Chapter Fifteen
“Why do I feel like you never sleep?” Julie’s voice. The sound of her shifting beneath the covers. The scent of flowery perfume in the air.
This was the second night Julie had slept in Nate’s bed. Mind blown.
Last night, Julie hadn’t wanted to sleep alone. She’d held Nate’s hand and led him upstairs. He’d dozed in a sitting position on top of the covers once more, her head resting on a pillow in his lap, his hand stroking her back.
She’d slept peacefully. He’d risen at dawn, letting her sleep.
“Juju wake.” Duke sat on the kitchen counter, eating a sausage link, and watching Nate cook breakfast.
“And when I say you never sleep, I mean the both of you.” There was no mistaking the teasing in Julie’s voice.
He’d missed that and the way the humor spread to her eyes and her lips.
Don’t look.
If Nate looked, he’d see Julie’s sleep-laden eyes and her broad smile. Maybe he’d close the distance between them. Maybe he’d kiss her and never let her go.
Don’t look.
He had to let her go, just as he had to let Duke go. And yet...
Don’t look.
What harm was there in looking?
Nate glanced over his shoulder.
Julie yawned and ran a hand through golden locks. And then she smiled. At him.
Nate’s emotions were as scrambled as the eggs in his frying pan. He knew she could never see him as more than a friend, nor should she. Julie deserved the best life had to offer. She deserved to be whole and to be able to sleep without worrying she’d attack someone. She deserved a job that was challenging and satisfying.
He turned his back on her. “Do you want coffee before or after your shower?” Before or after she interrogated him with the Daddy Test.
“Before and after.” Julie breezed past Nate toward the bathroom, stopping only to pour herself a cup of coffee.
A few minutes later, Duke rested his head on the arm of the recliner and watched cartoons standing up. Julie and Nate sat at the table. She consumed more coffee than she ate eggs. She was going to the bakery later. He was sure of it.
“How are you feeling today?” Nate had to make small talk. Otherwise, the waiting for her to bring out April’s notebook would kill him.
“I’m feeling more like me.” Julie set down her coffee cup and poked at her eggs with a fork as if he’d served her fried calamari. She hated seafood.
“Eat your eggs,” Nate said gruffly. “You’ll live longer.” And heal faster.
Julie set the fork down, clasped her hands and tucked them under her chin. “I don’t want to ask you any more of April’s questions.”
Relief allowed him to breathe easier. But Nate had to know. Had he failed already? “Why not?”
The sun coming through the window glinted off her golden hair, beckoning him to touch it.
Julie shrugged. “What is the test going to change?”
Hurt, sharp and reckless, raked his insides. “I don’t need you to ask any more questions. I know I’m not fit to be Duke’s father.” He leaned forward, hands braced on either side of his paper plate. “Forget asking. I’ll tell you.”
Her lips parted, but she didn’t say anything.
“In the military, they told me I had nerves of steel on the shooting range.” Something happened to Nate when he trained his gun sight on a target. He should have been nervous. He should have had shaky hands or sweaty palms. He should have had to fight to steady his breathing. “They put me through an extra round of psych eval. They thought I didn’t feel emotion.” They’d finally realized Nate didn’t look at shooting emotionally.
Duke climbed into the recliner and sighed contentedly. The sun was rising, slanting rays from Julie’s bright hair onto her untouched eggs. She looked at him with interest.
Normal. It was all so normal.
Just not my normal.
Should he tell her who he really was inside?
Nate started talking before he made up his mind. “After my dad went to prison, we moved to my uncle’s dairy farm in the central valley.” They’d lived in a tiny home between the main house and the milk barn. “Uncle Paul was convinced once Dad got out, he’d come to find us. He said I had to be the man of the house and be prepared to defend my mother and sister. On Sundays, after we milked the cows and went to church, Uncle Paul and I would head to a gully near the marshes at the rear of the property. He taught me how to shoot.”
And how to shoot when things went south. Shouting, setting off air horns, clanking an old cowbell until nothing unsettled Nate’s aim.
“I’m worried for you, as a child,” Julie said in a voice that wrapped around Nate’s heart and tenderly squeezed. “Don’t stop talking.”
Nate almost smiled. “I could stop.” He held out his arms. “You can see how the story ends. I survived.”
Julie frowned. “But I can’t see here.” She reached across the table and tapped his chest, over his heart.
“Oh.” That was as much intelligence as Nate could muster. Her touch, her empathy. Uncle Paul hadn’t prepared him for that.
She drew back. “I want to know what’s in your heart. What makes you...you.” Those soft gray eyes. They didn’t round with pity.
Nate was afraid to name the emotion there, afraid he’d misread her interest and try to steal a base and...
Get a grip, Landry.
All he had to do to push her away, to ensure she never looked at him like that again or asked him to hold her through the night, was to tell her the truth.
He cleared his throat. “A couple of years later, I got off the middle school bus and there was my dad, sitting on the front steps of our house having a smoke. I was the first one home.”
His mother had been at work, waitressing at the coffee shop by the highway. When Mom came home, the first thing she did was check all the hiding places in the house. That’s how rattled she was. But she was still working. Molly’s elementary school bus wasn’t due for another half hour. Poor thing, she still had nightmares and often slept on the floor of Nate’s room. Uncle Paul was getting his trailer fixed in town. He was a retired cop who had no qualms about taking on his former brother-in-law.
But now, the day had come. Nate had to face his father alone.
Julie’s gray gaze was riveted on Nate’s face. He wet his lips but didn’t speak.
Dad had flung his cigarette into the hedge and stood. The years in prison hadn’t taken the edge off the blades of his father’s cheekbones or the sharpness of his black eyes.
Nate had been scared. He’d wanted to run. But he’d also been angry, too. And he didn’t want to let his family down.
“I can see you don’t want me here,” Dad had said, his voice as sharp as the rest of him.
Nate blinked back to the present, to gray eyes that waited for his story to continue. “Dad made me an offer. A shoot off. If I won, he’d leave and never come back.”
“Was he a good shot?” Julie’s question barely registered above the whisper scale.
The sound of a bullet whizzing by Nate’s head on his eighth birthday returned. “He could be.”
“You were what? Twelve? Thirteen?”
“I was a mature twelve.”
There was a flicker of respect in her eyes.
Nate sat taller in his seat. “I got out my rifle.” The one he’d been given when he was eight. “I led him to the dairy’s shooting range with shells and a paper target in my hoodie pocket. It was the longest five minutes of my life.”
Uncle Paul had tried to prepare Nate. He’d paid for self-defense classes. He’d shouted what-if scenarios and obscenities at him until Nate’s ears buzzed and he learned not to rise to the bait.
In the present, Nate had been silent too long.
Julie touched his hand. “Did he say anything to you?”
“He didn’t stop talking. I suppose he wanted to get into my head.” He had, but not in the way he’d intended. Nate could still hear his father’s voice, loaded with derision and fired with a scattershot approach, looking for any sign of weakness. But every word had an underlying note of uncertainty.
“Your mother’s going to be happy to see me.
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you a son can’t beat his father?”
“Somebody’s been telling you you’re somebody, I see.”
“Finally, we reached the gully, and I tacked up the target.” He’d stepped aside so his father could get a look at it. “Uncle Paul had printed up photos of Dad with target circles around his face.” The bullseye was centered between the eyes.
“I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Dad had said, eyes narrowed. “I bet you’ve got no friends. I bet the girls think you’re creepy. I saw you get off the bus. No one said a word to you.”
Having walked to the top of the bank during his father’s tirade, Nate knew he had more at stake than bragging rights or scoring points in a video game. No wonder he felt like such an outsider with other kids.
Nate found his balance. He found his center.
“You need to teach those kids to respect you,” Dad had said. “Just like I’m gonna teach your mama to respect me.”
The ground beneath Nate was soft. The sun glinted off the stagnant water at the bottom of the gully and into his eyes. The wind pushed at his shoulders. Nate didn’t care. He lifted his rifle. He breathed. He adjusted. He drew a bead on the dot between his father’s eyes and fired.
Bull’s-eye.
“Dang, you must really hate me.” Dad had laughed. Laughed!
All of Nate’s anger. All of Nate’s bitterness. All of Nate’s fear. All those gut-churning nights when he’d relived the helpless moments his father had caused.
Nate spun and took aim at a live target. Right between the eyes. “I could plant this bullet in your head. I could roll your body to the bottom of this gully and bury you. No one would come looking.” Mom and Molly would be safe.
His father had raised his hands to his hips. He’d leaned forward. It was then Nate had noticed his knuckles were swollen and bruised. He’d been in a fight.
Or he’d stopped by the diner and found Mom.
Nate’s heart lodged in his throat, but he didn’t waver. He held the rifle steady.
“You’d kill me?”
“Yes, sir.” And in that moment, Nate knew it was true. He’d kill to make sure the ones he loved were safe.
Dad had rocked back on his heels, something akin to appreciation in his eyes. “I came here to get my revenge, one way or another. But it seems like I’ve been collecting the Big R the whole time I was in prison.”
Nate had no idea what the Big R was. Confusion must have shown on his face.
“Never underestimate the power of intimidation, boy.” Dad’s smile created a sickening churn in Nate’s belly. “If I leave now, you won’t know where I’m coming from next or when you’ll see me. This’ll keep you and your mother on edge the rest of your lives.” He’d started back toward the house. “The Big Revenge.” He laughed again. “I’ve turned you into me.”
Nate dropped his arms to his sides, the gun loose in his grip.
In the present, Julie squeezed his hands. “I lost you for a minute there. What happened? Did you win?”
“He couldn’t outshoot me.” Not with those swollen knuckles. “But I wouldn’t call it a win.” The truth of who he was welled up inside Nate’s throat. “I drew a bead on him, Jules. I wanted to kill him. What kind of man does that?” Not the kind of man entrusted to raise children.
“He left, didn’t he?” Her gaze had become fierce. Her hands left his and sat flat on the table.
“He left, but my mom and Molly left, too.” The sun had risen high enough that his side of the table was thrown in shadow. He wished he’d made this confession in darkness. “My mom was horrified.” Not proud. Not appreciative. “She told me I was lucky to be alive—”
“You were.”
“—and that risks like that would get her and Molly killed.” She’d been unwilling to see the young warrior her brother had trained. To his mother, he’d always be the boy who’d hid in the bathtub.
Julie frowned. “That’s a bit extreme.”
“She left that weekend.” Saying the words out loud didn’t make them hurt any less.
My mother left me.
“What?” Julie’s frown deepened to a scowl. “She left without you?”
Nate nodded. “She took Molly and disappeared.”
“But you...” Julie rubbed her forehead as if trying to erase her scowl or his painful past. “You were just a kid.”
Nate hadn’t been a kid, not when he was eight. Probably not ever. Kids played and laughed with abandon. That’s what he wanted for Duke. “My Uncle Paul stood by me as they drove away.”
“It’s a thankless job,” Uncle Paul had said.
“What is?” Nate had sucked back the tears, trying to act like the man Uncle Paul expected him to be.
His uncle set a hand on his shoulder. “Protecting people.”
For the next six years, Nate had one purpose—stay sharp in case his father returned. He’d kept to himself, making few friends—those who didn’t mind his silences, especially when it came to questions about his past or his family. And then he’d enlisted. In the military, he’d discovered there were people who appreciated his talents, who were thankful that he helped keep them alive and safe, who didn’t care that he wasn’t much of a talker.
Julie’s hands covered his again. “Your mother should never have abandoned you.”
He flipped his palms up and curled his fingers around her wrists. “She was afraid. Having me around didn’t make her feel safe. I know she loved me, but that love couldn’t stand up to her fear.”
Julie scowled. “What a cop-out. You were a kid. You stood up to that piece of garbage—no offense—”
“None taken.”
“—and you did it for love.” Julie was in her element. Her eyes blazed. Her cheeks fired with color.
If Nate said the word, she’d hunt down his mother and tell her what for. “It’s in the past, Jules. Let it go.”
“Let it go? Let it... You’re not disposable.” Julie tugged on Nate’s arms as if having him agree with her would somehow make his mother’s leaving less painful. “You’re not.”
“And neither was April,” he said gently. “I loved her. And she loved both of us. She knew you needed to confront me to move on.” As he said the words, he realized they were true. “That’s why April created the Daddy Test.”
“You’re forgetting one thing.” Julie’s fingers dug into his skin. “You’re forgetting Duke. This doesn’t end with me understanding you better and you helping me move past the shooting. We have to decide what’s right for him. Together.”
“We?” After all he’d told her the past few days, she could still say we?