“I really hate those two. Go on, love. I’m here for you.” She nodded and looked around the big room. “You have an entire bruin of bears at your command. Tell me, love.”
“This was my grandparents’ bedroom. When Grandda died, Grandma moved out of it, saying that there were too many memories in here for her to be able to sleep. So, she got me a new mattress and changed out the furniture, and it was mine when I came to stay. Nathan hated that I could be so welcome here. Astrid too, but Nathan hated that
I could come here, no questions asked, and be welcomed. The day that he came outside with the whip, I knew that he meant to kill me. And as he stood over me, he said that after he was done with me, he was going to go and attack Grandma too.”
“What sort of whip was it?”
Demi answered him, not really paying attention to him now. She was there again, in the yard behind the house, the dog collar around her neck as Nathan stood over her, threatening her.
~*~
Lucian listened to the tale. Tale really wasn’t the correct word for it—more like nightmare. The things that Nathan had done to his own sister were criminal. And he would pay—either by his hand or hers, but he was going to pay.
“The day he came out, he told me he was going to teach me a lesson then kill me.
He was slender then. His body hadn’t yet been filled with all sorts of drink and fast food. But he was no less strong for it.” Lucian held her tighter. “The whip came down on my face. I remember how it cut into my flesh. I felt the warmth of the blood and was happy for it, for just a moment. And when he ordered me to strip to my panties, I did so without hesitation, because to not do what he said would be worse. I have no idea what my mind could think of as worse than dying, but I was just a child and him nearly nineteen.”
Lucian hadn’t realized that there were that few years difference in their ages. He’d thought, actually, that they were much older than her instead of nine years. But Nathan had been an adult, someone that should have gone to prison, or at least jail, when he’d hurt her like that.
“He beat me with the whip. After a while, I didn’t feel much of anything. My blood on my face had frozen to my cheeks and lips. The blood dripping off my back had pooled beside me and was frozen too. It was what I looked at while he hurt me—the warm blood drip drip dripping onto itself as it became a mountain of it.” Lucian wanted her to stop, to not tell him anymore. But he knew that he had to hear this as much as she needed to tell him. “When he finished, I couldn’t move, but not because of the pain—I didn’t feel that yet—but only because I was afraid to. It wasn’t until Astrid came out, throwing a bucket of scalding water on me, that I screamed. It was enough to make me faint.”
“What happened when you woke up?” She turned to him, burying her face in his chest. Lucian held her tightly as her body shook with her sobs, and when she looked up at him, his heart broke for the pain he saw there. “Oh, Demi, I’m so very sorry I wasn’t there to help you out of this.”
“Someone called the police. My family was gone by then, and I was no longer tied to the dog house. Someone had thrown a blanket over me, I guess. When I woke up, screaming in pain when they touched me, they kept asking me who had done this to me. I didn’t answer them, fearful of what would happen to me should I do that. One of the officers was in the corner of the yard throwing up.”
“Were they arrested?” She shook her head. “Why not? I mean, someone had to know what they were doing to you. Whoever called the police, they had to have seen
Nathan do that to you.”
“Beloved pets would come up missing if they told. Windows would suddenly be shattered. Mailboxes would be broken into and checks stolen. Tires slashed. No one said a word because there were terrible consequences if they did. I was alone, except for my grandma.” He held her and asked what happened to make her leave home at seventeen. “I had been working since I was old enough to pass for sixteen. Two years of hording my money and only giving them the little that I made in my checks. I wasn’t waiting tables, but I did bus them. And the waitstaff would give me a portion of their tips. I could get a table cleaned and ready for another customer even before the first customer had paid and was out the door. I helped them, and they did me.”
“I waited tables for a while. And even bussed a lot of them. Not an easy job, but it does make you appreciate kitchen help.” She nodded and laid her head on his chest for a moment before getting up and going to the bathroom. Lucian followed her. “I take it they found your stash.”
“Yes, and the fact that I was holding out on them. Holding out like I had no right to have anything for myself. It wasn’t much, I know that now—only about three hundred dollars. It had taken me two years to save that, and I was going to run with it.” She stepped into the shower and he sat on the counter to wait. “I came home from work and they were all waiting for me. Astrid hit me in the back of the head with what turned out to be a ball bat. Then they all pounced on me at once. I don’t remember much after that.
It was just a great deal of pain. Broken ribs, my left arm broken. It took me two days to crawl and limp my way to my grandma’s. Had they caught me then, I’m sure that they
would have killed me. Knowing where I was headed would have royally pissed them off.”
He joined her when she washed her hair. Scrubbing her back, he could see that most if not all the scars were gone. And curiously enough, so was the one at her shoulder that had looked to him like a gun shot. Lucian hadn’t touched her there but thought that his blood was stronger than he’d thought. The scar was nearly gone as were the rest of them.
Dressing took much longer than he was sure it should have. They touched, talked a little. Kissed each other. He told her about the scars and she just smiled at him. And when he stood behind her and put his hands on her flat belly, she leaned into him.
“I will never beat our children. I’m not saying that I won’t spank them if they need it, but never more than that. I will tell them that I love them daily—hourly if they’ll allow it. And they will never, for as long as I live, think that I am anything like my family.” He asked if she was ready to face his. “You mean about this baby? Will they know?”
“Just that we had sex and that my bear touched you.” He looked at her shoulder again and kissed it where the scar had been. It, like the others, was gone. Lucian would have to ask his parents to see if it was possible to heal someone like he had. And if he never got around to it, he was fine by that as well. “Since it’s nearly lunch time now, do you want to have them all over and announce it? Also, you have news about the owner of the car dealership, don’t you?”
“I do. My friend is coming to town in a couple of days to have a look at the plastic plant. Also, he wants to put in some improvements to the road that goes to the highway—widen it for trucks. They won’t be coming through town, he promised me, but they will bring in more money for sure.”
They were in the kitchen, getting some brunch, when the kitchen phone rang. It was nice not to have to cringe every time it rang. There were no more bill collectors calling the house to try and sue him for money he just didn’t have. But the call was for him.
When he said his name, there was a pause at the other end. Lucian was ready to hang up when the man at the other end started talking. Fast, so fast that he finally had to ask him to slow down.
“I have a deal for you. If you’re in the market for a new home, call me. We can fit any kind of budget and—” Lucian whistled. “That was painful, sir. Why would you do that?”
“Because I don’t know who you are or how you got this number. Lose it. Also, I’m not in the market for anything.” The man started cursing. “And that will get you nowhere with me. Who the hell gave you this number?”
“Not all of us could fuck our way into someone’s bed and get paid for it. I’m just trying to make a living here, buddy. If you didn’t want me to call you, then why did you give your future brother-in-law your number?” The man cursed again. “Nathan
said that you were a good man to cold call on. Said that you had money out the ass.”
After simply hanging up on the man, he looked at Demi. She didn’t look any happier, and he told her what was going on, and asked her how they would know they were together. Demi turned the newspaper around so that he could see the headlines.
“Richest woman in the world to marry a nobody?” Lucian asked her where they’d gotten that information.
“I have a good idea that it was either Nathan or Astrid. Probably both of them. And since we’ve not made it a secret that we’re engaged or anything, it would be easy to guess. Not to mention, our license application is announced in the paper too.” Lucian told her that he was sorry. “For what? It’s not true, but to try and fight it, that would be just as bad. The newspaper loves a conflict.”
“I guess you don’t think of yourself as marrying a nobody.” She shook her head and smiled at him. It was like a live wire powering him up. “I need to learn how to deal with people on that sort of level. I’m guessing that we’ll get more and more calls like that from now on.”
“Yes, but you handled that one just fine. We’ll simply change the number in here so that Bea isn’t bothered by it and go on. It’s what I’ve had to do.” She handed him the sports page as she continued talking. “I have seats at just about any sporting event you’d ever want to go to, if you’re into that sort of thing. I love football and any winter sport. We could go to the Olympics sometime if you’d like too.”
Lucian sat there for a few moments, and then laughed. When Demi turned to look at him, he laughed even harder. She’d just told him that they could go to the Olympics like it was nothing at all. Maybe it wasn’t to her, but to him, it was a real treat. He kissed her on the mouth when he stood up.
“I love this thing that we have between us. And I have a feeling that the money is going to go a long way in opening doors that have been forever closed for myself and my family.” He got down on one knee. “Demetrius Morgan McCray, will you do me the honor of becoming my wife today? Keep me in any way you see fit. Take me places that
I’ve never been. And love me. Love me until I’m pushing up daisies with a huge smile on my face.”
“I will.” They kissed, and he realized that he had no ring and was just standing there when Bea handed him something. “What’s that?” Demi asked.
“Your grandma’s wedding ring. I have had it since she started to go downhill, lord bless her soul, and she started losing too much weight to wear it. So she had me hold it, knowing, I guess, that you’d be getting married to the best man in town and you’d need it.” Lucian slipped it on Demi’s finger, and wasn’t surprised that it fit her. “Her old wedding dress is packed away too. You go on now, Mr. Lucian, and I’ll have her ready for your wedding in a bobbing lamb’s tail.”
He was out the door and driving to the courthouse when he realized two things.
What the hell was a bobbing lamb’s tail, and how quick was that? Also, he was going to be married today. Laughing, he reached out to his family to let them know where he was and what he was doing today. Things were moving right along. After today, they’d deal with her family, and then things would be normal again.
Chapter 7
Nathan paced the room. He hated that his sister was just sitting there doing her nails like she had not a care in the world. He would love to have hit her, but that would mess up the room too badly, and they had nothing to fall back on if they had to pay for a damaged room again.
“Why is it that Mommy had a change of heart all of a sudden? I mean, she always chose us over Demi. I don’t understand why she’d just up and leave us without anything, and we’re the ones that was there for her all the time.” Astrid just looked at him. “Okay, we might not have been there for her, but we were there all the time. But we did live there with her, and that should count for something. Demi just ran off, without a reason in the world.”
He supposed that Demi might have thought she’d had a reason. Christ, he’d been beating her all her life—why did that one time have to mean she took his fun away? It just wasn’t right, any of it.
“I’m having that looked into too. I think that Demi might have had the will changed to suit herself. Did you know that she was rich?” He said that he’d not. “Yeah, me either. I was as surprised as I could have been when we looked her up for some dirt.
Apparently, our dear sister has been making money hand over foot, and not sharing a dime of it with us. You’d think that by now she’d have learned her lesson on that, holding money out on us, don’t you think?”
“Yes, that was some good times we had with her. And while there wasn’t much money, we had fun with it. And if I think on it a little, I believe Mommy did as well. We ate well that entire day, didn’t we?” Nathan sat down—pacing was wearing him out.
He wore out a great deal lately. He thought of something else. “Astrid, do you think that what we heard is true? That Demi paid for the house that Mommy and us was living in?”
“I’m sure of it. I did wonder why we never got hounded by taxes like everyone else that we knew. I mean, not only that, but remember when the roof was fixed? I’m betting that Demi found out about that and had it done too. Why would she do that and not brag about it to us? I certainly would have.”
Yes, Nathan would have as well. Astrid apparently finished with fucking around with her nails and stood up. She was fat too, he noticed. When the fuck had that happened? He realized that he’d missed something she said.
“I said, we have to go and see her soon. Demi owes us, and I intend to get it. The thought of her living in that big house without a care in the world just pisses me off. We can’t even get back into Mommy’s house now. I went by there. Did I tell you?”
“Yes, you said that all the locks had been changed and that some crew was out there making repairs. They did a good job on the lawn, don’t you think? I never realized that it was that bad until I saw it all fixed up.” Astrid didn’t say anything, but he could tell that she agreed with him. “And the new windows are nice too. I went by yesterday
just to see what I could steal. That shit they have there, all that equipment? It’s very heavy, isn’t it?”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t heft things around that I want to steal. But we do need to get on her ass about shit.”
The knock at the door to the hotel they were staying in startled them both to silence.
They’d been able to scrape up enough money for one night. This was their fourth day here, and every day they expected someone to come out and kick them out. But so far, they’d had room service, and the little fridge was filled every day. It had been such a treat for him to be able to drink and eat whatever he wanted from it.
Looking down at himself, he realized that he needed to stop eating everything that he wanted. He was beginning to look like a slob too. Just yesterday he’d had to leave his shirt untucked in order to cover the fact that his pants were undone. It wasn’t a feeling that he liked at all.
Then there were the lesions on his leg. It was hurting all the time now, and he noticed just last week that it was starting to turn a nasty shade of purple. The bump that he’d gotten when he knocked into the chair leg was still an open wound, and seeping. It was dark pus, and that scared him a little. He’d been keeping it wrapped up until this thing started. Now all he had around it was a towel so it would not leak into his socks and shoes.
When it seemed safe for them to talk again, he went to the door and opened it up.
Picking up the newspaper that was laid out every day, he laughed at the front page. It paid to have someone that you could blackmail on the newspaper. He showed it to his sister.
“Now all we have to do is wait on her to come here begging for us to put in a retraction. And that will cost them a great deal of money to maybe have us do it. Oh, and that call you made to that guy that sells land? It was brilliant. I’m sure that they’re being harassed as much as possible by him.” He smiled at her. Astrid wa
s always so generous with her praise to him. “Now, let’s see what else we can— What the fuck is this?”
She turned the paper toward him, and he had no idea what had pissed her off. It wasn’t until she pointed to the section where arrests were made that he saw it under marriage licenses. Demi and a man by the name of Lucian McCray had filed for one.
Christ, she was really getting married?
“Now what do we do? If she gets married, then she’ll be giving him our money.
Well, not our money, but some of it. Astrid, I don’t want to live like this anymore.” She read again the names of the two of them. “That’s the guy we saw her with, isn’t it? That family that don’t have shit. She’s actually marrying him?”
“Apparently so. And look at this, Nathan. Someone by the same last name has bought some property. I’m betting she’s setting up his family so she doesn’t have to be ashamed of them. Christ, this is really fucking up our plans. If she keeps giving it all away, what will be left for the two of us?” That didn’t seem possible to him, but he wisely kept his mouth shut. If you had all the money in the world, there had to be enough for the two of them too, was his way of thinking. “Well, we’re just going to
have to have a conversation with our little sister. It was fine that she paid for Mommy’s things, but now it’s our turn. And I want to know why she paid for Mommy’s shit and nothing for us. That isn’t right, and you know it.”
“I agree. It would have been nice to have had some money to spend. I mean, I didn’t get anything much for my birthday because things were so tight. And there was
Mommy, lying in that hospital bed with all the good drugs in the world, and we couldn’t even sell them off. That was really cruel of Demi to have someone come in and give those shots to Mommy, when we could have been selling them off. It’s not like they did her any good. She died anyway, didn’t she?”
Lucian: McCray Bruin Bear Shifter Romance Page 8