Chapter 10 #2
He glanced at her and chuckled. “If the two of us are ever able to take a step forward in terms of moving past just being civil,” he began, “we must speak openly, must be open right now, which means I have to tell you that you let your mom do it.”
She took a deep breath because that’s exactly what she had been blaming herself for.
“Back then you were on the fence enough—or had doubts enough—that your mother could push you from one side to the other.”
Gail sat back and stared at him. “My grandmother already brought that up this morning,” she shared. “Apparently this is my day for hard truths.”
“Maybe just a day for truth,” he stated, “and it would have been nice for me to have known that before.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “It would have been nice for me to have known that years ago as well.”
He nodded at her, a note of humor in his expression. “Right, you are still going through that whole self-analyzing routine, looking at your world, then deciding what it is that you want,” he noted.
“Yep. This is a day for imploding my world, it seems. And I found a kindred spirit in my grandmother—my father’s mother of all people.”
“I do remember your grandmother, and I’m glad that she’s still alive. Your grandfather, however, was a very different story.”
Gail smiled. “My grandfather never did soften, not even toward the end, but he is gone now. So my grandmother … I don’t know that she has changed, but I think she has become a different person in the sense that she’s no longer having to play the game that Grandfather insisted on as part of their role,” she explained, “if that makes any sense.”
“Sure, it does,” he said. “Every relationship has roles and rules. Either you agree to them or you are in the process of changing them. I mean, look at us. … I thought we were very happy, but you apparently were not.”
“I don’t know that I wasn’t happy,” she protested, “but you’re right. I was way-too-easily persuaded by my family that you were a complete asshole.”
He laughed at that and shared, “That’s … that’s not even the slightest bit complimentary.”
“Why should it be?” She spoke with a grin on her face. “I mean, if I’ve got to take the hard truths, so do you.”
“Yeah, and it would be nice if I knew what those hard truths were back then,” he noted, his gaze watchful. “Why didn’t you tell me that you weren’t ready to get married?”
“I didn’t know I wasn’t ready. I honestly thought I was,” she muttered, as she frowned at him.
“I was so happy—even Grandma said so too—yet underneath it all? … Underneath it all, some part of me wasn’t sure because otherwise you’re right.
I wouldn’t have allowed Mother to persuade me against you quite so easily,” she confirmed.
“That was also some of the conversation I had with my grandma earlier today.”
“Sounds like it would have been a lovely conversation to be part of.”
Surprised, she considered that. “You’re probably right because it’s the kind of honest talking we didn’t really do ourselves.”
“No,” he replied. “I kept thinking everything was fine, even though … obviously things weren’t fine. I didn’t know what to expect. You told me that you loved me and that you were there for me.”
Even the memory of those words hit her like rocks slamming against her heart. “And then, … the first chance I got, I dumped you without a word,” she muttered, “even though I didn’t really see it as dumping you.”
He frowned at that, confused.
She took a deep breath, then blew it out, trying to calm her stretched nerves.
“I thought you had duped me,” she shared.
“If I’d had any real understanding, it would have turned out so very differently—but I didn’t understand,” she admitted, as she shook her head.
“So, how do you come to terms with a domineering parent—or, in my case, two domineering parents?”
He laughed, his smile intoxicating. “I kind of went through that with my own mother earlier today.”
“You didn’t tell me the details though,” she pointed out.
He snorted. “Well, if we’ve got a minute, I’ll explain what I can. However, it was a little bit rough on me from my perspective, but I think it was harder on her.” Then he went on and quickly explained the scenario.
She stared at him and replied, “What you did say was probably brutal for her to hear, but the fact that you even recognized it as what you needed is a huge thing.”
He smiled and nodded. “It took a long time to get there, though none of it has been easy. I mean, we have to be who we are. We have to try to do the things that we think are right for us, but that doesn’t mean anybody else agrees.” He sighed and continued.
“In the past though, when she came to me in the hospital after I was hurt, I think everybody agreed with me that Mom could not be a healthy part of my rehab. I made lots of physical and mental improvements once she was gone, and that was hard for me to see but probably harder for Mom to realize and accept. When I saw her today and had that rather simple but direct and to-the-point talk with her about it all, I think it allowed her to let go of her anger, since she always felt betrayed that I had her removed from the hospital.”
“Of course she did,” Gail agreed. “She loves you.”
He chuckled. “I would like to use that excuse for your mother,” he noted, “but I just can’t. I just can’t see that.”
She shrugged and added, “Sadly, neither can I.”
Riley woke just after three in the morning, turned, and found Gail tucked close against him, both of them wrapped in the soft hours before dawn.
He remembered talking long into the night.
He had been surprised to hear all she had done as far as cutting people and things out of her life.
Then she went on to discuss her father as a possible mob boss.
She seemed to think he really could be and had provided a list of the clients in her family’s business, noting how the Montoya Ltd website was wordy yet curiously never said anything.
He took the list and said he would share it with his people, who could run this through a database.
At the end, they’d had a very frank discussion about things, leaving hope that they could try to be a couple again.
Then he had vague flashes of falling asleep on her couch, and her waking him, dragging him to a bed.
He glanced around. This was her bedroom.
His gaze landed on Cain curled up on a blanket off to the side, but his eyes glowed in the darkness tracking Riley’s movements. “Go back to sleep boy, it’s all good.”
He recalled brief images of her tugging off his shirt and jeans, then throwing a cover over him.
The briefest realization of her weight added to the soft mattress brought him awake enough to pull her close and then to drop into a deep rejuvenating sleep.
Did she pause, see his leg, or had it not even fazed her?
His prosthetic was still attached right now, and he would pay for that … later.
For this moment he only held her, breathing in the warmth of her skin and the quiet certainty of her beside him.
That they were spooning together like this was a dream.
He thought he remembered her saying that she had broken up with her fiancé.
Yet it seemed too soon. Riley would never poach.
It’s not who he was, but that other man existed.
“Peter,” he muttered, realizing he had said it out loud.
“He’s gone,” she murmured, half-asleep.
He stilled, then lifted his head. Her face had gentled in slumber and looked so innocent. So young. “Are you sure?”
She turned in his arms and opened those beautiful blue eyes, and he could see the maturity, the growth, the knowing, and the self-acknowledgment of who she was. “Never been more certain in my life.”
The relief that flooded him felt almost like joy. “Good to know.”
She touched his lips with one gentle finger. “He’s no longer part of my life. He never really was. So I’m free. And available.” Her smile deepened, soft and inviting.
Riley brushed his mouth over her fingertip, then over her lips. “I’m pretty sure you’re mistaken.”
Her breath caught as he drew closer.
“Pretty sure you’re taken,” he whispered, his voice rough with longing.
She nodded. “And there’s only one place I want to be right now.”
Then he kissed her again, more slowly this time, with all the tenderness and need he’d been holding back for far too long.
Gail met him with a quiet sound of delight, and the rest of the world seemed to fall away as they clung to one another, lost in the warmth of forgiveness and the promise of togetherness.
They moved as one, their bodies remembering even as their hearts came full circle. Still holding each other, they fell into a deep restorative sleep, their past now firmly behind them.
Riley woke at five. He got up and went to the bathroom. As he settled back on the bed, reaching for Gail again, his phone vibrated. He stared down at it and sighed. He answered it with a curt greeting. “You told me that you weren’t going down there until eight in the morning.”
“But it is morning,” Derek stated, his voice heavy. “I’m also not a fool, and I no longer know who to trust.”
“Fine,” Riley grumbled, standing up and steadying himself. “I can come now. Wait for me. I’m on my way.”
“Text me when you get here,” Derek said.
Riley quickly dressed, left a note for Gail, and slipped out of her apartment, wishing he could be there when she woke up, but it wasn’t meant to be.
Maybe tomorrow then. With Cain at his side, Riley drove down to the pub.
The door was unlocked, which he wasn’t exactly sure how to react to, but, keeping it in the back of his mind, he made his way down to the tunnels, stopping several times to check each area.
He felt an uneasiness around the place, an odd sense of something about to happen, and yet he didn’t know what to expect.
It just felt off.