THE SMILE ON Rain’s face disappeared and she turned serious again. “Brody, your father came to me when he found out I was pregnant. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so . . .”
“What?” Brody wished they could go back to lighthearted teasing instead of hashing out their past.
“Soft.”
He almost laughed at the thought of his old man being anything but mean and nasty for no other reason than he wanted to be.
“Soft? He must have been really wasted.”
“Not at all. In fact, it was quite early in the day.”
“You think that means he was lucid and sober?”
“Would you stop. Listen to me. He came to ask if he could see the baby when it was born.”
Surprised his old man even cared, he asked, “He did? He wanted to see the baby?”
“Very much. I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone look so . . . regretful,” she said after taking a moment to think of just the right word. Her thoughtfulness made Brody think twice about the old man.
“The conversation was very short, but before he left, he said something I think you need to hear.”
“Anything he had to say isn’t worth knowing.”
“Brody, he was your father. For better or worse, he loved you in his own way.”
“Bullshit. That man didn’t love anyone.”
“Then maybe what he had to say will make a difference for you. He turned back before he left and said, ‘Anything good in me went into my boys. It grew in them and made them who they are. If Brody put half the wealth of good he has into your baby, I’ll have a fine grandchild.’”
Brody actually took a step back, covered his mouth with his hand, and slid his fingers over his jaw before dropping his hand to his side again. “He said that?”
“Whatever else was between you, he was proud of his sons. In that small moment, I saw it in his eyes, Brody. He regretted not being a good father to you, but he knew you and Owen had taken what little he thought he’d given to you and made something of it.
“After Dawn was born, he came to see me again. He stared at her for the longest time. Barely said more than a few words to me. Then, he picked her up and held her in front of him. He apologized to her for playing a part in your leaving,” she said, her eyes never leaving his.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t believe what she was saying could really be real.
“He turned to me then, to let me know the apology was meant for me, too. He sang her a lullaby, said it was one he used to sing to you and Owen when you were small.”
Brody choked back the lump in his throat. “He liked to sing when he was drunk,” he said, filling up the awkward moment.
“He had a nice voice. Dawn fell asleep, content in his arms. He left after that. I didn’t see him again until the day after I brought Autumn home. He stared at her with this strange look on his face. When he spoke, it was with such reverence. He told me she looked just like your mother.”
“She does. When I saw her, I was taken back to my childhood when my mother was around.”
“He didn’t stay long. Before he left, he held her for a few minutes, then looked at me with so much sadness in his eyes. He said, ‘The worst thing a man can do is leave a good woman, or make her leave him. You’re a good woman, Rain. Brody left too much of himself behind. He’ll be back, or spend the rest of his days in misery as it should be for any man willing to let love go.’ I’ll never forget his words, or the way he said them.”
Brody turned away toward the dark, his back to the truth. He couldn’t believe his father had been so different with Rain from the man he knew.
“Brody, did you ever wonder why your father drank so much? Maybe it would help you to reconcile who your father was if you considered how he truly felt about your mother. I don’t know much about their relationship, but I gather he loved her very much and didn’t know how to show her, or tell her. It’s my impression she was very different from Owen’s mother, softer, sweeter of nature. Maybe a counterbalance to your father’s more gruff and hard personality. I think he regretted damaging her and driving her away. I think he lived in misery, trying to drink away his memory of her and what he’d done, because he’d let love go.”
“What does this have to do with anything between us?”
“I don’t want to see you make the same mistake your father made when he pushed your mother away and spent the rest of his life punishing himself for letting her go. I don’t want you to punish yourself for what happened, or take it out on the people around you. I don’t want to see you turn your back on us because you’re having a hard time right now.”
“Is that what you think I’m doing, punishing myself?”
“I think you believe you deserve to be punished, and for more than just what happened with us.”
She was talking about what happened while he was in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I haven’t been a very good man,” he said by way of an explanation and an excuse.
“I don’t believe that at all. You’ve made mistakes. Ones you’re willing to take responsibility for and try to make right.”
“I do want to make things right with you. I want that more than anything. And if you tell me how to do that, I’ll do it, anything to make you happy and love me again.”
“Again isn’t necessary. It’s always been, Brody. But Roxy is still standing between us, and I need to know if you’ll stand by my side when she comes back for Autumn.”
“What makes you think she will after all this time?”
Rain held up the check in her hand. “She’ll want you to give her one of these, too. She’ll take as much as you’ll allow her to take from you. Once she’s used it all up, she’ll be back for more.”
“How will she know about the money?”
“If I cash this check, everyone in town will know about it in a matter of days.” He frowned and she went on. “The teller will mention to someone I deposited a huge check drawn on your account back east. She won’t even have to say how much, it’ll just be out there. One of Roxy’s spies will hear about it and call her. They’ve already told her you’re here and about the article in the paper, listing all your accomplishments. She probably already knows about you fixing this place up and hiring a contractor to build an addition. This will only add to her curiosity and plotting to find out how she can get what she can from you and use Autumn to do it.”
“Now tell me what you’re avoiding saying and used that little story about my dad to delay telling me. Why did you give Roxy money?”
“I’d think that’s obvious. I paid her for Autumn.”
“She sold you Autumn, my daughter,” he said, not believing anyone could be so cruel and callous.
“Yes. The scene in the grocery store, her breaking down under the stress of being pregnant and realizing you weren’t coming back. Also the fact I told her I had no idea where you were and didn’t care.”
“Is that how you really felt?” he asked, afraid she did and might still.
“I think you know it’s not, but I needed her and everyone else to see I was okay on my own.”
“Eighteen, alone, and pregnant. Yeah, I can see why you’d want to convince them and yourself you could do it.”
“I did do it, but it wasn’t easy. Anyway, she cornered me and after a few choice words, she told me she wanted to get rid of the baby. She made it plain she’d do anything to be rid of it. I had a life inside of me, could feel our child growing and moving. One look at her round stomach and I knew just how precious that life was, it was my child’s sibling.”
“You couldn’t have known that for sure,” he bluntly pointed out, hating the fact he’d slept with Roxy along with a horde of others. None of them meaning more to her than the pleasure of the moment, or a means to an end.
“I couldn’t take the chance the baby wasn’t yours, so I made her an offer. I told her if she kept the baby, I’d pay her. Since we were in the store, she agreed to meet me later and discuss the details. We met privately and discussed terms.”
“Terms. Like it was nothing more than a contract to be negotiated, not an unborn child. Disgusting.” The thought so foul, he actually tasted his bitter revulsion. “It cost you everything you had.” The hate he held for Roxy spilled out with his every word.
“Twenty-five thousand to get her to carry out the pregnancy,” Rain confirmed. “Dawn came two weeks early. I like to think she wanted to be your first, even though you’d gotten Roxy pregnant before me,” she said.
He didn’t know how she could look back on this mess with any kind of humor.
“Roxy went into labor fifteen days later. Pop watched Dawn while I went to see Roxy and the baby at the hospital the next morning. I took one look at Autumn in the nursery and I knew she was Dawn’s sister.”
“They don’t look exactly alike,” he pointed out.
“Not exactly, but there was no doubt she was yours. So I went into Roxy’s room and negotiated.” Rain’s voice turned hard, which meant Roxy had really stuck it to her, made it impossible for Rain to do anything but give in to her demands. Roxy probably made sure if Rain didn’t take the deal, she’d do something to Autumn, like put her up for adoption or sell her to some desperate couple. Worse, Roxy might have kept Autumn for spite. He had no doubt his daughter wouldn’t have been safe and loved in Roxy’s care. A chill went up his back just thinking about it.
“Roxy wanted out of this town. She owned the bar, every dime she had invested in the business. Whatever else she’d made, she’d squandered away. So I paid her for Autumn and gave her a way out.”
“She hated knowing you had plans to leave for college. I’ll bet she gloated about you having to stay here.”
“And a lot of other things,” Rain confirmed.
He just bet Roxy had really gone after Rain, embellishing what happened between the two of them. He wanted to hit something.
“I paid her the money she needed to get the hell out of town. I wanted her gone from my sight for good.”
“How much?”
“Twenty-five thousand for the pregnancy. Thirty-five thousand for her to give me Autumn.”
“She sold my child for sixty thousand dollars.” Disgusted with himself for ever laying a hand on the woman, or letting her get under his skin and using him.
“Yes,” Rain began, only he cut her off.
“How the hell have you been making ends meet?”
“It’s not easy. I do okay at the shop, but there have been a few times Owen bailed me out of a tight spot. I owe him about three thousand dollars. Pop helped me pay for the private detective I hired to track you down. So thanks for the check, that’ll go a long way to paying Owen and my father back for their help.”
“I’ll pay them whatever you owe.”
“I feel strange taking your money as it is. I’ll pay them.”
“This is my fault, my mess to clean up,” he told her, and meant it.
“There’s more, Brody. Roxy came back to town when the girls were three. She’d gone through all the money I’d given her. She came back, thinking you owed her, blaming you for all the bad in her life. This time, she went to your father to find you. Your father could be nasty and meaner than a rattlesnake when he wanted to be.”
“Truer words,” he said, agreeing with her.
“She told me later he laughed at her and told her if you wouldn’t come back for me and your children, you certainly wouldn’t come back for her. It’s all she needed to turn her cruelty on your father.”
Yeah, he knew all about it. “She got him drunk,” he said. “Well, more drunk than usual and sent him home. He hit a deer and the tree and died.”
“After, she worked herself into a rage and came to my house.”
“The cops were called.” Small towns, word got around quickly.
“A neighbor overheard us fighting. She tried to take Autumn. When I wouldn’t let her, she asked for more money.”
“Money you didn’t have,” he guessed.
“Not the kind of money she was asking for, and I didn’t have any idea how to contact you. Both those things really pissed her off, but not as much as Autumn coming down the stairs and calling me Mommy.”
“Like she cared,” he spat out. “She sold you her child.”
“I got her out of the house with a promise to scrape together whatever I could.”
“Why would you pay her more?”
“I had no choice. All she had to do was take Autumn. Legally, she’s her mother and has every right to her child.”
“Any judge would have given you custody after they found out you’d paid Roxy for Autumn.”
“How could I prove it? I paid her cash. She never signed anything giving me legal custody, or allowing me to adopt her. All she’d have to do is tell the judge she asked me to care for Autumn, but wanted her back now.”
“What a mess.”
“It gets even worse. The next day, she snuck into the house and took Autumn. I’m telling you, Brody, there is nothing scarier than having your child go missing. I was frantic. Dawn saw Roxy take her, so I called the police. They sent an officer to the house, but once I explained who Roxy was to Autumn, they shut me down. I didn’t have any legal right to keep Roxy from taking Autumn. I was able to get them to agree to find her and make sure Autumn was safe. Not any great comfort, because it would be a low priority since there was no reason to believe Roxy would harm her own child.”
His heart slammed into his chest and thrashed against his ribs. The thought of Autumn at Roxy’s mercy made him sick. He could only imagine the pain and anxiety and fear Rain must have felt not knowing where her daughter was or if she’d ever get her back.
“How did you get Autumn back?”
“Roxy waited three days to call me. It was agony not knowing anything about Autumn, or if I’d ever see her again. Dawn was a mess without her sister. She stopped talking the second day, and on day three she stopped eating. Brody, I’m telling you, I’ve never felt fear like I did watching my child living in misery, knowing my other child was out there with that selfish, conniving bitch.”
“There’s no end to the amount of pain I’ve caused you.”
“Brody, stop doing that. Stop taking everything that’s happened onto your shoulders when Roxy has a lot of the weight to carry all on her own.”
He dismissed her words all together. “How did you get Autumn back?”
“Roxy asked me to meet her at a fleabag motel outside Solomon. If you think the cabin looked like a dump, it had nothing on this place.”
“This is where she had our daughter?”
Rain put her hand on his chest over his heart. “Thank you for that, for believing she’s mine and yours.”
He took her hand and kissed her palm. “There’s no getting around the truth. Is there, Rain?”
“No. I guess not.”
Rain sucked in a shuddering breath and spilled the rest. “Roxy was there with some seedy-looking guy. The room . . . Oh, Brody, just the thought of Autumn being stuck there for three days in all that smoke and filth and seeing and listening to Roxy and that guy smoke and drink themselves into oblivion. Roxy was a complete stranger to her. She was so scared.”
He lost Rain to her memories and the emotions she couldn’t hide from her expressive eyes. Offering what little comfort he could now, he kissed her palm again and held her hand to his heart, waiting for her to go on.
“Long story short, I paid Roxy another eight thousand dollars. It wasn’t as much as she wanted, but it was all I could come up with, everything I’d saved for the girls to go to school someday.”
Still holding her hand, he gave it a squeeze to let her know he understood how important that money was for their future. Pennies scraped together by Rain to make sure the girls had every opportunity.
“The whole time, I was frantic. I didn’t see Autumn anywhere in the room. I thought maybe they’d made her wait in the bathroom. Then Roxy went to the closet door and opened it. Autumn was curled up in the corner in the dark.”
Tears streamed down Rain’s face, every one of them tore his heart to shreds. “She’s just a little girl, afraid of the dark and monsters. I can’t imagine how terrifying it was for her to be locked in there for three days.”
“What? How do you know they didn’t just put her in there before you arrived?”
“Autumn told me later at the hospital.”
“Hospital?”
“I’ve never seen anyone so listless. They’d barely fed her, just some French fries and pancakes. They hadn’t given her anything to drink. She was severely dehydrated. Roxy had slapped her. Autumn’s cheek was bruised. I’d never even given her a little swat on the butt.” Rain swiped at the tears on her face and went on. “I grabbed her and headed for the door. She held me so tight, like she was terrified I’d leave her there.
“The guy blocked my way out and said the eight grand had only bought me time enough to make sure Autumn was in one piece. They wanted more, and I didn’t have it.”
“How’d you get out of there?”
“Sheer determination and force. When I tried to shove past the guy, he grabbed me and Autumn. I struggled and managed to knee him in the balls, but Roxy grabbed me just as I got the door open. I don’t know what came over me, but I punched her in the mouth, split her lip and made her scream. It was all I needed to get past them and haul ass out of there.”
“What the hell. That bitch. Unbelievable.”
“I’d have done anything to get her back.”
“Of course you would, but that bitch didn’t think twice about hurting you or Autumn.” He vibrated with the need to find Roxy and that guy and make them pay. “If something happened to you, to her, I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I took Autumn to the hospital. I could barely get her to open her eyes. After answering a lot of questions and getting my hand looked at . . .”
“What happened to your hand?”
“I broke it when I popped Roxy.” She went on like it was nothing. “The cops asked a lot of questions about Autumn’s condition and why she lives with me. I called Pop to check on Dawn and tell him what happened. He told me Owen was in town dealing with your father’s death. Pop spoke to him and sent him to me at the hospital. Being Autumn’s uncle and a lawyer went a long way to the cops leaving me alone and letting me keep Autumn.”
“Why didn’t you have Owen call me then?”
“He wanted to, but I talked him out of it.”
He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets and stared over her shoulder at the lights of the cabin behind her. Dark as it was outside, he could still see everything, including the regret and need for him to understand written all over her face.
“Please listen to me, Brody. I wasn’t trying to punish you by keeping them from you. You were about to be shipped overseas to Afghanistan. Your response to Owen about your father’s death told us just how much you wanted to leave this place behind. I don’t know what it’s like to be a soldier, but I know enough to realize you didn’t need to worry about two kids and what Roxy was doing back here.”
“I could have helped you, sent you money.”
“Helped me from a country halfway around the world where you were facing life and death each and every day. How would you have been a father to those girls? By sending them letters? They were three years old. They didn’t know who you were, except for a picture in a frame. How could I explain to them anything you’d written when they didn’t know who you are, or if you were coming back?”
“Better for me to die over there never knowing I had them,” he shot back.
“What do you want me to say? I made the best choices I could for those girls. Autumn was in no condition for you to come rushing back, a stranger in her life, who might take her away from me, too.”
“I’d have never taken her from you,” he said, furious she’d even think it.
“I couldn’t take that chance,” she shouted back. “I couldn’t risk her mental state at that time. Brody, please understand, after I got her to the hospital, she was a mess. She wouldn’t speak. She clung to me, and I had to stay in the bed with her, or she’d scream. Her voice was so hoarse, and she’d have nightmares.
“After a week with a psychiatrist, I decided to take her home. She wasn’t responding to him. I had a long talk with the doctor, he gave me some advice on how to handle her. When I brought her home, I got a few books and I worked with her. She didn’t speak for almost a month. When she finally started coming around, it was at night when we’d lay in bed together. She had to sleep with the light on and always with me.
“You have to understand, before this happened she was a happy little girl, always ready with a smile. She wasn’t shy, but exuberant, like her sister.”
“There’s a definite difference in their personalities.”
“There always was, but Autumn never used to be so reserved, afraid of shadows. Roxy changed her, made her something she’d have never been, except for those three days with Roxy that stole the little girl I’d raised until then. It took a lot of patience and time to discover what happened those three days.”
“I have a feeling I don’t want to know,” Brody confessed.
“If you don’t, I’ll keep it to myself. The point is that Roxy can never take her from me again. Autumn won’t survive. She’s sensitive, has always been that way. Roxy has no idea what she did to that little girl because she only ever thinks of herself.”
“What did she do to Autumn?”
“Besides locking her in a dark closet and slapping her more than once for crying. Autumn was terrified. She didn’t know Roxy and that man. They scared her, yelled at her, mistreated her. Locked in that closet. Autumn heard what she thought was Roxy being hurt, maybe killed. She thought she was next.”
“What?”
“It took me a little while to sort it out from the snippets of information I gathered from Autumn over several days. I think she heard Roxy and that man having sex. Rough, loud, sex. Imagine a little girl hearing those kinds of sounds. Not loving gasps and sighs, but flesh slapping, dirty talk, and a lot of moans and gasps and you’re three and locked in the dark with people you don’t know and all you want is your mommy.”
“Holy Christ,” Brody swore.
“No matter what, we have to protect Autumn from her. Under no circumstances can Roxy ever be left alone with her.”
“You’d actually let Roxy see her?”
“I might not have a choice. She’s Autumn’s mother.”
“You’re her mother. Roxy was just an incubator. I swear to you, Rain, I’ll never let her take Autumn from us again. I’ll do whatever I have to, to make sure that never happens.”
“Sign over guardianship to me. It’s the only way I’ll have any say in what happens to her.”
“Marry me,” he countered. “Then you’ll be her stepmother legally. You can adopt her.”
“Seriously, Brody. Just like that, standing in the dark, no flowers, candles, dinner, you on bended knee with a ring. Nothing. Just forgive and forget and be my wife for Autumn’s sake.”
“I’ll give you all of that and more if you say yes.” He would, too. He’d give her anything. Still, he knew she wouldn’t. Not now. Not yet. “And it’s not for Autumn’s sake alone. It’s for mine.”
“Wow. Lucky me,” she quipped.
“Tell me what you want, Rain.”
“I want the girls to be happy and healthy the rest of their lives. I want a normal life. I don’t want to have to worry about money,” she said, then held up the check he’d given her earlier. “Check,” she said, signing it in the air. “One item down.”
Brody wrapped one arm around her waist and pulled her close. With his other hand, he brushed the wisps of hair from her cheek. “Tell me what you want from me.”
“I want what anybody wants, what you want. To feel safe and loved. To know nothing can ever come between us again. I want to trust you and know that when I have my back turned you won’t jab a knife between my shoulders and into my heart.”
“Brutal, honey.”
“Then you have some idea of how I felt when you left me.”
“You know how I felt being away from you,” he countered. Taking her hand, he not so gracefully kneeled down in front of her on one knee.
“Brody . . .”
“I got it,” he said, wincing in pain. “Will you do me the honor of coming inside and having dinner with me?”
“There’s a bed in there,” she teased.
“I know,” he said with a small groan. “I’ll behave myself and work on rebuilding the trust I shattered.”
“All right, dinner.” She smiled down at him.
“Mind helping me up?” he asked, only half kidding.
“Oh, Brody.” She made a grab for him as he stood. His forehead hit her chin, cracking her teeth together, making her let go and fall back. He grabbed her as they both stood and pulled her to his chest, their eyes locked.
“Man, that hurt.” Her hands gripped his biceps as she worked her jaw to ease the sting. Unable to help himself, he leaned down and kissed the side of her face, planting soft kisses along her jaw to her chin, then moving up and taking her already open mouth in a deep, sensuous kiss. Her grip on his arms grew tight and she drew him in with a tentative slide of her tongue over his. She opened to him and pressed her body down the length of his.
He wanted to devour, to take everything she offered and more. That’s why he gently brushed his lips over her parted ones, taking in the breath that escaped her lips in a soft sigh before he let her go and put her away from him. His whole body screamed in agony from the separation, but he owed her a lot more than one long talk and taking her to bed without any of the trappings that went into a relationship. He’d cheated her out of so much. He couldn’t bring himself to give into what he wanted without thinking first of the things she’d asked from him. Trust. Feeling safe and loved. Knowing he’d never pull her close, only to turn away from her again.
“Come up to the house. Talk to me about our girls.”
“Will you tell me about . . . everything?”
“Everything?”
“What your life has been like these last years. Where you went, the things you’ve seen and done.”
“I don’t think you want to know the things I’ve done,” he said, thinking of everything he could tell her but would only hurt her more. She knew about the other women. He wished she didn’t. Then, there were the things he’d done in the military in the name of freedom and democracy. There were a lot of good things he’d done, he guessed.
“Can’t you tell me a story without starting with ‘. . . There was this blonde . . .’” she said with half a smile.
He couldn’t help himself, he laughed. It was an old joke between him and Owen going back to the early days in high school when they’d tried to one up each other with the girls. Rain had been just his friend back then, and whatever trouble he and Owen stirred up, the story always started with “. . . There was this girl . . .”
Teasing, he said, “Actually, she’s a brunette.” The softness in her eyes told him she knew he was talking about her. It seemed everything meaningful in his life started with her.