Chapter 28
28
My shoulders hurt. I didn’t want to tell Kai; he’d be more upset than he already was. He was still kind of on a rant about me confronting Teddy the Turd, even though Nash already had Teddy in lock-up since the stupid bastard confessed to everything. Personally, I was thinking that he was upset because he didn’t know where Arthur was and he was going to be meeting Beau. When I mentioned that, he’d kind of ranted that I was wrong, so I’d backed off and gone to the porch to text Sue. She told me that type of male behavior was normal, especially if they were really male-males. She knew from personal experience. Since I really adored Steve and the way he treated her otherwise, and Kai acted the same way, I figured I could put up with deflected ranting.
“Sweetheart?”
I looked up from my phone to see Kai on the porch looking at me with an apologetic expression.
“Yeah?” I responded as I shut down my text message with Sue.
“I’m done being a cranky asshole, in case you want to come back inside. I’m sorry.”
I looked down at my phone.
“According to Sue, you’re supposed to be a surly bastard for at least three hours. You didn’t even last for two. I’d say this bodes well for our relationship.” I grinned.
“Surly bastard, huh?”
I nodded as I untangled myself from the porch swing and preceded him into the house. He had the air conditioning on and I liked it.
“What do you say we go visit Chaos?” he suggested.
“You don’t have to twist my arm for that. I already called Kizzie and she thinks she can come home a day sooner than expected.”
Kai pulled me into his arms and kissed the end of my nose. “That’s great news, Baby,” he whispered.
I let out a shaky sigh. “I know. Not having her with me, hurts.”
“She’s your baby. Of course it hurts.”
I bit my lip. It was probably too soon to ask something like this, but fuck it all, I needed to know. “What do you think about babies?”
“Babies of ours, or babies in general?”
I didn’t answer. He was a bright man, he knew what I was asking.
“Okay, Marlowe. If this goes the way I’m almost a hundred percent sure this is going, I’m all in for babies of our own. How old are you?”
“Almost twenty-eight?”
“The reason I’m asking, is that I don’t want you having babies when it’s not healthy for you. Especially not when there are plenty of babies around the world to adopt. Trust me, I’ve been all over this world, and I’ve met the orphans who need homes.”
I was pretty sure my ovaries just exploded. I grabbed him around his neck before I had a second to think, then I let go. I cupped his cheeks. “God, how can I love you more every single second of every single day? I just want a big family with you. It’s why I went into teaching. I love kids. I love seeing them learn, grow, and flourish. Being a mother, having a family again. Well. It means the world to me.”
Kai blessed me with the sweetest kiss of my life.
“Giving you a family again means the world to me, Marlowe.”
I wanted to stay close to the house so that Beau could find us. The fact that there was a bed close by might have been another reason that I liked staying close to the house. My cooking repertoire left something to be desired, but Marlowe had a wok and all the fixings for stir-fry, so this I could do. The bummer was that she didn’t have any Asian noodles, but I improvised and went with spaghetti noodles instead.
I was trying to be quiet, because Marlowe had passed out. Her taking down Teddy the Turd then spending an hour with Chaos and then having drinks with Trenda, Lisa, Roan, Simon and me wore her out.
And maybe the sex.
I grinned. Yeah, possibly the sex. Okay, probably the sex.
Shit .
I sucked the web of my right hand, where the grease had spit up at me. Apparently, I needed to concentrate a little more on cooking, and a little less on sex.
Then I heard the slow sound of the slide guitar that was the intro to ‘Free Bird’ and I picked up my phone. Big Brother wasn’t FaceTiming me, just calling.
“Is the shitty Canyon truck outside yours?”
“Whose truck are you calling ugly?” My heart was beating a mile a minute. Beau was outside. I turned off the gas on the two burners and headed for the front door.
“Marlowe has too much good sense than to buy herself an orange truck.”
“It was a hell of a deal. I just needed to get from point A to B, and to haul shit. It does that.”
I flung open the door, and there was Beau. In the flesh. Standing right in front of me.
He wasn’t wearing a uniform. He was wearing civvies. Shit, we were both wearing light blue t-shirts and jeans, only difference was he was wearing a ballcap. He pulled his off.
“Brady,” he breathed out the name.
I just nodded. I didn’t correct him. Because who was standing in front of me was Grady.
His eyes widened.
“Fuckin’ Brady!”
A smile burst across his sunburned face, his teeth bright white. The next thing I knew, he caught me up in his arms and lifted me off the ground. It hurt. But I didn’t give a shit.
“Grady!”
I wiggled out of his hold and then we both had our hands on one another’s shoulders. I felt tears threatening.
“Do you know how many times I’d be in our bedroom and wish for you to come home?” Beau asked in a whisper. “It was every damn day for years.”
What could I say to that?
He grinned.
“And you’re here! You’re on our porch! Fuckin’ A, Brady. I never thought?—”
He stopped.
“I never thought…”
He used the bottom of his t-shirt to swipe at his eyes.
“I just never thought I’d see you again. Man, I thought you were dead!” He slapped me upside my head.
“Stop that!”
We both turned to see Marlowe wearing one of my tees that hit her mid-thigh, as she came storming through the living room to the front door.
“Don’t you dare hit Kai. He has neck and back injuries, hitting him upside the head isn’t good for that.”
Beau looked askance. “Seriously, Bro?”
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing,” Marlowe said. “You told me.” She came closer and slipped one arm around my waist and her other hand crept up over my heart.
“Fuck. You work fast, Brady. When did you get to town? A week ago?”
“I got here six weeks ago. Don’t cast aspersions against Marlowe. She’s my woman, and we’re heading someplace serious.”
Beau held up his hands, palms out. “Sorry, Marlowe, no offense meant.”
“None taken.” She smiled. “How about we take this soiree inside?”
It was then that I noted he had a pack on the porch beside him. “What’s that?” I asked.
“It’s all the paperwork that Bernie’s ever sent my way. In it is the title to this property. Dad can go suck—” He looked at Marlowe. “He can go suck eggs.”
“Well, let’s bring it on inside and take a look. Marlowe, you can go get dressed,” I suggested.
“It’s just your brother,” she protested.
“Yeah. Well, I think I have an idea how he thinks, so do me a favor and get dressed.”
She rolled her eyes, but sauntered back to our bedroom. Damn . She looked just as good going as she did coming. I looked over at Beau and saw that he was thinking the same thing.
“I’m guessing you were wishing you came home sooner.” I chuckled.
“Nah. I knew what I wanted, and those days are over. I had my chance.” He sighed as he put his pack on the dining room table.
“You want dinner? I’ve made stir-fry.”
“I could eat.”
There were six beer bottles on the table, and I had never had more fun in my life. Scratch that; I had definitely had more fun in my alone time with Kai. But seeing these two brothers getting a chance to get to know one another was magical. There were so many parallels in their lives. As a matter of fact, there were two times when they were in the same country at the same time, and they would have met one another except for small little chance circumstances.
Beau admitted that he had passed out at the exact moment when Kai had been shot. He’d been in the middle of physical training, otherwise known as PT. Everybody thought it was sunstroke, but he’d never experienced anything like it before.
“It took me a week to recover,” Beau said.
“It took me almost a year to recover.” Kai laughed.
At eight-thirty there was a knock on the door. When I got up to go get it, both men stood at the same time. In the same voice, at the same time, they told me to stay put. I would have been offended, but I was too stunned to see them act as one person, so I giggled instead.
They both stalked over to the door.
“Who is it?” Again, both of them spoke in unison.
“It’s Lettie Magill. Kai, let me in.”
Kai opened the door.
She took two steps into the house and stutter-stopped. She looked from one man to the other. She then turned to Beau and grabbed him. “It’s so good to see you back home.”
Kai looked over his shoulder at me. I shrugged. I didn’t know how she did it either. I mean, I could tell them apart, but how Lettie was able to do it, was beyond me.
“Are you home to stay?” she asked as she finally let go of Beau.
“Still have some time left to serve,” he told her.
“Oh.” She nodded her head. “You here because of your sumbitch father?”
“Yep.”
“You’re going to be able to stop him, right?”
“Damn right.”
She peeked around Beau to look at me. “You didn’t call my ma. She has news.”
I got up from the table and walked over to her. “I’m sorry, things got out of hand.”
“I can see that,” she smiled. “Ma remembered that old Willie Ames was a good friend of your daddy back in the day. Do you remember him?” She looked between Beau and Kai.
Kai shook his head, and Beau pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think I remember him coming around and bothering Mama from time to time.”
“Greasy gray hair, and he stank?”
“Yep.” Beau nodded.
“He lives with an aunt of his, at the Blue Ash Village trailer park. Poor old Via, she doesn’t deserve having someone like that sucking the life out of her. He’s living off her disability money.”
“Are you thinking that my dad?—”
“Our dad—” Beau interrupted Kai.
“Our dad,” Kai corrected himself. “Are you thinking our dad could be holed away with Greasy Willie at the trailer park?”
“It’s worth a shot.” Lettie shrugged. She pushed her hand into her pants pocket and pulled out a carefully folded piece of paper. “Here, this is Via’s address and phone number. Please, if Arthur is there, make sure to keep any confrontation away from Via. She doesn’t need any more strife in her life.”
Beau reached out and patted Lettie’s shoulder. “We promise.”
She reached up and patted his cheek. “You always were such a good boy. Don’t forget to stop by the diner. We all want to see you.”
“I’ll stop by, I promise.”