GansettAfterDarkKobo

by Marie Force

  He hugged her tightly as the tears continued to roll down his cheeks. “I don’t think I can do it again, Janey.”

  “Do what?”

  “Have another baby after what happened this time. To spend almost ten months living with that kind of fear… It would kill me.”

  “Then we won’t have another one. We’ll be very thankful for the wonderful son we have and be grateful for all our many blessings.”

  “You’ve said you don’t want him to be an only child.”

  “I wouldn’t have chosen that for him, but he’ll be surrounded by cousins who’ll be like siblings to him. That’ll have to be enough for him.”

  “Do you mean it? You’d really be okay with just having him?”

  “I’d be okay with it. If we’re being entirely honest, the whole episode scared the hell out of me, too, and I only heard about it after the crisis had passed. If we’re just going to have P.J., maybe next year I could go back to school and finish my degree. I doubt I’d ever get around to finishing if we decided to have more kids.”

  “I’d love to see you finish school. I’d be all for that.”

  “Do you feel better at all after sharing it with me?”

  “A little. You might’ve been right about something…”

  “Just one thing?”

  His laugh let her know he was really okay. “Subconsciously, me and my boys might’ve been worried about getting you pregnant again.”

  “I’ll talk to Vic about getting on something to keep that from happening. In the meantime…”

  “I’ll buy some condoms.”

  “I should get Mac to buy them for us. He owes me from when he was dating Maddie and made me get them for him so no one would know they were sleeping together.”

  “That would be funny, but I’d rather not have your brother in our business, if it’s just the same to you.”

  “So I can’t torture him even a little bit?”

  “Oh, all right, have your fun, but leave me out of it.”

  “I will. Let’s meet right back here tomorrow night and see how things go.”

  “It’s a date.”

  Relieved, Janey closed her eyes and held on tight to him, thankful that he had shared his pain with her.

  “Janey?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks for not dying on me. I never would’ve been able to live without you.”

  “I’d like to say no problem, but that doesn’t seem appropriate since it was apparently a huge problem for you and David and many others.”

  “They would all agree with me that you and our beautiful son were well worth it.”

  Chapter 11

  Owen was being hunted. Pursued. Chased. His father was home and looking for him, and there was nowhere to hide from his wrath. He’d done something to make him mad again, and there’d be hell to pay. He made himself as small as he could get and hid behind the bunk beds in the room his sisters shared. They weren’t home, so maybe his dad wouldn’t look for him there.

  In the distance, he could hear his mother screaming and crying, telling her husband to leave Owen alone. It hadn’t been his fault that the window got broken. All the kids in the neighborhood had been playing basketball in the driveway when one of them hit the window.

  The crack of flesh on flesh ended his mother’s cries and forced Owen to hold back one of his own so he wouldn’t be found. He’d hit her. Again. Every time she tried to defend him or his siblings against his father’s rage, he’d strike out first against her. Even knowing what was coming, she still tried to stop him. But nothing could stop Mark Lawry when he was in one of his rages.

  “A man comes home from work and wants to relax a little, and what does he find? A broken window he has to deal with because his goddamned kid can’t control his friends. Well, I don’t think I should have to deal with it when I wasn’t even here when it happened.”

  “I’ll get someone out to fix it,” Sarah said in a small voice. “You don’t have to worry about it.”

  “And who’s going to pay for that?”

  “It’s glass, Mark. Glass breaks. Things happen.”

  “Shut up! Just shut up!”

  Owen began to cry, silently pleading with his mother to do as his father told her and shut up. All her begging wouldn’t change the inevitable and would only get her another slap or punch. Mark Lawry was enraged, and someone had to pay. Owen would rather it be him than one of his younger siblings or his mother.

  Someday, he’d be bigger and stronger than his father and be able to fight back. He lived for that day. He dreamed about being able to flatten his father with one punch. In gym class, he took every chance he could get to lift weights so he’d get bigger and stronger faster. He lifted rocks in the backyard and concrete cinder blocks that sat outside his friend Jimmy’s house.

  “Where is he?” Mark asked in the rage-fueled tone that had Owen shrinking back against the wall, wishing it would open up and swallow him.

  “I don’t know.”

  “He’d better show his face, or I’ll go looking for one of his brothers. How do I know it wasn’t one of them who broke the window?”

  “They weren’t even here!” Sarah cried. “Leave them alone. Leave them all alone.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do, you useless, worthless bitch. If you had the first idea of how to discipline them, I wouldn’t have to do it.”

  “I hate you.”

  “What did you say?”

  Owen bolted from his hiding place and ran for his mother. “Get off her, you miserable bastard!”

  He woke up, gasping and sweating and crying. Jesus. His heart was beating so fast, he feared he might be having a heart attack. Thankfully, he was alone in bed, so he had a minute to collect himself. Where in the name of hell had that come from? He hadn’t thought about the broken window in years or the hellish beating he and his mother had both withstood that day.

  The goddamned trial was dredging up all sorts of shit Owen had thought he’d buried a long time ago.

  He ran his hands over his face and took a series of shuddering breaths, trying to calm himself before he got up to find Laura. A sound from the bathroom had him sitting up and getting out of bed. He pulled on a pair of boxer shorts and headed for the bathroom. Tapping lightly on the door, he opened it a crack. “Princess?”

  “I’m okay. Go back to sleep.”

  Owen went into the bathroom and closed the door behind him so they wouldn’t wake Holden.

  “You’re not going back to bed,” she said weakly as she rested against the wall between bouts of vomiting. She took a closer look at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” He sat next to her and took her hand. “It started early today.”

  She leaned her head against his shoulder. “It never really ended yesterday.”

  “I don’t mean to beat a dead horse or anything, but how are you planning to manage feeling this way while we’re in Virginia? It’s bad enough when we’re home.”

  “Don’t you worry about that. I’ll manage it. Somehow.”

  “Laura…”

  “Owen…”

  “How did I end up shackled to the most stubborn woman in the history of the universe?”

  “You fell in love with me.”

  “Yes, I did.” He released her hand so he could put his arm around her. “Best mistake I ever made.”

  “This is where I fell in love with you. Right here on the floor of this bathroom, when I was so sick with Holden.”

  “That’ll be a story to tell the grandkids someday.”

  “I’ll tell them their grandpa was the nicest man I’d ever met. That when I was pregnant with another man’s child, he took care of me like I was the most precious thing in his world and he barely knew me.”

  Moved by her, as he was so often, he slid his lips over the fine silk of her hair. “He knew you. He knew you from that first day standing in the rain outside this place.”

  “I’ll tell them how he held my hair back when I w
as sick, bathed my face with cool cloths afterward and how he brushed my teeth for me when I was too weak to do it myself. We’ll talk about how he waited so long for me to be free to love him the way I wanted to, and in all that time, he was nothing but patient and kind to me, the best friend I’d ever had long before there was anything else between us. And I’ll end my story by telling them that the greatest thrill of my life was the first time he told me he loved me.”

  Owen could barely breathe, let alone speak as he stroked her arm. He cleared his throat. “Will you tell them how he knocked you up with twins and made you even sicker than you were with Holden?”

  Her gentle laugh was a balm on his wounded soul. “I’ll find some better words to use for that part of the story.”

  “Is it over for now?”

  “Might be.”

  Owen got up and held out a hand to help her up. He kept his hands on her hips while she brushed her teeth and then scooped her up the way he had from the beginning and carried her back to bed, tucking her in under the covers before going around to his side. Lying on his side, facing her, he noticed how pale she was with deep, dark circles under her eyes that were new since the last time he looked closely.

  He wanted to ask her once again to stay home, but by now he knew the argument was pointless, and he ran the risk of making her think he didn’t want her around, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “I could tell with one look at you when you came into the bathroom that something happened. I wish you’d tell me so I don’t have to wonder.”

  “I had a dream. No biggie.”

  “What was it about?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  He smiled at her saucy reply. He expected nothing less from her. “It was about something that happened a long time ago, something I’d forgotten about.”

  “With your dad?”

  “Yeah.” Resigned now to having to tell her about it, he looked at the wall behind her so he wouldn’t have to see the sympathy on her face. “My friends and I broke a window playing basketball, and he flipped out about it when he got home. My mom and I got into it with him. It was ugly. I haven’t thought about it in years.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Ten or around there.”

  “The trial has you thinking about stuff you’d sooner forget.”

  He appreciated that she didn’t offer platitudes or sympathy he didn’t want. “I guess.”

  “It’ll be over soon.”

  “Will it? Will it ever really be over?”

  “Yes, it will. It’s all resurfacing now because you know you have to see him in a couple of days and testify and hear your mother testify. Before all this, you’d managed to put a lot of distance between yourself and your past.”

  “Not as much as I thought I had if I’m this easily undone by the thought of seeing him again.”

  “Owen, he terrorized you for years. You’d have to be superhuman not to be undone by the thought of seeing him again. Please don’t put yourself through the added hell of wondering why you’re undone. Anyone would be.”

  “I don’t want to be. I want to look right through him so he’ll know he doesn’t matter to me anymore.”

  “He’ll know. When he sees us together and how happy we are, he’ll see that he didn’t win. That’s the second reason I want to be there. I want him to see that he didn’t win. You did. He’s going to jail, and you’re going back to your happy life full of love and joy and all the things he denied himself because he couldn’t control his rage.”

  “What if he doesn’t go to jail? What if he gets off and never has to pay for what he did?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about that possibility and worrying about what it’ll do to you and your mother if that happens.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve decided you’ll both be fine. He’s out of your lives. That’s the most important thing. And a tiger doesn’t change his stripes. He’ll find someone else to bully, and maybe the next time, the law will catch up to him.”

  “I don’t want him to be able to do what he did to us to anyone else.”

  “Then let’s hope for the best and prepare for the worst. You’ll have to find a way to live with it if it doesn’t go your way. You’ve lived with it this long and have made a good life for yourself. Stay focused on that, and you’ll get through it. I’ll be right here with you the whole way.”

  Of all the incredible things she’d said to him, that last one touched him the most. “I’m sorry we have to deal with this.”

  “I’m not. If it means your father has his day of reckoning for what he did to you, then it’s well worth whatever else has to happen. At the very least, from everything you’ve told me about him, the public aspect of the trial will be extremely humiliating to him, which is the least of what he deserves.”

  “Yeah,” Owen said with a grunt of laughter, “you’re right about that. It gives me a perverse amount of pleasure to imagine him squirming in court while my mother and I air out the family’s dirty laundry. He’ll hate every minute of that.”

  “And you should enjoy every minute. If that’s the only justice you ever get, find a way to make it good enough.”

  “I will.” He reached out to touch her face, amazed as always by how soft her skin was. “I’ve gone from not wanting you to come with me to wondering how I ever thought I could do it without you.”

  Her satisfied little smile drew one from him, too.

  “Which was your goal all along,” he said with a laugh.

  “That sounds so calculating.”

  “I love you. I can’t wait until this is over and we can focus exclusively on our wedding with nothing standing in the way.”

  “I don’t want to add to your worries or anything, but there is one teeny tiny other thing still standing in our way.”

  Alarmed to hear that, Owen said, “What?”

  “I haven’t gotten my final divorce papers yet.”

  The reminder that she was still legally married to someone else hit him like a fist to the chest, stealing the breath from his lungs. “Have you talked to Dan? What did he say?”

  “He assures me it’s all on schedule and we should be getting the papers any day now.”

  “What if they don’t come in time for the wedding?”

  “They will.”

  “Laura…”

  She propped herself up and leaned over to kiss him. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I’m sorry.”

  “Of course you should tell me that. We’re calling Dan at one minute after nine today to make sure he’s all over it.”

  “If you insist.”

  He pulled her closer to continue the kiss she’d started. “I insist.”

  Mac was on his way to work when he took a call from his sister. “What’s up, brat?”

  “How old do I have to be before I don’t have to put up with that nickname anymore?”

  “Sixty? Ish?”

  “Very funny. Speaking of very funny and how life comes around full circle, I need you to do something for me.”

  As always Mac was prepared to give her a hard time, but since they’d nearly lost her the day P.J. was born, he found that more difficult to do than it had ever been before. Usually, giving Janey a hard time was as easy as breathing to him. He couldn’t allow himself to think about how very close they’d come to losing her without being reduced to tears. Not that he’d ever tell her that… “What do you need?”

  “Condoms.”

  Okay, he might’ve guessed diapers. He hadn’t seen that one coming. “What? What the hell?”

  “Joe and I need condoms, and I’ve decided you’re going to get them for us.”

  “You’ve decided? What the hell is wrong with him that he can’t do it?”

  “Absolutely nothing is wrong with him, but I want you to do it.”

&n
bsp; Recalling the time he’d sent her to get them for him and Maddie when they were first dating and didn’t want the whole island talking about them sleeping together, he had to concede he owed her one—and she knew it. “You think you’re pretty funny, don’t you?”

  “I do. In fact, I think I’m downright hilarious. Just make sure you get them to me before bedtime. Joe’s feeling a bit…cooped up and ready to get back to normal. You wouldn’t want me to get pregnant again after what happened with P.J., now would you?”

  “This is like a form of emotional blackmail. Right? You know I’m totally over all the train-wreck deliveries around here, so you’re blackmailing me into doing dirty work your husband ought to be doing for you, right?”

  “Oh, it’s going to be dirty, all right. The dirtier the better.”

  “Janey! Come on! Spare me the gory details, will ya?”

  “I’m counting on you, big brother. Don’t let me down.”

  “I hate you right now.”

  “No, you don’t. You love me, and you know it. Oh, and Mac?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Get the extra-large ones, will you?” She hung up laughing before he could begin to fashion a reply to that. Disgusted, he tossed his phone onto the seat and grunted out a laugh. He had to give his baby sister credit for a game well played. As the younger sister of four older brothers, Janey had learned to fight dirty from an early age. He could only imagine her plotting out this scheme with Joe and the two of them having a good laugh at his expense.

  He’d once done the same exact thing to her, right down to the extra-large comment, so he probably had this coming.

  It would be just what they deserved if he poked holes in all the condoms he bought for them. Not that he’d actually do that, because he truly didn’t want Janey having any more kids after what’d happened with P.J. That had been one of the scariest days of his life, and he had absolutely no desire to relive it.