“What did you over hear?” she quietly asked.
“I overheard her talking about how Dad was cheating on her.”
She physically flinched. If anyone knew what it felt like to be cheated on, it was Piper. For months she thought Gage was cheating on her and it almost destroyed her. “Oh, Dillon, I’m so sorry,” she said. “That must have been horrible to hear.”
I nodded my head. “It was. Only…I now know I heard wrong.” An oh-shit expression skittered across her face and I continued. “As soon as Mom hung up the phone, I ran straight to Adam and told him what I’d overheard. He didn’t believe me, so I let it go. Within a few weeks he’d changed his tune. He overheard Mom and Dad fighting and said it was about Dad cheating. You have to understand, this was especially hard on Adam because he idolized our dad. We both did, but Adam was Dad’s special boy. From that moment on, neither of us wanted anything to do with Dad. We felt so betrayed by our father and so damn sorry for our mother.”
“Why did she stay with him?” Piper asked.
“That’s what we couldn’t figure out. We told ourselves it was because she loved him so much.” I set the beer down and ran my hands over my face. “Fuck. Adam and I followed her around like little lost puppies, trying to make up for what Dad was doing to her.”
“That’s a lot to take on at such a young age,” Piper said.
“It was,” I agreed.
“So, what happened?”
“It continued like this for about six months. Dad pretended to be hurt by the distance while Adam and I did everything we could think of to protect Mom from him. When Dad was out of town, things were better. If Mom said she needed to go out to see friends, we lied to Dad when he called, and told him she’d gone to bed. When he was there, we did everything we could to keep them apart, so they wouldn’t fight. It was a constant strain on all of us. I remember thinking something had to give.”
“Did it?”
I let out a harsh laugh before answering, “Boy did it. One night Adam and I were spending the night with Jeff and Rob. Rob came down with the stomach crud and their mom decided to send us home. I guess she forgot to call and tell Mom we were on our way. It was dark out, so instead of walking on the street, we ran through our neighbors backyards. The second we hit our yard, we heard what sounded like a gunshot.”
“What?” Piper asked. Her eyes were the size of fifty cent pieces. “Tell me it wasn’t from your house,” she whispered. I stared down into her wide blue eyes. Gage is a lucky man. I hope he knows this. “Dillon?” she asked, making an obnoxious move-it-along gesture with her hand. Fuck, this was hard.
“We both noticed Dad’s car sitting in the driveway. He wasn’t due home for a few days.” I stood and began pacing back and forth across her living room floor. “I was frozen with fear and Adam wanted to go investigate. Fuck, Piper, I let him go in there alone. Who the hell does that?”
I felt her hand on my back and jumped. “You were fourteen, D. Give yourself a break.”
“I contemplated running back to the neighbor’s house, but I heard Adam scream. All I could focus on was saving him.”
I didn’t realize I was breathing heavily until Piper wrapped her arms around me from behind and rested her head between my shoulder blades. “I’m here,” she crooned. Her voice vibrated through me, giving me the strength to get the rest out.
“The first thing I saw when I entered the house was Mom lying on the dining room floor. I remember thinking, Why is Mom on the floor? Then I noticed the blood pooling underneath her head and freaked. I wanted to go to her but Adam whimpered. It sounded as if he was in pain and diverted my attention from Mom. Adam was in the corner of the dining room sitting on his butt with his hands protectively over his head. My dad was hovering over him.” I took in a deep breath of air and she gave me a tight squeeze to let me know she was still there. “I thought Dad was hurting him, Piper. I thought Dad was the bad guy. I thought Dad was cheating on Mom.” Carefully, I pulled out of Piper’s grasp and walked over to the large bay window and peered out onto the street. “All I could think about was stopping Dad from hurting my brother like he had our mother. That’s when I noticed a gun under one of the dining room chairs.” Piper gasped. Pictures of me picking up the gun rolled through my head. “It was heavy. I expected it to weigh a lot less. The second I had it in my hands, Adam started screaming and I knew something horrible would happen if I didn’t stop our dad. So, I lifted it and pulled the trigger.” I let out a sad laugh. “Who knew I would be such a good shot?”
Piper sobbed into her hands and I tasted salt on my lips. I ran my hands over my face and realized my face was wet. I couldn’t remember the last time I had cried.
“What happened?” Piper asked through her tears.
“I shot my father in the back of the head and killed him.”
“Oh God, Dillon. You’ve carried around this pain for all these years?”
“No. No pain. Only anger, hatred and nightmares,” I told her. “That is, until now.”
“Why now?”
I sighed and then told her what we found in my aunt’s closet. “It turns out that our dad was innocent. I shot an innocent man.”
“What?” I could hear the shock in her voice.
“According to our mother’s journal, the only reason she married our father was because she was pregnant and had no money. She was unhappy with Dad from the beginning.” I let out a harsh laugh. “It seems Mom was in love with a guy who didn’t want her. To get even with him, she slept with my dad. Dad didn’t cheat on her. He loved her. The reason we moved to Virginia was because he had caught her with another man. He didn’t want her affair to create a backlash on us, so he gave her an ultimatum. Apparently Mom didn’t want to lose us, so she shut her legs and let Dad move us all to Virginia with hopes of starting over. She made it a whopping twelve months before she started boning one of her new client’s husbands.”
“She wrote this in her journal?” Piper asked. Her incredulous tone comforted me for some reason. I wasn’t the only one who found the whole thing crazy.
“She did. According to the ballistic reports, only my and my mother’s fingerprints were on the gun that night.”
“Which means what?” Piper squeaked.
“Which means my mother was the one who pulled the trigger, not my Dad.” Recognition of what I was saying slammed into her. “You got it. I killed my Dad and he was innocent. I thought he shot our mother and was hurting my brother but he wasn’t. He was probably trying to explain and comfort him. All those months I hated my dad for no reason. It was my mom who was in the wrong.” I wiped my streaming eyes on my shirt. When Piper’s arms enveloped me this time, I welcomed them.
“Oh Dillon. I am so damn sorry,” she cried.
“I don’t know who I am anymore, Piper. If you could have seen the look on Adam’s face when we put two and two together. It was awful. I took our father from him.”
Her head whipped up and her blue eyes seared through me. “You were fourteen years old, for Christ’s sake.”
“I killed my dad,” I whispered.
“You were only a kid, Dillon. You didn’t know.”
“I should have asked!” I shouted, and she jumped.
“You were just a kid!” she shouted back. A few seconds passed and all we could do was stare at each other. “What did Isabella say when you told her?” My shoulders slumped and she let out a long sigh. “What did you do, Dillon?” I spent the next half hour telling her about what had gone down at home. When I finished she shook her head. “Honey, this is bad. You need to go home and grovel. But, only after you apologize profusely and kiss her ass. Oh, and a big fat diamond ring wouldn’t hurt.”
“I’m not going back,” I told her.
She gave me a what-the-fuck-are-you-talking-about look. “You most certainly are,” she said. “You love Ibby and you love Milly. They are yours Dillon.”
“I killed my own father, Piper. What kind of man does that make me? What kind of husban
d and father would I be?”
“Aside from Gage, you are the best man I know,” she stated with conviction.
“I am a murderer!” I roared. Again, she jumped. “I love Isabella with everything in me, but I cannot be with her! I cannot be that precious little girl’s Dad because I am tainted!”
She stared at me for a minute before coldly responding. “If anybody understands what it feels like to be tainted, it’s me.” I opened my mouth to argue, but she shut me down with a flick of her hand. “Take it from me, Dillon. You are messing up here. You can’t see that right now, but you will. I pray when you do, it’s not too late.” She picked up her phone and started texting someone. What the hell is she doing? When she was through, she tossed the phone in her purse and said, “I have an appointment in thirty minutes and you are going with me. I take it you need to use our guest room tonight?”
“Will Gage mind?” I asked.
“I refuse to answer stupid questions,” she answered.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You’ll see. First, go get yourself cleaned up.”
Thirty minutes later we were standing outside Piper’s shrink’s office. Fuck!
Chapter Thirteen
Isabella
‡
Three hours, twenty-three minutes and twelve seconds. That’s how long I had been sitting in my car crying and wondering where it all went wrong. I could not get Dillon’s hurtful words out of my head. “I can’t be a father. I can’t be a husband! I don’t want to be! Is that what you want to hear? I…just can’t!”
He doesn’t want us.
The memory of Amelia’s sweet smiling face as she looked up at her daddy this morning popped into my head and another wave of tears washed over me.
What happened?
My thoughts returned to Dillon’s reaction when I asked him about last night…and Dana. The more I thought about it, the more I knew he was telling the truth. He may not want me, but he certainly didn’t want her. I shouldn’t be comforted by this, but I was. Maybe I should call his brother? What would I say? Hi, this is Dillon’s now ex-baby mama, and I was just wondering….My phone rang in the bottom of my purse, interrupting my thoughts. Right before answering, I glanced down at the screen. Kurt. Not Dillon.
Wiping the tears from my face, I took a deep breath and answered, “Hello?”
“Isabella, this is Kurt. I was hoping you and Sally could help me out at the bar tonight?”
“Ummm, I’m not sure. Wait! Is everything okay with Joss?”
“She’s fine, I just don’t want to leave her right now and I’m desperate for some spare hands. Please, don’t tell me no.”
Dillon works tonight.
“Let me check with Sally before I say yes. Then I’ll have to call Sarah. One of us will definitely be there.”
I called Sarah on the drive home. She was happy to sit, so I called Kurt back and let him know Sally and I both would be there. The rest of the drive, I planned. I was going to see Dillon tonight and hopefully get some answers.
Five hours later, I was angry…angry and disappointed. After driving home from the park, I put ice packs on my face to get rid of my puffy eyes. Then I sat down and told Sally everything that had happened with Dillon since his return from Charleston. This led us to talking about this morning and Dana. Apparently, Dana had shown up at Dragonfly two nights before Dillon’s Charleston trip and, instead of telling her to leave like Sally wanted, he chose to ignore her. Why didn’t she tell me this earlier?
“I told him to make her leave, but he wouldn’t,” Sally explained. “He said she’d cause a scene and Dragonfly would lose customers. I wanted to confront her, to kick her out, but Dillon wouldn’t let me because she was with a bunch of people. Like a psycho nut job, Dana took him ignoring her as some sort of challenge. I swear, Izzy, if I didn’t need that damn job, I would have come across that bar and pronged one of her fake tits with the olive fork. It would almost have been worth getting fired over.” Whenever Sally got worked up, she used hand gestures to get her point across. I knew she was upset when her left hand shot into the air and her index finger pointed to the ceiling. She waggled it back and forth in a very dramatic oh-no-you-did-not motion, while at the same time stating, “I do not like that woman. She’s a horrendous bitch to everyone but Dillon. And get this. Because he didn’t man the fuck up, the bitch has been in every night since.” Like a seven year old, she swirled her fingers in a circular motion around both of her ears and made a funny cuckoo noise. I laughed and she scoffed and pointed her finger at me. “Don’t laugh! I am dead serious. There is something not right about her. I think she’s dangerous in a Fatal Attraction-stalker kind of way. Watch, she’ll be in tonight and you’ll see.” I knew Dana was narcissistic and manipulative. I had seen that with my own two eyes, but dangerous? I didn’t think so.
After feeding Amelia a bottle and Brutus dinner, I made sure to take extra time on my hair and makeup. I had to wear the standard Dragonfly T-shirt, but no one said that I couldn’t pair it with some sexy tight turquoise shorts. Instead of wearing my hair wavy, like I normally did, I spiral curled it and pulled the front back in a turquoise and black patterned scarf. For the final touch, I slid on some dangly earrings and chunky bracelets and stared at my reflection in the mirror. You can do this, Isabella.
Sally and I hopped into her car and waited the customary five minutes for it to warm up. When we were in high school, Sally’s parents bought her a vintage BMW 2002. It was crimson red and ridiculous to maintain. It would stall out if you didn’t let it warm up before driving, the air conditioner was constantly on the fritz and the radio only played two AM stations, both of which were Gospel music. Still, I loved that car.
The entire drive to Dragonfly I was stuck in my head while Sally chattered. Would Dillon be happy to see me or would he tell me to leave? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Sally was excited because Bobby had agreed to take her to the firing range with him. She already knew how to fire a gun, but apparently Bobby had special weapons training and was going to work with her. Sally wielding a rocket launcher was a scary thought.
Polly greeted us at the back door. I asked if Dillon was inside, but she informed me Dillon wasn’t working tonight and my heart sank. Kurt failed to mention we were covering both his and Dillon’s shifts tonight. So, not only was I stuck working, I was stuck working without Dillon. Disappointment did not begin to describe what I felt. Wild Horses blared from the speakers above the door. I contemplated telling everyone to go to hell and go home. I could be in bed right now watching Lifetime movies and eating ice cream. As if sensing my possible defection, Sally slid her arm through mine and pulled me inside.
Some familiar faces strolled through the door an hour into the shift and helped to lighten my sour mood. I had met Tut and Twon a handful of times, but never really talked to them. Evidently, Sally had gotten to know them because as soon as they sat down she handed them each a beer and launched into a discussion about what they’d been up to this week. Twon was an attractive African American man with short cropped hair and dark skin. He seemed like a nice guy. Tut, however, was something else. Intricate tribal looking tattoos covered his arms, neck and bald head. His skin was a few shades lighter than Twon’s and his eyes, Lordy be! I had never seen golden eyes on a black man before. He reminded me of a predator or a jungle cat…a sexy, scary jungle cat. Every time those eyes met mine, I mentally fanned myself. Shortly after Tut and Twon arrived, Cas and Bobby walked in. Everclear’s Amphetamine blasted through the speakers and I could feel myself starting to relax.
“Where’s Dillon?” Cas asked from his stool beside Tut.
Not wanting to get into it, I casually answered, “He’s off tonight.”
“Who’s keeping baby girl?” His concern for my daughter made me smile.
“Sarah.” He scowled at my answer, and I had to ask, “Do you have something against Sarah, Cas?”
He shifted uncomfortably on the stool. “Why? Did she say something
?”
“No. That’s why I’m asking you.” I didn’t miss the relieved look on his face. It was very telling. Something had definitely happened between those two.
Cas opened his mouth to answer, but Tut interrupted. “Hey, beauty, a whole lot of trouble just walked through your front door.” At first I thought he was talking to Sally. When I realized he was talking to me, my heart pitter-pattered in my chest.
He called me beauty. My mental fan waved back and forth.
“Shit,” Sally said. “The bitch brought friends.”
Shaking myself from my Tut-a-licious trance, I glanced up to see what they were talking about and wished I hadn’t. Dana, in a very Elvira looking outfit, was walking toward us. Two girls I had never seen before followed on her heels. One of the girls looked as if she’d stepped straight out of an Eighties music video, hair and all. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d seen that much hairspray or a leather mini skirt. The other girl had one of the the worst dye jobs I’d ever seen. A red skunk came to mind.
“Holy shit, it’s Strawberry Shortcake with roots,” Sally muttered under her breath.
As soon as they reached the bar, Dana asked where Dillon was.
“He’s not working tonight,” Sally told her.
“He’s supposed to be,” she rudely clipped. No one replied to this and, after a minute or so of glaring at us, they meandered off to one of the side tables.
One More Time (MMG Series Book 3) Page 16
