* * * * *
“I think I just died.”
“As long as you went to heaven, then it’s okay.” David jostled her in his arms, pulling her closer.
“As in, I died and went to heaven because that felt so good?” she muttered against his chest.
“Exactly.”
She sat up suddenly and looked at him. “David, I have to tell you something.”
He stroked a hand down her arm. “All right, honey.”
“I’m in love with you. I fell in love with you that first night when you sneaked out of bed and you were trying to tell Royal how you felt.”
He pushed her hair behind an ear. “You were listening?”
“Yeah. I was listening. And I feel like such a scum for not telling you earlier how I felt.”
“Why would you feel like a scum?”
“Because you might not have those same feelings for me, and if you’d known, you might not have wanted to go the extra step with this relationship, in case you thought I’d get hurt.”
“You have a weird sense of logic that I’m only just beginning to appreciate.” He tugged her down again, into his arms, then tipped her chin. “I have never felt this way about a woman. I’ve had three serious relationships, and I’ve never felt like this. Three years and I never felt like this.”
“They all lasted three years?”
“Thereabouts.”
She was silent several heartbeats. “That doesn’t mean you’re in love with me.” She wiggled her toes as if that helped her think. “It’s a good start. At least you’re not running.”
“I’m done running, Randi.” He’d been running for weeks now, from Jace with Taylor, from the sheer incomprehensibility of it, from the final, irrefutable proof of Lou’s passing, and from his own inability to set his family on the right path.
“Then I can say I love you again?”
“Yeah. What I’m feeling couldn’t be anything else.” Yeah, it was love. It had to be. He wanted to give her everything. He wanted to give her back her self-respect.
“Say it,” she whispered.
He could feel her held breath, her body tense against him. “I love you, Randi.”
“Holy Moly.” She hugged him, going all gooey and pliable in his arms, then she hiccuped as if she were crying.
“That’s why I feel like shit about your dad.”
She lost all the pliability of the moment before. “I told you it’s not a big deal. He gets upset, then he gets over it.”
“Randi, I’m not saying we weren’t over the line, that I went over the line. But so was he. Don’t you see that?”
“You don’t know my dad. He’s from the old country, and he’s got certain ways, and you just get used to them.”
“Does he talk like that to your mom?”
“He hasn’t caught my mom in the meat locker with some man’s hand down her pants.”
It was more than that. David knew in his gut. “But he’s stopped speaking to you before. What’d you do to upset him?”
She shrugged, rolling away from him to the other side of the bed. “Just stuff that pisses him off.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Nothing, absolutely nothing, deserved her father’s kind of reaction. He would get the answer out of her. Then he’d help her fix the problem.
Chapter Nine
With her back to him, Randi shrugged again. “Just stuff stuff.”
David drew a finger down her spine. “Rand-i.”
He wouldn’t understand. He just wouldn’t. “I can’t remember exactly.”
Why did he have to go and ruin everything like this?
His breath was suddenly in her hair, caressing her cheek. “Of course, you remember.”
She pursed her lips. “No, actually, I don’t. I have a very selective memory, and I can’t always remember things. Didn’t you see those reminder notes all over my refrigerator?”
“But this is different. How could you forget the things that made your dad stop speaking to you?”
She shook her head. “I just do, okay?”
He cuddled up against her. “How long before he’ll start speaking to you again?”
“Well, this time, he’s really pissed. I mean really pissed. It could be a couple of years.”
He rolled her to her back even as she tried to hang onto the edge of the bed. “Two years? You’re joking, right?”
“When I was thirteen, he stopped speaking to me for a year.”
He forehead furrowed. “Nobody stops speaking to their kid for a year.”
She just blinked.
“But why?”
“I told you I don’t remember.” She put her hand over his mouth before he could call her a liar. “I don’t. Not specifically. I forgot to do something. It could have been washing the car or taking out the trash or doing the dishes. I didn’t not do what he told me on purpose. But I’d get busy with something else. And...” She spread her hands, her shoulders scrunching to her ears in that universal symbol of hopelessness. “And I’d forget. He said if I couldn’t bother to listen to him, then he wouldn’t bother to speak to me.”
It made perfect sense actually.
“But the more he did that, the more I forgot. I just sort of got so worried about forgetting things, and I’d end up having so much stuff running around in my brain that I’d forget something. Not everything, but something. Then he’d stop talking to me for a while.”
He gathered her close. “Jesus.” A fervent, anguished whisper on her behalf. “That’s so fucked up.”
She laughed, a soft, achy sound that hurt her throat. Even more fucked up was that Mick, her husband of three years, had never even asked her about those silent times. Not once.
“You can’t let this go on, Randi. You just can’t.”
She sighed. “Oh, it’s okay, I’m used to it.” Her dad’s silences were easier to handle than Mick’s digs and cuts.
“I’ll go with you to talk to him.”
“The offer’s really sweet, but it won’t do any good. He won’t listen when he’s not talking.” And she just wanted to forget the whole embarrassing incident.
He tipped her head with his thumb beneath her chin. “Randi, look at me.”
She hadn’t even realized she’d closed her eyes.
“It isn’t about him listening. It’s about you having the gumption to tell him it’s not right.”
Gumption? Just what was he saying here? “David, you just don’t understand.”
“I do understand. Perfectly. You need to confront him.”
She had gumption. Lots of it. By God, she’d show him, too. “I’m not doing it.”
“I said I’d go with you,” he coaxed.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Are you afraid of him? Has he ever hit you?”
“No.” She snorted.
“Then why won’t you do it?”
“Why is it so important to you?”
“Because I think it’s important for you.”
He had very pretty eyelashes, long and tipped with gold. She hadn’t noticed that before. He’d made love to her with sweet insistence. He’d taken her to orgasm with unrelenting gentleness. But he wasn’t satisfied with who she was, what she was. “What if I refuse to talk to him?”
He grinned, but serious intent set his jaw. “I’ll keep at you until you do.”
She wasn’t perfect, far from it. As Mick always said, some of her brains had leaked out her ears. She lived in a musty dump amidst someone else’s castoffs. But she was a good person, and she had a lot of love to give to a man who could see beyond the exterior. A man who could see that she was special without making her prove it all the time. A man who would want her just the way she was, faults and all. A man who would love her at least as much as Royal did.
“David, I am never going to have it out with my dad. I am never going to tell him he can’t say the kinds of things he said today. I have reached stasis, and I am not going to change.”
“Randi, honey—”
She put her hand over his lips. “Take it, or leave it.”
“But Randi—”
“No buts.” It was a challenge, a test. Pass or fail.
“Randi, don’t you see that—”
Fail. She pressed harder to shut him up. She was tired of men who didn’t love her the way she was. Her dad had tried to change her by the simple act of not speaking to her. Mick had tried to change her by harping cruelly on her every fault.
And David? He wouldn’t give up. He’d coax, cajole, make love to her, always gentle, always with the best intention, but he wouldn’t give up until she talked to Pops. Eventually, just like Mick and Pops, he’d find a way to punish her for not doing what he wanted. For not being what he wanted her to be.
Living with a dog was easier. Royal loved her without expecting a thing in return, loved her when she scolded, when she dumped a can of tomato juice over her head. Royal would love her even if she forgot to feed her.
Men didn’t have the capacity for that kind of unconditional love. Though she hadn’t learned the lesson in three years with Mick, it took less than three days with David to finally get it through her thick head.
“I think you better leave.”
She moved so quickly, he didn’t have a chance to get his arms around her. “Sweetheart.”
See, there he went trying to cajole with endearments. He’d withdraw them when she displeased him one too many times.
“I’d like to be alone.”
He stared at her a long moment, his head tipped just like Royal when she couldn’t figure out which hand held the biscuit.
“All right.” He rolled to the other side of the bed, then glanced over his shoulder. “We’ll talk when you’re not upset.”
Just like a man. We’ll talk about it when you’re more reasonable. She would never be more reasonable than she was in this moment. And righteously angry, too.
“Your clothes are in the bathroom.” As she pointed, she steeled herself against the pure beauty of his naked body.
She would not be swayed. He wanted her to stand up for herself, and she would. She would no longer accept crumbs, not his, not any man’s. Never again.
And oddly, miraculously, she suddenly remembered why her father had stopped speaking to her when she was thirteen.
It wasn’t as simple as forgetting to wash the car. It had been about a boy. A boy she’d tried to please. Her father, with that uncanny sense parents sometimes have, came home from the shop early and caught the boy with his hand up her shirt.
He’d called her a harlot then, too.
No one was ever going to make her feel bad for just being herself. Not ever again.
* * * * *
That was, by far, the weirdest argument he’d ever had with a woman. Halfway to Mitch’s house for that talk his father had asked him to have with his brother, David still wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong.
She needed a little time, then she’d see he was trying to help. A couple of days, and she’d forget all about the tiff.
Jesus. That sounded too close to Randi talking about her father.
* * * * *
Randi slammed through the house, the front door, her bedroom door, the bathroom door, then slapping her hand against the shower taps. What she needed was a hot shower, the needlelike spray pounding against her head and back. She needed to vent this feeling. She didn’t like being angry. For a moment there in the bedroom, it had felt cleansing. Now, it was just a roiling mass in her belly she needed to get rid of it.
She washed off David’s scent, washed off the caviar, his tongue, his kiss, his touch. At least she tried as the hot water ran to cold, but when she closed her eyes, she could feel him filling her, taste his kiss still on her lips.
Even the towel she dried her hair with smelled like him.
Ha! It had taken less than half an hour to lose all that wonderful power she’d felt. The dregs of it lashed around her heart like tentacles and squeezed.
Royal whined outside the bathroom door.
She’d forgotten poor Royal. The dog hated being shut out. Steam and warmth rushed out as she opened the door. Royal lay in the hallway, her head on her paws, sad brown eyes staring.
“I’m sorry, baby, wanna come in?”
Royal blinked, snuffled, and let out a huge doggie sigh. But she didn’t move. She’d probably miss the damn man after only having known him only a couple of days.
“He’s gone, sweetie-pie, never to return.”
Again, the dog blinked, then regarded her with...reproach?
“It wasn’t my fault.”
Royal’s ear twitched.
“You don’t get it. See, he didn’t accept me the way I am. He wanted me to change. I can’t change.” She shut her mouth. “What I mean is, I shouldn’t need to change.” Her father should be the one to change, if anything.
Was that a sneer creasing the dog’s mouth?
“This is complicated human stuff, you wouldn’t understand.”
Royal sighed. That dog made sighing an art form.
“He just doesn’t get what my relationship with my dad is like. I can’t explain it to him.”
Her relationship was crazy. But it had always been that way. How was she supposed to change it? In a few days everything would blow over. All right, it might be a year. Or more.
“Pops just thinks I’m still thirteen. What am I supposed to do about that? I can’t get him to listen. I’ve never been able to. It’s simply the way things are.”
Royal just stared at her. Then finally, she closed her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to look anymore. As if she hadn’t another doggie sigh to give. Or another word to say. Just the way Randi’s father ignored her. Even the dog made her feel like she was still thirteen.
Randi’s legs gave out and she sat heavily on the toilet seat. She’d acted like she was thirteen today, letting her father call her a harlot. Again.
That’s what David had seen and heard. And deep down in her most honest of hearts, she had to admit her anger hadn’t been about him accepting her as she was. It hadn’t even been about getting her father to change. It was fear, plain and simple. The fear of a thirteen-year-old to confront her father. It had been so much easier to get angry with David than to even contemplate approaching her dad.
Just how long was she going to be stuck at that tender age?
No matter what had happened with David, no matter how he felt about her, there would always be her father. Whether he spoke to her or not, he’d always be a specter in her life. The question was, when would she stop letting him treat her as if she were thirteen? When would she stop accepting that kind of behavior as if it was all she was worth?
Randi knew what she had to do.
Chapter Ten
Mitch took a long swig of his beer, then set it back on the table. “This outing was Dad’s idea, wasn’t it?”
Thursday night wasn’t particularly busy at Hennessey’s Tavern. Someone had started a country ballad playing on the jukebox, and the hum of voices was low compared to the ruckus that was raised on a Friday or Saturday night.
David set down his own beer. “He seemed to think there was something wrong.”
“Well, you can tell him I’m fine, Connie’s fine, and the kids are fine. We’re all fine.” The tension riding his younger brother’s shoulders told a different story.
“Good. Glad to hear it.” David realized he’d have to draw Mitch out. His brother had not been happy to see him standing on the doorstep, nor had he seemed particularly interested in hanging out at Hennessey’s. It was Connie, his wife, who’d practically shoved him out the door to join David. There had definitely been some strain back there in the house.
They used to talk, an easy, boots-on-table camaraderie. David remembered times his brother had sought him out, even over Lou’s more sage brand of advice. Those days were long gone.
Another ill Lou’s death had wreaked.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were
quitting, David?”
The purpose of the outing was to discuss Mitch’s issues, whatever they might be, not his own crap. “I made the decision on the spur of the moment.”
“That’s not what you told Dad. We work together, David. We’re partners. You should have told me yourself two days ago.”
David twirled his beer mug in the moist ring it left on the table. “You’re right. So you’ll be the first to know I’ve changed my mind. After thinking about it, I realize I made a mistake.”
Now that was a spur of the moment decision, but David knew in his gut it was the right decision this time. He’d been running on screwed-up thinking for weeks, but everything that had happened tonight had shown him he’d been heading in the wrong direction in order to solve his problem.
Mitch just looked at him. “I don’t get you, David. Ever since this thing with Jace and Taylor, you’ve been a freak.”
David almost laughed. Maybe that’s what he’d needed to hear weeks ago. Trust a brother to tell it like it is.
“I needed to get used to the idea.” But was he the only one that had an issue with Jace hitting on his older brother’s widow? “Didn’t you need a little time to assimilate it?”
Mitch shrugged and, in the same manner as David, twirled his beer in the wet rings it sat in. “Lou’s dead.”
“I know he’s dead.” But somehow, there was something just plain wrong about someone taking Lou’s place, even if it was Jace. Especially if it was Jace.
“You’re jealous, aren’t you?”
Christ. “You know, dad said the same thing. Where the hell are you guys getting the idea that I’ve got some sort of romantic feeling for Taylor?”
“It’s not about Taylor. It’s the way you think you have to act like Lou. You’re jealous things got done without you.”
“Since when have I acted like Lou?” He wasn’t getting pissed. Not really. He just didn’t get it.
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