The Promise: A Secret Baby Romance (North Woods Universtiy Book 5)

by J. L. Beck

  Grabbing my books out of my bag, I walk into the kitchen and hover in the doorway, watching Lex as he moves around the kitchen.

  He must sense my eyes on him because he whips around after putting the pasta in the water. Our gazes collide, a flame of unexplainable need flickering in my belly.

  “Sit. Do your work, and I’ll finish dinner,” he tells me, and I do just that, my body obeying without thought.

  I don’t even bother opening my books though because I already know focusing on any type of schoolwork is pointless with him in the room. My brain has officially been through the blender.

  “You know, you could’ve gone to jail tonight fighting those guys.”

  Lex shrugs. “Then I would’ve gone to jail.”

  “Just like that?” I’m shocked that he would give up his freedom for me so easily.

  “Just like that. There isn’t a damn thing I won’t do for you, Jude.” He looks over at me when he speaks this time, and I swear my cheeks heat to the temperature of the sun.

  “What is it about me that interests you?”

  Lex stirs the spaghetti sauce that is now bubbling in a skillet. “I haven’t figured it out yet. All I know is that I want to get to know you more. I want to see inside you, see what makes you tick. I want to know what you like and what you hate. Basically, I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

  Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with feelings and emotions. How is he going to feel when he realizes I’m not actually that interesting? That I’m just a broken girl, living a hopeless dream?

  “Tell me about your family.”

  Of course, that would be the first thing he asks. I blink away the tears threatening to fill my eyes as I think about how I’m going to answer this question without giving away that I have nothing and no one. Unable to hold the tears back a second longer, they fall from my eyes, leaving cold trails against my cheeks.

  Lex’s face fills with confusion as he turns to me, dropping the spoon and crossing the space between us. His hands grip onto mine, the warmth of his touch easing into the cold crevasses of my body.

  “I… I have no one…”

  Lex frowns at my words, and I swear it’s like I’m reliving the moment all over again. I can still hear my father telling me never to come back, that I could die, and he wouldn’t care.

  “You have me,” he whispers, and his words are like an electrical shock to my emotions. “You have me, and I’m not going anywhere.” The reassuring tone he gives me, makes me want to believe him, but I know better. It’s a false sense of hope that I won’t give into ever again.

  I decide to divert the attention off of me by asking, “What about you? Your family?”

  Lex gives me a toothy grin. “There are three of us Miller boys. Remington is my youngest brother, then there is Sebastian, who is the Dean, and then me. There’s also Pops, my dad.”

  I nod, unsure of how to respond. I look down at his hands, which engulf mine as he holds them.

  “My brothers are married and have kids. I’m just the cool uncle now.” I glance up and catch him smiling again, but it doesn’t reach his eyes, which leads me to believe there’s an emotion beneath it. “I was in the Marines, then I got out, and now I work at Iron Fist Gym with that guy that you saw the other day on campus. His name is Luke, and his wife goes to school at North Woods.”

  Luke. That guy that was with Lex when I saw him for the first time again. His name reminds me of that night, the incident.

  “Why were you guys beating up that man?” I shouldn’t ask, and I don’t really care, and yet, part of me kind of does. It’s like I’m trying to make him out as the bad guy in my mind so that I don’t feel so drawn to him, but it has the opposite effect.

  “It was a misunderstanding really,” Lex says, pulling away. He returns to the stove to stir the noodles. An awkward silence falls over us, and I could kick myself.

  Thankfully, the food is done, and Lex hands me a plate, which I devour like an animal that hasn’t eaten in days. It’s honestly quite embarrassing how fast I scarf the food down, but Lex doesn’t seem to be bothered by it.

  When we’ve finished eating, I help him clean up, and then grab my books off the island, but before I can sit down and start reading, Lex takes my hand and pulls me to the sofa in the living room.

  “I want to talk to you about your family.”

  I flinch visibly and stop in my tracks, trying to pull my hand out of his. He tightens his hold, and my throat clenches shut. I can’t breathe. I can’t swallow. I can’t see anything except that I need for him to let me go. I am too exposed to him when his hand is holding mine–when his skin touches my skin. Not on this topic. Not with all the recent things that have happened, and all the things piled up behind those.

  It is too much, it is too much, it is too much!

  My eyes dart around the room, looking for anything to save me. Any way that I can expel this energy or divert the attention of it or buy me some time. He notices, and I’m uncomfortable with him seeing me like this.

  I do not want to talk about my family. I don’t have a family anymore.

  Lex’s eyes turn on me and then press deeper. I know he wants to understand and is probably making assumptions or interpreting my reactions in some way. I can see compassion and gentleness reflected back at me in his eyes, but I don’t want it. It feels like pity. I do not want him to look at this part of me. It’s too ugly. It is too dark. I am too branded by my father’s hand and belt. No one deserves the things he dished out.

  I am too broken to bring anyone into the mess of who I really am.

  Hot tears start to spill out of my eyes, and my hand comes up to press them back in as I shake my head sharply. I want to be anywhere but here. Lex’s energy goes soft. Patient, in a way that feels like a sticky quagmire, pulling me down into a vulnerability that threatens to undo me.

  No, that is the absolute wrong thing. That is just going to make me cry more.

  “I’m right here, Jude, I am not going anywhere. I told you I would protect you.”

  “You don’t understand.” I want to lash out at him, to kill the kindness that sees too deeply and makes me want to run.

  Sweetness is never real. It is a way to get closer, a way to get my guard down before something worse happens. It feels like he wants to rip my scabs off and stick his hand in them. All I want to do is scream and run.

  “Then help me understand. Come sit down on the couch with me. Just that much. Just that little bit. That’s all I want.”

  I nod and feel grateful when he releases my hand. I bring it up to my face and try to wipe away the stupid tears from the memory of my crappy childhood.

  “I honestly don’t have a family–” My voice breaks, and I hate how pitiful I sound.

  “Hey, it is okay, Jude. Whatever it is, it’s okay.”

  A grimace flashes across my face, and I roll my eyes. I hate this. I do not want to feel needy. I do not want his pity. I don’t want to feel like a child around him. Someone who needs to be taken care of and is not strong enough to be on her own.

  I move to the couch, and he waits for me to settle onto the seat before sitting beside me. Thankfully, not too close. I couldn’t handle that right now. Not yet. Not now. Not like this.

  “Jude, it’s time to tell me something. Even the smallest piece. You must have grown up somewhere? Even if it wasn’t with a family. I’m not asking you to give me everything but a sliver of the pie.”

  I know he’s trying, but even from a logical place, I cannot go there or handle my feelings. I can’t do that part. You cannot stand next to a pit of poison that close and not get it on you. No. No way, No how.

  I shake my head vehemently.

  “I don’t wanna talk about it. I don’t have a family, and I don’t know if I ever had one.”

  Families are something other people have. Stuff I saw on TV. They were warm and connected and trusted each other. I never had those things. All I had was strict rules and lost dreams. No hope, n
o connection, no warmth. Ever. I had pain and anger but never love, not like I should have.

  Lex either gives up or senses my need for a change in the conversation because he says, “Okay, if you don’t have a family, let me tell you about mine. Is that a deal?”

  I nod, hesitant to trust him but grateful the tension eases and the focus shifts anywhere but on me. I reach for a tissue and blow my nose loudly. I don’t care though. The sound bounces off the walls, and it soothes me. I am blowing out crap. Just more damaged pieces. But it feels good and helps me stop the waterworks. Daddy always said tears were for the weak. The last thing I needed to feel was that.

  “Well, as I mentioned, I have two brothers. I am the oldest. And, Pops.”

  I smile at him. I like that name. “Pops.”

  “Pops is a by the book kind of guy, super old school. We didn’t get away with anything.”

  I flinch, wondering if he went through any of what I had gone through with mine.

  “Is he religious?” Suddenly, I am less enamored with Pops, and I wonder if all fathers are crap human beings.

  “Well,” Lex nods, “his rules are his religion. His sense of what is right and wrong are his religion. His interest in us being stand up guys could be called his religion, if that’s what you mean.”

  I shake my head and pull my arms close around me in a hug as my eyes shift downward and away. His dad sounds way better than the one I had, but I don’t tell him.

  “You have to understand, my dad comes from a long line of military men. I’m the only one of his sons who went into the military, but we go back generations. We were in every war. And, there’s something that happens when you are in the military. You see stuff that you are changed by, but, more than that, it gives you some kind of inner code.”

  His words have a soothing effect on me, and I want to know more about this code. But, I can’t stop the tears that have started up again because every good thing he talks about feels like pulling more scabs off me and makes me feel more raw and exposed.

  The contrast between him and his life is too big when held up to mine, which only serves to heap on more pain. I will never be lovable.

  “Take, for example, when we made our first fort. I had to learn how to be a big brother. I didn’t know how to do that. I didn’t know that there were rules about that. Rules on how to do big brothering the right way. There’s a good way to do it, and there’s a bad way to do it.

  “Just like there are also right and wrong ways to build a fort. Me, I was just gonna go out and get some boards and put up some walls and stick a roof on it. If my brother didn’t do what I liked, then I was going to get mad at him. That was kind of the way I rolled back then.”

  “I thought you had two brothers?”

  “I did. I mean, I do. But we built the fort before Rem was born.”

  “Rem?”

  “Remington. We call him Rem. Sebastian and I made the fort. We call him Seb.”

  I nod, wanting him to continue.

  “So, my pops wouldn’t let that happen when it came time to build the fort. He would not let me do whatever I wanted or let me get mad at Seb if I did not get my way. He wanted a plan. Pops was more of a field marshal. He organized supplies, had us draw out what we wanted, and I had to watch over my brother to see that he had a great experience.”

  Lex looks at me, but I avoid his eyes. I can listen to him, but no one is getting in.

  “As you can imagine, making sure a younger brother has a great experience is not a job an eight-year-old kid wants. A kid just wants to go out there and build stuff, right? Or a kid wants to be the student, not the teacher. But everybody in the family has a role. Everybody in the family has got some part that they play. Mine was ‘older brother’. Mine was, you know, the protector. It was ‘I gotta look out for them.’ It was to make sure he, and later, they, stayed safe. You know, they are grown now, and they don’t need me anymore, but it is still my job. I love my job. My time in the military too. My job then was to keep America safe. I had some shitty experiences, and I had some great ones, but I wouldn’t have traded it.”

  Lex seemed like he had it all, brothers, a father that cared for him. He got to explore the world and see what it was all about. I got beat and told to try harder, to become a better housewife. In a way, I was envious of him, but I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t allow myself to fall for him. I’d endured enough heartache in my life. I was done. He didn’t need to get to know me, I didn’t plan to stick around long enough.

  9

  Lex

  “Tell me more about the fort.”

  Her voice is soft, curious. It makes my heart swell. My chest constricts, knowing she’s listening. I need to keep her mind off of whatever it is that seems to continuously shred her insides. She needs a distraction until her burden becomes more manageable.

  “Mmm. Well, Sebastian, he was always the smart one. So, my dad helped me figure out that I needed to give him smart jobs, which meant he was in charge of planning. He helped draw blueprints for our fort.”

  “Blueprints? For a fort? I’ve never heard of such a thing.” She laughs.

  “I know, right?” I chuckle and shake my head, realizing how ridiculously serious it all sounds now. She shares my smile and my heart flip-flops. Damn, she has a beautiful smile.

  I look away before she catches herself and shuts it down.

  “Here’s the thing. You can draw a square and call it a fort, but Pops wanted us to take our jobs seriously. So, if Seb was the smart one and plotting was easy for him, then he needed a job that played to those strengths. He was seven years old, and I was eight, but he was the one figuring out where the best place to put the door was and where the best place to put the windows were.

  “He figured out that if you put the doors on the west side, you’d always get the sunset and it is going to be hot as hell in the summer, and if you don’t put a window on the side of the wall toward the house, well, then you don’t get to see who is coming at you from the house. What kind of kid thinks of those things when they are seven? Those were the kinds of things he thought through.”

  I shake my head, still not believing how big-brained he was at such an early age. Not much has changed since then.

  “This is the same kid that figured out that we needed a safe place to put treasures, a cache, a place to hide things. So, we built a secret safe. That was an important part for us, and it made the fort more magical.

  “Funny thing is, Seb designed things into that fort that did not come into our play until Rem, our younger brother, came along. It was as if Seb knew something more would be needed later. Rem was the funny guy. He was–and still is–the playful one. He has always been an adventurer, always taking risks. He’s been the lifeblood and energy of the family ever since he was a toddler.”

  “Lex?”

  I am so caught up in the memories that I had forgotten she might not want to hear all this.

  “Yeah?”

  “What was your job? Just a protector? Just to watch out and let Seb have all the fun?”

  “Ah, no, no. It wasn’t like that. My job was to watch out for everybody.”

  “Yes, but what kind of job is that?”

  “Wow, good question. Well, part of that was to walk the space and make sure there were no nails or glass or rocks on the ground when we started to build. Pops taught me something called futuring. I had to look out and think about what we were going to need next week, what we were going to need next month–all of that.

  “But I didn’t have any real concept of time. Hey, I was just a kid. But I could look at it like summer and winter. Those were the things I could kind of grasp at the time, so I knew that after spring came summer and when we got out of school, they would close for the summer. And then in the fall, they would reopen, and we would come back. So, that was my first lesson in futuring.

  “And you know what? They have jobs in the Marines just for people who do future work. It’s a real thing. They do all the planning and fore
casting way out in advance, and when it gets closer, they stop working on it and leave the last details to someone else who does present planning. If a building is going to be built by the Marines, the futurist scouts the natural resources, understands the permitting regulations, determines what the cultural influences are going to be, and what needs to happen and be available before the architect starts drawing. Then that stuff gets built on top of the foundation you have laid the groundwork for.

  “That was sort of what I was supposed to do with the fort. I was supposed to figure out ahead of time what we were going to need, for example, if we were going to need nails, how many? It is all great if you have boards lying around, and you can build a fort with them. You can even build a lean-to. Or you can build a summer shack that falls apart after a year.

  “But a futurist has to think about what if there is wind or rain or snow. That is sort of where Pops trained my mind to go. Like, that was the things my pops taught me as the oldest child, to look ahead. The oldest child has to be the most prepared. The oldest child has to protect everybody. They have to, to the best of their ability, do all that.

  “And it is a smart thing to do it that way too; because they are usually stronger and more experienced. I was only a year older than Sebastian, but that was my role. I had to figure out that my role was to figure out what was coming down the pike and figure out how I was going to take care of everybody.”

  “Did Seb build a good design?”

  “Yeah, surprisingly, he was really good. He was actually super geeky about it. He liked it so much he wanted to go to the library. He wanted to see books about forts and treehouses. He wanted to make a ramp to the top of the fort. He wanted to do stuff that was fun, but also smart. These days, we call it ‘engagement’. He built in activities for engagement–some of which we didn’t even discover until Rem came along.