Chapter 11
Eleven
It’s not my fault you thought I was normal. That’s on you.
—Nettie to Boone
Nettie
Grams.
The woman who’d literally been the only positive female role model for me.
When I’d met her when I was fourteen, we’d been walking down the sidewalk in front of the grocery store together.
The day I’d met her had also been the first time that I’d met Boone.
“What is your hurry, young man?”
I looked up to find an old woman staring at me.
I’d had my hoodie up over my head, and I was walking like the hounds of hell were on my heels.
Why?
Because I’d skipped church.
My father was going to beat the shit out of me.
I just knew it.
But I couldn’t be in that place with those people and pretend that everything was okay.
Here was the thing.
Some of them probably were—my father’s congregation.
But there were others, the ones that were all high and mighty, that definitely didn’t act very godly toward the people that they thought were less than them.
My father was the perfect example of that kind of person. In public, he was sweet and caring, had a ready smile, and kissed babies.
In the privacy of his own home, though?
That man didn’t exist.
And last night, he’d hit me so hard in the stomach with his fist that I’d decided I wasn’t going to try to get along with him anymore.
I’d done enough lying to myself over the years.
My father wasn’t godly. He didn’t practice what he preached.
He didn’t treat all of God’s creatures with care and compassion.
No, he treated my sister and me like shit.
He put on a show like we were one big, happy family in public. Then in private, he’d berate us, tear us down, beat me—though never where it could be seen—and lie to himself and my mother that it was God’s will.
But…I quickly shut all thoughts of my father down.
Instead, I pulled my hoodie off and smiled at the older lady.
She looked sophisticated, as if she’d just come from church.
Though, it was much too early in the morning to be coming from church.
Maybe she was late for it…
“Oh, not a young man at all.”
“Nope.” I smiled. “My hurry is, it’s cold, and I forgot my bigger jacket.”
She eyed me for a long moment then said, “Get inside the supermarket.”
I didn’t see a point in arguing, since it was colder than a witch’s tit outside, so I went inside and instantly groaned.
I both loved and hated Montana.
On one hand, I wanted to leave this place and never look back.
I mean, a snowstorm in mid-May? Of freakin’ course Montana would do that to me.
But on the other, you didn’t get a view of the mountains covered in snow in Texas or Florida.
She pulled out her phone when we got in the store and placed a call.
“We’ll wait here for my driver to arrive.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and contemplated what I should do here.
I mean, there was no way I could consider going home with her.
She was some random stranger I’d literally just met on the sidewalk.
However, the way that all the grocery store clerks greeted her, I knew that she was likely a decent person. If a rich lady like her was nice to people who made minimum wage, then likely she wasn’t a bad person.
Her car arrived while she was still talking to Karen, the lady who had cancer and was still working because she didn’t have enough money to quit.
“…thank you so much for helping John and I. We couldn’t have made this month’s rent without you.”
The lady smiled. “What’s the point of making all this money if I can’t use it to help people in need?”
She looked over her shoulder, spotted the car, and said, “Karen, call me if you ever need anything else. Promise me.”
Karen did, then the old lady grabbed me by the hand and led me outside.
The man driving got out and had the car door open before we’d gotten to the door, and we both slid inside.
When the door closed behind us, the man said, “Where to, ma’am?”
“Home.”
It took us ten minutes to get there, and when we arrived, my heart was in my throat.
“Holy crap,” I breathed.
“It’s large and ostentatious, isn’t it?” she asked.
“I live in the mother-in-law suite around the back of the house. My son and his wife, as well as his two children, live in the main house. It was too much for me when I got older and the kids left. After my husband died, I just couldn’t bear to be there alone any longer. ”
“How many rooms does it have?” I wondered. “Seventy?”
“Nineteen.” The old woman rolled her eyes. “Let’s go.”
She caught my hand again and led me out of the door that was once again opened by the man that’d driven, and tugged me along a gorgeously paved path spot free of snow despite the fact that it was still snowing, and straight to her front door.
“Now, what do you want to eat?”
She led me into the small cottage that was cozy and warm, and straight to a blanket that was on the back of the couch.
She wrapped it around my shoulders and stared at me with her warm honey eyes.
“What’s wrong?”
I don’t know why, but everything just poured out.
Everything.
My hate for my dad. My mother doing nothing to protect me. The absolute certainty that my twin could never know what my dad did to me on a regular basis.
Everything, I just laid it all at her feet.
“Blood does not make a family,” she said quietly.
“Bonds, do. Promises given and kept. Love. Acceptance. Presence. Showing up when they’re not expected to.
That all makes a family. Not some stupid, wannabe notion that blood makes you so.
” She looked at something outside the window, and her mouth tipped up but her face went soft. “See that boy out there?”
I looked out the window. “Yeah?”
And boy, did I.
That boy was…whoa.
I’d never in my life seen someone so beautiful.
He was tall for his age. Black hair. Dark-brown eyes. Bronzed skin. Muscles.
He was in the process of throwing a ball for a svelte-looking black lab that looked like he’d play for hours and hours upon end.
“That’s my grandson,” she said. “We share no blood. His mother cheated on my son, had a baby with some man that nobody even knew well. Yet, that boy is my grandson. He’s the apple of my eye. The best thing that’s ever happened to my son. Yet, again, we carry no shared DNA.”
My heart ached. “And y’all just took him in?”
“That baby didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.
“He’s innocent. Sweet as can be. The most beautiful little baby you’d ever see.
And he stole all of our hearts the moment we were allowed to meet him.
He’s sweet and kind, loving and caring. He loves animals and has the best heart, despite the viper of a mother that has tried and failed to turn him into someone just like her. ”
Just then, the lab bolted out of the water with his treasure and headed for the boy, shaking off right in front of him.
The boy laughed and turned, that’s when my heart skipped a beat.
He had a small kitten in his arms and he was shielding it from the wetness aimed his way.
He set the kitten down and the cat yowled at the dog and bolted.
The cat went right to the old woman’s front door and the woman opened it.
“My name is Margery Windsor, and I’ll be your family if you want me to.”
The boy saw the door open and he came marching our way.
When the boy was close, I realized that he wasn’t so much a boy anymore, but a young man.
“How old is he?” I wondered.
“Fifteen,” she said. “Want to meet him?”
My mouth went dry.
She opened the door when the young man got close and said, “Boone Windsor, where is your jacket?”
“Grams.” His eyes sparkled. “I think I might’ve seen my cat go into your house.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” Margery lied. “Now, come in. I want you to meet someone.”
The door opened wide, and the boy came through, trailing snow and dirt into the pristine cottage.
The old woman didn’t seem to care.
My mother would’ve slapped me for doing that.
“Boone, this is…”
“Nettie,” I answered for her since I hadn’t given her my name, despite telling her my whole life story. “It’s nice to meet you, Boone.”
Boone took my hand and kissed it.
I fell in love with two people that day.
Boone Windsor and his grandmother, Margery Windsor.
“What’s going on with her?” Mable sounded concerned.
She would be.
They all knew her.
When Boone had decided to go to school instead of homeschooling, he’d entered into all of our lives.
Though Mable was older than us, Margery Windsor made herself known.
She’d sponsored the soccer team the year that I’d met them, giving us a state-of-the-art facility to practice in with a smile on her face.
She’d also sponsored several other school projects.
Everyone knew Margery Windsor in Sawtooth and the surrounding areas.
Plus, she’d never shied away from motorcycle club parties, or town events, or even the grocery store.
She never stopped.
Until lately.
I’d known the moment I’d popped into her cottage when I arrived in town that she wasn’t doing well.
She could hide it over the phone.
But in person?
There was no missing that she’d lost weight.
“My mom is having issues,” Denver sighed. “Looking like she’s not going to make it much longer.”
The dinner was somber after that.
Margery was well loved among everyone, and there wasn’t much to celebrate once they’d learned that she was likely not going to make it much longer.
Denver, Boone, and I walked back to the vet clinic a half hour later, quiet and contemplative.
“What about moving her in with one of us?” I suggested.
Her out there by herself…
“You know she won’t do that willingly,” Denver pointed out. “She’s very independent.”
She was, the old bat.
“Let me work on her,” I suggested. “Boone has an extra room. I could say that I want her to be a part of the pregnancy.”
“Did you tell her?” Boone asked.
I shook my head. “I wanted to tell her with you.”
Boone looked like I’d shot him.
“Oh.” He swallowed.
Denver knocked him in the shoulder with his own. “Let her try. We’ve been failing on our own.”
Boone just shook his head. “Two stubborn women going head-to-head? What could go wrong?”
Denver chuckled and headed to his truck.
I headed to Boone’s passenger side, which he held open for me.
I got inside and he closed my door gently, then rounded the hood.
I saw the dark circles under his eyes and wondered if he’d gotten any sleep last night.
“What else is bothering you, Boone?” I wondered.
I’d always been able to sense when he was struggling, and right then he was thinking pretty hard.
“My grandmother may be old, but she hears all the gossip there is to hear.”
I snorted. “Don’t I know that firsthand?”
He smiled, though it didn’t reach his eyes. “What if she hears that we’re engaged?”
“Oh.” I paused. “I guess I wasn’t really thinking about that all that clearly when I joked about it with your mother.” I winced. “I was just trying to make her angry.”
“Well, I’m sure you succeeded.”
He went quiet again, and since it was obvious he was thinking things through in his head, I let him be.
At least, until we got into his place and the door shut.
“What else?” I asked.
He stripped off his coat and tossed it over the back of his couch before turning to me. “I love you, Nettie.”
I licked my lips.
“And I know you love me, too.”
I didn’t bother to deny it. There would be no point. Even a random man we met on the side of the road could see that we were both gone for each other.
“That was never our problem, though,” I pointed out.
“I’d go kill her right now if it meant that I could have you for the rest of my life.”
I blinked.
“Shoot her right in the head, in the middle of her four-poster bed and silk sheets imported from Italy if I could say, at the end of the day, you would be mine.”
I stripped off my own jacket, suddenly hot.
“I want to give my grandmother the knowledge that you and I are back together before she dies,” he continued. “That’s one of her last wishes, you know. That we’d find our way back to each other.”
I did know.
Margery never stopped telling me that Boone was dying without me.
But…I was scared.
I didn’t want to feel the pain of loss like I had already once.
I didn’t want to ever feel that pain again.
And until his mother was out of the picture, I just couldn’t do it.
“Follow the plan,” I said quietly, studying him. “One day, when she’s gone, and in a way that won’t blow back on you…then we can be together. But until then…”
I left it hanging.
He nodded once.
“Good night, Boone.”
He swallowed. “Good night, Net.”
I walked up the stairs to the guest bedroom.
The only guestroom.
If I convinced Margery to move in here, I’d have to move in with Boone.
Or go to his office, but that was overstuffed and cluttered and didn’t have a bathroom anywhere close.
And with the amount I had to get up to pee in the middle of the night, I didn’t want to add any extra time to that if I didn’t have to.
There was also the room full of fishing equipment, but I could just see myself snagging my face on a hook in the middle of the night.
There were also two other bedrooms that shared a bathroom, but they were on complete opposite sides of the house and I didn’t think I could be that far away from Boone…
As I tried and failed to go to sleep in my own bed again, I considered his words.
What would be the harm in pretending for now?
Margery didn’t have much time left on this Earth.
Why not give her one of her dreams while I still could?
Though, that wasn’t why I slipped out of bed and tiptoed down to Boone’s room.
No, I went to him because there was no way in hell that I was sleeping in this house without him.
I could sneak in while he was dead asleep with him none the wiser.
At least, that was what I told myself.
I slipped into Boone’s room and then into his bed.
I pulled back the covers and slipped inside, curling up to his broad back.
And never once did I question how he scooted over to give me more room.
Or how, three hours later when I got up to use the bathroom, he shifted the covers off of me to help me get up. Or when he pulled me back in tight, how he didn’t seem all that surprised to find me in his bed.