by Dahlia West
“I… need a favor,” Dalton told his younger brother.
Jonah hesitated. Probably not because he was disinclined to say yes, but most likely because in the history of their relationship Dalton had never asked Jonah for anything. Jonah was always wary of anything new.
“What?” he prompted bluntly.
Jonah was definitely not one to beat around the bush or dispense with niceties. He was as outspoken and occasionally foul mouthed as Dalton himself, probably more so. He was also nearly as large as Dalton and, like Dalton and Adam, could handle himself in a fight. But unlike Dalton and Adam, Jonah had a mean streak in him that was both unpredictable and probably unhealthy. The Starks had spent years trying to keep it at bay, with marginal success. Right about now, though, Dalton was more interested in harnessing it.
It was unlikely that Patrick Grant would have the balls to show up here, but he might. Rapid City wasn’t a large city, finding almost anyone was relatively easy. Though Dalton had moved once since his break up with Zoey, he felt pretty confident that Grant could find his new place with little effort.
“Um… babysitting, actually,” Dalton replied, calling it like it was. After all, Jonah was likely to see it that way and so it was probably best to just get it out of the way.
“You don’t have kids,” Jonah pointed out.
Dalton pictured Zoey’s belly and grimaced. “True. Listen, Jonah, I have a problem.”
Jonah must have heard something in Dalton’s tone that made him take notice. “Okay.”
“Can you come over tomorrow, early?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Zoey’s…”
Dalton paused. He was tempted to say Zoey was back, but she wasn’t back and he should be careful saying that she was, because saying she was might lead to thinking she was and when she left it would be harder.
“Zoey’s here,” he told Jonah.
“Zoey? Why? I thought you said she was getting married.”
“She is married.”
Jonah paused. “So, why’s she at your place? And why do you want me at your place if she’s there?”
“He hit her.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jonah snarled. “Are we going to find him?”
“No.”
“Why not? We should!”
“We’re not doing that,” Dalton insisted. “I just need you to be here with her tomorrow while I’m at work. Just in case he shows up.”
“If he shows up, he’s leaving in an ambulance,” Jonah muttered.
“Which is why I’m calling you and not Ava. Then again, Ava might actually kill him.”
“It’s not out of the realm of possibility,” Jonah said darkly.
Dalton sighed. It wasn’t worth arguing about. Jonah was young and hotheaded on occasion. But despite his personal problems, he knew not to raise his hand to a woman. He was better than that. Dalton could relate to Jonah’s sense of outrage at the situation.
“Just be here early, okay?” Dalton asked. “I’ll call Adam and clear it with him.”
“Sure, no problem.”
Dalton disconnected the call and set the phone on the counter. Jonah could protect Zoey, easily, if it came to that. There was no way to get out of work, unfortunately, but Dalton would be less distracted if he knew she was safe. He swept the teabag off the counter and deposited into the garbage, as though doing that might erase any sign of her. It didn’t work though. It was probably his imagination, in fact he knew it was, but something about the feel of the place had fundamentally changed the moment Zoey had walked through the door. Maybe it would go away when she did, but truth was that Dalton hoped it didn’t.
Chapter Eight
Dalton woke early and crept down the hall. He gently nudged open the door to the second bedroom. Zoey was still there, sleeping soundly. He breathed a sigh of relief. Knowing she was here— safe— did things to him that he’d rather not think about. Some things got inside you and stayed there, like addiction. Some memories did too, although they were more painful and harder to get rid of. But Zoey was real this time, no phantom presence in the night that he reached for and never found.
He closed the door again and headed into the kitchen. His phone showed a text from Jonah that he was on his way. Dalton cringed as he dialed Adam’s number, knowing it was early.
Adam answered on the fourth ring.
“I need to borrow Jonah today.”
“Just during the day?”
“Yeah.”
Adam paused. “Okay, but I really can’t spare him in the evening. It’s our busiest night of the week.”
Dalton glanced at his watch and thought about what he needed to get done that day. “I’ll be home before dark. I just need him to be here while I’m gone.”
“Is there a problem with your place?”
Dalton shifted on his feet and looked up at the ceiling. Lying to your family wasn’t exactly the best way to get them to trust you. “Ah… no. Not really.”
“D?”
Dalton took a deep breath. “Zoey’s here.”
There was a long pause “What do you mean Zoey’s there?”
Dalton tapped his fingers on the counter. “I mean, she’s having some problems. So she’s staying at my place today.”
“What does having problems mean? What kind of problems?”
Dalton glanced over his shoulder at the closed bedroom door. “Relationship problems.”
“Relationship problems? No, Dalton. She’s married. You mean marriage problems. Which are A, none of your business and B, not your problem. You’ve got your own problems.”
Dalton gripped the phone tightly. “You knew she was married?”
Adam didn’t reply.
“You knew and you didn’t tell me.”
Adam sighed. “Her parents put an announcement in the paper. Pop saw it. We agreed not to tell you.”
“So you just decided I didn’t need to know?” Dalton couldn’t believe what he was hearing. It was one thing to help out your family when they needed it. It was another to start making decisions for them.
“It wasn’t a good time to tell you. We just wanted you to focus on getting better.”
“I am better!”
Silence again. Dalton’s jaw dropped. Didn’t Adam agree? Dalton hadn’t missed a single meeting or a day of work in almost six months. How could Adam imply that Dalton hadn’t changed? Dalton opened his mouth to ask, but slammed it shut. Somehow he suspected he didn’t want to know the answer.
“I’m taking her to her parents tonight anyway,” Dalton snapped. Saying it out loud only made him more angry, though.
“Well, that’s good,” Adam replied. “It’s for the best.”
“Jonah’ll be at work later,” Dalton growled and disconnected the call.
Adam could be a self-righteous prick sometimes.
There was a soft knock on the door and Dalton crossed to the living room to answer it.
Jonah shuffled inside, ducking in the harsh wind. He scraped his heavy boots on the mat and looked around.
“She’s asleep,” Dalton told him.
Jonah nodded.
Back in the kitchen, Dalton swept his keys off the counter and pocketed them. He glanced down the hallway. Zoey was asleep, but she wouldn’t stay in there all day. Dalton rapped the counter with his knuckles. “So, listen. She’ll be here for the day and I’ll take her to her parents’ house when I get off work. If she needs anything, get it for her.”
Jonah wrinkled his nose. “Like what?”
Dalton rubbed the back of his neck and looked at his younger brother. “I don’t know. I don’t know about that stuff. Here’s the thing. She’s pregnant.”
Jonah’s jaw dropped.
Dalton frowned. “Jonah?”
Jonah didn’t respond.
“Jonah!”
Jonah finally shook himself and looked at Dalton.
Dalton smirked at him. “Do you need to take off your boots to finish counting? It’s not mine. If it w
as, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Dalton shook his head. “I don’t know how you put your hands on the woman carrying your kid.”
Jonah’s jaw tightened. “There are all kinds of assholes in the world.”
Dalton froze. Maybe calling Jonah had been the wrong move. Dalton had been so wrapped up in Zoey that he hadn’t given the baby much thought. Jonah’s parents, his real parents, had been truly evil. Dalton cursed himself for putting Jonah under the same roof as a kid whose father was also abusive. Dalton’s hand flexed, squeezing his cell phone. “Maybe I should call Adam back,” he said quietly.
Jonah’s menacing gaze met his. “Don’t call Adam.”
Dalton’s fingers twitched. “Jonah.”
Jonah shook his head. “Don’t call him. I got this.”
“Jonah.”
“I won’t kill him,” Jonah declared. “If he comes here, I won’t kill him. I promise.”
Dalton hesitated, searching Jonah’s face, trying to discern the truth.
Jonah shrugged. “How much damage could the prick do to someone who’s not even born?”
Dalton checked his watch again. He hated to leave, but if he was going to call Adam he had to do it now. It was selfish, but Dalton was still kind of pissed off at his older brother and preferred the younger one just now. He pointed a finger at Jonah. “If he shows up here, you call me.”
Jonah nodded. “I’ll call you. After I hurt him.”
Dalton sighed.
Jonah grinned. It was positively feral. “You didn’t say I couldn’t hurt him. He deserves that much.”
Dalton had to admit he felt the same. He sized up Jonah, who nearly filled the entire kitchen space. Clad in all black, his steel-toed boots matched the ring in his eyebrow, which was barely visible through the dark hair that fell just above his eyes. His black leather jacket made him look even more imposing. There was no way Zoey’s pansy-assed stockbroker husband— or whatever he was— would stick around long enough for a beat down. Dalton was sure Grant would take one look at Jonah and high tail it out of town.
Dalton found he was a bit disappointed at the thought. “Don’t hurt him too badly.”
Jonah grunted.
“Anyway, I left a note for her so she knows you’re here. She’ll see it when she wakes up so you don’t give her heart attack.”
Jonah grinned and reached for the handle on Dalton’s fridge. “I’m very cuddly.”
Dalton snorted. “You and porcupines.” He took one last glance down the hallway.
“Hey,” Jonah said. “She’ll be alright. Don’t worry.”
“Don’t worry? Jonah, this is the woman I think about every day, every single day. You don’t get it. Not worrying is not an option.” Dalton slid his phone into his pocket and shrugged on his jacket.
“Dalton,” Jonah called out to him.
Dalton paused with his hand on the knob.
“You’re wrong. I do get it. And no one is going to touch Zoey again.”
Chapter Nine
Dalton ducked two calls from Adam while he worked. Apparently, whatever the man had to say wouldn’t fit in a text and that meant Dalton didn’t have time to hear it. He finished up on time and ducked the foreman’s gaze as he clocked out with everyone else. There would be no staying late today. He jumped in the truck and sped off from the job site. He pulled up in front of the apartment to see both Zoey’s car and Pop’s still parked outside. It was a good sign. Neither had run the other off, at least. Even more surprising, both Zoey and Jonah were in the living room watching a movie. Zoey was smiling for the first time since Dalton had seen her.
“Hey,” said the younger Stark as Dalton closed the front door.
Dalton lifted his chin.
Zoey wrestled herself up off the couch and grimaced.
Dalton darted forward. “Are you okay?”
She held up a hand. “Fine. Fine.”
Jonah snorted. “She probably has to pee again.”
Zoey shot him a sharp look.
He smirked at her. “She’s been going all day,” he told Dalton. “Your water bill tripled in twenty-four hours.”
“Shut up,” Zoey cried, but she didn’t stay to argue. “Be right back,” she told Dalton as she hurried past him.
When she was safely ensconced behind the bathroom door, Dalton turned to his younger brother. “Everything go okay?”
Jonah made a face as he paused the movie. “Well, he called. But she didn’t pick up the phone.”
Dalton’s jaw tightened. “I suppose I’m not allowed to just break her damn phone.”
Jonah wrinkled his nose. “Probably not.”
“Did he leave a message?”
Jonah shrugged. “If he did, she didn’t listen to it.”
With that thought, Zoey’s phone rang. Dalton eyed it sitting on the kitchen counter. “Asshole,” he muttered. The urge to smash it was strong, but it wasn’t his phone or his place.
Jonah shook his head. “That’s not him. Or at least, it’s not the same ring tone.”
Dalton took a step forward, but Zoey burst out of the bathroom. “That’s my mom,” she declared, frantically wiping her wet hands on her jeans. She snatched her cell phone off the counter and answered it. “Mom. Mom! Calm down. I’m alright. Everything’s fine.”
Dalton glowered. Obviously Zoey had a different definition of ‘alright.’
“I’m not missing,” Zoey sighed. “Clearly. I’m staying… with a friend.”
Dalton suppressed a grunt. Obviously they had a different definition of ‘friend,’ as well.
“Well…” Zoey drawled as her eyes darted from Dalton to Jonah. “He shouldn’t have called you. I’m sorry. It’s— I mean, it wasn’t just an argument, Mom. I know couples argue. This wasn’t that.” She turned and ducked out of the kitchen.
Dalton watched her walk down the hall to the second bedroom.
“Yes, I’m coming home,” was the last thing he heard her say before she quietly shut the door.
Jonah stood up and tossed the remote on the couch. “That’s it for me,” he declared. “I’m going to grab a burger before I start my shift.”
Dalton straightened his shoulders and looked at him. “Thanks. Thanks for coming over.”
Jonah grabbed his leather jacket off the chair and shrugged. “Eh. He didn’t show. Probably too scared. Probably a good thing.”
Dalton let his brother out and locked the door behind him. He frowned down the empty hallway. For lack of anything better to do, he wandered into the living room, picked up Zoey’s empty teacup and rinsed it out in the sink. Without really deciding to, he refilled the saucepan and set it on the stove.
It wasn’t always smooth sailing between Zoey and her mom. A fresh hot cup of tea might be in order after this. He carried the cup, bag and all, to the kitchen table intending to let it cool. Zoey’s voice, though, wafted down the hall. Dalton turned toward it.
“Well, why did you call?” Her voice was shrill, angry.
Dalton frowned. As long as he’d known her, things had never been this bad.
“You had no right… Concerned?… Well, you weren’t all that concerned when you hit me.”
Dalton’s hand flexed on the fragile cup and he quickly set it down before he broke the damn thing. He took off down the hall, in toward the guest room.
“I don’t want to hear you’re sorry! You’re always sorry… It’s always the last time.”
Dalton’s hand reflexively reached for the knob.
“No, Patrick. Just no. Don’t call my parents anymore. They have nothing to do with this. And don’t act surprised. I told you. I said if it happened again that was it.” Her voice lowered, cracked. Dalton had to strain to hear it. He knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help it. Too much of this was his fault, too much of the blame was on his shoulders. “I won’t bring a baby into that,” Zoey hissed fiercely.
He heard a thump, like she threw the phone. For Dalton, it was the last straw. He twisted the knob and pushed ope
n the door.
Zoey was on the bed, face in her hands.
His own hands tightened into fists and he forgot the precise mechanics of breathing. “Again? He’s hit you before?”
Chapter Ten
“Zoey?”
Instead of answering him, she got up off the bed and crossed the room to open her overnight bag. As she started filling it with her things, he sighed.
“Don’t do this,” he said. “Talk to me. How long has this been going on? How many times? How bad was it?”
Her hand hovered over her hairbrush, but she didn’t pick it up. She refused to meet his gaze. “Once,” she said quietly. “One other time.”
“Just once?”
She bit her lip and nodded. “Right… right after we found out I was pregnant. He was angry. He said we couldn’t have a baby. We couldn’t afford one, which I didn’t understand because he’d just bought a new car. How could we not have enough money? He told me I had to get rid of it. That’s what he said, ‘Get rid of it,’ like it wasn’t a person growing inside me, like it wasn’t our baby, like it didn’t even mean anything. He didn’t go with me. He said he had to work. When I got there, I couldn’t do it. I came home and had to tell him the truth.” Zoey shuddered and balled her hands into small fists. “He was livid. He hit me. That was the first time.”
Dalton himself was furious but held it in. Yelling would only upset her, even if, technically, it was directed at someone else.
Zoey fiddled with the zipper on the bag. “He seemed to realize right away that he’d gone too far. He freaked out and left the house. When he came back he said he was sorry. He said he was just so stressed out from work that he lost it for a second. He said it was okay, that we’d find a way to keep the baby, but things were never really the same.”
“Jesus Fucking Christ,” Dalton muttered.
She finally looked up at him. Her lower lip trembled, but she didn’t cry. “When things happen slowly, you just don’t notice them. Or don’t want to.” She laughed, tense and brittle. “Like a frog boiling. By the time you realize the person you loved— or thought you loved— is gone, you’ve lost so much.” Silent tears ran down her cheeks. “My friends were gone. I barely talked to my parents. I guess I didn’t realize how alone I was until I had no one to call for help. I just grabbed my wallet, my keys, and the hospital bag I packed for when the baby comes… and I ran.”
