He ate the ice cream but it didn’t taste nearly as good as it had when he’d been with Autumn. Even Destiny didn’t seem as interested in the cream.
“It just ain’t the same without her, is it?” he said to the baby.
He couldn’t be certain, but he felt the baby agreed.
They sat there a little while enjoying the bustle of the diner. It could get a little quiet being up in the cabin all the time. Grady watched the customers, watched the waitresses, and was sipping his coffee when a man walked up to his table.
“What the hell are you doing here, you old bastard?” the man said.
Grady was caught unaware. He’d been looking down at Destiny as the man approached. He looked up now and the expression on his face flashed rapidly from confusion, to recognition, to joy.
“Jackson! You son of a gun. What the hell?”
“Thought I’d drop by and check in on my little brother,” Jackson said.
Grady got up and threw his free arm around Jackson, giving him a hearty hug. Then he handed Jackson the baby.
“Say hello to your niece.”
Jackson took the baby in his hands, threw her up and caught her. Immediately she started laughing. Being a father himself, Jackson knew exactly what babies liked.
“She’s beautiful, Grady. Well done.”
“I don’t know how much credit I deserve,” Grady said, sitting back down.
Jackson took the seat across from him and flagged down the waitress.
“Two fresh cups of coffee,” he said.
Grady smiled as he remembered Jackson’s habit of ordering for him.
“Here,” he said, sliding his unfinished sundae across the table to Jackson. “Finish this.”
“I didn’t know you had a sweet tooth,” Jackson said.
“I don’t,” Grady said. “I just had a hankering for something.”
Jackson ate the ice cream and the waitress brought them a fresh pot of coffee.
She looked at them, the two sexiest men ever to set foot in the diner of Destiny, Montana, and lingered for longer than was necessary.
“Either of you two gentlemen need anything, anything at all, you let me know.”
Grady looked at Jackson and grinned.
“Thanks,” he said.
“Anything at all,” the waitress repeated before leaving.
“Friendly place,” Jackson said.
Grady nodded.
What followed was a long, warm conversation between the two men that did more good for Grady than he cared to admit. He liked to think of himself as strong and independent, but it was a huge comfort to know he still had the support of his brothers.
Jackson told him that they all understood his decision to come out to the mountains and make a new beginning. He’d been dealt a tough hand in the past, especially with Destiny’s mother, and he had to do what he felt was right for himself and the kid.
“I only wish I’d done more when Ravenna was still alive,” Grady said.
Jackson shook his head.
“You did as much as any man could, Grady. You stood by her through the pregnancy, even though you weren’t in love with her. You helped her to stay clean for the entire nine months and that’s the only reason your baby is healthy. It was her decision to go back to her old ways in the end, and there’s nothing you could have done about that.”
Grady nodded. He knew that was all true, but it didn’t remove the guilt he felt.
“So, where are you staying while you’re up here?” Grady said as he finished his third cup of coffee.
“The Raven’s Nest,” Jackson said.
Grady nodded. “How long are you staying?”
He was thinking Jackson being there might be enough of an excuse for him to go back and see Autumn again. He couldn’t shake the feelings he’d developed for her and he desperately wanted to see her, but without making a big deal about it.
He was curious to see if his package of clothing had arrived. He felt foolish for ordering it, and knew he shouldn’t have, but he couldn’t help himself. If she didn’t want them, she didn’t have to wear them, but one way or another he had to buy them for her.
“I’ll probably head back tonight, brother. I didn’t come up here to interfere with your plans or anything. I don’t want to get in the way. I just wanted to make sure you knew you still had all of us, all the brothers, and Faith, Lacey and the rest of them. You’re our family, Grady. And family’s forever.”
Grady’s eyes teared up as he said goodbye to Jackson. They weren’t brothers by birth, but they were true brothers in every true sense of the word, and he knew they always would be.
Chapter Eighteen
Autumn
As the days passed one by one, Autumn’s life gradually grew more and more lonely. She’d never realized how isolated she would be at a hotel like Raven’s Nest. Most days, the only people she saw were the Hildegards, and for obvious reasons, she kept her interactions with them both to a bare minimum. She was thankful Mr. Hildegard hadn’t tried anything with her since she’d told him he couldn’t spank her, but she was still wary of him and got shivers down her spine every time she was in a room with him.
She didn’t have the key to the lock on her bedroom door, and thankfully Mr. Hildegard had never tried to enter while she was sleeping, but even still, she took to sliding a small dresser in front of her door at night, just so she’d have some warning if he ever decided to pay her a visit. It wasn’t a feeling she enjoyed, locking herself away like that.
She never felt completely safe in the hotel.
Whenever a man checked in, or even once when a couple had stayed for a night, Mrs. Hildegard put them in room seven and spent the night spying on them. Autumn hadn’t ventured into the room since Grady had checked out, and was grateful Mrs. Hildegard hadn’t tried to make her join her either.
The thought disgusted her, and she often felt guilty about the night she’d crept into Betsy’s room to spy on Grady. She reminded herself it had only been him she’d spied on, and only because she’d had genuine feelings for him, but she still wished she’d had the strength not to take that peek, however pleasurable it had been.
Whenever she thought of what she’d witnessed, Grady pleasuring himself, his cum pouring from his cock and landing on his chiseled, tattooed chest, she got wet with lust.
Because it was the low season, there were very few guests at the hotel, and despite Mrs. Hildegard’s best attempts to keep Autumn at work, there were many times when she had nothing to do. There were only so many times she could clean the bathrooms and polish the silverware, and with everything so spick and span, she often found herself with time to hide away in her bedroom with yet another of Mrs. Hildegard’s romance novels.
The last guest in the hotel had been Mr. Jones, and he’d only spent a single night. Autumn had watched him leave with a strange sense of foreboding. In his brief stay, he’d somehow managed to give her the same sense of comfort Grady had given her while he was there. Every time a man like that left, she felt doubly alone.
With all the free time, she’d have thought the Hildegards would allow her to go into town more often, but every time she tried to leave, one or the other of them would stop her. It was at those times they seemed most determined to find an urgent chore for her to do, and Autumn suspected they thought she’d run away if they let her into town regularly.
Autumn could have lived with that except for the fact she couldn’t make phone calls from the hotel, the Hildegards wouldn’t let her, and she missed her mother’s voice. A few times, she tried to use the phone at the reception but it required a code to make outgoing calls. She also tried using the phones in the guest rooms but they went through the reception and required Mrs. Hildegard to enter the same code.
A trip to the diner was required to call home from the pay phone.
She waited until Sunday to make her move. There were no guests and there couldn’t possibly be a chore the Hildegards could think of that she hadn’t already don
e. So she crept quietly out of her room and checked to make sure Mrs. Hildegard wasn’t sitting at the front desk. She wasn’t. She and Mr. Hildegard were in their private quarters and a quick listen at their door told her they were watching game shows and wouldn’t notice if she snuck out.
She went back to her room and put on the luxurious socks, boots, and coat Grady had so kindly sent her, and then let herself quietly out the front door. She walked briskly down the long driveway, very aware that a glance out the window by the Hildegards would give her away.
When she reached the end of the driveway without incident she breathed a sigh of relief. A half hour later and she was at the diner.
“Hi,” she said shyly to the waitress.
The waitress was older than her and seemed friendly. She’d served Autumn a few times before but they’d never spoken beyond that.
“How are you?” the waitress said.
“Actually,” Autumn said awkwardly, “I’m here to ask you for a little help.”
“Help?” the waitress said, a look of concern on her face.
“It’s not an emergency or anything,” Autumn said, “but I need to call home.”
“You’re the new girl at the Raven’s Nest, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Autumn said.
“They run a pretty tight ship up there.”
“Yes, they do.”
“And you want change for the phone?”
“Is that okay?” Autumn said uncertainly.
“Honey, think nothing of it,” the waitress said, fishing four quarters from the tip jar by the cash register. “I know how those two treat their staff. It’s shameful that you need to ask for a few quarters.”
“I’m sorry,” Autumn said.
“I can’t believe they don’t give you any money for such a little thing.”
Autumn nodded, and the gratitude in her face was more than enough to show the waitress how much she appreciated the kindness. She went straight to the phone, put the quarters in the slot, and dialed her mother’s number.
It rang and rang but there was no answer.
Getting a little worried, she tried her aunt’s number. This time it picked up.
“Aunt Shirley? It’s me. It’s Autumn.”
“You’ve got some nerve calling here,” her aunt said.
Autumn was shocked. Her relationship with her aunt was sometimes difficult, but she’d never heard her speak in that tone before.
“Aunt Shirley, what’s the matter?” she stammered.
“As if you don’t know.”
“I don’t,” Autumn said desperately.
“The money. You never sent a penny. You forgot about us the second you got out of town, like I knew you would.”
“I’d never forget about you,” Autumn said. “Aunt Shirley, you’ve got to believe that.”
“Then where’s the money you were supposed to send.”
“They told me they were putting the check in the mail every week.”
“Who told you?”
“My employers. The Hildegards. Didn’t you receive it?”
“We haven’t received one red cent since you left us,” Aunt Shirley said, her voice breaking as she realized Autumn had no idea what had been going on.
“They didn’t send my pay?”
“Didn’t they show you the checks?”
“No, they just said they mailed them.”
“They’ve been lying,” Aunt Shirley spat.
“How can they? How’s mother?”
“How do you think? She couldn’t afford to fill the prescriptions. They’re seeing her at the free clinic but it’s nowhere near as good as where she was before.”
“They kicked her out?”
“You know how that hospital is. As soon as you miss a payment, the only people you can talk to are in the billing department. She couldn’t see her doctor at all.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s at the clinic, but they can’t give her the care she needs there, Autumn.”
“I don’t … I don’t know what to do,” Autumn said.
“You better go talk to your employers and find out what the hell they’re up to, because it looks to me like they’ve been ripping you off.”
Autumn thought she was going to collapse. She couldn’t believe it. All that time, the one thing that had kept her going was the thought that her work at the Raven’s Nest was helping look after her mother. Now it made sense why they didn’t want her coming into town, why they didn’t let her make calls from the hotel, why they’d been trying to keep her almost under lock and key up at the hotel. They were lying to her. They’d never sent a check. They’d never had any intention of doing so.
“I’m going to confront them right now, Aunt Shirley. I won’t quit until they send every penny they promised. Just wait.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. When her aunt’s voice came back she sounded softer, sympathetic.
“Honey.”
“Yes, Aunt Shirley.”
“You better make some plans to come home too.”
“Why?”
“It’s just … your mother … she hasn’t been doing well. There might not be too much more time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just make some plans to come home, sweetie. You should see your mother soon.”
Autumn didn’t need it spelled out for her. Her mother was dying. Her mother was dying and it was partially the Hildegards’ fault. They knew those payments were supposed to be for medical treatment. They knew what the stakes were. And now, her mother’s last weeks might have been spent thinking her only daughter had forgotten all about her.
She slammed down the phone and turned back to the waitress, her lip trembling, her hand shaking, but she refused to cry, at least while anyone was watching.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking as she spoke. “I owe you.”
Then she ran out of the diner and began hurriedly trudging through the snow back to the hotel. As she half stumbled, half ran through the messy snow bank that lined the highway, she let the tears fall. She couldn’t hold them back.
So many feelings were rushing through her that she didn’t even know how to decipher them. The one thing she was clear on though, the one thing she knew for certain, was that she felt rage, pure rage, for Mr. and Mrs. Hildegard.
By the time she reached the hotel she was breathless. She pushed open the door without slowing down. She stormed through the hall, up the stairs, and straight to the Hildegards’ private quarters. She did nothing to prepare herself for the confrontation that was coming. She didn’t pause to catch her breath, she didn’t take a moment to rehearse what she was going to say, she burst through the door and threw the words at her employers like they were weapons.
“You lied to me,” she cried. “You never sent the money. You never sent any of it. My mother’s been kicked out of her hospital.”
Mrs. Hildegard was taken by surprise. She leaned back on her seat and threw her arms up as if to shield herself from Autumn’s words. Mr. Hildegard was quicker to respond. He leapt to his feet and marched straight toward Autumn.
Autumn didn’t care. She was beyond being able to care.
“You lied to me,” she screamed.
Mr. Hildegard grabbed her by the shoulders but Autumn shook him loose.
“She’s dying,” she cried. “She’s dying.”
By now, Mrs. Hildegard was up too and together with her husband, she clamped her arms around Autumn and restrained her.
Autumn struggled but the elderly couple was surprisingly strong.
“You said you were going to look after her,” she cried.
Mr. Hildegard, his arms wrapped tightly around Autumn, lifted her from the ground and yanked her further into the apartment.
“Let me go,” Autumn cried but she wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing to her.
She was too distraught. The world was spinning. Her head was spinning. They could have slapped
her across the face and she wouldn’t have noticed.
Working together, Mr. and Mrs. Hildegard pulled her toward the strong, oak door that led to their bedroom.
“Let me go,” Autumn cried again, beginning to realize that she was being taken somewhere.
She struggled, determined to walk out of that hotel and never look back, but it was already too late. As she tried to fight them off, they pulled her toward the bedroom and flung her into it. She landed on the bed and leapt back up but they were too fast. The door slammed shut and an instant later, the clanking of a lock sealed her in.
“Let me out,” she cried, throwing herself at the door, but they didn’t answer.
She fell to the ground and began weeping uncontrollably.
How could she have been so stupid?
How could she let this happen to her?
How could she simply take their word for it that they were going to pay her mother’s medical bills?
She should have gotten the money and sent it to the hospital herself.
Mrs. Hildegard’s voice grated at her through the door.
“We’ll let you out when you’ve had a chance to calm down. There’s something you need to realize, you dumb bitch. You’re our girl now, not hers, and you’ll do as we command or you’ll live out your days locked upstairs like Betsy did.”
Chapter Nineteen
Autumn
Autumn had only one thing on her mind as she plotted her escape, getting home to see her mother. The way Aunt Shirley had spoken, it sounded like there might not be much time at all.
She flung herself at the door a hundred times but there was no way it was going to budge. It was strong and solid and the lock was bolted securely. She threw herself against it until her side hurt but that was more to let out her own frustration than through any belief the door might actually break open.
When she was dong crying, she wiped her tears on her sleeves and began to think. She examined the window. The window would open normally, the problem was that it was a good thirty feet above the gravel driveway outside. It was obvious why the Hildegards weren’t scared of her escaping through it. A fall from that height would kill her.
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