Chapter 23 #2
Worked for him.
And it seemed like it might work for Kellan too.
“You threatened to spank her?” Eli asked as he made them all some coffee. There was a large television mounted to the wall with a sofa in front of it.
It was a bit of a tight fit for three adults and a large dog.
They’d need to think about something more permanent.
Wait. What are you thinking? Are you considering moving into a house in Haven?
Or are you going to try and talk Arabella into moving in with you?
But their apartment wouldn’t suit her. It was boring and sterile. It was in a good area of Houston with excellent security, but it had no style or hominess. And there wasn’t even a backyard for Horse.
So if they convinced her to move to Houston, they’d still need to buy a new place.
But what would happen when they worked really long hours or had to go away?
Who would look after her?
“I just told her that I could spank her for not obeying me and putting herself at risk. She seemed to take offense to that.”
“Gosh, I’ve no idea why,” Eli said dryly.
“She doesn’t think she’s a sub. But I think she might enjoy some parts of it. Even if she doesn’t, the rules of Haven are clear when it comes to guardians taking care of their charges. They must be protected at all times. Kept safe and healthy. And if they break the rules, they’re punished.”
Eli knew the rules.
But he couldn’t believe that Kellan was the one repeating them to him. As though he actually believed in them.
As though he wanted to live by them.
Eli thought Kellan wanted as little to do with this place and its rules as possible.
“So you’re onboard with being her guardian?” Eli clarified.
“No one else is going to do it. Including Jake,” Kellan snarled. “It’s our job. Only we can take care of her. Because she’s ours.”
Thank fuck.
He poured the coffee into three mugs. “Baby, how do you take your coffee?” he called out loudly.
Shit.
What if they didn’t have the stuff she needed? Well, they had to do some shopping once they figured out a list of supplies.
“Just creamer, please,” she said tiredly.
She was sitting up in bed with Horse next to her, his head on her lap as she scratched his head.
He let out a small woof as Eli set her coffee down and sat, facing her. But it was more greeting than warning. Kellan stood at the end of the bed, staring down at her.
“You look exhausted,” Kellan told her.
“Not exactly surprising,” Eli said, brushing her hair off her face with his hand.
“She needs to sleep.”
“I can’t sleep. Not until I speak to Jake anyway. And even then . . .” she trailed off.
“You’ll sleep,” Eli told her. “We can run you a nice bath and put on some soothing music.”
“You guys are being so nice.”
“No,” Kellan replied. “We’re taking care of you.”
“And that’s not being nice?” she asked, glancing up at him.
“Being nice implies that we’re nice. We’re not. Well, I’m not. Eli can be. Sometimes. Usually he’s almost as grumpy as I am, it’s only because of you that he’s become much friendlier and more relaxed.”
“Now you choose to find your words?” Eli said with exasperation. “Really? I’m normally as grumpy as you?”
“I said almost.” Kellan gave him an incredulous look.
To his surprise, Arabella started to giggle.
Eli turned back to her as she shook her head at them. “You two are both crazy.”
“He’s the crazy one,” they said at the same time.
Eli sighed. “You can see why people sometimes think we’re twins.”
“I wondered if you were for a start. Shaw doesn’t really look like you. Duncan does a bit.”
“Shaw takes after our mom,” Kellan said. “He’s one of the lucky ones. Him and Joe. The rest of us all look like our bastard father.”
“Kellan,” Eli said warningly. “We shouldn’t talk about him.”
“Maybe you should,” she blurted out as she pressed her fingers together. “Since I’m going to have to tell you about mine.”
Arabella was aware that both men zeroed in on her intensely. Her heart started to race and she swallowed nervously.
“Your father?” Eli asked in a low voice. Any hint of amusement had been wiped off his face. It was clear that he knew what she had to say wasn’t good.
“What about him?” Kellan asked, staring down at her.
Horse nudged at her, reminding her that he was there. She scratched his head.
“I think I need to wait to tell you once Jake gets here.”
“Why would Jake need to be here?” Kellan demanded.
“Because he’s your guardian?” Eli asked. “Well, he won’t be for much longer since we’re taking over. You are ours now.”
“Jake is no longer your guardian,” Kellan said.
“So, tell us what you were going to tell him.”
Arabella gaped at them.
Dear Lord.
What was she going to do with them? Well, she knew what she wasn’t going to do. She wasn’t going to let them think they just got to boss her around all the time and expect her to do everything they said.
Not. Happening.
But you do want them, right? To be yours? To be your guardians? To belong to them?
Fuck.
Yeah, she couldn’t deny that she wanted all of that. They had mentioned it in the hospital, but just once and she had started to think she’d imagined it when they hadn’t said it again.
But she couldn’t just jump into this and hope everything would be okay. Because that wasn’t the way her life worked.
They needed to know the full truth first. And they had to decide if they could deal with her trust issues.
“One.” She held up one finger. “I was talking about waiting for Jake because he’s the sheriff. It had nothing to do with him being my guardian.”
“Why would you want to tell the sheriff about your father?” Eli asked.
“I have my reasons.” She grimaced. “Also, it might have something to do with the break-in.”
“Fine, we’ll wait for Jake. But just so you know, we are staying for that talk,” Eli told her.
“It was nearly impossible for me to leave you to go and get Horse. The only reason I could do it was because I knew how much you needed him. But, baby, we nearly lost you and we need you close. So maybe this seems too fast and I get that. Some parts of our relationship we can take at a slower pace. However, what we won’t do is back off, leave you alone, or let some other man be your guardian. Okay?”
Arabella bit her lip as she thought that through. “You might decide I’m too much work once you hear it all.”
Eli snorted. “You think Kellan isn’t hard work? Believe me, you’re getting the short end of the stick here.”
Kellan shot Eli a look. “Maybe she prefers my honesty to your . . . energy.”
“Oh, I doubt that. I can do lots of wonderful things with my energy.” Eli gave her a wicked grin.
Arabella swallowed heavily. This part was something that Jake didn’t need to hear. “I’ve only had sex with one guy.”
They both stared at her.
“And it was a disaster. It was in my last year of school. I was going through a rough patch. My mom had died and I didn’t find out until I went home for the holidays. By the time I learned that she was dead, she was already buried and the funeral had been weeks ago.”
“What the fuck?” Eli said. “Your father never let you know that your mom had died?”
“No, he didn’t. I mean, we didn’t have the greatest relationship with my mom. Maybe when I was younger, before she started to take pills to escape her life and became more like a zombie.”
“Christ, sorry, baby,” Eli said.
“I still would have liked to have known,” she whispered.
“To have said goodbye properly. He wouldn’t even say how she died.
It was all swept under the rug and very hush-hush.
I went back to my all-girls’ boarding school at the end of the holidays and for a year it felt like I was so .
. . numb. Nothing got through to me, you know?
Then during the last year of school I met this guy.
We did a lot with the boys’ school a few blocks away and I met him at one of the schools’ mixed socials.
I thought he was cute and kind. Some girls I thought were my friends introduced us.
They sort of pushed me toward him. I really thought he liked me, that he cared about me.
Honestly, I would have latched onto anyone who showed me a bit of care and attention at that point. I was starved for affection.”
She still thought she was. Every time someone touched her with caring it seemed to surprise her. And then she wanted to melt into the touch.
Not really appropriate most of the time.
“I still can’t believe that fucking bastard never told you that your mom died,” Eli said.
“There are people with more horrible parents,” she said, suspecting that their father had done far worse from the few things that Kellan had said.
He was an abusive drunk.
“It’s not a competition,” Kellan said. “And abuse is abuse.”
She ran her hand over her face. “I guess so.”
“What happened with this asshole, baby? The one that you thought cared about you?” Eli asked.
“I was old enough that I could get a pass to leave to go into the local town and we would meet up. But I couldn’t see him at night.
Some of the girls offered to help me sneak out.
I was so stupid because I thought they were doing it as my friends.
He subtly put pressure on me to sleep with him and even though I didn’t really want to, I didn’t say no.
I still thought he was a good guy and I didn’t really see what he was doing until afterward.
And the truth was that I didn’t much care about the fact that it was my first time.
About choosing someone wisely. I just knew that the only time I really felt happy was around him.
So I wanted to give him whatever he wanted. ”
“Did he hurt you? Rape you?” Kellan asked grimly.
“What? Oh no. Nothing like that. No, the sex was okay. I mean, it hurt at the beginning but that’s normal, right?”
The look on their faces told her that they didn’t think it was.
“Um, anyway, the sex was fine. Until the photos started appearing. The first time I knew something was wrong was when everyone at school started pointing at me and laughing. I tried to ask what was going on and then I saw them. There were photos of me naked pinned onto noticeboards, in the other girl’s hands, being passed around.
And he’d started these rumors about how I offered to pay him for sex.
And how bad it was. And those girls I thought were friends?
They were the ones spreading the lies and the images. ”
“Fucking assholes better be dead,” Kellan snarled. “Or they soon will be.”
“Oh, he’s having a far worse time than just being dead,” she said with satisfaction.
“See, it turns out that one of the girl’s fathers had a grudge against mine.
That’s why she did it. And she paid that guy to get those nudes and seduce me.
But what neither of them realized was that I was the youngest in my class.
So while they were all eighteen, I was only seventeen. ”
“And still a minor,” Eli said. “They’re in jail, then?”
“Yeah. The two of them are still there. The other girls spent two years in jail then they were allowed out but under house arrest. All names were suppressed so that it didn’t point to me as the victim.
But their lives were ruined and so were their parents’ lives after my father got through with them.
He destroyed their reputations and their businesses.
It was the only nice thing he ever did for me, even if he mainly did it for himself. ”
“Of course he did,” Eli muttered.
“He also took great delight in telling me how disappointed he was in me. And that I shouldn’t have had sex with some random guy.
I was sent to live with my grandfather while I attended college.
I think he thought that was a punishment, but I love Pop-Pop so it was actually the greatest thing he could have ever done.
Unfortunately, Pop-Pop fell over and broke his hip during my last year there.
And my father moved him into a retirement home.
I begged him to let me take care of him.
But Pop-Pop actually loved living in the home he’s in now in Austin.
He’s gotten to meet lots of lovely ladies. ”
“And what did you do?” Eli asked.
“I had to return home to my father’s house. He didn’t want me to get a job. He wanted me to be his hostess. To take care of the house. And then when his business started to go down the tube, he wanted me to marry Cole.”
“Cole didn’t force you into that?” Eli asked.
“What? No, of course not. Why would you think that?” she asked.
They shared a look.
“What?” she asked.
“Remember the night of the storm?” Eli said. “When we stayed with you?”
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
“Well, you had a nightmare and you yelled out that you didn’t want to marry him. And that he couldn’t make you. We figured you were talking about Cole.”
“Oh. Right. Well, I might have been. But Cole didn’t force me to marry him. That was my father.”
“Your father?” Kellan asked in a quiet voice.
“Yes, he was the one forcing me to marry Cole. And Lee.”