They were silent for a moment as they looked at each other. “That’s quite a stretch then, between you and Calvin,” Edward said. “You weren’t kidding when you said you were a late-in-life surprise to your parents.”
“My youngest older brother is more than twice my age. And I guess I know my brothers better than my sisters, because by the time I came along my sisters had already gotten married and left home.”
She looked at Warren, who hadn’t said anything. His look steady, he said, “Why don’t you give your folks a call after dinner, let them know we’ll come and visit tomorrow? If you like, we’ll just introduce me as your boyfriend.”
She looked from Warren to Edward.
“Warren is the oldest,” Edward said. “It’s family tradition, beautiful, and I certainly don’t mind letting your family believe we’re just friends—for now.”
“No.”
“It’s all right, Carol. And it really is family tradition. Since the first Benedicts came to this land with their Sarah, and then were joined by Adam Kendall, Warren Jessop, and Amanda Dupree, later Amanda Jessop-Kendall, that’s how it’s been done. The oldest is the ‘official’ boyfriend, fiancé, and later, husband.”
Warren had slipped into his “geeky” mode, which he hadn’t done around her since before he’d told her they were going to the dance last Tuesday.
Carol shook her head. “I meant, no, I’m not going to call them because we’re not going to go visit them.”
“Okay.” Warren tested the temperature of the fat in the frying pan, and then set the pieces of chicken in to fry.
The sizzle and pop of the meat frying reminded her of Sunday dinners at home, when her mother would instruct her, as she always did, on how to set the table. She’d always thought the way her mother always seemed to want to instruct her in everything with so much detail over and over again was a personal affectation—just her mother’s personality.
How could I have never known what she was really doing and why? Why didn’t she ever see me?
Warren’s easy capitulation made her blink. She didn’t like the way she was feeling, as if her emotions were churning inside her body like hot lava. This was why she never spoke about her family. Thinking about them just brought everything back, especially that ugly confrontation on New Year’s Day. “Okay?”
“Yes, okay.”
She looked at Edward but he didn’t say anything, just gave her that smile of his. She turned back to Warren.
“Oh.” Carol felt as if she needed to sit down and try to take stock of what exactly had happened over the last fifteen minutes, or so. She kind of felt as if things were happening around her that she didn’t understand, as if there were undercurrents in the air she was missing.
She hated that feeling more than she hated just about anything.
Warren seemed to understand that she was confused, but he couldn’t possibly know the reason. Could he? “We’re not going to make you do something you clearly don’t want to do, sweetheart, not when it upsets you so much.”
“You’re not?”
“No, of course not. Not even something as normal as visiting your elderly parents.”
“Don’t you dare use that word against me!”
Both men stared at her as if they didn’t know her. And really, she guessed she couldn’t blame them.
She’d just screamed at them at the top of her lungs. And then she burst into tears.
* * * *
Warren had hoped to find out what demon had been haunting their woman. He’d just never thought they would stumble upon it so unexpectedly, or so soon.
Edward’s face reflected his own sadness as Warren stepped forward and pulled Carol into his arms.
His brother managed to get up from the bench behind the table, and then he, too, was there, surrounding her, letting her weep as if her heart was breaking.
Listening to her sobs and knowing there was nothing he could do but hold her was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do.
Carol began to step back, and they eased their hold of her, but didn’t release her.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened.” She wiped at her eyes. Edward had been closest to the box of tissues so he snagged a couple and handed them to her. When she’d mopped up, she looked embarrassed. He saw her gaze hit the floor and he lifted her chin until he could see her beautiful blue eyes. “Don’t apologize, love. We’re not here just for a good time. It’s not just your body we’re interested in, it’s all of you.” He kissed her nose.
“We’ll have our supper, and then you can tell us about your dragons.”
“I don’t know if I want to do that.”
Warren looked at Ed. His brother ran his hand across Carol’s back. “We know you don’t want to, beautiful.” He bent and kissed her cheek. “But you obviously have something that is troubling you. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re in a relationship—a serious one. And sharing your burdens is one of the perks.”
“You can be certain that we’ll share ours in turn,” Warren said. “In fact, as soon as you finish telling us about what’s troubling you, Ed is going to tell us about his nightmares.”
His brother jerked his head around, and Warren met his defiant gaze with what he hoped was an authoritative older-brother kind of resolve.
They hadn’t spoken of them, ever. But he’d always known they existed, just as he knew he’d had one the last time Mom was here making banana bread.
As he’d hoped, Carol’s response was immediate. She turned in his arms to face his brother. “You have nightmares?”
Ed nodded tightly, and then said, “I don’t like to talk about them.”
“I know what you mean. I don’t really want to talk about my family, either.” She looked over her shoulder and shot a defiant look at Warren.
Warren said nothing, just raised one eyebrow and looked at Ed.
“Beautiful?” When he had Carol’s attention, Ed said, “Maybe that’s the point. We don’t like to talk about them, because we feel vulnerable, and we think we need to keep everything in, tight. To protect ourselves.”
Carol was nodding, and Warren wondered if she’d understand what Ed was hinting at. And then he mentally smiled when she looked up at Ed, looked back at him, and sighed. “You shouldn’t have to protect yourself around us. I want to be there for you, for when you need me—just as I want you to be there for me when I need you.”
“Yeah, us, too,” Ed said. “So I guess we have to share, don’t we? Not just the fun and the good times, but the stinky, icky, emotional baggage crap, too.”
Carol laughed, just a tiny little chuckle that told Warren more than words could have that she was going to do just that.
“Yeah,” she said. “I guess we do.”
Warren didn’t push, not either of them. He put his attention back on frying the chicken. One side was really golden, so he flipped the pieces over, and then set a lid on the pan, turning it down so it could finish cooking. Their mom had dropped off a large bowl of her very tasty rice salad yesterday. Thinking of her, he brought out some vegetables and chopped them to go on a plate in the center of the table.
Anna Jessop was a firm believer in lots of raw veggies. Warren guessed that really, he was, too.
Carol and Ed worked together to set the table. Warren didn’t care if they formed a kind of united front against him. He imagined that there might be times, for the rest of their lives, when that happened.
He would be the head of this family.
Warren thought of the words his cousin Robert had said earlier, about his having Dom qualities. He’d never really thought about it much, but he guessed that all his life, he’d felt a certain level of responsibility when it came to his sister and his brothers. The only one left in Lusty was Ed, and they were similar in a lot of ways, so maybe that “Dom” quality had lain dormant within him. He mentally shrugged. He wasn’t going to go out and buy leathers and a whip anytime soon. He was just going to continue to be him
self.
He’d bet the world was full of a lot of Dominants who never really took up the lifestyle the way his cousins Robert and David had—or the way his cousins’ friends, the Fitzpatrick’s and the Lyons’, had.
Carol helped him put the food on the table. Once she sat, positioning herself between himself and Edward, he took a moment to hug her from behind.
“Everything is going to be all right. You know that, don’t you?”
“I’m afraid that once I tell you, you’ll change how you look at me—how you feel about me and how you treat me.”
They hadn’t said the words to her, because despite the fact that they’d known she was the one for them since February, they really hadn’t done anything about making them, as a trio, a reality until Saturday.
Maybe the time has come to let her know exactly how we feel.
“If you’ve committed a series of murders, Carol, Ed and I will help you ensure the bodies are never found.”
She laughed, as he hoped she would, at the serious way he’d intoned that pronouncement. He smiled, and then gave her the bottom line.
“But even if you have, that will not change the fact that we are both very much in love with you.”
Chapter 11
Carol wasn’t used to being waited on quite this way. The dinner that Warren prepared had been delicious, and she’d eaten more than she’d intended. Then he’d served up coffee and little dishes of Blue Bell’s Southern Blackberry Cobbler ice cream.
Life didn’t get much better than this, and she absolutely hated the fact that she felt like an inmate enjoying a last meal before the hangman’s noose.
Edward used his good hand to pour them each a cup of coffee. She looked up and blushed when she realized that she’d been staring down at her now-melted ice cream, using her spoon to draw lazy patterns through it.
She sighed and set the spoon down. I guess I might as well get it said. But how? And where do I start?
Carol let her thoughts roam. She began to think about last New Year’s, and the way, before everything came out, her sisters had formed a united front, based on their own personal agenda. They had been planning to tell mom that they didn’t think she was demanding enough of her.
What a joke.
And then her mind drifted back, over the years of her childhood, and she knew she needed to start there. “I need to tell you, first, that when I started out in school, the teachers discovered, by third grade, that I was dyslexic. I remember there was a meeting at the school, and my parents went. I really don’t know what happened at that meeting, but my third grade teacher, Miss Millgard, worked with me, as did my next couple of teachers. I still have to pay attention when I read and write, of course. But mostly, I think I’ve overcome that disability.”
“Dyslexia is a common disorder, sweetheart,” Warren said. “Certainly nothing to be ashamed of—especially not in these enlightened times.”
“I know. I never really thought much of it, to be honest with you. There was another girl at school, a year ahead of me, who had the same difficulty. No one ever teased me or said anything to me about it. I didn’t know at the time that that meeting at the school was a kind of a sign post, I guess. It was a validation of something that I had no idea about until very recently.”
Carol took a moment to organize her thoughts. “My parents never really asked a lot of me. And I never really thought much about that, growing up. When I turned fifteen, or maybe it was sixteen, I remember thinking that I had a lot fewer chores at home than any of my classmates who were also farm kids. But I also knew that in a way, I was mom and dad’s ‘second family.’ Did I think I was a little spoiled? Yeah, I guess I did. In fact, I was certain that I was. But instead of feeling entitled, that sense of being spoiled made me want to do more—and be more, in a way.” She looked up and noticed that neither man seemed inclined to interrupt her, but that both were listening.
“I do recall thinking that it was awfully easy to get my parents’ praise. I wasn’t a straight-A student, dyslexia aside. I guess my mind isn’t given to academics. I passed every year, but I was never going to win any awards or scholarships.”
“I wasn’t a great student either,” Edward said, “until I decided, with Warren, to go to the community college in Austin and pursue my paramedic degree. That was when the lights really went on for me.”
Carol grinned. She couldn’t help it. His face lit up whenever he talked about being a paramedic. “I wanted to be a teacher, but my folks discouraged me in that. I figured it was because the farm wasn’t doing well, and there was no money for me to go to university or college. The whole country seemed to be in the Dumpster, economically speaking. So I didn’t push—I was never the pushy sort.”
Warren tilted his head to one side. “No. You strike me as the shy, introverted sort. Don’t want to make waves, or make anyone feel bad.”
Carol nodded. “That’s how I’ve always been, exactly. A lot like the two of you, huh?”
Edward nodded. “That is only one of the reasons why we are so perfect for each other.”
The telling seemed easier, now. “I recall Mom saying that I was nothing like my sisters. I guess they’d given her quite the run for her money when they were teens. I heard tales of their being boisterous, rowdy, argumentative—and fighting with each other more often than not. Anyway, I didn’t make waves, but I did want to work. I wanted to earn my way. And since, I thought, that the farm wasn’t doing all that well, I figured if I could train for something and get a job and make money, I could pay room and board, and that would be a help to my family.”
“Was it?”
She didn’t answer Warren right away. “You see, I really thought that mom was just—well the way she had always treated me was just the way she was. Like I said, I had very few chores, but I also had very few freedoms. Not that I felt held back, so much, as I felt overprotected. And I never confronted them about that—about any of that. I was too easygoing, I guess. I wasn’t all that interested in boys in high school. I was definitely a late bloomer. So the rule that I couldn’t date until after I was out of high school, while I thought was excessively protective, I didn’t argue about, because there wasn’t anyone I wanted to date—or who wanted to date me.” Carol shook her head. “I took a one-year course to become an esthetician and I found an affinity for the work—and for making people feel good. Mom and dad seemed pleased that I wanted to earn my way, but they were still very protective of me.” She paused for a moment, because now the telling would be more emotional. She couldn’t help it. “Not long after I started working, they began inviting Frank Simpson—a widowed neighbor who was about my brother, Larry’s age—over for Sunday dinners.”
“They were setting you up with a man more than twice your age?” Warren sounded horrified at the notion.
“You see? I didn’t even guess that was what they were doing, but you figured it out right away.”
“You can’t blame yourself for not seeing that, beautiful.” Ed ran his hand down her back.
“No, I guess not. Anyway, all my sisters and brothers were all there on New Year’s Day this past January for dinner. Frank Simpson had been invited, too, but he’d declined at the last minute. Mom was really upset about that.” Carol took a deep breath. “She kept going on and on and on about how unfortunate it was he hadn’t been able to come. Both of my sisters let mom know that they were glad the man had canceled, because neither of them could stand him. They even listed some of his not-so-fine qualities. Mom lost her temper, and told them they’d better learn to stand him, because she and dad had chosen him to be my husband.”
“They did what?” Warren nearly shouted the roof down.
“I was totally shocked. I remember I couldn’t say anything, I was so floored. I just sat there with my mouth open, and tears in my eyes. I couldn’t believe they would plan to do such a thing without even consulting me.”
“You couldn’t stand Mr. Simpson, either?” Edward asked.
“No, I cou
ldn’t. He’s disgusting.”
“Then what happened, baby?” Warren picked up one of her hands and held it between the two of his. His touch felt warm, and she understood, that in the telling of this horrid tale, she’d gone very cold, inside and out.
“My sister, Jane, was yelling at my mother, that even if I was a spoiled, pampered little brat, she still had no right to marry me off to an old pervert. My mother yelled right back that they had to do something, because it was their responsibility to see to my future, since I wasn’t normal—since I was mentally challenged.”
“Oh, for the love God, Carol! How could your mother ever think such a thing?” Ed was furious, on her behalf.
“Hell, no wonder you don’t want to visit them,” Warren said. He was just as angry as his brother. “One only has to talk to you to know you’re not challenged in the slightest.”
“That’s what Jane said. She’s a nurse and she works with developmentally challenged people and she told Mom point blank that there was absolutely nothing wrong with me. And then she demanded to know where she’d gotten the idea that there was.”
“Your mother told her about the dyslexia?”
“That was her first defense. By then, I had left shocked behind and was getting pretty angry, myself. I told everyone at that table that yes, I was dyslexic but that I had overcome the disability. Then Jane, who has never really been a friend to me, pointed at me and said, ‘See? Dyslexia is a disability that can be overcome. It’s not a mental deficiency.’”
Love Under Two Responders [The Lusty, Texas Collection] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 11