“I’m not fully dressed thanks to you. You’re going to have to help me take off my jeans.”
“If you beg me.” He ran a hand over the side of his face and wiped off a smudge of shaving cream.
I rolled my eyes and brushed past him. He grabbed my ponytail and followed me into the bath. “We need to talk after I wash the stink out of my hair.”
Gabe was standing behind me when I unsnapped my jeans.
“You can help me.” As if he had been waiting for my permission, he ran his hands around my ribs and found the front closure of my bra. “I meant my jeans, Gabe.”
“I know what you meant.” He slipped the bra down my arms and reached past me to start the water.
“I’ll be fine,” I told him after he helped me out of the rest of my clothing. I stepped in and pulled the curtain closed. The hot water lulled every exposed nerve and ache I had.
A rush of air hit my back, and Gabe’s hands were on my shoulders before I even tried to lather the soap with one hand. I set my forehead against the shower wall and let him pull my ponytail out and arrange my hair over my shoulders. I glanced at our feet and noticed he was wearing the towel.
“I’ll wash your hair.”
I turned around and pressed my face into his chest. He held me in the water. I was grateful that he wasn’t looking to do anything more than help me. He shampooed my hair until the smoke smell was gone. I stared at our feet and the tub floor the entire time while holding my wrist to my middle. He was gentle, though I had to bite my lips a few times when he struggled to rinse my tangled hair. The water cooled as soon as he finished. I looked up and found him smirking.
“There’s only one towel,” he said and glanced down at his waist.
I wrapped my arm around myself as the water went from tepid to freezing. Gabe scooped me into his arms and stepped out of the shower. He kicked open the door and headed to the mattress where he set me down. I rolled onto the sleeping bag and pulled over the sides like an envelope. Only my eyes peered out.
I heard the wet towel smack the bathroom floor as Gabe tossed a hairbrush onto the mattress. He returned to the sleeping bag to join me in my cocoon. He was wearing flannel pajama pants. “Now we really need to do laundry.”
“How’s your hand?” he asked.
Shivering, I lifted it to show him. There was nothing to see. He kissed the inside of my wrist and made a face.
“That was my stomach,” I said.
“Don’t move.” He bounced off the bed and went to rummage in the kitchen. He came back with a pastry bag. “I had to stop for gas on the way over and I bought these.”
I rolled out of the covers to grab his pajama shirt off the floor. I’d been wearing it every night.
“No you don’t,” he drawled and pulled me back by my elbow. “You’re gonna stay like this and eat donuts in my bed.”
I reached into the bag and pulled out an éclair. There wasn’t time to get dressed or comb my hair. I needed to eat. “How’s your lip?” I moaned into the dough.
Gabe lifted to his knees and licked his bottom lip to show me. “You tell me,” he said as I swallowed a bite of food. He crawled over to push me down and dropped his lips onto mine. The first thing I tasted was frosting.
My phone buzzed on the floor. Gabe held down my head and released his weight on top of me. We didn’t stop kissing until his phone began buzzing.
“It could be Meggie with news,” I told him. “Or my mom calling again.”
Gabe sat up and stared at me. “It’s like they know exactly when I get you undressed and sugared up.”
He stretched past my head, dragging himself over my bare skin, and grabbed his phone. He crushed my good arm to my side with his knee. Instead of answering, he selected the camera. I knew this because he held the screen over me and grinned.
“Give it to me. Don’t you dare take a picture. I swear to god you’ll regret it.” I covered up using one arm and tried to kick my legs out from under him.
“You wanted me to have a phone,” he said.
* * *
“Watch where you step,” Meggie told Deliah and me when we followed her up to the bedrooms the following morning. All of the windows were open in the house. An industrial fan was airing out the attic. The extension cord ran all the way down the stairs and out to the coop. There was no power in the house. “Fill these tubs with whatever you think is salvageable in your drawers and closet. Bedding and curtains can be replaced so only take what you can’t live without. I have a crew coming tomorrow to gut the place. I can’t wait for spring.”
“What about the blueprints?” I asked.
Meggie spun around at the top of the stairs and almost knocked Deliah down with her stack of tubs. “I won’t rebuild at Joel’s whim. I want to live here. My homeowner’s insurance will cover the fix. For now, we’re all bunking at Lane’s.”
“I’m so sick and tired of moving,” Deliah remarked.
Meggie gave her a frustrated look. I could see Deliah was wearing on her nerves.
“Avery, I want you to talk to Gabe about hauling his trailer onto my property. I could use an extra set of eyes and ears around here. I have hookups for water and electric. What do ya say, kiddo?”
“His father told him not to set foot on your property since he was fighting with Caleb. I’m worried enough he’ll find him here helping today. He wouldn’t like it if we moved here.”
“It’s my place. Never mind what Joel says.”
I shrugged. “Okay, I’ll talk to him,” I told her.
“Okiedokie then. Joel already took over half of the office, but we’ll try to fit this stuff in there too.”
My aunt left us to work on the bedroom. Deliah had to do the lifting, so I mostly helped her decide what was worth saving and washing. We emptied her drawers and went to work sorting through her books.
“I’m keeping all of them. She has no idea how irreplaceable these are. I don’t care if they smell like burned marshmallows.”
“You and Gabe are so alike.” Her bandage was gone. “Your head looks better.”
“Has Gabe seen Caleb?” she asked. “Have you?”
I shook my head and took her knickknacks and framed photos off of her shelf and set them in a tub. “Why?”
“He broke his nose.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and gawked at her. “No way.”
“Oh yeah. It broke in half and wouldn’t stop bleeding all over the snow. It looked like a murder scene. He had to go to the emergency room with Uncle Jud. He has a bandage on his face.”
“He hasn’t seen him yet,” I told her. “They’re not supposed to be here. I know Meggie needs Gabe’s help, but I’m afraid of what will happen if your father catches him here. Did Caleb stay at Lane’s last night?”
“Nope. Just me and Meggie. Lane stayed at the hospital with the baby. Joel never came back either. Meggie says he’s got a pig’s head.”
“You mean he’s pigheaded,” I corrected.
“That too. He doesn’t tell the truth to anyone. I’m glad I don’t have testosterone. It makes them all stupid.”
She continued to pack books and tell me how Shelly and her mother brought dinner over to Lane’s. Shelly’s mother told Deliah she didn’t have to worry about getting her homework done until things settled down for the family. Apparently, the local media hadn’t tired of sharing the intimate details of the Halden family saga.
I emptied a shelf, and she finished collecting books from under her bed. She had a lot of collections. I found a wooden box that needed to go in the storage tub. I tried to lift it with my good hand, but it slipped and the top snapped off at the hinge. An envelope slipped out. I opened it because everything else I did was hurting my hand. I couldn’t help myself.
“Lefty,” I whispered the recipient’s name under my breath. I flipped the stationary over and read the last line. “All of my love—S.”
The letter was from Gabe’s mother to his father. I didn’t realize Mr. Halden was a lefty like
Gabe or that he had a nickname other than lieutenant and what the boys called him behind his back. I scanned the handwriting, and then I came to a line that made my breath catch in my throat.
“The baby is yours,” I muttered.
I read on as fast as I could. She wrote how she wouldn’t be able to let him go if she ever saw him again. How he was her first and only love. She wrote about the pain that loving him caused her. How she could never split her family apart.
If she loved him, why did she agree to leave her boys and her marriage? Why did she have Deliah in secret? Their father gave a different story when he was confronted at the cabin in Texas. He told them her leaving was a mutual decision and that she wasn’t well.
“Let me have that.” Deliah got a look at what I was reading. She was awfully moody. I almost held onto it tightly and ran into the bathroom to finish reading.
Gabe cleared his throat in the doorway, but it turned into a cough. I twisted my neck to find him wearing his cowboy hat. All I could think about was the previous summer and my endless daydreams about him materializing in my room in the same getup.
“Y’all know Meggie wants the furniture burned,” he told us as he chewed on a Twizzler. “And anything with five heads.” He motioned to the posters.
“She’s only getting rid of the mattresses,” I corrected. “We’re packing the rest in storage so she can fumigate the house.”
“I’m here to do the heavy lifting. You couldn’t fall up the wall in your condition.” Gabe pulled me onto the bed and pushed me sideways until he was able to hold me down with just his kiss.
Deliah slid the envelope into her sweater pocket, picked up the antique box, and set it in the tub. She ran out the door and down the stairs. “It’s not just the house. My eyes are burning too!”
“Congratulations, you figured out how to get rid of her,” I told him.
“If I stick my tongue down your throat, maybe she’ll run all the way to Alaska.”
I slapped his chest, and he tightened his hold. He leaned in and kissed me below my ear until I had goose bumps covering my neck. I wanted to snoop in Deliah’s box. Gabe ruined my concentration.
“Meggie asked me to ask you a favor, and I think it’s a good idea,” I said once he freed me.
“She wants me to move the trailer here. I figured,” he replied. “Against the lieutenant’s orders.”
“How hard would it be?”
“Are you asking how hard it would be to piss him off?” Gabe bounced on the mattress a few times for show. “I’ll get one of the guys from the coop to help rig it up.”
I took off his hat and set it on the rug. He fell back and pulled me with him.
“We need to do something fun,” I told him.
He sighed and glanced around. “There’s something about this room.”
I rolled to my good side, and he leaned against the wall. I agreed. All of the feelings I had when I first met him had been explored while I stared dreamily at the ceiling each night, imagining his lips, his eyes, and his touch. The room would always house a collection of memories from the time we fell in love.
“A lot happened in here. I got chickenpox in this bed. You got in trouble sneaking into this bed.”
“I have no regrets except we didn’t do it in this bed,” he drawled.
I pondered his words while I ran my fingers over his split lip. He bit my finger playfully.
“Someday Meggie will succumb to the inevitable and learn to love mansion life. This could all be ours.”
“Let me go,” I whispered. I tried to sit up.
“Hey, where ya going?” he asked.
“To lock the door. You shouldn’t have any regrets.”
The stunned look on his face caused a tickle in my stomach.
“Gabe! Meggie needs your help finding Josh,” Deliah shouted up the stairs. “I’m not coming up until you show me you’re decent.”
“Then don’t!” he yelled. He rolled off the bed and sat on the floor. “Don’t you think I’m already in enough trouble?”
I stood above him. “You’re right. Go find Josh. I’ll stay here and pack.” I stepped away and Gabe grabbed my leg.
“Naw. Don’t tease me,” he said as he pulled me down to his side. “Go lock it.”
“You lock it. I dare you,” I said. I drew my eyes across the room and spotted Deliah’s box.
Gabe stood right up and went to the door. He didn’t even bother to do it quietly. The lock snapped and his boots tromped. I watched with my mouth open as he whipped his sweatshirt over his head and got the undershirt stuck before tossing it on the floor. His boots were off and he started at his belt.
“Jeez, Gabe, don’t change your mind or anything. You’re kidding, right? I was kidding.”
He reached for me, and I slithered across the room and bumped into the wall. I only had one hand to fend him off when he came at me. It was fruitless to fight. He was on his knees unsnapping my jeans and yanking them down to my feet.
“Now who’s kidding?”
He lifted my feet one at a time. The room was freezing. When he pulled me onto his lap his lips pressed into mine. I ran my hand up his back. He didn’t have any goose bumps because they jumped onto me.
“Gabe!” Deliah shouted. “Meggie needs you now!”
Gabe took off after lunch to track down Josh. Deliah and I had finished packing her room when he returned. She was still wearing the sweater with the letter in her pocket. She forgot, while I spent the afternoon obsessing about it.
“I see you didn’t find Josh,” I commented into the truck cab that smelled of spices and hot sauce. I lifted the empty taco bag off the seat and tossed it on the floor. “I see you ate.”
“I have an idea,” Gabe told me as I slid into the center of the seat when he picked me up.
“Does it involve doing something other than packing and cleaning and hanging out with your sister? By the way, she’s miserable and she’s causing Meggie to pull her hair out.”
“Yup.” His favorite answer.
“Kissing in the dark? Sneaking back into the bedroom to finish what you started?”
He grinned in the moonlight. He set his hand on my leg and squeezed. “Tell me what you really want.”
“Are we going to a movie?”
“I’m fixin’ to find Josh.”
My shoulders slumped dramatically. “That’s what you were supposed to be doing all day.”
“You’re not enthused?” he asked.
“A movie would be better. I don’t care where Josh is hiding.”
Gabe checked his rearview mirror. “I promised your aunt I’d bring him home alive,” he said. “We’ll have a good time.”
“So what’s your plan to make both of these things happen?”
He glanced sideways and slid his hand under my leg. “What do ya say we go to a party?”
Eight
Gabe wasn’t a party animal. Gabe wasn’t even a people person. Gabe was a sit in the corner and stick his nose in a rare book type. I wasn’t convinced he was serious about having a good time at a party, but I insisted on changing my clothes and combing my hair just in case. I was filthy from Meggie’s. I washed my face and hands and put on eyeliner. I hadn’t worn makeup since I borrowed Molly’s lip gloss for Gabe’s mother’s memorial.
We pulled up to an ordinary farmhouse not long after we left the city. Somebody’s parents were away. Pickup trucks lined the road and used the yard as a parking lot. Kids gathered on the porch and in the driveway with red cups in their hands. When the door opened and the smell of stale beer and Cheetos filled my nostrils, I had to question if Gabe was on drugs.
“You really want to party?”
“Don’t look so surprised,” he told me when he pulled me through the door.
I tried to imagine what he was like in high school. “You think Josh is here?” I asked.
“I know he is.”
A group of shirtless boys ran out the door chanting. One stopped in his tracks and gave Gabe
a hi-five slap.
“Halden, my man, long time no see,” hollered the boy. “Heard about your mother. Bummer.”
“Where’s your guitar, Gabe?” asked another.
“Dude,” a third kid said.
Gabe flipped his HalRem hat around and pulled me tight to his side. He walked through the living room with an exaggerated swagger and nodded to people I’d never seen before. Girls smiled at him as we made our way down a dark hallway. All eyes were entranced by my boyfriend. For the first time ever, I felt short.
“Howdy,” Gabe said to a girl who blurted his name excitedly.
No one was looking at me. I was relieved they didn’t recognize my face from the news.
“Where’s your brother? Is he coming?” A girl stopped us in our tracks and tapped Gabe’s shoulder as if she knew him.
Gabe shrugged with disinterest and continued to walk in the direction of the kitchen.
“Caleb? Is that Caleb Halden?”
I turned to the voice at the same time Gabe turned.
“Oh, just plain marvelous,” she sneered.
Rachel hopped off the counter and set down her empty cup, clearly disappointed it was the wrong cowboy.
“Where’s Josh?” Gabe asked. I tried to stand behind him so I didn’t have to talk to her.
“Maybe you should keep your brothers on a chain.”
“Thought that was your job.” Gabe stuck his face in hers and then took my hand and led me to a stairwell. He’d obviously been in the house before.
“Where are we?” I asked out of her earshot. “Why is Josh hanging out with these people?”
We stopped on the bottom step. “He’s not known for his genius decisions.”
A guy walked over and grinned at me. “Gabriel. What have you been up to, man? You gonna join us later for a set? My sister’s here somewhere.”
Gabe shook his hand. “I’m looking for Josh.”
The boy handed me a cup but didn’t let go as he studied my face.
“This is Av’ry.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Troy,” he replied.
“How do you guys know each other?” I asked. He was wearing a HalRem hat backward just like Gabe.
Stubborn Truth (The Stubborn Series Book 3) Page 16
