by Lora Leigh
“Because it was something we should have done long ago.” Mercedes answered the question gently. “Just as you should have come to one of us, at least, with the truth at a less upsetting time. Family, Angel, they can make mistakes just as others can, my dear. None are perfect.”
The chastisement was there, she heard it, felt it, but it was done so gently and with such logic that Angel couldn’t exactly deny it.
She looked away, her gaze going to the closed shades over the windows then back to the women as they began moving around, finishing breakfast rather than staring at her.
“Come on, Angel, sit with us for a little while. No one’s at fault for the lack of communication, but we all want to get to know you. As you’ve already learned, one person alone can’t accomplish that.” Kelly glanced up at her from the bacon sizzling on the stove. “And as this situation has reminded us, sometimes we don’t always follow our instincts as we should. As we should have when we met you.”
She’d given them a chance, plenty of chances. Hadn’t she?
“I remember when I first met you.” Lyrica turned from the counter behind the stove, a dish towel in hand. “You were there when that van ran me off the road. If you hadn’t been, I’d probably be dead. I wish you had let me thank you for that.”
Angel glared at the floor a second, trying to figure out what to say. What to do.
Yes, Lyrica had tried to thank her, but Angel had been so upset that day, because Chaya had refused to allow Bliss to go to the marina with the other girls when Angel had come to tell them good-bye, that she’d been unable to process the gratitude Lyrica had shown.
“No thanks were needed.” She cleared her throat, looking up. “If we’d known Zoey was in trouble, we would have been here.” She focused on the other sister where she stood next to the work island. “We didn’t hear about it until it was too late to get here in time to help.”
“But you came the minute you heard,” Zoey pointed out. “I think Graham said the three of you dropped a job to hurry back. But you’d been here a few weeks before leaving for that job, hadn’t you?”
“A few times,” she agreed. For five years she’d been there as often as possible.
“Come on, drink your coffee before it gets cold. Breakfast is nearly ready and then it’s going to be like feeding time at the zoo.” Zoey laughed.
Angel listened to them debate over which of the men could eat the most before the conversation shifted and flowed again. They drew her in without interrogating her, let her listen and draw every piece of information they gave her into her hungry soul.
They called Chaya the keeper of Natches’s sanity. He could drive even the steadiest person to the brink of murder if she wasn’t there to pull him back. The older he got, the worse he got, they claimed.
Zoey laughed and recounted the fact that she’d been the only one of them to force him to pull back. Lyrica glared at her sister and recounted how Natches had not just hit Graham in the face, but nearly caused her to move from Kentucky entirely.
Eve and Piper, the two oldest sisters, laughed and claimed Dawg as their tormentor during the beginning days of their relationships with their husbands. And through all the upheavals and arguments with the two men, it had always been Chaya that watched their backs and they hadn’t known it until recently.
Rowdy was the keeper of their secrets, though. They could go to him, and though he couldn’t do anything to pull his male cousins back from whatever schemes they had regarding the girls, he’d always had advice and, in Zoey’s case, had actually kept a secret that nearly caused him and Dawg to come to blows.
The Mackay men were as complicated and ever-changing as their wives, it seemed. But they were dedicated to family, to protecting the girls as well as each other.
“I remember when Chaya showed up that summer,” Christa said softly as the last of the warmers was filled. She looked over at Angel, her gaze somber with whatever memories filled her. “Dawg told me about this agent they were working with.” She almost grinned. “Called her plain. She smoked too much, cursed too often, and she was making Natches erratic. The truth was, Natches was terrifying Dawg because he’d gone so quiet, refusing to discuss whatever torment he was experiencing.”
Shock shook Angel. Chaya smoked? Cursed? The mother she’d known had never done either thing.
“She wore frumpy clothes, Dawg claimed, and whatever her problem was, she was going to piss him off. But he was already pissed. And worried. Something about her just set him off, he said.” Christa shook her head and leaned against the counter, silent for a moment before continuing. “The next summer she was back, searching for the person or persons behind the theft of the missiles they’d been investigating the year before. Following up.” She grinned. “Dawg would sneer the word and go off on her ‘follow-up’ like it was some kind of immoral act. Because he knew something about her was killing Natches, and he couldn’t figure out what.” The look she gave Angel was compassionate, understanding. “Then Natches told him how he and Chaya had come together four years before in Iraq and how she’d lost her daughter, and he warned Dawg their relationship hinged on his acceptance of the woman he loved because now they were having a child together. That’s when Dawg realized how far he’d been pushing because he didn’t know what was wrong or how to fix things for Natches. That’s how they are, Angel. All of them, including Chaya. They’ll tear themselves apart trying to make sense of things. And Chaya was so torn over you. She sensed more than you would tell anyone. She sensed the deceptions, and your hunger to know her and Bliss, and she couldn’t make it fit, couldn’t force it to make sense. But all of us saw the conflict inside her. That need to let you close, to let you be a part of her life versus far too many years of hard lessons and the destruction she’d already survived when she’d believed you died in that hotel.”
Everyone believed so deeply in Chaya. Duke, the entire Mackay family. Everyone believed and she wanted to hold on to that so desperately that it was a hunger inside her.
But she couldn’t discount what she remembered. She couldn’t put aside that damned phone call where her father had raged at Chaya to come for her and argued with her when she refused to do so.
She didn’t say anything, she couldn’t. Pushing back the pain, the anger, the sheer fury that she couldn’t make herself accept a different version of the past, she finished her coffee and turned her gaze to Zoey.
“Thank you for the coffee,” she said softly. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s things I need to do now.”
Like run away. Escape these women with their certainty that Chaya would never turn her back on her child. Their belief that Angel had to be wrong. And she didn’t want to disabuse them of their belief in her mother, she realized. She didn’t want them to think harshly of her or Chaya. This was the family Chaya relied on, had lived within for so many years. Their opinion of her, their love for her, mattered to her.
Angel wouldn’t threaten it.
She hadn’t come there to threaten her mother’s life; she’d only wanted to be a part of it. As Angel Calloway, not as Beth Dane, the child she’d lost. She could have survived being on the periphery of her mother’s and sister’s lives, being a friend that came when needed. She couldn’t handle being the child Chaya had lost, though.
She couldn’t handle the fact that everyone had a far different memory or opinion of that time when Angel had been Beth and she’d listened to her father raging at her mother on the phone.
Because neither of them had wanted her. He’d had her brought to Iraq as leverage against Chaya when he’d learned she was close to identifying him as the spy in Army Intelligence that was selling troop movements to the enemy. But her mother hadn’t wanted to come for her, because of her lover, Natches Mackay.
Fine, she’d been in a hospital rather than in a bed with Natches. But she didn’t come and she didn’t send anyone to collect her daughter, for whatever reason.
But none of that had happened.
Now she had to figure out how to ensure Bliss’s safety. The fact that everyone knew who she was, and that everyone felt the need to assure her that her mother had never turned away from her wasn’t why she was here.
Besides, if that were true, then Jenny wouldn’t be dead, Beth wouldn’t be Angel, and she wouldn’t be sneaking from the house by climbing through the open crossbeams that served as the patio’s roof, praying she found someone dumb enough to be where they shouldn’t be so she’d have an excuse to expend the rage and the pain.
“That leg is never going to heal if you don’t stop overexerting it.” Chaya stepped around the corner of the enclosed patio, her tone thoughtful as Angel sent her a disgruntled look.
What was with these damned Mackays anyway? They just couldn’t seem to leave well enough alone.
“The leg is fine,” she muttered before pursing her lips in irritation. “Why don’t you go find Natches? I bet there’s something he needs to talk to you about.”
Not that she actually thought that was going to work.
“Even Bliss can come up with something better than that.” Chaya grinned, moving with Angel as she strode from the patio wall and headed around the side of the house.
“At her age she better be able to come up with something better.” Angel swiped at the hair that insisted on escaping her braid and falling over her forehead. “Fortunately, I don’t have to. I can just tell you I don’t want to talk to you.”
Yet she couldn’t make herself ensure Chaya did just that by doing as she’d threatened to do with Timothy and letting the bitch out to play. Instead, rather than finding a way to escape, she kept her pace even and kept her mother in her peripheral vision. And she wondered why she was remaining silent rather than ensuring Chaya returned to the house.
No, she didn’t wonder why, she amended that thought. She knew why. Because as angry as she was, as much as she wanted to hate her mother, she couldn’t. She’d convinced herself she did for years. She’d tried to tell herself nothing mattered but Bliss, but she’d been lying to herself. She didn’t need just her sister in her life but her mother as well, and sometimes she hated herself for that need.
“How’s your leg feel?” Chaya asked as she walked next to her, her hands pushed into the pockets of her shorts, the short-sleeved white blouse neat and complementing the other woman’s tan.
Angel shrugged at the question. “Better. Ethan always manages to fix me.”
“So I hear.” There was a thread of stress in Chaya’s voice, almost worry, that made Angel want to believe she cared.
“Look.” Angel stopped and turned to her, unwilling to admit to the nervousness she couldn’t push away. “You don’t have to pretend when we’re alone. Just say whatever it is you want to say and we’ll get on with our day.”
She couldn’t let herself believe that Chaya wanted to be a mother to her at this late date. The time for that had long passed.
“You think I feel as though I have to pretend to be concerned?” she asked rather than doing as Angel suggested. “You’re my daughter. . . .”
“Please don’t.” She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t deal with platitudes or lies. She was too hungry, too desperate to believe them. “I’m sorry Duke forced you into dealing with me like this, but I don’t need you to start swearing your motherly love and concern for me. It’s okay, really.”
The frown Chaya leveled on her made her feel like she was three again. It was filled with disappointment and an emotion she simply didn’t want to try to decipher.
“Little girl, that mouth of yours is writing checks you can’t hope to cover,” Chaya warned her, her tone low, almost gentle.
Really? She’d actually said that?
“I’m not three any longer,” Angel reminded her. “I haven’t been three for a very long time. And trust me, Chaya, I learned a long time ago how to back up every word out of my mouth.”
Sort of. She’d learned how to talk nastier and meaner and how to fight with a viciousness that had the power to actually make her feel ashamed of herself now.
“By drinking too much, smoking too often, and trying to disguise the pain inside by making certain the outside hurt worse?” Chaya asked softly then. “How did that work out for you, Angel? Did it really help?”
That was exactly what she’d been doing, Angel knew. Hurting so bad inside that it actually seemed to fade a little when the outside hurt worse.
Rather than meet the compassion in Chaya’s expression, Angel turned away from her and stared into the leafy, twisted vines of the border Natches had somehow convinced to grow around the perimeter of the yard surrounding his home. Better to stare into it than to see concern, or a mother’s affection, where it didn’t really exist.
“Whether it worked or not doesn’t matter anymore,” she finally said, wishing she could hide who she had been and the ugly behavior she’d displayed in those days. “And it doesn’t change the fact that I don’t require you to pretend with me.” She turned back to her mother and met her gaze with a cool, unaffected stare. “You should go back to the house. . . .”
“So you can keep hiding? So you keep telling yourself that it’s not killing both of us to continue ignoring the anger and pain?” Chaya demanded, and Angel could have sworn the pain in her eyes was genuine and the huskiness in her voice was due to the unshed tears gleaming in her eyes. “Angel, we have to talk about this. I won’t let you continue telling yourself that I didn’t want you. That I deserted you.”
But that was exactly what she had done and Angel couldn’t make herself pretend otherwise, no matter how much she wanted to.
“It’s okay,” Angel promised her, wishing she could rage at her, wishing she could spill all her pain and fury onto this woman’s shoulders as she’d once promised herself she would. “I survived. . . .”
“Oh God, Angel . . .” Chaya whispered, her voice thick with emotions Angel simply couldn’t deal with, and when Chaya moved as though to embrace her she jumped back, suddenly terrified, certain she’d break and become that three-year-old again. The one that wandered Baghdad’s streets crying for her mother.
“Don’t,” she demanded, strangling on her own words, desperate to escape what she was feeling, what she wanted to believe her mother was feeling.
“Why?” Chaya questioned her softly, her arms dropping to her sides, her expression twisted with pain. “Why, Angel? Are you afraid you can’t keep telling yourself I didn’t want you when you know differently?”
Angel shook her head, terrified of what she knew she’d end up doing if she wasn’t careful.
“No. I’m scared I’ll want to believe you even knowing the truth.” Remembering every moment of it and hurting worse for the deception. “I’m afraid, Chaya, I’ll want the illusion over the truth, and in the end, that will only destroy me. That’s what I’m afraid of. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m sure there are things I need to be doing, even if there’s nothing you need to be doing.”
Turning, she hurried away from the mother and the single tear that began falling down Chaya’s cheek. Angel didn’t look in her eyes; she couldn’t. She wasn’t strong enough to resist and she knew it.
What had happened to her in the past years? Once, she would have lashed out at her mother and told her exactly why she knew better than to believe anything other than what she remembered. She would have ripped into her and shredded the lies with the truth and enjoyed doing it. But she couldn’t make herself do it now. All she could do was run away.
From the need for a mother who had walked away from her, from the need for a man she knew would never stay and a life she had promised herself she’d never let herself dream of. A life secure in Duke’s arms and her mother’s life. And how very foolish was that?
FOURTEEN
Being in her mother’s home was odd, Angel thought that evening after the house became silent once again, the in-laws and outlaws having all left. Bliss was in her room chatting with her cousins on video, and Natches, Chaya, and Duke were outside.
Moving through the quiet home, checking doors and windows, ensuring everything was secure, she couldn’t help but notice the warmth and the feeling of peace that surrounded her, as well as sense that the house was actually a home.
The family room was large with a wide stone fireplace on the outside wall, a flat-screen television on the wall separating the room from the hall. Several wide, comfortable chairs faced the fireplace, while a large leather sectional faced the television. The space was designed to allow for quiet evenings as well as family gatherings, and functioned superbly for both.
In the far corner there was a round coffee table and board games stacked beneath it, bean bag chairs were scattered around it, and the shelves on the wall displayed pictures of the four girls: Bliss, Annie, Laken, and Erin. The cousins looked enough like each other that they could be sisters.
The room was a family room in every sense. Here, Chaya had found a way to display family pictures and pictures of her daughter in a way that didn’t make the room seem overly crowded with them.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves held books of every kind from children’s books to mysteries, suspense, and even a collection of teenage fiction in the form of the old Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mysteries alongside a popular vampire series and a magic series.
This room and the kitchen were the central part of the house and Angel had noticed the first time she went through it that the layout, as well as the furniture, was arranged in a way that allowed for maximum defense in the case of a home invasion. The safe room was accessible to the main bedroom, Bliss’s room, kitchen, and living room. And she had no doubt Bliss was well versed in getting her ass to it as quickly as possible.
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