“Wait,” Jackson said. “Don’t go yet. I apologize for my brother.”
“Don’t apologize for me, Jack, this guy’s nuts.”
“You don’t know that,” Jackson defended me. “Brodie, you’re being an ass. Before you start throwing out insults, let’s hear him out.”
“No. He’s nothing but a lying sack of shit.”
“Sit the fuck down, Brodie, and let’s listen to what he has to say,” Jackson yelled, and to my surprise, Brodie sank back down onto the stool next to Gabrielle. She placed her hand on top of his and that seemed to calm him, but not by much. He was a stick of dynamite ready to explode.
“Please, sit down, Ash. Is Ash short for something?” Jackson asked.
“Asher,” I said and sat.
“Okay, Asher, we’re listening. Please continue.”
I cleared my throat and ran my hand through my hair, carefully choosing my next words. “As I said, I never wanted to come here. The only reason I’m here is because my mom asked me to come. She left me a letter that I didn’t find until after she died. She convinced me that the two of you are as innocent in this as I am and that I shouldn’t punish you or myself for what our father did. She told me that you, most likely, didn’t even know that I existed, and I guess she was right about that. Anyway, I just thought you had a right to know.”
“And you said your mother just recently died?” Jackson asked, remembering our first conversation.
“Yeah, three weeks ago. I found the letter among some important papers she left for me.”
“I’m sorry. How did she die?” Brodie asked, surprising the hell out of me that he even spoke, let alone asked in such a calm and caring way. I gave him a quick glance, wanting to see his facial expression. It was somber.
“Cancer. She had a brain tumor. It took her within three months from the time the doctors found it.”
“Sorry, that must have been hard,” Jackson said.
I nodded. “I’ve known about you my entire life. My dad, our dad, used to brag about you.” I cleared my throat and continued. “When I was four, he told me I had two big brothers and said how much they’d love to meet me. At the time, I begged to go with him when he left that day so I could meet you. He promised that someday I would, but we all know that never happened. The man was full of empty promises. That was the last time I ever saw him actually. He sent monthly checks, a little to help out, but they stopped when I was seven. Later, we found out through sources that he’d been killed in a car accident.”
Brodie sighed and shook his head. Gabrielle wrapped her arm around him and tugged him a little. Jackson had his hand on Lena’s thigh and they looked at each other with sorrow on their faces.
“I didn’t come here for a pity party or to bring up bad shit,” I said. “I don’t want anything from you. I just wanted to meet you. Now that I have, we’ll go.” As I stood, I grabbed Mel’s hand and motioned for her to stand.
We headed toward the door, but Mel placed her hand to her mouth again. “I’m sorry, could I use your bathroom?”
Lena nodded and stood, wrapping her arm around Mel’s shoulder to lead the way. “Are you okay?” she asked and glanced back at Gabrielle, who was now on her feet following them.
Jackson, Brodie and I waited silently, listening to the sound of Mel vomiting. Again.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Melody
Lena and Gabrielle stood just outside the bathroom door. I could hear them talking, but I couldn’t make out anything they were saying. I rinsed out my mouth and washed my face and hands then stared at the pale, pasty face in the mirror. Damn flu. God, I hated being sick. This would make leaving now really difficult. I didn’t want to sit in the truck for three or four hours. I felt bad for Ash. Brodie hadn’t been very receptive at all. Well, he had softened up a bit after Ash mentioned his mom dying, so I guess the guy wasn’t a total ass.
I flinched at the faint knock on the door.
I wasn’t sure I was ready to leave the bathroom just yet. I opened it slightly to see Lena and Gabrielle standing there.
“Um…can we come in?” Lena asked.
I opened the door the rest of the way, and they came in. Lena had an oblong shaped box in her hand. “We think you should use this.” I glanced at the box again. It was a pregnancy test. My heart skipped a beat.
I shook my head. “I can’t be pregnant. I’m on the pill,” I said defiantly.
“Well, sometimes things just happen. Pills get skipped or taken late. It can happen,” Gabrielle said.
“No. It can’t. Not to me, Gabrielle.”
“Just call me Gabby.”
“Okay.”
“Have you skipped any periods?”
“Um…it’s hard to tell since I don’t have regular periods. That’s why I was on the pill in the first place. But I can’t be pregnant. I’ve only just started having sex…” I thought about all the times over the past couple of days. We had done it about a month ago, but only once, well, three times that night. But I’d been sick on our way up here. “The first time was about four weeks ago. But I would know, right? I’d feel something.”
“That could be what this is all about,” Lena said, gesturing toward the toilet and I knew she meant the vomiting. “Are your breasts tender?”
I gave her a blank look and nodded. Remembering that I’d read that somewhere, but I thought mine were tender just from being touched so much recently, or from PMS. I searched my memory, thinking about the pills. Then it dawned on me. That night with Asher, I’d been so excited about doing it with him. And then after feeling so good and euphoric, I’d completely forgotten. Shit, shit, shit. I did skip one. Damnit, and it had been right after Ash and I had sex. Oh no!
“Oh, crap…I may have skipped a pill,” I said. “Can it happen that easily?” I had no clue about these things. I’d never had to worry about them before. I hadn’t considered that this would happen. I’d always thought I was safe with taking the pill. The nurse had told me that if I skipped one to just take it as soon as I remembered. But she didn’t mention not to have intercourse with anyone right around that time.
“Yeah, it can,” Lena said. “Here. Just stick this end under the stream of pee and then call us when you finish.”
They left me alone. I did need to pee, so that was lucky. If there was anything lucky about any of this. Maybe lucky was the wrong word. I pulled my jeans down and sat on the toilet, holding the stick under me as I tinkled on it. God, I wanted to cry.
After I had finished, I placed the stick on the counter and pulled up my pants. I opened the door and let the two women back in. I was grateful they were there, actually. I’d never had girlfriends, except for Erica. It was nice that they seemed so concerned for me and were willing to stand by me while I waited the three excruciatingly long minutes to see a plus or minus sign. I said a quick prayer for the negative one.
Lena stared at her cell phone’s timer. I watched the stick. When the little window showed a plus sign, my knees wobbled and I sank down on the closed toilet seat and cried. This was not supposed to happen.
Gabby put her hand on my shoulder. “It will be okay. First thing you need to do is tell Ash.”
I looked up at her and shook my head. “No. I can’t. I…I told him I was on the pill. He trusted me. I can’t tell him.”
“You need to tell him. He would want to know. Once you tell him, then we’ll all be able to figure out what to do,” Lena said.
I look at her through blurry tears. “All?”
“You’re family,” she said.
“But, you all just now found out that Asher is Brodie and Jackson’s brother.”
“I know my husband,” Lena said. “There is no way in hell he is going to let you and Asher just walk away now that he knows. Believe me, it’s not in his DNA.” She laughed.
“And Brodie is coming around. He’s not the big oaf he sometimes appears to be,” Gabby added. “You can trust us, Melody. We’re practically sisters.”
�
�But Asher and I aren’t married or anything.” I honestly didn’t know what we were anymore. Best friends, boyfriend and girlfriend, lovers, fuck buddies? What were we? I looked at my hands holding the stick with the looming plus sign. “Hell, we were only just best friends up until this week.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ash and I have known each other our whole lives. We’ve been best friends since we were about three or four. He and I…well, he was helping me.” They looked at me like I was nuts.
“Helping you do what?” Gabby asked with a frown.
“Lose my virginity.”
“What?” Lena asked.
“I mean, I wanted to have sex. I was going to do it with this guy. Anyway, Asher can’t stand him and he didn’t want me to do it with him, so he volunteered to be my first.” This all sounded so stupid and immature as I laid the story out for them. But they didn’t laugh at me or tell me how dumb and irresponsible I’d been. They simply listened to me.
Then there was a knock on the door. “Mel? What’s going on?” It was Asher. “Can I come in?”
I dried my eyes then snatched the testing stick off the counter and held it behind my back. I opened the door. Asher stood with his arm on the door jam, and Jackson and Brodie stood down the hall a short distance away. Their handsome, frowning faces all very similar. The resemblance between them was uncanny. Lena and Gabrielle walked out ahead of me, ducking under Ash’s arm. He seemed rather statuesque, and it was hard to figure out if he was mad or just concerned. I stuck the stick in my back pocket, not wanting him to see it.
I kept my back from him as we all headed to the other room.
“I don’t think Melody is going to be able to travel today, Ash. It looks like you’ll need to stay,” Lena said with a small smile. Not quite happy, yet not upset. I hoped that meant that she wasn’t happy for my situation, but I had the feeling that she wasn’t upset that we had to stay either.
“What’s wrong?” Asher asked.
“It’s okay to stay,” Jackson said. “I think I can speak for both Brodie and myself and say we’d like you to stay. I mean that. For a few days, let’s get this all sorted out and see where it all leads.”
We all looked at Brodie.
“Yeah, sure. I guess. Besides, if she’s sick,” Brodie pointed at me, “you can’t really take off yet.”
“I’ll make some tea,” Gabby said and took off for the kitchen.
“Let’s all sit down. Maybe if we all get to know each other longer than a millisecond, we can figure out what to do. You have to understand, Ash, it’s a shock for us. What you are telling us. Not something one expects to hear shortly after meeting someone,” Jackson said.
“I get it,” Asher said.
“Do you have a birth certificate?” Brodie asked Asher.
He nodded, opened his wallet, and pulled out a folded form. “I’ve been carrying it around ever since my mom died. The whole time I was contemplating coming here. I knew you would ask for it. I knew I would ask for one if someone came to me with this kind of news. I didn’t want to forget to bring it with me so I stuck it in my wallet.” He unfolded it slowly and handed it to Brodie.
Brodie took it and read it then passed it to Jackson. “This doesn’t really prove that our father is your father. There are probably plenty of men named Charles Rutherford Beaumont.”
Jackson gave his brother a quick glance. “What Brodie means is that—”
“I know what he means,” Ash interrupted. “You want me to take a paternity test or something?”
“That would work,” Brodie said.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Jackson agreed. “Not that we don’t believe you. I mean, I do. I believe that your father’s name was Charles Rutherford Beaumont. But is that Charles Beaumont on your birth certificate the same Charles Beaumont that is our father? That is the question.”
“He looks identical to the both of you,” Lena said.
“That’s true,” Gabby agreed as she placed a tray on the small wooden coffee table. “Here, Mel, some saltine crackers. They should help calm your stomach some.”
“Thanks,” I smiled. The women in this family seemed a whole lot more accepting than the men.
Ash looked at me. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
I nodded.
Gabby cleared her throat and motioned to me with her eyes toward Ash. I knew what she was doing. She wanted me to tell him. Was I ready to? Now? In the middle of all this other chaos? I shook my head. She rolled her eyes at me, and I frowned. I wasn’t ready to tell Asher, yet, not in the middle of everything else he had going on. It was just too much. I had to admit, though, it was nice that she was so concerned about me. Even if Ash were related to her husband, that didn’t mean she had to instantly accept me into their family.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Asher
I understood where Brodie and Jackson were coming from. I didn’t expect this to be walk-in-the-park easy. I’d probably be having the same questions if our father hadn’t told me their names.
“I can agree to a paternity test if that would make you happy. But I know what the results will say. I don’t think it’s just some weird coincidence that my father would tell me I have two older brothers named Jackson and Brodie and that you were only a year or two older than me.”
“You didn’t say that before,” Jackson said. “You never said he told you our names. That makes a world of difference.”
Then I remembered the picture of my dad and me that I’d stuck in my wallet and reached into my back pocket to pull out the billfold. I fingered the photo and slipped it free. “I also have this.” I handed it to Jackson and he studied it, smiled at me, then handed it to Brodie.
“That is most definitely Dad,” Jackson confirmed, and I felt the weight of an elephant slip from my shoulders.
“He talked about you a lot to my mom. He even told her you lived here in Turtle Lake. I’m sorry that he wasn’t the man you always thought he was. But I’m not responsible for what he did, and neither are you.”
Both Jackson’s and Brodie’s eyes shot to mine at the same time.
“You’re right,” Jackson said. “We aren’t.”
“I’d still like to see some kind of DNA test results. Plus, how the hell could your mother and our father have been so irresponsible to have a kid knowing he was already married and had small children?”
Sniffles commenced beside me as Mel started crying.
“Mel?” I said.
Gabrielle stood and held out her hand to Brodie. “Come on. Let’s take a walk.”
“What? Fuck no. I don’t need a walk, I need some answers.”
“Brodie. Come with me, please, I would like to talk to you. In private.”
“Jesus Christ.” He got up and followed her.
“How could you say that, Brodie? You of all people should know that you should be more considerate about mistakes when it comes to love,” Gabrielle said as they left the room.
“Jackson, let’s give them some privacy,” Lena said, and she and Jackson got up.
“Privacy? Why do we need privacy? Mel?” I had trouble controlling the panic in my voice. What the hell was going on?
Melody sat there studying her hands as her fingers intertwined nervously in her lap. “I’m pregnant,” she whispered.
“What?”
“I’m pregnant.” She reached behind her and pulled out a white plastic stick that looked similar to a thermometer. I instantly knew what it was. She handed it to me. “It has a plus sign. That means I’m pregnant.”
This fucking day was just not getting any easier. “I’ll kill Alex,” I said, barely audible and through very clenched teeth. But she heard me.
“What?”
I stood up and took a couple of steps away. “I said I’m going to kill that fucking asshole, Alex.”
Her eyes grew wide and she started sobbing. “God, Mel, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so crass. I’m sorry he did this to you. But you know I hate
him, I have since high school. You’re not the first one he’s done this to, you know.”
She stopped crying a stared at me.
“You remember. Shannon Bright? He got her pregnant in eleventh grade. She had to drop out of school. When Shannon told Alex that she was pregnant, he shrugged her off and accused her of sleeping with other guys. He laughed at her and told her tough fucking luck, he said it couldn’t possibly be his. She was going to have an abortion. We were friends, and she begged me to go with her for support. I reluctantly agreed, but she changed her mind anyway, the day before when her mom found out. Her mom was actually cool about it after a few hours of tears, and agreed to help Shannon with the baby. But my point is, now he’s done it again. To you. My best friend. I’m going to kill his sorry dick-faced ass.”
Mel wiped her tears with the back of her hand and stood up. “Asher. You’re an imbecile.” And then she walked out of the house, leaving me standing in the living room by myself.
“What the fuck?”
Gabrielle came running inside. “What happened? What did you say to her?”
I watched as Brodie and Jackson came in. Lena must have stayed out with Mel. God, I should be with Mel, not a stranger.
“I need another beer,” Brodie said and headed to the kitchen. “Anybody else want one?”
“So, you all know?” Gabrielle and Jackson nodded. “Of course, you know. You gave her the pregnancy test.” I pointed at Gabby.
Gabby nodded. “I’m sorry, Ash. But what did you say to her that made her come running out crying?”
“I told her I was going to kill Alex.”
“Who’s Alex?” she asked.
My eyes shot to hers. “The guy that…” I slammed my stupid mouth shut when I saw the puzzled expression on her face. I ran my hand over my eyes to ward off the headache that threatened behind them. Mel hadn’t mentioned Alex to them?
“Oh, fuck me. I am an imbecile.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“Mel didn’t sleep with Alex,” I found myself mumbling aloud. “That’s why she was home at eleven that night and not in Alex’s bed. If she’d slept with him, she wouldn’t have been home that early.” I stopped my blabbering; realizing Gabby had no idea what the fuck I was talking about. Why hadn’t Mel told me? Why did she let me go on thinking she’d been with him? Was I that much of an inconsiderate fool not to realize it? Apparently.
Beautifully Undone (The Beaumont Brothers #3) Page 12
