Inevitable: Carter Kids #5

by Chloe Walsh

  "The only reason she told us was because she knew it was the only way her father would accept your relationship."

  "And does he?" I bit out, staring right at her. "Does Kyle accept me now?"

  Lee nodded quickly, but I didn’t miss the way her voice faltered when she said, "Oh, yes."

  She was a horrible liar.

  Her husband would never accept me as good enough for his daughter, no matter how much shit I went through as a child or how badly I tried to prove him wrong. He never had and he never would. I didn’t bother stating that aloud, though. There was no point. Not when we both knew it.

  "I called your mother last week," Lee added, shocking the hell out of me.

  Every muscle in my body stiffened to the point of pain. "You did?" I hadn't been expecting her to say that.

  "Yes," she replied, worrying on her bottom lip. "The line has been disconnected."

  No surprises there, then, I thought to myself as a swell of protectiveness roared to life inside of my body. "I don’t want you blaming my mother, Lee," I gritted out through clenched teeth. "It wasn’t her fault."

  I could tell from the expression on Lee's face that she didn’t agree with me, but she didn’t speak her thoughts on the matter. Instead she said, "I didn’t do enough for you, Jordan, and that knowledge will haunt me until the day I die."

  What did she want me to say?

  There was nothing I could say to ease her conscience and besides, that wasn’t my job. I didn’t particularly feel like easing the conscience of any of the adults from my youth.

  Even though Lee was my favorite, a darkness inside of me said good. A part of me wanted to know that they suffered.

  Whether they knew or not, I had been tortured.

  I had to live with the memories of what had happened to me.

  I had to live with the scars and the pain.

  The least they could do was the same.

  Why should I give any of them an out?

  Of course, I knew this wasn’t the appropriate way to think and if any of my patients came to me with this, I would try and talk them down and make them see that their anger didn’t constitute as a valid reason for making others suffer.

  But I wanted them to suffer. Even if it was just with their consciences. Why should I be the only one who suffered nightmares and sleepless nights? I was tired of being alone in my misery.

  Hope

  Jordan was in a horrible mood when I got home from Teagan's place tonight. The minute I walked into the kitchen, he stopped what he was doing, stood up, and walked straight past me.

  "Jordan?" I called after him as I watched his retreating frame. "Are you okay?"

  No answer.

  "Jordan?" I repeated. "What's the matter?"

  "Back off, Hope!" he snarled before storming up the staircase, leaving me staring after him.

  Back off?

  I immediately turned to Annabelle, who was sitting at the table feeding Ryder and asked, "What did I do?"

  "Don't worry," she assured me as she plopped a spoonful of baby food into her son's waiting mouth. "It's not just you. He's been like a bear with a sore thumb since I got home from work – barely said two words to me all evening."

  Huh.

  Frowning, I slipped off my jacket and walked over to the table to join her. "Should I go after him?" I heard myself ask, then felt a flash of annoyance for having to ask another woman how to deal with my husband.

  "You can, but there's really no point, Hope," Annabelle replied with heavy sigh. "Jordan won't talk until he's ready." She shrugged helplessly before adding, "Trying to talk to him when he's like this will be as productive as banging your head on the wall. Best to leave him to work through whatever's bothering him. Once he does, he'll come around."

  "Oh," I whispered, anxiety gnawing at my gut. "How long will that take?"

  "Don't give up on him, Hope," was all she replied.

  "I won't," I shot back.

  Not ever.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  HOPE

  I decided to bite the bullet and go and see Cameron today. I had been putting it off for a while now, but I was starting to miss the idiot. Neither Colton, Logan, or I had heard from him in weeks, and as much as I tried to deny it, I was worried about him. I knew he was still showing up at the hotel every day for work, Dad had said as much when I asked him, but he was avoiding us.

  None of us had been particularly warm or welcoming towards his girlfriend the last time we met her – which also happened to be the first time we met her – and while my feelings towards the Grayson family were still the same, I'd had some time to calm down and put myself in my brother's shoes. Now that I was back with Jordan, I was beginning to see Cam's situation in a different light. My family didn’t exactly approve of Jordan, either.

  I knew Cam was serious about Tillie Grayson – he had to be to go against his entire family for her. And while Mom and Dad didn’t know of her true heritage, we did.

  Taking me out of account – their singleton sister – Colton and Logan were his triplet brothers. They shared a deeper bond than any of us. Knowing they weren't talking to Cam, and that he was prepared to make that sacrifice to be with her, made Tillie important enough to my brother. And her significance in my brother's life meant that it was time I pulled my finger out of my butt and listened to him.

  But when I pulled up outside Cam's house, I was hit with a sudden jolt of butterflies in my stomach. Cam's place was nice. His lived about a fifteen-minute drive from Mom and Dad's, based on the lower part of the mountains.

  It wasn’t as concealed or private as Teagan and Noah's place in South Peak Road, but he had the exclusivity of living in a gated community with electric gating and a big ass pool in the lower level of the building.

  Aside from me, Cam was the first one to move out of home. Unlike Colt who would live on our parent's couch if he was left, Cam needed his space. I guessed Low would have liked his space, too, but his illness meant he couldn’t live alone when he was having a flair up so he and Colt shared a penthouse apartment down on ninth instead.

  It didn’t seem to matter where any of us lived.

  We always ended up back in our parent's house at Thirteenth Street.

  It was our home and always would be.

  Thinking of my childhood home only caused the butterflies fluttering around in stomach to grow.

  What if Tillie was there and I couldn’t be nice to the girl? Even though I knew I would have to in order to get anywhere with my brother, it went against everything inside of me to break bread with a Grayson.

  But then I thought about a conversation I'd had with Noah last year...

  "My mother caused a shit-ton of trouble for your family. She was singlehandedly responsible for bankrupting your dad and she helped David Henderson concoct a plan that resulted in your grandmother being raped and your mother set on fire." Pausing, Noah looked around at the siblings and said, "Tell me again that it's not the same thing." When no one responded, Noah sighed in defeat. "Look, all I'm saying is that girl you're all hating on? That girl is a person in her own right. That girl has a mind of her own. And that girl could have been me."

  How would we have felt if we had known about Noah's true heritage back then?

  I liked to think that we wouldn’t have been so judgmental and would have taken into account what an amazing human Noah Messina was, but I knew that was a lie.

  Reluctantly, I had to acknowledge the very obvious fact that Tillie was a different person to Rachel. Whether I wanted to or not, I couldn’t judge her by her aunt's actions. Even if her aunt was a crazy bitch that had murdered my aunt and shot my mother.

  It was dry outside today and the sun was finally shining. The wet and dreary spring we'd been having had finally given way to the gloriousness that was early summer and I reveled in the prospect of not having to wrap up in a coat, hat, and scarf for at least five more months.

  Climbing out of my truck, I walked up to the front entrance of the house
and rang the doorbell, all the while battling down a huge churn of anxiety and, if I was being honest, trepidation.

  It took a few minutes before anyone came to the door, but when it finally opened inwards, and my eyes landed on the rounded stomach attached to none other than Tillie Grayson, everything fell into place for me. It wasn’t a big bump, but it was definitely a bump. The girl was rake thin and it didn’t take a genius to figure out what was growing under her shirt.

  My brother's ferocious protectiveness of the terrified looking woman in the doorway?

  His sudden absence from family life?

  His ability to walk away from his siblings when given an ultimatum over her without a second glance?

  "Holy shit." I shook my head as awareness dawned on me.

  Cam arrived to stand at the door beside Tillie then. "Hope," he acknowledged as he placed a protective hand over her swollen belly. "Should I invite you in?" My brother's voice was heated and laced with unspoken warning. "Or ask you to leave?"

  He was giving me a choice; accept this or walk away. But he was also letting me know that regardless of what choice I made, this was his woman and there was nothing he wasn’t prepared to do to keep her safe. Including turning his back on the world for her.

  Jesus Christ, he really was our father's son.

  My gaze flicked from Tillie's bump to my brother's face and back again before finally landing on her face.

  Shaking my head to clear my frazzled – holy shit, I'm going to be an auntie – thoughts, I pushed passed every doubt and concern I had before nodding my head and choking out the words, "Invite me in." My gaze dropped to her baby bump once more and I felt a smile spread across my face. "Definitely invite me in."

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  HOPE

  My mind was still reeling when I let myself inside Jordan's house later that night.

  Cameron was going to be a father.

  My little brother was going to be a daddy.

  And I was the first one in the family to know!

  I still couldn’t grasp my head around it. I sucked as a sister for not being there for him.

  I didn’t care about what happened in the past anymore. it was exactly that; in the past. The prospect of a niece or nephew overrode all our bullshit history. At sixteen weeks pregnant, Tillie was right around the same stage of pregnancy as Teagan and were both due in September. Jesus Christ…

  Whether I liked her origins or not, Tillie Grayson was the mother of brother's unborn child. And Cam loved her deeply. That was enough for me. I doubted our brothers would feel the same way as I did, but that wasn’t something I would lose sleep over. I'd given up a long time ago on trying to control my reckless and headstrong siblings.

  Jordan was sitting up in bed reading when I practically danced into our bedroom. I was grinning like an idiot, but I didn’t care. The thought of becoming an aunt for the first time had me on cloud nine.

  "You're home late," he acknowledged in a quiet tone, flicking a quick glance in my direction before turning his attention back to the paperback in his hands. Come to think of it, those three words were the first he'd spoken to me in days. Whatever had gotten into Jordan the other day, he was still working through it, and I was taking Annabelle's advice and waiting for him to come to me.

  "I was visiting with Cam," I replied happily. "I had the best day." Flopping onto my side of the bed, I exhaled a contented sigh and turned my face to look at him. "I want a baby."

  Okay, so I knew that sounded reckless and irresponsible and completely out of character for me, but I didn’t care. I always knew that in order to procreate, my husband would have to have sex with me and I hadn't been having much luck in that department as of late, but I was an optimistic woman. Everyone was having babies around me and I wanted one too.

  I watched, with my heart in my mouth, as Jordan set his book down on his nightstand and removed his reading glasses. "Where's all this coming from, Hope?" he finally asked, still holding his glasses in his hands.

  "Cam and his girlfriend are having a baby," I replied excitedly. Rolling onto my stomach, I leaned up on my elbows and beamed at my husband. "Can you believe it, Jord? Cameron is going to be a father!"

  Jordan's brows furrowed. "What?"

  "I know, right?" I chuckled. "And I'm the only one who knows."

  He continued to stare at me like I had seven heads. "The pregnancy is a secret?"

  "I guess." I shrugged. "But she's due in September, so I really don’t see how they're going to hide it."

  "So, you make a habit of breaking people's trust?"

  I frowned at his question. "What?"

  Jordan sighed heavily and shook his head. "Never mind." He rubbed his jaw before adding, "So, Cameron Carter is going to be a father. Well hell."

  "Yes," I squealed happily, choosing to ignore his previous remark. I was too damn happy tonight to be dragged down right now. "She's due in September." Rolling onto my back once again, I folded my arms behind my head and smiled up at the ceiling. "Same as Teagan's baby." I plastered on my sweetest smile and winked. "Lots of babies, Jord. Sounds pretty tempting, right?"

  "We're not having a baby, Hope," Jordan stated flatly.

  Anger fused with disappointment inside of me and I wanted to scream, And what about what I want? But I found an inner strength inside of me and said, "I didn’t mean right this minute. But down the line. In the future. A baby would be nice."

  My husband looked at me like I had two heads. "You want to be a mother?" His tone was incredulous, his expression skeptical.

  Yes! "I might." I was moving into my late twenties and this was exactly the kind of thought that poked at a woman of my age. I swallowed deeply before adding, "In time."

  Jordan stared hard at me for the longest moment before expelling a huge breath. "I don’t want to be a father, Hope." I watched with a heavy heart as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "Not now, further down the line, or ever."

  My mouth fell open and I gaped at him in horror. "Why not?"

  "Why not?" he repeated, clearly frustrated. "Why would I ever want to be partially responsible for bringing a child into this fucked up world?"

  "Because it would be a part of us," I urged, pulling myself up into a sitting position.

  "And have half of my genes?" Jordan spat. "No." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, but that's not something I want."

  "But shouldn’t we at least talk about this before making a final decision?" I argued, striving to keep my cool as I watched my baby dreams fly clean out the window. "This affects the both of us."

  "What's to talk about?" he countered. "I'm not interested in bringing children into this world, Hope."

  "But…but you're so good with Ryder," I tossed out, clutching at straws.

  "Ryder is not my son," he was quick to point out.

  "I want to have a family, Jordan," I whispered. "Not right away. But eventually… I want that for my life."

  "I'm sorry." He shook his head and exhaled a heavy sigh. "But I won't breed anything that has the remote chance of becoming what I am. Or worse, my parents."

  "So, that's it?" I demanded, not bothering to hide my annoyance now. "Your decision is final?"

  "I'm sorry," was all he replied.

  "You're sorry." My words were laced with sarcasm and hurt. "How long have you known you don’t want children?"

  "Always," Jordan said with a shrug. "Children have never been in my future. I've always made it clear that I don’t want to be a father, Hope. I don’t know why you're acting so surprised about this."

  Surprised didn’t come close to how fucking crushed I was feeling right now. "You said those things when we were kids," I shot back defensively, thinking back to the few times we had ever talked about kids. "No teenage boy wants to be a father." I threw my hands up in sheer exasperation. "I didn’t actually think you were serious."

  "Well, I was," he whispered. "I love you, Hope – more than life – but I'm not going to change my mind on this. I'm never going to want chil
dren." With that, he rolled onto his side then, giving me his back, and whispered, "Goodnight, Keychain."

  I didn’t respond.

  I couldn’t.

  Not bothering to get undressed, I slipped under the covers and turned my back to my husband. My heart was breaking and I didn’t trust the words that could come out of my mouth.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  JORDAN

  I had been trying to forget about the conversation I had with Lee last week or at least put it to the back of my mind, but it was impossible to do.

  Every time I looked at Hope, I was reminded of her betrayal. Trust didn’t come easily for me. I had closed myself off many years ago for good reasons.

  Knowing she had broken that trust I had put in her changed something inside of me. I felt myself retracting back into my shell and I was powerless to stop it. It was, after all, a survival instinct rooted deep inside me and had kept me alive all these years.

  I had decided to put my talk with Lee to the back of my mind and not tell my wife that I knew about her betrayal, but then Hope had hit me with the baby card. And everything between us since that night had gone to hell.

  I still felt like a piece of crap for shutting her down the way I had. For being so unwilling to talk to her about something she obviously wanted. But I drew a line on having a family. In fact, I'd drawn a line under that particular questions many years ago.

  I wasn’t doing it.

  I wasn’t breeding any child that may bear a resemblance to either myself or my parents. I wouldn’t wish this life on my worst enemy, and certainly not any kid of mine.

  Things were strained between us now and I found myself avoiding being alone with her. We had barely spoke to each other all week. She was hurt and I was too.

  Like now, for example, Hope was in the living room with Teagan, and I couldn’t put enough space between me and them. I loved Hope Carter more than I knew what to do with it, but I was struggling to cope with the changes having her back in my life brought me. I could hear her and Teagan laughing and joking in my living room and all I wanted to do was run. A normal man would go in there and converse with his wife's best friend, make and effort and try and blend into her world.