Stubborn Truth (The Stubborn Series Book 3)

by Arnold, Jeanne

  I sat in the empty room trying to figure out my next move. Gabe wasn’t in a hurry to come after me. That hurt more than when he slammed the door in my face.

  Deliah’s door was open, so I got up and took a peek inside. She was under the covers. Her sweater was set across the foot of the bed. I’d forgotten about my earlier mission to uncover the truth about her mother and father and the baby. I slid my hand in the pocket, and she rolled over.

  “Now you show up? I called you all night. I needed you desperately.”

  “I dropped my phone in the snow,” I told her. The letter was gone. I pretended to move the sweater to make room.

  “Are you sleeping here?” she asked and sat up. Light from outside streamed in and lit her face and her braided hair.

  “I will if Lane says it’s okay.”

  “There’s nobody in that room. Josh stays up all night playing games out there. Uncle Jud was supposed to have the extra room upstairs, but he disappeared. Lane must be planning to have lots of kids someday.”

  “Meggie said you were upset.”

  “She’s exaggerating, like usual.”

  I rolled my eyes. The girl was beyond ornery.

  * * *

  Deliah nudged my shoulder. I couldn’t get through the night without her pestering me. I considered playing dead. After a minute, she stopped.

  I was drifting off when the bed dipped at my feet. She hadn’t left.

  “You should go back to bed. It’s the middle of the night,” I told her.

  She didn’t answer me.

  “Deliah, go sleep in your own bed. We’ll talk in the morning.”

  “I don’t have a bed here,” the deep voice replied.

  I rolled over and hid my face in the pillow. I didn’t want to talk to him.

  “I had to break in to find you,” Gabe whispered.

  I turned my head to check the clock. It was two in the morning.

  “Lane almost shot me.”

  I had nothing to say.

  “You don’t care that my brother stuck a loaded rifle in my back?”

  I sighed. “He has a family to protect. You shouldn’t break into his house.”

  “You shouldn’t be in his house either,” he replied.

  “You shouldn’t slam doors in people’s faces.” I almost choked on the last word. I managed to keep my voice even.

  He didn’t respond.

  “I don’t want to talk to you,” I said.

  Gabe lifted the covers and climbed into the bed. I scooted over to the wall as fast as I could. I wasn’t going to let him touch me.

  “I don’t want you here. I want to go back to sleep,” I told him.

  He didn’t answer. He sat up and pulled off his boots. I heard them hit the floor, one at a time. He rolled over and lifted the covers over us.

  “Goodnight, Av’ry,” he said with his back to me.

  I ground my teeth. What was he doing? He had to know how upset he made me. I could smell his cologne and something sweet. He was going to drive me insane. There was no way I would sleep.

  I listened for his breathing to change. Then I heard someone walking around upstairs.

  “You’re not sleeping,” he said.

  I didn’t move.

  “You want to talk, but you won’t admit it.”

  “Not true,” I said. "Just go."

  He rolled over. I tensed when his leg touched the back of mine.

  “That’s not what you want.”

  I lifted my head. “You lied to me. I don’t want you here.”

  “Aw, Av’ry,” he said irritated. He had no right to be irritated.

  I kicked my covers and crawled to the bottom of the mattress. I didn’t have my feet free of the blanket before he had a hand around my waist and was pulling me back. He held me so I couldn’t leave.

  “Just let me explain,” he said into my shoulder.

  I kinked my neck in defense of his tongue. He was trying to tickle my ear.

  “Fine. Let go of me first.”

  When he didn’t remove his hands, I scowled into the pillow.

  “I’m sorry I shut the door. I didn’t want to give her a chance to hurt you.”

  “Rachel flipped me off and you slammed the door.”

  I wiggled in his grip and tried to pry his hands off my stomach.

  “Stop fighting me,” he said.

  “Let go or I’ll yell for Meggie.”

  “Go ahead, but you want me here,” he whispered.

  He was the most stubborn person I’d ever met.

  “You lied to me,” I said.

  “You never asked who she was. I tried to protect you. She’s big trouble, Av’ry.”

  I gave up fighting, and he loosened his grip.

  “She was your girlfriend. You didn’t think that was important information to share?”

  He released me and turned onto his back. “So you could yell at me about something that happened over four years ago? Remember last summer and Jordan? That didn’t end well. Why do you want to do this?”

  “I don’t,” I said. I didn’t want to know anymore.

  “I don’t care about your old boyfriends. I only care about now,” he said.

  “That’s hard to believe. You punched your brother over a kiss. More than once.”

  He didn’t respond. I could feel his energy shift. I shouldn’t have brought up Caleb.

  “Why was Josh at that party if Rachel was behind the black paint? She ruined his truck and the Bentley.” I gave in and flipped over so I could face him.

  “You don’t ever have to twist his arm. He’ll party anywhere. He’s trying to irritate my dad any which way he can.”

  “That’s what Meggie said you did with Rachel.”

  “Lieutenant’s always been a hard ass, Av’ry. Wouldn’t you push back?”

  “He’s your father—but I get it.”

  “Don’t take my side,” he said snidely.

  “I want you to have a family when you grow old. Not enemies.”

  He slid his hand down the sheet and wove his fingers into mine. “Are we done?”

  “Your friend was decent. I’ll give you that.”

  “Troy? I wouldn’t call him a friend. Just somebody I play with.”

  I didn’t need to know any more. I was happy Gabe came looking for me and that he was in my bed.

  “What did you need to say to her?” I rolled into him and set my sore arm on his chest. “I have to know.”

  “I was trying to get her to leave us alone. She was working Josh as her next target.”

  I ran my finger over his plump lip. He reached up and grabbed my head to pull me into a kiss. I didn’t fight him.

  I loved him.

  “Meggie and Deliah are down here,” I told him.

  “We can make up quietly.”

  I smiled into his arm as he turned me onto my back and pulled the covers over our heads.

  * * *

  Deliah tapped my shoulder. I was sure it was her because Gabe was wrapped around my legs and middle under the comforter. I didn’t have a free hand to pull the covers off my face, so I shook my head back and forth.

  “Meggie says we’re all going out to breakfast even though I told her I have a stomachache,” she said.

  “I’m not really hungry,” I replied. It was a lie. I was starving.

  “I am,” said Gabe.

  Deliah bounced backward and hit her head on the door. Her expression grew cross.

  “You practically stepped on his cowboy boots,” I said. His clothes were all over the floor.

  “Avery,” she said in a sobbing breath. “I never get to talk to you!”

  “Wait a minute,” I called as she ran out and slammed the door.

  Gabe pulled me under the blanket and covered our heads. “She’s on drugs. Nobody is that moody.”

  “You and your brothers have to stop teasing her.”

  “You’re my girlfriend—not hers.”

  I grabbed his scruffy chin. “Don’t say th
at. Last night I wasn’t so sure what I was.”

  “I want you to be more than my girlfriend.” He smothered me with his weight, and I lost my train of thought. “Is that clear now?”

  I bit my lips into a line so I wouldn’t smile. He knew the answer.

  Meggie knocked on the door. “You need to come out. Both of you.”

  “I gotta go to work,” Gabe drawled. He rested his head on my shoulder and ran his hand down my arm. “I don’t really wanna get up.”

  “I have to go to the library and then I promised to help Meggie with laundry and watch Emmie while she works at the house. She’s paying me more than babysitting money. I can’t afford to refuse.”

  * * *

  There was one way to get Josh to come around. He stood in the driveway, in the middle of winter, wearing a T-shirt and shorts. Mr. Halden had parked an auto hauler in front of Lane’s house when we returned from breakfast. It was clear Josh didn’t have a clue what was coming.

  “Joel, it’s way too much!” Meggie yelled from where we stood in the doorway. “I was planning to buy used for both of us. I haven’t even had a chance to file a claim with the insurance company.”

  “Margareta, these will do. Forget about the claim,” he told her as he walked around two shiny new pickup trucks. He stuck his thumbs behind his polished belt buckle and stared at her. “Y’all are out of a home and transportation. Will you please accept my gift?”

  She handed the baby to Deliah and walked down to the road. I followed her and zipped up my jacket with my sling underneath.

  “This is a pretty color. I assume this one’s mine.” Meggie’s face lit up a fraction when Mr. Halden announced hers had heated seats and satellite radio.

  “Willy Nelson will sing whenever your heart desires.”

  “I guess I can’t complain about that.”

  She ran a hand behind his neck and kissed his cheek. I bet he didn’t think I saw him rub her rear end with his other hand. Gabe was right. They ran hot and cold.

  “I get the Super Duty? Dude—no way,” Josh said. “Perfect timing. There’s no school today.”

  “You’ve got homework,” said Meggie.

  Mr. Halden set a hand on his son’s shoulder and handed him the keys as the driver unloaded the first truck. “You’ll be using it to work for me.”

  Josh’s grin didn’t lessen.

  “What about your Bentley?” Meggie asked.

  I was thinking the same thing. I wondered if the protesters—AKA Rachel Merriweather—were going to be held responsible.

  “I’m having it replaced. The new one will ship next month. I’ll be holding off on the delivery until the weather improves.”

  “Well, thank you,” she told him when he dropped her keys into her palm. “Would it have killed you to come home last night?”

  Josh sat in his truck and turned on the radio full blast. I headed back inside. Caleb was blocking my way.

  “He’s a sellout. He ain’t one of us if he can be bought like that.”

  I moved away from him before he could touch me. He had been asleep on the couch when we left for breakfast.

  “You’re a sellout too. Your father bought you your truck. You told me yourself.” I turned to Deliah where she was standing in front of the TV. “We’ll start on the laundry. Gabe and I have a ton, plus everything from the farmhouse. It’s going to take all day.”

  I pulled my suitcase full of dirty clothes across the room. Gabe brought it over from the trailer.

  “Gimme that,” Caleb said.

  “It’s going downstairs,” I told him as Deliah fell into the couch and buried her face.

  I followed Caleb to the basement to start the wash and take my turn in the shower. I passed him wordlessly and stopped at the pool table where he left the suitcase.

  After my shower, I toweled off and dressed in the same clothes I’d been wearing. I imagined Caleb was going to be waiting for me outside. I pressed my ear to the door. He was talking to someone. Deliah cried out, and I opened the door with the towel on my head.

  “Let go of her,” I told Caleb. I got a look at him twisting her arm. He held her to the pool table as if he were going to frisk her. “Why are you doing that?”

  “She’s a thief.”

  “She’s not a thief,” I told him.

  Deliah didn’t say anything. Her eyes were glossed over.

  “Let her go.”

  “You seem to have forgotten your first Mona Deliah encounter, legs. She’s moved on from stealing trucks to pinching pocketbooks. I caught her with a hand in Meggie’s purse yesterday, and I just found her going through your pockets here.”

  He unzipped the top of my suitcase to reveal the shoulder bag I brought with me from Syracuse. I didn’t have any money in it.

  Deliah stomped on Caleb’s boot and he let go. She looked as if she were holding in a big cry.

  “Did you ask her why?”

  Caleb scratched his head.

  “Why are you going through my suitcase? Did he really catch you going through Meggie’s purse?”

  She stared at me and her bottom lip quivered.

  “She’s a moody one.”

  I waved my good arm toward the stairs. “Caleb, just go.”

  I was afraid Deliah was going to confess she knocked off the convenience store.

  “Hey, I thought you’d want to know before she lifted your wallet,” Caleb said.

  “I don’t want her money!” Deliah yelled. Her whole body trembled.

  “Are you in trouble?” I asked. “What happened? You seem sad lately. I want to help. Meggie wants to help.”

  “He doesn’t,” she said.

  I made a face to get Caleb to leave us alone.

  “Deliah, come on. What’s going on? Do you need me to get Meggie down here?”

  “No,” she said.

  I tipped my head and glared at Caleb. “Can you please let us talk alone?”

  He sat on the bottom step and peeled the tape off of his nose. “I’m gonna hear what she has to say.”

  Deliah sat down and crossed her arms over her top. She shook her head when I pleaded with her to tell me.

  “Did a boy do something? Why do you need money?”

  Caleb stood and cracked his knuckles. “Answer her.”

  “I don’t need any money,” she said.

  “Do you want to tell Lane or Gabe what’s bothering you?”

  “No,” she cried into her hands. “No way.”

  I sat down. “Then what’s going on?” Had she read the letter from her mother’s box?

  She held her stomach.

  “Do you feel sick?” I asked as I studied her splotchy complexion. “Can I make you tea?”

  Deliah shook her head, but it wasn’t convincing. “That won’t help me. It’s too late. I’m dying,” she told me.

  Caleb hiked his hip up on the pool table and juggled the eight ball and the cue ball. He laughed at her comment.

  I sat perfectly still for a minute. Then I shot off the couch and grabbed Deliah’s hand. “Come with me.”

  She followed me into the bedroom, and I shut the door. I gave her a tissue to blow her nose and made her sit on the bed in front of me. I felt terrible. She was thirteen years old. I could have kicked myself for missing all of the signs.

  “I know what you were looking for and it’s okay. You’ve been trying to tell me what happened. I can’t believe I didn’t figure it out sooner. I promise you you’re not dying, Deliah.”

  Nine

  Meggie and I sat on Molly’s bed while Molly nursed Eli in her rocking chair.

  “I could use a manual on raising girls,” Meggie told us. “I had no idea what was happening. This wasn’t on my radar until very recently. I’ve been pregnant for an eternity.”

  “Me too,” Molly said. “Avery’s on her toes. Thank god for that.”

  “I freaked out when I got mine. I know how she feels,” I said. “I didn’t tell anyone for weeks.”

  “I don’t want the bo
ys to find out,” Meggie said. “Can you imagine the teasing they’ll inflict on that poor kid? Uff-da. I’ll tell her dad but that’s as far as it goes. Okiedokie? Avery, you can take her to the drugstore tomorrow. These aren’t right for her.” Meggie shook the box of tampons Molly found in the bathroom cabinet. “We had a talk, and I fixed her a bowl of ice cream. She’s watching Sixteen Candles in bed like your mom and I used to do when we were her age.”

  “By the time Emmie’s a teenager, you’ll be ready for this,” Molly told her.

  There was a knock. I got up and opened the door. Gabe filled the doorway with his HalRem hat on backward. I hadn’t seen him since he left for work before breakfast.

  “Howdy. Ready to go?”

  “Hi, kiddo,” Meggie said.

  “Y’all got some nice wheels out there,” he drawled.

  Meggie stood and twisted her hair into a bun. “Your dad and his bottomless pockets,” she said as she walked by and yawned. “I need to check on my munchkin.”

  Gabe lifted his hat and rubbed the top of his head. “What’s this secret meeting about?”

  “Deliah’s feeling a little off,” I said.

  “More like on,” Molly muttered.

  Gabe pinched my side. “I told you it was drugs,” he said.

  I huffed. “She’s not on drugs.”

  Molly set Eli in his bassinet and then fell onto the bed like a downed tree. The box launched into the air and landed at my feet. Gabe scooped it up. He shook it and then tossed it back on the bed as if it were going to explode.

  A laugh squeaked out of my throat.

  His hazel eyes widened. “What the hell?” He stepped backward into the doorway. “Holy freaking Moses—I don’t wanna know about her period.”

  “You’ll have to use that next time you need to clear the room,” Molly told me after Gabe walked out.

  A few minutes later I found him playing a video game with Lane in the living room. Gabe took up an entire couch. He had his legs propped on one of the arms and his cowboy boots crossed at the ankles. Lane had his legs on the coffee table.

  “You ready now?” Gabe asked me. The brothers set down their game controllers.