“Of course. Right. I’ll, um… call her later.”
“Fantastic,” Reece muttered, trying to squeeze the sarcasm out of his voice and hearing he failed. “Later.”
“Later,” Reece heard before he disconnected, tossed his phone on his dash, started his truck, and headed home.
Chapter Eleven
Worthy of You
I watched as the coffee mug smash against the wall, coffee splashing everywhere.
Then I ran straight to the door of the kitchen.
I didn’t get there.
An arm caught me at my belly, my breath went out of me in a whoosh, and I found myself going backward.
Ham pinned me against the counter, his front tight to mine, his hands on the counter on either side of me, his head tipped deep to me, his face full of pain.
For me.
“Calm down, baby,” he whispered.
“My sister’s dead,” I whispered back.
“Stick with me, cookie.”
“My sister’s dead,” I repeated.
“Zara. Honey. Stick with me.”
“My sister’s dead!” I shrieked, watched him wince, and dissolved into body-wracking, throat-burning, uncontrollable tears.
Ham’s arms closed around me.
My legs gave out. I slid down his front and fell to the floor.
Ham came with me, shifting to his ass. His legs spread and cocked at the knees, he pulled me between them, my chest against his. He wrapped one of his arms around me tight. His other hand was in my hair, forcing my face into his neck.
I wrapped both of my arms around him, held strong, and sobbed.
I’d known this day would come. In the beginning I waited, hoping it would come. Last night I understood deep down that it actually had come.
Even so, I was totally unprepared for it.
Ham held me close for a long time and when my tears went from wild and uncontrolled to the kind that settled in for a long time, quieter and punctuated by hiccoughs, he moved. Getting to his feet and taking me with him, he lifted me cradled in his arms and carried me to the living room.
He sat on the couch and then stretched out, arranging me on top of him, all the while holding me close.
We settled silently and I focused on something else and that something else didn’t make the tears go away.
“My nephew really lives with my aunt Wilona?” I asked.
“It’s true, darlin’.”
“My aunt is a bitch,” I told him.
Ham had no response.
“He’s been there for nine years.”
Again no response from Ham.
“My dad’s such a dick,” I shared.
That got a response.
“That he is, cookie.”
I pulled in a deep breath through my nose and on the exhale relaxed into him.
“I don’t believe this,” I whispered.
“I don’t either, baby,” Ham whispered back.
I put a hand in the couch at the back, lifted up, and used my other hand to swipe at my face as I looked down at him.
There was pain in his face still. Pain for me. But it was now mingled with sorrow.
Sorrow for me.
If I didn’t already love this man, looking at his handsome face showing plain all the feelings he was feeling for me, I would have fallen in love.
But I loved this man. It was just that, right then, I loved him more.
“His name is Zander?” I asked.
“That’s what Mick says,” he answered.
My eyes drifted to the armrest his head was lying on and I remarked, “Dad named him. That’s for sure. He got that shit from Grandpa Val. Crazy-ass names.”
“Zara’s the most beautiful name I ever heard,” Ham stated and my eyes flew to him as my chest expanded. “He’s a dick but he named you sweet, baby. And, you find a way not to give him credit, Zander is pretty kick-ass, too.”
Right then, I loved Ham even more.
So much I couldn’t express it and I couldn’t cope with it, so I dropped my head so my forehead was resting on his chest.
“Now that you got your shit tight, cookie, I’ll tell you the rest,” Ham said.
“Oh God,” I moaned into his chest.
He slid his hand to curl around the back of my neck. “This is the good part, darlin’.”
I lifted up to look at him. “There’s a good part?”
“Yeah. When I was in town, after I learned this shit, got pissed, had to walk it off. I saw Nina’s offices, paid her a visit, and she made time for me.”
I was confused. What did Nina have to do with anything?
“I don’t get it,” I told him.
Ham gave it to me.
“Hired her to start custody proceedings to get Zander.”
My heart lurched before it swelled, hope pushing out anguish.
Back then, I’d wanted my sister’s baby. With my sister all but gone, I wanted a piece of her, especially a precious piece that she’d made. We’d had it tough, we’d stuck together through it, and after we escaped, but when we got older, she fell apart. Drugs. Booze. Meaningless hookups. She went off the rails and did it with flair.
That didn’t mean I didn’t always love her.
Xenia returned the favor.
She pulled herself together, though that didn’t mean she still didn’t fuck up. With my help, we got her into a program. She said sayonara to the drugs and booze but unfortunately kept up with the meaningless hookups and got herself knocked up.
When she’d learned she was pregnant and decided to keep the baby, we’d both been cautiously excited, considering our history—especially hers. I was looking forward to having a nephew. I was looking forward to helping Xenia right past wrongs.
Then it all went to shit.
If I’d had the money, the stability, the maturity, and the strength to fight my dad back then, I would have taken Xenia’s baby on. I didn’t fool myself it wouldn’t be tough but I wanted that piece of my sister and I wanted her, wherever she was, to know I was taking care of her boy.
But I also knew that couples without the ability to have babies could give him a life maybe better than the one I could give him. I also knew my dad would see me a quivering mess and beaten so low I couldn’t stand before he gave up. And last, I feared that even if I won him, Dad would find ways to fuck with me, and the baby. I also knew the ways my father could fuck with someone, and none of them were pleasant.
So I hated it but I let him be put up for adoption.
To get him safe, in a good, stable home with good people who would love him, I struck the deal.
Now I had my second chance.
Then my heart plummeted because I might have maturity but the money and stability were in even more of a shambles than they’d been back then.
This wouldn’t work.
“Nina’s my friend and I know she’d do a lot for me, Ham,” I started. “But I really do not have the resources to go after custody and there’s no way I could take that kind of freebie from Nina. She didn’t even handle my divorce, since she insisted on giving me a huge discount. You know me, I couldn’t accept that. So Greg and I used her partner, George. Since I wanted the divorce, I intended to pay, but in the end, Greg insisted on paying for all that. He wouldn’t stand down and I was seriously struggling so I let him. Nina didn’t say anything but I unintentionally screwed her with losing a client, which isn’t cool.”
“Zara—”
“And you know Dad. He’d fight it. Tooth and nail. I have no idea how he paid for the care Xenia received for nine years, since she had no insurance. He isn’t loaded even though they’re comfortable, or they were, and that had to cost a whack. But obviously he did it and he’ll throw everything at me to make sure I don’t get Xenia’s son.”
“Honey—”
“And I’m not sure how a judge will feel, with my credit history, me workin’ at a bar. Nothin’s changed since back then except, if anything, it’s worse. I’m a divorcée and I wasn’t even marri
ed but a couple of years. I lost a business. I had a house foreclosed on. I’m doin’ better but Dad will throw all that at me. It’ll get ugly and go on forever. And if I make the decision to drag a child through something like that, well… I might be able to start it but I gotta be able to see it through.”
Ham shifted his hand to the side of my neck, his fingers tensed, and he ordered gently, “Zara, quiet for a second and listen to me.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“I got a little money—”
I was quiet only for the second he asked when I interrupted with, “Ham—”
His fingers tensing deeper into my neck interrupted me.
“Baby, listen.”
I shut my mouth and nodded.
Ham waited a beat to make sure I kept my mouth shut before he continued.
“It isn’t much, the money I got, but I got it. Nina knows this. She’s gonna let us pay in installments. That said, I make a good salary. Brutal hours, lots of shit to deal with, they learned with management turnover high for the last decade, they get a good one in, they keep him by payin’ him. We got low overhead, livin’ together. It may make things tight for a while but it isn’t gonna break us and it’ll be worth it.”
When he stopped and I knew he was done, I ventured, “Yes, Ham, but you were a rolling stone. I just got out of making a mess of my life. A judge will—”
“A judge will hear that your father beat you, your sister, and your mom and take that into account. Hospital reports on your sister will bear to the truth that she appeared battered upon admission and I know she got hit by a car, babe, but they know the difference between kinds of bruises and when a body gets ’em. There were some that weren’t fresh. Your testimony, baby, seein’ as she called you that day, you went over there, and she shared your dad paid a visit, and you know from history and experience he’s not above that, makes a former rolling stone who’s got a steady job and a good income and a woman who got caught in the bite of a bad recession that lots of folks got caught in not so bad. My guess, if we can convince a judge of that, no fuckin’ way he’d allow decisions about where Zander was or wasn’t to be made by your father.”
This made me feel better.
What did not make me feel better was the fact that we were talking about gaining custody of a boy neither of us knew, raising him, and Ham and I had been an official couple for approximately thirty hours.
He hadn’t told me all his history. We hadn’t worked through that. We hadn’t worked through anything.
We began the day before.
We were nowhere near solid.
“I can’t ask you to do this. We’re just starting out and—”
“Babe,” he cut me off, “you got a bad marriage under your belt. I got one, too. We’re screwed if we didn’t learn from that shit but I’ll tell you somethin’, I did. I lived decades not formin’ ties with the women in my life because I didn’t wanna get bit again by a bad one. I also know a good woman when I find one and I found a good one. I hope to Christ you feel the same way about me, cookie. And if you do, we got that. We intend to take this through the long haul, we commit to thick and thin. I’d have liked it to be thick for more than a fuckin’ day before we got thin. But I don’t step up for you now, then you should step through that door because that would make me a man who wasn’t worthy of you.”
Now I loved him even more.
So much more, I was going to cry again.
Therefore, as tears pooled in my eyes, I announced, “I’m gonna cry again.”
“Sock it to me, darlin’. You cry happy tears ’cause I just told you I think you’re the shit and I got your back, I’ll take ’em.”
Luckily, what he said made me smile, not cry.
It also made me slide up his chest and put my mouth to his.
This made Ham slide his hand into my hair and hold me to him as his mouth opened under mine, mine opened over his, and our kiss became a wet, sweet, amazing kiss.
Unfortunately, while it was moving from sweet to hot, the doorbell rang.
“Fuck,” Ham muttered against my mouth.
“Yeah,” I muttered against his.
Ham shifted his head, kissed my neck, then rolled me to the back of the couch so he could roll off of it.
I pushed up to sitting cross-legged in the couch, pulling my stretchy nightgown over my knees as I watched him move to the front door, look to the peephole. His jaw got tight, his eyes went over his shoulder to me then he turned and opened the door.
Mick Shaughnessy was standing there.
I didn’t know if this was good or bad, considering, ten minutes after I got up, with teeth brushed, face washed, and pouring coffee, Ham told me he paid Mick a visit in town because he was also concerned about my aunt’s performance last night and then I got the bad news.
“Mick, surprised,” Ham said as greeting.
“Reece, my apologies but I got some information for Zara that I’m thinkin’ she’ll wanna know. I looked you up, found out where you lived, and came by so I could give it to her.”
This indicated to me that Mick’s visit was not good.
Ham looked at me, did a quick assessment of my emotional stability with his eyes, then stepped aside, murmuring, “As you can see from her face, I told her.”
“Mm-hmm,” Mick murmured back as he walked in and stopped across the room from me. With his eyes on me, I noted they were also sad.
For me.
Mick Shaughnessy was a good man, always was.
“Sorry for your loss, Zara,” he said.
“Lost her a long time ago, Mick.”
“I know, girl. Doesn’t mean this doesn’t bring it fresh,” Mick replied.
My lip started quivering. I caught it between my teeth and nodded.
“You had somethin’ to say?” Ham prompted. He’d closed the door and was standing a few feet to Mick’s side, arms crossed on his chest.
“Asked some questions,” Mick told Ham, and then his eyes moved to me. “Got some answers. Didn’t muck about gettin’ to you, seein’ as time is of the essence but, there’s a graveside ceremony for your sister today at Gnaw Bone Memorial Cemetery, Zara. Three o’clock. No service at a mortuary and, since no one knows about this, figure the graveside services are closed. But I reckon—”
He got no further.
Even still in my nightgown, I planted a hand in the back of the couch, tossed my legs over it, and called, “Thanks Mick!” behind me as I raced down the hall to Ham’s bedroom.
* * *
“It would probably be a good thing, if Dad’s a dick, that you didn’t punch him or something,” I noted in the truck as I wrung my hands in my lap and Ham drove us to the cemetery.
Ham was wearing a dark-gray suit, deep-blue shirt, and even a nice black tie patterned in muted blues, greens, and grays.
I’d never seen Ham in a suit and he rocked it.
I was wearing the slim-fitting black dress I’d worn to my friend Kim’s funeral years ago. Its lines were classic so luckily I didn’t look like an out-of-style goofball. Also luckily, I didn’t throw it away one of the million times I saw it in my closet, remembered Kim, her diagnosis of cancer, her very brief three-month fight with it, which mostly consisted of making her comfortable through it, and her funeral.
But I vowed to toss it in the trash after I took it off when we got home.
“Other way to look at that is, it would probably be a good thing for your dad not to be a dick so I won’t punch him or something,” Ham returned and I looked to him.
“Babe, we have to be cool. We can’t get in graveside brawls right before suing for custody.”
Ham glanced at me before looking back at the road. “Cookie, honestly, you think I’m gonna get in a bust-up with your dad at your sister’s funeral?”
“You’re unpredictable, lately,” I shared.
That got me another glance, this one surprised, before he asked, “How’s that?”
“Committed. Possessive. Forthcoming. You were
always awesome but you’re exponentially awesome… er,” I explained.
I caught his grin before he asked, “I’m awesome… er?”
“Exponentially awesomer,” I corrected.
That was when I got a chuckle and Ham’s hand snaked out to grab mine and take firm hold.
“I’ll be cool, Zara. Wouldn’t do anything to fuck things up. Yeah?” he said quietly.
“Yeah,” I replied, squeezing his hand.
He returned the squeeze and kept hold of my hand.
“You gonna be able to do this?” he asked.
I knew what he was asking and it wasn’t about being graveside at my sister’s funeral.
It was about seeing my mom and dad again.
“I’ll likely require intravenous vodka after this is over but, yeah. For Xenia, I’ll do this,” I answered.
“Now that, baby, that’s awesome,” he replied, his deep approval unhidden.
I let the warmth of that move through me before I looked forward and began efforts to steel myself against seeing my father, my mother, and whoever else they deigned to invite. They didn’t have a lot of friends but the ones they chose were nearly as awful as they were.
Therefore, I didn’t figure we’d be in good company.
This sucked.
Not for me, for Xenia. My sister liked a good party. She was always social. Everyone liked her and she liked everyone except my dad, mom, aunts, and their friends. Therefore, during her last hurrah, those being the only attendees at this particular party was unfortunate.
Luckily, Mick got to us in the nick of time and she’d have at least one person she gave a crap about there.
I was closing in on having it all together when the wrought-iron arch of Gnaw Bone Memorial Cemetery came into view. My body went into hyperdrive trying not to fall apart.
As sick as this sounded, Gnaw Bone Memorial Cemetery was pretty cool. When we were in high school, my friends and I, including Xenia, used to go out there and hang out all the time. On the side of a mountain, its views sweeping, and nothing around it, so its feel was serene. It was also the resting spot for folks who lived in our town before it was our town.
Old gravestones and unusual, old-fashioned names gave credence to local lore that said that Wild West gunslingers were buried here—along with whores, gamblers, and prospectors. Suddenly, I saw myself going to Carnal Library and talking to Faye Goodknight. I bet there were local history books at the library. And I bet if I read those history books, I could tell my nephew all about the history of the town where his mother was born and where he was, hopefully, going to grow up.