Love Found a Way (Hell Yeah! Book 0)

by Sable Hunter

  When she came to the end of the drive, Glory stopped, turning to take one last look. “Goodbye, T, I love you,” she whispered, trying to come to terms with this sudden upheaval in her life. She’d wanted to give him everything. But…T didn’t want her love. He didn’t want their child.

  After all they’d been through, T only wanted one thing from her.

  So, she gave it to him.

  Glory walked away.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Once she finished cleaning and locking down the bait shop, Glory noticed a reminder to go by Mrs. Watson’s the next day to plant a flat of pansies she’d picked up at the farmer’s market. Since Glory wouldn’t be around tomorrow, she decided to make this her first stop. There was no need to disappoint the old lady and Glory wanted a chance to say goodbye. Finding her spade, she slipped it into her back pocket and started on her journey. Every step was hard to take, not only was she weaker than usual, but each of those steps carried her away from T. The time she’d spent with him had been the happiest she’d ever known.

  The distance from the old shop to the widow’s house was about three miles. Glory paced herself, knowing her body would need frequent rests. She’d left all non-essential items behind and brought three water bottles instead. Her aim was to fill them along the way wherever she could get access to water, sometimes stopping at people’s houses and asking to fill them with their water hose. Food was a different issue. From the store’s small supply of snack food, she’d squirreled away nuts, cheese crackers, granola bars, and jerky. As far as money goes, she had forty-seven dollars and thirty-two cents, what she’d had left after getting her prescriptions filled. At least she had enough heart meds and prenatal vitamins to last for three months. By that time, she should have figured out something…

  The rhythm of her steps carried Glory down the dirt road. She’d opted for tennis shoes, which would be easier on her feet. Each footfall sent a puff of sandy smoke rising from the dry, dusty path. Odd to consider how wet the swamp was, yet how arid the land nearby could be when it depended on rain for moisture. There’d been no rain for weeks. Yet, as she prepared to leave, the radio news had warned of a series of storms blowing in. The storms would bring cooler air and rain, days and days of rain. Glory was ready, she’d always loved to walk in the rain.

  As she journeyed, Glory tried not to think anything but positive thoughts. Leaving T behind was so hard, but what she wanted most was for him to be happy. Her getting away and not being a constant reminder would help. When the baby was born, she’d see that he was contacted, and Glory knew once he looked at their child, he wouldn’t be able to turn his back on him. Resting her hand on her tummy, she smiled. Glory wasn’t sure why she thought the baby was a boy, but she did. The most important thing would be that her baby would be alive, have a chance to grow and thrive.

  Feeling a little lightheaded, she found a fallen log near the side of the road. First, she checked for snakes. Seeing nothing to be wary of, she plopped down and dug her water bottle out of her bag, taking a swig. Glory started to check the time, but remembered that she’d left the phone T had given her at his house and she didn’t own a watch. The last time she’d looked at the clock, it had been nearly three. At this rate, her progress would be slow. Shrugging her shoulders, Glory admitted that the speed of her pace didn’t matter. No one was waiting for her, so with no particular destination in mind, Glory could take her time. This would be a true walkabout.

  Even though the narrow road she followed was the main connecting highway between Loreauville and New Iberia, it was small compared to other byways. All Teche country was off the beaten path and a little wild with its lush vegetation and hauntingly beautiful moss-draped oaks. Resting on the log, Glory let her eyes wander. She truly loved this part of the world. T had taught her so much, she now knew the names of the plants flourishing everywhere – from the sawtooth palmetto fern, to the creepy looking cypress knees. From her vantage point on the fallen tree, she could identify a sturdy wisteria vine, winding its way through the treetops. When it bloomed in the spring, purple clusters of flowers would hang down like bunches of grapes. Just to her right grew a Devil’s Walking Stick. Standing about twenty-foot tall, the leaves on the end of its spiny stems were huge, about three to four-foot long. In the midsummer, the plant sported white flowers, but now it was adorned by inedible black fruit on bright pink stalks. To her left, a yellow jessamine vine grew up one massive oak, an aromatic evergreen that covered everything in its paths – fences, trellises, abandoned houses. Yellow, trumpet-like flowers were visible now, a second blooming, the first coming in early spring. Soon the dark green foliage would turn slightly purple, heralding the approach of winter. Glory supposed she wouldn’t be around to witness that. Her eyes moved on, peering farther into the swamp, where she could see the green spear-shaped leaves of the giant blue iris. Growing up to five feet tall, the long leaves sprout from the base and blue flowers bloom at the top. The drooping outer petals of the plant feature white spots and a bright yellow center, while the inner blue petals stand proudly erect. A true symbol of Louisiana, this was the only place in the world it grew naturally. She knew she’d never look at one again and not think of T and his family. He’d told her how much Alice loved the irises and Glory always associated the color with T’s sister – Alice Blue.

  Taking a deep breath, she pushed the thought from her mind. A noise from her right drew Glory’s attention, jerking her head around she saw a muskrat poking its way through the reeds near the bank of the bayou. T-Rex had taught her that if she was patient and still enough, the wildlife would come to her. Taking him at his word, she played the mannequin game and was rewarded by an ambling armadillo, a bumbling nutria, and a stately white egret. She was enjoying the spectacle until a speckled king snake came along, then Glory decided to hightail it and head on over to Mrs. Watsons’ house.

  A little while later, Glory felt proud of herself. She’d required only one more rest stop before making it to the little white bungalow. The sun was beginning to sink in the sky, but if she hurried, she could get the pansies in the ground. And if she was really lucky, after bidding Mrs. Watson adieu, she could sleep on her front porch in the comfortable chaise lounge with the red gingham cushion. There was even an afghan, courtesy of the old lady’s arthritis and penchant for drinking her first cup of coffee outside – no matter the weather.

  After a brisk knock on the door, Glory could hear Ethel’s shuffling steps. “Who’s there?” Her elderly voice was quaintly shrill.

  “It’s Glory Bee, Miz Ethel. I’ve come to plant your flowers. Is that okay?”

  Mrs. Watson opened the door mid-sentence. “How lovely to see you, Glory. I’d love for you to get these babies in the ground.” She opened the screen door and joined her guest. “How’s that handsome Beaumont boy?”

  Glory hung her backpack on the arm of a chair. “He’s good.” She hoped he was good. “T-Rex is such a nice guy. Did you know he volunteers at the women’s shelter every week? He’s a great carpenter.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.” Mrs. Watson seemed impressed. “The one in New Iberia?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good place. I head up a committee at church that collects money to buy Christmas toys for the children at the shelter.”

  “How sweet of you. You and T have something in common.” As Glory went on her knees to begin putting the brightly colored plants in the soil, she and Ethel began an exchange of pleasantries that centered mostly around T-Rex. While she didn’t tell any of his secrets – she knew how he felt about that – Glory did her best to extoll his virtues. “He’s so smart. Did you know he helped an entire island full of people relocate to a new home when theirs’ was destroyed by rising water?”

  “Well, I guess I just never took the time to know him.” The older lady rocked, sipping on a cup of hot tea. “You know how people talk.”

  Glory patted the dark earth, making sure each small plant had a proper home. “People usually don’t kno
w what they’re talking about, Miz Ethel.”

  “You’re right about that.”

  The rocking continued until Glory finished, standing and brushing her hands off on her pants. “Well, I’m through.”

  “Excellent. Hold on, let me get your money.”

  Glory hated taking money from the little old lady, but right now she needed it.

  “Here you go, Glory. Thank you.” She handed Glory a twenty-dollar bill, folded tightly eight times, until it was the size of a quarter.

  “You’re welcome, ma’am.”

  “You have a good day. Maybe next week you could help me decorate my Christmas tree. I have a hard time reaching the top branches with my arthritis.”

  Dang, she intended to just be here one day and gone the next. But she couldn’t do Mrs. Watson that way. “I probably won’t be around next week, Miz Ethel. I’m picking up and moving on. I’m sort of a wanderer, I never stay in one place for too long.”

  “Do tell!” Ethel’s ears perked up. “What about T-Rex? You spoke so highly of him.”

  “What I said was all true. He’s a wonderful man.” Glory unfolded the money and slipped it into her back pocket. “No, this is just me. I’m the problem. Not him.”

  “Well, you be careful.” Mrs. Watson folded her hands under her bountiful, yet gravity challenged bosom. “Where did you say you were heading?”

  She hadn’t said where she was heading. Mainly, because she didn’t know. “Hmmm.”

  “You wouldn’t be going into New Iberia, perchance, would you?”

  “I could,” Glory murmured. “I don’t really have a set schedule.”

  “Would you mind so much taking the donation for toys to Ms. Middleton. It would save me a trip to the bank and to the post office.”

  “Sure. I can do that…” Glory hesitated. Seeing Lauren again would be wonderful. And it wasn’t a day that T would be there. “Yes, I’d be glad too.” She talked herself into it. Traveling from Loreauville to New Iberia was logical, unless she intended to head north toward Baton Rouge. Without a clear destination in mind, Glory hoped the walkabout would clear her head and help her come to terms with her fate. She supposed she’d end up in some type of shelter herself, unless she could find a job and a place to stay that she could afford.

  “Wonderful! Let me get it for you.”

  Glory almost asked Mrs. Watson if it would be okay for her to spend the night on her porch, but she knew the old lady would invite her inside. And while that would be ideal, she didn’t want to have to answer the myriad of questions that her old friend would ask.

  “Here you go.”

  Glory held out her hand and was amused when the older lady gave her a Wal-mart bag of one dollar bills. A lot of one dollar bills. “Wow.”

  “Five hundred dollars.”

  “I’ll take care of it and deliver it personally.” Her plans to put the money in her pocket wasn’t going to work. She squatted down and stuffed the bag into her backpack.

  “Where’s your old truck, dearie?”

  Whoops. “Just down the road…at a friend’s.” Way down the road at Spicer’s shop, and she’d never met him. This wasn’t even good enough to classify as a whopper.

  “All right, well you take care. And thank you.”

  “Goodbye, Mrs. Watson.” Glory made a show of walking away and down the road a piece, giving the older lady time to get in her house and close the door. It was dark now, not late enough to classify as her bedtime, but early to bed early to rise would be her new policy. Returning to the small bungalow, Glory sat on the edge of the porch, eating a granola bar and drinking water until the noise from Ethel’s television stopped and all the lights were out. Only then did she settle into the chaise and allow herself to rest.

  *

  Meanwhile…

  T damn near squeezed the wheel of his truck until it broke. He’d been driving aimlessly for hours, wringing the steering wheel with his big fingers.

  Fear.

  Panic.

  Despair.

  It was all there. A great big emotional shit storm and he was caught smackdab in the eye of the hurricane.

  “A baby?” he asked himself quietly as he drove. Outside the window, the swampy backroads moved by in a blur. “My baby.”

  Hope crept in for a brief moment, replacing all the jumbled and negative feelings that had settled in his gut after hearing Glory’s big news.

  At first, he hadn’t been able to believe it. He’d had a vasectomy years ago, but the doctor had warned him the tubes could grow back together, rendering the procedure useless. If Glory was pregnant with his child, then T was the one in one thousand the doctor had warned him about. And T had no real reason to doubt her, Glory was good and kind. He couldn’t see her stepping out on him. They hadn’t agreed to be exactly ‘exclusive’, but she hadn’t betrayed him with anyone else. No, the baby was his.

  He was going to be a father.

  A smile flashed across T’s face. Maybe, this was a good thing. Maybe, he could be the man he never thought he could be.

  A good man.

  But the slim hope was pushed out a moment later when he remembered what he’d said to Glory. What he’d asked her to do. He’d told her she couldn’t keep it, to ‘fix it’. He hadn’t said the words, but his wishes had been as clear to her as they’d been to him - to kill the baby that grew inside her. To take the life of his unborn child.

  How could he have said such a thing? He hadn’t meant it. He’d been terrified.

  “Worthless!” T looked at himself in the rearview mirror. His brow was furrowed; his eyes were almost black. Pure hatred for the man who looked back at him filled his heart. “You’re a monster! You can’t be trusted to have a family. You love that girl and you asked her to kill her own child. You told her you wanted nothing to do with her.” In a blaze of fury, T lashed out and punched the rearview mirror whose reflection taunted him so.

  The mirror spun nearly all the way around, making a thud when it hit the windshield. T reached out a hand to straighten it and saw he’d broken the glass. “Fuck!”

  A drop of blood slipped from the last knuckle on his right hand and splashed down onto his pants. The sharp glass had opened the flesh of his hand and T felt the wetness as the crimson liquid began to stream down his forearm.

  He pulled the armrest open beside him and came back out with a fist full of napkins and covered the wound. “Sorry about that, buddy.” He examined the mirror with regret. “At least it wasn’t someone’s face.”

  This stupidity was just more proof that he couldn’t be trusted. T had lashed out in anger, something he hadn’t done in a long time. Sure, it had only been the mirror in his truck, but still, he had lashed out. What if the object of his fury had been Glory? Or his child?

  The blood began to run down T’s arm again and he pulled over to the side of the road to calm himself. He’d been in a horrific crash once in his life already, he didn’t need to be in another one.

  The napkin was soaked all the way through and when T pulled it off his hand to replace it with a fresh one. He noticed the familiar pink and blue BR on them. He’d taken Glory for ice cream at the Baskin Robbin’s in New Iberia a while back. The memory came flooding back into his brain.

  God, she looked so good. Flouncing around in her cream-colored sundress, driving him absolutely fucking insane with her smooth tanned legs. T dabbed the trail of blood on his forearm off with a smile. He could remember every little detail of that day.

  Rex Allen hadn’t grown-up with a lot of fond family memories of trips to the ice cream shop. A blob of chocolate ice cream on a plain cone was enough to keep him happy, but Glory had dove right in to the experience, examining all of the flavors before deciding on a heaping scoop of cheesecake ice cream inside a fancy white chocolate-coated cone.

  He’d sat across from her at a picnic table outside and just watched her from behind his sunglasses as she licked and lapped at the tasty treat. She was so innocently sexy and T had been forced to si
t there and try to act normal, while under the table, his cock was at full mast in his jeans.

  His mouth must’ve been wide open, or he must have gasped or something, because finally, she’d caught him staring. What are you looking at, T?

  T hadn’t been able to come up with damn thing other than the truth. I think you’re the sexiest woman in the world.

  Glory had blushed at his response, embarrassed by his affection, but instantly turned on by his attention.

  T held the napkin tight to the wound on his knuckle and shifted in his seat. God, he was hard. “Christ, Beaumont. At a time like this? Really?” He couldn’t help himself, despite the heaviness of his current situation, the memory of that day played in his mind like a grainy movie.

  Their chemistry had been undeniable. T and Glory were great together and she’d had an amazing effect on him from the moment he’d laid eyes on her sitting on the hood of that old Mustang, there was no doubt about that. Even at a time like this, she was giving him fits of the sexual nature.

  Something in T’s words as they sat at the picnic table that day had set Glory off. Despite the fact that there’d been others around them, Glory reached across and took T’s hand in hers. He’d given it over willingly, sure she just wanted to hold hands. But he’d been wrong. Instead, Glory opened her mouth and licked melted ice cream off T’s forefinger before taking it all the way in her mouth and sucking on it, all while staring at him with unabashed intensity.

  T had pretty much knocked the remainder of her cone out of her hand, rushing them both to his truck. He’d let the tires of his big truck squawk pretty hard as he’d peeled out of the Baskin Robbins parking lot that day. But home was way too far away for what he needed. Instead, he’d made the short drive to an old logging road and pulled Glory over the seat into the back and onto his lap. It didn’t take long before T’s cock was out and he was settling Glory down onto his throbbing hard-on, right there in the backseat of his truck, parked in the middle of the woods on Bayou Teche.