Scarred: Hudson & Callie (Oak Springs Book 2)

by Lucy Rinaldi

  She has so much faith in me. I really need to start having as much faith in myself.

  “They just turned three last week, bless them.”

  “What are their names?”

  “Todd and Robyn. They could be Todd and Robyn Ryker.” I chuckle at her raised, playful eyebrow. I can’t believe I’m even entertaining this thought. “Let me introduce you.” I nod and follow her inside the room.

  The little ones, still wrapped in each others arm, stare at Paige as she walks towards them with a big smile on her face. “Hey, guys. This is my good friend Callie, she’s come to visit with you. Sit down, they don’t bite.” She tells me.

  I take a seat on the edge of the bed, not too close because I don’t want to scare them. My face may look much better after the operation, but right now, it’s still red where it’s healing. I can’t wear my mask either incase it rubs and irritates it.

  “Hi, Todd. Hi, Robyn.” Little guy smiles at me, but his sister is somewhat shy and turns away from me.

  “Hi,” Todd answers with a giggle. It takes him maybe a minute before he’s climbing onto my lap and taking my arms and wrapping them around his small body. I hold him close to me while humming to him. He’s so adorable.

  My mother always told us when we were kids how the moment you hold your child for the first time, you will know what love truly is. You’ll know because it will fill you to the brim and have you in tears. But they will be tears of joy. You will feel so much that you’ll want to scream it from the rooftops.

  You will love, live, and willingly die for the child you would do anything to protect. No matter the cost to yourself. Your child will be everything to you. Everything else is inconsequential because nothing and no one will ever be more important to you.

  How strange is it that I feel all of those things holding this little boy? He may not have been born from my body but I know I could love him as though he was.

  My heart is beating so fast right now. This baby boy is clinging to me, listening to me hum while rocking his little body. He’s been through an awful time in his short life. He’s lost the only family he’s ever known, they both have. But that’s not to say he’ll be alone. Not if I have anything to do with it.

  Robyn isn’t as trusting as her brother and simply lies down, curling herself up into a small ball. I know that feeling. It’s what you do when you’ve been so hurt you feel it will never end. It’s how we feel we can protect ourselves from the outside world. That little girl isn’t going to be hurt anymore.

  I don’t know that I should even be contemplating this, I need to speak with Hudson about it, this is as much as his decision as it is mine. But, “How do I set this thing in motion?”

  “You mean?” The bright, hopeful smile on Paige’s face as she looks at me, brings tears to my eyes. Was she really that scared of these babies going into the system? Does she really believe I’m the best bet as a parent for these babies?

  “I have to talk to Hudson about this,” I look down at Todd and stroke his hair. He’s known me but a few moments and he’s already put his little life in my hands. I won’t see them taken away to live in foster care, not when I have the means and the ability to take care of them.

  I turn my eyes back to Paige and tell her, “I want them, Paige. No matter what I have to do. I feel it deep inside me, they’re meant to be mine.”

  Sixteen

  Hudson

  This is absolute madness! Take on two kids? Orphans with no family whatsoever? I could kill Paige for putting this idea in Callie’s head. She had corrective surgery on her face just two weeks ago. Yes, it went very well and she’s healing nicely, but she’s got a major op coming up next month. The corrective surgery on her abdomen. Shouldn’t we be concentrating on that rather than taking on two kids?

  I know she’s telling me that she’s ready for this, but I don’t think she is. Hell, I know I’m not. I’ve been home three months and everything has changed so much in my life that my feet haven’t touched the ground. I just got her back after five long years, I’m not ready to share her with anyone else. Especially not two three-year-olds who’ll take up all of her time.

  How fucking selfish does that sound?

  I sound like a kid myself.

  I could also be taking her only chance at being a mother away from her. But I don’t believe that. Once the surgery is over, once she’s well again and we’ve settled into our relationship, maybe then we can look at adoption.

  “You didn’t see them, Hudson. They have no one, and that little boy was so trusting.” She’s been going on for the past two hours about the same damn thing. I’m about to tear my fucking hair out with this!

  “If you just come and meet them you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

  “Callie,” I rake my fingers through my hair. She’s frustrating the hell out of me. I don’t want to hurt her but there’s no way I’m going along with this. We’re not ready. I’m still getting my head around losing my daughter, I don’t need to replace her with these kids. “We are not ready for this. We just got back together.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Nothing much, to be honest. “I want these babies, Hudson. Paige wouldn’t’ve even called me if she didn’t think I was ready for this. I feel ready, Hudson.”

  “Taking on these kids won’t replace the one we lost!”

  I know I’ve said the wrong thing as soon as the words leave my mouth. Her face is filled with shock, her mouth is hanging open, and she’s gone pale. “Um…”

  “Baby, I didn’t…” She holds her hand up to me and walks away, yelling that she’s going to her shop and I shouldn’t wait up for her. Great, I really fucking blew that one.

  *

  “I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Sonny.”

  “Neither do I.”

  I came to see my brother. I thought he’d be able to help me with this shit. His girlfriend is just a couple months away from giving birth. I thought he’d be able to give me some advice. I was wrong, he’s fucking less than useless.

  “Callie can’t have kids of her own, right?” I nod and swig my bottled beer, the one he handed me almost the second I walked through his front door. We’ve been sitting in the kitchen ever since.

  “I guess you have to ask yourself if you can really deny her this. But also ask yourself if you can do this. If you’re not ready for this, Sonny, then don’t do it. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone, least of all those kids.”

  “But what if she doesn’t get another chance?”

  “There will be plenty of chances, Sonny.”

  “She’s bonded with them, Enzo.” I rake my fingers through my hair. “I could strangle Paige. She knew what she was doing when she called Callie over there. She knew it would pull at her heart strings to see those kids all alone.”

  As good as Paige’s intentions were, she really should have spoken to both of us before she ever asked Callie to meet those kids. I should have been involved. Maybe if I’d met them I’d feel a little different than I do right now.

  “What’s this really about, Sonny?”

  “Excuse me?” I’m not sure I know what he means.

  “Don’t you think she’ll make a good mother?” I think she’ll make a brilliant mother. “You think you won’t make a good father? Or is the fact you don’t want to share her with anyone else?”

  Yes, that’s exactly it. But I won’t tell my brother that.

  “Just as I thought.” He rolls his eyes at me.

  “I know it’s selfish, right? But I’ve just got her back, I’m not ready for kids and all the shit that comes with it.”

  “That was clear when you left her behind.”

  “That was fucking low, Enzo!”

  It was just as low as what I said to Callie. Trouble is, he’s right. I was wrong. I wasn’t ready five years ago because I was grieving. I spent five years sorting my head out. I was the one who ran out on my fianceé. Okay, I didn’t know she was pregnant at the time, but I took that wit
h me too. Her dream of ever being a mother was cruelly snatched from her. So I do know what this means to her.

  “Yes, it was. But it’s time you grew up. You came home because you felt ready. You wanted Callie back and that girl forgave you everything because of how much she loves you. There’s never a “best” time to become a parent, Sonny. Time chooses you, you don’t choose it.”

  I shake my head with a disgusted look on my face. I don’t get this asshole sometimes. Even if he does speak a lot of sense.

  “So what am I supposed to do? Take on these kids when I don’t even know if I’ll want them once they’re here?”

  “That’s why you get to know them, little brother. You’ll know right away if they fit with your family. If they don’t, if you don’t feel it deep in your heart, then you walk away.”

  “And if they do?” I think I’m a little scared that I’ll fall in love with them as much as Callie has.

  He smiles and slaps me on the back. “I’ll be the first to welcome you to the club.”

  “What fucking club?”

  “Fatherhood, little brother.”

  Seventeen

  Callie

  I love this place, my special thinking spot in the woods beyond the boathouse. I used to come here when I was a kid just to think about my life. I used to think about my little sister and where in the world she might be now. Sometimes I’d cry thinking she’d be dead and buried and none of us would ever know.

  I hope that’s not the case. I hope she’s happy wherever she is. I hope she’s safe. I hope the woman who took her from our garden all those years ago treated her well and gave her all the love in the world.

  It makes me cry just thinking about Abigail and the fact I couldn’t save her. I tried. I swear to god, I tried so hard to make that woman put her back on the picnic blanket my mother had laid her on while she ran inside the house for a moment to get drinks for me and the other girls.

  I was just seven-years-old.

  I still remember that day like it was yesterday, it still haunts my dreams sometimes. The way I screamed for my mother to help us, the way that woman slapped me to the ground and then ran with Abigail in her arms. And I will never forget the scream that erupted from my mothers throat when she came running out of the house. It was like slow-motion to me.

  Abigail meant everything to my parents, to my siblings and me, but especially to Kory. My big brother was old enough at twelve to know what my mother suffered through her pregnancy in order to carry Abigail. He thought of her as our miracle sister. He adored her. He loved nothing more than sitting in the love seat beneath my mothers living room window and feed Abigail, singing to her, rocking her. Abigail loved him just as much.

  She was thirteen months old when she was snatched. My father threw himself into searching for the little girl he would never find. My mother was broken. Greg held Lora and Della together, Kory ended up in therapy because he began losing his hair and refused to speak to anyone. Me? I withdrew into myself. I felt everyone blamed me for what happened. My best defense against letting it in was pretending it never happened.

  It took my parents years – not to get over what happened, but to realize they couldn’t keep putting their search for Abigail above the five children they had at home. My father has never stopped searching, I doubt he ever will.

  My relationship with my sisters has always been strong because I wouldn’t let them out of my sight. I couldn’t lose them as well as Abigail. Greg and I have always been close, but Kory distanced himself from me as much as my parents did. I knew my father didn’t blame me, he held me close to him all the time and told me so.

  My mother and Kory? My mother rarely even kissed me goodnight after that day. When Kory came out of his post traumatic shock, which is what doctors said he’d got, he came into my room, I wasn’t yet eight, and he said, “I will never forgive you, Caroline. You let that woman take Abi!”

  “I tried, Kory. She hurt me when I tried.” I said with tears streaming down my face. I loved my big brother, we all did. And I was so frightened of him right at that moment. I had never seen him look so angry.

  “She should have killed you!” I sobbed, I didn’t want my brother to be so mean to me. “I hope you get what’s coming to you.” Then he stormed out of my room. I cried my heart out that night. That was the only night I cried. I never cried again.

  I punished myself every day in one way or another every day after that. I’d lost my mother’s love, my brother’s, but I had Hudson, he was there for me until the day he wasn’t.

  Everything that happened to me after he was gone, I believed I deserved. Don’t get me wrong, I was a good person, I took care of everyone of my friends, my family. I felt needed, I liked feeling needed.

  Of course, when I had my breakdown and tried to kill myself after losing Jemma and Hudson, my mother took over, she set me up in a place where they could take care of me. And they did. But what I really needed, what would have gotten me through, was if my mother could just’ve held me, told me it was all going to be okay, that she loved me and didn’t blame me for what happened like Kory did. But she never did any of those things.

  I gave up hoping she’d forgive me a long time ago. I didn’t even ask for her when I woke up after being attacked by Dalton Avery. She was there, of course, crying by my bedside and begging me not to die. My mother loves me, I know that she does. I would hate for anyone to think of her as some evil queen who didn’t love her children. She loves us all. I guess it’s just hard to forgive me.

  One thing that did come out of me being attacked was that Kory finally spoke to me. I mean, he never stopped talking to me, but I didn’t see him all that much because he moved to Seattle and never called me.

  I woke up to him sitting beside me. Kory one side, my mother the other. My father standing beside her. Greg, Della, and Lora at the bottom of my bed, every one of them staring at me. I was bandaged up, my whole body in agony like you wouldn’t believe. I’d been through hell, had operation after operation in order to save my life. All the pain medication I was on didn’t help with the pain I was in. But I kept it to myself. Just like everything else.

  Everyone talked at once, all wanting to know if I was okay, what had that man actually done to me, did I remember any of it. I couldn’t take it, I wanted to be left alone. Kory sensed it and told everyone to leave for a moment. Of course, my mother and sister’s didn’t want to, but my father made them. I hadn’t said one word but Kory knew what I needed.

  Kory took my hand in his very gently. He didn’t say anything for a while, so I did. I asked him, “Did I pay… enough… for you to… forgive me now… for you to love me… again?”

  The eye that wasn’t covered locked with his, his thumb stroked my hand, and the shocked look on his face had tears I hadn’t shed in years falling from my eyes.

  “You think…? Callie, I was twelve years old, what I said to you were the words of an angry twelve-year-old.”

  “But you didn’t love me anymore.”

  “Oh, Callie,” He sobbed his heart out with his head on my hand. It hurt me even more than anything Dalton could have done to me. Seeing my beautiful big brother like that. “I have always loved you, Callie. I thought you knew that?”

  “You said… she should have killed me, that you hope… I get… what’s coming to me.”

  “Oh my god,” He sighed. “I am so sorry. I never wanted anything to happen to you, Callie, especially not this. I have always loved you, little sister” He kissed my hand hard. “I will never let anything happen to you every again. I swear to god.”

  “I just want my brother to love me.” I guess deep down I always knew he loved me, he just needed to let go of the anger inside of him, the part that blamed me for Abigail’s abduction.

  “Always.” He soothed. “I have always and will always love you. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel that I didn’t. I’ll never make that mistake again.”

  And he hasn’t. He calls me every week, checks in, lets me know
how things are going. We have good chats, he’s even been home a few times and stayed with me. I love those times.

  I never imagined Hudson would come home. Hoped? Of course. I even dreamed a few times that he’d come home and sweep me off my feet all over again. That dream came true. It did. But as I sit her on this tree stump in the woods, picking up twigs, snapping them and throwing them as far as I can, all I can think is, is this enough?

  I can’t have a baby of my own, which means Hudson will never have a child of his own. I know he says he’s not ready for children yet, but what happens when he is?

  I feel horrible inside right now. I promise those babies I’d take care of them. I lied. I never should have said anything until I knew Hudson wanted the same thing. Truth be told, I thought he’d want it too. There’s no way on earth I’m going to guilt him into wanting to be a father, if he’s not ready, then he’s not ready. I just have to accept that. But I’ll mourn what might have been.

  Who knows, maybe one day we’ll find someone who’s willing to carry my husbands baby for us. In a couple years Hudson might feel ready for that. I just need to know Todd and Robyn are going to a good couple. I won’t ever be able to settle unless I know they’re going to have a good life.

  Hudson: Where the hell are you?! It’s past midnight. I’m going out of my mind!

  Ah, shit! How in the hell did I not even realize it had gone dark and cold? And it is cold, it’s a week till Christmas. I look up to the sky and smile, it’s starting to snow. How beautiful! There’s nothing I love more than Christmas. And I’ll love it even more this year because Hudson is home. Christmas with Hudson, what could be more perfect? Todd and Robyn home with me, but that’s one dream that won’t come true.

  I am so sorry, babies. I really wanted to be your mother. I’m sorry I made you think I could bring you home and keep you safe. But I promise, I’ll make damn sure you get the best Mommy and Daddy there is.

  If it’s the last thing I do.

  Eighteen

  Hudson

  She’s been quieter than usual these past couple days. Don’t get me wrong, she’s trying to show me that she’s happy, that I am enough for her. We have sex all the time, she clings to me in bed. Nothing has really changed. Except everything has at the same time.