Chapter 5 The Motherlode #2
“Got my degree, thought about becoming a Marine, maybe Army, possibly going on to be special forces. But I went into the academy. Became a cop. Pushed for it, made detective. Did it young, after three years of patrol. And I did that because I realized investigation was where I wanted to be. Heard Lee, Mace, Luke and the team were going to expand, I signed up, moved from Grand Junction to Phoenix, and now I’m here. ”
“You have a sister?” I asked, my voice tight, actually nearly strangled with holding back all the questions I was desperate to ask.
“Yeah. Older. Two years. Her name’s Kacie. She got married three years ago. Wanted to hate the guy, but Wyatt is solid. They live in Gunnison, both of them are rangers at Gunnison National Park.”
“Wanted to hate the guy?”
“It’s a brother thing.”
No, it was a loving, protective brother thing, and I was absolutely not going there.
Hence, I pivoted. “So, she’s outdoorsy.”
“Always was. Knew the Colorado Monument like the back of her hand by the time she was probably twelve. Dad and she would go out nearly every weekend.”
“Not you?”
“Yeah, I’d go. But I was into sports, body building and shit like laser tag.”
Of course he was.
He fell silent, thank God.
Then he broke his silence.
“Your turn.”
Damn.
But he gave it. He gave it easy. He knew I wanted it.
And now he wanted it.
It wasn’t his to have, unless I was willing.
But dammit, my mouth ran away from me again, and I gave it.
Though, I had enough control to give the CliffsNotes version of it.
“Dad’s a dick. Stepdad one was a loser. Mom’s a saint.
No siblings, except Dad’s offspring from wives two and four, which means I have two half-sisters I don’t know, since he moved back to Michigan where he moved here from, and hasn’t been back in ages, not for my proms, not for my graduation, not for anything.
And as far as I can tell, I don’t want to know my half-sisters.
Though, I can’t know for sure, considering all Dad does is complain about them being spoiled, greedy brats, and Dad complains about everything.
But I tried reaching out, they didn’t reach back, so I stopped trying, and they never started.
Therefore, I guess, technically, I do have siblings, but I also don’t. ”
“Right,” he said softly.
I spoke no more.
“Mom’s a saint?” he pressed.
Shit.
He gave a lot.
So I gave more.
“Single mom, essentially even when she was married the second time, and I had everything I needed and occasionally stuff I wanted. She worked hard. We always had a roof over our heads. Food on the table. Fun times. But kids are kids. They sense things. They hear things. And I heard her begging and crying on the phone for him to pay the child support he never paid because she had four cents in the bank, four days until her next paycheck, and we were almost out of toilet paper.”
And I would learn that I needed to exercise a lot more control when the heat wafting off Gabe at my last made the air in the Jeep stifling.
“I’m fine,” I pointed out swiftly. “She’s fine.
Stepdad two is the shizzlesticks. Confirmed bachelor, until he met her.
Rugged mountain man who lives in a cabin and maybe was on his way to being Ted Kaczynski, without the insane parts, obvs, until he met Mom.
He’s good not having kids. He’s good treating me like the daughter he never had.
I’m good he treats her like gold. They live remote outside Prescott, and she’s living her best life in a two-bedroom cabin with not a soul near them but regular wine dates with her girls in town.
They don’t have much, don’t need much, but so she can be social, like she is, she works in a coffee house part-time to get her fix of being with humanity. ”
“Bet that works for you, she’s still young and only has to work part-time after workin’ hard to provide for the both of you.”
He would totally win that bet, and it would be a huge-ass jackpot.
However, I did not confirm verbally.
“You mentioned you spoke to him. You got a relationship with your father?” Gabe asked.
“He calls occasionally and gabs with me like we’re best buds, but outside that, no.”
“He calls?”
“It would be impossible for him to prove to himself he isn’t a deadbeat piece of shit if he didn’t.”
“And you take the calls.”
I turned again to him. “Gabe, he’s my dad.”
It was then I noted how tight he was holding the steering wheel.
And there went the heart-squeezing thing again.
Before I could think better of it, I reached out, touched his forearm and whispered, “I get what it is. I get what it isn’t.
Robbie adores me. He tells me filthy jokes that make me double over laughing and piss Mom off.
And he goes out to buy my birthday and Christmas presents all by himself.
Sometimes they’re a hit, sometimes they’re a miss, but all the time they prove true it’s the thought that counts. ”
His grip on the steering wheel loosened, so for my peace of mind and our future conversation that this wasn’t going to happen between us, I removed my hand.
“My uncle, with Luke, it was bad,” he said.
“So bad, Luke took off after high school graduation and disappeared. To this day, no one knew where he was for years. He came back a changed man. Focused. Intense. Scary. I cannot fuckin’ tell you how happy we were when Ava came back on the scene.
She was his neighbor growing up. Luke had a good job.
Money. He had brothers in his team with Nightingale.
A life. Women. But he was an island. I think my dad worried he always would be. Until Ava.”
There was a weighty pause and then…
“I’m pretty sure Aunt Josie gets on her knees and thanks God every day that Ava showed and made Luke work to win her, like he needed to do, then she let him win her, and then she gave him the life he deserved.
A wife he can’t walk all over because he is all he is and there aren’t a lot of women who could stand up to that, love in abundance, and two beautiful girls to hold dear, dote on and protect. ”
“Okay,” I said, not sure why he was telling me this, though I liked hearing it, and I had a feeling I was really going to like Luke (and Ava).
“So I get having a shitty dad can do a number on you.”
Ah.
“I’m good,” I assured.
“He pay up when you needed toilet paper?”
He did not.
“We survived,” I hedged.
“Right,” he bit off, all of a sudden verbally irritable.
“So you’re good swearing off men because the first one in your life, the one you should be able to depend on straight to your bones until the day he dies, fucked you over, fucked your mom over, and that was the launching pad for you to find men who would prove your theory true that all of us are trash and you’re good to live your life depending on no one but you. ”
It felt like someone punched the breath out of me.
Hello? Logic called. Psychology minor? Girl, you cannot blame me for you walking face first into that one.
Okay, seriously, he’s hot and perceptive and clever and protective and real and a great kisser. We…have…hit…the…MOTHERLODE! Dreamer crowed.
“Willow?” Gabe called.
“I’m done talking,” I snapped.
“I bet,” he muttered, and there was some humor in that mutter, but also some impatience.
Good.
He could stew in conflicting emotions for a change.
We rode the rest of the way in silence, and he got out when I got out.
“I can make the delivery myself,” I told him.
“You’re not walking there and back three times. You’re walking once, getting paid, and I’m walking twice, then we’re getting dinner.”
I mean…
The man made being awesome and annoying an art.
Naturally, I focused on the annoying.
“You’re very bossy,” I remarked tartly.
And that was when it happened.
And it happened so fast, I had no hope of evading it.
What happened was, he whisked the box of cupcakes out of my hands and put them on the roof of the Jeep before he got in my space, caught me with both hands cupping my head, and he put his face half an inch from mine.
My breath went on vacation at having him so close and decided it might never come back when I read the look in his eyes.
“Cupcake, you are not getting this, so I’ll spell it out,” he said in a steely rumble.
“I am in this to win this. If you were honest with yourself for a single fuckin’ second, you’d know it.
You’d know why I am. You’d know why you should let me in.
You’d learn why you should give me a shot.
And you’d learn why it wouldn’t only be me winning if you did, it would also be you. ”
“Full of yourself much?” I pushed out, because…
Fuck.
He was getting to me.
“I wanted to build a strong, healthy body. I built a strong, healthy body, and I maintain it.”
He sure does, Dreamer cooed.
“I wanted to be starting tackle on my college football team,” he carried on. “I worked my ass off and made starting tackle my sophomore year.”
Oh shit.
I was sensing where this was going, and it was scaring the dickens out of me.
“I wanted to make detective after three years,” he continued.
“I made detective. I wanted a place on the Nightingale team, and trust me, being blood to a partner with a stake in that business did not get me a pass. It made it harder because I had to prove to the others I wasn’t a family hire.
And they do not fuck around with training.
We function as a unit, and if you don’t hold up your part, you’re out.
I worked with a partner on the force. The force on the whole is a team.
But I have not been trained extensively like Cap, Knox, Shaw and Landon have to do my part to keep my brothers alive.
They came in instinctively knowing what their role was.
I had to prove I could learn it and then do it. ”
Okay…
Ummmm…
Yikes.
“And I did,” he went on. “In case you aren’t following, I not only do not shy away from a challenge, I actively seek them.
Not one thing in this life is worth it if you don’t have to put in the work to earn it.
So keep going, baby, because the more you try to keep me out even knowing you’ve already let me in, the harder I’ll work to show you what you’ll get when you get me. ”
“I have not let you in,” I denied. “I’m just trying not to let this escalate to me being a bitch like last time.”
“Willow,” he whispered, him saying my name in that tone something I knew to my marrow I’d remember until my dying day, “you curled into my side last night and said, ‘Goodnight, Gabe.’”
I closed my eyes.
I did that.
I totally did that.
I tried to pretend I didn’t, to the point, in the waning throes of taco-and-beer-infused denial, I totally lied to myself that I didn’t know how he got there.
But I did that.
He kept at me.
“And you pressed into me this morning knowing exactly who you were pressing that sweet body to.”
Damn.
I did that too.
I opened my eyes.
“You can lie to yourself,” he went on. “You can lie to me. You can fight this. Fuck, I want you to fight it. But we both know, you are not gonna win.”
I opened my mouth.
But he used his hands on my head to tilt it, and his mouth came down on mine.
He gave me a strong, delicious stroke of his tongue that rent a strong, delicious pulse through my body.
Then he let me go, grabbed the cupcakes, put them in my hands, opened the back door, nabbed the sheet cake, slammed the door, and balancing it in one hand, he put the other to my back and guided me to my latest payday.
I didn’t make a peep.
I didn’t have it in me.
It wasn’t because I was tired.
Oh no, it was not.
It was because I was shit scared.
And honestly?
Who could blame me?