Give Me Redemption (Give Me Series Book 4)

by Paige P. Horne

  I climb off my bike and stand, hanging my hands on my hips. I look out but keep quiet, wondering what he’s got to say.

  What excuse is he going to come up with this time about his dumbass actions? We haven’t talked really since I found out Mary has been staying at his place, getting clean.

  I laugh to myself. Getting clean.

  I’ve never seen that woman clean in my life.

  “Been a while since I’ve seen this view,” he says, looking over at me. I slide my helmet off before reaching into my front pocket to pull out a Marlboro Red. Striking my lighter with one hand, I inhale, loving the way it cools my nerves.

  “You gonna cut the shit and let’s get down to why you wanted to come up here?” I ask, looking his way as I exhale.

  I’m not in the mood for this shit. What he did was fucking dirty. I can’t see it any other way. I look away from him because I don’t like the way he’s staring at me. Like he hasn’t seen me in years. Well, I guess he hasn’t really, but I’ve come home some. Each time I came home, we only saw each other for short times. Just enough to catch up a little, have a beer or two, and talk shit.

  We never dove into anything personal. I never told him about my boys. He doesn’t know anything about my Army life. I’m not even sure why I’ve never talked about it. I guess it was just two totally different worlds, and it was hard connecting one with the other.

  In the Army, I was Jace Grant. Tough guy, quick on my feet, and a good shot.

  Here, I’m a fuck-up, Bryce Grant’s younger brother, and even though they’ve never said it, I feel like I’m a disappointment to my family.

  “I was hoping we could clear the air between us,” he says, squinting his eyes from the blinding sun.

  I take a drag from my smoke. “You mean, you could tell me the truth about everything?”

  He nods, looking ahead, biting down on his lip as a wrinkle forms between his brow. His hand goes to his head, and he scrubs over it, a sign he’s uneasy.

  “I’ve always tried to shield you from the truth of our life. When you were little, I shut doors and turned music on to keep you from hearing them fight. To keep you from hearing our father turn into a pathetic excuse of a man. I didn’t want you seeing that shit,” he says, waving his hand in the air as though it’s right in front of us. It might as well be. It’s always the elephant in the room.

  Our past.

  “I cleaned up bottles and picked up needles. Dove into dumpsters for cans to recycle so you wouldn’t miss a meal because Dad would be too drunk or brokenhearted to remember he had children to feed. Hell, I even stole a few toys so you could have something to play with.” He chuckles, looking stumped.

  I look down at the ground, holding my cigarette between my fingers. I watch as the smoke drifts upward, reminding me of a time Bryce still thought he had to swipe toys from shelves.

  “Why did you do that?” Lee asks Bryce as we sit in his office. Big game hang on the walls around us from where he and Uncle Monnie go hunting. I think they look cool, but Bryce hates them. He hates everything.

  “Jace wanted it,” he says with a shrug.

  Lee places his cigar between his lips and leans back in his chair. “So, because Jace wanted it, you thought you needed to take it?” he asks, speaking over the cigar.

  “Yes,” Bryce says without a second thought.

  I’m not sure what’s really going on. I guess Lee doesn’t want me to have toys. I look down, checking out the new shoes Lee and Emily got me.

  I love them. I forgot to take them off when I got home from school. I don’t want them to get dirty. I don’t remember ever having new shoes that no one else has worn before.

  “Look at me,” Lee says. I look up, thinking he might be talking to me.

  “Both you boys look at me. This is your home now. You will work, you will know what it’s like to get dirt under your nails, and appreciate this land we live on. But you will also get things. You will never have to steal again. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, Lee,” Bryce says. I don’t say anything, and Bryce nudges me.

  “Yes, Lee,” I reply.

  “Good,” he says. “I know right now everything is still new. I know you’re scared, and you miss your parents, but sometimes life changes, and sometimes it’s for the better. I promise you will grow to love it here, and maybe one day you’ll call me Pops.”

  I flick the ashes from the end of my smoke and walk over to sit down beside Bryce. “I know,” I say, resting my helmet beside my leg.

  “You know?” he asks.

  “I’m not stupid, Bryce. I knew our parents fought, and I knew our father cried and drank himself into a stupid slumber. I saw things even when you tried to cover them up. I heard things before the music came on.

  “Did I understand any of it at the time? No, but I knew we weren’t like other families. After we moved in with Lee and Emily, I thought about the family we lost daily. I recollected the bad memories and the stuff I’d seen and heard.

  “I was sad about our father, hurt and pissed about our mother, but realized you were the important one. You were my family and the only thing that mattered to me. As long as I had you, I knew I’d be okay.” I hit my cigarette and lean back on the bench. Gray smoke passes through my lips, and I remember why we’re out here. “But then you lied.”

  “Can’t you see why I lied? I’ve only ever known to protect you. To make sure you were okay.”

  “I’m not a goddamn kid anymore. I’m a grown man,” I yell, hitting my chest. “I’ve fucking killed people, Bryce. With these hands.” I hold them up in front of me. “I don’t need protecting.” I pull my shirt away from my chest. “Do you know the shit I’ve seen? It’s far worse than anything our parents could have done.”

  “No, I don’t, because you never talk about it.”

  “What would you like me to say? I’ve had to shoot a kid to keep him from killing me? I’ve walked into homes and seen dead bodies everywhere from a bomb thrown from a piece of shit car. I’ve witnessed my buddy’s arm get blown off when he wasn’t more than twenty feet from me. You don’t just casually bring this shit up.”

  I don’t go into detail about those people. I’ve said more than I ever have already, but damn, it does feel good to let it out.

  He shakes his head and scrubs down his neck. “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he says lowly.

  “Why the hell are you sorry? It was my choice to go over there,” I say. As much as I hate what went down, I did make the choice to leave. I knew what I might see, what I might go through and yet, I did it anyway.

  I grew up a lot over there. I mean, I still stayed the same old jokester that I’ve always been, but I hardened up on the inside. It might not have been good for me, though, because now I bottle shit up.

  I hit my smoke again, looking out at the view I haven’t seen in a while. This was good. I missed this. My brother has always been the uptight one, and I love to play around, but Pops was right. I do hide behind the funny. I’m carefree Jace, but fuck if I’m care-free.

  Bryce sits up, resting his elbows on his knees, rubbing his forehead. Taking a deep breath, he fixates on the ground in front of him. Ants cover a dead worm, and I kick dirt over the top of them.

  “The things you did? Is that what made you start selling drugs? Is that why you got discharged?” He looks over at me. Fuck, not this again. I got cocaine from the locals and I sold it to the guys. Not my guys, but the other guys who needed something to help keep them up on all night posts. I had no reason for it. I just fucking did it. Maybe…maybe in the back of my mind I knew this would give me an out. Maybe like Pops said, I got sloppy on purpose.

  I shrug. “Why does there have to be a reason?”

  “There’s always a reason for everything, Jace.”

  “Are Mom and Dad the reason you’ve never had a real relationship?” I toss back. It’s no secret that my brother turns the other cheek when it comes to falling in love. He hardly shows us affection much less a strang
er. Like me, Bryce has his own demons he battles.

  He shocks me stupid when he nods and looks in front of him. “Yeah.”

  Bryce and I were close as kids because we had to be. We grew apart when we moved to Grant Ranch. It was like Bryce was set free for the first time. I was too young to join in on the sneaking out of the house. Kids who could drive and were older than him would meet him at the end of the driveway, and he’d take off.

  Some nights I’d walk down with him just because. But I was always left standing in the dark as he drove off, nothing but red taillights to stare after.

  Bryce looks over at me. “Am I the reason you left and joined the Army?”

  On the inside, I’m pointing fingers and calling out names, but on the outside, I stay true to who I am. I bring my smoke to my lips, taking a drag, one eye closed before I look away. Flicking the end of my cigarette and letting the ashes fall, I say, “I left because I wanted to.”

  Bryce sits back, clearly frustrated with me. But what’s new? He wants answers, but I’m not ready to give them.

  “So, it wasn’t because of me?”

  “Will you stop making everything about you? This was about me. Something I needed to do.”

  He stares ahead. “Okay, but why did you start selling drugs? You know you could have asked Lee or me if you needed money.”

  “Christ. It wasn’t about the damn money.” What the fuck? It had nothing to do with money. I know Pops would help me out if I needed something, which I don’t. I’m perfectly fine. I’m not loaded like my brother here, but I don’t want for anything.

  “Then what was it about? Help me understand why my kid brother left his home without telling anyone and joined the fucking Army. Only to sell drugs and get kicked out?”

  I was in the Army for eight fucking years. I didn’t just join and get kicked out. I fought, right alongside my brothers. We were a team and we were good. Damn, we were good. All Bryce sees is I just joined and then it was over.

  What the hell is that shit? I stand up and toss my cigarette. “I don’t fucking know, okay? Sometimes people just do shit. I was going crazy here. Pops pushing me to go to school. You were out partying and always gone. I couldn’t take it, so I left.”

  He gazes up at me in a way that makes me feel two feet tall.

  “Stop looking at me like that.”

  “Like what? How am I looking at you?” he asks.

  “Like I’m a fucking problem you need to fix.”

  He shakes his head. “I’ve never thought of you as a problem, brother.”

  “Fuck-up, problem, something you have to take care of. Whatever you want to call it.”

  He rises to his feet. “Is that what you think? You’re my brother. I’d do anything for you. Not because I feel obligated. Not because our parents were shitty and left it on me. It’s because I fucking care!” he yells, hitting his chest. “You’re my family. You’re my blood. You were never a bother to me.”

  Wow.

  All this time, I’ve only thought I was an issue to him. Someone he wished he didn’t have to deal with. I know my brother loves me, but I could see that look in his eyes when we were back at our parents’ house. I could see that he longed to just be a kid and not my caretaker.

  Maybe I have been too hard on him. Maybe like Dalton said, I should cut him a break. Maybe his issues have nothing to do with me.

  He looks out at the land and shakes his head. “You break my heart,” he mutters. My heart is a shattered mess already, splintering off at his words. But then I remember he’s the one who lied to me. He thinks I should speak up. He thinks I should spill it all and yet, he kept the biggest secret of all.

  Our mother.

  “You don’t think you broke mine? You kept a huge secret from me. You’ve been taking care of someone who never took care of us.”

  “She wasn’t always like this,” he says.

  “Stop taking up for her.” My eyes narrow, the smell of smoke still on my fingers when I rub them across my lips.

  “I can’t help it,” he says, his voice filled with the truth. Like it’s something he really can’t control.

  “Why? Why do you care about someone who doesn’t care about you? You remind me of—”

  He interrupts me, “Don’t say that.” He does, though. He reminds me of our father. The way he did everything for her, the way he tried so hard to make her happy and make her see that all she needed was us.

  Her family.

  I was just a kid, but even I could see the desperation coming from that man. He did everything to help her, and it went unnoticed.

  “It’s the truth, brother,” I tell him.

  “I hated her for so long,” he says, placing his hands on his hips as he shakes his head. “But one day I woke up and I couldn’t stand not knowing where she was. In a way, I wanted her to be suffering. That’s what she did to us, but when I found her living on the streets,” he rubs his nose and sniffs, “I thought about Dad, and it just hurt. You know?” I look at him but don’t say anything. I’m sad for my brother. I’m sad that he feels like he needs to be her savior. But I also understand we can’t choose who we love. How many people on this planet wish they didn’t love someone who constantly hurts them?

  Love is almost like a disease; it consumes your body and soul. You don’t get a say when it creeps in.

  “She’s been selling her body for heroin. She’s been beaten up a few times. I tried to get her clean once before, but she bailed. This time I wasn’t going to let that happen. She called me, told me she’d been beaten. When I got there, she was passed out against the wall. Her face was fucked, and there were drugs all over her nightstand. I flushed them and took her.”

  “Are you serious?” I ask.

  He nods. “I handcuffed her to the bed in one of the spare bedrooms at the apartment. With Lou’s help, we cleaned her up and helped her detox. It wasn’t easy. It was gross, man. But she seems different this time. I don’t know.” He rubs his forehead. “Hell, she could be using right now for all I know.”

  “Yeah, she could and probably is,” I say.

  He looks over at me. “But if it were you, I wouldn’t give up. I can’t do it to her either.” I narrow my eyes at his honesty. If it were me, he wouldn’t give up… Has he ever? I ask myself. I left, I got out of here and yet, still he called whenever he could, he wrote me letters, and kept me informed on life back home.

  My heart sinks.

  He didn’t ever give up.

  Even though the cord tying us together was frayed and worn, he still held on.

  Even though he left me to start his own life, he never really left me.

  He came and got me several times, and we’d hang out at his loft above Red.

  I was so hurt and so blind.

  But all that time, maybe he was trying.

  I just didn’t see it.

  “But she isn’t me and she doesn’t give a shit,” I tell him.

  “Maybe not, but it fucking helps me sleep at night.”

  I look down and shake my head. If this is what he has to do, then who am I to say anything about it?

  I need things in my life to help me cope, and this seems to be his thing. If he has to make sure the woman is okay, then all right.

  “Fine,” I say. “If this is what you need to do, then do it, but don’t expect me to be the nice guy. And if she hurts you, I’ll end her, Bryce. She’ll wish she died of an overdose.”

  “Don’t say shit like that,” he says.

  “I’m not going to pretend like everything is okay,” I reply. “I’m not going to act like she didn’t give us up, like she didn’t make our father’s life a living hell.”

  “I understand that. But can you be civil?” he asks.

  “I’ll be on my best behavior.” I smile sarcastically.

  He rolls his eyes. “Thanks.” Bryce looks to his watch. “We better get back.” He zips his suit back up. “We good?”

  I give him a sideways glance. For the first time in a lon
g time, I feel a weight has been lifted. I feel a little better. “Yeah. We’re good.”

  He smiles and gently pushes my head, like we’re kids again. “Love you, punk.”

  “Punk?” I say. “I’ll show you who’s a punk when I beat your ass going back down this mountain.”

  “That’s a bet,” he says, grabbing his helmet.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Harlow

  Buzz, buzz, buzz. I pop my eyes open, looking over at the coffee table and realize my phone is vibrating. I reach over from the couch and hit the shady button, not even looking to see who it was.

  I sit up, removing my eyeglasses and looking down when papers and a pint of whiskey fall to the floor. My head is pounding, and my eyes are tired. I set my glasses down and put my face in my hands. My phone vibrates again, and I look over.

  Hey. I’m back from the ranch. Want to watch the game later and have a drink?

  Jace.

  I groan and fall back onto the couch, resting the back of my hand on my forehead. Of course, I want to go watch the game and have a drink with you, but I fucking like you and this is getting too damn complicated. We haven’t seen each other in two weeks. We’ve texted here and there, but that’s as far as it’s gone. The late-night phone calls have stopped on both ends. I was so gung-ho about getting Bryce’s case solved and moving on so I could work more on cases I wanted to, but something is holding me back.

  That something is the fact I like Jace and I don’t want to hurt him. I haven’t really liked a man in so long. I mean, there’s Malcom, but I only like him for what I can get out of him. I know that sounds shitty, but sometimes humans are shitty.

  My phone rings again and I look over. It’s Monroe.

  I grab it and sit back up. “Dalton.”

  “We’ve got a lead on that missing teen. Abby Foster. We think we found the house.”

  “Be there in fifteen,” I say.

  The rush of getting a lead on a case is exhilarating. It’s like standing on top of a tall building knowing you’re about to jump. You’ve got the bungee cord, but anything could go wrong. It’s risky, but that’s what makes it so thrilling. Finding a sick person who takes kids and putting them away… it’s like getting a personal pat on the back from God.