Pick Me (Wait for Me Series Book 2)

by Walters, Dawne

  “I’m a little confused mother,” Clair leaned forward, propping her arms up on the desk, “isn’t child support for the parent that has the child? How much did he offer to pay?”

  Moving to the window, Bunnie continued, “Usually it is, but his reasoning was that if she didn’t have Colette, he wanted Amilie to have whatever she wanted in exchange for his daughter. He forged paperwork, switching out pages of the documents after she’d signed them, giving him legal custody of Colette. It said that he’d agreed to pay Amilie’s medical expenses, and in return, she was giving him their daughter. When he dropped off a copy of the agreement, he wrote up a private agreement that she further agreed not to go to the authorities on the farce that was their marriage as she knew the circumstances at the time of their marriage, which in fact she did not.” She paused for a moment, “He forged her signature to that document too.”

  “Oh my God,” Clair’s hands flew to her mouth. “What about her friendship to you?”

  “Something about keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Her heart was so big that...well, she let your father see you be born. She stepped out claiming that she wasn’t feeling well, was tired. She needed to rest and insisted that Theodore stay with me. So, after he obtained Amilie’s signature, he forged some divorce documents and poof...everything was done.”

  “So, the ashes in the urn in Colette’s bedroom...why are you still paying money to...” Clair left the sentence open.

  Bunnie just shook her head.

  “Oh holy shit.” Her head was spinning with everything she’d heard already. “Amilie is still alive,” Clair stated, shocked. “You’ve kept her from her mother for thirteen years.”

  “We don’t know if she’s alive or not,” Bunnie whispered.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “That’s not…her mother. In the urn, that’s not Amilie.” Bunnie spun on her three inch heels to face her daughter. “Theodore had a makeshift memorial two days after he had Amilie sign the papers and he got everything in order and filed in Paris. A sort of goodbye for Colette while her mother was still in the hospital. He took Colette to see Amilie the day she signed the papers. It was the last time they’d see each other.”

  Clair was speechless. Sitting there looking at the woman who was her mother. Her mother who was so driven to take a man who belonged to another woman, whether she was married or not. Her mother who made her hate her own step-sister. Her mother who didn’t even tell her own daughter that Theodore Hughes was her father. She’d just left her to guess at the relation. Oh holy shit...just what else was Bunnie Hughes keeping from her?

  All of this, and all Clair had gone in the office to retrieve were a few files for clients that wanted to buy a house. Her sadistic heart had melted toward Colette even more during this conversation. First, earlier in the week when she saw the pictures and now with this new information. Clair finally had the love of not one, but two men. The kind of love her sister had, her half sister. How in the hell was she going to tell Colette about this now?

  Score an A plus for effort in planning on both Bunnie and Theodore’s parts.

  “So, who are you making payments to if you don’t even know if Amilie is alive or not?” Clair asked.

  “Her family. It’s her brother that signs the checks. The agreement Theodore drew up was for us to pay the family nine hundred and fifty dollars and change until the sum of one hundred, fifty thousand dollars was paid in full. Everything is sent to the bakery address in Paris.” Bunnie sat back down in her chair, drank the two gulps of vodka that were in her glass and set it down, not refilling it. “That last payment was just sealed in an envelope.”

  Clair stood up from her chair, looking at her mother.

  “So, you don’t know if Amilie is alive. You didn’t see fit to tell me that my father was Theodore Hughes...the man that I’ve been around my whole life in some way or another. You made me hate my half sister for years, and I have no idea why. What was your motive? Why did you do it?” Clair was yelling at her mother now.

  “She looks so much like Amilie,” Bunnie said quietly. “Amilie…who knew the whole time that Theodore and I were having an affair. Yet, she said nothing about our affair. Colette looks just like her mother. I couldn’t stand her anymore after Theodore came back from France. He tried to break it off with me because of Colette. Because her grief made him feel guilty, but there was no going back. No un-filing the paperwork. No undoing anything.”

  “It would have served you right,” Clair taunted, “to lose him.”

  “I told him that I was pregnant, so he wouldn’t leave.” Bunnie looked down into her lap, ignoring her daughter. “He didn’t touch me for months, even after he said he’d stay. Even when it became obvious that I wasn’t pregnant. We worked through everything. I wanted so badly to have what we had before he and Amilie had words in France. He said that we had to wait a year to get married. When he’d leave, I’d send Colette away because I didn’t want to see the betrayal that we’d committed against Amilie. I couldn’t handle that betrayal by myself. If he didn’t have to be around her, I didn’t think I should have to either.”

  “He’s in the Army. He had no choice mother,” Clair retorted.

  Bunnie sat there quietly while Clair stared at her.

  “When I looked at you and Colette, I saw Amilie and myself, just younger versions,” Bunnie whispered. “I didn’t want you to be friends. The reason...I don’t even remember now,” she shrugged.

  “You are disgusting,” Clair whispered to her mother. “So, what or who is in the urn?”

  “A campfire,” Bunnie whispered after several long minutes of silence. “Along with Amilie’s wedding band. She told Theodore it was full of lies and filth and the contempt she had toward he and I,” Bunnie sighed heavily and leaned back in her chair. “She threw it at him from her hospital bed. So, he went out to God knows where, had a campfire, put the ashes and Amilie’s wedding band in the urn and had it sealed.”

  “I would have thrown it at him too,” Clair said just as quietly. “I would have thrown it at him too.”

  Bunnie looked out toward the windows. Clair just took in her mother sitting there so contemplative. Did she feel bad at all? She must not have if she had went and married the Colonel. Ha! The Colonel. Her father. This couldn’t be any more screwed up than her loving two men, and the three of them in a real loving relationship for the past three months.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  No wonder Clair was in a triad relationship, she thought to herself. Her home life was fucked up. It was time to face facts.

  “So, there it is,” Bunnie said, heaving a sigh and looking for the contents of her glass. “What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” Clair could only stand there. “What do you fucking think I’m thinking mother?”

  “Language Clair,” Bunnie’s lips drew into a thin line as her brows creased in disappointment.

  “Language? Really? You drunkenly tell me that you fucked another woman’s husband, whether truly married or not. You don’t tell me that the Colonel is my real fucking father, and you make me hate my half sister for reasons you don’t even remember! You told me when I was little that Colette killed her mother in France, and that the reason you sent her away every time the Colonel left was because you were afraid of the evil inside of her. Do you remember that? And I believed the bullshit that came out of your mouth!” Clair spun away from her mother. “I have a half sister that you’ve made me hate for the past thirteen years. Years that Colette and I can never have back. We may not even be able to repair that damage, and you wonder what I’m thinking?”

  “Clair...” Bunnie began.

  “Don’t!” Clair yelled, spinning around. “Don’t you dare tell me that I’m being over dramatic or that I can’t possibly understand. You have taken so much from me,” Clair pointed to herself as she spoke. “Not only from me, but from Lannie and Chloe and Colette. You have lied about so much...my sister, my father, Amilie. How much more h
ave you lied about mother? I saw the pictures of Colette and Amilie and you and I in the park picnicking. I took them from your desk drawer. I showed them to Colette a month ago. She said she barely remembers, as do I. Why?”

  “She won in the end,” Bunnie whispered. “Theodore hasn’t been the same man since leaving France with Colette.”

  “He barely fucking speaks to his own daughter that he deceived,” Clair accused. “The only time that fucker ever talks to me is at dinner when we do the ‘how was your fucking day’ bullshit, and Colette is never included. Ever.”

  “Because he feels guilty!” Bunnie screamed. “He feels so guilty for deceiving his own daughter. He can barely look at her because of what he did to her mother. And Colette...Colette was the collateral damage, and I live with it too. That’s why I sent her away.”

  “Well then, why can’t he talk to me?” Clair screamed. “I must be collateral damage as well, because I’m the daughter he got while he was having a fucking affair!”

  “You can’t know how guilty we felt,” Bunnie retorted back.

  “Apparently not that guilty. You kept fucking each other over and over for years. You kept in touch with each other secretly while they were in Texas. For fuck’s sake, you married the asshole, and you sent his daughter away when he was gone for more than two weeks. You fucking won!” Clair yelled back. “You won!”

  “You had better watch your mouth young lady,” Bunnie warned.

  “Or what? You’ll not tell me that the Colonel is my father? Already did that. Better put a checkmark there. That a girl that has lived under your roof that you verbally abused and was neglected by her own father is actually my half sister and that we used to be friends? Put a checkmark there too, honey. What more could you actually do? You turn this whole situation around to yourself like poor little old you.”

  “Enough!” Bunnie yelled, standing up.

  “Poor little Bunnie almost lost the man she fucked another woman and her daughter over with. Boo fucking hoo,” Clair taunted. “How dare you mother. How fucking dare you feel sorry for yourself after you were just celebrating the fact that you paid the last payment that amounts to almost one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a woman’s family, and you don’t even know if she is dead or alive while her daughter is in the hospital right now, miscarrying a baby that was conceived out of true love.” Clair was panting with anger, her sentences running together.

  Bunnie picked up the glass that was in front of her and threw it past Clair, where it shattered on the wood floor. “That spick got her pregnant?” she screamed, her hands clenching into fists.

  “Yes!” Clair screamed. “She didn’t know she was pregnant. That baby was conceived out of love. Love between a white girl and a hispanic man, human fucking beings.”

  “You’ll not say a damn thing about this conversation to Colette, Clair Hughes, not one damn word. Neither will you talk about that pregnancy ever again,” Bunnie’s voice took on a warning edge.

  Bunnie straightened her suit jacket as the doors to her office opened and Chloe came rushing in. “It’s okay Chloe. Go on to the library, my glass slipped.”

  Chloe looked from her mother to Clair, who just gave her a nod, and she backed away, closing the doors.

  “How much?” Bunnie asked, sliding open a desk drawer, drawing out a pen.

  “What?”

  “How much for your silence?” Bunnie sat on the edge of her seat and composed herself as if the last hour hadn’t happened. “Five grand, ten...fifteen.”

  “You want to pay me off?” Clair asked in disbelief. “You have got to be shitting me.”

  “Just how does one shit a person Clair? Really, be sensible about this.”

  Bunnie was maintaining an instant calm that Clair just couldn’t believe. She looked like she was totally in control again. Like the screaming, glass throwing banshee didn’t just make an appearance. Clair could only stare at her mother.

  Bunnie started writing the check and when she finished, she slid it across the desk as nicely as you please, put the checkbook and pen in the desk drawer and closed it. She walked past Clair toward the doors, opening them. She stopped and spun on her heel as though she had forgotten something, facing Clair.

  “Oh, I almost forgot to ask what it was you came in for.”

  Clair thought about it for a second...telling her mother that she was leaving her for two men, but that would go over like a lead balloon and cause Shawn to get reprimanded. So, she’d keep that quiet. She decided now was not the time. It may never be the time.

  “A couple of files, never mind,” Clair waved her hand in the air.

  Shrugging her shoulders and raising her eyebrows in a dismissive gesture, Bunnie left the room, closing the doors behind her. Clair listened until she heard the floorboards above her, where her parent’s bedroom was. Stepping toward the desk, she picked up the check, and the amount stunned her. She knew exactly what to do.

  Tears sliding down her cheeks from so much emotion, she folded the check and put it in her pocket, then walked out of her mother’s office, grabbed her purse from the hall table and made her way to the bank. It was from the business account, so she cashed it, took the envelope and drove back home. She walked down to Colette’s bedroom and unlocked the door with the master key to her room.

  She opened the night table drawer that held all of Colette’s important papers. She put the envelope behind a few others when she decided to flip through a few of the other envelopes. She noticed one with handwriting that she recognized. Pulling it out, she opened it and saw the birth certificate of Rosa’s son. She had to take care of this, and she knew just who to talk to about it. It was time to right the wrongs that her mother had started. It was time to start being the sister from the pictures that she had shared with Colette.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Gabe had called Brock to grab a t-shirt, socks, and a pair of her black leggings to wear out of the hospital as he sped off to the mall to get a surprise for Colette. Parking at the main entrance, he took off at a jog and ran into Journey’s shoe store to get a pair of black, high top Converse sneakers. Paying for them and jogging back out to his car, he jumped in and made his way back to the hospital in time to meet Brock in the parking lot. He took the clothes from Brock and made his way back up to Colette’s room just in time for one of the nurses to ask her if she’d like some scrubs to leave the hospital with.

  “I’ve got some clothes here,” Gabe answered for her as he made his way in her room.

  “Excellent,” the nurse nodded her head and left.

  “Do you need help getting dressed?” Gabe asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Here is a t-shirt and a pair of your yoga pants.” Gabe handed Colette the clothes. Then, he slid the bag off the box, showing her the Converse’s and showered her with a wide grin. “For you.”

  “Gabe,” Colette whispered, “thank you.”

  Gabe sat in the chair as Colette got dressed and tugged on her socks and new Converse sneakers. She gave him a wide toothy grin and stretched out her legs, wiggling her feet to show him how proud she was of her new shoes. The nurse came back in with a wheelchair for Colette. She sat down and held onto her purse and the flowers that Gabe had brought in, while Gabe took the other two arrangements and followed the nurse down to the main entrance where he briefly left them to get his car.

  _____

  Now set up in Gabe’s bedroom, her flowers around the room, Colette felt wiped out. The nurse did tell her that she’d be tired for a few days afterword and to really capitalize on the days off. As it turned out, Meavy and Hamish had family in town for a few days, so they covered down for Colette while she was out, and insisted that she’d get paid a full pay check to insure that she could still pay her bills.

  Over the next two days, Gabe had gotten up to do PT, came back to shower and change, and made sure Colette was okay until lunch. He’d bring her back Atlanta Bread Company’s chicken salad sandwich and a bowl of baked pot
ato soup with cheese. He’d spend the hour with her, either cuddled up in his bed or down on the sofa. Off to work again, he’d call to make sure that she was okay, and then he’d be home between four or five. He’d made her dinner at night and they watched Netflicks with Brock until ten or ten-thirty. Then, they’d head off to bed.

  Tuesday rolled around and Colette planned a little lunch surprise for Gabe. Setting a note on the dining room table, she went back upstairs and climbed in bed, waiting for his lunch break.

  _____

  Gabe came home, sitting lunch on the table, he picked up a note that was on the table for him.

  Gabe,

  Meet me upstairs in your room. I’ll be the one with the new Converse on.