Get You Some_To format

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I looked up, met June’s eyes, and I felt my whole world tilt on its axis.

  I stood, staring, at my family, feeling like a complete and utter fool.

  June was there, too, looking at me like I might break at any moment. She was right to be worried. I didn’t even know what to think. Everything was wrong.

  “How…how do you know?” I asked. “I don’t remember hearing anything at all, and that’s not something you can easily hide.”

  My grandfather grunted in aggravation. “I don’t know how she hid it, to be honest. We own this town. Nothing goes on in it that we don’t know about. And the same holds true for all the surrounding towns. This kid? He looks exactly like you. Like your pop. There’s no way in hell that people didn’t make that connection. Unless people just didn’t see him at all.”

  June moved, her feet shifting on the loose gravel in the parking lot. Bringing not just my attention, but everyone’s attention, to her.

  She looked like she wanted to say something.

  “I don’t think that they’re ever seen together,” she said finally.

  My brows rose. “Never seen with her kid? Seems kind of… unmanageable,” I admitted. “Even if they didn’t go out and play at the park that the club frequented, there’s the grocery store. The doctor’s office. Hell, even the damn home improvement store. You just can’t hide from us. Everyone is loyal to the Dixie Wardens. Everyone.”

  June bit her lip, looking even more hesitant than before to open her mouth, and I couldn’t blame her. Anger was rolling off of me in waves.

  “What?”

  “How about you just ask her?”

  That, honestly, was the best suggestion I’d heard since I got there. “That’s fucking perfect,” I admitted. “Let’s just go and do that.”

  ***

  My lips were pressed tightly together, and I felt like I was having an out of body experience.

  Information was swirling around in my head, and I was counting dates in my head, adding times up to make sure that this was actually possible.

  News flash—it was.

  “She’s got a nanny,” Pops said. “She literally sees the boy once a week, and I honestly think that’s just so she can pay the nanny. The nanny takes a couple of hours off to do what she needs to do and then comes back around four in the afternoon. Rosie’s gone by five.”

  Anger burned in my chest.

  I didn’t know what to do or say.

  I also didn’t know what to think.

  Everything had changed.

  Everything.

  The boy was two years and four months old. I’d lost two years and four months of his life, and I’d never get it back.

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat.

  “What do I do?” I finally asked. “Can I just go over there and confront her?”

  Pops looked at his watch. “It’s two in the afternoon.”

  I didn’t see the relevance, which likely showed on my face.

  “Let’s go.” Pops gestured to the cars. “This ain’t gonna solve itself.”

  ***

  June rode with me, though I could tell she didn’t really want to leave her truck. Though, that might be due to the fact that she didn’t want to be stuck in mine with me. My anger was a living, breathing thing, its own entity right here in the cab of my truck with us. I wanted to be headed where we were going about as much as I wanted to shove a needle into my eye, and the closer we got, the angrier I became.

  So yeah, I understood June’s unease, but I needed her now. I needed her with me, and I wasn’t going to take no for an answer. She was just going to have to suck it up.

  “Do you want to do this alone or with everyone?” she asked quietly.

  I looked over at her. “Might as well be with everyone. There is no hiding from this.”

  And there wasn’t. Regardless of how much I might want to hide from my problems.

  This was one that I couldn’t hide from, and I needed my family there with me more than I needed air to breathe right about now.

  A father.

  I was someone’s father.

  I thought back to that last time that I’d been with Rosie three plus years ago.

  “I’ve missed two whole years.”

  And that didn’t sit well with me at all. When I’d envisioned having kids, I always imagined that I’d be there for—with—them just like my father had been with me.

  What kind of person did it make me that I had no clue that he’d ever been born?

  Chapter 23

  Change up your swear words. Call someone a piece of dick. Tell them to go asshole themselves.

  -Johnny to June

  June

  Johnny knocked on the door, his face almost red.

  I felt horrible for him.

  Absolutely, utterly horrible.

  If there was one thing in this world that I could save him from, it’d be the heartbreak that I could practically read on his face.

  He didn’t want to be here, but only because he didn’t want to admit that he’d screwed up—or at least that’s what he was thinking. He hadn’t screwed up. It wasn’t his fault Rosie was a twat.

  The other three people at our backs shifted when they heard the quick patter of feet heading our way inside the house, and then the door was thrown open and I lost the ability to look at anything else.

  “Hellooooooo!”

  The boy’s shriek had us all freezing to our spots, and then Johnny was holding a very excited, wiggling two-year-old.

  Rosie came up behind the small boy, and the moment her eyes landed on Johnny, her entire body went rock solid.

  Rosie’s features? She was clearly surprised to see us and more than a little wary.

  I felt a smug sort of satisfaction that I’d been the one to find her deception and expose it.

  I mean, really, what kind of person would hide a child from its father? A horrible person like Rosie apparently.

  We were all more than stunned at the way the little boy had thrown himself in his father’s arms.

  But no one was more surprised than Johnny was.

  He closed his arms around the boy and crouched down to his knees with the boy pulled tight to his chest.

  Seeing the two of them together, I realized that they were, indeed, a little different. The boy’s blond hair was a bit lighter than Johnny’s. Their eyes were also different colors and the shape of them was as well.

  Maybe he took after Rosie a bit in the feature department.

  “Johnny!” came Rosie’s surprised exclamation. “What are you doing here?”

  I pulled my lips between my teeth in order to keep my mouth shut and not scream obscenities at her.

  Baylee made a sound in her throat akin to a mama bear ready to kill someone for hurting her cub, and Sebastian placed his arm around her shoulder. I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a comforting gesture or one meant to hold her back in case she decided to act on what she was feeling and open up a can of whoop-ass on Rosie.

  Silas stayed silent, his eyes watchful and intent with a hardness that was almost cruel in them.

  Needless to say, he was quite a scary man.

  His grandson, however, wasn’t any better. I could tell with just one glance that Johnny was clearly not happy, and he was about to let the woman know it.

  Johnny gestured down to the child in his arms.

  “Seems like you have some explaining to do,” Johnny drawled.

  I didn’t mistake his calmly stated words for anything other than what they were: a threat.

  Rosie took a step back, clearly understanding the situation as well.

  “I…I don’t…”

  I practically saw the moment that she decided something. She gestured us all into the entryway. “Won’t you come in?”

  Her spine straightened, and a look of smug satisfaction took over her features.

  She took a long, narrow-eyed glance a
t me, and I felt like someone had just stolen something out of my chest.

  My heart, maybe?

  ‘Cause I felt like I’d been sucker punched.

  “I named him Hank, after your grandfather’s favorite singer,” Rosie said, sounding happy as we filed into the house.

  I looked over at said grandfather.

  “It was Hank? Not Johnny?” I asked as quietly as I could, hoping Rosie wouldn’t be able to hear.

  Silas met my eyes, and something passed between us. Suspicion of Rosie, maybe. Or possibly anger that she’d gotten it wrong?

  I wasn’t quite sure.

  He shook his head. “Actually, no, it is Johnny Cash.”

  It went without saying, but it was clear in the look he gave me, he thought she was a dumbass. Much like I did.

  I’d been right.

  And, honestly, it really wasn’t all that hard to figure. Not with Johnny’s name, and Sebastian’s middle name—which actually happened to be Sue, after the song, Boy Named Sue.

  From what I’d heard, Sebastian’s brother, Silas’s other son, was also named after Johnny Cash, but at that present moment, for the life of me, I couldn’t remember his name.

  So clearly, if Rosie had taken the time to think, she would’ve realized that Hank wasn’t the name she was looking for, it was Johnny.

  But that was apparently obvious only to me, probably because I had a lick of common sense that Rosie just didn’t possess.

  Johnny looked down at the little boy. “Your name is Hank?”

  Little Hank nodded. “Hank!”

  He really was absolutely adorable.

  I also noticed that Rosie had plastered a soft smile on her face that was aimed at Hank.

  But, I absolutely knew that it wasn’t a smile she normally had on her face when it came to the young boy.

  I don’t know how I knew that, but it felt like a rock in my belly. She wasn’t that type of mother. Hell, Silas had discovered as much with the little he’d uncovered in the short time he had while we waited for Johnny to drive over.

  So, what was her game?

  But, as I watched them talk some more, realization dawned, and I suddenly knew exactly what her game was.

  A perfect opportunity to get Johnny right where she wanted him.

  I felt my belly contract as it threatened to revolt.

  All those snack cakes I’d eaten were coming back to bite me in the ass.

  I suppose it was fitting for a day like today.

  I’d nearly convinced myself that I was okay, but then Rosie pressed her hand against Johnny’s shoulder, and he didn’t pull away.

  “I had no choice.”

  Bullshit.

  Everyone has a fucking choice.

  “Everyone has a choice,” Silas said, echoing my thoughts exactly, though a lot more eloquently.

  “I didn’t. It’s my mother who helps me pay for all of this.” She gestured at the house around her, then gestured to her son with a tilt of her head. “And Hank was a very sick baby when he was born. He had to have open-heart surgery when he was six days old. Since then he’s had two more. I needed her help in this. Since she didn’t like Johnny, it was either allow my son to suffer, or make him suffer.”

  Well, that was a damn good reason.

  At least, in my opinion.

  I wasn’t sure that Johnny felt the same way, but again, I wasn’t too sure what to feel myself.

  “Is he okay now?” Baylee asked, suddenly alarmed.

  She’d put voice to everyone’s fears, not just mine.

  Looking at Johnny’s face, I realized that he was alarmed as well.

  “Yes,” she hesitated. “They expect him to have to go through a few more surgeries, but for now, he’s fine and should be for a while.”

  I didn’t know quite what that meant, but I was sure that Johnny would figure it out, and then let me know.

  For now, I had to go get some air. Listening to her talk, trying to get into Johnny’s good graces.

  I couldn’t make myself catch my breath, and I was literally on the verge of passing out.

  So, I went outside and nearly ran into the nanny who was on her way back inside.

  She stepped back, took one look at my face, and thrust her arms underneath mine to help in case I fell.

  “Are you okay?”

  And that was how I went about telling a practical stranger about all that had happened over the last couple of hours.

  By the time I was finished, she looked like she’d swallowed a bug.

  “You’re the nanny, right?” I asked, wondering about her reaction.

  She looked almost…alarmed.

  She nodded. “Brigid. Mrs. Corrasion hired me. The elder Mrs. Corrasion. Not the younger,” she explained.

  I nodded my head in understanding. “You’re a home care nurse?”

  I think that was what she’d corrected me with a few moments into my story, when I’d explained that I’d seen her, “the nanny,” leave, as well as what information Silas had been able to give us in his short time researching.

  “Yes,” she said. “I was originally his home care nurse, and then I was hired to take care of him because…”

  She halted her words mid-sentence.

  I waited for her to finish, but she didn’t.

  Then I wondered why she didn’t.

  “Because…” I said, hoping she’d finish.

  She didn’t.

  I could tell that she didn’t plan to, either. At least not right now.

  But her hesitation made my insides swirl again.

  Something was wrong here.

  Something was very, very wrong.

  An idea struck me, and I lifted the purse I’d been holding for this entire time from my shoulders, and then dug inside to find my cards. The cards that Coke had made for me so I could hand them out to anybody who might need them.

  I handed her my number. “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call.”

  She took it gingerly, then deposited it in her shirt.

  “I’ll call.”

  ***

  What I hadn’t expected was for her to call when Johnny and I were walking in the door of his apartment.

  It was silently agreed upon that it was best to go to his place seeing as at my place, Amanda would be home for at least another couple of hours before she was to be at work.

  I answered the phone right after we breached the threshold of his place.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this June?”

  I instantly knew who it was that had called. Brigid.

  Johnny slammed the door closed and passed by me with a flourish that made me realize he was more on edge than he’d appeared.

  I bit my lip and tried to keep my voice quiet as I spoke.

  “It is,” I confirmed. “How are you?”

  “I’m…I’m…can you meet me next Saturday?” she whispered.

  I thought about that.

  Could I?

  Yes, yes, I absolutely could.

  “Yes,” I said, looking over at Johnny who was grabbing a beer out of his fridge. While I was watching, he twisted the top off, threw the cap on the counter, and then tilted the beer up to his lips. He didn’t stop drinking until it was gone.

  I swallowed, knowing that I couldn’t tell him about this. Not yet, anyway.

  He had to work next Saturday anyway since he was off this Saturday, so what he didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him, right?

  “Okay, great. I get off at like ten, and I’ll have about two hours of free time before I have to get my errands under control and tackled. Could you meet me at…” she rattled off a specific place, and I realized I was going to have to drive another hour there and back, but I didn’t care.

  I had a feeling I was going to want to know what she had to say.

  “That’ll work. If you have any changes, let me know.”

  “I won’t,” she said
with certainty.

  Then she hung up, making me realize that it was a good thing I’d said yes.

  My suspicions grew.

  “Who was that?” Johnny asked as he tossed his empty beer bottle into the trash, and then immediately walked to the fridge to get another one.

  “Umm,” I paused. “Amanda. She wanted to know if I could pick something up.”

  I’d just lied to him, and I felt like shit about it.

  Yet, my gut was telling me to keep my suspicions, which were quickly growing, quiet. I needed to be careful with how I approached him with my fears.

  This day had been a whirlwind for the both of us, him more so than me.

  Another cap hit the counter, bouncing off to hit the floor, and I watched as he tilted back yet another beer.

  This time, he stopped with about half left in the bottle.

  He set it down on the counter and then started stalking toward me.

  The look in his eye made it clear what his intentions were—me.

  “Johnny…”

  I really didn’t think that him fucking me was the best course of action right now. He needed to talk about his day…not bury it.

  But I realized when his arms went around me, and his mouth came down on mine, that he wasn’t going to talk about his day.

  He needed some time to process everything, and he needed to work out his emotions on me, so I was going to give that to him.

  My shirt was off in the next breath followed by my bra, my pants and then my panties.

  I slipped my boots off as he was working to get me naked, and soon I found myself with my back to his air mattress, and his body covering mine.

  Before I could pull his mouth down on my own, he had me on my stomach and my hips up in the air with his mouth buried in the place where I most loved it to be buried.

  “Oh God,” I moaned. “Johnny!”

  Johnny’s tongue found my entrance, and he circled it before plunging his tongue into me as far as he could while still maintaining an airway.

  I spread my legs wider, and he pulled back, only to drag his mouth up to my back entrance.

  Just when I thought his tongue was going to touch that forbidden place, he pulled back and positioned himself on the bed behind me.

  I looked at him over my shoulder, and what I saw made my heart flutter inside my chest.