Chapter 79
Chapter Seventy-Nine
Mal
Deeply Dredging
My cooking has improved over the past ten weeks. Not that it was bad, it was just limited in scope.
Maybe Mom can help me learn more now that she’s here.
I hear a bedroom door open. I think it’s Todd, but when I sense someone in the kitchen doorway, I turn, and it’s Mom.
I don’t know who starts crying first, but when Todd makes it to the kitchen, we’re standing there, holding each other and still crying.
And the coffee still isn’t made.
He joins us, wrapping those gorgeously enormous arms around us. “Are these good tears?” he asks.
“I don’t know about Mom, but they are for me.”
She laughs and steps back, wiping her face. “I was terrified I’d dreamed this all. Until I opened my eyes and realized it was real.” She hugs Todd again, long and hard. “I can’t thank you enough, and I can’t wait to get to know you.”
I use that moment to start the coffee.
“Sorry things are so chaotic,” he says. “And I apologize in advance that I won’t be around as much as I’d like. Between the cattle and pack logistics, my time is limited.”
Something hits me wrong and I turn, a chill washing through me. “You’re not going with Jax and them, are you?”
He smiles. “No, baby, I’m not. But since I’m staying behind, I may be needed here to step in.”
Mom scowls. “They won’t attack here, will they?”
“Unlikely,” Todd says. “It’s a precaution. And I have to ask you to remain here, on the property, until we say so.”
She bitterly laughs. “If you think I’m letting Mal out of my sight, think again.” When I start to pull out a skillet, Mom gently shoos me out of the way. “What are you doing?” She takes it away from me. “Get the ingredients for me and I’ll cook breakfast. You sit.”
Todd grins at me. “Okay, then. Looks like I’ll have help making you take it easy.”
I stick my tongue out at him as I collect items from the fridge. “I need to run down to the office and process payroll today.”
“I’ll leave the ATV up here for you. Use it—do not walk.”
I tip him a two-fingered salute and park my butt at the table while Todd pitches in and produces whatever Mom asks for.
We finish eating and I shoo him out the door with a kiss. Mom won’t let me help her do the dishes and insists that I sit at the table.
It’s…
Well, I’ll admit I’d usually chafe at being treated like I’m fragile, but today I don’t mind it.
“Do you know what you’re having yet?” she asks, her back turned to me as she rinses out the skillet and prepares to load the dishwasher.
“We’re not telling many people this—and please don’t say anything to Todd’s mom yet—but we’re having a girl.” I tell her a condensed version of Alizée’s premonition.
She turns, smiling. “A little girl?”
“Yes.”
“My first grandchild.”
I scowl. “What about Brynnella’s baby? I’ve been curious since she wasn’t at the press conference. Did she have it already?”
Her lips press in a thin line and nearly go white.
“Randolph wanted her to get rid of it because it wasn’t a boy.
She refused an abortion, so he made Thad secretly drug her.
Switched out her hot tea and her prenatal vitamins.
” She blinks back tears. “Once she miscarried, Randolph told her he hoped the next one would be a boy.”
“Fuuuuuck!”
“I didn’t know,” she adds. “Not until after. She called me in hysterics, and I went over.”
“Why didn’t she leave him?”
Mom’s eyebrow arches. “Do you really need to ask that question?”
“True. Is that why she wasn’t at the press conference?”
Mom nods. “It’d happened six days before. When she threatened to leave, Randolph told her he’d have her family killed in front of her before killing her. Including her three little sisters.”
I slump back in my chair. “Wow. I didn’t think it was possible to hate the old man more than I already do, but I was wrong.”
“I’m sorry he’s your father, honey. You know how vicious he is.
Brynnella basically had a nervous breakdown.
She’s been heavily medicated ever since.
I’m not sure if she’ll ever recover. As much as I hate to say it, maybe she’s better off.
At least this way she doesn’t have a child who can be used against her for leverage. ”
“Or who can be molded into another generation of mini-assholes,” I say.
She finishes washing up, starts the dishwasher, and sits next to me at the table. “I wish I’d been braver. I wish I’d killed him in his sleep after we got married.”
“You didn’t have a mate bond with him, did you?”
Shaking her head, she grimly smiles. “Arranged marriage. Never forgave my father, either.” I lay a hand over hers as a breath shudders out of her. “But you’re not a therapist, honey. I shouldn’t be telling you all of this.”
“I want to know.”
She blinks back tears and doesn’t speak for a while. “You said you and Todd have a mate bond?”
“Yeah. Neither of us was sure, at first. It was sort of a slow burn for a few days before it came to a boil. And we can talk to each other mentally.”
A dark cloud fills her features. “He didn’t…force you?”
“No! I swear, everything we did, I was fully on board. He was more cautious than I was. I kept trying to talk him into doing more.”
She nods. “Good. I’m glad. You deserve to have a good man.
” She sniffles. “My wedding night was not…enjoyable.” She blows out a shaky breath.
“But he wanted sons. Wanted clay to mold.” She squeezes my hand.
“When you came along, he already had three Alpha sons. I begged him to let me keep you, no matter what you were.”
“What do you mean?”
“He never let me keep girls,” she whispers. It takes a moment for the full impact of the horror to hit me. “But now knowing what I do, maybe that’s best. Because he probably would’ve sold off a daughter to whoever paid him enough to marry into the family.”
I hate to ask this. “How many?”
“Four,” she softly says. “Four little girls. One after Thad, one after David, and two after Harrison.”
Horrified, I wrap my arms around her. “I’m so sorry.” I hate that my questions dredged all of that up.
“I begged him to let me keep you, girl or boy. To please let me keep you, and I would keep having as many babies as he wanted after that. I told him I didn’t care if he wanted to sleep around, that he could do whatever he wanted, even father pups with others and bring them home for me to pretend I had them—anything.
By then, he was so busy playing perfect father and pack Alpha and working that he agreed. ”
“Thank god he never made you have more.”
Despite her tears she smiles. “My doctor hated him. He put me on bed rest four months in and told Randolph I’d lose the baby and possibly never have more pups if I didn’t rest.”
“But you didn’t need to?”
“No. And when you were born, he delivered you as a secretly planned C-section while your father was out of town. Told him it was an emergency, and that as a result I couldn’t have more pups.”
This is all news to me. “Really?”
“Oh, I can have more pups, but your father didn’t know that.
At least he stopped pawing at me. But it’s also one of the reasons he gave me more leeway with you, because he was upset you weren’t a ‘natural’ birth.
He worried it made you weaker. And it was pretty obvious early on that you weren’t an Alpha. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me I was a C-section?”
“Randolph told me not to tell anyone. He spun up the story of how I bravely labored while he raced to make it to my side in time, but there were complications, and he almost lost both of us.”
“People felt sorry for him and didn’t question why no more pups.”
She touches her nose. “Yep.”
I lay a protective hand over my stomach. “At least she won’t have to worry about that bullshit.”
“Thank the Goddess.” She squeezes my hand again. “I wouldn’t blame you for hating me for everything you’ve been through.”
“No!” I hug her again. “I know you were trapped. Was that the money you gave me? An escape fund?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. I had $20k in cash. But what I gave you was all I had in the house at that time. I’m sorry I couldn’t give you more then.”
“Well, it got me here safely.” I smile. “So it was more than enough.”
“I moved the rest to a hiding place in the house after you left. I fantasized about leaving. I tried calling you a couple of times on the phone I gave you, but it went to voicemail. I never left a message.”
“Why didn’t you leave then?”
“I worried he’d find you again. If he did, I wanted to be there. If he brought you back, I planned to kill him.” Her gaze turns murderous, something I’ve never seen in her before.
Ever.
“I planned to stab him in his sleep,” she continues. “Didn’t even care if I got charged with murder. Then I started worrying that maybe he found you and lied about it. That he’d killed you. Or what if you came back and I wasn’t there, how would I ever find you again?”
I glance at the time. “Let me change clothes, and you can ride down to the barn with me.”
“I’d like that, sweetie. Thank you.”
I leave the T-shirt on and swap sweats for a pair of shorts I can still wear low on my hips. I can wear Todd’s jeans as long as I roll the cuffs up by about a foot, but that’s pretty ridiculous. He told me to order clothes and gave me his card, but I haven’t yet.
Ten minutes later, we’re riding in the ATV down to the main barn. I glance over and see Mom’s contented smile, her eyes closed and nose lifted as she inhales. “Freedom smells good,” she says.
I laugh. “Smells like cow shit, but yeah. Smells really good.”
She laughs with me, and it’s a sound I realize I don’t think I’ve ever heard before. Not really. “It’s beautiful here,” she says. “Where are we?”
“Central Florida.” While I’m positive she won’t rat us out, I’m still remembering Jax’s admonitions to be careful until my father is dead.
“I wondered. I knew it had to be the southeast. Pine trees and palmettos, but not super hilly. Didn’t think we’d still be in Georgia, either.”