property. Their lavish home sat on several acres in the exclusive community of Land and Sea Estates. He glanced down at his hands that were gripping the mower's steering wheel and realized there was still some blood caked beneath his fingernails from earlier that day. He hardly noticed the roar of the mower as he reflected on the events that had transpired over the last few hours.
Three Hours Earlier
When he'd found out that morning from his bookkeeper that a client was in arrears for almost seventy thousand dollars, he had to reel in anger so intense he could almost feel his blood boiling. After willing himself to calm down, he immediately called his second in command, Alexander, who Anthony called X, to find out how this could've happened. He was almost cooled off when the loud pipes from X's motorcycle announced his arrival at Anthony's business, Native Touch Landscape and Design.
