by Reece Butler
Jet realized his fisted nails were cutting into his palms.
“You have the look of your father and youngest brother.”
“I…” He shook his head. “Why’re you telling me this?”
“You have choices, Jet. You have a family who wants you. You don’t have to marry Lila to find roots.”
Jet looked at the floor. He’d given up on family wanting him. He’d forced the ache from his heart years ago. Now that he had a possibility, he could see the hole it had left behind. He didn’t know what to think. Except for one thing. He turned to Tom.
“I don’t want to marry Lila for her ranch, or her family. And it’s not just for the child. She’s…” He couldn’t think of the right words. “She’s special.”
“That she is,” said Tom.
“Why are you telling me about this now?”
“As I said, you have choices. You now know your parents wanted you, and still do. Don’t keep them out of your life.”
Jet shook his head rapidly. “I can’t deal with this now.”
“I don’t expect you to,” said Tom. “But if you marry Lila, it has to be for the right reasons.”
“And they are?” demanded Jet.
“You can’t imagine living without her, and will protect her all your life no matter what. Part of that protection is letting her make her own decisions, and being there to help her afterwards, when she regrets them.” Tom sighed. “That girl has a lot of regrets. She’s done some dumb things, but so have we all. She’s wild, and eager, and desperate to be accepted. She needs a man or two to calm her down. Eric and Matt did what they thought was right, letting her find her own way. It worked for their sons, but not Lila. She needs structure and consistency, the very things she fights against.”
“I’m aware of that,” replied Jet. He snorted a dry laugh. “If she accepts me as her husband, that’s what she’ll get.”
“Good. Knowing you have family, will you still change your name to Frost?”
“They’re strangers,” replied Jet with a shrug. “I don’t even know their names.”
“Justine and Adam Switzer. They call your mother Teeny because she’s barely five feet tall. Your father’s closer to your size. His maternal grandpa was half–Nez Perce. You look a lot like him.”
Jet didn’t want to know about them, not now. However, Tom wouldn’t let him past until he was ready.
“They’re in my past,” said Jet. “Lila is my future. I’ll have the same name as my wife and children. Frost.”
“The Switzers are still your family,” said Tom. “And now you’re part of Lila’s as well. I mean that literally. You marry that gal, and you’re stuck with the rest of us interfering in your life. That’s what a family does. And that’s why I looked up yours.”
Jet had been welcomed into a family before. He’d believed they’d wanted him, and been ground into dust.
“Pardon me if I don’t jump for joy.”
Tom nodded. “You may not believe me, but I know what you’re talking about.”
“Sure you do.” Jet didn’t bother holding back the snort of amusement. “I hear you paid for a lot of things in Climax. Moving the hotel, turning it into a senior’s home and clinic. Building whatever it is that’s under the mountain. That takes megabucks.” He shook his head. “We have nothing in common.”
Tom stared at him for a moment. He dropped his head, staring at the floor.
“Dorothy’s the only one who knows this,” he said, barely over a whisper. “I will hurt you if you say a word.” His intense eyes grabbed Jet’s. “The only reason I graduated high school is that the principal was afraid of me. I wanted to learn, but when your pappy threatens to sell your twin little sisters to pay for his drugs, you skip school and make money any way you can.”
Jet’s mouth went dry. “Did you save them?”
Tom nodded. “I skimmed something off the top of every deal I did. When they were fourteen I sent them to a ladies college far away. Got them new identities, and a bank account that would get them through college.”
“You ever see them?”
Tom seemed to shrink. Jet realized how old he must be.
“They don’t know I’m alive, but I get reports. They’ve married good men, got a couple kids each. They escaped, and put all that, and me, behind them.”
“Don’t you think they’d want to thank you for giving them a life worth living?”
Tom exhaled, hard. “That’s what Dorothy says. One of them’s a pediatrician. The other owns a beauty salon in a small town. They’re settled in with their families, happy. Just as I’ve settled here.”
“Looks like you’re doing well.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t easy. I came to Climax with the excuse to drop some stuff off for Lila’s father, Eric. The truth was, I was about to get shipped out, part of a two-year assignment, and nobody gave a damn if I lived or died. Eric was my only friend. Just like Houston is yours. I’d volunteered because I had nothing to lose. And then I met Dorothy, and suddenly life had a reason. Being alive had a reason. We had one night before I had to do my time. I spent most of it in a hellhole of a prison in a place without a name. Dorothy is the reason I lived. They tried to break me, but her love kept me alive.”
Jet winced. He’d heard stories. Few survived to talk.
“I came back, broken and all used up, and found out I had a two-year-old son. I didn’t think I could find any more love in my heart, but I was wrong.” Tom pointed to a framed photo on the wall. Tom with two boys, each the spitting image of their father. “I was wrong again when Sebastian was born. Love multiplies to fill whatever space you give it.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“You look around this valley and you see loving families. You know you’re an outsider, and you think this could never be your life. I know, because I was the same, once. I’d see families and think that could never be me. I knew they had something I was missing.” He touched two fingers over his heart. “There was a place inside me that was empty. Empty except for the belief that I was unworthy, unwanted, and unlovable.”
Jet’s stomach knotted. He forced his chest to expand, to haul air in.
“Sound familiar?” asked Tom. Jet nodded, unable to speak.
“Put all that crap behind you. Don’t let the people who harmed you win. Don’t hold that bile and acid in your gut, using it as a barrier so if someone reaches out, they’ll touch it and pull back. You think you’re safe alone. But really you’re locked in a cold, dark, lonely place.”
Jet heard his words over the pounding of blood through his brain. He was very familiar with what Tom said. Listening to Lila’s soft breaths at night, having her reach out to him for comfort, had put a crack in the wall around his heart. During the day he didn’t allow himself to think of the possibility of this life continuing. At night, in the quiet dark, he was beginning to have hope.
Hope was a dangerous thing. It was so easily crushed beneath the boot heel of reality.
Tom pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the kitchen.
“My woman is back there, and so is yours. They’re our future, and what makes it worthwhile to get up in the morning. But it’s a package deal.”
He pushed two fingers against Jet’s abs.
“You can’t keep that acid inside you, and show love. Babies need love. So does a woman. Can you get past the shitstorm of your past? Can you put it behind you, where it belongs? Can you dump all that crap and make space for love in your heart? Love for Lila, love for that baby, love for the mother who gave you up to give you a better life?”
Tom leaned forward, dropping his voice.
“Loving a baby is easy. That’s what they are, nothing but pure love. A woman?” He gave a rueful chuckle. “Loving a woman, especially one that loves you, is the easiest thing in the world, and the most difficult.” He shook his head, still chuckling. “You lot in the Valley complicate things by sharing her. That, I can’t help you with.”
His expression
went hard again. “Unless you’re willing to take down those walls, right now, don’t take another step. Lila needs you. All of you. If you’re not willing to give everything, then turn around and get out.”
Jet had been terrified often as a child. Going to another new home, having nothing, being nothing, making sure he didn’t care about anything or anyone so it couldn’t be taken away. He’d thought that life was hard, but it was nothing compared to what he now faced.
Tom had done it, had dumped his past and chosen a bright future. Not easily, but here he was. Loving husband, father of two sons that he was obviously proud of and loved dearly. Tom was part of a caring community. Jet was so tired of being alone, floating on a tiny surfboard in the middle of a deep ocean full of hungry sharks, with no land in sight. He wanted to belong. To have someone care that he was alive and miss him while he was away. To matter to someone, and have them matter to him.
Tom said he had parents, and siblings. Maybe it was true. Maybe they wanted him, and maybe they’d changed their minds in the last ten years. They weren’t real to him. Lila was.
“Why do you care?” he asked Tom.
“Lila’s like a daughter to Dorothy and me. We want her to be happy, and I think that’s something you can help her with.”
“So, all this is for Lila?”
“It’s also for you.”
“Me?”
Pain was safe. Love…was dangerous. If he reached out, he could find everything he could never admit he desperately needed. But, as always, there was a price. A terrible, wonderful price.
He could give love. That wasn’t too difficult with Lila. It was the accepting that might kill him. Accepting meant allowing someone in.
Yet, wasn’t that what a good Dom did for his sub? Understanding all the sub’s insecurities, their fears and desires, and helping them heal? He would do it for Lila. Perhaps, in the process, he could do it for himself as well.
Tom waited, unmoving, until Jet was able to speak.
“Why?” Jet demanded. It came out as a croak.
“I see a lot of myself in you,” said Tom into the silence. “I love Dorothy, with all my heart. She kept me alive when I wanted to die. When there was nothing but pain, she was there, a beacon of light. I was rescued, and after weeks of rehab I was afraid she’d see what I’d become and back away in horror. It wasn’t the wheelchair as much as the beast within me, the one that had to take control so I could survive. I was afraid she’d fear that beast, or it would escape and harm her.”
Jet understood. He’d been feeding that beast as long as he could remember. Feeding it with every slight, every insult. It was time to destroy it, to blast it open and let the sun and Lila’s love shrivel it to dust.
“I didn’t want to come here and face Dorothy,” continued Tom, “but I had friends that kicked me in the ass and told me to give myself a chance to live. They said trying to survive without giving us a chance would be far worse than facing her. And now you’re standing here, ready to make a decision that will change everything. You are far more than you’ve allowed yourself to believe. Lila needs you. Her baby needs you. And you need them.” One corner of Tom’s mouth curled up. “If you’re the man I think you are, you’ll walk into that kitchen and tell Lila you love her and mean it.”
Jet’s chest was so tight couldn’t breathe. His mouth was dry.
“It scares the hell out of me.”
Tom nodded. “That it does. Love hurts, and it also heals. You’ll just have to make the balance more one way than the other.” He paused, waiting. “Which way you going, son? In? Or out?”
Jet squared his shoulders. There was only one way. Forward.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“You’ll be okay?”
Lila nodded at Aunt Dorothy, who gave one more squeeze and stepped back.
“Yes. I’m going to be okay. And so is my baby.”
“You have to tell them.” Dorothy’s mouth turned up in an almost sarcastic wince. “After what happened out there, it won’t take long for tongues to start wagging.”
“I don’t want to walk out there, to see them all laugh at me again.” She started to tremble once more.
“You don’t have to, honey.” Dorothy put a soft hand on her arm. “I’ll have Tom move your truck to the back, and you can go out that way. It’s not running away,” she added quickly. “It’s taking time to assess, plan, and prioritize.”
“You sound like Uncle Tommy.”
“Good lord, I’ve been married to the man for almost twenty-five years, of course I’ve learned one or two things from him. Now go home, relax, then tell them.”
“I won’t marry just because I’m pregnant,” she blurted.
“Leave all your options open, Lila. You don’t know very much about these men.”
“They’re good men! I don’t care what Josh said.”
“Honey, they have a past. Just like you. Things have happened to them, things you know nothing about. They have reasons why they say and act a certain way. Just like you. It’s not right, or wrong, it just is.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve all had things happen to us, things that were not very pleasant. We survived. But those things affected us. Eric over-protected you, while at the same time pushing you to be ever better.”
“I wasn’t much good in school. I couldn’t sit still, and had problems finishing boring assignments. I’m still the same. Something catches my eye, and I’m gone.”
Lila had a sudden urge to run. She bounced on her toes instead.
“Are you ready to face your Uncle Tommy now?”
Was she? She had to be. For this life force growing within her, she could be like the strong, confident women she saw around her. Lila found her right hand on her lower belly again. Houston cared for her. He hadn’t the night she got pregnant, as they’d barely met. But since then, yes. But there was that Sonia he was going home to…
“You have a huge family who loves you, Lila. Whether Jet and Houston stay, or not, we’ll be here. But we are not going to hold you at three o’clock in the morning, and we won’t be there at six when you bolt for the bathroom, clutching your stomach.”
Her stomach jerked at the reminder. “Oh, Auntie, don’t mention that. I hate feeling sick.”
“Welcome to motherhood, honey.” She patted Lila’s arm. “You’ll be a wonderful mom.”
Lila clung to her one more time.
“I don’t have to act like a grown-up all the time, do I? I can still get hugs from you and Uncle Tommy?”
“You’ll always be our little girl.” Dorothy gave Lila a squeeze. The top of her head easily fit under Lila’s chin. “Maybe not little, but certainly ours. Remember, most of all, you belong to you. And so does that baby.”
Lila jerked her head in a nod. Yes. She was in charge of her own life. For far too long she’d let others sway her. She thought of the brick wall that had held her back for so long. The wall that said she wasn’t good enough. She suddenly realized she had laid that wall, brick by brick, every time she let herself feel like a failure. She’d built it, and she could take it down. Not all at once, but for the sake of her child, she would do it.
“I tried to be what I thought everyone else wanted.”
“All me and Tommy wanted,” said Dorothy, “and your parents as well, was for you to be the best Lila Frost you could be. Whatever that meant, whoever you turned out to be, as long as it was who you wished to be.” She squeezed one more time. “Go wash your face. I’ve got to get started on a few things. As soon as Tom opens that door, we’ll be flooded with hungry gossips.”
Lila groaned at the thought. It was nice to be part of a small town, most of the time. Not so much when you were the focus of attention.
“By this time tomorrow I’ll hear that you’re pregnant with quadruplets from both Jet and Houston,” said Dorothy, snickering. “One of your men is an alien, and the other is a billionaire, or part of an international crime ring. Both of them are hiding out here,
like Jane Adams did.”
Lila groaned, dropping her head back to stare at the ceiling. “Oh God, Auntie. This is going to be the worst crazy thing I’ve ever done!”
“You’ll live it down. The same thing happened with your mother.” Dorothy laughed. “Maybe I should say, it happened with you, since you are the reason the gossip’s tongues were wagging. Even before that, tongues wagged when your Aunt Marci shacked up with Simon MacDougal. It all passes in time. None of us are without fault.”
“I’ve never heard anything bad about you.”
“Oh, there’s lots, but no one will pass it on because my husband can find out the dirt on them!” Dorothy winked.
“I love you so much,” said Lila, again getting teary.
“You, too, honey. Take care of yourself, and that baby-to-be, and your men. In that order.” Dorothy turned back to her griddles, humming to herself.
She hadn’t lied to Houston about being on the pill, but he might see it that way. Her doubts and fears rushed back in, bringing nausea and dizziness. No! She was not going to accept being weak! She used the small washroom to dampen her face with cold water. The mirror proved she was a mess. It was a good thing she didn’t wear mascara because it would have been dripping down her cheeks. Her eyes and nose were red and swollen. So were her lips where she’d bitten them.
So be it.
She was practical. Ranchers took what they had and did the best they could with it. She was pregnant and unmarried, and would continue to be so. No matter how much she liked Houston, he came from a family she wanted nothing to do with. She’d like both men to stay until her parents returned. Even better, to stay while they did their RV camping tour for the summer. As for longer…she wasn’t ready to think about that.
Houston and Jet had promised to take care of her, and they were men who kept their promises. They might be furious, completing their work with hard faces and ignoring her the rest of the time. She would accept whatever she had to, because she had someone to protect.