“Give me that!” Megan snatched the paper from BJ’s hand. “The birthdate is right, but the mother’s name is wrong. My mother’s name was Katherine Webb, not Kathleen Webster.”
“Clerical errors happen all the time. My original birth certificate said Brain, not Brian.” He plucked a second paper from the envelope and unfolded it. BJ scanned the contents of the second page. “This one seems to have the right information.” He handed her the paper.
Megan compared the two documents and waved the one in her right hand. “This is the one that was in my case file, but I’ve never seen this other one. This one has a father...” she looked up at BJ.
BJ pulled a page from the second envelope. “This one is Ethan’s. It has a father listed too.”
“Ethan James Mastery is our father? This has to be a mistake.” But the roiling in her stomach was singing a different tune. “Ethan’s middle name is James, but that has to be a coincidence.”
BJ pulled a photo album out of the box and paged through it. “I don’t think it’s a mistake or a coincidence. Miss Irene was thorough, and you were an adorable baby...I... I think I’ll call Steppie to see if Pete can spend the night.”
* * *
Megan set two tall glasses filled with chocolate ice cream next to a bottle of Bailey’s. As much as she wanted to tear into the contents of Box 12, her nerves couldn’t take it right now. “Find anything interesting?”
BJ put down the notebook they’d found at from the bottom of the box and poured himself a drink. “Miss Irene was pure evil and crazy to boot. How she managed to function at all is nothing short of amazing. That she was able to mine and organize all of this information before the internet existed is nothing short of amazing.”
Megan snorted. “That’s exactly what Ethan said, practically word for word. You two are a lot more alike than you might be comfortable with.”
He filled her glass with Bailey’s and handed it to her. “Sit down and drink up. I think you’re going to need more than one boozy milkshake to get through this box.” He stuck a straw in his glass and drew in a long sip. “Ethan and I both love you, so that proves how smart we are. That you love us? Well, that proves how lucky we are. It doesn’t matter that he’s your brother, he makes Steppie happy, so that makes me happy. No matter what anyone else thinks, he’s a good guy. I’m proud to call him a friend and brother.”
“Your friend, my brother, is going to want to see the contents of this box.”
As cold and mechanical as that sounded, she wasn’t going to make it through this latest ordeal any other way. But she wasn’t going to be alone. She’d have BJ by her side. Pulling on every bit of resolve she had ever developed, she steeled herself to confront whatever Box 12 held. “Hit me with your best shot.”
“If you can crack a joke in the middle of this, I’m starting to rub off on you. I’ve never been much of a Pat Benatar fan, but if you insist, I’ll fire away.” He passed one of the photo albums to Megan. “Salvo number one. Why are you both bald?”
Megan snorted, shook her head, and ran her finger over the picture. “Lice outbreak at school. Our foster mother freaked and shaved everyone’s head. I cried for almost a week.”
She pointed to another photo. “In this one, we’re playing with a set of those little plastic animals. We were supposed to have gone on a school field trip to the zoo, but our foster mother spent the money on lottery tickets. Ethan was devastated. So if you ever wonder why he takes Kegan to the zoo all the time, that’s the reason.”
He reached over to stroke the side of her face. “We could take Pete to the zoo next weekend if you want. Anything I can do to replace a bad memory with a good one, all you have to do is ask. There is nothing I won’t do for you or Pete.”
“I’d like that. But first, let’s see what else is in here.” She turned the page. “Oh my God, Mrs. MacGregor. Now there’s someone who should burn in hell for being pure evil and crazy. Her house was where we first met Nicole and her sister, Lissa.”
She reached for a tissue and dabbed at the tears spilling from her eyes. “Your aunt Sandy required Ethan and Stephanie to take Pete to mass every Sunday as a condition of getting custody. Now I take him Saturday afternoon because my little guy is so not a morning person. You could start coming with us. I’d prefer St. Al’s, but we could do Sorrows if you’d rather. Or any church.”
She didn’t need the Rosetta Stone to translate BJ’s expression. It was as if he’d been force-fed a huge spoonful of dog-crap soup.
CHAPTER 54
“Never mind...”
“Baby, I...”
They said simultaneously. She motioned for him to continue.
“I haven’t voluntarily attended mass in, well I don’t think I’ve ever voluntarily crossed the threshold of any church. Weddings, funerals, baptisms, first communions, sure, but show up on my own? That’s a big no. At six days a week for thirteen years, I figure I’ve satisfied my obligation for three lifetimes. And then there’s the Father Clancy thing. I damn near passed out the day we met with Father Sean to prepare for Kegan’s baptism. I guess I was wrong. There is something I can’t do for you. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry too. I assumed...I mean...” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “No matter how far we had to walk, no matter what the weather was like, Sunday morning mass was the one constant in our lives. It was like the peaceful eye of our personal hurricane. For at least a few hours, we found love and acceptance. I don’t have any other family traditions to pass down to Pete. I hope he doesn’t come to hate it as much as you do. That he doesn’t see it as an obligation but sees it as a joy. I hope I can teach him how to find pleasure beyond the pain. For the first time since we met, I feel sorry for you. Forget it, okay?”
Forget it? How in the hell was he supposed to forget it? The way her face had practically caved in on itself would add to his nightmare playlist.
She’d been hurt so much so many times, and now he was the latest in a very long line of people who had disappointed her. Yet she was able to look beyond the bad and embrace the good.
What the hell was wrong with him that he couldn’t spend one hour outside of his comfort zone to make his woman happy? Yeah, babe, I’ll do anything to make you happy as long as it doesn’t cost me too much. Money he could do. Anything else? Not so much. What kind of a man did that make him?
And that she felt sorry for him? Him, the Golden Boy who had always had whatever he wanted as soon as he wanted it? And now that he had what he wanted, he wasn’t willing to do whatever it took to nurture it? Damn it, she was right. He was pathetic.
He took her hand. “Baby, I’m sorry. Don’t give up on me. I’m not good at deep, emotional things, but I’m learning. I’ve never been in love before and you have. I need you to teach me. I think we’ve had enough trauma for now. I love you. Let me hold you. Because right now, I’m not sure which one of us needs it more.”
She buried her head on his shoulder and let tears flowed. “You’re right. It’s all too much,” she managed between sobs.
BJ led her back to bed. He held her, rocking her gently as he crooned into her ear while she cried herself to sleep.
CHAPTER 55
Ethan stared at the pictures as he flipped through the pages again. Was his brain comprehending the images that flashed past his eyes? Probably not. Even after a good cry and a fitful night’s sleep, she was still trying to process them herself.
“Our name is really Webster,” he mumbled for the sixth time. His flat, lifeless tone made her want to scream at him—or punch him. Anything to pull him out of his nearly catatonic state. In fact, if he said Webster once more, she might do both; more to relieve her own frustration than anything else.
“All these years, we’ve been looking for Katherine Webb, and we should have been looking for Kathleen Webster. No wonder we kept coming up empty.” He raised his head for the first time since she’d handed him the photo album. The abject misery in his face gutted her. She hadn’t seen that l
ook in nearly a decade. Not since the night that horrid Valarie woman had broken his heart.
In that moment, Megan’s last speck of resentment toward Stephanie disintegrated. Her sister-in-law was responsible for healing Ethan and finally putting a genuine smile back on his face. There was no way Megan could ever repay her. But letting go of the past, at least that part of it, was a step in the right direction.
If Ethan loved Stephanie, so did she. Because Ethan was going to need a lot more healing, and Megan couldn’t do it alone. Especially not in her current condition.
He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Her brilliant brother had never been at a loss for words. That he couldn’t articulate his feelings crushed her. God, she wished he’d say Webster again. She wished he’d say anything, but he just closed his mouth.
“Do you think she’s still out there? Now that we have her real name, should we look again?” she asked.
He ran his hands through his hair and rested them on the back of his neck. “I don’t know. What do you think, Meggers?”
Well, at least he was talking again, but she almost wished he wasn’t. “You haven’t called me Meggers since we were kids.”
He deflated before her eyes. “Because right now, I feel like a kid again. Powerless. Insecure. Vulnerable.”
“That’s exactly how I feel. Part of me wants to stay mad at her. If we look for her, we might find her. Then what? If she didn’t want me...want us...why risk a second rejection? But a bigger part of me knows what she went through. I had you to help me through my issues, but she was alone. I...I want to find her.”
His head bobbed up and down the way it always did when he weighed his options. He frowned slightly before tilting his head to the right. Her tension melted.
“Okay, let me make some phone calls. Before we get too crazy, I’m going to have to verify the validity of the Webster birth certificates and find out who authorized the Webb documents. Could we have been adopted and something happened to our new parents that sent us back into foster care?”
“If that was the case, wouldn’t there have been a father listed on the Webb birth certificates?”
“Not if a single woman adopted us, but since we never found a Katherine Webb who admitted knowing us, that seems unlikely. You know I don’t like to speculate, so let me start digging.”
The spark in his eyes reassured her. Bulldog Ethan Webb, Esquire had risen from the dead and had a brand-new bone to gnaw on.
God help anyone who stood in his way.
CHAPTER 56
“Anybody home? I brought pizza from Pisanello’s. We got your Maui Wowie, Veggie Deluxe, Mega Meat, Everything but the Kitchen Sink, double pepperoni, margherita, and a gallon of extra dipping sauce. Come get it while it’s hot!” BJ called out as he set the six monster pizzas on the island and popped a bag into the freezer. He helped himself to a beer and drained it.
He grabbed another beer and handed one to his dad.
Brian accepted the beer. “Pisanello’s and beer.” He opened the door to the basement and called down. “Deb! Dinner!” He turned back to BJ. “What’s wrong, Junior?
What’s wrong? BJ didn’t know where to start; the beginning was as good a place as any. “I’m still pissed about the Father Clancy situation. You fucked that up pretty good, BS, and I...I’m not sure I can ever forgive you for it. We should have been your number one priority. I should have been your number one priority, but you put the reputation of the school ahead of your own sons. And it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference that you didn’t know it was me. You should have put the welfare of any child ahead of that heap of rocks. And you have the nerve to call yourself pro-life. You’re a fucking hypocrite.”
BJ tensed, expecting his dad’s trademark temper to blast him into the next room. It didn’t. Instead, his father clutched the island for support and all but collapsed onto the stool. The furious blush that had always resulted from situations like this was absent. In its place, a dull gray pallor. The man who could stare down a charging rhino—and win—fixed his gaze on the countertop and traced the pattern in the marble. Who was this broken old man?
“Pretty much what your mother said. Repeatedly. Loudly. Obscenities included. She got creative and invented a few new ones.”
BJ nearly laughed at the idea of his sainted mother uttering any obscenity, made-up or real, but he was still too angry to let the old man off the hook.
“I’m thinking of trying to convince Merriam-Webster to include a few of her more creative utterings in their next edition.”
BJ couldn’t help himself, he chuckled. That was his dad in a nutshell, heavy emphasis on nut. Humor in the midst of tragedy.
“I know it’s too little too late, but I’m sorry. Ethan is helping me put together a lawsuit. Father Clancy is in New Mexico now, which means the powers that be might have violated federal racketeering laws under the RICO act. If anyone can win a case like that, it’s Ethan. We might all get excommunicated, but between the Kerrigan Foundation, Foster Buddies, and personal donations from the Webbs and Tobins, we contribute millions a year, so we have a good chance of capturing their attention. Either way, I don’t care. I only care about you. And the other kids.”
His obnoxiously Catholic father was willing to risk excommunication. For him. For the kids he’d never met. BJ’s anger dissolved. He put his hand on his father’s shoulder.
Deb climbed the stairs from the basement. “Am I interrupting something?”
BJ and his dad cleared their throats simultaneously.
She snorted. “As if either of you would tell me.” She hugged BJ. “Pisanello’s and beer? What’s wrong, Junior?”
BJ took a deep drink. “And six gallons of hand-packed ice cream from Stillman’s in the freezer. Thank God my outrageously intelligent mother had the foresight to place a standing order at Pisanello’s and Stillman’s so all I had to do was text Tobin Special and it was waiting for me when I got there.”
“Beer, pizza, and ice cream, you are gonna be sick as a dog.” His mom shook her head and held out her hand. “Car keys now, please. What’s up?”
BJ fished his car keys out of his pocket and handed them to his mom. “I called the troops; they should be rolling in any minute. I don’t want to say this more than once.”
His mom set out plates and napkins. One by one, his brothers assembled, raucous at first, but immediately silenced when they saw the pizza. Each son tossed his car keys onto the island, popped a beer, and started eating, waiting to hear whatever BJ needed to say.
Finally, after half of a pizza and his third beer, BJ opened up. “I, uh, I helped Megan put some of Pete’s baby things in the attic. Miss Irene had a box stored up there.”
His mom and dad exchanged an odd look he didn’t quite understand. “What?”
“When Kerrigan’s board of directors tried to unseat Stephanie last year, we found most of the ammunition we needed to stop them in Miss Irene’s files. She must have missed a box. We shredded Brian’s file without reading it. I should have known there would be more. Tell us about the box you found,” his mother said.
They listened for nearly an hour, ate five and a half pizzas, and every drop of ice cream.
“So, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how’d you like the play?” Everyone chuckled at the standard dad joke they all expected from the old man on occasions like this. Affirmation that yeah, this sucks, but we can get through it as a family as long as we keep our sense of humor.
Brian and Deb’s phone buzzed simultaneously with a text from Steppie. Brian read it out loud. “Ethan’s a mess; call me. Sounds like he’s talked to Megan. I think the best thing we can do right now is give them space and let them come to us.” He put his hand on BJ’s shoulder. “I love you, kiddo, you did good.”
Too drained to speak, BJ silently raised his beer. Good? Then why do I still feel like shit? Because the family ritual that had started in his youth of talking out problems over pizza and root beer designed to make him feel better hadn�
��t. Replacing the root beer with real beer didn’t make the situation better because it wasn’t about him this time. It was about Megan. She was hurting, and he wanted to make her feel better.
But he didn’t know how.
CHAPTER 57
Every nerve in BJ’s body tensed. He took off his shoes, emptied his pockets, and headed toward the metal detector. He knew he was clean, but for a split second, he doubted himself. Had he forgotten about something that could trip the detector? He held his breath and walked through the arch. Silence. The sensors glowed green. He relaxed slightly as he refilled his pockets and slipped back into his shoes.
A short distance away, he slid his keys, wallet, and cell phone into the security drawer and waited. The uniformed guard behind bulletproof glass verified his identity and pushed a visitor’s pass back through the security drawer. Visitor 461955. Great, now I have a number, too. He clipped the badge to his shirt collar.
He jumped when a loud buzzer sounded. The heavy steel door protested as it slowly slid open. He stepped into the airlock and jumped again when the door closed behind him and locked with a deafening thunk. Sweat rolled down his neck. He was trapped. Panic rose from his toes and curdled in his stomach. Breathe, big guy.
Another thunk echoed through the chamber as the second door unlocked and squealed as it opened. He took a deep breath and forced himself to walk through the open door into the prison’s visiting area. Panic threatened to overtake him as the door lumbered closed, locking him inside with no way out. Block letters on the west wall greeted him: Welcome to the State Correctional Facility for Sex Offenders. Were they kidding? BJ did not feel welcome.
The smell assaulted his senses: strong detergent, bleach, and body odor. Shades of industrial gray blended from floor and ceiling. Three black metal picnic-style tables sat equally spaced in the middle of the room.
Fly Boy: A Friends to Lovers Standalone Romance (Tobin Tribe Book 2) Page 21