by T. L. Haddix
“He’s going to ask her to marry him,” Cade whispered, his eyes sparkling. “That’s why he’s so nervous.”
“Very much more of this and they’ll be rolling around on the floor,” Emma laughed. “Boys, we have room. You can stay with us.”
A hopeful look crossed their faces as they exchanged another silent message. “We really don’t want to impose,” Grant hedged.
“I’d rather have you close at hand,” Archer grumbled. “That way I can head off any trouble before it starts.”
Cade nodded. “Then if you’re sure, we’d really appreciate the hospitality. We’re curious about you all, too. You made quite an impression.”
“Well, it wasn’t one of my finest moments,” Archer protested. “I never should have hit him the way I did. I especially wouldn’t have done it if I’d known the two of you were watching.”
Grant shook his head in protest. “No. You don’t realize what that meant for us. We never saw anyone stand up to Dad like that, before or since. I guess it showed us he was just human, that he wasn’t some god or something.”
“That’s when we stopped being so afraid of him,” Cade said quietly. “We never had the courage to stand up to him while he was alive. But knowing that someone else could, well…”
“…it made things bearable. So thank you.”
Sydney’s heart broke. She didn’t know them well enough to accurately judge whether or not they were telling the truth. But if they were, she didn’t know if she could stand it.
“I need to go get my purse from the office,” she said. “Do you want to go get lunch or coffee or something? Mom, Daddy?”
Archer ran a hand over her head. “Sure. Boys?”
“Sounds good. But could we see where you work?” Grant asked.
Sydney laughed. “Sure. I just started last week, but come on. I’ll give you the nickel tour.”
Emma named a local chain restaurant. “Is that okay?”
Cade nodded. “That’s fine. We’ll meet you there?”
“Of course. Sydney, you drive separately,” Archer told her. He scowled at the twins. “I’m willing to let you into my home, probably, but until I know you two a little better, I’m not letting you in the car alone with my daughter. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” they chorused.
“See you at the restaurant,” she said, giving Archer a quick, tight hug. “Love you both.”
Archer pulled her back to him for a longer hug. “Be careful, sweetheart.”
Sydney knew he was scared, and she swallowed back tears. “I will. See you soon.”
As she led her brothers down the street, telling them about her job, she sent a heartfelt thanks heavenward that she’d been raised by Archer Gibson and not her biological father. Even though Emma hadn’t had it easy, being a single mother for the first five years of Sydney’s life, she’d be the first to admit Archer had been worth the wait. Not for the first time, Sydney thought about how differently things could have been, and she thanked God they’d turned out the way they had.
Chapter Twelve
As curious as Sawyer was to see how Sydney was faring with her brothers, he didn’t particularly want to go to the Campbell farm Sunday for dinner. Not because he didn’t enjoy spending time with the family, but because of the reason for the gathering—his birthday. He wouldn’t be forty-seven until Tuesday, but that small technicality didn’t matter to Sarah.
“You know I hate drawing attention to myself,” he told her when he arrived.
“I do know that, sweetie, but sometimes you need attention,” she said, kissing his cheek. “Happy early birthday. I hope it’s a good one.”
“Thank you.”
“So how’s your new assistant working out?”
Sawyer laughed. “So far, so good. She’s already saved me a ton of trouble and heartache. I think it’s going to be like John said. Pretty soon I won’t know what I ever did without her. Speaking of Sydney, have you heard from her?”
“She brought the boys up here yesterday to meet us,” Sarah said, tucking her arm through his as they walked to the picnic area. “That’s something Emma never anticipated happening, her brothers showing up. Or the fact that they really seem to be good, nice boys. Full of mischief, from what I saw, but good. They fell far from the tree, thank God.”
“So they’re getting along?”
“Like gangbusters. I think Emma and Archer’s boys are a little jealous—after all, they’re used to being her only brothers. But all in all, the meeting has gone well. I hope they stay in touch after they go home. Time will tell. In any event, let’s have a birthday party.”
Sawyer groaned when he saw the modified trooper’s hat in Amelia’s hands. “Not the hat. Really? Aren’t you too old for that nonsense now?”
Instead of being insulted, Amelia grinned broadly as she came over to him. “Not even close, buddy. Come on, lean down here.”
“Give in gracefully now,” her husband, Logan, advised. “You know she’ll win this argument.”
He did. “I have to give my annual protest. This is ridiculous.”
The hat, which she’d made for him several years ago, was a family tradition with the Campbells. It represented aspects, little and big, from Sawyer’s life. There was a badge, a gun, and a pair of handcuffs, as well as a detective’s notebook and now a private investigator’s license. All the items were in miniature, and they were arranged around the brim of the hat along with a fishing pole, tackle box, hammer, and saw.
Once it was on his head, Sawyer straightened to cheers and whistles from around the table. He touched the brim in a salute, shaking his head with chagrined amusement.
“There’s the birthday boy,” Sydney teased from behind him. “Are you ready for your spanking?”
The hot flush that rushed into his cheeks didn’t surprise him, nor did the thoughts that crossed his mind which caused the flush. At least he was getting more used to this whole idea of Sydney the temptress, he thought as he turned to face her.
“I’m not volunteering to hold him down,” Logan said. “Archer?”
“Nope. Not even on a bet. Happy birthday.”
“Thanks. What’d you get me?” Sawyer asked.
“Sydney wasn’t enough?” Archer responded, pretending outrage.
“Daddy! Seriously, these guys are trying to marry me off,” she said, pointing at the twins, “you’re giving me to Sawyer. What am I, chattel?” Rolling her eyes, Sydney flounced away, throwing a laugh over her shoulder after she’d passed Sawyer.
“Archer, I don’t know whether to thank you or not,” Sawyer joked. “Half the time I don’t know who’s the boss, me or her.”
“I know who it is!” Sydney called.
“That’s what I was afraid of.”
Archer just grinned at him and slapped his shoulder. “Happy birthday again.”
By the time they’d gotten around to the cake, Sawyer had endured more good-natured teasing than any man should have to, and he’d laughed more than he had in at least a year. At least since his last birthday at the farm.
Sydney, who was sitting beside him, leaned in during a lull. “Having fun?”
“It’s okay, I guess.” He winked at her. “How about you? Doing okay?”
“It’s been interesting. And yes, I guess for the most part I’m okay.”
“Sarah said the boys seem nice.”
Sydney ducked her head. “They do. I think they’ve even almost won Daddy over.”
“High praise,” Sawyer said, completely serious. “I’m glad.”
“So am I. Although I’m not sure about Uncle John… You should have seen the way Cade’s jaw dropped when he met Molly. And when he found out she’s in school to be a nurse?” She waved a hand in front of her face, her eyes alight with laughte
r. “You could just see the thoughts running through his mind. He even asked her if she had to wear a white uniform. Poor kid, he didn’t know whether to howl like a wolf or tuck his tail between his legs when he turned around and saw John standing there.”
Sawyer laughed out loud. “Oh, I’d have given good money to see that.”
Sydney scooped up a bite of cake and ice cream. “I feel so old around them. Cade, Grant, Molly, Graydon, and Carter? It’s like they speak a language I don’t know. I’m only five years older than them, but good Lord, it feels like fifty. And poor Noah… he really didn’t know what to think. It was a madhouse last night up here. He came in, stayed about five minutes, and left.”
“Danny seems to be fitting in pretty well with them,” Sawyer said. He nodded at the group, who was standing next to the table that was loaded with food.
“Yep. He speaks their language. He speaks just about every age group’s language.”
There was a good amount of wistfulness in her tone, and Sawyer figured as soon as her brothers left, Sydney would be feeling some fallout from the surprise of their arrival. He wanted to volunteer to be the shoulder he thought she’d need, but some remaining sense of self-preservation stopped him. Besides, she had Danny. Regardless of the fact that the other man was gay, there was a bond between him and Sydney that Sawyer hadn’t seen too often, not even between couples who were romantically involved. As much as he was tempted to step in and comfort her, the plain truth was that she didn’t need him.
When they’d had the conversation the other day about marriage, it had surprised him as much as it had Sydney that he’d confessed to missing some aspects of being married. It surprised him, and it disturbed him. Most of the time, he was good at pretending he wasn’t lonely. He’d learned through the years how to cope with the long nights, the solitude. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have friends, good friends, close friends, to whom he could turn when he needed someone. But the intimacy of marriage, of having someone to talk to and bounce things off of, someone who would help carry the burden of life in the simplest ways, that was something he’d never been able to replace.
When his wife had divorced him when he was twenty-four after finding out he was sterile with no chance for ever having children of his own no matter what kind of medical intervention was involved, she’d ripped part of his soul out. He’d gone to a very dark place emotionally for a couple of years after that. When he’d finally emerged, he’d locked a big part of himself away. And he’d never unpacked that part, not even to this day.
So as much as he was tempted by Sydney, he knew that even in the best-case scenario, all they could ever have would be a fling. He’d been hurt too badly, burned with scars that went too deep, to ever try building a permanent relationship with someone else. That reluctance was part of who he was now, as much as his brown eyes and dark hair. And as he felt the soft press of her along his side, listened to her sweet voice as she teased Noah, who’d come over to their table to sit, he let himself experience a moment of sharp regret for what might have been.
Chapter Thirteen
The dream didn’t come as any surprise to Sydney. In fact, she’d been expecting it from the first moment she’d realized who the twins were. She was just grateful it waited until Sunday night, when she was back in her own bed at the house in Hazard, to raise its ugly head.
It was nearly always the same, step by step, and after having had it off and on for so many years now, she’d think she’d be used to it. But it still had the power to disturb her, to turn her upside down emotionally.
“I suppose that’s because it’s mostly a memory of things that really happened,” she told the quiet backyard that was drenched in shadows and starlight. It was close to three in the morning, and the neighborhood was quiet, most of the residents sound asleep. She took another sip of the whiskey she’d poured before coming outside, shuddering as the alcohol burned its way down to her stomach.
In the dream, she was fifteen again, full of anger and hormones, raging at the injustice of the world around her. She’d been testing her boundaries, smarting off to and talking back to her parents, and the tensions had escalated between them to the breaking point. That point had come when she’d missed her curfew by thirty minutes.
School hadn’t been out very long for summer break, and Sydney was tasked with watching her brothers during the day. Normally they would have stayed with Owen and Sarah, but Sarah had just undergone elbow surgery and wasn’t quite up to having two active young boys under her care. Sydney didn’t want to watch her brothers. Instead, she wanted to hang out with her friends and have fun, and her resentment at being tied down had combined with the typical angst of being a teenager.
That night, Sydney had escaped the house as soon as her mother had gotten home, heading straight to Danny’s and their friend, Neala’s. And they’d just been playing video games, but the time had gotten away from them. She wasn’t about to tell her parents that.
When she walked in the door, everything had boiled over.
“Young lady, where in the hell have you been?” Archer demanded to know as she came in. “In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s ten thirty. You’re late.” She knew now he had been more frightened than angry at her missing curfew, but back then, only his anger had come through.
Sydney snubbed up, defiant and scared to death at the same time. “Out. And now I’m not.”
He stopped her at the front door, standing in the hall at the foot of the stairs, hands clenched at his sides. Emma stood beside him, worry etched on her face as much as disappointment was.
“You missed curfew, Syd. You know the rules. You’re grounded,” Emma said. “One week.”
“No. You can’t ground me. I’m fifteen!”
“Young lady, watch your tone,” Archer warned.
Sydney lashed out at him. “You’re not my father! You’re just some guy my mother married so she could have a real family. You don’t get to tell me what to do. Fuck you!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, she wanted to call them back. The hallway filled with silence, so quiet that she thought it had to be what being dead sounded like. A look crossed Archer’s face that Sydney hoped to God she never had to see again, pure heartbreak and pain, and then it was gone. In its place was a stony cold mask whose distance was almost worse than the hurt.
The left side of her face exploded in heat and pain, leaving her gasping. Sydney hadn’t even realized Emma had moved until she slapped her and had her pinned up against the door, her toes dangling two inches off the floor.
“How dare you say that to him?” Emma hissed, even as her lip trembled, tears threatening to fall. “How dare you say he isn’t your father? Answer me, Sydney! Answer me!”
Archer pulled her back, his jaw set. “Stop. Both of you, just stop. Maybe I’m not your father,” he told Sydney, “but by God, I am the head of this household and you’ll damned well do what I say as long as you live here. Go to your room. Now.”
He didn’t raise his voice, but he was as angry as Sydney had ever seen him. Scurrying around him, she ran up the stairs, slamming her door behind her. She made sure she locked it before she flew across the room to her bed, where she collapsed, sobbing into her pillow.
“What have I done?” she whispered, over and over again as the ramifications of her words sank in. She didn’t mean it. She’d never have hurt Archer like that intentionally, not in a million years. But Neala had been talking for weeks about how they should look up Sydney’s real father, and she’d been raging about all the mean things her new stepfather was doing. He wouldn’t let her wear the clothes she wanted to wear, date the boys she wanted to date, and her resentment at being confined had transferred itself to Sydney.
In the dream, time jumped ahead. Instead of the week passing slowly, painfully, instead of the quiet in the house being deafening, especially between Sydney and Ar
cher, the week had simply vanished. She and Danny were on their way to Virginia in Archer’s classic car, an electric-blue Camaro that had been his father’s, determined to meet the man who was her biological father. The road twisted and turned and curved in the dream, unlike the clear interstate that had unfolded in reality. In the dream, with each curve and hill and obstacle she had to go around, Sydney’s anxiety grew.
Sometimes she got lucky, and she woke up before they reached her father’s house. Sometimes she managed to avoid reliving the ugliness that had unfolded once she and Danny had arrived. Tonight she hadn’t been so lucky.
No, tonight she got to relive the scene in all its hideous glory. Pulling up in front of the mansion, knocking on the door. Coming face to face with the sniveling, sneering man who had looked at her like she was less than the dirt on the bottom of his shoe.
“I thought she’d gotten rid of you. God knows I tried to,” he hissed. “Little white-trash slut, just like your mother. You’re probably not even mine, though I paid through the teeth to make her go away.”
Danny was tugging on her arm, frantically trying to get Sydney to turn around and just go, but she was frozen in place. She couldn’t look away from the man standing in front of her in dress pants and a half-unbuttoned white shirt. He was handsome, but the pure meanness and evil radiating off of him terrified her.
“What, are you retarded or something?” Ted Hughes had yelled. “I don’t want you. I never wanted you. Your mother was just a dumb bitch I screwed to pass the time. She wasn’t the first, wasn’t the last. I barely remember her face or name.”
“What in God’s name is going on here, Ted?” a pretty, shocked-faced woman asked, hurrying down the stairs. “Why are you yelling at these kids?”
“Because they’re worthless trash,” he sneered at Sydney. “I should have kicked your mother harder when I had a chance to get rid of you.”
