His Redemption

by A. F. Crowell

  “I told her bits and pieces. Richard had cameras and surveillance things installed everywhere in this house, except the bathrooms. I was able to get her a letter and then we did speak in her bathroom, just before we left here earlier today,” Alejandra explained. “She believes me. I swear, I don’t want any of this. I’d just as soon turn around and leave with all of you.”

  “So, then why don’t you? Just walk away,” Drew suggested.

  “I would, but I promised Emmery we’d bury her father here so that she could visit him whenever she wanted,” she said sadly.

  “No,” Emmery’s voice rang out but I couldn’t see her. She came out from her hiding spot in the hallway. “Why didn’t you tell me everything, Mom?”

  “Emmery, honey,” Alejandra started.

  “No, Mom. You should have told me. If I would have known everything, I could have helped you get away from here. Then Dad wouldn’t be dead. Not that he doesn’t deserve to be punished for all of the shit he did.” Emmery hopped closer on her aluminum crutches.

  “Language, young lady,” Alejandra warned her.

  “Em, you should be lying down, resting,” I told her.

  “I’m fine,” she said, glancing over at me before settling her eyes back on her mother.

  “Señora Ali, you wanted to see me,” Manuel, the massive bodyguard, said from the wide, arched doorway. He glanced left and saw Emmery. “Mamita, let me help you.”

  “Don’t touch her,” I barked, standing and crossing the room in a few long strides.

  “Brody, it’s fine. Thank you, Manny, but I’m okay.” She shook her head at me. “Manuel, please tell these gentlemen how you came to be employed here.”

  “I was recruited by Diego to help him. He already had Juan helping but he needed more. Richard already had Freddy. We were hired to make sure Señora Ali did what she was supposed to. There were strict rules. She was not to make calls without us listening. No use of the computer without the boss here,” Manuel explained. “She was not to tell anyone about Señor Richard.”

  I wanted to believe him for Emmery’s sake, but I wasn’t there yet. “So why is it that you helped Alejandra and Emmery? I’m sure you were paid well to be loyal to Richard.”

  “Si, I was but I saw how he treated them. He was not good to Señora Ali. It was hard to watch her cry all the time. I felt bad for my part in all of it. I still do. I offered to go to New York because I did not want Freddy to get close to ma—Emmery. He was loco. I wish I was the one who killed him for what he tried to do to Emmery.” Manuel clenched his colossal fists.

  “It’s over now. I’d like to move past all of this,” Alejandra murmured, cutting the rising tension.

  “Brody, I believe my mother. I’ve heard what both Manny and she told you, but I also know what Isabel said too. As the pieces started to fall into place, the picture became clear. On the rare occasion I’d talk with Dad on the phone, he would always ask if I had heard from Mom. I just assumed that it was because he was still in love with her, but it was because he had been keeping tabs on her. I just want to bury him and get the hell out of here,” Emmery told me as her honey-colored eyes filled with tears.

  I reached forward and tucked her long, black hair behind her ear then stepped closer and kissed her forehead, careful not to bump her leg. “Sweetness, if that is what you want, then that’s what we will do. I’ll send everyone home and we’ll stay and get everything taken care of. We can have the jet come back whenever you are ready to go home. I just want to get you home soon so you can have surgery. The doctor said the sooner the better.”

  “I know,” she said, leaning into me. “Can you please help me back to bed?”

  “Of course. All you had to do was ask.” I smiled. “Give your crutches to Manuel.” As she did, I took her in my arms and started toward the bedrooms. She wrapped her arms around my neck and nuzzled her cheek into my chest with a subtle purr.

  “Emmery, mija. Could we please sit and talk a little later? There are still many things you need to know,” her mother said.

  “Sure, Mom. When I’m settled, I’ll send Brody out,” she told her, looking back over my shoulder.

  “Get some rest. I love you, mija.”

  Once we were back in her sizeable bedroom and she was back in bed, I gave her a hard time about getting up without help. “You need to have help. You could have fallen and made things worse. Those pain meds will make you dizzy. You should have called for me.”

  “Listen to me, Brody Davis, I am more than capable of standing up and walking on crutches without someone to hold my hand.” She gave as good as she got. Demure, not my Em. And I loved every second of the pushback. “But I love that you worry about me. Thank you for being concerned.”

  “You love that, do you?”

  “I do.” She nodded with a sweet smile. “Will you stay with me again? Talk to me, take my mind off of the day.”

  “I can do that.” I walked around to the other side of the king-size bed then climbed in.

  We lay in bed and talked about what she would do when we went back to Charleston. She agreed to spend a month or so with me and Jane. Depending on how surgery went, possibly longer.

  I was hoping for longer.

  I think she was too.

  While she was talking with Alejandra, I told everyone they should head home and I would call Charles to make arrangements to return home in a few days.

  Later that night, after they had a long overdue and much needed mother-daughter conversation, I brought Emmery a plate of empanadas and a glass of sweet tea and found her sitting up in the middle of the bed, watching What Happens in Vegas.

  “Your mother must have a pretty big satellite if she’s getting this movie down here.”

  Emmery let out a little squeal then held up a small black remote. “Nope, I have a ‘stick of fire’ as Isabel would call it.”

  “What?”

  “Mom bought me an Amazon Fire Stick but Isabel misunderstood and called it a stick of fire. I didn’t have the heart to correct her. Besides, mother always said it was rude to correct someone,” she said with a grin and a shrug.

  “Gotcha.” I grinned back at her. “Speaking of, Isabel sent this for you. She said it was your special request and that Johan had been preparing them all afternoon, but the guys came in and ate them all up, so she made these herself, just for you.”

  “She is so sweet. I wish I could take her home with me. I hate to think what’s going to happen to her once we leave and my mom leaves too. Mom said she wasn’t going to sell the house because she does love it here. Plus, with us burying Dad here, it’s not like we can sell the house and be like, oh yeah, there is a dead man buried in the backyard, but don’t mind him. And it will be a nice little vacation home. Maybe we could come back this summer and bring Aunt Jane? I think she would love to have a vacation after all of the trouble I’ve caused.”

  “You haven’t caused the trouble.”

  She looked at me as if I had three heads. “Yeah, okay. We can agree to disagree. Now, give me the empanadas and I promise not to hurt you,” she teased with a wide grin.

  “So, empanadas. Your favorite?” I wanted to know all of her favorites.

  “Yes, I love them. What’s your favorite food?” She sat the plate in her lap and picked up one of the fried meat pies and bit into it.

  “Hmm, favorite? That’s tough. I would have to say a really good ribeye steak.”

  We sat in her bedroom, eating empanadas—yes, she actually shared—watching Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz act like crazy people and disclosed all of our favorites, right down to our favorite type of toothpaste.

  Once she finished, she and I climbed under the fluffy down blanket and decided to watch another movie. This time she let me pick, and we curled up together and watched Tombstone.

  “I can’t believe you have never seen this movie,” I said to her in total disbelief.

  “I said I haven’t seen the whole thing. Only bits and pieces,” she corrected me, lookin
g up from my chest.

  “How could you start to watch it and then stop? It’s a great movie.”

  “Someone talked through it,” she teased, sitting up and cocking her head to the side.

  “Okay, okay. Point taken. Come here,” I beckoned with a nod of my head and a waggle of my eyebrows. She curled back into my side and laid her head on my shoulder then tipped her head back and looked at me.

  “Thank you for staying with me and for saving me,” she whispered then rose up to kiss my lips gently.

  “There is nowhere else in the world I’d rather be right now. I would have never left you here unless I died trying to save you.” Slipping my hand around her jaw, I brought her lips up to meet mine once again. It wasn’t a kiss filled with lust or passion. It was the kind of kiss first kisses are meant to be, soft and intimate. The kind of kiss you share after you bind yourselves together forever.

  Letting her go was almost impossible, but I finally leaned back and she rested her head back on my shoulder. “We should watch the movie.”

  “Right,” she said as she bent down and fixed the pillow her broken leg was propped up on. “I can’t promise that I’m going to make it through.”

  “I doubt I will either. I haven’t slept much the last week or so.”

  “Oh,” she said with surprise. “Well then, why don’t we just go to sleep? We can watch this another time.”

  “I think that might be best. I’m going to use the bathroom and change. Rosa brought my bag in before they left and I think Isabel said she put it in the bathroom,” I said, waiting for her to sit up.

  “Is it a gym bag?”

  “Yeah,” I confirmed.

  “It’s in there. I saw it earlier and didn’t recognize it. I thought maybe Isabel had packed me a bag for before when she thought you were going to come in here and rescue me.” She giggled. “God, that sounds so dramatic and unrealistic. Rescue me. Like I’m some damsel in distress from some old western movie.”

  “Yes, it’s definitely been an interesting couple of weeks getting to know you. You certainly do put men to the test, don’t you?” I teased.

  “I swear, I’m normally not this high maintenance,” she promised. “I try to save my kidnap and rescue drama for a few months into a relationship. But since nothing between us is conventional, I decided to speed it up a little.”

  Shaking my head, I laughed as I got out of the bed and padded to the large bathroom in search of my bag. I needed to brush my teeth and I’d kill for a hot shower to wash the day away. Opening the door once more, I called to Emmery. “Em, babe, I’m going—” I looked at the bed and she was sound asleep, hugging a fluffy pillow. “…to take a shower,” I mumbled to myself then quietly shut the door and proceeded to do just that.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  ~Emmery~

  Waking up tangled in Brody’s arms and legs was not what I expected to absolutely love, but I did. Usually, I hated sharing a bed with a man. I liked my own space and to be able to sleep in the middle of the bed and sprawl out. But waking to Brody was a dream come true. I had definitely dreamt about waking up and seeing him there to rescue me a few times in the last hellish week.

  The last few days had flown by quickly until today. My mother and tio had my father taken to a funeral home and prepared for us to bury him. Today was the day we would lay my father to rest.

  Most of the morning, I was numb, going about my morning routine like it was just another day. Once I saw the workers outside digging, I broke down and just lost it. I refused to let anyone help me, not even Brody. I locked myself in the bathroom, sat on the floor of the shower for thirty minutes and just cried until I had no tears left.

  I hated crying. It made me look weak. I got it all out while there was no one there to see me. Nobody would understand why I would cry for a man who was so horrible. I knew my father was a bad man, but it didn’t mean he stopped being my father.

  While I sat on the floor, I came to the conclusion that most of the recent memories I had of him being a father weren’t him worrying about me, they were about him controlling my mother and seeing if she had told me the truth. But I also had memories from when I was young of him teaching me to swim or him taking me fishing for the first time. He wasn’t always that monster. Once upon a time, he was just my daddy.

  For the second time since I locked the bathroom door, there was a knock. This time it wasn’t my mother.

  “Emmery, sweetheart, could you please open the door?” Aunt Jane asked from the other side of the thick wood.

  Carefully, I stood and turned the hot water off, doing my best to keep the water from directly hitting my cast that was wrapped in a large garbage bag. I grabbed the crutches leaning on the wall outside of the shower and wrapped myself in a towel then hopped over to open the door.

  She would get it. She would understand why I was so lost and devastated. She loved him too. She knew the brother she loved and was raised with, not the monster that he had become.

  Pulling back the door, she stood there, tears streaming down her face, waiting with open arms. “Oh, sweet girl, I’m so sorry.”

  Unable to say a word, I just cried, choking on my tears.

  “I know, sweetheart. I know,” she whimpered, holding me and rubbing her slender hands up and down my back.

  Finally, I pulled away and looked at her tear-streaked face. “How? How are you here?”

  “Brody. He knew you would need someone here who understood your grief. Someone who didn’t hate your dad,” she told me, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “Let’s get your face cleaned up and ready to say good-bye.”

  My heart ached and broke some more at her words.

  Good-bye was final. I would not see my dad again in this world.

  ***

  The day after we had a small service for my dad, Brody, Jane and I packed up and returned to Charleston. My mother intended to follow us in a few days after she got things taken care of in Venezuela. She decided she wanted to return to Connecticut to deal with my father’s estate and sell the house. Jane had never had a great relationship with my mom until now. They had the chance to get reacquainted and discovered they had a lot in common. Mom no longer wanted to be in the north. She decided she was going to buy a place in Charleston for winters and fall. Spring and summer she would spend on Isla De Margarita.

  After seeing Isla De Margarita beach from a distance, I hoped I could return soon and spend a week relaxing. Boot-free and cast-free. Brody thought it sounded like a good idea for the both of us. He even talked about bringing Lilly.

  My mother wasn’t overly thrilled when she heard he had a child out of wedlock. She told me that I needed to make sure that I didn’t find myself in the same predicament. I told her I had no intentions of having a child anytime soon. I still had a lot of riding to do.

  ***

  We’d been back in Charleston for a little over a week and I’d had my surgery. Luckily there wasn’t any lasting damage from my unanticipated excursion to South America. In fact, because we waited to have the surgery the doctor was able to fix my ankle with minimal hardware. Just a few screws that were made out of a special material that would eventually dissolve and become part of the bone. That meant that I wouldn’t have to have any further surgeries to remove the screws.

  Brody has been working from home and several of the Viper Security crew had stopped in to check on me a few times. Joselyn and I especially became fast friends. She was easy to talk to and understood what I had been through. She had a traumatic past that led her to enlist in the Army and subsequently meet her husband, Taylor. We made plans to meet up for dinner once my ankle healed. She was eager for me to meet him.

  Veronica and Lois were making arrangements to come down for a long weekend to visit. I was more than ready for a little girl weekend with my besties. I tried to apologize for not calling sooner, but they fussed at me to knock it off.

  Surprisingly, Leila had become one of my favorite people. She and Jaxon
brought Lillian over as soon as we got home so Brody could see her. I don’t think he even let Jane hold her for the first two hours she was here. I could see the tension between Leila and Brody the first time I met her, but now it had vanished. When Jaxon would tug Leila into his arms, he would look over at me and smile lasciviously.

  “So, Leila, I was wondering if you might consider allowing Lillian to go to Venezuela with us to my mother’s home for a week vacation, maybe this summer? That way she could enjoy the beach without it being too hot.” Of course, I asked Brody first. “And you and Jaxon could join us if you would like. Her home has more than enough space that we could all stay there and never see each other.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jaxon laughed. “I have seen enough of Venezuela. I don’t need to go back. I prefer the mountains in summer. Besides, I think I speak for both Brody and myself when I say that we aren’t anywhere ready to start vacationing together.”

  “Agreed,” Brody said without a moment’s hesitation.

  Leila and I both let out a little giggle that caused Lilly to squeal in delight.

  After dinner tonight, I was planning to talk to Brody about going back to New York. We hadn’t yet talked about our relationship or what would happen once I was able to get around on my own and take care of myself.

  In all honesty, I was dreading it.

  Over the last few weeks since my father died, we had fallen into a comfortable routine. Thankfully, not all of it revolved around his taking care of my crippled ass. One day when he was in the office, I heard him having a fit, as Aunt Jane would say, from the living room where I spent most of my days.

  “What is all of the ruckus in here?” I hobbled in on my crutches, which I had been getting better on.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you, Em,” he said from behind the large oak desk in his office. “I’m just having a time keeping up with the books from Viper Security. I’m constantly missing receipts and the invoicing is such a nightmare. I haven’t kept the books for myself in a long time and we are looking for someone, but in the meantime it falls on me because it’s my money and I want to make sure they are spending it wisely.”