Chapter 18 #2
“I do believe there are cameras in these stairwells,” he agrees and presses his lips to my ear. “Otherwise, you’d be boosted up against this wall right now.”
“You’ve threatened to fuck me a lot today. Maybe someday, you can make good on that threat.”
He bites his lip and shakes his head. “I’m going to spank your ass later.”
“Sounds like fun.” I rise on my tiptoes and kiss him on the mouth. “Have a good night. I’ll swing by around eight with something for you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know.” I smile as I turn to the doorway. “I want to. See you later.”
“See you.”
“I brought dessert,” I announce as I walk into the house I grew up in. Ava and the boys are already here, gathered in the kitchen with Greg, who’s sipping water. “How is everyone?”
“Dad was just telling us about some woman he was flirting with at the doctor’s office,” Tucker declares, watching Greg with humor-filled eyes.
“Who?” I demand and set the sugar-free chocolate torte in the fridge. “I want to know everything. Why are you talking about this when I’m not here yet?”
“You were slow as hell,” Xander says before tugging on my hair.
“Her name is Linda,” Ava says. “She’s seventy.”
I lift an eyebrow at Greg, who’s actually blushing. “An older woman?”
“Only by two years,” he reminds me. “She’s a nice woman, and I’m taking her bowling this weekend.”
I blink at him. I don’t know how I feel about this. Greg never dated when we were kids.
At least, I don’t think he did.
“Wait. How often do you date, Greg? Is this something you’ve always hidden from us?”
He shakes his head. “No. I’ve been busy raising you troublemakers and running the ranch. Now my babies are grown, and my boy is taking care of the business. I have time.”
All five of us exchange glances, and Easton pats Greg on the back. “It’s time you did something for yourself, Pops. Just be safe. We don’t want any unplanned siblings.”
“Oh my God!” Ava and I exclaim at the same time, making all of the boys laugh.
We settle into our normal routine of working together to make dinner and telling each other stories from work, from life .
This is home. This is what I missed for all those years I was away.
Greg walks over and sits in one of the chairs at the table, and I join him, sitting next to him. He reaches over and brushes his hand over my hair, the way he’s done since I was a little girl.
“I’ve missed you, pumpkin.”
I swear, this man will always call me pumpkin.
“Me too. How are you feeling?”
“Fit as a fiddle.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Tell me the truth.”
“I am feeling better. The medicine helps, and I’m watching what I eat. I don’t want you to beat me up.”
I grin and lean over to give him a hug.
“You’re my dad . You’re important to me, and I need you to stick around for about forty more years.”
“Only forty?”
I snort. “Maybe fifty. So you have to take care of yourself because I can’t do this life without you in it.”
He smiles softly and taps his fingers on the table. “I’m going to be here for a long while yet. Don’t you worry. Now, I hear you’re seeing a doctor.”
My eyes jump across the room to where Ava’s talking with Tucker, but Greg shakes his head.
“Xander mentioned it the other day.”
“He’s such a tattletale.”
Greg chuckles. “He better be nice to you.”
“Xander’s a pain in my ass, but for the most part, he’s fine.”
Greg shakes his head. “The doctor, not your brother.”
“He’s nice to me.” I squirm, feeling weird about talking with him about this. “He’s a good person. An excellent doctor. Comes from a good family.”
He nods, watching me. This man sees so much. It was why I didn’t come home when things were so bad with Nathan.
“And you’re already halfway in love with him.”
I blink at him, and he grins.
“My kids always think I’m blind or stupid. I’m neither. The one before this was an idiot. He wasn’t near good enough for you. So what makes you think this one is?”
I pause, considering the question. “He makes me feel important. Like I’m the most interesting person in the room. And when he smiles at me, it feels like my heart opens up.”
I realize that the room is dead quiet, and when I look around, I find the others listening, too, and I know that I need to open up to them. I have to tell them everything that happened.
“Plus, he’s handsome.” I clear my throat and take a deep breath.
“The minute any of the good things stop being true, you call me,” Greg says, reaching for my hand. “You won’t go through anything like the last one by yourself again.”
“How—”
“I’m not blind or stupid, pumpkin. ”
“None of us is,” Easton adds, and I look around the room again.
This is my family.
“So maybe I should tell you guys what all went down. Before.”
Tucker gestures for everyone to come sit at the table, and within seconds, we’re all seated in the chairs that we’ve claimed since we were kids, and all of the attention is on me.
Xander’s on my right, and he leans over to kiss my temple. “It’s okay, baby sis.”
“I don’t really know where to start.”
“Just start talking,” Tucker suggests. “But I have one question first.”
I lift my eyebrow.
“Do I need to kill him?”
How did I get so lucky to have all of these protective men in my life?
“No. We’ll let him be miserable.”
And so, with a fortifying breath, I dive in, telling them pretty much the same story I told Blake when we danced in the rain.
I don’t leave anything out.
“What do you mean, he’d lock you in a room and lecture you?” Easton demands. He’s leaning against the counter now because he had to stand and pace to work off the anger I could see coursing through him. His knuckles are white from gripping the edge of the countertop .
“Just that. He’d corner me somewhere, and he’d enjoy making me feel like shit.”
Ava brushes a tear off her cheek. “But you know it’s bullshit, right?”
“Now I do, sure.” I keep talking even as Greg shakes his head.
“You guys, I know I’m a good nurse, a good sister and daughter.
I know that in my gut. But at that very moment, in that room, when I was told over and over again that I was worthless and not deserving of anything good, I resigned myself to that lie.
And he knew he could manipulate me that way because he knew about how I grew up. ”
“He’s going to suffer,” Easton says, with a voice so calm that it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. “I’ll find a way to make sure he never has even one day of peace. He may not know why, but I don’t really give a fuck.”
“I hope you got tested to make sure he didn’t infect you with something,” Tucker adds.
“I did. He didn’t. Once I found out about the cheating, I never had sex with him again.” I shudder at the thought.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Xander asks. “We would have come to Portland, loaded up your stuff, and brought you home where you belong. All you had to do was say the word, Harps.”
Tears come to my eyes, and I press my lips together.
“Because it was my mess to fix.” The first tear falls hot on my cheek. “And I was embarrassed.”
“Never again,” Greg says. His voice is deep and hard, the way it always was when we were kids in trouble.
“You’ll never let any asshole speak to you like that again.
You’re my daughter. You’re my baby. No one speaks to or treats you with anything other than respect and love ever again, or they don’t get to exist anymore, pumpkin. ”
“Are you going to bury them somewhere on the ranch?”
He simply stares at me, and for the first time in my life, I think Greg might be a little scary.
“We’ve got your back,” Tucker says, “just like you’ve got ours. You always take care of us. You always come through. You need to let us do the same for you because we love you, Harper. Always have. Always will. You’re stuck with us.”
My throat works as I try to keep the tears at bay. God, I love them all so much.
“Okay,” I whisper. “But Blake is nothing like before.”
Ava circles the table and wraps her arms around my chest from behind, kissing the top of my head. “Love you.”
“You’re the best of us, Harps,” Easton says. “And you deserve the world.”
“I also deserve not to cry anymore. Can we have dessert now?”
“Let’s have dessert,” Greg says with a glassy smile for me.