by Liz Crowe
“I’ll set up camp down at the new barn. That office is heated. All I require is a sleeping bag…or a companion.” He’d waggled his eyebrows at Diana, who’d blushed and sworn off him for the zillionth time at that moment.
Angelique had been sullen and withdrawn for a few days until Diana had read her the riot act, reminded her Brantley’s wasn’t a flophouse, and threatened to send her home unless she started pulling her weight. God knew they had enough to do, between keeping up with catering, the deli, and ongoing construction. As Diana figured she would, the girl got her ass out of bed and had been a huge help ever since, taking a major load off her own daily to-do lists with her chopping, slicing, mixing, and baking.
But Angelique refused to entertain conversation about what had happened to her. And would shut down completely if the topic of going home, or talking with her mother, got raised. The brothers came and went, pleading with her, all but Dom, of course who claimed the two of them were the Love family outcasts and would stay that way.
“Diana….”
She sat up, hair hanging over her face, cold and clammy from the dream, head pounding with anxiety. After spending a wild night out in the new barn with Dom, the couch had presented with the easiest, quickest surface to collapse onto. She hurt all over. Lee had been gone too long. The man really needed to come home from his stint out at some ranch in Wyoming, working with newbie vets. He really, really needed to get his ass home and save her from this mess.
“Hey, hon, sorry. I’m sorry to wake you.”
Lindsay Love was in her living room, seeming small and lost—two things the woman had never been, best of Diana’s memory. She fussed with her hair, newly grown out and a slightly deeper shade of red since chemo had taken it, clenched and unclenched her fingers and finally took a seat when Diana didn’t say anything to her.
“We should have a little talk.”
“Okay.” Diana swung her feet to the floor, wondering how to parse the concept that Lindsay’s daughter hadn’t spoken to her in nearly six months while hiding out here, at Diana’s house.
Lindsay touched her knee. “It’s not about Angelique, although Lord knows I should be figuring something out about that girl.”
Diana blinked, confused. “Right, well….”
“It’s about Dominic.” Lindsay jumped up again and started pacing. “Do you have anything we can drink?”
“Uh, sure. Hang on.” She found some bourbon and two glasses.
“Just a cube of ice, if you don’t mind.”
Still mystified by the whole scene, Diana poured a couple of fingers each for them and gave Lindsay her glass, noting how much the woman shook as she put it on the coffee table in front of her. After about a minute of silence, she met Diana’s eyes. “I’ve been in contact with him—with…Kent.”
Diana’s swallow of bourbon went down the wrong way, making her splutter and cough. Lindsay smacked her on the back, then took a long breath.
“He contacted me in an email. I check that thing maybe once a week, but I happened to be going through it the other day. And there it sat—a message from Kent, Dominic’s…um…his…”
“Lover,” Diana finished for her, her voice flat.
“Yes, well…And so, he’s…he’s in New York it would seem. He wanted me to tell Dominic that he’d been there since…well… that he’s been trying to reach him.”
“Dom threw his phone out.” Diana sipped her drink, feeling strangely objective about the conversation. “What was that? Two years ago now?”
“That long?” Lindsay leveled her gaze at her.
At that moment, Diana realized how much this woman had been through thanks to the fact that she’d fallen hard in love with stable boy at her wealthy father’s horse farm. So much so she’d tossed her life aside in favor of the chaos they’d created between them. It stifled her urge to say something mildly smartassed. Lindsay Love deserved her respect no matter her seeming inability to communicate with her one daughter. “So, Diana, you and I have to come to an understanding.” Lindsay’s knowing expression sent a thrill of anger down Diana’s spine.
“Do we?” She had no idea what had brought out this confrontational thing in her, but something about this conversation had her on the defensive. What in the name of the good Lord made Dominic’s mother think she would be facilitating some sort of reunion between him and the man who’d fucked him up so badly he’d been hiding out at her place for almost two years? She got to her feet. So did Lindsay. The women glared at each other across a generation and a coffee table.
Lindsay made a point to look right at the ring on Diana’s finger, which made her tilt her chin up in a show of defiance. “You don’t intimidate me, Missus Love.”
“I’m not attempting to, dear. I have no real quarrel with you. If anything you’ve provided more for Dominic, and now I suppose for my daughter, than anyone. While I can’t fathom why you let him keep coming back here to you, I want you to know I very much appreciate it, as his mother.”
Diana nodded, unsure as to where this might be going.
“He’s always been so…confused. So angry and easily upset.” Lindsay seemed to deflate again. “We thought, I mean, his daddy and I…we…don’t understand the psychiatry thing much, but we wanted to help him. But he kept tossing that away too, every time we’d get him sorted out, medically speaking he’d manage to get un-sorted.” She dropped onto the couch.
Diana stayed standing, legs shaking, wishing this woman were her motherin-law. Her knees give out from underneath her at Lindsay’s next words.
“Kent found Dominic’s son. He went there, to New York, to find the boy once he figured out Dom wouldn’t answer his calls or anything.”
“He…Dom…threw out his phone.” Diana could barely hear her own voice.
Lindsay patted her leg. “Yes, honey, you reminded me of that already.” She grabbed Diana’s chin. “We have to have an understanding now, Diana. You’re a grown woman. You’ve been married. Seen the puppet strings. And I know how you feel about my son.”
“I…d-d-d-don’t know what you’re….”
Lindsay shook her head. Diana’s mouth clapped closed as she continued, “Dominic has a way about him and you have never stepped too far out of his line of fire. I realize that. I’m not naïve or as stupid as my sons like to think I am.”
Diana burst out laughing. “Sorry. But stupid is not something anyone thinks about you.”
Bossy. Know-it-all. Nosy, maybe. Never stupid.
The woman waved dismissively. “Listen to me a minute.” She grabbed Diana’s left hand before she could move and yanked it up so it hovered between them. The triple diamonds set in antique gold caught the sunlight perfectly. She winced. “You have a fine man who loves you. I’ve heard so many nice things about that Dr. Tolliver.”
Diana attempted to tug free of the woman’s grip. But Lindsay tightened it as her words became more clipped, making her sound angry or maybe just resigned.
“Get your head straight, Diana. Let go of Dominic and focus on your future, d’ya hear me now?” She let go and took a long breath. “Kent asked me if I would figure out a way to get Dom to see him. So he could introduce him to…to the boy. Jace is the child’s name. Not short for Jason or anything Christian or civilized. But that Gina was a real…. Well, anyway, not sorry to see the door slamming her in the butt on her way out. Even though it meant she took my grandbaby with her. And now….” Lindsay shook her head. “I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“The…the dead?” Diana kept staring at her left ring finger as if it held all the answers she required. A fresh bolt of resolve shot through her, but she’d become familiar with it and how to ignore it. “Dominic’s son is….”
“No. Thank the good Lord. The girl, Gina. She died when Jace was a baby. Left him with her sister. But then that girl ran off and left him alone with a…person who….” Lindsay sucked in a breath. “Kent says he finally tracked Jace down in some halfway house. He was too wild to stay with any fos
ter families after all that.”
Diana did a quick calculation in her head. “Wild? He’s what, seven?”
Lindsay nodded. “All I ever wanted was for the boys to find happiness, lives they enjoyed, no matter what. And a lot of grandbabies to spoil.” She bit her lip. “Seems as though I’m getting part of that wish. Kieran and Cara are expecting.”
“Oh, I didn’t know they got married.”
“They didn’t.” Lindsay kept her gaze on the ceiling.
“Oh, well, congratulations.”
“Will you tell Dominic, about Jace…and Kent?”
“Me?” Diana grabbed her glass, downed the remaining bourbon and poured another healthy splash.
Lindsay held up her empty glass. “Don’t be stingy, young lady. I know your mama raised you better than that.”
The women sipped in silence.
“All right,” Diana said after getting the words straight in her mind. “I will help you. But you have to do something for me.”
Lindsay raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. Not for the first time, Diana thought that the woman would be a staunch friend to have in her corner—and the sort of enemy she’d find hard to make and very much regret making.
“You have to talk to Angelique. She’s a help to me, but it’s not where she should be.”
Diana sensed Lindsay getting her back up across the coffee table by the way her shoulders lifted and her lips turned downward so she rushed forward with her thought before she lost her nerve. “You have wonderful sons, Missus Love. But sometimes I think you forget you have a daughter, too.”
“I don’t forget. I’m just too exhausted to deal with her.”
“She needs you right now. She hasn’t talked to any of us about what happened that night. And the sweetest man, Cal, the EMT who found her, is desperate to get her to pay attention to him. She has to get back to her life and quit hiding from it. Loves are not cowards and she’s actin’ like one.” Diana waited, hoping she hadn’t pissed the woman off too much, but going one step further regardless. “She needs some therapy, Miss Lindsay. The girl was raped, beaten, left for dead, but she hangs around here and pretends like it was nothing. That…can’t be good, right?”
Diana bit her lip to keep from saying anything more. She knew that had gotten to the woman. Dominic’s mother crossed her arms. Keeping her gaze on Diana’s she called out, “Angelique? Mama’s here. Come on down and let’s go get some dinner and…talk a little.”
After a while, the young woman appeared on the lowest step, her face stormy and obstinate. Lindsay turned to her daughter, hesitated about three seconds then walked to her and put her arms around her. Angelique fought it, then closed her eyes and white-knuckled the back of her mother’s shirt.
Smiling, Diana gathered up the empty glasses and headed for the kitchen. A quick mother-daughter hug would not cure all their many years of ingrained confrontation, but it sure as hell was a step in the right direction. She started to put the bourbon away, then remembered her end of the bargain—one that meant she had to give up Dom for good—and took another slug from the neck of it, blaming the alcohol for the tightness in her chest and the tears standing in her eyes.
Chapter Sixteen
Then
Dominic glared down at the ratty carpet, ignoring Gina’s complaints as best he could. But the woman had the sort of dog-deafening, ear-piercing voice that would not be denied attention. He dropped onto the mattress, exhausted in body and spirit, as Gina paced the small room, hands on her back, her stomach sticking way out in front of her. His head pounded with anxiety. The room darkened, then lightened, which reminded him that his internal chemistry was readjusting itself again.
“I hate this hillbilly town, Dominic. I want to go home.”
Now that they were stateside, she’d dropped her exotic foreign-ness and regressed into the Bronx she’d left behind. It grated on him in so many ways, but he wouldn’t allow anger to take hold. She was going to have his child. He had to be a man now, or at least give a good performance at being one.
His vision sharpened, allowing him to see outlines of things he normally missed—the ripped wallpaper dangling from a corner of the room, the drops of rain beading up on the single window over the kitchenette sink, the way Gina’s lank hair dragged the tops of her shoulders.
He groaned and draped his arm over his eyes. He hated this stage. The hypersensitive vision and hearing he’d develop as he detoxed was familiar and awful at the same time. But he’d be damned if he’d ask his father to pay for the new drugs, despite his mother’s insistence that she’d make sure he did. The man had barely acknowledged his existence for the past two months, letting the current brew master boss Dom around like some kind of non-relative, neophyte gopher.
Antony had gotten up his face a total of once over it, sensing his withdrawal symptoms almost better than he did. But Dom had put an end to that with a couple of hard hits to the sorry so-and-so’s jaw.
“Don’t tell me how to live my life when you won’t even come out of the house or see your own daughter, you colossal ass.”
“Dominic,” Gina whined. “Let’s just go. Nobody likes me here. They barely like you. Your brother’s all fucked up and your mother has to take care of that squally kid.” She dropped onto the mattress beside him. He shifted away, not wanting her to touch him.
Ants crawled over his skin. A regular squadron of them paraded across his scalp. He itched everywhere. His legs were twitchy. He jumped up and headed for the fridge, praying he’d remembered to bring home a few samples from some recipes he’d been monkeying with on the pilot system.
He grabbed the growler and drank half of whatever it contained, barely tasting it but welcoming the fizziness on his tongue that heralded the alcohol heading into his system. Gina propped up on her elbows. He glared at her.
“I hate you. I’m leaving.”
“Whatever,” he replied, barely registering her words, unable to rip his gaze from the way his fingers looked, hanging onto the bottle for dear life. She claimed to be leaving pretty much every day. But he figured she wouldn’t, now that Lindsay dragged her to breathing classes and to the doctor every other day. He flinched at the sound of the slamming door, knocking the bottle to the floor.
He looked down at it, marveling in a detached way how the remaining amber-colored brew puddled at his feet and the shards of glass glittered like gems. His eyes burned, his shoulders ached. He longed for one thing—to have Diana Brantley in his arms.
He got up with a curse and wobbled the few feet between the table and mattress before flopping down and welcoming the darkness.
The jangling phone woke him. He crawled over to where it sat perched on a cardboard box. “What,” he barked into the cracked receiver.
“Dominic Sean, where is Gina?” His mother’s voice sounded tenser than usual.
“Uh…not sure, why?”
“I just got a call from Pauline down at the Publix. She says she saw the girl weaving around like she was drunk in the parking lot. You’d best get over there.”
“Mama, I can’t be responsible for her.”
“I’m gonna pretend I did not hear that fall out of your fool mouth. Get off your butt. Go get her. She’s carrying my grandbaby.”
He groaned and threw the receiver across the room. No one understood him. Nobody gave two shits about his wellbeing. It was the baby twenty-four seven. He tried to get up, but felt set in slowly firming concrete. His feet weighed ten thousand pounds each. His neck ached when he raised his head. The darkness beckoned him like a lover.
When he woke again, the apartment had gone pitch black and smelled like the inside of a beer bottle. Dom sat up, relieved that the mired-in-mud sensation had passed. But his head ached and his stomach clenched with hunger. The buzz-buzz of an off-the-hook phone made him curse. He snagged the thing and slammed it down in the cradle about a split second before it jangled, making him wince in pain.
“Yeah,” he grunted into it, wondering if there was a
ny food in the fridge.
“Dominic, I’m at the bus station in Lexington. You gotta bring me some money.”
“Uh, what?” He tried to get his addled brain to focus. “You’re where?”
“The goddamn Greyhound station. Get up here and give me ticket money.”
“Where’re you going?” He sat on the mattress, heart in his throat, the realization that he hovered on the verge of failing at something he’d never be able to fix giving him chills. “Gina?”
“Home, you fucking idiot. Bring money.” She hung up. He jumped to his feet, found jeans and a sweatshirt, and pounded down the metal steps to the family truck, driving on autopilot the thirty-some miles between him and the woman he hated but couldn’t let go.
She was silhouetted by the weak light of the station, hard to miss given the way she seemed swollen and bent backward by the weight of the baby she carried. Leaving the engine running, he leapt out and reached for her, desperation clanging inside his head and chest like the world’s loudest cymbal concert.
“Let go ’a me,” she snapped. A couple of nosy guys hovered.
“This guy botherin’ you, hon?” one of them asked, giving Dominic the evil eye.
“Fuck off, old timer,” he muttered then glared at Gina. “Don’t be so dramatic. You’re not leaving. Let’s go home.”
“You’re deaf and stupid. I am going home. My home.” She winced and rubbed her belly. “Damn kid. I shoulda stayed at that clinic and never told you.”
He clenched his jaw. “Look, Gina, I get it that you don’t like me, but let’s just go home and….”
“You are the biggest loser on the planet, Dominic. Now give me ticket money so I can get the fuck out of your life.”