Chapter Twenty-Seven
Diana
I answered on the third ring, my heart fluttering. “Hello?”
“Firefly,” the cowboy greeted, the jagged edges of his voice warming my soul. “You get home okay?”
“I did,” I answered softly.
“You ready for tomorrow?”
“Well, I was, but now, I’m getting the jitters,” I told him, looking down to my work bags I’d placed on the counter. My laundry was done, my house was clean, and my Filofax was prepped.
“The jitters?” he parroted, something heavy moving in the background.
“Yeah,” I laughed softly, knowing it was silly. “It’s nerve-wracking. standing in front of a bunch of ego-filled college students who think they know everything.” I got like this at the start of every semester, but by next week, the nerves would be gone, and my students would be too deep in the assignments to give a damn about what I was doing in front of the board.
There was a smile in his voice as he said, “Baby, you stand up in front of judges and defend clients.”
“I’d rather take a judge over a twenty-year-old who’s ready to take on the world,” I mumbled, shutting down my desktop before heading out of my office. He was silent. “Are you okay?” I asked, checking the security system.
“Happiest I’ve ever been, Firefly,” he murmured.
My bottom lip wobbled, and I braced my hand on the wall, my body not used to this level of happiness. “I need you to give me a warning if you’re going to be sweet to me,” I rasped, voice thick as tears filled my eyes. “I can’t handle it.”
“Get used to it,” he muttered.
I smiled, heat going to my cheeks. “I still can’t believe this is happening,” I whispered, more to myself than to him. Still, he’d heard it.
“You’re a treasure, Diana.”
Minutes later, when I was in my room, sitting in the middle of my bed, listening to him tell me about his current furniture piece, peace settled over me. I knew we were going to be okay. My future didn’t look so…lonely anymore.
“Know it’s late, but I need to talk to you about something,” he told me softly as I picked excess fuzz off my blanket.
“Does it have anything to do with your bounty hunter best friend popping by?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
A pause, and then, “Yeah, it does.”
When he didn’t continue, I took a breath. “Whatever it is, we can handle it.”
“Handle it?”
I chewed on the inside of my cheek. “Yeah, handle it.”
“Told you that you were never going to know my family, beautiful. Told you they don’t get you, your light, or anything else. Told you I would tell you what they did to me and nothing more.”
“Yes, I know.” I hated them already. I hated everything about them. Whatever they did to my cowboy was incomparable to what my family did to me.
“What I didn’t tell you—because I’d lost all hope in it—was that somewhere out there, I have a younger half-brother,” he said.
I sat back, falling into the pillows. “What?” I breathed.
“My father was a piece of shit, Diana. The worst kind of man. From the moment I could walk, he was beating the shit out of me and my mother. Then, somewhere along the way, my mother stopped protecting me. Instead, she would offer me up as my father’s personal punching bag to save her own ass,” he explained, his voice void of any emotion. He didn’t sound like Mags.
He sounded like a ghost.
“Mags, we don’t have to do this,” I offered, my heart aching for him. I was half a second away from heading back to his cabin.
His voice was firm suddenly. “We do, and once it’s done, we bury it, yeah?”
“Okay, babe. Whatever you want,” I whispered.
“Never want to talk about it again,” he pressed.
“Never, Mags.”
A sigh left him then. “Told you when I met you that Mags is the only name I got and what I’m about to give you, Diana, I haven’t given anyone else aside from Grayson. Not even Denver knows.”
I stopped breathing.
“My birth name is something you’ll never know, baby. The boy who had that name died when he was eighteen,” he confessed.
My hand slapped over my mouth, my soul crying out now.
…died when he was eighteen.
…died when he was eighteen.
…died when he was eighteen.
“Mags,” I croaked.
“That’s my name. That’s my only name. Understand?”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see. “I understand.”
“Now that’s cleared up, my father stepped out on my mom—often. He had multiple women on the side, and when I was sixteen, I found a letter from a woman named Camille in one of the kitchen drawers.” He paused for a second. “My father had gotten this woman pregnant, and when she refused to get an abortion, he threatened to kill her, so she fled. By the time she’d written that letter, my half-brother was seven and she was demanding child support.”
“But he threatened her life,” I noted.
“She was desperate for money, baby,” he said. “I didn’t do anything with the letter. I didn’t ask my parents about it. I kept my head down, and when I was eighteen, I enlisted in the Marines with my birth name and left everything behind me. One night, Grayson and I were shooting the shit while waiting at an extraction point, and I told him about my half-brother. After I saved Gray’s life a few months later, he vowed he would find my brother for me.”
My mind wouldn’t let me move on from Mags’ birth name. “I-I have a confession,” I winced.
“Chase looked into me, I know.”
I blinked. “H-how did you—”
“Firefly, you and Chase are close. I knew he looked into me years ago and when I came to your house that night, I knew it would get brought up again.”
“He didn’t find anything.”
“Know that too. Grayson has powerful friends, and because of that, I was able to get my military record sealed,” he explained. “No one in my current life will know my old name, Diana. That isn’t who I am anymore. I’m just Mags.”
“And if you want to get married?” I prompted.
A soft chuckle filled my ear then, sending shivers down my back. “When I marry you , I have no issues taking your last name, Firefly. I don’t have one to give you.”
When I marry you.
I closed my eyes, tipped my head back, and silently thanked God for this cowboy.
“Settin’ a boundary, gorgeous. I need you to understand that,” Mags murmured.
“I won’t cross it,” I vowed immediately.
“Good.”
“So, um, about your half-brother. Did—did Grayson find him?”
“Yup.”
“Are—are you—”
“I was, but then Grayson told me who he was, and now, I’m not so sure I need to,” he admitted, uncertainty hanging off every word.
Who he was?
“Who is he?”
“Someone who doesn’t need me. I wanted to find him to make sure he turned out alright, that he didn’t need any help. Our father was a piece of shit, yes, but I’m not a piece of shit. My half-brother is innocent. I just wanted to make sure life hadn’t completely fucked him in the ass.”
I shifted, stretching my legs and tucking them under the covers. “So he’s okay?” I guessed, settling in.
A scoff came from him then. “Yeah, baby, he’s okay.”
“Well, at least you found him. You don’t have do anything about it now, but it’s comforting to know that when and if you’re ready to reach out, you have the option.”
Mags was silent.
“You still there?”
“Fuck, but I love you,” he rasped. “I love you so much, Diana.”
I smiled into my pillow. I would never get tired of hearing him tell me that. Every time was a gift, a wonderful, beautiful gift, one I never thought I’d receive. “Ditto, babe.”
His next question rocked me. “You don’t want to know who it is?”
Of course I did.
But this was still new, and I didn’t want to cross a line. So, I answered, “Only if you want to tell me. I’m not going to pressure you.”
He muttered something underneath his breath about his head being in his ass for so long.
“Mags?”
“Yeah, baby?”
I looked at the clock. “I need to get to sleep,” I whispered.
“‘Course, Firefly.”
“Call you tomorrow when I’m on the road.”
“And when you get there,” he ordered.
I giggled. “And when I get there.”
“Goodnight, baby.”
I was drifting off to sleep before he hung up the phone, and when I woke up only a few hours later, I was in hell.
Outside Denver, CO. Three AM.
Lucas stared down Diana, fury burning in his chest.
She was passed out in the back seat of the rental car, the sleeping medication he’d snuck into her bedtime tea only hours before clearly working. Her wrist and ankles were bound, and Lucas heavily contemplated putting duct tape over her mouth, but he also knew she was allergic to it. It wouldn’t kill her, but her face would be red and puffy for a few days. He was already trying to figure out a way to get that weight off her soon.
So no, he decided against the duct tape—even though she deserved it.
Weeks.
For weeks, he’d being watching the woman who was supposed to be his wife continued to live her life as if she hadn’t rejected him. As if she hadn’t broken his heart again. He was over this little game of hers. He’d spent years waiting for her to realize her mistake, but he was done waiting.
Two days ago, when she left the house dressed in a workout outfit, he snuck into her home and waited.
And waited.
And waited.
She didn’t come back until earlier this evening, and the flowers he’d gotten her had already been thrown out. He hid in her small attic, listening to her talk to that damn cowboy on the phone. He heard his Diana tell the cowboy she loved him.
That was lie, it had to be.
Diana would love no one but Lucas.
When she finally fell asleep, he made his move.
That was three and a half hours ago.
“Lucas, what have you done?”
He twisted his head to find an older couple standing a few feet from him, the lone gas station on the side of the highway behind them. The woman, Diana’s mother, was everything a woman should be. Timid. Obedient. Submissive. He couldn’t wrap his head around where Diana’s parents fucked up with her. Somewhere down the line, mistakes were made. If they hadn’t been, then maybe, Lucas would have the wife and children he was promised.
“Getting my life back on track, Mr. And Mrs. Harper,” he clipped.
“What did you do to her?” Diana’s mother whispered in horror, fear shining behind her glasses.
“What I had to do get her back home,” Lucas seethed. “Now, get—”
“—you said we were coming her to talk to her,” her father cut in, his voice firm. “Son, you told us she wanted to have a conversation. This isn’t—”
“We can have that conversation when we get home!” Lucas barked.
The couple stared at him in horror.
He slicked his hair back, feeling the drugs in his system wearing off. “Now, we don’t have long until the sun begins to rise, and I don’t want to be around when that fuck ass sheriff wakes up. Get in the car.”
When they didn’t move, Lucas rolled his neck, a frustrated sigh leaving him as he reached behind to grab his gun. He pointed it at them without hesitation. “Get in the car.”
They both paled. “We have our car—”
He roared at them then, his patience obliterated. “Get in the fuckin’ car! We cannot plan a wedding on the side of the highway in Colorado!”
“Lucas,” Mrs. Harper whispered.
“Three seconds,” he warned.
Approximately one minute later, everyone was in the car, and Lucas was pulling out of the parking lot, leaving Colorado and that fuckin’ cowboy in the dust.