by Emerson Rose
“Ash!” I yell. His head snaps up to me on the balcony.
“Go back to Cannon’s room, Stella. I don’t want you to watch me kill my father.”
I hold his eyes and skitter down the curved staircase into the foyer. “You’re not going to kill anybody. Ash, let him go, I think he’s learned his lesson.” I tear my eyes from Ash’s to look at Adam’s bloody face, “Right? You won’t take Cannon to meet his mom without Ash’s permission again, right?”
I’m trying like hell to save this piece of shit man’s life, not because I care about him but because I love Ash. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he murdered his father and I just found him. I’m not about to hand him over to the police.
“I make no promises. The boy deserves to have his mother,” Adam says. What a fool.
Crack! Another punch to the face puts him on his knees. “She is not his mother, you earn that title with actions, and she left him when he was one week old for some piece of shit guitar player in Vegas,” Ash says, in a frightening calm voice.
The clicking of heels on the marble floor draw my attention to the beautiful blonde bombshell entering the room.
One side of her cherry red lipstick covered mouth lifts in a smirk, “You’ve been keeping tabs on me, Ashton? That’s sweet.” She catches sight of Adam’s bloody face, and her skin pales, but she recovers quickly fixing her gaze on Ash.
“I haven’t thought of you for five years.”
“You knew I was with Leighton, lead guitarist for Violent Violet, that’s something.”
“Abby, don’t talk about your sordid past. We’re here to focus on your future,” Adam gurgles through the blood from his place on the floor. Abigail flashes him an irritated look that she thinks no one caught, but I did.
Ridge materializes behind me touching my shoulder as he passes on his way to Ash’s side.
Ash ignores Ridge’s presence looking down at his father, “Shut up.” He releases his collar dropping him in a heap on the floor and turns to Abigail. “Call it a sick curiosity, but it only happened once. After I saw the trash you were hanging with I washed my hands of you. Now, tell me why you’re really here. I’m not giving you money, or drugs, or alcohol, so if that’s what you’re…”
“Ashton, stop. I’m only here to see Cannon. I told you I cleaned up my act over a year ago. I wanted to be clean, so I could get to know my baby.”
Ugh, yuck, the way she calls him Ashton instead of Ash makes me sick and is she an idiot? Cannon’s not exactly a baby anymore. Nobody stuffed him in a time capsule to preserve until she got her life together. Ridge and I share a look of disbelief from across the room.
“Great, congratulations, Abigail, I’m glad you got your shit together, but Cannon hasn’t been a baby for a long time. You’d know that if you were around, at all, ever. But you weren’t, were you? Not even one visit, you just disappeared in the night and never looked back.”
“That’s not true. I did look back, a lot. But I couldn’t get out of the hole I dug for myself, and every time I tried, I just sank deeper and deeper until I finally hit rock bottom. That’s when I realized my life went to shit the day I left you. I shouldn’t have done it, I know, but I can’t take back the past. I can only work on the future, and I want to be a part of my son’s life.”
“No.”
Her hands fly to her hips, and she pushes out her chest, “You can’t tell me no, I’m his mother.”
Ash curls his lip and clenches his teeth and fists. Ridge lays his hand on his shoulder as a reminder that we don’t hit girls. Unfortunately, I’d love to see her pretty perfect nose crooked and bloody. Wrong? Yes. Do I care? Nope.
He wants to bloody her like he did his father, but he knows he can’t. The way he looks right now, it wouldn’t surprise me if his body spontaneously combusted all over the room.
“You deserve the title of a mother about as much as Michelle Carmichael, the woman who gave birth to me, does. You do not get to call yourself that. You walked out on him, the same way my mother did. He didn’t even know what you looked like until today. He never knew your name or your touch or your voice. If his life depended on picking you out in a crowd before today, he’d be dead. And do you know why? I never wanted him to know you, that’s why. You’re poison, Abigail, and I’m not about to let you into his life now, or ever.”
Her full bottom lip pokes out in a pout. She looks ridiculous, like a grown woman with the expression of a two-year-old little girl. She’s beautiful, don’t get me wrong, long legs, long blonde hair all twisted up in a fancy bun, expensive clothes, and perfect makeup. But her aura doesn’t match her look. She’s faking who she is and underneath the pretty well-manicured exterior hides an ugly twisted, selfish bitch.
“Abigail, I’m marrying Stella, I love her, and she’s going to be Cannon’s, no she already is, Cannon’s mother. She is the polar opposite of you. Stella is everything that you aren’t, good and wholesome, kind, compassionate, loving, intelligent, and patient… I could go on forever, believe me, but I think you get the point.”
I move from the last step to his side and lace my fingers with his in solidarity.
“Ash, I worked hard in rehab to get better. Can’t you cut me some slack and let me into his life? Please?” I can’t help rolling my eyes when she whines. She sounds so ugly.
“I said no. You want to see him get a lawyer and petition the court. It’ll be a waste of your money, though, and your time. Now tell me what you’re really here for?”
“I told you, like five times already, I don’t want anything from you. I just want to see my son. He should know his mama, he should know my side of the family, his grandparents, his aunt, his… sister.”
Holy shit, now that’s a bomb. Abigail has another kid, a girl, and she probably needs help supporting her financially so she thought she’d show up here and try to play house with Ash and Cannon.
“You have another child?”
“Yes, she’s two, her name is Michelle.”
She fucking named her kid after my biological mother? What kind of person does shit like that? Abigail Nelson, that’s who.
“You… you named her after my… why the hell would you do that?”
He can’t even verbalize the word mother when referring to her. That bitch really did a number on Ash.
“She did it for me,” Adam says.
Oh my God. This isn’t happening. Adam did not have a baby with Ash’s ex fiancé. That is way too twisted and fucked up even for this group.
“What? Why?” Ash asks, lagging behind in the understanding department.
Adam leans to his side on one hand looking down at the floor. “Ashton, your mother didn’t run away and leave you, she died giving birth to you. And when Abigail showed up on my doorstep looking for help getting clean three years ago, I secretly took her in and paid for her rehab. She stayed with me for a while when she got out and ended up pregnant with my child. She gave birth to Michelle, but I couldn’t marry her not when she already had a son with you. How would that look to the public when I’m trying to become Governor? So I got her a little place and a simple job that wouldn’t stress her into using again, but she did twice before it stuck this time.”
Oh boy, this is too much, too much for me, and way too much for Ash. He stumbles back a step from his father. I grasp his arm and Ridge supports him on the other side. “I’ve got him, grab a chair,” Ridge says, and I reluctantly let go of his arm and hurry to get the chair next to the front door.
Ash is sitting stunned and overloaded with new information about his past and present. I’m seething mad seeing him this way.
“What the fuck kind of man has a kid with his grandson’s mother?” I direct my question at Adam, but I don’t let him answer. I’m not done. “A sick fuck like you, Adam, that’s who. I don’t know you, but I do know what Ash has told me about the way you treated him growing up, blaming him for your wife’s disappearance, insinuating he had done something to make her run away. Do you know wh
at that does to a kid? Do you understand abandonment at all?” I switch my focus to Ash for a moment, “I’m sorry, baby, but this has to be said. I swing back to Adam who is still looking down, blood dripping on the white marble looking pathetic and ashamed, as he should. “There’s a big difference between dying in childbirth and running away. Your wife died, she had no control over that, she didn’t choose to leave. Yet, you led your son to believe his whole life that he was such a terrible little boy that his mother couldn’t stand the sight of him, so she had to run away. That’s so sick, so fucking sick.”
“I …” Adam tries to speak but I cut him off.
“I’m not done yet. When I am, believe me, you’ll know. So tell me this, what was your plan here? Were you going to try and get Ash to take your little girlfriend back and move her into his house with your daughter, so they looked like the perfect family to the people of the fine state of Montana? Or were you going to marry her yourself and try to get custody of Cannon so you could have the perfect family over at your place? No, that couldn’t be it, there’s too big of an age gap and besides, everybody knows Cannon is Ash’s son.” I crouch down in front of Adam and take ahold of his bloody chin forcing him to look at me. “What. Was. Your. Plan. Adam?”
“Where is she buried?” Ash asks before Adam can answer my question. I turn my head, and the pain on his face rips my heart in two.
“Castle Dale Cemetery, Plot 160, on the top of the hill next to a hundred-year oak tree.”
“I’m going there.” He stands, and I stand with him. “I’m going to leave my house and go visit my mother’s grave site. When I get back, you two are going to be gone, and I don’t want to see either of you again.” He eyes Abigail across the room wringing her hands.
“And if you so much as mention custody or visitation to a lawyer, Abigail, I’ll tell the press you’re fucking my dad, the future Governor of Montana, and that you have a daughter with him and a son with me.”
Then he looks down at Adam again. “You’re something else, you know that? All these years I’ve been blaming myself for my mother’s death, keeping women at arm's length because I didn’t trust any of them to stick around. I thought my mother didn’t love me. You made me think the one person in the world who was supposed to love me unconditionally walked away like I was nothing.”
“You killed her! She bled to death bringing you into the world. You deserved to suffer for taking her away from me. I loved your mother, she was everything to me, and you took her!” Adam screams.
“I was a baby, Adam. I had no control over what was happening. You can’t blame me for her death, I won’t let you. I won’t accept responsibility for an act of God.”
He steps over his injured father, leaving him broken and bleeding like his father has done to him for thirty-four years. He calmly crosses the room and opens the front door, and without turning around, he says, “Stella, I need you.”
Barefoot I follow him out and climb into the Range Rover. He starts the engine, and we are off to see his mother, for the first time in his life.
22
Taking Stella home
Ash
Pulling up to the curb, I grip the steering wheel with both hands until my knuckles turn white. She’s here, my mother who I thought abandoned me at birth, is buried in this cemetery.
I put the car in park and open my door to get out. I look down when my bare feet meet with cool air and cold concrete. Shoes. We left the house without shoes.
I hear the passenger door open and close when Stella gets out. She rounds the back of the Rover and stands in front of me in her bare feet. Still staring down, I hear her say, “She won’t care.”
I look up confused, “What?”
“Your mama, she won’t care that we aren’t wearing shoes. She’s just glad you know the truth. She’s been waiting thirty-four years for a visit from her baby.”
I pull her in and hold her tight, tangling my fingers in her hair before she sees my tears fall. I love this woman so much it makes my heart ache. I may have gotten a raw deal with my mother’s death and my father’s blame, but Stella more than makes up for it.
I hold her for a long time until the tears slow and I have the strength to climb the hill and read my mother’s name on a gravestone. When I take hold of her shoulders and put distance between us, I see that she’s been crying, too.
“Sorry,” she says, wiping her nose on the back of her hand sniffing loudly.
“What for?”
“Blubbering when you need me to support you, that your mother is dead, that your daddy lied to you, that you have a half-sister with that woman.”
She’s so damn compassionate and giving. I can’t fucking wait to marry her. I tuck her hair behind her ears and wipe away her tears.
“None of that is your fault, darlin’, and I don’t mind you blubbering at all. Don’t be sorry.”
“It happened to you, and I love you, so I’m sorry.”
“Okay, I’ll accept that. Come on, let’s go see my mama.”
She steps back so I can get out and close the door. It’s a beautiful May day, the sun is shining, a warm breeze rustles the leaves on the trees, and I can hear the trickling of a creek in the distance.
The grass is like plush carpet under our bare feet, the cemetery is meticulously manicured, and every gravestone is clean and polished, proudly displaying the name of its occupant.
Privately owned, the Castle Dale Cemetery is tucked away in a little corner of Montana paradise at the base of a mountain. It’s beautiful and peaceful, exactly where I would want a loved one’s body to spend eternity. At least Adam did one thing right.
At the top of the hill, I don’t have to search for her. An enormous shiny black headstone with the name Michelle Cassandra Pride chiseled into the marble rules the hill. Flanking the stone are two angels, one is looking at a scroll in her hands and the other gazing up at the heavens.
“Wow, it’s beautiful, she was beautiful.” She bends forward to look closer at the small picture of my mother etched into the stone surrounded with pearls.
“Yeah, she was."
We step closer and read the inscription.
Gone are your flesh and bones, gone are your laugh and your smile, gone is the touch of your hand on mine, but our love will live on forever.
“Sounds like he loved her.”
“Yeah, it does. I wish I could have.”
“You still can. You might not have memories of her, but now that you know she didn’t leave you on purpose you can replace those negative feelings about her with positive ones. Maybe you can find people who knew her and discover what kind of woman she was?”
I turn my head and look into her wise eyes and reach for her hand. She steps into my side and leans her head against my chest. “Mom, this is Stella, I’m gonna marry her. She’s beautiful and smart and loving, and she loves my son like he was her own. I love her, and I think you would have loved her, too.”
She tips her head up pressing her cheek against my chest, and I look down at her tucked under my arm. “Thanks for introducing me to your mama.”
“No problem. Think she’d be opposed to me kissing you in front of her?”
“No, I think she’d be glad to know how loved you are.”
I nod, “I like the way you think, Mrs. Pride.”
“Future-Mrs. Pride.”
“Formalities.” I lower my head and cover her mouth with mine kissing her with so much passion I imagine my mother is blushing in heaven.
23
I do
Stella
“Tella, you okay?” Cannon asks with a wrinkle of worry between his sweet eyes.
“Yeah, I’m good, buddy. I didn’t eat breakfast. I’m just hungry.” Lies. I’ve felt like shit ever since we came home from Redwater.
I hadn’t planned on going back home. But Charlotte called asking for a favor and I love my sister so much I would do anything for her, including asking Ash to help my parents.
I didn’t like it
when Charlotte hooked up with Beau Hill, and I made no bones about telling her about Beau’s past. But, my opinion almost made her lose the love of her life.
I wasn’t the popular cheerleader type like Charlotte in high school. I was social, but I preferred to sit back and observe others. One of the people I observed a lot was Beau Hill, son of Mack and Angel Hill. The Hill/Deardon family feud had been ongoing for over a hundred years. Charlotte, Jack Jr., and I were taught to hate Beau since birth. Naturally, when I was told to stay away from him, it made him all the more interesting.
I watched him at school. I saw how he kept to himself and wondered how such a hot guy wasn’t interested in nailing every girl in school like all the other guys. It was weird.
Then I started sneaking over to the Hill Ranch to see what he did with all his spare time. That's when I found out he was interested in nailing girls, just not schoolgirls. Beau wanted more experienced women in his bed, or the lofts of the barns as it was. He slept with every female ranch hand that worked for his daddy, and when he graduated and went to college, I heard stories about him being the biggest man-whore on the East Coast.
But, like Ash, he changed when he fell in love. Beau loved my sister, and he didn't let her go without a fight. When he finally convinced her he was no longer a playboy he took her home, moved her into his big fancy house that he built himself, and hired her as the Whiskey Hill private veterinarian.
With the dust settled from the tornado, my sister graduating, and my parents finding a place to live, there was the business of what to do with the Deardon Ranch. With no insurance money to rebuild my parent’s only choice was to sell. But not a lot of people wanted to buy a cursed ranch that had been sucked up in a rare Montana tornado.
But Beau Hill knew the tornado destroying the Deardon Ranch was a fluke, once-in-a-lifetime tragedy. He lived across the road, and his ranch wasn't damaged at all. He wanted to buy the land, but he didn’t have the resources to purchase it, rebuild, and expand without help. That’s when Charlotte called to ask if Ash could help. He had been interested right away and jumped at the chance to be involved with the Whiskey Hill Ranch.