What Lies Beneath (Count on Me Series #7)

by Melyssa Winchester

  “Now, Kay.”

  “Now what, baby?” I ask, needing to hear the words that will match the intoxicating look I’m now seeing in her eyes.

  “I need you…now. Make love to me, please.”

  Unhooking her bra and shedding the remainder of our clothes, bringing down the last remaining barrier that stands between the two of us coming together, that’s exactly what I do.

  I love her.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Mom?” I call out, rubbing my eyes and moving across the hall.

  Through the crack in the doorway, where she left it ajar, I can see her moving frantically back and forth between the dresser and the bed. Bundles of clothes in her hand. So much of it that pieces of it are falling to the floor, but her frantic movements and attention to the task blinding her to it.

  Slapping my hand on the door with another quick jab at my eyes, clearing the sleep from them, I push it back and step in. The low squeal of the hinges pulling her from what she’s doing and focusing her attention on the intrusion.

  Whatever she’s expecting to see causing her entire body to freeze in place and jump back, her hand flying to her chest and clutching until she finally takes a breath when she sees it’s me.

  “What’s going on?”

  Taking in what I couldn’t see before, I catch sight of the suitcase first and the colorful assortment of clothes practically pouring out of it. Looking over to the dresser, I see that’s she made it through four of the six and has the fifth one already open and ready to clean out.

  “Are we going somewhere?”

  Stepping toward me, her movements slow, each step deliberately placed on certain parts of the carpeted floor, she pulls me straight into the warmest and tightest embrace.

  “Yeah, Kay-Kay, we are.”

  The tremble in her voice should alert me to the fact that wherever we’re going isn’t going to be a good thing, but my need for her smile wins out.

  I can’t help it. I smile. Get excited. We’re finally going to get away from here.

  “Should I go pack too?”

  “Yes, baby. Make sure your brother is up and get him to put a bag together too. We don’t have much time.”

  Her final words are all the motivation I need as I pull away and speed back out across the hall. Diving onto the bed, I shake Dean awake, flinching the second his body moves, knowing what’s coming when reality sets in and he figures out it’s me jumping all over him.

  Backing up and heading to the closet, I pull the duffel my mom bought me a couple of months ago down off the top shelf just in time to hear Dean growling from across the room.

  “What the fuck?”

  “Mom said get your ass up and pack a bag. We’re leaving.” I tell him as I shoot around to the dresser and begin pulling clothes out the same way I’d seen her do, shoving them all in the bag. Not stopping, even when he curses the same question at me again until I’ve gotten everything I think I need and the bag is zipped shut.

  “Come on, Dean. Mom said we don’t have a lot of time.”

  His eyes cloud over before his lips drop downward into a scowl. Having been on the receiving end of that look more than once over the last few months, I know it’s not good. I want to question if this is about the way I woke him up or something else, but before I have the chance to, he’s barrelling past me, his shoulder shoving hard into mine as he stalks out of the room and across the hall.

  Voices raise and just as I’m about to head over and make them stop, I hear a crash and Dean is back in our room, following my earlier movements and yanking a bag down angrily before proceeding to fill it. Cursing under his breath and complaining the entire time.

  “What the fuck are you smiling at?” he yells when he pulls the zipper across the bag and looks up, catching me staring.

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit. You think this is a good thing don’t you?”

  Of course I do, and deep down I know he does too. He told me so. One night when he wasn’t being a total ass, he told me how he feels about Mom and Dad fighting. He also said he didn’t think it would ever end. Even with him out of the house, it seemed he was always going to end up coming back here and laying into the woman he calls his wife. The supposed love of his life.

  Is love really supposed to be this violent?

  I have half a mind to ask Dean about it now, but with the look of death he’s giving me, I somehow doubt he’d give me the answer I’m after. Besides, I’ve seen the way real love works.

  All I have to do is go to Belle’s house and it’s there. It fills the place.

  Pretty sure love oozes off the walls there.

  I want to go there.

  Realizing that Belle Reagan is who I consider my happy place has another stupid grin forming on my face and it doesn’t take long after Dean catches it for him to be across the room and hovering over me, his fist shoving into my stomach, wiping it away completely.

  Go ahead. Take the smile off my face all you want. You won’t take it out of my head. I’ll never let you do that.

  It’s a silent threat, but one I repeat over and over until my mom interrupts us, taking in our positions before telling us to knock it off because we have to go.

  Slinging the bag over my shoulders and feeling the weight dragging me down almost instantly, I move as quickly as I can, following her out. A grumbling under his breath Dean right behind me. The heat of his breath practically searing a hole into my skin from its warmth.

  It’s only when we get outside and she starts making a break for it across the street, after a quick warning hush that I realize what’s going on. What she’s doing.

  Running as fast as my small as shit legs can go, I catch up to her, grabbing her elbow with my hands and getting her to slow down.

  “I thought we were leaving?”

  “We are. I just have to make a quick stop here first.” She tells me before making quick work of the grass that leads to Belle’s front door. With Dean pulling up the rear, we make it up to the front step and instead of ringing the doorbell or knocking like we have every other time, she twists the door handle and steps straight in. Ushering us in quickly and peeking her head out the door and looking around once we’re in before turning back to us and shutting it.

  Hearing the click of shoes on the stairs, I turn toward the sound, but it’s not the person now rushing them that I take in when I do. It’s her.

  At the top of the stairs, she sits quietly. Eyes widened and focused straight on me before flicking over to my brother and back again.

  Taking a step, ready to climb the stairs to her, especially after what I thought about earlier, Grace’s hand landing on my shoulder halts me.

  “Not right now, Kayden.”

  Why the hell not? She’s my best friend. I wanna go upstairs and be with her.

  Feeling her eyes on me, I look to Belle again and that’s when I see it. Her eyes are filled with water. Tears. The front of her nightgown stained and her lip is pouting. Maybe even quivering.

  It makes sense now.

  She’s had one of her bad days. She’s extra scared today and when she gets like that, Grace says I need to give her time. The problem is, I don’t want to give her time.

  She needs me, same as I need her.

  Parting my lips, I mouth silently to her and that’s when I see it.

  The exact reason Belle is my happy place.

  Her lip pulls in and quirks up in the tiniest smile at my words, making what I just thought true.

  We need each other.

  I don’t know what’s going on with my mom right now, why there’s such a rush to leave or why we had to stuff our duffel bags with clothes, but right here in this moment, I don’t give a shit.

  I’m where I wanna be.

  Right where I belong.

  “Soon.”

  Awakening from my haze at the feel of my body being shaken, my eyes pop open and they’re met with the sky blue warmth I’d just been so lost in.

  “There you are
.” She says, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me tight before shifting and curling herself around my now suddenly wide awake body.

  “What happened?”

  “You were dreaming. Calling out to me, actually. Repeating the same word over and over. I’m not sure how long you were doing it, but when I finally woke up and heard you, I tried everything to get you to wake up.”

  The dream. The reason I’m laying here in bed with the blankets kicked completely off, sweat seeping from every pore, and why her eyes look so damn worried staring back at me.

  That wasn’t a dream for fuck sakes. That was the beginning of a nightmare, and one that despite the fact that I am going to tell her what it was about, I’d rather not dive back into.

  Yesterday was so perfect. Kissing her in the rain, Tristan snickering behind us when I finally did it and then drenching us in water. Then after bringing him home, taking her back to the house and standing in the middle of our room, watching her as the rain made her skin glisten the same damn way it did when we were nine and I was overtaken by a need to experience her like this.

  Love her after the rain touched her.

  Lost myself in her.

  Telling her what I was dreaming about will take the beauty of yesterday and twist it, the same way I did the night we talked about Sammy and everything else came spilling out.

  “I was dreaming about the day my mom left.” I blurt, and she reacts by burrowing herself even deeper into my arms.

  “Soon.” She whispers, and her earlier words about me repeating that word come back.

  “It’s what I mouthed to you when my mom first brought us over. Your mom wouldn’t let me go to you, and seeing you crying at the top of the stairs made me sick. So I did the only thing I could.”

  “You told me soon because you wanted me to know you’d get to me.”

  “Yeah.” I admit and that’s when her lips find my chest and she’s brushing them gently over where my heart rests. The part that she owns.

  “You held my hand that day. You never let it go and back then, after she took off and Dean told me she was gone, I held it against you. I thought you were holding my hand so tight because you knew she left me. I hated you for it. When you held my hand it was supposed to mean good things. Not the worst thing.”

  “I never knew, Kayden. All I was sure of was that I wanted to hold your hand.”

  Shifting in the bed, I take her chin in my hand and lift it up to where our eyes can meet and running a finger over her lips, I lean in and kiss her, while at the same time, slipping my hand down and finding hers. Locking our fingers together the way she did then.

  And just like then, she gives me everything I need the second we’re joined. Reminding me not of my mother leaving and the impact the event had on me all those years ago, but of the realization that nine year old me had before it even happened.

  She’s my happy place.

  “Promise me something?” I ask, my lips so close to her skin I swear I can actually see the words forming on the peach of her flesh.

  “Anything.”

  “Whatever you read next. Whatever we read in the journal from back then, promise me you’ll never let go.” Slipping my hand out of hers, but not pulling away, I lift it in the air between us and place them together palms facing each other. “Take my hand and promise that you’ll never let it go again.”

  Lowering her fingers down into the spaces in mine, the ones that I swear with the way they perfectly align, were made for her and her alone, she gives me her answer in the only way she can.

  Tightening the lock our fingers have to one another, she nods slowly as she brings her lips to mine. Her action less about a kiss and more about fulfilling my need for skin to skin connection.

  And just like I heard her love for me loud and clear three years ago, I hear it again now.

  Straight in my heart.

  Chapter Thirteen

  November 10, 2006

  Something’s not right.

  We’ve been at the Reagan’s most of the day. Mom’s been gone for hours, it’s nighttime now and even though she swore she’d be back for us, we’re still here.

  I keep asking Grace when my mom is coming back, but she doesn’t say anything. She just sniffles and turns away.

  Maybe she’s just getting sick or something.

  I just wish someone would tell me where Mom is. Why she left earlier and hasn’t called to check in or come back and got us the way she promised before she hugged me and walked out the door.

  Or at least explain why Dean won’t stop staring out the window across the street at our house.

  He was there when Grace finally let me go to Belle and there when I came downstairs with her a few hours later. He stood there while we all had dinner and he’s still there now.

  A few times when she leaves the room to go check on him, I can hear them talking and I swear once I even heard sniffling coming from him too. Since he never gets sick, even when I wish he would so I wouldn’t have to deal with him, I know it’s gotta be something else causing it.

  Something is wrong.

  My mom is gone and I’m here surrounded by people that aren’t her.

  I’m alone.

  The first time I got up the nerve to ask Dean, he grunted at me and then went back to looking out the window. And the last? He grunted and swore at me under his breath before stomping off to the kitchen. I heard slamming of cupboards and then the shake of the fridge and then he was there again, drink in hand, at the window.

  Why won’t anyone tell me anything?

  I asked Belle and she cried. A lot. I couldn’t calm her down. She was rocking back and forth and I had to put my hands up to block her head from hitting my chest. She hits really hard when she’s like that.

  I don’t even know why she’s doing it. We were fine for a long time. I even got her to smile, kind of. I like when she smiles, but just like mom is gone it seems like her smiles are too.

  When Belle cries, my stomach hurts and all I want to do is cry too, so when she did it and wouldn’t stop, I lowered my hands away, let her bang against me even though it stung and I cried too.

  If anyone wonders what happened, I’ll just say Belle hurt me since crying is for pussies according to Dean. But it wasn’t Belle.

  I can take what she gives me, especially if it helps her.

  What I can’t take is not knowing.

  How lost I feel.

  How alone.

  My brother is here and I still feel like I’m in a room full of aliens or something. I’ve been abducted and no one speaks my language.

  Mom…where the hell are you? When can we go home? I like Belle’s bed, but I miss mine. I miss you reading me a story. I miss our jokes when no one else is around to hear. I know what you said about me and Dean, but I don’t believe you meant it. You were just so sad. It’s just sad words.

  Please just come home so we can forget you even said them.

  I miss you.

  It’s happening again. Freaking waterworks. I know what Dean said about them and how guys just aren’t supposed to let it happen. I also remember the threat that if he saw me doing it, he’d beat them out of me. Right now I don’t care about any of that because it feels okay.

  It makes the pain stop.

  I don’t have to rub my skin until it bleeds to try and stop the ache that’s there when I cry. It just settles itself.

  Please, Mom. Come back.

  I wanna go home.

  “Belle…” I plead quietly, closing my eyes tight and rubbing the ache in the center of my chest. “I—I can’t.”

  Feeling the weight lift from the center of my lap, I follow her as she moves the book away completely, laying it to rest on the opposite side before resting her head against mine.

  There’s not a lot here about my mom. I know this. I also know why that is.

  It’s because I didn’t believe it.

  Couldn’t believe it at first.

  Then, when it sunk in, I couldn’t confront
it. I couldn’t admit that she walked out on us without so much as a glance back to make sure we were okay. I couldn’t deal with the fact that all of the shit she’d told me over the years was actually true and we’d let her down.

  We were so bad she couldn’t stand to be our mother anymore.

  I couldn’t deal with any of it, and with the way I just want to rub my skin raw in an attempt to rid myself of that same fucking ache I felt then, before Grace and Dean even sat me down and told me what was really going on, I still can’t.

  “Thank you.” I somehow manage to choke out after sitting in what feels like silence for hours but couldn’t have been more than a minute or two. My mind flooded with every single thing I thought and felt from that day and the first few after it as reality had the chance to settle in.

  Or with what happened the day Grace let us head back home, had beat into me.

  “Why are you thanking me?”

  “I know you didn’t have any control over the way you were reacting the day she left. That it had nothing to do with her leaving or Dean being there, but baby, you crying and wanting to hit something…hit me, it helped.”

  I don’t even have to meet her eyes to know she won’t believe me. Seeing her meltdowns as something bad and not the saving grace they were that day. I guess, when you live with them as long as Belle has, it isn’t a good thing, but for me, that day especially, it definitely was.

  She opened the door and let me feel without consequence.

  “You’re welcome.” She says with a gentle squeeze, burying her face into my shoulder and breathing in and out evenly. “The truth is, I just thought I made things worse.”

  “Never. Even when I was being a complete prick, it wasn’t your fault. None of it was. Even if at the time I really wished it could have been.”

  For a while after my mom took off, things stayed pretty much the same way as they were before. I was over at their house as much as possible when I wasn’t being forced to go to school every day. I still looked forward to being there and hated leaving at night in order to go home to Dean and his ranting.