Thick & Thin (Thin Love Book 3)

by Eden Butler

  I believed him. No one could ever accuse my father of not making up for his mistakes. I was proof of that. There was no way he’d half-ass an apology to Aly.

  But as we pulled into our road and Kona ignored the low speed sign in his impatience to get to the lake house, I figured Aly wasn’t the only one who would get an explanation that day.

  He only hesitated for a second when we pulled into the drive. Dad squeezed the wheel, focusing on the whites of his knuckles before he looked me square in the face like he hoped, maybe, I’d have something encouraging to say. But this would be on him. He’d started the mess by keeping it to himself. Mom, though without knowing it, had exacerbated it by believing Cass was capable of basic human decency. They’d have to get this fixed together or not at all. There was nothing I could do for them.

  Dad was out of the car and up the long drive before I could get my door shut and made a beeline for my mother the second their gazes caught.

  Aly set next to my mother with two half empty mugs of tea in front of them. She hazarded a glance my way before she left her chair, coming to greet me just as Dad made it to the table. There was a lot that passed between my parents then. The thick heat pulsed in the air, smelling faintly of sweat and the bitterness of Breakfast tea and honey as Dad watched my mother. He didn’t speak, seemed more content to hold her gaze.

  Finally, when she seemed incapable of returning his stare, Mom looked down, frowning with her eyebrows moving together. “Sara said…”

  “I know what she said, Wildcat.” He knelt in front of her. His reach was slow, hesitant, but Mom didn’t slap his hand away or tell him to leave again as those fingers stretched out. The tips touched first, a brush of his index finger, the base of his thumb cupping underneath her chin and down her throat as he made contact.

  It was like the pulse of warming spring pushing against a thin sheet of ice frozen on the surface. Something that was slow, but insistent. Mom’s eyes were rimmed red, while heavy dips underneath had gone hollow and sunken. But she let Kona go on making tentative touches against her face, the small worship of his hands along those fine, thin bones, until Mom stopped being shy and those giant blue eyes of hers moved, that gaze licking up my father’s neck, to his knife edge chin, finally coming to his nose before they stared at each other.

  “I saw Simone and her boy this morning.” A small flash moved behind Mom’s eyes at the mention of Simone’s name, but Dad was swift enough, hanging on to a bit of that remaining charm to squash her judgment before it came. “We weren’t alone. Diner with lots of people and both her son and ours chaperoning.” Mom nodded, but didn’t speak, something that seemed to get under Kona’s skin. He exhaled, grabbing her hand before he moved his head, trying to catch her attention. “Ku`u Lei, in thirteen years, I haven’t ever looked at another woman. Why in God’s name would I? He made my perfect match right here.” Dad rested his hand against Mom’s chest, just above her heart before he drifted his palm up, holding her face between his fingers. “He made these beautiful, tempting lips that taste like honey and home and everything I need to fill me up.” Kona kissed my mother and I could not look away, not even when that kiss lingered. “Nani makamae, precious pilialo …why would I ever want anyone else in the world when I have my Wildcat right here, loving me, giving me all my babies, making my life so charmed, so blessed?”

  Aly leaned against me, seeming taken by the personal moment my parents did not hide. We were accustomed to their affection. My parents were open, unabashed with their kisses, their touches. Aly had seen, had heard first-hand how the loss of sixteen years seemed to push Mom and Dad forward so that every possible minute were spent together, loving each other because so much time had been spent alone. Because the heart that has been broken needs time, lots and lots of it, to mend.

  I knew that. The past four years had taught me that. And so it was no great shock that my parents needed a moment to explain, to do that with touches, though tentative, with kisses that were long and slow, neither of them caring one damn bit who might be watching.

  “Should we give them a moment?” Aly whispered and I closed my eyes at the sweet hint of her breath against my ear.

  “No,” Kona said, looking over his shoulder to watch us. “No, I want this said first.” He moved his attention back to Mom, sitting next to her with his knees touching her thigh. “It didn’t take long for Simone to admit the truth.”

  “Which was?”

  “That conniving pretty boy Cass told her you and I were divorcing.” Dad nodded at Mom’s dropped mouth. “She was desperate, bought it, thought that if she said I’d fathered her son that I’d throw money at her to keep it quiet, just to avoid the gossip, the rumor that maybe I was some loser who had been unfaithful. Things got a little out of hand, she said, when I didn’t immediately cave but by then Cass had convinced her to get the press involved. Guess he thought by that time you would have figured something was up with me.” Dad rested his hand against Mom’s shoulder, twisting the ends of her hair around his finger. “As soon as I got to her, she caved. She’s not…” Dad licked his lips as though his words had dried his mouth. “She’s sick and desperate and she’s got a fourteen-year-old kid that’s gonna be left with nothing if she doesn’t get better. She saw it as a way to take care of him, when...well, to make sure he’d have something when she died.”

  “But wasn’t she planning a DNA test?” Aly said, looking between me when I laughed and my father’s scowl.

  “Yeah, well, if you know what you’re doing and you have a little cash, you can pretty much buy the results you want,” Dad said, shaking his head at me. Mom too didn’t seem amused by the memory of Kona’s mother once buying test results that claimed Luka, my late uncle, had fathered me and not Dad. Thankfully my mother had her own backup plan and my grandmother's interference eventually came to nothing. Still, the mention of DNA testing was a bit of a sore subject with my parents.

  “Well,” Mom said, pulling our attention back to her when she stood. “I sent Cass packing. Didn't think I’d ever see his face again. But I’m sure I can get him back here within an hour. All I’d have to do is make something up, tell him I want to apologize for kicking him out. With an ego like his, he’ll buy it, no questions asked.”

  “Why’d you kick him out?” Dad ask and I winced, willing my mother not to tell him what had happened. I’d spent much of the morning telling Dad about Sara’s phone call, but hadn’t told him a thing about Cass hitting on Mom. He was just too much of a jealous hot head when it came to her. She seemed to remember that too because Mom tried ignoring my father’s question, grabbing the dirty mugs off the table, but Dad stopped her, taking the dishes from her. When he spoke, he at least sounded calm. “Keira. Why did you kick him out?”

  “Good lord, Kona,” she said through an exhale, “because he tried to kiss me.”

  I couldn’t tell if the breaking mug had come from Mom trying to get it out of Dad’s hands or from my father’s snap of temper. The softness that had relaxed his features when he first approached my mother vanished in the reveal of another man trying to hone in on his wife. I’d seen my father become possessive if some guy stared a little too long at Mom. Those were random strangers. I worried about what he’d do to Cass for trying to kiss her.

  “You get him here, Wildcat.”

  “I will,” she told him, folding her arms across her chest. “But you need to leave.”

  “What?” There was a mixture of shock and a little devastation paling my father’s dark complexion as his anger left him with Mom’s demand. “Why?”

  Just then, with her head lowered as she worked her fingertips against her forehead, Mom looked so tired, worn by the day, the revelations and the ridiculous drama that had put a pause in our lives the past few months. Dad touched her arm and my mother slipped her gaze to his face, letting a small, barely-there grin twitch over her lips. “This is my mess to handle. I’m the one who let him in, the one who didn’t see beyond the smile and the voice and the slick cowbo
y facade. Cass is my fault. This whole mess is my fault.”

  Kona’s shock transformed then, working into insult that he didn’t bother hiding. “The hell it is.” He walked behind her when she tried leaving the room, managing to stop her before she went into the kitchen. “Baby, this happened, all of this, because I tried to handle this shit all on my own. You said it yourself, we’re supposed to be a team. Equal partners. We’re supposed to share our burden. If I’d only talked to you right away, none of this would have happened.”

  “Kona…”

  “Wildcat, this is our mess.” He stepped close, holding her shoulders until she looked up at him. “Let’s sort it out together.”

  God help that dumb cowboy. He was in for a world of shit.

  Ever see an opossum caught by a dog? Normally, that critter is smooth, slow. It takes each step with a caution that should only be reserved for bomb inspectors and lions on the Serengeti. An opossum will sling and slow its way toward a source of food until it is sure no threats surround it. Then it will gorge, viciously. Unless, of course, that opossum gets caught. When it does, it quite literally “plays 'possum”—it becomes a limp, pathetic thing, relaxing its joints, its limbs as though life has instantly slipped from it and all that remains is the sad trace of that ruddy face, beady eyes and razor sharp claws. Its defense is to play dead.

  Cass Colson was playing 'possum. It had not started immediately. It had, in fact, been fucking hilarious to watch: Aly and I, watching from the window outside the studio, glaring at that asshole when he tapped one knuckle against her door and she swung around in her chair, making her expression relaxed, welcoming.

  “Look at that bata, all puffed up like a rooster,” Aly said, lip curled as Cass sat next to my mother on the table holding her sound mixer.

  She was right. He looked a little too confident, too relaxed as Mom spoke, keeping her focus on her nails, and the slow circle of her foot as she shook it back and forth. Cass leaned toward her, brushing her hair from her face and it was that one touch that did him in. That small gesture was all it took for my father to emerge from the sound booth.

  Twice I’d seen my father tussle with someone. One was a photographer that fired away clicks right at Mom’s face when she was seven months pregnant with Koa. Dad had broken the paparazzi’s nose and gotten sued for it. Another time a fan was drunk, got right in Dad’s face when we were out at Morten’s for Mack’s ninth birthday. The drunk was rude, throwing F bombs at my father like they were Mardi Gras beads, flustering both Mom and Mack. Dad popped him once in the jaw and the guy went down. Two days later Mack and my mother got flowers from the asshole and an apology.

  I didn’t think Kona was going to handle Cass like he had the other two asshats he'd fought. In fact, I knew my father was going to maintain his calm. Colson, however didn’t know dick.

  It took the cowboy a minute to realize what was happening. Maybe he thought it was me coming out of that booth. Maybe I didn’t intimidate him at all. But Dad did. I knew that, saw the proof of it on Cass’s face when Dad walked behind Mom, resting a hand on the back of her chair.

  Funny thing was, Dad didn’t move. He stood there, letting Mom rip into Cass. Her face changed several shades of pink as she stood, poking a finger right into Cass’s chest all the while my father kept his expression deadly—the dent of his cheeks concaving as he frowned, the small flare of his nostrils widening, the dead coldness of his black eyes and the way his eyebrows lowered, turning the shape of his eyes into hard, vicious slits—giving Kona a dangerous air without him uttering a single threat. He barely moved as Mom yelled and Cass, showing a shocking bout of intelligence, took it all in, every horrible thing I knew my mother told him, every accusation, every revelation, every threat if he tried anything—now or ever—without response. He stood there, eyes rounded, wide, hands in fists at his side and his attention never wavering from my father’s threatening expression.

  “If looks could kill…” Aly said, laughing.

  “Dad wouldn’t need looks.”

  Mom had clearly finished whatever she had to say and Cass nodded once but only when Kona moved his chin toward my mother. The cowboy tugged off his stupid straw hat, gripping the side in one hand as he stepped back, free hand lifted as my father took a step. When he spoke, seeming to answer my mother’s questions as they came without a single look at her, my gaze jumped to his legs and fingers, how they shook, how he tightened his grip on that hat so hard that I was sure he’d rip it apart. Then, like the coward he was, the asshole flinched, a quick jerk of his body as my mother pointed to the door and Kona’s one step became two.

  “Good riddance,” Aly said, sounding way too pleased by Cass’s hasty retreat. We moved around the back of the house, coming in through the back entrance just in time to see the cowboy slamming through the front door. “What? No goodbye? No promises to write or text?” She sounded pleased at herself and the small joke and for a moment it felt too normal, so usual to hear Aly’s laugh, in that house. It felt like it had been four years ago before everything got so twisted.

  “I think we’ve seen the last of his ass,” Dad said, following Mom into the room. Her face was still flush, but she remained quiet which had me a little worried, made me glance at Dad, moving my head a little to motion at Mom. But he bypassed my worry, waving a hand to keep me quiet. “I’ll call Ethan later tonight, let him share what we found out with that girl's lawyer, let him know it’s over.”

  “Cass convinced her to say the baby was your father’s,” Mom said, rubbing her neck like she did when tension packed up too much in her joints. “The girl isn’t his cousin. She’s his ex and that baby is his.”

  “God, what a complete and utter douche bag,” Aly said, shaking her head.

  “He is and a coward too.” Dad walked to Mom’s side, but set his gaze on Aly, his face relaxed, his expression warm. “Speaking of assholes, I hear you have it in your head that I have expectations you think you can’t meet.”

  Aly only dipped her head once, but it was a movement that didn’t keep and she stared my father in the eyes, chin lifted. “I know I can’t, Kona.” Color rose in her cheeks.

  What he thought just then, I couldn’t tell. Dad held Aly’s gaze, watching her face, frowning as though he wanted her to see what his guilt had done to him and what admitting that guilt cost him. “I was completely out of line to you when you left Miami. I’m sorry, Aly Cat.” When her expression didn’t change, Dad took Aly’s hand, holding between both of his palms. “I really am. I’ve been an asshole a lot lately.” He glanced at me, nodding before he refocused on Aly. “Whatever happens, if you stay in this family, even if you decide to build something with Ethan, know that you’re ours. Pēpēs or no pēpēs, we love you. I’m sorry if I made you think that wasn’t true.”

  Aly’s body relaxed when Dad leaned down, kissing her forehead. She hugged him back, seeming to enjoy how easy it was for her to accept the hugs and affection my parents gave her then. I marveled at how much pain she must have been carrying around inside of her all these months, and was genuinely happy to actually see a burden seem to lift off those slim shoulders.

  They broke apart, and everyone - all of us - broke into relieved smiles. It was hard to believe that a number of crises seemed to be behind us now, but before I could think about the one lingering issue still hovering over me, Dad turned to Mom and, like it was normal, usual, like there had been no anger, no betrayal at all, he extended a hand to her. Mom blushed, smiled, and took his hand, but not before she gave Aly and me a wink, before they walked arm in arm up the stairs.

  “How long will Koa and Mack be with Tristian in Biloxi?” Aly asked, voice sounding amazed.

  “Not long enough,” I said before I walked her out of the back patio door. “A couple more hours, maybe. We better get comfortable outside.” I glanced back toward where my parents had disappeared. “Neither one of us wants to hear what I bet is about to go down in that bedroom. Not for a long while, I expect.”

  The e
xaltation of a kiss starts like this:

  A need not met.

  A promise not kept.

  And the unbearable urge to forgive.

  Soft, wet, warm

  And in its touch

  The face of Heaven.

  The promise of forever.

  Twenty

  This is how I knew I wanted my life with Ransom back: I wanted to stop missing the weight of him. It wasn’t his size or strength I missed. It was the way the thought of him set heavy in my mind when he wasn’t around. That weight that didn’t disappear when Ethan touched me. Ransom kissed me like a five alarm fire—taking over, stealing from me any resistance, any control I stupidly believed I wanted. Ethan loved me, made me feel cherished, special, but he couldn’t keep that weight from me, no matter how hard I tried to pretend it wasn’t there, that it wasn’t something I needed.

  I needed it. All of it.

  He laid next to me with his little brother and sister asleep on the double bed in the pool house close by. Keira and Kona had been silent with the exception of their muffled voices and, if I wasn’t mistaken, her low crying. Not exactly the noises we’d anticipated but Ransom hadn’t wanted to take the chance of his kid brother and sister hearing something they shouldn’t. When Tristian dragged a half sleeping Koa and completely unconscious Mack into the house, both were too tired to hear anything from their parents’ room but we settled them in the pool house nonetheless.

  Facing Ransom, I smiled, tracing his profile with my eyes—an invisible stroke along his forehead, down the slope of his straight nose. He was so beautiful with the light from the pool jumping over his features. Once he’d been completely mine.