You, Me, and the Secret: A Club Stigmata Novella

by Elle Luckett

  “My baby is six.”

  My mom glanced over at me from the Adirondack chair she was occupying and grinned at me. “Feel old yet, baby?”

  “Ancient.”

  Momma chuckled and took another sip of her sweet tea as we watched the half dozen kids work their way around the inflatable palace and trampolines stuffed into the yard by a rental company. Most of the kids who’d been here for the party had already been picked up, and we were just waiting on the last few before Asher and I packed up all our little princess’s presents and headed to the cabin…

  Our cabin.

  “Are you planning on telling Ashleigh, sweetheart?” Daddy asked conversationally from the chair on the other side of my mom, his fingers twining with hers in their usual display of affection.

  “About Asher?”

  “What else is there to tell her?” This was contributed with sarcasm from my brother. He’d left Lucy with Asher to keep the children occupied and sugared up for their parents’ imminent arrival.

  “I was thinking about telling her tonight or maybe tomorrow while it’s just the three of us. The information is going to take a while to get used to. I figure falling into her routine when we get home will help her wrap her head around the bulk of the information until we…” I shut myself up. I still hadn’t told them about the house, the cabin, or moving out.

  “Until y’all…?” Preston pressed because my parents wouldn’t.

  I turned my head and took them all in, and my stomach filled with nerves. They’d all done so much for me since I’d come home to them pregnant and broken. My parents had accepted me with open, love-filled arms and helped me parent my daughter when I struggled. They’d been her daycare and teachers, they’d held my hand through every step of the way, and guided me when I got lost. I owed them everything, but it was time for me to start my life outside of these walls with them. They deserved to enjoy their home and retirement without me hanging around with a first grader, but I was terrified of sounding ungrateful for everything they’d done for us.

  “Asher bought the house on Camp and First.”

  “The—” My mom cut herself off, her hand moving to her mouth. I thought she was crying until I saw her eyes crinkle with happiness. “Oh, my baby. I thought he’d bought that house he’d been staying in out of town.”

  I paused and rolled my eyes playfully, my cheeks warming up. “He did.”

  Her laughter came even louder as her hand dropped to her chest. “I also thought he was moving y’all out there.”

  Catching up took me a moment, but I got there eventually. Everyone else had figured out the living situation was temporary. They’d understood Asher wasn’t willing to leave me even as uncomfortable as he was staying the night in my parents’ house. They’d all just been waiting for me to see it, too.

  “You knew I was moving.”

  “Baby, it was only a matter of time,” my dad said with the same warm smile my mom was now wearing. “We all knew this would get awkward if the living arrangement continued. Asher’s been alone for a long time. He isn’t the type to share an, uh, living space.”

  My dad was right on the money. He was being polite, but he understood Asher, was maybe even conscious of what he was and why he struggled to share his living space, which made me want to change the subject as quickly as humanly possible. Mom knowing about my lifestyle was enough for me. I liked to pretend Daddy was ignorant about the whole thing.

  “You’re right, Daddy. He needs his own space, and although he loves the cabin, he wants to keep Ashleigh closer to you guys, and to school. He also didn’t want me to have to travel quite so far after work. As beautiful as the cabin is, it wasn’t feasible to live out there permanently.”

  “He’s just so thoughtful,” Momma finally said, her eyes drifting to the man throwing a cake-filled six-year-old in the air.

  “He knew I couldn’t be that far away from y’all either.”

  “And now you’re just around the corner.” She beamed at me, eyes filled with content happiness. I understood the feeling well. I’d had a couple of days to get used to the idea of moving out of my family home, narrowing down all of my concerns until there was just one… telling my family Now, here I was, beaming back at my parents with happy tears tickling my eyes and threatening to fall.

  “In a goddamn mansion, no less,” Preston contributed, finally picking his jaw off the ground and offering comic relief. “I knew the guy was rich, but I also know the price of that damn house.”

  “Preston Arthur Monroe, if I hear that word out of your mouth one more time, I will wash it out with soap. You see if I don’t.”

  “You’d have to catch me first, Momma.”

  I listened to them bicker playfully before I rose to help Asher and Lucy with the last wave of kids. The last two eventually leaving together almost thirty minutes later because they were siblings. We cleaned up the house as much as we could while the rental place broke down the bounce house and trampolines, but Ashleigh’s nagging and my parents’ insistence pushed us out of the door.

  Ashleigh fell asleep in the first ten minutes of being in the car. It would have been sooner if she hadn’t been so fascinated with all the cool new things Asher had installed in his fancy new SUV to ensure she was safe. He’d insisted. If we were going to live together and he was going to be her father, he wanted to be on the school contact list and be prepared to do the school run. He wanted to have the freedom to take her for ice cream or the park and ensure she was safe without driving the soccer-mom car I had. It had amused me to see a car seat in the back of a Porche Cayenne, and it had touched me that he wanted to be a father in every way he hadn’t had the opportunity to be.

  Ashleigh was still asleep when we pulled into the gravel drive and pulled up next to an awkwardly out of place, black Mercedes convertible with Tennessee plates that was parked too close to the house on the manicured lawn.

  “Who—?” I was cut off by Asher’s whispered curse as he eased to a stop on the actual drive and set the parking brake.

  “Audine.” Her name was the only intelligible word I could make out of his sea of expletives, and it was punctuated when I studied her vanity license plates spelling AWW-DNE.

  My heart dropped to my stomach with dismay, my eyes moving to Ashleigh’s stirring form in the back.

  I was ready to suggest leaving when the woman herself came around the wrap around porch looking like she was stepping into a country club gala. Her sunglasses were oversized. Her blouse was quite possibly a designer I couldn’t pronounce and tucked into the most perfect set of cropped pants ever starched. Her shoes were towering heels that made her calves look beautifully muscular. How she’d ridden in a convertible and kept her hair in those perfect tumbling waves was beyond me. Glancing down at my denim shorts, cartoon T-shirt, and tennis shoes, I suddenly felt inadequate.

  The feeling only got worse when she folded her arms and cocked a hip against the porch rail like she owned the place.

  “I’m going to talk to her. You take Ashleigh somewhere for a couple of hours.” Asher’s voice was cold, devoid of emotion and the adoration I’d grown used to. He’d put up walls—not between us. I didn’t think he was capable of that anymore—between the world he now considered his, and the sister who threatened to destroy it all.

  “Baby, I don’t drive stick.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The clutch can be replaced. I don’t want you here with that snake.”

  My pride would have been hurt had I not known him as well as I did. He wasn’t ashamed of us, his daughter, and me. He was ashamed of the woman throwing her arms up in frustration and marching to the porch steps to come and confront him.

  “Are we here?” Ashleigh asked sleepily, wriggling up in her seat to see out of the window as I swung around to offer her a reassuring smile.

  “Yes, baby, but we might have to go get some snacks.”

  “I wanna climb the tree, Momma.”

  “You will, baby. It even lights up at night.”<
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  Ashleigh kicked her legs in excitement, and I glanced at Asher, the shake of his head telling me we were out of time. He killed the engine and pushed his way out of the car. I watched him approaching his sister for only a second before my attention was demanded from the back seat. I wasn’t going to be able to keep Ashleigh distracted for long, so my only option was to get her away from Asher and his sister and to the back of the house so she could climb the tree.

  Audine’s haughty tone was the first thing I heard. It was that upper-crust southern belle coated in disdain and patronizing tones as she spoke to Asher. “Darling, did you honestly think we wouldn’t be able to follow your paper trail? Living in the backwoods like a little swamp rat. My, how the mighty have fallen.”

  I swept to the back and opened the door to unclip Ashleigh from her seat, hoping to God that Asher could keep his sister distracted, but the woman was a piranha with eyes like a hawk. She’d noticed me the moment I’d cracked the door open, and her eyes narrowed on what I was doing even while Asher spoke to her in hushed tones.

  “I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t particularly care, either. You need to get your uptight ass back into your goddamn car and leave my property before I have you removed.”

  “Your property?”

  “Mine,” Asher growled. “Every penny I have is from my investments from the money I made. I have no line of finance that leads back to the Morris family anymore, Audine. I don’t want it. I’ll tell you what. Why don’t I have my lawyers send you the paperwork so you’ll have something to wipe your lazy, overprivileged, bloodsucking ass with?”

  I could see the twitch of her lips as they hinted at a snarl through the windshield. She didn’t like being called out, but the combative nature of their conversation seemed like a familiar one for them. She wasn’t done, though. She was out to wound. She was intent on destroying her brother, and I couldn’t even pretend to understand why.

  Pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head, Audine pushed past her brother and headed toward me instead. She wasn’t getting the rise she wanted with him, so I was the next best thing. I hadn’t been dealing with her my entire life, and at a guess, I would say she thought I was an easy target. She rounded the front of the car, Asher on her heels, and stumbled to an amused stop when Ashleigh decided she’d had enough and slipped from the car to wrap herself around my legs. She wasn’t a shy kid, but something about her aunt had her pressed against me so tightly I had to steady myself on the side of the car.

  As Audine threw her head back in false laughter and pressed a hand to her chest, the gold and diamonds on her wrist caught the late afternoon sun and blinded me.

  “Well, isn’t this just precious?” Her tone turned callous as she glanced over her shoulder at Asher. “Is she even yours? Have you had the little creature tested?”

  The mother in me rose to the challenge. I could take all the criticism in the world, and I would allow a certain extent for Asher because this was his sister, but Ashleigh was off-limits.

  “You need to leave,” I said in a tone that matched her haughtiness, my spine straightening as I pressed a hand to Ashleigh’s head and swept her behind me.

  “Considering my family will own this little shithole within a week, I don’t see where you have the right to tell me what to do. A little tip, sweetheart: my little brother likes dipping his dick into any coochie south of the Mason Dixon. You’re not special. Neither is that little brat he’s pretending to be interested in. He’ll grow bored, find another wh—” I clapped a hand over her mouth. I desperately wanted to slap her senseless, but I couldn’t afford to be arrested for assault. Audine would happily press charges if I did. I’d just had enough of the vocabulary she’d been pulling into her insults when I had my six-year-old daughter cowering into my legs.

  “Unless you would like to lose some of those pretty teeth, I politely request you watch your language in front of my daughter. I don’t care who you are, lady, or how much goddamn money you have. You could own the world, and I would still have my hand over your mouth to stop the stink pile of nonsense you’re spewing out. You are on our property, not yours. You are trespassing and have been warned three times now. I have put up with your crap for too long, and I am telling you now that if you dare come near my family again, I’ll take up my constitutional right and defend what is mine by any means possible.”

  Audine slapped my hand away with enough of a strike that I knew I would bruise, but I didn’t let it reflect on my face, even when she turned her back on me to confront her brother again.

  “You just wait until daddy hears about this.”

  I laughed, the sound a sharp slap when Asher raised an eyebrow at me and grinned.

  “All that fancy schooling and you still don’t get it, do you, lady?”

  “That you’re a money-grabbing whore? Oh, sugar, I don’t need schooling to see that. Asher ain’t that kid’s daddy. You’re working up a scheme to get rich. It’s a story older than time. Who do you think ran interception when you left all those messages begging for him to contact you? I knew you were trying to pawn him off as her daddy so you could cash in.”

  “Daddy?” The whispered word came from Ashleigh and spread through the bitterness like soap through grease. Audine ceased to exist as Asher and I both turned our attention to Ashleigh. Sweeping her into my arms, I spared one glare at Audine before I marched away and to the back of the house, leaving Asher to deal with his sister. I could feel Ashleigh’s tears on my neck where she’d buried her face, and my heart ached. This wasn’t how I’d wanted her to find out. I’d had a speech planned to ease her into this knowledge. Now I was adrift, and I had no way of knowing how to help her or soften her confusion—to make this a happy moment.

  I dropped onto the porch steps the moment I was close and sat her on my lap, holding her to me as she sniffled, I had no interest in what was going on at the front of the house anymore. My heart was falling apart, and I didn’t know how to make it better for her.

  “Momma, I didn’t like that lady.” Ashleigh sniffed, wiping her hand under her nose, her gorgeous blue eyes tear stained.

  “Me either, baby. Me either.” I rubbed my thumbs under her eyes, collecting the tears before wiping them away on my shorts and cupping her face in my palms. “I’m so sorry you had to hear those bad words, baby.”

  “Is Asher really my daddy? Or is he like Charlotte’s step-daddy?”

  I studied my daughter’s face as she sniffed, her breaths stuttered from sobbing, and I fell in love with her all over again.

  “Do you know the difference?”

  Ashleigh nodded, then shook her head and shrugged.

  “Babies come from mommies and daddies. They take the best parts of themselves and make a baby. Step-daddies are when they want to be your daddy, but didn’t help make the baby, but they love the babies so much they become daddies too. Do you understand?”

  Ashleigh studied me, her big blue eyes flickering to the edge of the house we’d just come around and back to me. Her dimples appeared for only a second before consternation came back over her features. This was the same look of concentration she got when we worked on her numbers.

  “Does that mean Asher’s the daddy that made me?” She blinked up at me, the eyes she’d inherited from him answering the question. I smiled at her, my heart in my eyes as they held hers.

  “Yes, baby.” I kissed the tip of her nose before I said the words. “Asher is your daddy.”

  Ashleigh considered for a second, concentration prominent as she skipped through her brain to find things that made sense in her little world.

  “Is that why Uncle Preston said I have Asher’s eyes?”

  I smiled again, tucking her hair behind her ears as I leaned in and kissed her cheeks under her eyes. “Yes, baby.”

  “But…” She trailed off again, her thoughts ticking slowly. “Why wasn’t he always here, like Grandpa and Uncle Preston. Like Kenzie’s daddy?”

  “That’s a little more complicated
,” I whispered, pressing my forehead to hers. “When I had you in my tummy, I didn’t know for a while. Lots of grown-up problems happened and time passed very quickly. When Asher found out he was your daddy, though, he was here all the time, and he loves you so very much. He wants to be your forever daddy.”

  The look on her face made my heart trip and skin pebble with pure emotion. Her expressions rolled from thoughtful through to sad into confusion and then landed decidedly on pure joy. Her features lit up like the Vegas strip, eyes widening, and dimples flashing right before she threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder again.

  “I have a daddy who found me.”

  Guilt, an emotion I’d been expecting, crashed over me. She’d never asked about her dad much over the years. There were moments when she saw her friends with their dads, sometimes when she saw me with mine, and she’d asked me where her daddy was or if she even had one. I’d never lied to her, but I’d never really explained it to her either. How did you tell a three-year-old that her daddy was married to another woman because I hadn’t known she was a temporary resident in my body? How did you explain that her daddy was so rich, he had people make sure I couldn’t talk to him? Or that I was too chickenshit to face him to fight harder? Or, as I’d now discovered, had an aunt that made sure I never got through to him.

  You couldn’t.

  I’d always told her that her daddy loved her very much but couldn’t be with us. It was all I’d had to offer. All that seemed to make sense to her, and she’d accepted it with no more questions.

  “Yes, my baby. You always have had a daddy. I’m just sorry I couldn’t tell him where to find us.”

  I hugged her to me, my cheek resting on the top of her head. I saw Asher waiting around the corner of the porch. I had no idea how long he’d been there, but his emotions were as raw and real, making him look as vulnerable as he had been the day I’d told him about her.

  I waved him over, and without hesitation, he moved quickly, lowering himself beside me and catching Ashleigh as she threw herself into his arms and cried happy tears against his broad chest. His arms caught me up and pulled me against him. I moved quickly, kneeled behind Ashleigh, and I wrapped my arms around them both. The three of us a unit now.