by Jillian Neal
“There’s a whole lot of stuff I do real different than your daddy, darlin’. Please tell me you already figured that.”
“Well, yeah, I know, it’s just a weird thing to watch in this kitchen.”
“Does he have any other brothers that aren’t married?” Grant overheard Sophie whisper. He downed the last of the sparkling water in his glass to keep from chuckling.
“Nope, they’re both married. His wife’s the one who threatened to skin Josh alive.”
“That was his wife?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, never mind. I do not want to take her on.”
Grant caught Luke’s smirk, so he wasn’t the only one eavesdropping.
“All right, sugar, go get packed up. I gotta get up early and clear a ton of corn tomorrow,” Grant offered up a legitimate excuse for why they needed leave as soon as the dishes were done.
“Um, Grant, darling, I know you’re anxious to go,” Mrs. Sommerville started. “It’s just … I don’t get a night with my daughters very often, and there are some important things I need to discuss with them. Langston won’t be back tonight. He’ll stay up at the station. Would you mind if Kaitlyn stayed here tonight?”
“’Spose that’s up to her, ain’t it?”
“Right.” She turned to Kaitlyn. “Your father and I both need to remember that you are perfectly capable of making your own decisions. But please, there’s something I need to tell you and Sophie … alone.”
Grant prayed she’d tell her mother no. He didn’t even know how to sleep without her lush curves curled up in his arms where he knew she was warm and safe. He couldn’t do it. As soon as Kaitlyn shot him a pleading gaze, he knew she was staying. Every curse word he could think of and a few he made up on the fly formed on his tongue. He refused them all. He would not make her feel guilty about this. He would not be another person in her life who told her what to do, outside of his bedroom anyway.
“Do you mind? I could maybe figure out a way to come back to the ranch tomorrow,” she urged quietly.
“How about you just stay with me tonight, son? You’d only be ‘bout twenty minutes from here. You can come right back over here whenever she’s ready tomorrow,” Granddaddy Camden offered him a lifeline. Twenty minutes beat two hours any day of the week.
“Fine,” was all he could manage. He dug in the pocket of his Wranglers. “If you need to get out of here, you call me and head out. I’ll meet you wherever you are.” He pressed the keys to his truck into her palm.
“I’m sorry,” she mouthed.
“Here,” Sophie sidled up beside them. “You keep your truck. I solemnly swear if he comes home and acts even half as bad as he was at supper, I will personally make certain I get her to you.”
“I can get myself out if I need to,” Kaitlyn reminded both of them. “Just come here.” She took his hand and led him to a side porch off another room he hadn’t even seen yet.
“How damn many rooms does this place have?” He was being an ass. He just couldn’t quite manage to shut his mouth. Her staying and him leaving wasn’t the deal.
“Too many, and for a very long time every single one of them was filled with nothing but misery. I don’t know what she wants to tell me, Grant, but it must be important. You don’t know what it’s like to live with two different people all inside one woman. I’m terrified of what will happen when you all leave. She always managed to act sort of normal when people were over or when she was out at the club. But then she would crawl back inside this shell of her former self as soon as it was just the three of us again. I haven’t seen her this adamant in years. I need to know what she wants to tell me. I owe her that. I owe me that.”
“I know. Okay, I know. I’m just gonna miss you like crazy and it tears me up to leave you here.” Unable to keep his hands off of her, he crushed her against his chest in a hug meant to last the rest of the night.
“It means the world to me that you’ll miss me. I’ll miss you, too. You better be back over here tomorrow morning at the same time you normally get up to do whatever it is you do with all of those cows.”
“Soon as I get you back to the ranch I’m gonna teach you what we do and why we do it.”
“Good.”
Cradling her chin in his callused hand, he memorized the hungry look in her eyes. He’d need that just to get through the night. His thumb caressed over her lips tracing her perfect cupid’s bow and their heated abundance.
Slowly, forcing himself to pause and retain the way her eyes reached half-mast and the way her breath whispered across his lips, he leaned in and consumed her mouth like he was receiving his last meal.
She opened for him. A grunt of raw pain wrenched up from his gut as his tongue memorized every flavor of her mouth. Her lips were soft and craving the perfect answer to his rough eager need.
Grant lost himself in the kiss, wishing the sunlight would make a rapid appearance, and this night would forget the debt of time it was owed. His hands gripped her backside. Taking what he wanted, he pressed his rapidly stiffening cock into the cradle of her hips.
Her tender moan slipped down his throat and wrapped itself firmly around his heart.
“No,” finally took flight from his tongue when she moved her ministrations to his neck.
“You don’t want me to do that?” Hurt confusion played malevolently in her eyes.
“God, no, that ain’t what I meant. I want your lips on me most anywhere you want to put them anytime you want to put ‘em somewhere. I meant, no, I ain’t leaving. I’ll go sit out in the damned truck and wait on you to talk. I’ll sit out there all night, but I ain’t leaving you here alone.”
“Grant, I love how stubborn and relentless you are. I really do. It makes me feel things I never even knew were possible, but tonight, I need you to go. I’ll be miserable without you, too, but I need to do this on my own.”
“I love you and I hate this.” The bitter taste of defeat erased her flavors from his mouth. He hated it all the more.
“Right back ‘atcha, rancher.” She gave him a grin. The stars dotting the city skyline had nothing on the light dancing in her eyes.
“Kinda didn’t mind you calling me cowboy so much.”
“I just want to call you mine.”
He dove back in for another kiss like a man possessed.
Eventually he forced himself to climb up in his granddaddy’s truck. She’d claimed she wasn’t sure she could even reach the pedals on his truck, but he wasn’t leaving her stranded there with no way to leave.
“You aren’t abandoning her, son,” his grandfather soothed over the chug of the old Ford-motor.
“Bullshit.”
A grunt Grant recognized as the same one all of the Camden men shared, reached his ears as they backed out of the driveway. “It’s what I tell myself every time I drive away from that damned nursing home. Thought it might help.”
Doubling down on the hatred he held for himself in that moment, he sealed his lips shut. His granddaddy had to sleep without his grandmother every godforsaken night. He had no right to bellyache about being without Katy one night.
Tired of the sound of his own voice, he reviewed the events of the last three days instead of talking to fill the silence. How had his entire life gotten turned upside down in less than a week? Life was a bitch and there was nothing else to it.
Suddenly he remembered the last conversations he’d had with his granddaddy. “You knew,” bellowed from his mouth. “You knew who she was. You knew who her daddy was. That’s why you were telling me about Great-Granddaddy Miller not liking you and why you said her daddy was hurt and angry.”
“Yeah, I knew who she was the moment you showed up with her in a gettin’-married dress in my storm shelter.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“What was I to tell you, son? You kids oughta quit gettin’ your news off a’ that internet thing and pick up a local paper now and again. Engagement and wedding been in the Star for months. Every time I saw her picture,
she looked miserable. Plus, your grandmamma was a red-head spitfire with a miserable old cuss for a daddy. Kinda had a feelin’ about you two. I knew about her brother, too. It was in the paper for weeks. Tore the family apart. I got no use for rich politicians sending our boys out to die for no other reason than to make them richer.”
“You served in Ko-rea, Pops,” Grant drawled.
“Yeah, I served. That’s why I’m telling you what I’m telling you. I’ll tell you this, too, I know you feel like you’re in heaven when she falls asleep in your arms at night. Because you’re a man who ain’t afraid to be what he’s supposed to be, and you’re a rancher who knows how to take care of what he’s been blessed to have. But love ain’t always about walking through heaven, Grant. Sometimes it’s about walking straight through hell together. And this time in this case it ain’t real likely to be heaven on the front side. That man’s gonna keep putting her through hell until he realizes it ain’t her he’s mad at. It’s her brother.”
“What kind of sorry-ass shitsack gets mad at a kid who’s dead?”
“Oh, son, there are lots of people angry at the dead and buried. That’s why they’re so angry. Cause that person they loved so much can’t be there to defend themselves and that just pisses them off but good. He thinks it’s his fault his son ain’t here no more. That’s a deep hurt. That’s a wound I ain’t sure you ever get over. The thought of Kaitlyn leaving and going with you to the ranch scares him shitless, and he’s taking it out on her. He’s terrified to lose her too, and all he’s managing to do is push her away so he blames that on you.”
“Hey, Pops, you never told me what happened to you and Gran after you got married and you got her out to the ranch.”
“I don’t tell that story too often ‘cause I don’t like to relive that hell we walked through those first few months, but I ‘spect it’s time you heard the truth. For what it’s worth and while I’m thinking about it, I took one of them pictures of Kaitlyn from the paper to your grandmamma for her to see. She likes her.”
“She tell you that?” His grandmother hadn’t spoken the past few times Grant had been in to see her. It killed him to go almost as much as it killed him not to.
“Nah, I just know.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Mom, you sound so much better,” Kaitlyn tried.
“Well, I feel a little better, at least until I tell you two this, then I’m not sure how I’ll feel.”
Kaitlyn and Sophie shared a worried glance.
“We don’t have to talk, Mama. We could all watch a movie or something,” Sophie pled.
Kaitlyn shook her head. Sophie had to stop running from all emotion, she had to stop being afraid of it. Emotions were a part of life, the good, the bad, and the ugly, just like Grant said.
“No, I need to apologize and explain several things to you girls. First of all, I am very sorry for the way I’ve acted these past few years. I couldn’t seem to claw out of the hell of depression. When I did come up for air, I did it for everyone but my children, and I’m so sorry for all of it.”
“Mama, we were all depressed and shocked about what happened,” Kaitlyn offered her mother a sacrament of empathy.
“Yes, well, that’s not all that happened, sweetheart. That’s what I need to tell you.”
“Okay, just start at the beginning maybe.”
“Unfortunately, the beginning was supposed to be an end, just not my son’s,” her mother stated cryptically.
“What happened?” A brick of suspicion knotted in Kaitlyn’s stomach. Her intuition shifted into overdrive.
“First of all, I’ve been seeing a therapist.”
“You have?” All of the fights Kaitlyn and her father had gotten into lately had been about her mother seeing a therapist. “How did I not know this?”
“Probably the same way your father and I had no idea you were working for Chully’s Iron Skillet instead of the law firm.”
“Does Daddy know you’ve been going?”
“Oh yes, he knows.”
“Well, it seems to be helping,” Sophie vowed.
“In some ways it has. It’s helped me to face some things. When we realized you’d left the club and run out on Seth, part of me was so relieved because I knew you were headed straight to misery with him, but most of me was terrified I’d lost you, too. And I’d already felt like I’d lost you.”
“Mama, I was running away from Seth and from Daddy mostly, not you.”
“But, baby, after your brother died, my feisty little girl who tried so hard to prove herself to everyone went away, too. You were here but my Kaitlyn wasn’t. You tried so hard to do things the way you thought Keith would do them. It broke my heart. I just couldn’t find it in myself to try to tell you to be whoever you wanted to be. I wasn’t strong enough to deal with my own pain to help you with yours, and I wasn’t strong enough to stand up to your father anymore. I let both of you down.”
“I’m sorry. I was trying to make everyone happy, but you never let me down. I just wanted you to be okay.”
“I know, sweetheart. I don’t really think I’ll ever be okay, but I need to be stronger. When I heard your father threaten to have Grant arrested and you threatened to leave and never come back, I realized what my weakness could cost me. Of course, it might cost me that still.”
“Whatever you’re not saying, please just say it.” Kaitlyn couldn’t stand it anymore. Waiting on whatever was coming was surely worse than anything her mother could possibly say.
Sinking down in a Henredon chair by the fireplace, her mother drew a visible breath. She faltered. Tears sprang to her eyes and terror ripped through Kaitlyn. No. She couldn’t do this again. She couldn’t watch her mother dissolve before her very eyes.
“Mama, please,” she begged. “You don’t have to tell us. Just don’t cry.”
Scrubbing her hands over her face, smearing her mascara, Evelyn stared her children down. “I’m all right, Kaitlyn. Just give me a moment.”
Sophie scooted closer to Kaitlyn on the couch.
“The day before we found out about your brother, I’d filed for divorce.”
“What?!” Kaitlyn and Sophie both gasped.
“I was just so angry at your father.”
“Oh, God.” Kaitlyn’s head fell into her hands. Somehow, some way she knew the divorce wasn’t the actual confession. The steak she’d consumed threatened to make a rapid reappearance.
“You know how difficult he is to live with. I was so furious at him for putting all of those ridiculous Army stories in Keith’s head all the time. I blamed him for Keith joining. I knew I was supposed to be proud of my son and his sacrifice, but I wasn’t, I was furious. There, I said it, and I’m so ashamed that I felt that way. And instead of confronting your father or sharing the way I felt, I just got angrier and angrier. I didn’t think I could stand to fight with him one more time. He was just so stubborn about everything. Everything has to be done his way and receive the Langston Sommerville seal of approval. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“Oh, God,” Kaitlyn managed again, but her mother just kept going.
“That first year that you were in New York and Keith was off fighting it seemed all we did was fight. One day, I was supposed to meet Sylvia and Tori at the club for drinks, but they both cancelled at the last minute. Before I left, I ran into a friend of mine from law school, Max Chislern. I hadn’t seen him in years. He asked how Keith was and offered to buy me a drink. I never meant for it to go as far as it did. I just … it had been so long since someone listened to me.”
“Oh God, oh God, oh God.” Kaitlyn began rocking back and forth. How could her mother have done what was inevitably coming?
“It didn’t go on but for a few weeks. I felt so guilty. Nothing like what I feel now, but before that day that everything changed, I thought I’d finally figured out what I wanted. When I filed those papers, I was so sure. God’s retribution came mighty fast.”
“Wait. What?” Kaitlyn’s head lif
ted as the weight of realization tried to pull her back down. “Retribution? What … Keith? You think it was your fault?”
“Seems fairly obvious it was, Kit-kat.” Her mother’s sigh was weighted with shame and exhaustion.
“Please, don’t call me that.”
“Mama, I don’t think that’s how God works,” Sophie finally spoke.
“That’s what my therapist says, but you’re both wrong. And on top of all of the hell Keith’s death put your father through, I’d filed for divorce. I begged for his forgiveness. He moved out of our bedroom. He’ll be furious I told you. He never wants to talk about it or for anyone to know, but I needed to apologize and try to explain why I just cannot accept that your brother is gone. It’s entirely my fault. I am so sorry for every selfish horrible thing I did that tore our world apart. I don’t expect you to ever forgive me. I will never forgive myself.
“But today when I thought you were going to leave and never come back, I just couldn’t allow another one of my children to be hurt because of my mistakes. And I will try with all of my might to be stronger from now on. I won’t allow your father to ruin what you’ve found with your cowboy, sweetheart. I want you to be happy, and even more importantly, I want you to be you.”
Kaitlyn’s entire world tipped off of its axis. The room spun. She reached her hand out for something to steady her, but Grant wasn’t there this time. She’d sent him away. The roar in her ears blocked out her mother’s voice. She had no power with which to continue to listen.
She had to get out of there.
“Kaitlyn,” Sophie grabbed her shoulders when she stood. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this together.”
“What?” Kaitlyn demanded.
“Here.” Her mother poured her a shot glass of something horrible that seared from her throat to her stomach. A moment later the warmth began to spread. A hazy fog dulled a little of her fury. She managed breath.
“It’s okay if you hate me. Trust me, you couldn’t possibly hate me more than I hate myself.”
“I don’t hate you. I just don’t understand why everyone has to cheat. Even me. Why can’t things just work out the way they’re supposed to? Don’t wedding vows mean anything? What’s the point of falling in love at all? It clearly doesn’t last. It just hurts.”