The Firsts Series Box Set

by M. J. Fields

  When the elevator door opens, he drops my hand, places his on the small of my back, and hurries us through the hotel.

  His phone rings in his pocket, and he grabs it. “She’s with me, Maddox. She’s fine.”

  I look at my bracelet and sigh.

  “We’ve been summoned to my mother’s.” His voice is full of anger. “Thank you. Goodnight.” He shoves his phone back in his pocket then holds the door open for me.

  I raise my hand to hail a cab when a car pulls up.

  A man gets out and opens the door. “Mr. Links, Miss Fields.”

  I recognize him, the man I gave the note to.

  He doesn’t say one word, and I force myself not to, too, the entire ride. When we get there, he opens the door, gets out, and then waits for me.

  “I could wait,” I offer.

  He huffs, pulls a white baseball hat out of his jacket pocket, and stuffs it on his head. My heart breaks a little bit.

  “No, no, you don’t.”

  When I reach for his hand, he pulls it back and wipes it on his pants. Then he puts it on my back, guiding me inside.

  In the elevator, he stuffs them in his pockets and leans against the corner, keeping his head down.

  When the door to the suite opens, I see Ashley sitting in a chair and gasp. Then I look up at Logan.

  His eyes widen, and his hand goes to his chest. Then he reaches up, pulls his hat down, and makes a sound that I will never forget, one of pain and sorrow.

  “Mom,” he whispers, and I hear the pain in his voice, too.

  “Hello, beautiful boy.” She smiles as tears fall down her face.

  “What the fuck is this?” He shakes his head back and forth.

  She smiles. “Something stronger than wild horses, Logan.”

  He hurries toward her and drops to his knees, placing his head on her lap.

  I feel a hand on my back and look to my side. It’s Ashley’s husband.

  “Have a seat, Miss Fields. This is gonna take a while.”

  “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I pushed. I didn’t know. I’m—”

  “No one did. And now she’s ready to talk.”

  “I shouldn’t be here,” I whisper.

  “If you love that boy, there is no place else you should be.”

  “Of course I do, but—”

  “Come on; have a seat.” He smiles sadly.

  “London.” Ashley wipes away a tear. “Come and sit.”

  “Ashley, I’m sorry.” I shake my head back and forth.

  “I’m sorry, too, but I’m gonna have to ask you to keep this all a secret. My little girl has been through enough, and I do not want her to worry over me.”

  “That’s fucked up, Mom. That’s...” He looks up.

  “I’m going to have to believe you’ll understand and honor my request, as well.”

  “I can’t not tell Ava. If she kept this from me, I’d finally give her the ass kicking she has deserved since birth.”

  God, he sounds like a little boy. My heart breaks again.

  Ashley laughs. “You save that for another time. A time when you’ll have a chance to make it right again. Right now, I need to make sure you make every moment count.”

  Wild Horses

  Logan

  I lost my shit. I lost it all fucking over and in front of London.

  “Robert, will you give us a minute?” Mom asks, and I finally sit up.

  “I can go, too,” London whispers.

  “No.” Mom smiles. “I’d like to see that ring.”

  Fuck, I think as I sit back on my heels and look at Mom. “What are we gonna do? What are we up against?”

  “Five years ago, they found a tumor in my brain.” She smiles softly at me, and I want to tell to stop fucking smiling.

  “Five?” I gasp.

  She nods. “Maybe six.”

  “Five and a half,” I hear Robert say from the other room.

  “You’re supposed to give me a few minutes.” She smiles toward the door.

  “I’ve heard it a million times, Ashley. I lived it.”

  “I don’t give a damn. Go.” She is annoyed, and I want to kick his ass.

  “Yes, dear,” he says, and then I hear a door shut.

  “I don’t want to hurt his feelings by talking about your father.”

  “Dad fucking knows?” I spat.

  “No, Logan. But you have started using some very colorful language, haven’t you?”

  I close my eyes. “Sorry.”

  “The year I got the baseball to the head and your dad flipped out, he took me to the ER, and they told him he was overreacting.”

  “He wasn’t?”

  “No, he was.” She smiles softly again. “But I continued having headaches, so when I went to the doctor for a yearly exam, I mentioned it then. They did a scan, and I was told I had a tumor that was not active, but it did call for a scan every six months to monitor it. I didn’t tell your father because of chronic overreacting and”—she sighs—“because I knew it would be Tessa he would go to about it. I confided in Robert, who at the time was a very close friend, who I dated off and on for a few years. The last time was six months before your father came back into my life.”

  I nod, saying not a damn thing, because I want to know what the fuck is going on and couldn’t care less about Robert’s involvement.

  “The next scan I got was when Ava was at the Cape with Harper. The time your father went to get her, because...” She looks at London. “I’m sorry, honey. I shouldn’t have.” She looks up. “I get confused a lot lately. But Lucas was angry that she was afraid because of all the news about your family.”

  “It’s totally fine, Ashley,” London says. “The news scared me more than actually living it all.”

  Mom laughs. “You are adorable. Always have been. Isn’t that right, Logan?”

  “Mom, the headaches?”

  “Right. My scan results came in, and the doctor asked me to come to his office. When I walked in, Robert was waiting for me. My doctor and he are friends. I was told it had grown significantly. You and I stayed at the Shore for a few days. I let your father believe it was because I was angry about him saying Tessa should have stayed with him, which I was, but I was also worried about...”

  I nod and hold her hand.

  “Collen died, and I knew...I knew he’d do what was right. And I also knew I needed to get through this. I found myself wanting Robert to be the one I went through it with.” She looks at me. “I needed to put myself first. I needed someone who would do the same.”

  “Dad would have,” I tell her. “He—”

  “Your father and I”—she takes a deep breath—“it was never right, Logan. I was always jealous of her. He never denied he loved her, not once, and I could have lived with it. But the way Robert puts me first, the way he has fought for me when I couldn’t, the way he...” She swallows back tears. “The way he loves me is the kind of love I needed then, now, and hopefully for a very long time.”

  “So, you’ll be okay?”

  “I’ll be fine—”

  “Ashley,” I hear Robert say.

  “Oh, my good Lord.” She laughs. “Go away.”

  “You’d miss me,” he says, peeking his head into the room.

  Fucking moon head, I think.

  “Your mother has been through every treatment under the sun. She’s done trial after trial, and when another comes available, she’ll do that, as well.” He sits next to her and holds her other hand.

  She shakes her head and looks back at me. “I’m tired, Logan.”

  Now I’m shaking my head.

  “This trial is making me feel worse than any of the others. The day you left here...” She looks down and squeezes my hand.

  “I didn’t know, Mom. I’m sorry, so sorry.”

  She smiles and nods. “Ava will remember me being with her at the hospital. She’ll remember me helping. And someday, she’ll know the nanny I hired was because I was too sick to be there, not because
I didn’t want to be. But you”—more tears build up in her eyes—“I would never forgive myself if that was the last time we saw each other. You, Logan, have always been my little boy, then my little man. I didn’t want you to see me like this, but through thick and thin, you were always there. Yes, I did and said things I regret, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t love you just the same.”

  “She loved you even more,” Robert tells me. “She wanted to protect her children from this. She wants you to live and not feel responsible for her health.”

  “Unacceptable,” I tell him.

  He nods. “But that’s what she wants.”

  “Well, I want the magic cure.” I stand up. “I want that, so I can have my mother back.”

  “I can promise you, Logan, we want the same thing, and I am looking under every fucking rock I find. Which is what she doesn’t want for you and your sister. She wants her children to live, to love, to raise their kids, and not help me turn over rocks.”

  “Ava can’t know, Logan. She’s just starting to sound like her old self. She’s been through enough.” She looks at London. “And I know my future daughter-in-law will make sure you get through this, too.”

  “I don’t understand how you can expect me to say nothing, do nothing.”

  Robert looks at Mom. “Ashley.”

  “I’m not ready yet,” she tells him.

  “Ready for what?” I ask.

  When neither of them replies, I look at Robert.

  “For fucking what?”

  Mom sniffs and wipes away a few tears before Robert wipes the rest.

  “She has stage four glioblastoma. Twenty percent of patients with it live more than a year.”

  “Well, how long has she had it?”

  “We found out a week after the twins were born,” he answers, and now I see tears in his eyes.

  “Three percent live more than three years, and that’s what I’m aiming for.” Mom leans into Robert.

  “After London left the note, your mother and I talked. She is happy, Logan. She said she knew someday the two of you would be together and is so happy she’s lived to see it. She just wants to make sure Ava has some time to adjust to her life and plant her feet a little deeper into the ground beneath them. She didn’t tell you so that you had to carry this burden with us. Hell, that’s what she has avoided from the beginning. She did it because...” He pauses and looks down.

  “I’m tired,” Mom finishes for him. “My babies are where they are meant to be and who they are meant to be with. I may not get to see my little girl or little boy get married, but I got to see them graduate high school, college. And Ava is engaged and has babies, beautiful babies, and you are engaged now, too. I have seen my children grow up, and that is a blessing.”

  “I would hate Ava if she didn’t tell me.”

  “Then love me enough to hold off until the time is right for her. Please, Logan, I need your word,” she pleas.

  I nod. “Okay then.”

  Mom smiles and looks around me toward London. “And yours.”

  “Of course.”

  §

  When Mom has fallen asleep, Robert tells me he needs to put her to bed so he can run the IVs of the latest trial’s medicine so that she will sleep through the nausea and unpleasant side effects.

  I lean down, pick her up, and walk toward the room she and Robert share, that I have never been in.

  I look around the room and see pictures of us everywhere. Pictures of Hope and Chance, and pictures of her and Robert. I look around and see they haven’t followed me.

  “You’re going to fight, Mom, and you’re going to win.” I sit down and hold her as I whisper, “I love you forever. I like you for always. As long as I’m living, my mommy you’ll be.”

  Her eyes flutter open, and then she smiles and giggles. “That book every night was a bad idea.”

  I smile back as I lay her down. “You planted that seed, Mom.”

  “I would never want you to stop living to take care of me dying.”

  “We’re all dying, Mom.”

  She smiles again and closes her eyes. “Every moment.” She pats the side of the bed. “Stay till I fall asleep?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wait until she’s asleep, and then look behind me toward the door where Robert and London are standing, his arm around her.

  “I need to get her hooked up,” he says, walking toward her.

  “Does she have a nurse?” I ask.

  “She has a team of them. Sometimes she wants them here; sometimes she doesn’t.” He smirks and shakes his head.

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, Logan, that your mother can be a huge pain in the ass, which means she’s got a lot of fight in her. When she doesn’t, I do.”

  I really don’t want to like this fucker.

  “The beginning of a new treatment is always the hardest. She has said the last three times we’ve started a new one that it was the last.” He finishes pushing the tubes together and sighs as he turns to look at me. “I was sure she meant it last time. But something happened that gave her something more to fight for.”

  “What?”

  “You.” He pats my back. “Don’t be a stranger, Logan. Your sister has a weekly FaceTime chat, and your mother sits in front of a mirror, making sure her face is made up and wig is in place. Tonight, she was a little high.” He laughs. “I tried to get the wig on her, and she batted my damn hand away.”

  When London giggles, I look at her.

  “Sorry.”

  “Stop being fucking sorry, London,” I tell her.

  She nods, and I shake my head as I walk to her.

  “I’m pissed you came here without talking to me. You do shit like that, and it pisses me off.”

  “I’m—”

  I take her hands, and she stops before saying it again.

  “Don’t be, okay? At least now I know.”

  She nods quickly like she’s afraid of me, and that fucking hurts.

  “London, let me ask you something.”

  She nods again, eyes widening.

  “I want the truth.”

  “Of course.”

  “Would you do it again, knowing what you know now?”

  She looks down.

  “London?”

  “Yes, yes, I would because—”

  I pull her into a hug. “You pissed me off.”

  “I probably will again,” she whispers.

  Robert laughs. “Your mother was right about her. She’s a trip.”

  “Yeah, the fucking trip of a lifetime.”

  I look at Robert and see him smiling at Mom.

  “So, you knew this whole time?”

  “Loved her more because of it.” He sighs. “Love her more every day because I never know when it will end.” He looks at us and smiles. “Each moment, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Before you leave, I’d like to give you something,” he says as he walks out the door. “Follow me.”

  We walk into his office where he sits behind the desk.

  “Have a seat.”

  We sit down. London has a killer grip on my hand when he pushes a file in front of me.

  “This is yours,” he says as he leans back. “Links Construction.”

  “What?” I gasp as I open it.

  “Everything is notarized. I had my lawyers working on it all day.”

  “Mom make you do this?”

  “No. She probably kept it as a way to show me she chose me over your old man. Who, by the way, is a fucking asshole, but a damn good father.”

  London giggles, and I look at her.

  “I love your dad, but he can be pretty sarcastic, which is a riot. I can only imagine being on the receiving end of it.”

  “Your grandfather is a different kind of asshole,” he tells me then looks at London. “Not one enduring quality in the man.”

  I nod. “I agree.”

  “I pulled some strings and made sure his name was off th
e majority of the holdings. You’ll have to do the rest. I’ll help, but I don’t want my name dragged through the mud, so I’d appreciate no mention.”

  I nod.

  “I don’t want your father’s on it either,” he says, looking at me sternly. “Your mother earned what she walked away with.”

  “My father is my partner in some real estate investments we’re working on now.”

  “Again, anything that has Ashley’s name on it, I’d like replaced with just you, your sister, and maybe her kids. Anything still bearing Landon’s name, Lucas can piss all over; just not my wife’s please.”

  Looking through the papers, I see no mention of what he’s asking for. “And if I do?”

  “This isn’t about me, Logan. It’s about the woman I love’s work being taken seriously by you. May not mean shit to anyone else, but it does to me.”

  I hate that I am starting to like old moon face, but why fight it, especially now?

  I stand and hold out my hand. “You have my word.”

  He stands, too, and then walks around the table and shakes my hand. “I’m glad.

  “Another thing.” He flips through the file, pulls out a piece of paper, and then slides it over to London. “I think this will interest you the most.”

  Before I have a chance to look, he sighs and rubs his hand over his bald head. “You are more than welcome here any time. But I will ask that you respect her need to not resemble your mother when you are around. Ava has no clue what it means to her that she has a face to face chat with her weekly. She gets to see her grandchildren and hopes they’ll remember her like that. Also, don’t mention she was as bald as me when you saw her. Next to her kids, she misses her hair the most.”

  “I won’t.”

  When we walk to the door, I stop.

  “Does she ever get out?”

  “Most every day. She likes to go to Central Park.”

  “If she’s feeling up to it, do you think maybe tomorrow we could do dinner out?”

  “I know she’d love it, if she’s feeling up to it. If not, we can have dinner here.”

  Waking out of the building, everything hits me. I need to fucking let off some steam.