by Reese Ryan
He inhaled deeply, allowing his head to roll back, then blew the stream of air through his pursed lips. There was nothing worse than Queen Lucinda when she was right. “I do need to back off of Kari, and that’s exactly what Jamie’s been telling me.”
Lucinda shifted uncomfortably in her chair and took a sip of her merlot.
“And I’ve been trying, I have. You need to do the same with Jamie. Because whether you like it or not, I care for her very much.” His tone was softer, but his face was stern.
Lucinda tapped her fingers on the table as she stared out the window, her jaw set. Neither of them spoke for a few moments. She sipped her wine as Miles nursed his beer. Finally she set her glass down on the table. “Isn’t that what you said about Evie?”
Miles felt like she’d twisted a knife in his gut. Damn. Why’d she have to go there? He let out the breath he’d been holding. “I did love Evie. You know that.”
“I do.” She leaned in, placing her hand on his, her voice was an intense whisper. “I also know she never deserved you. Watching you fall apart, right along with that girl, was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You think I don’t know you were using, too?”
Miles head snapped toward his mother. He held his breath, his ears burning, embarrassment stinging his cheeks. He couldn’t raise his eyes to hers, couldn’t bear to see the disappointment and hurt he knew would be there.
“You have no idea how many nights I wondered if you wouldn’t end up just like her.” Lucinda’s voice wavered. “Dead on a hotel room floor.”
“If you knew, why didn’t you ever—” He raised his eyes to hers.
“We didn’t speak about things like that in my family.” She averted her gaze from his, wrapping her arms around her body and shifting in her seat, shoulders slumped. Crimson crept across her cheeks. “I tried to let you know without saying it, but you were so consumed with your pain, and with Evie. Even after she was gone. I guess it wasn’t the best time for subtlety.” She took another sip of her wine.
“We’re one fucked-up family.” Miles slammed his shoulders against the back of the chair. Lucinda’s eyes widened, her mouth falling slightly open. Miles continued before she could object. “Neither you nor Dad has ever been capable of having a straightforward conversation with us, except when you’re telling us how to run our lives. Well, I’m done. So here’s the bottom line. You don’t get to choose who I care about. You can either accept my choice, or you can stay the hell away.” He gritted his teeth. “Because I won’t let you make Jamie uncomfortable, like you did today. Are we clear on that?”
Lucinda nodded feebly and took another sip of her merlot.
Miles let out a deep sigh. “Good. Because I really do love her.”
Lucinda sucked in a deep breath. Every visible muscle in her face and shoulders tightened as she gulped more of her wine. “So you love her,” she said. “And I know you think she loves you, too. And maybe she does. But before you commit to her, make sure of it. Love doesn’t mean the same thing to everyone. When the two don’t match, it can be a miserable existence. Believe me.”
Miles took his mother’s hands in his. “There’s one more thing I want you to promise me.”
“What now? I will not—”
“Stop allowing Dad to dictate your life,” he said.
She lowered her gaze to the table.
“I know you stayed all those years because you thought it was best for Kari and me. But your marriage is over. He doesn’t get a say in your life anymore. So why do you give it to him so willingly?”
“I don’t know what you—” She tried to pull her hands from his, but Miles tightened his grip on them.
“Your sole mission in life is to torment the man. Dad’s an asshole, I get it. But he didn’t give a shit about us then, and he sure as hell doesn’t now. So why do we keep letting him control our lives? You’re always trying to hurt him. I’m always trying to prove that I don’t need him. Kari tries to punish him by picking men just like him.” He sighed, finally loosening his grip on his mother’s hands. “I know Jamie has some issues from her past, but so do we. We just have bigger bank accounts. Do you really think that makes us any better?”
Lucinda cringed. The thought of her, with her blue blood family, old money and estate worthy of a first-rate design magazine being compared to a girl brought up in a trailer park must’ve made her want to scream. She took a deep breath and raised her eyes to his. “I never said we were perfect. Besides, shouldn’t a mother want her children to have a better life than she had?”
“Money isn’t everything—”
“I’m not just talking about material things. I’m talking about the things that really matter, like love and family, someone to share it all with. That’s what I want for you and Kari. Someone who’ll make you much happier than your father and I were capable of making each other.”
“Jamie and I are not you and Dad,” he said firmly.
“Roger and I fell for each other right away, but we were a bad match from the start. We ignored all the signs that were there from the beginning,” she said quietly, running her fingertips along the rim of the glass. “I don’t want that for you. If that makes me a horrible, controlling mother, so be it. I promised to play nice—and I will—but I can’t pretend to be happy about you making a decision that will one day make you miserable.”
They sat in silence, her stewing, him trying to ignore the niggling doubts buried deep in his chest. Jamie was determined to live life on her terms, free of the confinements of a relationship. She’d never been anything but honest about that. Yet he’d allowed himself to fall hard for her, anyway. But despite her protests, he’d seen it in her eyes. It was in the way they touched, the way they made love. She cared for him more than she was willing to admit. He just needed to be patient, to prove she could trust him with her heart.
Loving her the way he did—with no promise that she would do so in return—was a risk, but it was the only play he had. Miles gritted his teeth, nostrils flared. He and Jamie would just have to prove Lucinda wrong.
Chapter Twenty
Family dinner at Ellie’s had long been over. Michele, Marcus and their kids, Mickey and Dusty, had been gone for an hour. Jamie hung around to take care of a few things for Ellie. She’d already dusted the ceiling fan and retrieved some boxes from the attic. Ellie still had an old stove that wasn’t self-cleaning. So Jamie put on some oversized gloves, grabbed a sponge and got on her knees to clean the oven.
“Okay, sister, spill it.” Ellie stood in the kitchen with one hand on a cocked hip and the other pointing at Jamie. “What’s going on with you? At this rate we could be here all night while you clean the gutter and defrost the freezer. I know you girls think I can read minds, but I can’t. Whatever is bothering you...just tell me.”
Jamie looked up from where she was kneeling on the kitchen floor and shrugged. “I promised to get to this stuff eventually, and—”
Ellie waved her hand, impatience settling into the lines around her eyes. “Jamie, get off that floor and tell me what’s bothering you. It’s been on your face all night. I was hoping you’d just tell me, but I see I need to get Lou’s reel out of the basement and go fishin’.” A small but genuine smile arched her lips.
Jamie removed the gloves and set the can of oven cleaner on the counter. Sitting on the floor, she pressed her back against a cabinet door and released the barrette that pulled her hair tight. “I do want to talk to you about something, but I’m not sure how to tell you.”
“Just say it.” Ellie sat in the kitchen chair closest to her. “It’s only words.”
Jamie turned toward Ellie, her dark hair shifting forward, partially covering her face. “What if it isn’t? What if it could change everything?”
Ellie inhaled deeply but pressed her lips into a reassuring smile as she reached forward and tucked Jamie’s hair behind her ear so she could see her face. “Then we’ll get through that, too.”
Jamie took a deep breath, pulling her
knees underneath her chin and wrapping her arms around them. “Jo came to see me again.”
A deep line formed between Ellie’s brows. She folded her hands in her lap. “At the bar?”
“My apartment.”
Ellie covered her face with her hand. “I gave her your address. She said she was leaving town and wanted to write you. That’s the only reason I—”
“I’m not mad that you gave it to her.”
Ellie shifted in her seat. A look of relief washed over her face. “Did you let her in?”
“I hadn’t planned to, but my neighbor—”
“Mrs. Jacobs?”
Jamie nodded. “She knew exactly who Jo was the moment she saw her. I couldn’t slam the door in her face and have her think I’m more of a heathen than she already does.”
Ellie nodded. “So, did you two talk? I mean, really talk?”
Jamie shrugged. “A little.”
“And?”
Jamie could see the tension in Ellie’s face as she wrung her hands beneath the table. “She told me that her father killed her mother, then himself.”
Ellie’s eyes widened. “Her father murdered her mother?”
“He’d been abusive to her mother for years, but she wouldn’t leave him. So when Jo was sixteen, she left home. I was about two when she learned about their deaths.”
There was sorrow in Ellie’s eyes, like her heart was breaking. Jamie wasn’t sure if the pity she saw there was for her or for Josephine. “That must’ve been a hard conversation for both of you.”
Jamie shrugged, sliding her heels closer to her bottom. She was acting like a ridiculous child, sitting on the cold kitchen floor, hugging her knees. But it was easier than seeing the hurt and disappointment that would mar Ellie’s face once she’d admitted everything to her.
“You don’t think she’d lie about something like that, do you?” Ellie raised an eyebrow.
Jamie shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. It’s still no excuse.”
Ellie sighed. “Of course it isn’t, but very bad things happen to us sometimes. Not everyone handles them well.”
“She was my mother. How could she not love me? She chose that loser over me.”
Ellie laid a hand on her shoulder. “Who says she didn’t love you? Or that she chose him over you?”
“I gave her an ultimatum—me or him.” Her voice broke slightly. “She didn’t need to say she chose him. She didn’t choose me.”
“Lou and I went over there and talked with your mom for three hours that night. She didn’t just sign on the dotted line, hand you over then walk away. She didn’t want to let you go, but she knew she wasn’t capable of being the mother you deserved. She didn’t want to give you the life she’d fallen into.”
“If she loved me, she would’ve found a way to be a real mom. You did.”
Ellie looked away for a moment and sighed. “We came from very different situations. I was raised in a stable home by parents who loved me, and each other. Her situation couldn’t have been more dissimilar.”
“Thousands of women who came from shitty homes turn out to be good mothers. Maybe even better ones, because they never want their kids to experience what they did.” She ignored the tension in the woman’s face at her use of profanity. There was no point in sugarcoating the situation.
“True, but many are crippled by their childhood experiences. They struggle to be good parents, just like Josephine. She was practically a baby when she had you.” Ellie rubbed Jamie’s back. “At least she was levelheaded enough to allow you to live with us, where she knew you’d be loved. Where we could provide for you financially and emotionally. She didn’t want you to end up—”
“Like her? Self-centered? Incapable of loving anyone, even herself?” Jamie’s vision blurred through the tears stinging her eyes. Tears she had no intention of allowing to fall. She sucked in a deep breath. “But that’s exactly what happened anyway, isn’t it. Maybe it’s genetic.”
“That isn’t true. You are not your mother.”
Jamie snorted bitterly. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the realization that her life resembled Josephine’s. When she opened her eyes Ellie was wringing her hands and fretting. “I’m just like her. I was a user, just like she is—”
“You were a user,” Ellie stressed. “You’ve made some mistakes. We all have. But you’ve moved past them. Maybe Josephine can, too. And consider the courage it took for her to admit her mistakes and apologize. She wants to make it up to you.”
“You believe her?”
“I do. There was so much pain in her eyes. She regrets failing you as a mother and wants to make amends.”
A twinge of guilt tugged at Jamie’s insides. She pressed a hand to her forehead. “I’ve done something awful.”
“What do you mean? Get up here and sit at the table, child.” Ellie extended her hand to Jamie, who took it and climbed to her feet. “Now, what happened between you and Josephine?” Ellie asked once she was seated at the table.
“I told her what happened to me when I was twelve, something she didn’t know. Something you don’t know.” Jamie inhaled deeply, trying to quell the gnawing pain in her gut. She glanced in Ellie’s direction to measure her reaction but couldn’t meet her gaze.
Ellie winced, her face hard lines and tight planes. She seemed to be holding her breath but nodded encouragingly, her hand on Jamie’s. “Go on.”
Jamie closed her eyes and bit her lip. Every muscle in her body was tense and quivering. Panic rising in her chest, her heart raced. She placed her trembling hand in her lap. Just say it. “The reason I left home—” The words caught in her throat. She inhaled, eyes squeezed shut, then started again. “Leo, he came into my room—while I was sleeping—and he...you know.”
“No, I don’t know.” Ellie’s words were gentle. “Tell me. What happened?”
Jamie’s insides ached. Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe? And why was Ellie acting so naïve? She was no idiot. She knew exactly what she meant. Was she actually going to make her say it? Please don’t make me say it.
“You’ve been hanging out here all night because you need to say it, and because you know you can tell me anything, and I’ll be right here. Always.”
Jamie licked her lips, trying to force the words past her parched throat. “Leo...he...he raped me.” She’d never used that word to describe what’d happened to her, not even in her head. The word sounded foreign coming from her mouth. She sucked in a deep breath, trying to extinguish the burning in her chest and hold back the tears, but she couldn’t. The tears that had been building in her chest since that awful night twenty years ago burst from the dam she’d cobbled stone by stone to keep them there. Her body convulsed as she sobbed, chest heaving.
Tears spilled down Ellie’s cheeks as she pulled her into a tight embrace, rocking her. “I’m so sorry this happened to you, baby. That fucking animal. I knew he’d put his hands on you, I just knew it. But when I asked—”
Jamie cried, her face pressed into Ellie’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry I lied. I should have told you, but I felt so...dirty. I didn’t think you’d want me if you knew.”
“Oh, Jamie, how could you ever believe that? Don’t you know how much we love you? How much we’ve always loved you?” Ellie’s voice broke. She wiped angrily at her face. “What that monster did to you was not your fault. We’d have done anything to protect you from him. I wish you’d trusted us.”
“I wanted to pretend it never happened. Admitting it would’ve made it real, and I couldn’t bear that.”
Anger laced Ellie’s voice. Her shoulders tensed. “He’s a vicious criminal. He should be punished for what he did to you.”
“I know, but now it’s too late, and who knows—” A sharp pain stabbed at her insides. A crushing feeling of guilt squeezed her heart and caused her whole body to ache. How many other little girls have there been? Little girls she could’ve saved if only she’d been brave enough to admit the truth back then. Sh
e clutched her stomach. “Oh, God, I think I’m going to be sick.”
There was a pained look on Ellie’s face, and Jamie knew she was contemplating the thought, too. “You were a young girl and you went through a traumatic experience. Don’t you dare blame yourself for what he’s done. You hear me?” She lifted Jamie’s chin, forcing her to meet her gaze.
Jamie nodded and wiped her face with the napkin Ellie handed her.
“You’re going to be alright. Some days it must seem like you’re fractured into countless little pieces, like you’ll never be whole again. But you’ve taken a big step tonight. It was brave of you to finally admit the truth—to yourself, to me, to your mother. I’m so proud of you.”
“Really?”
Ellie squeezed her hand. “Of course. What did your mother say when you told her?”
“She couldn’t believe it. Not like she-thought-I-was-lying couldn’t believe it. Like she couldn’t believe what a stupid, self-absorbed slut she’d been.” There was no apology in her voice.
“What an awful burden for you to bear alone all this time, or did you at least tell the girls?”
Jamie shook her head fiercely. “They don’t know, and please...please don’t tell them.”
“You could use the support right now. It would be hard to tell them initially, but—”
“I know you’re trying to help and that you need to know I’ll be alright. I will be, I promise. Someday I’ll probably tell Mel. I’m just not ready to tell her now, okay?” Jamie squeezed Ellie’s hand, her eyes pleading with her. “Promise you won’t tell them.”
“I won’t say anything. I promise.”
“Thank you.” Though Ellie didn’t agree with her decision, Jamie knew she’d keep her word. It wasn’t the first secret of hers that Ellie Gordon held. She was sure it wouldn’t be the last.
“What happened after you told Josephine?” Ellie asked.
Jamie released Ellie’s hand and folded her arms tightly against her abdomen, her hands balled into tight fists. “I told her to get the hell out of my house.”