The Complete Truth Duet

by Martinez, Aly

  When the three of us hatched the plan to come down to Florida—neutral territory so Thomas couldn’t get squirrelly and pull any bullshit on us—I decided to supply the weapons—filled with blanks.

  Rightly so, Thomas decided he didn’t trust me at the last minute. When he and Manuel showed up to reclaim and kill Thomas’s wife, he confiscated my gun. But that was okay—my plan had always been to drain that motherfucker.

  And right then, as I lifted Catalina into my arms across the room from her abusive husband’s dead body, with Manuel on his way back to prison where he belonged and Penn and Cora huddled together, offering each other love and reassurance, I finally felt the overwhelming weight of losing Lisa fall from my shoulders.

  It was done.

  It was finally fucking done.

  Penn

  Another fucking hotel.

  Though this one was a two-bedroom beachfront suite and I’d never been so excited in my entire fucking life.

  She was there.

  They were there.

  And, soon, I’d be there with them.

  Forever.

  Earlier in the night, Manuel had sat on my couch, sipping a bottle of my water, and glared daggers at my woman as Catalina and Drew had given us the who, what, when, where, and how of what had gone down. After everything Manuel had put Cora through, it took all of the self-restraint I possessed not to leave him on the floor beside Thomas. Or, at the very least, tell him that I was Penn Walker and then give him the play-by-play including every excruciating detail about how I’d killed his sons. The only thing that had stopped me was the fact that Manuel was taking the fall for the dead man in my living room and not Drew.

  Per Drew’s stupid-ass plan, Cora had taken the truck and left before Catalina called the cops.

  There was no reason for her to be involved in any of this. With her record and the fact that we were harboring a teenage runaway, it was best for everyone involved if she picked up all the kids from the theater and took them somewhere safe. Cora had dropped Isabel off a few streets up, and just as the cops had arrived she’d come running up the beach and into her mother’s arms.

  The cops had been at my house for hours, asking questions, taking pictures, and searching the place. I had to admit Drew had covered his bases.

  The lies we’d all agreed on went like this: Lisa was left out completely. Catalina and Drew had started dating after he’d been sent by his old prison buddy to find his daughter. She was hiding from her husband and brothers and she didn’t trust law enforcement. So her new boyfriend, Drew, had brought her down to my house—the only place he’d thought he could make her safe.

  Thomas and Manuel had tracked them down.

  Manuel had thought they were saving Catalina, and Thomas had double-crossed him and tried to kill her. Manuel got there first, with a knife to Thomas’s throat.

  The end.

  With Manuel’s capture and confession, there wasn’t a lot of whodunit police work happening. The whys, though, were definitely in play, especially when they realized that Catalina and her daughter had been declared missing persons for four years.

  But, like she’d promised, she had more than enough dirt on Thomas to put him away for life. In this case, it was shared after his life had ended, but it was useful nonetheless. All of her allegations were corroborated with a small filing cabinet she’d instructed the police how to find in a storage unit in Wisconsin. In it were countless documents tying Thomas to Guerrero business and videos of him assaulting her and Isabel.

  I was the first to be released from police questioning. After all, I was just the innocent, clueless brother-in-law with no motive.

  Catalina, Isabel, and Drew were still at the police station, but they had attorneys, and when I’d caught sight of Drew as I’d left, he was smiling in a semicircle with a few cops.

  It was good that he was making some friends in uniform, because the moment I saw him, I was going to beat the ever-loving shit out of him. He needed all the protection he could get. That dumbass had told me nothing of his little plan. He’d said that he was too afraid I’d tell Cora, who no doubt would have thrown the brakes on some stupid shit like that.

  And, given our new honesty policy, he would have been right, I absolutely would have told her—and then I would have thrown the brakes on some stupid shit like that.

  But it had worked.

  Thomas was dead.

  Manuel was back behind bars.

  And I was walking into a fucking hotel room, where my woman and kids were waiting on me.

  I knocked softly, and it took her less than a second to open the door. I’d called to tell her that I was on the way up, but I would have much preferred a “who is it” before she pulled it wide.

  “Baby, did you even check the peephole?”

  She didn’t reply as she threw her arms around my hips, brought her torso flush against me, and then smooshed her face against my chest.

  I smiled, smoothing down the back of her hair. “You okay?”

  She shook her head.

  I walked into the room with her still plastered to my front; my every step forward she matched with one back. “You want to lay down and talk about it?”

  The door clicking shut behind us was the only sound in the otherwise silent suite.

  She craned her head back, her red-rimmed eyes meeting mine. I hated that she’d spent the rest of the night crying, but the reasons for those tears were fine by me.

  “It was too easy,” she whispered.

  My eyebrows shot up. “Easy? Are you kidding me? I think I’ve died at least seventeen times tonight alone.”

  “Something is going to happen, Penn. I just feel it.”

  I scooped her off her feet and carried her to the bedroom, though I paused at a cracked door with one brown eye and one green eye peering out at us. I wanted to check on them, give them a once-over, to reassure them and my own frazzled mind that we’d all made it out unscathed. But, when I shot them a wink, I heard a giggle and then the door quickly shut.

  When we got to our room, the bed was unmade like she’d not only been in it already but spent that time tossing and turning rather than resting. I set her on the edge, toed my shoes off, and then crawled in. My overstressed body sagged into the cool, soft sheets. Cora did not delay in assuming her spot at my side, her leg across my hips, her head on my shoulder, and her hand on my chest.

  “You’re right,” I told her as soon as we both got comfortable. “Something is going to happen. We’re gonna buy a house in Seattle. I’m going to put a ring on your finger. God willing, a baby in your belly. Savannah is gonna get a homeschool tutor because we are not chancing enrolling her in school. She’s gonna start going back to NA meetings, and we’re going to look into getting her a new addiction specialist. River can have her choice if she wants to go back to school or work with that tutor too. And we’re going to get the kid a dog because that is what families do. And, after we do all that—well, maybe before the ring and baby—I’m going to get a job. You’re going to finish school. And then, one breath at a time, I’m going to figure out how to give you the moon the way I promised River I would.”

  Her face got tight, but in the way that told me she was blinking tears back. “You promised River you’d give me the moon?”

  I gave her a squeeze, pulling her in, and touched my lips with hers. “Yep. She said her dad already gave you the stars. I can’t let him show me up, Cora.”

  She smiled, those tears breaking free. “And what do I get to give you?”

  I stared down into her sparkling, blue eyes, my chest so full that it was almost painful in the most incredible way possible, and I told her the truth. “A reason to breathe. One in. One out, Cora. Nic may have put those words on your ceiling, but I’m gonna be the man to make sure those breaths come easy and often for all of us. From here on out. All you gotta do is…” I dipped low for another lip touch and whispered, “Breathe.”

  Cora

  Ten years later…

&n
bsp; “Oh my God, is it broken?” Savannah cried.

  “Relax, it’s not broken. It’s just stuck.” And maybe broken. But, since we were approximately twenty minutes before her wedding was supposed to start and we couldn’t get the zipper on her dress up, I spared my eardrums the pain of her shriek and kept that information to myself.

  “Move. Let me try,” River said, squeezing in front of me. She was wearing a long, purple maid-of-honor gown she hated with a passion. That, I suspected, was the reason Savannah had picked it out in the first place.

  After we’d moved to Seattle, Penn had followed through on slipping a ring on my finger. First, a freaking rock of an engagement ring. And then, three months later, at a quiet ceremony in our giant, picturesque backyard, he slipped another ring on and made me Cora Pennington.

  A few days later, when I’d gone to the DMV to get a new driver’s license, I’d burst into tears at seeing something other than Guerrero as my name. I’d loved Nic, but Penn was right. He’d left his diamond in a junkyard. And I had been stuck there every day, waiting for someone to find me. I’d fought and struggled to stay at the top of the heap. But, if it hadn’t been for Penn, I’m not sure I would have lived long enough to get out.

  One day, they would have caught me stealing the money.

  One day, Marcos’s backhand would have landed wrong.

  One day, Dante wouldn’t have stopped.

  And, one day, I’d have died, leaving my diamonds—River and Savannah—in that junkyard too.

  Instead, I’d found a gorgeous man who loved me and my girls unconditionally and gave me a last name I could feel proud of. And then, two years later, he gave our daughter, Hope, his last name too.

  I’d once said nothing had disappointed me, broken me, or destroyed me quite like hope. But that was before I married Penn. Hope no longer felt like the impossible. It felt like the future, and that’s exactly what that little girl gave us all. She was eight now, and she had my blue eyes, her father’s brown hair, and all of River’s attitude. She also had a pretty pink bedroom, a warm bed, and not a single lock on her bedroom door.

  “Mom,” River called, fighting with the zipper. “Can you get me some tweezers? Maybe I can use those to tug it up.”

  I hurried to my mother-of-the-bride emergency kit and found three different pairs—you know, just in case. Then I carried them all back to her.

  For the first few years before Hope was born, River seamlessly alternated between calling me Cora and Mom. There was no rhyme or reason for what she called me or when. It wasn’t like she had to hide it anymore. But as soon as Hope was old enough to talk, I was never Cora again. And it wasn’t until then that I realized how much I’d missed by letting her call me Cora for all those years. But no more. I was mom. Just mom.

  There was a pop before Savannah’s dress sagged.

  “Oh my God, what was that?” she yelled

  “Oh, shit,” River breathed, lifting the metal zipper tab hanging off the end of the tweezers.

  “What did you do!” Savannah yelled.

  While my girls still fought like cats and dogs and loved like sisters, they were all grown up now.

  River was twenty-three, taking the slow path through college, living in an apartment across town, and majoring in graphic design. She’d yet to bring a boyfriend home, but she made no secret of leaving her birth control on the bathroom counter so I knew they existed. This could be because she’d learned from Savannah’s mistakes and gained a healthy respect for Penn’s twitching forehead vein.

  Savannah had met a guy her first year at the University of Washington. He seemed nice enough to me, but Penn wanted to string him up by his grungy jeans and long, unwashed hair. Luckily, that guy ended up screwing her over. Obviously, that was not the lucky part. Through heartbreak, she buckled down and focused on her schoolwork, and she ended up falling in love with her professor’s dashing teaching assistant, Matthew Lintz. I mean, I couldn’t blame her. He was a handsome kid. The problem was that he wasn’t really a kid—he was a twenty-two-year-old pre-med student heading off to dental school in the fall. Which, hey, good for him. They were both in college, so I was fine with it. Penn, however, wanted to string him up by his khaki slacks and preppy crew cut.

  In the semi-end, the professor found out. Matthew almost got kicked out and ended up switching schools the last semester before he graduated.

  In the real end, we were standing in a church, the zipper on Savannah’s dress halfway up, stuck, and now officially broken. All of this happening twenty minutes before her wedding to aforementioned Dr. Matthew Lintz, DMD.

  Seriously, the kid could not do anything without drama.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God,” Savannah cried.

  “I told you you should have gotten the one with the corset back,” River taunted.

  Oh! And Savannah was pregnant. This news came a year after the engagement and only three weeks before the wedding, hence the only reason Dr. Matthew Lintz, DMD, was still alive and not buried in my backyard while Penn’s muddy boots sat on my back deck.

  “Okay, simmer down. I’ve got this. It’s no big deal.” I did not have it and it was a huge big deal, but I was good in the face of turmoil.

  I took the tweezers, shook off the metal tab, and pinched them right onto the head of the zipper. “Okay, suck in for a second.”

  “I am sucking in!”

  River laughed. “Okay, then tell your demon spawn to suck in too.”

  “Can someone please just go get Dad? He’ll know how to fix this.”

  Savannah had never called Penn anything but dad again. In the beginning, she had done it to tease him. Then, as the months turned into years, she did it to annoy him. But then she started doing it because I think she wanted it to be true. With the way she’d grown up, it was easy to understand why she’d latched onto Penn. And, not surprisingly, Penn had latched right back.

  River walked to the door and pulled it open. “Penn, your majesty needs your help.”

  “She dressed?” he asked cautiously.

  “That’s uh…kinda what she needs help with. But yeah, she’s not naked. Come in.”

  It had been over a decade since he first walked through the door to my apartment, but I still got chills when he entered a room—the smoking-hot gray suit he was wearing didn’t hurt, either.

  We were different people now. And Penn wasn’t wrong. Different was not bad.

  Penn had gone back to investing in real estate, dabbling with a few new builds along the way. And I’d graduated from college and started working as his bookkeeper. I went on maternity leave when I had Hope, and then four years later, I quit altogether when Shane was born. That aptly named little boy looked just like his father. Not even kidding, the child came out scowling. Where Hope had always been a chatter box even before she’d had words, Shane was quiet and stoic, always observing the world around him.

  “Hey, baby, what’s going—oh, wow.” His eyes got wide as he slid his gaze down her strapless, white wedding dress. It was so tasteful and classic that not even over-protective Penn could find something to complain about.

  I had never seen Penn cry. Overwhelmed with emotion, absolutely. He’d done the laughing-and-smiling-so-big-your-eyes-start-to-water thing the days Hope and Shane were born. But Savannah was different for him. She had never been a baby, but she was his first daughter to wear a wedding dress.

  “Jesus,” he breathed, scrubbing a hand over his cheek. “You look beautiful.”

  She crumbled as he pulled her into a hug. “My dress is broken.”

  “No crying. Your makeup will run!” I told her as I took off to get a tissue.

  When I got back, Penn was already at the back of her dress. “Oh, it’s fine. It’s not broken. I got this.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some kind multipurpose tool. “I need a hair pin, a mint, and a hockey ticket.”

  “I’m sorry. What?”

  “It was a joke, Cor.” He waved me off as he bent to pick up the broken piece
of the zipper off the floor. He pinched it back onto the dress, gave it a hard jerk, and zipped it the rest of the way up like it was the easiest thing in the world. Dads were good like that.

  “Oh, thank God,” Savannah breathed, patting over her heart. She turned, placed a peck on Penn’s cheek, and then took off to the bathroom, calling out to River, “I have to pee! It’s your duty to hold my dress.”

  River groaned. “You’ve been in the dress ten seconds. Why didn’t you pee first? I’m not holding your freaking dress.” But she said it while walking after her and would no doubt hold her freaking dress.

  My husband stole my attention with his lips at my neck. “I’m not sure the mother of the bride is supposed to be this hot.”

  I laughed. “I’m not sure the mother of the bride is supposed to be thirty-nine and a soon-to-be grandmother, either.”

  His hands found my hips and he pulled me against his front. “Don’t remind me she’s having a baby if you want me to get through this ceremony without castrating Matthew.”

  I grinned, Penn’s warmth encompassing me. “Truth or lie.”

  “Truth,” he whispered, leaning down to rest his forehead to mine.

  “Truth: You did this. Her being here. Happy. Healthy. Getting married to a good man, who I really believe will be almost as good of a dad as she is a mom. You did this, Penn. I love you for a lot of reasons. But today, seeing her—I love you especially for that.”

  His eyes gentled. “Baby, you did this. Me, you, Savannah, River, Hope, Shane. We all have a good life because you never gave up fighting for yours.”

  My nose started to sting, so I reached up and caught the moon necklace he’d wrapped around my neck the day we arrived in Seattle. River wore my star now—not because Penn had asked me to take it off, but because that was the moment I realized I’d lied to Nic when I’d told him that I only wanted him and the stars.

  All I’d ever wanted was the moon.