by Joss Wood
Cady shrugged. “It wasn’t for the first time.”
Edna nodded. “We suspected that’s what happened after you returned from Thailand.”
Cady pushed her hands into the kangaroo pockets of her sweatshirt. “That wasn’t the first time my heart broke, Mom. It broke the day you sent Will away, and it broke again when he died. It broke a little every time you told me I couldn’t play with a Barbie doll or look at a fashion magazine or watch a program on TV.”
Cady heard her parents’ swift intake of breath but trying to hold back her words was like trying to use a cork to hold back a flood. “When you try to fix something that’s not broken, you end up breaking it. In your quest for a perfect child, by sending a perfect child away from his home, without explaining why, you broke...me.”
“Jesus God.”
It wasn’t a blasphemy, more like a desperate plea from her father’s mouth to God. Cady saw the horror on their faces and she felt a quick spurt of sympathy. They were like two balloons, full of hot air, and she’d just jammed a red-hot poker into them. She didn’t want to hurt them but she also realized that, until she stood up for herself, she couldn’t stand up for the child growing inside her, the child she would be raising alone.
“I didn’t come here to criticize you but to explain a few things.” She looked at her dad. “Congratulations on the promotion to the big church, Dad, but maybe you should tell them that your daughter is going to be a single mom raising a married man’s child.”
“Beck is married?” Bill shouted.
“No, of course not. Beck isn’t the father. I was in a relationship with a guy who I thought was divorced but he wasn’t.”
“Cady!”
Cady whipped around and met her mother’s shocked eyes. “Yeah, Mom, I know, I messed up. But you know what? Real people mess up! They wear jeans and get bad marks at school and run away with their boyfriends to Thailand! They get pregnant and they fall in love and get their hearts broken.” Cady felt the hot slide of tears down her face. “I just wanted to tell you the truth. I’m tired of lying and I am so tired of trying to be the pastor’s perfect kid. I’m not a kid anymore and I’m not perfect. I’m just human.”
Cady wiped the tears off her cheeks. Her parents looked shell-shocked and her mother was doing a fantastic impersonation of a goldfish. Her dad removed his glasses and tapped them against the desk.
“So, I’ll go now. Next time I’ll call.” Cady pushed her hair back from her forehead as she walked to the open study door, the space behind her heavy and loaded with tension.
“We sent Will away because we thought he could hurt you.”
Her father’s words stopped her in her tracks. Not sure if she’d heard him correctly, she slowly turned. “What did you say?”
Bill stood up and folded his thin arms across his narrow chest. “His behavior took a turn for the worse when he hit puberty. For some reason he never acted up around you but when you were at school, he became impossible.”
Cady felt anger bubble in her chest. “I don’t believe you.”
“Do you remember that day you came home from school and the fire department was here?” her mom asked.
“Yeah. You told me that you were ironing in Will’s room and you left the iron on and somehow the room caught fire.”
“Will found a lighter and set fire to the curtains. He also started punching me. The last straw was when he tried to stab me with a potato peeler,” Edna said, her voice coated with pain. “You never saw it but he was starting to hurt you, too.”
“He was not!” Cady protested, not quite able to believe what she was hearing.
“The hair-pulling, the playful pinches that made you cry?” her mom shot back. “He was getting so much bigger, stronger. I couldn’t control him or his rages. Dammit, why do you insist on seeing me as the bad guy, Cady?”
“He was uncontrollable, Cady,” her father said, “and we thought a residential home was best for him. And you.” He looked at her and she saw the truth in his eyes.
Oh, God. Her parents were right. If she pulled the rose-colored glasses off and looked at the past clearly, she could see how her brother had changed, had become meaner and bigger.
“You were trying to protect me?”
Bill nodded and Cady pushed her hair back from her face in sheer frustration. “Why the hell didn’t you talk to me? I thought that if I colored outside of the lines I’d be sent away, too.”
“Oh, God,” Bill muttered.
“Seriously, for a pastor and a pastor’s wife, you both suck at communication!” Cady cried.
Bill walked over to her and gently, hesitantly wrapped his arms around her. It was the first hug she’d had from her father in too many years to count. “I’m so sorry.”
“Me, too.” Cady laid her head on his chest. “I’m sorry if my being single and pregnant causes you trouble in your new job.”
“Screw them.”
Cady let out a strangled laugh and tightened her arms around her father. He gave her an awkward pat on her back and led her out the door. “Now, my girl, you and your mom and I are going to have a chat. A real, no-holds-barred, soul-deep conversation.”
“I don’t need a preacher, Dad, and I don’t need counseling.”
“Maybe you don’t,” her father agreed. “Maybe you just need to talk to your mom and dad.”
* * *
Sitting on the edge of his sofa, Beck watched as his siblings walked across the laminate floor toward him, their faces somber. Sage sat down beside him and wrapped her arm around his bicep, her head on his shoulder. Linc headed to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of wine from his enormous wine rack and handed it to Jaeger to open. He pulled four wineglasses down from the cupboard and returned to the living area.
His brothers sat, wine was poured and sipped, and no one spoke.
They were all waiting for him to start. After all, he’d summoned them here.
Beck loosened the tie strangling him and encountered his burning skin beneath his open collar. Still no air. So he couldn’t blame the tie for his constricted throat.
God, how was he going to do this? He had to, he knew that, but how? He wished Cady was here, sitting next to him, his hand on her thigh, encouragement in her eyes. Beck ran his hand over his face, trying to push away the image of her stricken expression, her eyes reflecting her soul-deep pain.
She’d walked away and he now knew how it felt. But it was the right thing to do, Beck assured himself. Because he knew it couldn’t last; nothing that wonderful did. The connection they shared was magic, a mirage, an illusion. It wasn’t real.
It couldn’t be. And, because he’d started to believe in those concepts, to fall in love with being in love, with the normality of having a partner and child on the way, they’d hurt each other. Again.
“You’re starting to scare us, Beck,” Jaeger said, his voice low but concerned.
Sage squeezed his arm. “Are you sick?” she demanded. “Whatever is wrong, we’ll get you the best medical help, fly you wherever you need to go.”
Beck briefly touched her knee. “I’m not sick, Sage. Not physically, anyway.” Beck made himself look at Jaeger. “I’m sorry that I asked you to come alone, to leave Piper at home, but I just wanted the four of us here. The siblings.”
Jaeger nodded his understanding.
Beck hauled in a sharp breath and looked at Linc. “What I have to say was before your time but you’re our brother, so here you are.”
Linc mirrored Beck’s body language and rested his forearms on his knees, holding his wineglass in a loose grip between them. “And you’re our brother and whatever the hell this is about, we stand by you.”
He’d see if that held true after he’d told them what he had to say. He knew he had to release the truth; he couldn’t keep this secret anymore. It was
too heavy to carry anymore. Cady was right about that.
Beck sat up straight and looked at each of his siblings. “Our parents were killed in that plane crash because I asked them to come home to be with me because I was having that operation to put a pin in my wrist.”
Their expressions didn’t change from wary expectation, so Beck plowed on. “What you don’t know is that Mom was four months pregnant when they died. She was expecting another child. We would’ve had another sibling.”
Beck waited for the shocked surprise, the hot outrage. Linc looked sympathetic, Jaeger thoughtful, and Sage’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, man, that’s horrible,” she said. “Poor Mom and Dad. Poor little baby.”
Jaeger stared into his wineglass for a long time before lifting his head and pinning Beck to his seat with his penetrating eyes. “How do you know this, Beck?”
“After the funeral, I was hiding under a table in the living room. Do you remember Dr. Blaine?”
Jaeger frowned. “Vaguely.”
“Maybe I knew him better because he treated me for my arm. He was also Mom’s doctor and I heard him talking to his wife—his nurse—about Mom’s pregnancy.”
“God, Beck.” Through his cotton shirt Beck felt Sage’s lips touch his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
Beck shrugged. He stood up abruptly and walked over to the closest window, keeping his back to his siblings.
“Beck!” His name was like a bullet on Jaeger’s lips. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
He couldn’t answer that, not without cutting his heart open and allowing all his fears and guilt to gush to the floor.
“Because he thought you’d blame him for that, too,” Linc said in his calm, measured voice.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Jaeger demanded. “We’ve never blamed him for anything!”
Beck turned slightly to look at Linc, his brother through choice and not blood, and tried to push the ball of emotion down his throat. Linc understood, he realized. He’d understood far more than Beck gave him credit for.
“Tell them, Beck,” Linc said. “You need to.”
Beck turned and pushed his hands into the pockets of his suit pants, rocking on his heels. Now or never, Beck. Just spill it and get it done.
“I’ve always felt guilty for our parents’ deaths and I blamed myself. I’ve always thought that you might blame me, too, just a little bit.”
“But why?” Sage cried. “Why would you think that?”
“Because I asked them to come home! I was the whiny, needy kid who needed his mommy to hold his hand when he went into the hospital. I was the reason their plane flew into a freakin’ mountain, killing them and the baby!”
Silence, pure and saturated with emotion, filled the space between them.
“Are you friggin’ nuts?” Jaeger finally roared as he jumped up and stormed over to him.
Beck braced for a punch but Jaeger just gripped his neck in his hand and pulled his head down so that their foreheads touched and their eyes were level.
“You did not do this,” Jaeger stated. “This was not your fault.”
“But—”
“Not your fault,” Jaeger reiterated, his eyes boring into his. “Jesus, Beck! How could you think that I would blame you for that? You were a kid!”
“I never blamed you, either.”
Beck pulled his head away from Jaeger to look at Sage, who was in Linc’s arms, tears running down her face. “Really?”
“You lost them, too, Beck. We all did,” Sage said, between sobs.
“But the baby—”
“It happened, bro.” Jaeger dropped his hand and stepped back, his eyes suspiciously bright. “Yeah, it’s sad and yeah, we’ve missed them, but why you would take this on yourself, I have no damn idea.”
“Why don’t we have some wine and talk about that?” Linc suggested. He sat down in the chair and Sage, like she’d done when she was little, sat on his lap, her arms looped around his neck. Beck felt the slap of a memory: Sage sitting in Linc’s arms, him sitting at his feet, Jaeger standing behind them, a unit, a team. Them against the world.
He bit his lip, desperate to keep the tears from sliding down his face. He’d done them a disservice not talking to them about this, not talking to them about the wounds that hadn’t really healed.
“I called them home. It was my fault they ran into bad weather,” Beck said, picking up a glass of wine from the table and taking a fortifying breath.
Jaeger lifted his hand. “Stop! Dad was reckless. We know that. He took chances. He should not have flown if there was a chance of the weather turning.”
Point taken, Beck thought, feeling the pressure start to ease off his chest.
“It was their job to be with you, Beck,” Linc said. “It’s what parents do. Your kid calls and no matter what you’re doing, you run. I’d do that for Shaw. Jaeger and Piper would do that for Ty.”
“Do you get that?” Jaeger demanded.
“It’s starting to sink in,” Beck admitted.
“Keep going, Beck. Get it all out,” Linc ordered.
He didn’t want to but he knew that this was an emotional abscess that needed to be lanced. And he was halfway there...
“Because I felt guilty, I thought I had to prove my worth to you, to this family. I had to show you I was worth loving.” Beck felt like every word was being dragged up his throat.
“So that explains your constant studying, constant training. God, you were a pain in the ass,” Jaeger commented, a hint of amusement on his face. He looked at Linc. “It was hell standing in the shadow of our younger brother.”
“It really was. Then you grew taller and bigger and we really started to hate you,” Linc agreed and Beck saw the mischief in his eyes.
Sage ignored their teasing and climbed off Linc’s lap to walk to him. She took his hand. “Connor worried about you, more than he worried about the rest of us.” She tossed a saucy look at her two older brothers before continuing. “Connor said that God would protect the stupid, so he didn’t worry that much about Dumb and Dumber over there. But he worried about you. I think he knew that you blamed yourself.”
Linc nodded. “He was always telling you to go easy, to not work so hard, give so much. That you were perfectly okay, being who you were.”
“That’s why he made you travel after college,” Sage added. “Why he insisted you take a break every few months. It was his way of protecting you from burnout. You give too much of yourself to work, too little of yourself to life. And love.”
Beck met Sage’s vivid blue eyes and realized that she knew that he and Cady were over. He saw her frustration. “You shouldn’t have pushed her away, Beck. She’s the only one who’s ever really got you.”
“She left me this time,” Beck replied.
“She left before she could be hurt again,” Sage told him, her eyes worried. “She loves you, Beck. Anyone can see that.”
“I don’t—”
“I swear to God, if you say that you don’t deserve her, I’ll punch you!” Jaeger shouted. “You don’t find love twice and push it away, you moron! You fight for it, you hold on to it, you do everything you can to keep it.” Jaeger threw up his hands in disgust. “You’re the smart one, so why am I spelling this out for you?”
Sage rolled her eyes at him and then Linc. “Was this the same brother who nearly lost his fiancée and son because he was being a moron? Or was that Jaeger’s alter ego?”
“I think it was the other Jaeger,” Linc murmured.
“Smart asses,” Jaeger growled. “The point is—”
“I know what the point is,” Beck said. And he did. The point was Cady. The point was that he loved her and wanted her in his life. He always had, always would.
“He’s seeing
the light...thank God and all his angels and archangels,” Jaeger stated, sarcastically.
“I have to find her right now,” Beck said. “I have to talk to her.”
“That would be a very good idea,” Sage said, smiling.
Beck patted the front pockets of his pants and then the back pockets. “I need my car keys. And my car. Where are my keys? My phone?”
Jaeger picked up his keys from the glass bowl on the counter and threw them at Beck. Beck snatched them out of thin air and picked up his phone from the coffee table. “Okay. I can go.” He jerked his head up and looked at Sage. “What do I say?”
“Keep it simple, stupid. Say you’re sorry for being a moron man, that you are a moron man and ask her to forgive you.”
Beck frowned at her. That advice sounded a tad snarky. Like she had an ax to grind with his gender. But he couldn’t think about that now.
“Right. Brooklyn. I’ve got to go to Brooklyn. Crap. That’s going to take me forever.” Beck moaned, now desperate to get to Cady, to be with Cady, to start his life. Then he remembered something else he needed to take and he ran into the kitchen and started yanking open drawers, sure what he needed was in one of them. He tossed random junk onto the floor and let out a victorious yell when his hand found what he was looking for. He shoved the item into his back pocket and looked around.
“This can work. I can do this,” he muttered.
“He’s looking a little green and a lot unhinged,” Jaeger commentated, now openly amused.
“God help him when Cady goes into labor,” Linc commented. “He’s going to be a friggin’ basket case. Get a grip, Beckett.”
“Right.” Beck pulled in what he hoped was a calming breath. “Cady, Brooklyn, ask for another chance.”
“Oh, wait...she’s not in Brooklyn,” Sage told him. “She’s in Chelsea, at that awards dinner you promised to accompany her to before you broke her heart.”
Beckett looked at his watch, noticed the date and remembered that it was Friday. Also known as Day Four of Hell On Earth. It was also the date scheduled for the PR industry awards.
“Practice your groveling, dude,” Jaeger suggested. “You’re going to need it.”
