Chapter 21
GEMMA
After our conversation, the night before his surgery, I’m not sure how I expected this whole thing to go. The man all but admitted that he wishes me nothing but misery. Told me outright that he’s a shitty person.
I should’ve believed him.
I should’ve left the hospital room and never looked back.
Should’ve never given in and texted Reese that I’d allow her to dump Riggs Wheeler on my doorstep like a stray dog and drive off with barely more than a I’ll try to stop by later.
I’m sure she means it.
I’m sure she’ll make the effort but being here is too hard for her.
I get it.
I really do.
But knowing that I’m not the only one who got left behind doesn’t do me much good. Not when the boy who did the leaving is currently using my bathroom.
Walking Reese and Mrs. Wheeler to the door, I say all the right things—we’ll be fine. You don’t need to worry. I’ve got it under control.
It’s true.
I can handle Riggs in asshole mode.
He doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest.
“Thank you, Gemma,” Connie leans over on the porch step and drops a quick kiss on my cheek. “You don’t know how much better I feel knowing he’s got you to take care of him.”
“You’re welcome—and listen to Reese about the cinnamon rolls,” I say while I wave her down the porch steps. “I’ll take care of them.”
It’ll give me something to do besides dwell on the fact that Riggs Wheeler is going to be my new roommate for the next six months.
Waving to them from the porch until Reese’s car disappears around the corner, I drop my arm and just stand here for a moment, willing myself to breathe.
You’re the one who said yes, Gemma Rae.
Don’t go soft on me now.
Right.
Stalling, I check the mailbox. Pulling out a stack of envelopes and circulars, I carry it back into the house and shut the door. Janet has narrowed her protest down to as single word.
No
No
No
Taking the stack with me, I make my way through the foyer and formal dining room where we used to eat turkey on Thanksgiving and prime rib on Christmas Eve.
Pulling a single letter from the stack, I drop the rest on the table that’s become a catch all and hasn’t seen a holiday meal for nearly a decade now.
Tucking the letter into my back pocket, I walk into the kitchen to find my clearly distressed cat sitting in front of her buttons, slapping the same one, over and over.
No
No
No
“You’re pitiful,” I say with a sigh, on my way to the refrigerator.
Pulling it open, I start gathering the ingredients to make a batch of cinnamon rolls for tomorrow morning.
It’s Thursday and my shift at the Mill starts in a few hours.
Since losing my job at June’s I’ve gotten accustomed to my sleep.
When I stagger in at 4AM, bone tired and ready to fall on my face, baking a batch of cinnamon rolls is going to be the last thing I want to do.
Abuse
“Don’t be dramatic.” Pulling a carton of eggs and a box of butter out of the fridge on another sigh, I set them on the counter before looking at her. “It’s only for a little while.”
Why
Why is Riggs here?
Looking past her, through the open doorway that leads to the sunroom, I can see Riggs. He’s sitting in his chair, in front of the wall of windows, facing the river. Refocusing on the cat in front of me, I try to explain something I don’t even understand. “He needs our help.”
Janet stares at me with wide, yellow eyes. I can see her mind working behind them, measuring and weighing my answer before she asks her next question.
Dent
Like the wheelchair ramp and PT equipment, when Dent died, I didn’t have the heart to take his button out of her vocabulary. Still, she hasn’t used it since the day of his funeral. Hearing it now nearly kills me.
“Yes.” Swallowing hard, I do my best to blink back the tears that hearing his name brings on. “Like Dent.”
Janet flicks her tail while she considers my answer.
Dent… gone
Taking a deep breath, I let it out slowly. “Yes,” I tell her with a nod. “Dent is gone.”
Angry… man… gone
This is different than her early demands that Riggs leave. She’s asking me if he’s going to die like Dent did.
“No.” Voice rusty, I barely get the word out because he almost did. Riggs almost died, a half a world away, and I never even knew it. “Angry man…” I struggle to put it together in a way she can process. “Stay.”
Janet flicks her tail again.
Angry… man… mice
“Yes,” I tell her with a laugh that loosens my chest. “Angry man is bringing me mice.”
Churu
She’s already had her allotment for the day and she knows it, but we just processed some pretty big feelings, so I guess she’s earned it.
“Okay—one.” Stretching up, I unlock the cabinet above the kitchen sink where I keep her treat stash. “But you have to promise to be nice to Angry man while I’m gone.”
Rude
Deciding not to push my luck, I fish a tube of cat crack out of the cabinet and squeeze it out onto a paper plate.
As soon as I set the plate on the floor, Janet abandons her protest altogether.
Straightening from my crouch, I look through the open door again.
Riggs is still sitting in his chair. Still staring at the river with that same vague, pissed off expression he’s been wearing since he wheeled himself onto my front porch, but I can see it.
He heard everything.
Leaving my cinnamon roll dough to rise, I go upstairs to get ready for my shift at the Mill.
Ducking into the bathroom, I turn on the shower before I cut across the hall to my bedroom so I can get undressed.
Remembering the letter I tucked into my back pocket, I pull it out. It’s addressed to me, from the county.
Ms. Pierce –
This letter is to serve as a reminder of your unpaid property tax balance of $15,593.
66 and to further remind you that a challenge has been issued on said balance.
You have 60 days to meet the challenge and pay the balance owed.
If the challenge is not met, Barrett county will accept the third-party offer and we will be forced to begin the process of transfer of ownership.
The VA is paying me twelve-hundred a week to take care of Riggs. That’s ninety-six hundred dollars in the next 60 days. That leaves me approximately six thousand dollars that I have to come up with on my own.
Daunting, but not impossible.
If I still had my job at June’s it would be a cakewalk.
Yeah—but you don’t, so unless you want to cross the river and give amateur night at the gentleman’s club a try, you better figure something out, quick.
Giving the letter a quick fold, I toss it onto my dresser and leave the problem for future Gemma to deal with. Present day Gemma needs to get ready for work.
After a quick shower and forty-five minutes of primping, I go back downstairs. Landing in the kitchen, Janet is nowhere in sight, her paper plate torn to shreds and littered all over the floor.
“You’re an asshole,” I call out even though she might not be in the house.
I installed a doggy door for her so she can come and go as she pleases because she refused to use a litter box.
I’ll lure her inside with another treat tube before I leave for work and close off the flap so she won’t roam while I’m gone.
My neighbors are used to her and there’s nothing that lives in the woods behind the house that could take her but I still feel better knowing she’s safely in the house while I’m gone.
Stooping to pick up my cat’s mess, I straighten to find Riggs in the doorway, watching me from his wheelchair.
Breathe, Gemma.
Just Breathe.
“Not you,” I tell him while I walk Janet’s mess to the trash can under the sink. “My cat.”
Still watching me, Riggs makes a rough sound in the back of his throat. “I don’t think that’s a cat, Gem.”
“She is a cat,” I say, feeling defensive for some stupid reason. “Janet’s a Maine Coon. They’re very intelligent.”
“I gathered,” he says with a dry smirk. “You named your cat Janet? As in Rocky Horror Picture Show Janet?”
God, I hate that he knows me so well.
“Yup.”
He makes another one of those rough sounds while his gaze travels the length of my body, the familiar heat of it setting off all types of alarm bells. “Are you going somewhere?”
Even though I’m dressed in nearly the same thing I was wearing when he got here, I’ve obviously changed clothes and put on make-up. “Yeah.” Avoiding his gaze, I turn on the sink to wash my hands. “Work.” Giving them a quick dry, I reach for the apron I keep hanging on a hook near the stove.
Still watching me from the doorway, Riggs’s expression tightens slightly. “You go to work dressed like that?”
Feeling defensive again, I give the ties on my apron a quick, loose knot.
“I do if I want to make money,” I tell him on my way to the length of counter next to the stove.
Retrieving my bowl of cinnamon roll dough, I dust the surface with flour before turning it out.
“I waitress at the Mill, three nights a week.”
“You work at the Mill.” I think it’s supposed to be a question but it doesn’t really sound like one. It sounds more like an accusation. “With Cade Montgomery.”
Folding and stretching my dough, I shake my head on a laugh.
“Unfortunately,” I tell him even though my feelings about Cade have become a little more convoluted over the last few weeks.
He still infuriates me but I no longer hate him.
Like with Sera, we’re existing in this gray area that I find frustrating and more than a little confusing. “How do you know he works at the Mill?”
“I saw him there this afternoon while we were driving by,” Riggs practically growls at me. “Reese said he went to prison. Murdered his wife or some shit?”
“That’s the rumor,” I say, forcing flippancy into my tone while I angrily pull and stretch my dough into a rectangle before spreading the butter and cinnamon mixture onto it in a thick layer.
Why the hell am I defending my life choices to Riggs Wheeler of all fucking people? How did this even happen?
Still watching me, Riggs shakes his head, dark gaze narrowed down to slits. “And that doesn’t bother you?”
“Wow… that’s it?” Shaking my head, I huff out a breath. “That’s all the honeymoon I get, huh? Five minutes of nice before you fall right back into asshole mode. It’s like you never left.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” He sounds indignant. Like he doesn’t know what he did wrong, but the look on his face tells a different story.
“It means I was hoping that we could at least pretend to get along for a few days before we jumped right back into the thick of it,” I answer him honestly, gathering the edges of my dough.
“But since you want to go there—I can’t afford to let it bother me,” I shoot back while I shape my dough into a long spiraled roll.
“Cade is a Montgomery. Montgomerys and Barretts are bound by blood. They’re family, so it doesn’t matter what Cade did or didn’t do—he has a place there.
” Pulling a large, sharp knife from my block, I being to cut the rolled dough into individual slices.
“I needed a job and thankfully, despite his better judgment, Jen gave me one. That’s all I need to know. ”
The truth is, while I have no doubt that Cade committed murder—mainly because he’s never denied it—I don’t really know who he killed. No one does. The records were sealed. There were a few newspaper articles about it but the reports were conflicting:
College baseball phenom detained and questioned in connection with two deaths. Infant son found at the scene
Suspected domestic violence incident leaves two dead.
mlb prospect arrested.
After charges were formally filed against Cade, some judge issued a gag order and nothing was ever said about it again.
No more newspaper articles. No televised court proceedings.
No Nancy Grace calling for his head on prime time CourTV.
Seemingly overnight, Cade was convicted and sent to prison and since Sera and I were no longer friends, I never knew the details.
“Dent would fuckin’ roll over?—”
“Don’t.” I cut him off before he can say it.
Placing my rolled slices into a baking dish, I shoot him a sharp, angry look.
“Don’t you fucking dare. Dent is gone. Beck is gone and until six hours ago, you were gone too, so don’t you think for a goddamned second that you have a right to waltz in here after years of nothing and judge me for the way I’ve chosen to survive you. ”
Still glaring at me, Riggs’s jaw clenches so hard I can practically hear his teeth crack.
“And for the record, Dent loved Jensen,” I tell him while I jerk the knot loose on my apron and yank it up over my head. “He helped build that wheelchair ramp out front so I could bring him home. He and Tank laid that hardwood floor in the sunroom. You’d know that if you bothered to stick around.”
When I say it, his jaw loosens and he gets that sick, panicked look he always gave me when the reality of what was happening between us got too heavy for him to carry.
“I never lied to you,” he says quietly. “I was always going to leave, Gem—you know that.”
Bobbing my head on my way to the sink, I wash my hands again before drying them on the kitchen towel tossed over my shoulders.
“You’re right, Riggs—you never lied to me.
” Dropping the towel on the counter, I force myself to look at him.
“I always knew you were going to leave… but I thought maybe you cared enough to come back.”
For me.
As soon as I say it, I realize that’s what I was doing at the hospital, the night I went to see him. I was hoping to hear him say it. That after all these years, he’d finally come back for me.
How stupid of me.
“The lower cabinet next to the sink has everything you need in it and there’s some leftover enchilada casserole in the fridge in case you get hungry.
It’s already portioned out. All you have to do is heat it up,” I tell him while I open the fridge and set my prepped tray of cinnamon rolls inside.
I’ll take them out when I get home and let them rise for a few hours while I get some sleep.
“Microwave is right over there.” Pointing at the section of countertop I had lowered for Dent, I swallow the sob bubbling in my throat.
I won’t cry in front of him. I won’t. “Remote for the TV is in the nightstand. My phone number is on the fridge if you need to get a hold of me.” Forcing myself to stop, I look at him.
“Would you like help getting into bed before I go?”
He doesn’t answer me right away. He just stares at me, the sick, panicked look replaced by a convoluted mixture of anger and confusion because he doesn’t know how we got here, any more than I do.
Finally answering me, he shakes his head. “No.”
“Okay.” Giving him a short nod, I grab my purse off the hook by the back door. “Then I’ll see you in the morning,” I tell him before walking away without looking back.