by Stacy Gail
Jesus. “I’ll remember that, baby. That’s a promise.” He cleared his throat and tried to sound casual. “So, the pedo-perv. You remember his name?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No, and I don’t want to talk about that assclown. He was just a blip on the radar that just reinforced my childlike beliefs that baths are bad. Like I needed a reminder of that, after finding my mom in all that red water and thinking that somehow the water had gotten so hot that it had killed her.”
Every word she said cut at him deep inside, hurting him in a way that he hadn’t known he could hurt. “She never should’ve left you in the world all alone, baby. I don’t know what the hell she was thinking, but that shit never should’ve happened to you.”
The squeeze she gave him conveyed both comfort and gratitude. “She did leave a note, explaining herself. She wrote that she’d failed in every way that a human could fail, and that I, her daughter, would be better off without her. That’s when I realized I’d pretty much killed her.”
“What?” He pulled back to stare at her, and a knife of ice sank into his heart when he saw she was completely serious. “What the hell are you talking about? You were just a child.”
“I was a child bent on punishing a mother who had let me down,” she stated with such calm he couldn’t help but believe she meant every word. “It started on the drive to Houston. At first I was confused about why we were leaving our house. I didn’t want to leave it, because up until that moment I had somehow thought Des would find his way back. I couldn’t stand the thought that no one would be there to greet him when he came home.”
“Jesus,” he muttered. “Jesus, baby.”
“I know. Stupid, right?”
“Loyal. So damn loyal it kills me.” When she grimaced in obvious embarrassment, he gave her a little squeeze. “What happened then?”
“My mom finally got me into the car, and when she tried to explain everything that had happened, I saw that it was her fault. She’d abandoned Des, and still my dad had left us with nothing. So I asked her if giving up her son had been worth it. I honestly wanted to know if it was worth being a mother to just one child, when she actually had two. I was furious with her, because I was scared and sick with worry, and I missed Des, and I missed being the family we were supposed to be. She’d let me down, and I let her know it. In the weeks that followed leaving Bitterthorn, I punished her with every word I said. And then she died believing my life was better off without her. So in a way, I killed my mother.”
His hand slipped up her spine to tangle in her hair, and he tugged on it until her gaze leveled with his. “I can’t believe you just said that.”
“Why? Because it sounds crazy?”
“Because I know exactly what you’re talking about. And yeah, it is crazy. I just never realized how crazy it was until I heard it coming from another source.”
She frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“My parents. My father, really. For over a decade, my parents made living in this house a never-ending nightmare. Mainly it was due to my father being a weak sonofabitch who couldn’t admit he’d failed. Failed at being a good man, failed at being a husband, failed at being a father. I think he felt he deserved the hell his wife was giving him, so he accepted it without a fight. The thing is, he didn’t seem to care that his four sons—his goddamn responsibility—were sentenced to live in that hell right along with him.”
She made a gentle sound of understanding. “No wonder your dad and my mom hit it off so well. They sound like two peas in a pod—not caring for anyone but their own selfish wants and needs and problems.”
He nodded. “When I graduated from undergrad, I found life at home had only gotten worse. My mother was now openly threatening to do violence not just to Des, but to everyone under this roof. That shit had to stop, so I started riding my dad’s ass to get his woman reined in. Get her counseling. Get her medicated. Put her away. Something. I just wanted him to finally take ownership of the shit-show we’d been forced to live in for fucking years.”
“Sounds reasonable. Did he do it?”
His scoff tasted bitter. “He hadn’t before, so why the hell would he start now?”
“How disappointing.”
“You’re telling me.” That word encapsulated so much of his life growing up in this house—disappointing. “The big blowup came when Des won a summer apprenticeship up in Colorado through the Cattlemen’s Association. That was a real feather in his cap, and something to be proud of. Instead, my mom came completely unglued. We’re talking a serious psychotic break, screaming like she was being boiled alive one second, and then laughing at Des the next, telling him that it was hilarious how he thought he had a future, because he was never going to leave this house alive.”
“Jesus,” she muttered with a horrified widening of her eyes. “And I thought my mom was bad.”
She had been, but sadly that bitch was now out of Killian’s reach. “My mom just couldn’t stand to have anything good come Des’s way, so she seemed to enjoy murder fantasies about him to help her get through those trying times. The thing is, my brother Fin was almost as unhinged as our mom at that point. Des is Fin’s best friend, and while I’d been away at school, Fin had started reacting to the added stress of trying to keep our mother away from Des by...acting out.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’d break shit. Put chairs through windows, rip doors off of hinges, punch fists through walls, take a crowbar to our dad’s truck, that sort of thing. It was better than attacking people, he once told me, and on that I had to agree, but it wasn’t healthy. In fact, it fucking scared the shit out of me to see my little brother lose it like that.”
“I can imagine.” She stroked a hand down his bearded cheek. “You probably thought he was slipping into the same darkness that had gotten your mother.”
“Exactly.” He nodded, loving the understanding he could see in her eyes. “When my mom told Des he wasn’t leaving the house alive, Fin got in her face and told her that if she said another fucking word about killing Des, he would burn this house down and free us all from the hell that existed within these walls.”
“Wow,” she whispered, her brows pulling together in a look of near-pain. “Just...wow.”
“I knew Fin meant it. He’d rather go to jail as an arsonist than live another day in this fucked-up house. They were all so tired—Ry, Fin and Des—of the constant abuse. I could see it in them. I think the way my mom shit all over Des’s achievement was the final straw for everyone at that point. Everyone, except my dad.”
“What did he do?”
“Nothing. That’s the point. This all played out right in front of him, and he did abso-fucking-lutely nothing. Bastard just stood there like a department store mannequin, hands at his sides and looking like everything that was happening around him was out of his hands and out of his control. It wasn’t out of his control. A man has to fucking take control when shit goes sideways. That’s how you get things back on track. That’s how you make the kind of progress you envision. You barge your way in no matter the cost to you, and you take... fucking... control.”
“That’s what you do.” She gave him another squeeze, and the smile that came with it told him she approved. “It’s almost like your dad taught you how not to be. As your kidnap victim, I can verify that you took the lessons your father unintentionally taught you, and you ran with them like freaking Forrest Gump.”
How could she make him smile even when he didn’t want to? “My old man definitely taught me how not to be on that day. He didn’t do a damn thing to protect his sons from what was clearly a lunatic who was a danger to everyone around her. And that’s when the truth of our home life hit me. My mom hadn’t been locked up in a psych ward because we were already in one. For years, my brothers and I had been trapped in our very own private insane asylum—four sane children had been locked up with two very sick inmates. Because of that, my brothers and I were slowly sliding down that road to crazy-to
wn, too. I couldn’t stand the thought of that, so I did what my old man refused to do. I took control of the situation.”
She seemed almost afraid to ask. “What did you do?”
“I slapped my mother. I didn’t pull it, I didn’t fucking hesitate, and the only thing I regret is that I had to be the one to do it. For God’s sake, I was her son. A son should never be put in the untenable position where he’s compelled to hit his own mother. Never.”
“Baby.” Pain for him shimmered in her eyes before she leaned in to brush her lips against his. “You were forced to act because your father wouldn’t. His negligence forced you to act on behalf of your brothers. I just hope your parents woke up to that fact, because that’s what it is—a fact.”
He let her soothing compassion ripple over him like healing waters. “My mom was beyond understanding anything at that point. She attacked me, full-out.”
Her gasp sounded painful. “Oh, my God.”
“Yeah. Went for my throat and everything while screaming like a damn banshee. Knocked me for a loop at first, but then I picked her up and threw her at my dad. I told him to hold onto that bitch while I called the cops and an ambulance to have her carted away, because I was done with her crazy death threats against Des.”
She gave a little cheer. “Good for you.”
“Telling my dad how things were going to go seemed to wake his ass up that our family’s disintegration was finally, finally being dealt with. He found some balls at last and ordered Fin, Ry and Des to get the hell out of there while he held onto his wife. My brothers didn’t want to go, but I told them to beat it, and if I didn’t come out in five minutes to call the cops—an order they followed, and an order that seriously pissed my dad off.”
“Out of everything that transpired, that pissed him off?”
“It showed him who was really in charge of the family at that point, and it sure as hell wasn’t him. My old man hadn’t been in charge for well over a decade, but that was the moment when he finally fucking realized it.”
“Good.” Righteous fire burned in her pale eyes. “He needed a kick in the ass to wake him up. ‘Bout damn time, too.”
How the hell he’d gotten this far without her in his life, he’d never know. “Once my brothers were gone, I let myself off the leash. It had been a long time coming and I had a hell of a lot to say. My mother was hysterical at that point, so there wasn’t much I could say to get through to her, but I unloaded on my dad with both barrels. I let him know in no uncertain terms that he was a goddamn embarrassment. For years he’d been so weak he couldn’t even defend his own children from the mental and emotional abuse of a madwoman. He was so fucking emasculated that his inactions had forced his oldest—me—to do his goddamn job by taking his woman in hand. But I had no choice. Someone had to stop the crazy train. I had the balls to do it, and he obviously did not.”
“Thank God you did.” Again she stroked his cheek, as if trying to soothe the young man he’d once been. “Someone should have stepped in a long time before that. That woman wasn’t well. Mental illness can twist everyone in a household if it’s not treated.”
“We all probably needed treatment at that point, because in that moment, all I wanted to do was bust my father right in the face. Worse, he was furious with me for defending my brothers, can you believe that? That’s how fucked up we all were. God knows he wouldn’t have stood for anyone else talking to us the way my mother did, but apparently it was okay for her to threaten and abuse us.”
“It wasn’t.”
“It sure as hell wasn’t, and I told him that very thing. I didn’t hesitate to tell him things were going to change now that I was back home, because I was fucking pissed. Top of my list was getting that lunatic wife of his committed, for my brothers’ safety, and for hers. I’d been away at college for four years, visiting only during the holidays, and I can tell you that her deterioration was a fucking crime. No one was taking care of this shit, so fuck it. I’d take care of it. I’d carry her out of the house kicking and screaming if I had to.”
“I can attest to your skills at carrying kicking and screaming females.” She smiled and kissed him again, and the sweetness of it brought a hint of light into his dark world. “You’re very good at it, baby.”
“We all have our talents.” He hugged her, grateful she was there with him to help chase away the shadows. “I was ready to employ mine, but my dad stopped me, angrier than I’d ever seen him. He told me that since I obviously thought he was an embarrassing joke, I could go ahead and be the man of the house now. I could go right the fuck ahead and take care of my brothers, the ranch and all the fucking business interests that went with it, while he, the embarrassing joke, took care of his wife. And he did. A few days later, he loaded her into a plane he was piloting and plowed them into the ground on their way to Corpus Christie. It wasn’t bad weather or mechanical failure. He just put them in a nosedive, and that was that.”
“Damn him.” That wasn’t what he’d thought her reaction would be, but it was the reaction he’d needed. It matched his to perfection. “From start to finish, he was a weak-willed coward, wasn’t he? He just couldn’t face his failures as a husband, and a father. My God, you deserved better.”
He shook his head. “For a long time I thought I deserved the guilt of believing that I’d heaped so much shame on him that I pushed him into the grave. But then I heard you say pretty much the same thing—that you thought your words pushed your mother to do herself in. When you said that, I realized something important. We’re talking a fucking epiphany here.”
She frowned. “What?”
“I realized how much bullshit that is. We had a right to be pissed, Dallas,” he said, letting that truth settle into every dark corner of his soul until there was no more darkness to be found. “We were treated like we didn’t matter, and you know why? Because we didn’t. Not to them. That’s one of the reasons why you and I understand each other so well. We know how important it is to matter, because we’ve both lived through a time when we didn’t matter to the people who should have put us first, but didn’t.”
“I know I didn’t matter.” She said it so softly he almost didn’t hear her, even as close as he was. “My aunt was dying of cancer, and she was so worried about me. Instead of spending her remaining days doing whatever she wanted, she spent what little money she had on an investigator to find my father, so she could rest easy knowing I was safe. The day she told me she’d found him...” She rolled her lips between her teeth and bit down, something he noted she did whenever she was stressed. “She told me that my father wouldn’t be coming for me. That was all she would say, even when I asked her what the problem was. Just that—he won’t be coming for you. And then she cried like her heart was broken, and I think it was. That was the moment it finally sank in. My father wouldn’t be coming for me, because he didn’t want me. He didn’t want me, his own daughter, because I didn’t matter to him. When that realization hit me, I think that was when I understood for the first time what hopelessness truly was.”
“You matter now, Dallas.” And her father, if that bastard was still alive, would pay for teaching her what hopelessness felt like. “You matter to me.”
“Good.” She pressed against him, a long, silken leg coming to drape over his hip. “You matter to me, too. And just so you know, I’m very happy you kidnapped me.”
“Best move I ever made.” The mood shifted, blooming into sweet warmth. That warmth grew into a slow-burn when her full, rose-tipped breasts flattened against his chest. “Let’s see how much happier I can make you.”
“You nearly killed me last night with your particular brand of happiness.” Smiling to show she’d loved every minute of it, Dallas was the one who rolled him this time around, coming to rest partially on top of him. “I was hardly given a chance to reciprocate.”
That sounded interesting. “Very fair-minded of you.”
“I’m nothing if not fair.” Shrugging aside the bedclothes shrouding her,
she sat up while comfortably straddling him, and the charming ease she had in sitting naked on top of him was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. “We’re going to have to have sex more often in the sunlight. You’re really something to behold.”
“Same goes, Spice.” The words were inadequate, but even if he had the vocabulary of a literary genius, he still wouldn’t have been able to find words beautiful enough to describe her. Dallas had always been a stunner. The beauty that her mother had handed down to her was made that much more dazzling by the sweetness and purity of her carefully guarded heart. Her limbs were long and graceful, covered in alabaster white skin that didn’t seem real. He’d never be able to get enough of her breasts, so full they filled his hands, while her long, slender waist tapered down to the subtle flare of her hips. She was exquisite, and her smart mouth and fiery temper only made her that much more breathtaking, though he doubted she knew it.
To him, she was perfect.
His perfect.
“If you want to be in charge, go right ahead,” he invited, his voice deepening while the thud of his heart began to throb with achy desire in his cock. Despite his assertion that she was in charge, he still gripped her hips and positioned her right over his hardening flesh. “I’m not going to stop you.”
“That’s big of you.” Her smile was an X-rated dream come to life, and with her heated gaze locked with his, he reveled in knowing that smile was all for him. Greedily she roamed her hands over the terrain of his chest as if learning him through feel, and his abs contracted hard as her touch skimmed lower. “And I do mean big. It’s funny how well you fit me, Brody. I wasn’t sure when I first got a good look at you, but last night you definitely made a believer out of me.”
“Lock and key, that’s us.” He was having trouble sounding casual, but playing it cool when there was a hot naked woman straddling him was a tough row to hoe. When that hot naked woman was Dallas, he didn’t have a snowball’s chance. “We were made for each other.”