Nicky shifted from one foot to the other, staring down at the mound of dirt in front of us.
“She was sick.” He said it slowly as if trying the words out on his tongue. Then he nodded again. “She was sick. She had cancer. Cancer killed her.” He shot me a nervous look. “Right? It was…cancer?”
“Yes. Cancer took over her body. Then she died.” I didn’t have to wonder about what he was trying to clarify. I was sure he’d had as many fantasies about something or someone wiping her off the face of the earth as I had. Though, truthfully, I was far more jaded than he could ever be.
“Is she up in heaven?” Nicky asked, his voice clear and innocent, relaxed even. If he hadn’t been slapping at his thigh the way he did when he was stressed, I would’ve thought he was happy.
“I…” How was I supposed to answer that? If Heaven existed, Mother would’ve been the last person to be allowed inside. But Nicky had been through enough, so I answered with, “I hope so.”
“I don’t know if she is,” he objected. “You know what Pastor Paul tells us. Only people who love God and do His work can go to heaven.” His mouth trembled a little. “She didn’t love God, and she said it was stupid to give food to hungry people. She said it was stupid to care about people you didn’t know.”
“It’s a kind thing, helping those who need it. Even strangers, Nicky,” I said gently. “Melody didn’t understand kindness. I guess she never received enough of it in her life before she had us, so she couldn’t give it.”
“She was Mother.” For a moment, his eyes darkened with stubborn intent.
I wasn’t going to argue the point with him. Yes, Melody brought us into this world. Legally, that made her our mother—biologically. Why upset him over semantics he’d never understand?
“Mother is gone.”
Wrapping an arm around him, I leaned in and kissed his temple. “She is. Do you want to say anything? To tell her goodbye?”
“No.”
“Are you ready to go back?”
He swallowed hard and looked away. “Mother put me there…” he started, and his voice cracked. “Please, Thea.”
“What is it, Nicky?” I reached out and touched his arm.
He flung himself at me and wrapped his arms around me, clinging like he was drowning. “Please don’t let them take me back there.”
“Oh, baby.” I hugged him to me tightly, and as we stood there, the question surfaced. “Where, Nicky? Who are you talking about?”
“The people at Sunny Vista.” It took him forever to spill those words out but finally he did and they came out like pent-up poison. “Mother told me that when she got too sick to take care of me, Sunny Vista would keep me. You promised we’d leave Mother together. I don’t want to go back to Sunny Vista.”
Sunny Vista. Even the name of the place was enough to make me want to scream. A nice enough facility, I knew, but it had been my brother’s jail for too long. He didn’t need to be in any sort of medical facility.
It had just been Melody’s way of dealing with things after the wreck. She’d had to pay almost ten million in damages to the families of the two boys, one who had died and the other who had damage severe enough that it would affect him the rest of his life and she’d simpered and smiled her way through that, hands worrying her pearl necklace, tears gleaming in her eyes as she listened intently to the judge and cried prettily at what the families of the boys had to say.
She’d painted my brother as unstable and dangerous, when all he’d wanted to do was escape the hell that had been our home.
I’ll make sure he gets the help he needs. He’ll be watched much more closely.
The problems started with her. When was she going to be watched? When was she going to be given the help she needed?
Now the truth would never come out.
But one thing was certain…Nicky wouldn’t go back to Sunny Vista.
“You’re not.”
I said it with absolute certainty, with peace of mind. Because I’d already made sure I had the right—and I did. I’d been privately working on this from the time I found out Melody’s cancer was terminal. I was armed and ready, and this time, I had the weapons I needed. The law was on my side. We were leaving. My bags were packed, along with the few precious things that Nicky kept at my place during the one weekend per month I’d fought to be with him.
Nicky didn’t need to worry about it, but the fact that he raised it meant he was able to connect the dots in his mind. Mother’s death meant we could leave. Clearly, he was more aware of what was going on than I realized.
Back during her announcement that she had cancer, she’d added an ultimatum for me.
It was simple.
It was horrible.
It was just like her.
If I wanted to see Nicky, I had to give up LeVan.
Any contact with LeVan, be it in person, by phone, or over the Internet, would result in her barring me from visiting Nicky. She’d made the biggest move in my life, attempting to pit me against my own brother. To try to make me choose.
Blood against love.
A relationship with my brother or the man of my dreams.
I couldn’t hate her any more than I did at that moment.
She knew I’d choose Nicky. Because I’d never leave him behind. And after saying goodbye to LeVan, I did my best to save Nicky from the knowledge of my choice. He didn’t need to know how cruel and deeply evil my mother’s intentions lay. I never told him, but looking back, maybe he had a vague idea, if only through the tension in my body language around my mother.
Acting wasn’t in my DNA after all.
Before Mother’s death, I saw Nicky at Sunny Vista one weekend a month. Mother never barred me from seeing him there, so in that respect, I had unlimited visiting privileges at the group home. But my time was limited. I needed to work and save for this day. I was certain that if we were in any other part of America, I would’ve gotten more than one weekend at my place with him. But fighting her for custody would’ve put Nicky through the wringer.
Choose your battles.
That was one thing Mother had unwittingly taught me.
At the time that she’d announced the start of her battle with cancer, I was in the beginning stages of debuting my fashion line. After learning about her illness, it made sense to reevaluate. I was optimistic, figuring that she’d change her mind and let him be with me.
That didn’t happen.
She took Nicky home for six months, then put him back into Sunny Vista when her health took a turn for the worse. And so things had gone. She’d get better, she’d bring him home, and the cancer would throw her for another loop. No way could I handle a revolving door like that, let alone Nicky.
My reassessment led me to one conclusion.
My fashion line had to succeed.
I had no other option but to make it big, and to earn a fricking fortune, given that she’d cut me off financially, and in all likelihood, would find a way to control that money from beyond the grave. I could’ve withdrawn from the first five hundred thousand I got when I was eighteen. Maybe I should’ve. But I knew enough about money to keep that lump sum locked away for the future. My fashion line had to do well because I needed the money to survive and take care of Nicky.
I was in love with my career and thank goodness for that. Cut off from the man I loved for all these years, my focus entailed a very few select things.
Two things, really.
My brother and my career.
I saw Nicky as often as I could. I poured myself into building a name for myself in the fashion world and leveraged all of Tammy’s connections, something she insisted on. My boss went to bat for me and helped me stand on my own in an industry that was as competitive and cutthroat as any.
And while I climbed each rung in the business world, I prayed the man I’d loved for years would never forget me.
I waited, saved, planned, and prepared.
In secret, I’d begun building my case for cus
tody while my fashion line became its own label and evolved into a brand that people recognized and wanted in their closets alongside the other big names. As my brand grew, so did my profits. By the time I was ready to take the case to court, my fashion brand was worth millions. It was around that time that I found out her cancer wasn’t responding to treatment.
Then she died.
She was gone now, and I was ready. So was Nicky.
All we had to do was get into the car and drive.
Ten years…it had been ten years. I’m coming back to you, LeVan.
I still loved that boy with everything I had in me.
That boy.
He was a man now. And I was a woman. His woman.
It was time to keep that promise I’d made.
23
LeVan
I got home at the same time.
I did the same things I always did.
I checked the mail.
I checked my phone.
I checked my cellphone, even though I routinely did the same thing when working—I was expecting a call, right?
A call.
A letter.
A postcard.
She could skywrite for all I cared.
It had been over a month. If I’d known, I would’ve been there with bells on—and my mother would’ve smacked me across the side of my head, too.
As it was, she and my father had been out of town for their thirty-fifth anniversary and it wasn’t until they got back into town that they heard the news. That was why I didn’t find out until nearly two weeks after that old bitch had been in her grave. It was over a week later.
I’d waited.
We’d made plans.
We’d promised each other.
A hundred promises, whispered over phone calls, scrawled onto letters and postcards. The only thing we hadn’t done was skywrite it.
I’ll wait for you.
I’ll be there. As soon as I know Nicky’s safe. Are you going to wait for me?
It was a damn hard thing, waiting for the only woman I’d ever loved, but it was a damn hard thing not to do it, too. She was the only woman—the only girl.
And it had been six weeks.
There were no letters.
There were no postcards.
There were no calls on my home phone, nor the voice mail.
The only thing I didn’t bother to check was the sky, but I didn’t figure she’d skywrite the message she was coming.
I was starting to doubt she ever would.
But I tried to remember that I was raised to have faith.
“Fuck, what’s the matter with you?”
Mac jumped back, eyeing the fire on the floor in front of us for a moment before looking up at me. His pale green eyes were more surprised than mad, and he wiped sweat off his brow as he helped stamp out a few of the flames. Assistants came running up with a fire extinguisher and one of them, a newer girl, gave Mac a lingering look—one he didn’t even notice. We had a strict rule about fraternizing with any of the crew, but even if we didn’t, I could’ve told the poor girl she was wasting her time.
The assistants would go on and on about how Mac looked like a rough-and-tumble version of that actor, Jason Momoa, and I could almost see it. But Mac had a hard time connecting with people—any kind of people.
Although right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if he wanted to connect with me—as in one of those big fists slamming into my head. I’d almost set him on fire.
I had to get my head out of my ass before I hurt one of my partners.
We were working on our final group show of the year, a New Year’s Eve spectacle that Mac had cooked up. Sly, the third and final member of our band of merry madmen, came jogging up, his face folded into a scowl. It didn’t look right on his face—with his red hair and vivid blue eyes, he looked like he should be bright and cheerful.
In truth, Sly was an asshole.
All of us were at times, but Sly tended to have more days when he was an ass than when he wasn’t.
Although, when Mac was in one of his moods, he was the one we all needed to watch out for.
It was understandable. Out of the three of us, I was the only one who’d had any sort of decent life. Sometimes I think if it hadn’t been for how Thea and I had been ripped apart, how I’d ended up New Orleans where I’d met Mac…
The other man eyed me narrowly for a long moment, then shook his head. “If that was me, Sly would just think I’d stayed up too late and knocked back a few too many—he’d threaten to kick my ass. But you…I’m kinda worried,” Mac said, his voice a rough drawl that reminded me of home.
He’d grown up in the southern part of Louisiana, close to New Orleans. While he presented a laid back and aloof front to the world, that life he’d lived hadn’t been a pleasant one either.
The two of us had kept each other going, but while he’d helped pull me out of a deep, ugly rut, I hadn’t been able to do the same for him. Or Sly, for that matter.
The two of them had walked in a world that was just…foreign. I couldn’t understand it, and I didn’t want to.
“If it will help, I can threaten to kick your ass, LeVan. What the hell is wrong with you?” Sly demanded.
Sly was a control freak of the worst sort, which made it insane that we could all work together, because neither Mac nor I cared to be controlled. Mac, as a matter of fact, flat out refused to let anyone even come close.
But we managed, somehow forming a cohesive unit—and becoming friends.
After seven years together, I’d gotten used to Sly’s dictatorial bullshit and knew when to ignore him. The answer was pretty much always.
He was great when it came to the magic, laying out the show and organizing everything down to the last, finite line—even if that drove both Mac and me nuts. Beyond that, he took himself too seriously.
Right now, though, the scowl on his face was justified.
“I’m sorry,” I said, biting the apology off and lifting my hands up before he could tear into me. “I’m not sleeping well and my timing was off.”
Timing was everything in this business, and with this illusion, one Mac and Sly had put together, it was even more crucial. It was a piece that involved an escape act and the two of them switching position—and clothes—all while Mac started out riding a big, mean-looking bike while Sly did a variation on one of his more popular fire routines. If I fucked up, either or both of them could be hurt in so many ways—or worse.
I was the distraction and while that didn’t seem like such a big role, it was.
It was Mac who played peacekeeper—that was usually my role.
As he stepped between us, Sly opened his mouth.
Mac shoved him back. Mac was a big bastard. At six foot four, with heavy shoulders and muscles that looked like he’d spent half his life in a gym, that light push sent Sly stumbling back. “Leave him alone. He never misses a mark, never has off days. If he’s having them now, then he’s got a reason.”
Sly shoved him back. “We don’t get to have off days.”
“You and me have them all the time, dumbass. You need to take a break?”
The dumbass comment had me grinning, lightening my mood a notch or two. But only a notch or two. My mood was too fucking foul for anything to really do the trick.
I was about ready to brush off the idea of a break when a woman’s voice rang out in the small, mock theatre.
“LeVan, there’s a woman here to see you. She’s talked her way past security on the main level and this one.”
Sly looked at me, then Mac.
“She sounds persistent,” I said easily. But my heart was racing.
Was it her?
“Dee.”
My cousin threw her arms around me, her crazy, dark curls smelling of summer and the tropics. When she pulled back to beam at me, I cupped her cheek. “You should’ve told me you were coming.”
“I wanted to surprise you.” She grinned at me, displaying a crooked tooth in a grin that had
shattered hearts around that small Louisiana town. “So…are you surprised?”
“Yes.”
“And…disappointed.” Dee sighed. “She’s not here yet, is she?”
I didn’t bother asking for clarification. We both knew there was only one she who might possibly be here—or one who would matter that much. “No.” Shaking my head, I reached down and caught her hand. “Come on, let’s go get a drink. I’ve missed my cues a few too many times and Mac kicked me out and told me to take a break.”
That wasn’t the exact truth.
Sly didn’t know everything about me, but Mac did and he knew why I’d been so tense, had recognized the look on my face. He’d told me in a low voice to go, and if I needed the whole damn day—or a whole damn month—to take it.
I wouldn’t need a month, but I’d take the afternoon to enjoy some time with my favorite cousin.
“Have you heard from her?” she persisted, hooked her arm through mine and swayed along next to me with a grace that was almost enough to make me forget about the gangly girl I’d left behind ten years ago.
“No. And I don’t think I will, cuz.”
“What do you mean?”
That stopped her dead in her tracks and since she had attached herself to my side, I had to stop as well or risk pulling her off her skyscraper heels.
Sighing, I looked down at her. “We were kids, Dee. Just kids. Stupid, desperate kids in love with the idea of being in love, in love with the idea of each other. That doesn’t mean it was meant to last forever.”
“Bullshit.” She unhooked our arms and poked me in the chest. “You and me, both of us know that kids who fall in love sometimes do have the real thing. You just…” She stopped, her voice hitching a little. “Well, your parents got to have the whole enchilada. My daddy died when I was so little, I barely remember him. But they were young when they fell in love, my mama and daddy—and yours. Sometimes, age really is just a number. You ought to know that.”
Risk Me (Vegas Knights Book 2) Page 13