Chapter 7 #2
“We can’t have that. The dance is the best part of the festival.”
“I can’t imagine that. Everything has already been super fun.”
Reaching out, Theo clasped hands with her, feeling her slight tremble and catching the flash of surprise on her face. For three weeks, he’d toed the line, keeping things light and friendly and painfully platonic because he wanted her to feel at ease and comfortable around him.
However, the story about her beloved stuffed cat bothered him, made him realize how scared and lonely she must have been. He couldn’t imagine being cast out of his home at thirteen and thrust into a cold institutional place surrounded by strangers.
Then he considered her move to Gracemont. Once again, she’d come to a new place, all on her own, starting over in a town where she knew no one. While Marci had been a heartless bitch, Theo was determined to make sure she understood she wasn’t alone here.
He half expected Gretchen to pull her hand away, so he was delighted when her hand tightened around his instead. He swung their linked hands between them, enjoying the soft laughter his silliness provoked.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you back to Edith’s.”
“You don’t have to do that.” She started to drop his hand.
He clung to it, not letting go. “I’m parked a couple blocks beyond her house, so it’s on my way.”
They walked together in silence, though they stopped to chat as they passed a couple of his brothers on their way out.
If Maverick or Grayson had an opinion about him holding their new event coordinator’s hand, neither of them let on.
Of course, Theo didn’t fool himself into thinking they wouldn’t have more than a few questions about it when he got home.
Thus far, he’d kept his feelings for Gretchen to himself, but he wouldn’t be able to do that for much longer.
His brothers weren’t just family; they were his best friends, and he valued their opinions.
Right now, he was in bad need of advice on how to proceed with Gretchen.
Like Levi, he didn’t have the patience to take things slow or pretend his feelings weren’t there.
However, that was problematic, given the fact he was Gretchen’s boss, and she’d uprooted her whole life to move here.
It was unlikely she would be willing to risk her job and new home, despite the fact he was certain this thing between them was the real deal.
Then he was forced to acknowledge that most people didn’t approach love the same way the Storm men did, blowing in like a hurricane, taking out every obstacle between them and their woman. And while he was trying to be cognizant of that, it wasn’t helping. Not really.
When they reached Edith’s, Theo climbed the stairs to the front porch. “Want to sit out here for a minute or two? It’s a nice day.”
“Sure.”
Gretchen let him lead her to the large swing and they sat together, gently swaying back and forth.
Fall had finally arrived, the sweltering Indian summer of September giving way to cooler temperatures.
Soon, the fall foliage would emerge, painting their mountain in bright oranges, reds, and purples.
It was Theo’s favorite time of year, and he couldn’t wait for Gretchen to see how incredible the view was.
“It’s so peaceful here,” Gretchen mused.
“Here at Edith’s or Gracemont?” he asked.
“Both. Sometimes I feel like I’ve stepped back in time. The days move slower here.”
“Is that a good thing?” Theo wanted Gretchen to love his hometown as much as he did. The more time he spent with her, the more invested he became in the idea of love at first touch. Gretchen had sparked something inside him. Something strong, powerful, wonderful.
“It’s a very good thing,” she replied. “Which is weird because there were a lot of times at my last job when the days moved slowly, and it felt like torture.”
Theo considered that. “I suspect there are plenty of people who feel that way about work. It makes a difference when you love your job.”
“Absolutely. While I loved my boss, Brenda, at my previous job, the work was… Well, I swear it would have been more fun watching paint dry.”
“I hope that’s not the case on Stormy Weather Farm.”
She grinned. “Not at all. I love working there. Every day holds something new, and it’s always cool and fun and everyone there is so nice.”
The way she said nice so wistfully, it occurred to him she didn’t seem to consider kind people the norm.
Theo rested his arm along the back of the porch swing, his fingers inches from her shoulder. She’d left her long blonde hair down today, and he itched to touch it to see if it was as soft and thick as it looked.
“I suppose your time in foster care must have felt torturous too.” Theo was anxious to learn more about her. God, he wanted to know every single thing, including all those childish secrets she’d whispered to the original Boots.
“It wasn’t bad at first,” she said. “Because Shaw was there for the first two years too. After graduation, he joined the Navy, and that was when it got harder.”
“You never saw your parents again?”
Her shoulders drooped slightly, and he considered changing the subject, but he dismissed that thought. Especially when she looked down at the stuffed toy in her hands, one finger stroking the cat’s head as if it were real.
“I’ve seen them since.”
“You don’t have to talk about this if you don’t want to,” he offered, not wanting to ruin what had been a really great day.
“No. It’s okay. I’ve talked to Edith about…” She paused, and he got the sense she was trying to decide if she should finish her thought. “Some of it. And it’s helped. Before coming here, I didn’t really have anyone to share these things with.”
How in the hell did a woman this interesting, this intelligent, this beautiful, make it to twenty-four years of age without any friends? Especially considering his three cousins and Kasi had already absorbed her into their girl gang as if she’d been there all along.
“Well, you can talk to me.” Theo tugged on both ears, wiggling them. “I’m a great listener.”
He hoped to make her smile but instead, her expression remained somber.
“I told you that my dad split when I was five.”
Theo nodded.
“Shaw was eight, and he took our dad leaving hard. He became belligerent, acting out at school, talking back to Mom and his teachers. Mom couldn’t handle him, so she basically washed her hands of him.”
Theo recalled her mentioning Shaw’s behavior before. “So, what? She ignored him?”
“You have to understand, my mom was always distant and cold, so she didn’t really change after Dad left. As far back as I can remember, she was short-tempered and disinterested in us. Dealing with Shaw was more than she wanted to bother with, so she let him run wild.”
“Poor kid,” Theo said, even though he wanted to make the word “kid” plural. Gretchen had suffered as well.
“Unfortunately, Mom is one of those women who can’t live without a man.
She finds her identity through who she’s with, preferring to be a kept woman.
” Gretchen rolled her eyes at the term, her disgust evident.
“She was forced to go to work after Dad left to support us, and she hated it, resented that the job of putting food on the table fell to her. She became a cashier at a supermarket, and that was where she found the store manager, Ivan.”
Gretchen said the name Ivan with even more disgust than kept woman . Given she’d already mentioned her stepfather was an abusive bastard, he understood why. He was beginning to suspect who might’ve physically hurt her.
“She and Ivan married after only a few months of dating because they fed each other’s egos in just the right way. She deferred to him on everything, and he got to strut around like lord of the manor.”
“He sounds like an asshole.”
Gretchen tapped the end of her nose. “You got it in one. He’s a judgmental prick, always preaching about how people should live their lives. He’s one of those ‘it’s my way or the highway’ douchebags. He and Shaw butted heads from day one.”
“And your mom never stepped in?”
Gretchen shook her head. “No. She handed all the discipline over to Ivan, and he quickly moved from yelling at Shaw, to grounding him, to spankings. I hated it when Ivan hit him.”
“Did he hit you too?” If her answer was yes, Theo would be hard-pressed not to drive to Harrisburg to give Ivan the Asshole a taste of his own medicine, while explaining why children weren’t punching bags.
“No.”
Theo frowned, surprised by her answer—and even more shocked to realize he believed her.
“Ivan hated Shaw, who received the brunt of his anger. With me,” she lifted one shoulder, “he felt complete and utter indifference. Sometimes, I wasn’t even sure he knew I was living in the house.”
“Did your mother hit you?”
Gretchen shook her head. “She was too busy showering all her affection and attention on Ivan. I was white noise in the background.”
How the fuck had Gretchen come out of that kind of environment with her humor and kindness still intact?
Sadly, her responses only added to the list of questions he had about her.
“What led to the two of you being placed in foster care?” Theo worried he was pushing his luck, getting too personal, but this was the most information Gretchen had willingly offered in three weeks.
Most of his questions about her past had been met with one-word, dismissive responses.
She bit her lip, her grip on the stuffed cat tightening.
“Shaw was a late bloomer, so he was still quite small at sixteen. It made it easy for Ivan to…hurt him.” Gretchen looked toward the road, no longer holding his gaze.
“One night, I heard Shaw cry out. I went to his room and Ivan was…hurting him.”
It was the second time she’d used the phrase “hurting him” without saying how. Theo was certain if he pressed for details, she wouldn’t give them. He was getting good at recognizing which walls he could scale and which were impenetrable when it came to Gretchen’s past.