by Chloe Walsh
"Being a parent has nothing to do with being able to physically produce a child, Colton Carter," I quipped. "Just look at Noah's parents. Look at my dad…"
Colton's cell phone began to ring out, breaking the moment, and he jumped to his feet. "Keep that thought," he told me, with a wink before sliding his finger across the screen and putting his phone to his ear. "Charissa!" he said with a purr. "How's it going, baby?"
I shook my head, feeling slightly nauseated again as I listened to Colton flirt heavily with the woman on the other line as he sauntered out of my hospital room.
I wasn’t rid of one Carter when the next one walked in, ready to take up where the last one left off.
"Cam?" I asked, blinking, as I took in his disgruntled appearance. "Are you okay?" He didn’t look okay. In fact, he looked like hell. The Cameron Carter I knew was always dressed smart, clean shaven and walked around with a 'I'm sex on legs' attitude. Unless he'd gotten a lobotomy in the past week, this was a different man. I actually squinted my eyes, making sure I wasn’t mistaking him for the more serious Logan. Nope, he had the blue eyes and those big shoulders.
"Not really," Cam surprised me by saying and after that I was sort of stumped.
"Um…" I racked my brain, trying to root out the response to deal with Cameron Carter's unusually display of vulnerability. "Do…you want to…you know, talk about it?" I offered halfheartedly, not expecting him to take me up on that offer.
My mouth dropped open when Cameron replied, "Yeah, Teegs, I kind of fucking do."
"Okay." Uncertainly, I patted my mattress. Feeling awkward and extremely uncomfortable, I waited for the oldest of my husband's triplet nephews to take a seat on my bed. "What's going on, Cam?"
"It's complicated," he began to say. Suddenly, he jerked out of his seat and began to pace the floor. "It's really fucking complicated," he added, mid pace. "Like you wouldn't believe."
"Try me," I shot back, curious and intrigued.
"You know about what happened to my parents," he muttered quickly. "About what happened to my mother?"
"I do." Even though I wished I didn't. That was one horror story I could have done without learning. "What about it?"
"Well, I've met a woman. And she's…" he broke off again and this time he rubbed his face with his hand. "I mean she's brilliant," he started. "And kind, unbelievably smart, and so damn beautiful…"
The sound of my hospital room door crashing open startled me, and caused Cam to clam right back up. I swung my head in the direction the noise had come from. The moment my eyes landed on the dark haired woman in the doorway, my heart all but stopped in my chest.
"Holy shit," I gasped, swinging my legs off the bed. "You're back."
Hope Carter smiled. "Hey, Big-Mama."
Standing up, I took a wobbly step forward. "For good?" I asked, not caring how desperate I sounded.
My friend nodded slowly. "For good."
Seconds later I was embraced in a hug that had been six months overdue.
****
Eight Weeks Later
October
Boulder, Colorado.
Chapter Three
Noah
"Noah, go back," my father tells me. "Get out, now. Please… while you still can!"
"No." I'm fourteen and more afraid than I've ever been as I trudge alongside my father in the darkness and rain. Many years from tonight I'll wish I had listened to my father's warning, but I don't know that now. How can I? I'm young and loyal and looking up at the only protector I've ever known.
I want to say so many things to him. I know I won't get another chance. I want to scream at him and Mom for being so goddamn stupid. Last night they stole a shipment of George's top quality smack.
Fucking idiots.
I know what's coming and I want to cry. I keep thinking this is the perfect moment for me to cry. I've never cried before. Not even when I was a kid. What they're going to do to the man who raised me, and still, I feel…nothing. There is something very wrong with me. Finally, I settle on saying, "I'm not fucking bailing on you, Dad."
"You should listen to your father, boy," George Dennis rasps in his gravelly voice. He's a few yards ahead of us and I know he's enjoying this. "No point in you dying for your father and mother's sins."
Liar, I want to hiss. I'm not getting out of this. It's a trap. One I know too well. George Dennis has no plans of letting me walk away from this. All I can do now is damage control and walk out of here with at least one parent intact…
Jutting my chin out, I continue to walk through the mountains with my father at my side.
Ignoring George's son, JD, who is walking behind us with a gun cocked to the back of my father's skull, I focus my attention on my mother.
She's naked and chained up ahead. Every once and a while one of George's men yanks on her chains, purposefully tripping her up, causing her to land in the mud and the dirt. And every once and a while, I have an absolute urge to snuff every one of these bastards' lives out.
We reach the clearing and I know I'm out of time.
It's happening.
I watch, motionless, as my father is forced to his knees by that snot prick JD.
My mother is screaming.
I wish she wouldn't.
Doesn't she get it? Hasn't she learned that men like George Dennis get off on her fear?
Wind beats remorselessly against my face as I look on in silent horror.
I know what's coming next.
Blood
Pain.
And the stench of death…
"Christ." Gasping for air, I threw the bed covers off my sweat soaked body and sat straight up poker straight in my bed.
Fuck, that dream wrecked me.
Always did.
Instantly, I regretted the hasty move.
Pain speared through my shoulder, burning my arm, causing every muscle on the right side of my upper body to spasm and shock me.
My hand moved to my right shoulder of its own accord, massaging my injured muscles. Stifling a groan, I forced myself to roll my shoulders and work through the pain.
Eight weeks had passed since I'd been shot in the shoulder, and while the wound had mostly healed, the muscle beneath had not. The image of my dead friend was still at the fore point of my mind...
"Tommy!" my voice was hoarse, torn… "T, come on, man." Covering his mouth with mine, I breathed air into his lungs, and prayed to the god everybody talked about for a miracle. "Goddamn, T."
Slamming my fists against his chest, I knew I was fighting a losing battle. You couldn’t resuscitate a man with a hole through his head. But I tried anyway…
I could hear my wife screaming from somewhere behind me. Hers was the only voice I sought out in the mayhem. She was okay. They hadn't gotten to her. Momentary relief flooded through me, quickly smothered out by the overwhelming tsunami of guilt that washed through when I refocused on Tommy's lifeless body. His blood was on my hands.
In every sense of the word…
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts of my fucked up memories, I locked eyes on the golden haired woman curled up in my bed. The full moon shining through our bedroom window illuminated Teagan's features, transforming her hair into an almost silvery shade.
Deep in sleep, my wife snuggled closer to my body, seeking heat and a warm feeling settled over me. Reaching over her, I carefully grabbed ahold of the covers and pulled them higher, covering her bare shoulders, protecting her from the plummeting temperatures outside.
My hand accidentally over the swell of her stomach and caused my heart to accelerate in my chest.
She was getting bigger now – a lot bigger.
At almost thirty weeks pregnant, my wife was enormous. I swear it was like one night she went to bed and then bam, woke up the following morning with a bump. In the past two months, that bump had grown in colossal proportions. Of course I didn’t dare tell her that, even when she tried her best to trick me into saying so.
I wasn’t a complete id
iot, and admitting my wife's stomach resembled a basketball was one thing I would I'd rather cut off my tongue before saying.
Fuck, telling her I thought her belly was sexy had cost me a week on the couch. I wasn’t going down that path again…
Knowing I didn’t have a hope in hell of falling back to sleep, I leaned over and kissed Thorn's temple before slipping out of bed and heading downstairs.
I moved quietly through the house, aware of the fact that we had house guests. Lucky was sleeping in one of the bedrooms on the third floor, and Hope in the room opposite ours – her old bedroom that was still ordained in all things Hope, along with a huge mural of her name on the wall. They'd been with us since we arrived here after Teagan's discharge from hospital, and I had to admit that I was glad of their presence. Teagan was happier with Hope around and I was… Well, I was coping the best way I knew how.
Like tonight, for instance.
There was only one thing for me to do on nights like this.
Nights when my memories threatened to choke me.
And that was train.
Besides, I was running out of time.
I was due back on tour next week. Normally this wouldn’t faze me. Fighting came as natural to me as breathing. It was like a built in mechanism. But I wasn’t the me who'd come off that last leg of the tour. I was weakened and I was fucking vulnerable.
The second leg of the MFA tour had already kicked off. My boss, Nick Leversteen, had given me an extra month's leave to deal with shit – much to my dismay.
I didn’t want any more time to deal with shit. I needed a focus, a goal. But my wife had other ideas, and had contacted Nick behind my back. I'd been furious as hell with her for that stunt. Teagan was equally as pissed with me, unable to comprehend why I would want to return to the cage.
Teagan was furious with my decision to continue fighting. Our difference of opinion had caused more friction than normal between us and I was growing tired of defending my choices. She was my wife, not my boss. I didn’t take orders easily and I was no goddamn quitter.
But she was pregnant and teary and I had a hard time juggling the million different emotions she presented on a daily basis.
Dealing with angry Teagan was something I'd grown used to, but dealing with emotional and crying Teagan was way out of my league.
I loved her. God, I loved her. But I couldn’t sit at home and do nothing. It wasn’t enough for me and I knew I would go stir crazy if I had too much time on my hands to think about the things that already haunted my subconscious.
I hated blocking her out, but I felt like I had to.
Teagan didn’t know about Gonzalez and that's the way I wanted it to be. I needed her safe. The one good thing that had come from this whole damn mess was the fact that we had put down some roots in Kyle's house in South Peak Road.
Our house, I mentally corrected when I thought about the deeds we'd been given as a wedding gift.
Well, house was an understatement.
A goddamn mansion was more like it.
It had more bedrooms than the wing I'd been held in at prison – and there was a bathroom in every bedroom.
It was the kind of house I'd looked at growing up. The kind that if I loitered in front of for too long, a cop would move me along.
Strolling into the gigantic sized kitchen, I grabbed a bottle of Gatorade from the huge, double-door fridge and my iPod from the marble counter before heading down to the basement.
Slipping my iPod into its dock, I selected my work out playlist and blasted the volume.
With Kings of Leon's Be Somebody blasting through my ears, I taped my knuckles and tore into the bag.
The moment my fists hit the cold hard padding, relief flooded through my veins.
The pure fucking euphoria of releasing my tension on the bag eased my nerves and gave me some semblance of control over my shitbomb of a life.
With vengeance in my veins and murder on my mind, I worked myself to the bone, ignoring my body's protests, forcing my fuck-up of a shoulder to hold out.
Before the shooting, I'd never had to worry about being physically fit. It was something I'd been born with. Years of intense training and fighting had primed me to almost fighting fit perfection.
My strength was the one damn thing I had in my auxiliary – because, god knew I wasn't the brightest crayon in the box – and now a fucking bullet had stripped me of it.
Sure, I could read now – just about – thanks to my wife's determination and willpower. I could tap out a text message and format a basic email. Hell, I could even make out what was in the contracts I signed these days, but I was no fucking Einstein.
The hole that Javi had put in me two months ago had taken more than just the mobility in my right arm.
It had taken my confidence.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed, but my workout playlist ended and moved onto to a new one I was unfamiliar with.
Teagan, I thought to myself.
She was a music fanatic. She picked the best damn songs and always managed to surprise me with her eclectic taste. The girl knew just about every song that ever was.
Amused and curious, I continued my workout, listening carefully to the words from each song that played.
One song in particular caused me to halt in my tracks.
The moment Nikola Sarcevic's Lock-Sport-Krock filled my ears, I flinched.
I couldn't deal with this.
Not now.
Moving to the iPod, I raised my hand to change the song, but stopped instead. Resting my hands on the counter, I dropped my head in shame and forced myself to listen to the cutting lyrics…
"Are you going to go say something to his mother?" Lucky asked in a low voice.
'Like what,' I thought to myself, 'I'm sorry your son is dead. It's all my fault. Your blood is on my hands?' Shaking my head stiffly, I remained impassive, looking straight ahead as Tommy Moyet's body was lowered to the ground.
I'd let him down and everyone in this cemetery knew it.
There wasn’t a damn thing my words could do to fix this.
There was nothing my actions could do to change it.
My friend was dead and I was completely fucking responsible.
After the service, I escaped in my car. I had to. I couldn’t deal with the curious looks and sympathetic gazes.
I didn’t deserve anybody's sympathy.
This whole thing was on me.
The only decent damn thing Gerome Javi had done was plead no contest. There would be no trial – thank god for that because if I had to watch Tommy's mother sobbing in a courtroom one more time, I would lose what little was left of my self-restraint.
Court.
Judges.
Juries.
I'd had enough of those to last me a lifetime.
There also hadn't been a sign of JD in months. Nothing. Not a fucking peep. But I wasn’t naive enough to believe it was over. I'd made a lot of deals over the years, and I'd made one ten years ago, too. One that had cost me a lot.
Could I put my faith in Gonzalez's word?
Could I put Teagan's safety in his hands?
No, the only person whose word I could depend on was my own.
"Noah? What are you doing down here?" The sound of Teagan's voice calling me stirred me from my reverie and my head shot up.
Teagan was standing at the top of the staircase, clad in one of my shirts. She looked around sleepily. "It's like five in the morning."
There were so many things I wanted to say to my wife in that moment, but the words, "couldn't sleep," were all I could conjure up.
"Oh." Awareness filled her pretty face. "Well, do you want some company?"
I didn't want her anywhere near me right now.
Not because I didn't want her – I did, desperately – but because I was in a horrible fucking mood and anything that came out of my mouth would be toxic and cruel.
Shaking my head, I slugged back some Gatorade. "No, it's cool." Sighing, I wiped
my mouth with my thumb. "I'll be up in a minute."
She stood on the steps for another full minute, observing me.
The way she was looking at me now, so sad, it made me feel sick. I was disgusted with myself for being responsible for the pain in my wife's eyes. I was screwing this up and I didn’t even mean it.
"Thorn," I called out gruffly.
"Yeah?" She looked down at me with a hopeful expression.
"I love you," I told her.
Finally, when she didn't find what she was obviously looking for in my eyes, she said, "I love you too, Noah," before turning around and walking away.
Disappointing my wife wasn't something that made me feel good.
Pushing down my emotions, the ones threatening to overturn my common sense, I focused on the bag in front of me.
Keep your eye on the donut and not the hole.
The old mantra flooded my mind and continued to haunt me, and I continued to swing at the bag, throwing punch after merciless punch.
I didn't stop when my knuckles started to bleed.
I didn't even stop when the scabs that had formed reopened and bled over.
I was never going to quit this.
I was never going to give this up.
****
Chapter Four
Teagan
Cankles.
For the first time in almost twenty-six years, I was sporting a pair of very unattractive cankles.
I'd seen my baby pictures, I knew I was a skinny kid. Therefore, I knew this new development rested entirely on the genes of Mr. Ultra-Sperm who was working out in our home gym downstairs in the basement. It was the same place I'd found him every night for the past eight weeks.
Down in the basement. Punishing himself. Tormenting his mind with memories and images he never spoke of.
I knew he was having nightmares.
He didn’t say it, but I wasn't a fool. I knew what night terrors sounded like. I'd experienced plenty of them over the years. Especially back when my mom died. I'd gone through six solid months of waking up literally screaming at the top of my lungs. Noah could try and hide it from me as much as he wanted, but I knew he was going through his own personal hell.