Redeemed Complete: A Military Stepbrother Romance

by Lucy Snow

  “Laurel!”

  I whipped my head around, momentarily confused. “Huh?”

  “Where you at, girl?” Maggie’s soft smile hovered right in front of me. She reached up and snapped her finger behind my ear. “Still with us?”

  “Uh, yeah, I’m here.” I furrowed my brow. “Sorry about that, Mags, spaced out for a second there.”

  “I know the feeling, do it all the time myself.”

  I shook my head and banished the cobwebs. “What did I miss?”

  “Oh, not much.” She inclined her head toward the rest of the room. “Catching up, trying to outdo everyone else, you know how it is among girls. Especially girls who haven’t seen each other in a while.”

  “That I do,” I sighed. “Home, New York, wherever you go, can’t avoid it.”

  “Well, at least people everywhere are consistent. That way I don’t have to wonder whether I’m missing out.”

  “That’s just like you, Maggie, to always see the bright side of my pain.”

  “Someone needs to, babe! Otherwise all you’d do is wallow and bring everyone down.”

  I laughed, half in fear and half at the joke. “Oh, I’m not all that bad, am I?”

  “Nah, not so bad. Come to the kitchen and help me with more snacks and drinks. We’re running low out here.”

  I nodded, grateful to get out of that room if only for a few minutes. Maggie led me toward the kitchen, shooing aside other halfhearted offers at joining us along the way.

  Chapter 10 - The Support

  The kitchen was a refuge inside Maggie’s refuge of a home. Thankfully it had been spared the baby-blueification of the rest of the house, though I did notice some streamers trying to encroach on cooking territory. Probably out of necessity - I loved the color blue, but introducing new fire hazards into a kitchen in the name of temporary decorating was probably not the smartest of ideas.

  “You know, when baby Jack comes home and sees all this blue, he’s gonna get a really warped idea about colors, you know that, right? Is that what you want?”

  “Better than some other colors,” Maggie muttered with a smile as she bustled around, gathering things.

  Like the rest of Maggie’s house, there was no wasted space in the kitchen. Every surface was ordinarily tidy and used for just its exact purpose. Today, in the middle of a party, though, things were a little more informal. Various drink bottles and snack packages, some opened, others begging to be tasted, littered the counters and cooking surfaces.

  It was a food explosion. In a good way.

  As if a food explosion could ever be bad.

  “How can I help?” I asked the back of Maggie’s head as she found what she was looking for and stood back up from the cabinet next to the oven.

  “You stay right there and do nothing, that’s how?”

  “Huh? But you called me in here to help with stuff. I know I’m not the best in the kitchen.” That was an understatement. “But I really can help.”

  “Nope, I don’t actually need any help.”

  “Then?”

  Maggie turned back to me. “I want you to tell me what happened last night after you left the bar with the lovely Steve.” She winked at me. “Things seemed to be going so well! I want to hear all about it.”

  Shit. Right, I hadn’t told Maggie or anyone about last night yet.

  “Uh, yeah, about that…”

  Maggie must have picked up on my crestfallen face. “Oh, honey, what happened?” She closed the oven with a clang, turned some dials, then came toward me. “Is everything alright?” She almost whispered.

  “Yeah, Mags, it’s fine, I’ll be fine.”

  “Here, come,” clearly not letting it go. She moved toward the small kitchen table on the other side of the white tiled counter. “Sit and tell me all about it.”

  “But the party out there?”

  She shooed away the thought with her hand. “Don’t worry about them, it’ll be 15 minutes before they even realize we’re gone. Come join me.”

  She reached over, picking two bottles from the table and mixing me a drink before pouring herself a glass of water.

  I sat down next to Maggie, taking the offered drink and moving it toward me. “Easing off the sauce there, are you?” I nodded toward Maggie’s drink. Not as many bubbles there.

  “Yeah, I figured I was getting a bit too addicted. Don’t want Jack to come out of the womb with a serious ginger habit.”

  I rolled my eyes. “There are probably worse things to be addicted to, Maggie. Like reality television.”

  “Or gossip magazines.”

  “Exactly. Ginger probably doesn’t make the Family Feud list.”

  “No, it probably doesn’t.” Maggie chuckled for a second, then got quiet and looked at me more seriously. “Stop beating around the bush, Laurel. Tell me what happened. He looked like such a nice boy. I almost can’t believe anything went wrong.”

  I shuffled closer to Maggie, not wanting to talk about it too loudly. Flashes of memories came back as I tried to put the words together, and I could feel myself crumbling, the tears making their way up.

  I gulped in air as much as I could and closed my eyes, wiping them before the waterworks started in full. “Oh, Maggie, it was awful.”

  Maggie’s face was a mask of sadness. “Tell me about it. Get it out.” She reached her hand behind my head and pulled my hair back, trying to help me relax. It worked a little.

  “We went outside after we left the bar,” I sniffed, still eyes closed, “and he kissed me up against the wall. It was nice,” I smiled at the hot memory floating around, now colored by what came next.

  “And then?” I could hear the confusion and something like dread flowing through her voice.

  “And then he said he needed something from his car. I didn’t know what that could be, but I went with him. I guess I just wanted to be around him, and I was…”

  “You were caught up in the moment,” Maggie agreed. “That happens to everyone.”

  “We got to his car, just beyond the lights of the parking lot,” I continued. “And we started kissing again.”

  “Go on,” Maggie whispered sadly. “What happened next?”

  “He, uh, he got a little…” I gulped, not even trying to hold back the tears anymore. I felt Maggie press a tissue into my hand and I gratefully dabbed at my eyes, trying not to ruin my makeup and knowing I would anyway. “A little,” I said, haltingly, “aggressive.”

  “Oh no.” The anger was coming out in force now. I was sure that if I opened my eyes in that moment I’d see actual steam coming out of Maggie’s ears.

  “Yeah, so I tried to stop him, get him to slow down. But he…” I struggled again, trying to get the words out. “He wouldn’t stop…”

  “Oh honey, I’m so sorry to hear that…what happened next?”

  “Someone else…showed up.”

  Maggie’s voice darkened and lowered even further. “Oh, Laurel…”

  I opened my eyes, breathing in sharply, like I hadn’t had any air in forever. “No, it’s not like that. Nothing else happened. The other guy…stopped Steve.”

  “Oh thank god, I was so scared for a second there.”

  “Yeah, I was terrified the entire time, I think I’m still scared now just thinking about it.” I could feel a light layer of sweat all over me, and my hands were clammy, just telling Maggie about it. “They fought over me, and the other guy won.”

  “And then?”

  “He took me home.”

  “And Steve never…” Maggie trailed off, looking down at me.

  “No-no, nothing like that. He just got a little handsy and I wanted him to stop. He wouldn’t take no for an answer.” I signed and opened my eyes - it was getting easier to talk about it already, and telling Maggie felt so good. I hated keeping anything from her.

  I still had a pit in my stomach, though. The story wasn’t over.

  “Are you OK? Did you sleep well? How are you feeling now?” Maggie peppered me with questi
ons, gripping my sweaty hands in hers warmly. I smiled at the simple human touch that brought us closer together.

  “Yeah, I’m fine now, I think. It wasn’t as big a deal as I made it sound. I just wasn’t comfortable doing that stuff with someone I’d just met, you know? Like I figured he should take me out some time before we got around to that kinda stuff.”

  “Yeah, I understand that.”

  I stared into Maggie’s eyes, searching for reassurance. “Am I…weird? About all this stuff? Is wanting something like that…strange?”

  Maggie roared, breaking the tension in the room with the knife of her laughter. “No!” She let one of her hands drop to the wooden tabletop with a resounding slam. “No! No, not at all, Laurel. There’s nothing wrong with wanting things to go slower. Everyone moves too quickly these days anyway, no time to actually get to know someone.”

  “Ok…I just wanted to make sure.”

  “You’re fine, honey. Just a little old fashioned for this day and age. There’s nothing wrong with it, and don’t you let anyone tell you otherwise, ok?

  “Thanks, Maggie…” I still hadn’t told her about the other thing.

  The Harrison-sized other thing.

  “Was there something else, Laurel?” Maggie picked up on things pretty quickly.

  “Yeah…”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  I didn’t say anything for a little while, trying to find the way to broach the subject. Do I tell her about Harrison and me?

  Ordinarily I’d tell her everything without a second thought, but now she and I were different. We weren’t close like before, we had separate and different lives.

  And she had Gretchen to be best friends with!

  Geez. I was getting way ahead of myself. This wasn’t a time to figure out where Maggie and I were as best friends; right now I needed someone to lean on, someone who would be there for me no matter what.

  That had always been Maggie, and now was the wrong time to go about questioning that.

  Except…how would she react when I told her who my mysterious rescuer was? And more importantly, what he’d said in the car, and what we’d done when we got home?

  What if she kicked me out of her house and told me she never wanted to see me again? How would I go on after that?

  I couldn’t worry about that now. Maggie had never been anything other than totally there for me and I’d tried to be the same for her.

  “The guy…who saved me.”

  “Oh, right, right! Who was he? Tell me all about him. Was he at the bar? Did we go to school with him?”

  That was one way to get into it. “Yeah, we did. He was a couple years above us.”

  “Oooh, tell me who it was?” I could see Maggie’s eyes dilate as she mentally rolled through a list of the guys she remembered from two years above us in high school. “Was it…Ralph Simmons? I remember you had a crush on him for a bit.”

  I smiled. “No, not Ralph Simmons.”

  “Dane Jepson? Another one you liked for a month.”

  “No, not Dane.”

  “OK, then tell me who it was!” Maggie was impatient but still smiling.

  I closed my eyes again and took a deep breath. “It was Harrison.”

  “Harrison? Your stepbrother Harrison?”

  “Yeah.”

  “The stepbrother Harrison who tormented you in high school? And by you, I meant you and the rest of Summitville?”

  “That’s the one.”

  Maggie leaned back in her chair, taking a big sip of ginger ale. “Wow. I didn’t see that coming. Never would have guessed Harrison would do that. Maybe he’s turned a new leaf?”

  I got defensive. “Harrison was pretty bad, Mags, but even at his worst I don’t think he’d leave someone to be attacked in a parking lot.”

  Maggie softened. “Yeah, you’re right, I apologize. At least he was there to help.” She paused for a moment and pulled out her phone from a mysterious pocket. “Yeah,” she said, checking her text messages, “you did mention Harrison coming out last night. I must have forgotten.” She put her phone away. “Why was he there?”

  “He followed me.”

  “Followed you? How come?”

  “I didn’t know at the time, he really wouldn’t say till we got into the car.”

  Maggie just looked at me.

  “That’s when it happened.”

  Her eyes widened and Maggie groaned. “Something else happened?”

  I nodded. “He, uh, told me he’s been trying to protect me since high school.”

  “Protect you from what? Monsters? I didn’t think we went to high school in a horror movie.”

  “I know, I was just as shocked. He said he was protecting me from guys who wanted to get with me.”

  “Why would he do that? It makes no sense. He doesn’t even like you!”

  I blinked, hard. “That’s, uh, just the thing. He, uh, does like me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “He did it because he likes me. Likes likes me.”

  Maggie sat back in her chair again, bewilderment on her face. “Well, that’s…something. Not at all what I expected you to say.”

  “You’re telling me. I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to see if he’d been possessed by aliens or demons. Either would have made more sense.”

  “So what you do next?”

  “Well, when we got home,” I said, haltingly, Before turning bright red. “I, uh, kissed him.”

  “You what?”

  “I kissed him. More than once. More than a few times actually.”

  I looked at Maggie, searching in her eyes for some kind of judgment. Now was the time when she would kick me out of her house, and tell me she never wanted to see me again. Now was the time she would tell everyone in town what Harrison and I had done, and we would never live it down. Our parents, crushed by shame and embarrassment, would have to move to the other side of the world and live as paupers.

  I wasn’t about to tell her the real rest of the story, the part that took place in my room. If it went south from here, I could try and keep that a secret till the day I died. If it went north, well, then she’d find out eventually.

  Maggie just smiled at me. “Sounds like you enjoyed yourself, you shameless hussy!”

  I let out the biggest sigh of my entire life. “Oh, I’m so glad you said that. I was so worried that you’d hate me. I was so worried that we’d never talk again.”

  Maggie laughed. “You think you can get rid of me that quickly, huh? It’s not like you did anything illegal. You’re not blood related. And frankly, these days, anyone who can find a little bit of love should go for it. People are way too wrapped up in social conventions to really enjoy themselves. Took me a long time to realize that, but I was much happier once I did.”

  “That’s…good advice.”

  “One of the many things I’m full of, love, is good advice. Anything else happen?” Maggie had the gossiping look on her face, she clearly wanted sexy details.

  “Maggie! Ew! I’m not gonna tell you that!” By now I was crimson as hell and I knew it. I couldn’t hide a thing on my face. I hoped she couldn’t read me too well.

  “Shameless!” was all Maggie could say in between fits of laughter. I couldn’t keep it all together, and I joined her, and we laughed it out, our hands clutching each others.

  A minute later while Maggie and I wiped our eyes as we came down, she managed to get some actual words out. “Good for you, Laurel, I’m happy things are working out for you.”

  “Ye-yeah, we’re still trying to make sense of it all, but so far…it’s…good, I guess? I’m just confused, really.”

  “Don’t move things too quickly, now. You went through something traumatic last night, don’t just jump into the arms of the first guy you see afterward.” Maggie’s eyes gleamed as she licked her lips. “Even if he does look like Harrison…”

  “Ugh, you’re the worst. Why did I even tell you?!”

  “Because you needed to, Laur
el. That’s just how we are. Sometimes there’s distance between us, but one way or the other it always comes back to this.”

  I felt the tears coming back again, but this time in a good way. “Y-Yeah. You’re right.” I exhaled sharply. “I’m so sorry I’ve been distant these last few months, Maggie, especially with you going through all this stuff at home.”

  Maggie batted away my apology with a quick swing of her hand. “Don’t worry about it, honey. We’ve both been going through a lot, and strains happen once we stop seeing each other every day in school. I totally get it.” She grinned. “Just don’t make a habit of it.”

  “Never again.”

  “Likewise.” We both looked around like we’d just remembered there were other people in the house. “We should probably get back to the other room. The poppers are probably done baking.”

  “Yeah.” We both stood up from the table. “Don’t, uh, don’t tell anyone about all this, yeah?”

  Maggie looked wounded. “Of course not, honey! I wouldn’t dream of it. All of this is between us, no question about that.”

  “Good. Thanks, I really needed to tell you about it.”

  “I can tell. Imagine going through something so painful last night…only to have it end up like this!”

  We shared a laugh, but I couldn’t help but wonder if things were all that rosy. I mean, yeah, Harrison and I had done some stuff, and that part was…really pretty great, couldn’t lie about it, but…what would come next?

  That was the only thing on my mind.

  What would become of us?

  Was it a one time thing?

  Maggie finished getting the jalapeño poppers out of the oven and was arranging them on a plate.

  “Let’s go back to the party before they send a search party.”

  “Come to think of it, why haven’t they sent a search party?”

  Tray of steaming poppers and more drinks in hand, we went back to the other room.

  Chapter 11 - The Decision

  I drove home from Maggie’s baby shower as light snow started to come down again. We’d definitely keep a white Christmas going at this rate. It wasn’t too tough to drive through - light enough that the flakes dissolved on the windshield passing through a little of the heat I had going full blast inside the cabin.