All or Nothing: The Lonnigans, Book 2

by Dee Tenorio

  “Lucas?”

  The figure turned and left the room.

  “Lucas!”

  She rushed past Yvonne to the steps where Kyle waited, calling her name, trying to grab her arm. She shoved the award into his hands and kept going.

  It was Lucas. She knew every line of his body, every shade of his motion. He was there. Sick, too, by the sound of that cough. If she were the right woman, if she were the kind who could stick to doing what was right instead of allowing her emotions to lead her, she would have stayed and let him get away. But her heart had her sprinting after him, desperate to apologize, to have one more chance to be better than what she was. She ran past the tables and out the doors to the main hallway. She didn’t stop until she found herself outside the hotel, looking around wildly. But there was no one to find. Nowhere to go.

  Nowhere but home.

  Without Lucas, she had no idea where home was supposed to be.

  “What’s that?” Lucas asked when he found Kyle and Jessica at his front door holding what looked like some kind of space-age lump of glass.

  “It’s an award, brain child.” Kyle shoved it into his stomach, starting off another round of coughing Lucas needed like he needed mold on his ass. Jessica followed his brother into the apartment with a shrug, closing the front door and making herself right at home by heading off to the kitchen.

  “Isn’t she here?” Kyle asked, looking down the hallway toward the dark bedroom.

  “Isn’t who?” Lucas wheezed. Like he didn’t know. To hell with Jessica in his kitchen. She and Kyle had been there off and on for a week. No doubt she’d make him a pot of tea and try to push some soup on him. For such a brisk woman, she had a strange strain of caretaker in her. He made his way over to his couch and collapsed on it, pretending he wasn’t in a cold, dripping sweat.

  “You suck at undercover work, buddy. Everyone at the banquet could hear the asthmatic in the back of the room hacking through the speeches. I thought you were just going to talk her parents into going.”

  Lucas closed his eyes and willed his brother to go away. “They didn’t feel like listening to me. Someone had to be there for her.”

  “She saw you,” Kyle added like an accusation.

  “No, she didn’t.” Not for sure. For all she knew, her mind had been playing with her.

  “She ran after you.”

  “In this condition, she’d have caught me.” Which was why he’d taken his death rattle into the nearest other event he could get into.

  “In that condition, you shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Didn’t the doctor say something about bed rest?”

  So what if he had? Doctors didn’t understand needing to know she was all right. His doctor, in particular, would never understand needing to be there when Belinda finally discovered a trace of her own worth. That man only understood syringes and melodramatic diagnoses. “It’s pneumonia, Kyle, not emphysema. Go away, I’m fine.”

  He didn’t care if it put him in his bed for another month, being there for that moment was worth it.

  “Sure, just like she’s fine. Did you get a good look at her?”

  Of course he did. Once they’d called her name and she stepped into the lights, he hadn’t been able to see anything else. That was his Belle, her hair tied back, in her chunky boots and singed overalls, not a trace of make up on her face or crap in her hair. She was ridiculously out of place and absolutely perfect just the way she was. Aside from the gauntness on her too-pale face, but surely it was the lights making her look haunted and lost.

  “She looked only marginally better than you and you look dead.” Kyle sounded disgusted, pacing in front of Lucas’s purported deathbed. “Why won’t you let me talk to her for you?”

  “Because you were right,” Lucas finally sighed. Maybe he was dying. He certainly never expected to say that out loud. On the other hand, if he survived, he could blame the fever.

  Kyle’s frown only deepened, but at least his thumping feet stopped moving. “What?”

  “You were right,” Lucas repeated. The words tasted no better a second time. “No matter what I do, we don’t have a chance until she accepts I’m not like her father and she’s not like her mother.”

  Kyle didn’t seem to have a response for that, ill-prepared as he had to be for the possibility of being agreed with. Lucas closed his eyes and tried to breathe. That was work enough.

  “Here’s some tea.” He felt Jessica’s cool hands on his brow. “Oh, Lucas, when’s the last time you checked your temperature?”

  It took effort to raise an eyelid to glare at her. “You come anywhere near me with a thermometer and I’ll ruin his taxes for the next five years.”

  “I’m a finance lawyer, Lucas,” she replied without batting an eye. “I’ll just have you thrown in jail. Now where is it? And don’t make me look because you won’t like where I stick it.”

  “Bedroom bathroom,” he snapped, too tired to fight with her. Jessica could argue a snake out of its rattle when in a mood. Made her perfect for his brother, but it sucked for damn near everyone else. She left and he groaned. “Can you please get her out of here?”

  “You willing to let me take you back to the doctor?” Great, now Kyle sounded concerned again.

  “No.”

  “Then I suggest you let her take care of you.” For a second, there was the feel of another hand on his forehead, then another bout of swearing. Lucas decided he probably drifted off right then because when next he heard anything it was Jessica on his phone.

  “Hundred and four point seven. I don’t know if he’s still passing water, he’s asleep. Do we need to bring him in?”

  “Go away,” he tried to yell at them. They didn’t seem to hear.

  “All right, I’ll call if it comes to that,” she said distantly. “Since we don’t know his intimate details, they want us to bring him in if he hits a hundred and five, but we should try to cool him down.”

  There was a pause before he realized Kyle was lifting limbs that felt like cement and hefting him on his own back. “Don’t say I never did anything for you, buddy.” Kyle grunted, half dragging Lucas through the hallway to the bedroom and into the private bath. Then, thankfully, Lucas drifted away again as his buttons started slipping. Drifted to visions of Belle, black ribbons and moonlight on the glades…

  “Why are you coddling her?” Adam Riggs’s deep voice drifted past Belinda’s dreams and roped her back to reality. Reality, where Lucas was out of her reach and far safer there. “She’s in the way.”

  “She’s never in our way, Adam. Besides, she won that fountain thingy. You should be proud of her.”

  “Yeah, whatever. Where’s my Coke?”

  “Second shelf.” The bustling sounds of people moving around in the kitchen cleared Belinda’s head a little more. She scrubbed at her cheek, which was still textured from the couch pillow she’d been sprawled on.

  A chill made her lift her head to see her father towering over her, eyes thin and mouth twisted. She hated the part of herself that shrank back. “What do you want?” she asked instead.

  “Get your feet off my couch.”

  She was tempted to leave them exactly where they were, but in deference to her mother—arriving behind him with a tray of breakfast and coffee—she slipped them to the ground. Adam stepped around her to his recliner and immediately turned on the television to some sports preshow.

  To Belinda’s surprise her mother put the tray over Belinda’s lap. “What’s this?”

  “Breakfast,” Amanda answered as she sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of the couch. “You look like you haven’t eaten in weeks.”

  “What about my breakfast?” Adam demanded.

  “It’s in the kitchen,” Amanda answered, not even looking at him. Her light blue eyes were trained on Belinda, eager and pleased somehow at the same time. Adam grouched a little, then got up and stomped into the kitchen.

  Belinda watched him go with wide eyes. “Mom, are you okay?�
��

  “Sure, honey. Why?”

  Why? She pointed after her father by hooking her thumb over her shoulder. “Adam is getting his own food.”

  Her mother’s happiness dimmed a little because of her usual refusal to call Adam “Dad”, but not much. Belinda wondered if she’d crossed into the Twilight Zone when she’d knocked on the door the night before. Maybe it had happened when she fell asleep on her parents’ couch.

  “If you came around more often, you’d know things have changed a lot around here.” Her mother raised her hand at Belinda’s automatic eye roll. “That’s not an exaggeration, I swear. Just the truth. He’s a different man, honey.”

  Yeah, Belinda would believe that when he stopped hoping she would drop dead with every glare.

  At the loud complaints coming from the kitchen, Belinda set the tray aside, trying to remember what had brought her here.

  Amanda watched the plate of food go untouched, her eyes registering another degree of disappointment, then she grasped Belinda’s hand and pulled her to her feet. Together, they left the living room and headed through the hall to the bedrooms at the back of the house. Familiar worn carpet led the way to Belinda’s room, once shared with two of her sisters. Last night, Amanda offered the room, but Belinda had refused. Now, there was no choice.

  The old twin beds were still in place, three of them equidistant from one another, still covered with pink, frilly bedspreads. Belinda smiled down at them, remembering how out of place she’d felt under those frou-frou pieces of pink lace. At least, that’s what she’d resentfully told herself while swimming in her mother’s joy of having daughters. Some of it must have stuck, though, because even now her room felt wrong without something lacy. Something pretty.

  She sat on her old bed, felt the still familiar sag to the middle from having so many people on it at the same time, all the time. Even when they weren’t scared, her siblings found their way into her bed.

  “I always admired that about you,” Amanda said quietly, standing, hands clasped in front of her.

  Belinda looked up at her, but even though she was sitting, it wasn’t very far to curve her neck. Amanda Riggs was tiny, her cap of pale blonde hair dusted liberally with white now, as if she’d forgotten to shake flour out of it after a baking day. In a lot of ways, Belinda knew she looked like her mother. The same hair, the same fine pale skin. But where Amanda was dainty, Belinda had taken her father’s rawboned height and dark eyes. Not to mention his big mouth and apparently, his ability to take the world on the chin.

  “Admired me?” she asked, confused.

  “Oh, yes.” Amanda sighed, finding a place to sit on Corrine’s old bed so that their knees nearly brushed. “That strength you had. The tenacity. You took all your brothers and sisters under your wing, did more for them than I did. You never went to anyone for help, always insisted you could do it all by yourself. Even when you were a baby, you were so independent. You never needed anyone.”

  Belinda thought of Lucas and knew how untrue that was. Immediately, her eyes began to fill again.

  Amanda sat next to her and took her hands into her own. “I always wondered what I would do if you ever needed me. I know it won’t make up for anything, but if I can, honey, I’ll do anything you need.”

  Could she? Would her mother even be able to understand?

  Then Amanda asked the one question Belinda couldn’t deny. “Is it Lucas?”

  She laid her head on Amanda’s shoulder and sighed, closing her eyes and letting her tears fall. Immediately, her mother turned and took her into her arms, giving Belinda the one place she could let down all her walls and cry. Amanda crooned, laying Belinda’s head on her lap, running her hands through her hair until the storm was over.

  “I know you think I don’t know what real love is,” Amanda murmured, still brushing Belinda’s hair back from her face. “You don’t respect me because you think I let him break me and crush me.”

  “Oh, Mama.” She’d never wanted to say that, but it couldn’t be missed. All the silences had to have been easy to put together.

  “If I could take back all the hurts you kids had, I would. If I could change my choices, I wish I could say I would do things differently, but I’m not sure I could have. You don’t get to choose who you love or how you love them. Or even how they go about loving you. I know it doesn’t excuse anything, Belinda, but I do love him. Good and bad, I love him.”

  “He hurt you.” Didn’t that make any difference?

  “I hurt him, too.” Amanda chuckled. “Remember the time I went after him with the rolling pin?”

  Belinda frowned, then suddenly the memory of her father—half shaved, in a pair of boxers—running for his life to his rig while her mother swung that old wooden rolling pin, still covered with flour and pastry. Her smile and laugh caught her by surprise.

  “He didn’t have his keys.” She remembered his panic, once he realized his underwear didn’t have pockets.

  “And he climbed on top of the cab, yelling for David or Ella to come and save him.” Amanda laughed, probably at the thought of Lucas’s parents rushing to her husband’s rescue. They were nice people, but Adam was better off without his fate in their hands. “It wasn’t very funny at the time, but every time he’s a jackass, I remember how he looked up there while you kids laughed and pointed at him. That’s one of my best memories.”

  “Why were you chasing him?” Belinda wiped her face with the back of her hand, reluctantly coming back to a sitting position.

  Amanda’s smile stayed as it was, her gentle touch soothing Belinda’s heated skin as she wiped the other cheek dry of tears. “Oh, who knows anymore? Most of the things we argued about were stupid. I know you don’t believe it, but I gave as good as I got. Your father was always louder than he was smart. A good wife knows how to get her husband where he’ll miss it and he eventually stops doing the things that make you craziest.” She laughed again, a knowing laugh that Belinda couldn’t join.

  She felt her humor drift. “I didn’t know how,” she said softly.

  Amanda, still smiling, looked at her absently. “What?”

  “I didn’t know how to get him where he’d miss it. Not for a really long time,” Belinda repeated, watching Amanda finally realize what she meant. The words she’d never said, had tried not to think. The things she’d blamed herself for…when she shouldn’t have. “I was just a little girl. And you never stopped him.”

  Amanda’s shoulders sagged further. “I always wondered when we’d get around to talking about this.”

  Belinda shrugged, then stared down at her worn boots. “There never seemed to be much point.” They would have just argued.

  “Maybe,” Amanda agreed. “Most of it should never have happened. And I should have done more to protect you from it. I know that now.”

  Now? She’d had to think about it? “Why didn’t you know it then?”

  Amanda sighed heavily. “Truthfully, there were times I thought you had some of it coming. You were always so provoking as a child. The way you prodded him… It’s like you wanted him angry at all of us.”

  “I wanted him to go away,” Belinda corrected, rising to her feet. “I wanted to feel safe, Mom.”

  Amanda just shook her head. “It’s like I’ve always said. For being so alike, you and your father are never going to understand each other. If you’d just consider the way he thinks—”

  “I shouldn’t have to understand, Mama,” Belinda said tightly. She hated to admit she was like the pigheaded man in even the slightest ways, but the will she used to stand up to him all these years obviously hadn’t come from her mother. “There’s nothing to understand about dragging your child across the room by her arm or her hair.”

  Amanda paled, her hands slowly drifting to her lap.

  “I shouldn’t have had to understand when he slapped me instead of hugged me. When he wished over and over again that something bad would happen to me, like it was a joke. When he says he’d be glad if I never c
ame home again. What’s to understand?”

  Her mother wanted to say something typical. Belinda could see it on her face, but this time, she couldn’t let the old excuses end the discussion.

  “It doesn’t matter that he was drunk. He wasn’t any different when he was sober. Maybe I did provoke him sometimes, but he never had the right to do that to me. Or to you. I don’t care what he’s like now. It doesn’t even matter what he was like then. Don’t tell me to blame myself. I won’t excuse him or say it was okay, because it wasn’t, Mama. It wasn’t.”

  Belinda realized that while her hands had fisted, the words had finally come out. No more bottlenecking. No more cold feelings choking the sense right out of her. She was calm.

  And she was right.

  She wasn’t to blame for her father’s behavior. All the abuse, all the abasement. It was never her fault.

  She looked at her mother with suddenly clear eyes. The urge to protect her was still strong, but the knowledge that you couldn’t save people who didn’t want to be saved leeched the anger from her soul, leaving only an old heartache behind. Amanda remained sitting on the bed, her face so sad, strangely looking aged in a way Belinda had never noticed before. She was fragile, awaiting accusation and hate, expecting to be crushed.

  Was that what Lucas meant about her? That she’d had no faith in herself? Had she spent all these years trying so hard not to be her mother only to end up exactly like her, locked behind fears and rationalizations that never rang true?

  “Why didn’t you ever leave him?” Belinda asked.

  Amanda’s smile was solemn. “I loved him.”

  “Didn’t you love us?”

  “Oh, sweetheart, of course I did. I do. I love all of you.” She just didn’t love herself. Not enough. Not nearly enough.