by Pandora Pine
Shelly laughed along with him. “That part came through loud and clear.” She shook her head. “I just can’t believe we all got to watch the two of you fall in love on television like that. It was just so real and authentic. Not like The Bachelor where they manufacture it all.”
There were still times when Tennyson found it hard to believe too. “Dad told me that he and Kaye watched the show. Do you think they saw our genuine feelings for each other?” Ten paused. He turned to stare into Ronan’s deep blue eyes. “Or, were they hoarking up their supper every time we gave each other a soft look or whatever…”
Shelly was quiet. She took her time folding her napkin before setting it down on the table in front of her. “I had a feeling you might ask something like that.”
Tennyson’s nerves surged back. His stomach was tossing like a paper airplane in a tornado. The longer she stared at her barbeque sauce-stained napkin, he wasn’t sure Shelly was going to answer him at all.
“I told you at the funeral that your mother and I had a difference of opinion when Cal Foster came out several years ago. After I heard your mother’s unvarnished opinion about gay people, it was then that I realized the real truth about you and why you’d left Union Chapel so suddenly after graduation. It was one of those train wreck situations. You know you should look away, but you can’t bring yourself to do it, kind of situations. So, I asked her if she and David had kicked you out for being gay. It took some hemming and hawing, but she eventually admitted it.” Shelly looked up at Tennyson with tears brimming in her blue eyes. “I know that doesn’t come as a shock to you, but what she said next was what broke up our friendship.”
Ronan set a hand on Shelly’s shoulder. “No matter what it was, we’re all here for you.”
Shelly smiled. Her eyes crinkled, sending her unshed tears cascading down her cheeks. “Thank you, Ronan. That means a lot to hear you say. I always knew I was doing the right thing by walking away from Kaye, but…” She trailed off. Wiping her eyes, Shelly took a deep breath. “When I asked Kaye how she could stop loving you over something like being gay, she told me that God made a mistake.”
“God made a mistake? I don’t understand?” Ten looked around the table and saw similar confused looks on Kevin, Greeley, and Ronan’s faces too. “What kind of mistake?”
“I asked the same question. I wondered if she meant that He made a mistake in giving a special child like you to her to parent, but that wasn’t it. Kaye said that God made a mistake in creating you.”
Tennyson took a sharp breath. He shouldn’t have been shocked to hear that his mother thought that way, but it still stung.
“God never makes mistakes, Tennyson. Isn’t that the first thing they teach at Union Chapel Calvary Baptist Church? If Kaye was willing to throw such a basic tenant of the church aside to fit her own prejudice then there was something bigger going on with her. Don’t you think?”
Ten looked up at his mother’s oldest friend. He could see how much it cost her figuring out who Kaye Grimm really was as a person and as a mother. He could feel how hard it was for Shelly to walk away from her friend and how much it still hurt her now. He managed a small nod.
“To answer your question, I don’t know what she or David thought when they watched your reality show. I can imagine it must have been odd for her to see you as a grown man. More odd still to see how well you’d done for yourself in spite of the way you’d been treated.”
“What do you mean?” His brow knit together.
“Tennyson, you were a scared seventeen-year-old boy when they put you on that bus. I know you had a year to plan out what you were going to do and where you were going to go, but Kaye didn’t know any of that plan, right?”
Ten nodded.
“Can you imagine her shock to see that you landed in Boston and not in Severance or in Kansas City or St. Louis? I mean, hell, you ended up halfway across the country with friends who love you and a wonderful life and a career. When that show started, you were on the precipice of a new, second career and falling in love with the man of your dreams. Your parents watched your metamorphosis, just like they would have done if you’d stayed home and gone to community college.” Shelly laughed. “Only you did all of it without their help, guidance, or money.” The tears were back in Shelly’s eyes, only this time they weren’t mournful tears. “I remember what I thought when I saw you on that show for the first time.”
Ten hated to admit it, but he was a little afraid to hear the next words out of Shelly’s mouth. “What?” he half-whispered.
“I thought you were a phoenix, rising out of the ashes of your old life, to start fresh.” Shelly’s voice was filled with pride. “Look at all you’ve done in the last year or so, honey. You’ve mentored others with your same gift. You’ve brought closure to grieving families. You saved Ronan countless times. More importantly, you let him save you.” Shelly shook her head. “All worth the price of one bus ticket, wouldn’t you agree?”
Tennyson read between the lines. It was the single worst moment of his life when his father brought him to the Greyhound terminal and watched him get on that bus. He’d never been more scared or hurt in his entire life. Every step he’d taken from that moment forward had been leading him to Ronan O’Mara and the life they were destined to lead together. All of the pain and the lonely nights and the wondering why his parents didn’t love him enough to accept him was all worth the price of the bus ticket that led him into Ronan’s path. “I absolutely agree.”
22
Ronan
“That was the best meal I’ve ever had in my entire life!” Ronan stripped off his shirt and threw it across the room, hitting Tennyson square in the back. Ronan patted his stomach and yawned. He was feeling well-fed and happy.
Ten raised an eyebrow. “You better watch it, pal. It’s been two months since you’ve been able to work out and you’ve been eating like shit. Tons of ice cream at home and now barbecue. Those six-pack abs I fell in love with are starting to go the way of the Dodo!”
“What?” Ronan squawked. He ran into the bathroom to look at himself in the full-length mirror. All of the lines were still there. He had to admit he wasn’t looking as bulked up as he had looked before the gunman shot him in August, but spending nearly a month flat on his back in a hospital bed would do that to a man. “I’m still a perfect ten. An eleven even! You need to get your eyes checked.”
Peeking his head around the corner, Ten smiled at his lover, who was posing in front of the mirror like a bodybuilder. “What are you doing?”
“Enticing you. Is it working?” Ronan waggled his eyebrows.
“Maybe.” Ten folded his arms over his chest.
“Maybe?” Ronan never had to work this hard to catch Tennyson’s interest. It was a good thing he’d left his boxers on. “What’s on your mind, since I know it isn’t my cock?”
Ten sighed. “That obvious, huh?”
Ronan crossed the bathroom and picked up Ten’s hands. He tugged his loved into the bedroom and sat him down on the edge of the turned-down king-sized bed. He knew that coming back to Kansas was going to be an eyeopener for Tennyson and had been prepared for more talking than fucking. “We got a lot of interesting information tonight.”
“Yeah,” Ten chuckled. “We sure the hell did.”
“How does it feel to have someone see you as a phoenix?” Ronan climbed up on the bed behind Ten. He pressed a kiss to the back of his lover’s neck before he started rubbing his tight shoulders. He figured giving Ten a backrub would loosen him up and keep his own hands busy.
“It’s pretty amazing. I mean, I’ve never even thought of myself that way, but to have someone else see me like that? Wow! All I did was live my life.” Ten shrugged.
“We’re a lot alike in that, you know. I lost my Mom right after I graduated from the academy thirteen years ago and in a way, you lost yours the day you got on that bus. We’ve both had to make it on our own with only ourselves to rely on.” It surprised Ronan that he really hadn’t
looked at his own life from this angle before. Like Tennyson had just said, he’d just lived his life. He had a dream to become a police officer and went out and made it a reality.
“We were both so blessed that we knew what we wanted to do with our lives, Ronan. Times like this always make me think of the boys we met during the Justin Wilson case.” Ten shivered under Ronan’s gentle touch.
Ronan knew Ten had a tender spot in his heart for those boys who’d been forced out of their homes under the same circumstances as he had been. Their only option had been to sell themselves to keep body and soul together, while Tennyson had his gift to rely on to make money and support himself. “I wasn’t sure at first what you’d think about Shelly asking if our relationship was worth the price of you leaving Union Chapel and your family behind.”
Ten reached a hand back to pat Ronan’s. “In the beginning, as the miles rolled past, I wondered if I was making the right decision. I kept asking my spirit guides if my parents would change their minds and how would they ever find me when that day came. They never answered me, Ronan. I asked them about my parents for years. All I ever got in return was silence.” Ten turned his head until his eyes met Ronan’s. “They never answered me until the day you walked into West Side Magick. I knew that day that it didn’t matter if my parents had changed their minds. I know now that you were the real reason I got on that bus. You were the reason I got off in Salem, Massachusetts.”
Ronan smiled. He pressed a kiss against Ten’s nose. “It reminds me of that saying about how God’s greatest gift is an unanswered prayer. I never understood how that could be true. How could not getting something you want be what was best for you? I understand it now.”
“Me too.”
“Are you going to be okay if we get on the plane to fly home and your mother never wants to hear from us again?” Ronan knew it was a risk asking the question. They were a month away from exchanging vows. He needed to know how this trip into Tennyson’s past was going to affect their future.
Tennyson’s eyes twinkled with something Ronan couldn’t quite put a finger on. “You taught me that families are something we build. Look at all of the people we’ve got in our lives, Ronan. Good people who love and support us, no matter what. They are our family. We’re not done building our family. Not by a long shot. We’ve got some amazing new friends on our horizon.” Ten grinned. That sparkle was back in his eyes again. “Fitzgibbon isn’t the only one who’s getting a baby. You’re going to be the best father ever. I don’t want to spoil any more of the surprise than I already have, but the family we’re building together is going to keep growing. Kaye is going to have a decision to make. Either she allows her beliefs to hold her here in the past or she finds a way to become a phoenix in her own right and rises above her raising. Those are her only two choices.”
Ronan could hear all of the words that Tennyson was saying, but his brain cast back to his future husband’s earlier comment about the blue-eyed, redheaded baby girl. “I’m going to be a father?”
Tennyson laughed. He turned around on his knees to face Ronan, pushing his lover gently onto his back. “You are.” Ten straddled Ronan’s hips before kissing each of his bullet scars. “The best father ever.”
“When?” Ronan closed his eyes. He could almost see the little girl’s face in his mind’s eye. Now that he knew such a thing was possible he wanted his princess in his life now.
“Sooner rather than later.” Ten pressed another kiss over Ronan’s pounding heart.
Ronan’s electric blue eyes popped back open. “That’s such a psychic answer.”
Ten shook his head. “I know Truman slipped you the brochure to the surrogacy service he and Carson used.”
Ronan rolled his eyes and pouted. “There’s no way to keep a secret from you. Psychics know everything.”
Laughing, Ten slid his hand into Ronan’s boxers, sliding his hand down the hard shaft of flesh. “I know you want to make an appointment.”
Ronan sighed, folding his arms behind his head. “That was supposed to be your wedding present.”
“Happy wedding day to me! I promise to act surprised!” Ten grinned. “My present to you is that your sample goes first.” Ten’s clever hand slid back up to the tip of his leaking dick, while his other hand worked his erection free from his boxers.
“I don’t understand.” Ronan was quickly losing his power to understand the English language as Ten’s hand moved faster over his erection and his pink tongue licked out over his lips. Ronan knew damn well what that tongue was going to lick next.
“Only one of us can make the baby. That’s gonna be you.” Ten slid his lips over the head of Ronan’s cock. His tongue licked over the slit, slurping the nectar that had gathered.
Ronan wasn’t quite sure how this conversation had gone from him trying to comfort Tennyson to talking about his love juice getting to be what made their future child, but at this moment, with Ten’s luscious lips sliding closer to his heavy balls, he couldn’t care less. He managed to reach out to card his hands through Ten’s soft curls to urge his lover to go deeper.
Moaning, Tennyson obeyed.
It was the vibration from Ten’s throat that set Ronan off. He wasn’t usually so quick on the trigger, but there was something about tonight and that sparkle in Ten’s eyes that just did it for him. “Love you,” Ronan whispered, his cock pulsing in Ten’s mouth.
Swallowing as fast as he could, Ten reached up and set his hand on Ronan’s heart. “I love you too,” he whispered back, wiping his hand across his still wet mouth.
Ronan pulled Ten into his arms. Ten set his head on Ronan’s shoulder where it always rested just before they fell asleep together. It was foremost in Ronan’s mind to return the favor, but this was the first time since they’d gotten to Kansas when his mind wasn’t worried about Kaye Grimm’s harsh words. His eyes slid shut and with the picture of a red-headed cherub firmly planted in his mind, Ronan fell asleep.
23
Tennyson
Even though Tennyson was loath to admit it, last night was the best night’s sleep he’d gotten in months. Their room facing the garden was so quiet. There were no barking dogs, no traffic sounds, no annoying neighbors, even if those neighbors were practically family. What Ten hated was that Kansas had given him the peace to sleep like this. Ronan too.
“Turn left here, Uncle Ronan,” Greeley said from the back seat of the truck. “It’s the third house down on the left. Brown ranch with green shutters.”
Ten almost laughed out loud. He’d spent the first seventeen years of his life in this tiny town, but somewhere along the line, Greeley had become their human GPS.
“I don’t see Boone’s car. What time did she say she was going to meet us here?” Fitzgibbon asked.
“She said she’d be here around 9am, after she got her kids off to school and her husband off to work,” Ronan said. “It’s a quarter of now, so this will give us a few minutes to get a game plan in order.”
“I’m gonna look for hidden evidence,” Greeley announced.
Ronan snorted. “Hidden evidence?”
Greeley hung his lanky arms over Ronan’s seat, as he peered into the front of the truck’s cab. “Everyone has secrets. Don’t you know that by now?”
Ronan’s mood sobered. “You think Shannon hid hers somewhere in this house?”
“I do. Like Dad said yesterday, there hasn’t been another murder committed in this town since Shannon’s. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. What are the main reason murders are committed, Uncle Ronan?” Greeley moved to grab his notebook.
Tennyson loved this curious side of the teenager. He didn’t know too many boys this age who would have jumped feet first into crime solving like this. They would be back at the hotel flirting with Aaron and working on their tans.
“Well, revenge, greed, sex, and power are the four big reasons. I think in Shannon’s case we can rule out high risk behaviors like gang affiliations and drugs. There was no mention about things like
that in any of the interview transcripts or in the autopsy report.”
Ten could see Greeley nodding along and scribbling in his notebook as Ronan spoke. “So, we’d need to know what she did that someone would need to get revenge for, right? Who’d she betray and why? It would be the same thing for greed and sex. There’s a lot of betrayal going on in both of those things too. I’m not thinking power plays too much of a role here. Who’d she really have power over anyway? Her husband? Her daughter?”
“Those are good places to start, but the deputies already went through all of those things the first time around,” Ronan said gently.
“But here we are ten years later with no answers. That’s what makes me think there’s a journal hidden in this house somewhere. You always say that people get tired of keeping secrets, Uncle Ronan. What if Shannon didn’t tell anyone her secrets? What if she told her diary instead?”
Ronan grinned at the teenager in the rear-view mirror. “Okay, Greeley. You’re on hidden evidence patrol. Search the places that would have been her domain, the bedroom closet, the bathroom, places that she would have kept feminine things. Places her husband never would have looked through.”
“I’ll check the kitchen too.” Greeley snorted.
Ten laughed. “Good plan. I’ll be on spirit duty, hoping to connect with Shannon or at the very least Bertha or Erin. I haven’t spoken to either one of them since the funeral.”
“Maybe they used up their frequent flier miles?” Fitzgibbon asked.
Ten rolled his eyes. “Bertha was the one who brought my father to see me. I hope she doesn’t think I’m mad at her for doing that.”
“Are you?” Ronan asked, reaching a hand out to Ten. “With everything else that’s gone on, I didn’t even think to ask how you felt about that.”
“Bertha knows what’s best for me. After what she showed me when you got shot, I’m done questioning her motives.” Ten shivered in the warm truck. He’d never forget the image Bertha had revealed to him of his own dead body lying in the middle of their street. It was the way his future would have played out if he’d been able to get to Ronan before the shooter had been able to flee the scene that awful day in August.