Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Bea
“Daddy?” Athena rushed to Bax when we walked in his kitchen door. “Are you okay?”
She wrapped her arms around him and tucked her head against his chest, and a memory so vivid punched me in the gut.
I saw myself at Athena’s age, running into my own daddy’s arms after Mama died.
He didn’t hug me back like Bax was hugging Athena.
My dad pushed me away because, unlike Bax, he’d forgotten how to love me and that I’d lost the most important person in my life too.
“Yeah, baby. I’m okay.” Bax stroked his fingers through Athena’s hair and closed his eyes.
It looked like the contact reinforced him so that he could face this thing, and I fell in love with him even more than I already had.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here when you got home.
Did you have a good day at school? Wait, why are you home early? ”
“Granny came to school to pick me up. But I got an A on my English paper right before the principal called me to the office,” she said and smiled, and his responding smile hurt my heart. He was trying like hell to hold it together.
Bax’s mom called his name from the living room. “Son? Come in here, please.” He narrowed his eyes at the sound. He wasn’t happy Merv had interfered.
“I don’t understand,” Athena whispered. “Why’d Uncle Dixon leave his baby here? Where is he? I didn’t even know he had a baby. Did you?”
“No. I found out today, just like you. I don’t know where he is. Aunt Abey will look for him.”
“I will,” Abey said softly when she walked up behind Athena still looking up at Bax with wide, questioning eyes. Athena turned at the sound of her aunt’s voice, and gently, Abey swept Athena’s hair off her shoulder and let it fall down her back. “But I don’t know that I’ll find him.”
“C’mon,” Bax said, and he looked at Athena and then me. He flexed his fingers away from his crutch handle, like he wanted to hold my hand.
I nodded and followed him, and we all walked into the living room to see Merv holding the sleeping baby in Bax’s recliner. She’d already fallen in love with the kid. That was clear as she gazed down at him with wonder.
She smiled at Stu sleeping in her arms. “He has my eyes.”
Bax looked at his sister. “What do we do?”
“I’m not sure there’s a lot we can do, Bax.
I’ve put a call into child services just to have somebody in the loop, but Dixon must’ve done some research because everything seems to be in order.
” Abey walked to the coffee table and lifted an unfolded piece of paper, and I saw the raised notary seal from where I stood clear across the room.
“We’ll do a DNA test just to be sure,” Abey said, “but he’s ours.
I know he is. Doctor Whitley will come to check Stu over, make sure he’s healthy, and he’ll take a swab so we can do the test. Given his history, we’ll need to take him to a pediatrician, to check for any lastin’ effects from the”—Abey glanced quickly at Athena and then her mom—“the drugs.”
“I think I need to lie down,” Bax said when he swayed on his feet, but he pushed into his crutches to steady himself.
“Go,” his mom said. “Get some rest. I’ll be here with Stuey.”
Abey nodded. She’d stay too.
Bax sighed heavily, but he asked, “Athena, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m fine, Daddy. I still don’t understand, but I’m okay.”
Holding his crutch under his arm, he reached his hand out to her. She took it and squeezed, and then she sat at the end of the couch closest to Merv, draped herself over the arm, and became transfixed with the baby still sleeping peacefully in her grandma’s arms.
Bax looked at me. “Will you come with me?”
“Of course.”
Merv didn’t bat an eye this time. She couldn’t see or hear anything besides her grandson.
“How the hell am I gonna explain to Athena that the reason her uncle dumped his kid on us is that he feels like it’s his fault her mama and brother died?”
I didn’t have a good answer for that, so I said nothing.
We’d made our way upstairs, and I helped Bax out of his sweatshirt and T-shirt because they had been covered in dirt and leaf debris still. I grabbed a clean white tee from his drawer, and now we lay on his bed, side by side on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling.
I was so fucking far out of my depth. I had no clue what to say or do.
I had zero experience with a big family. And even less with babies.
And Bax and I weren’t a couple. Not a solid one. We hadn’t talked about kids, other than Athena.
Now that I knew about Duo, I realized Bax had been avoiding the subject completely. Everything made sense now; he’d opened up to me, but I’d still known something was missing. And now I knew what it was.
What exactly did he want me to do in this situation? But I wasn’t sure he had the answer to that question either.
I wanted to be with Bax like I couldn’t remember ever wanting anyone, but I wouldn’t give up my job for a man. I couldn’t. Not again. And now there was a baby?
Oh God. How had I ended up here?
Oh yeah, that’s right. You’re in this mess because of your damn hormones, you idiot. You should’ve stayed at the cabin and braved the goddamn bears by yourself.
“I think Athena’s old enough to understand drug addiction,” Bax said. “They talk to the kids about it at school, and she and I have talked about her uncle. And she can understand abandonment, but the rest will break her heart. I can’t tell her that.”
Bax grew quiet. When I turned on my side and looked at him, I saw the war going on inside his head. I could only imagine the thoughts fighting for dominance up there.
My own thoughts weren’t much calmer.
Abandonment wasn’t something felt only by people who’d been left on purpose.
I felt it every day after Mama passed. I’d screamed and cried and begged God to tell me why she’d left me.
Why he’d taken her. And after my dad, it got worse, which was probably the reason I’d ended up married to someone I’d never really loved. Not like I loved Bax.
“What’re you thinkin’?” he whispered.
“Just thinkin’ about my parents.”
“I’m sorry you’re in the middle of this,” he said, and he rolled onto his side and faced me.
“Oh, it’s… It’s fine.”
His laugh lacked humor. “You wanna run, don’t you? Go back to Sheridan as fast as you can?”
My mouth popped open to respond to his question, but nothing came out.
The situation was fucked up, that was for sure, but I didn’t want to run away. When I tried to picture getting in my truck and leaving, a sickening feeling filled my body. I couldn’t leave Bax and Athena. Not like this.
It hurt to even think about.
Still wrapped up in thought, Bax rolled onto his back again. “Shit. Brand. Somebody needs to call him.”
“I will,” I said. It seemed I needed to talk to my boss too.
“Thank you. I’ll call him soon, but I… I dunno what to tell him right now.”
“It’s okay. I’ll call him now.”
Bax nodded, but he didn’t say anything more, and I got up and left the room quietly. Downstairs, Merv and Athena were still enamored with Stu. They both stared at him, but he hadn’t moved since Bax and I had gone upstairs.
As I walked into the kitchen and headed toward the door, Abey stood and followed. “You okay?” she asked.
I turned to face her. “Me? Oh yeah, I’m…”
“This is a lot for anybody, but you and Bax are new. Nobody would blame you if you wanted to wipe your hands of us.”
“I don’t. I don’t know what I want, but I can’t leave them.”
“You love them”—she tipped her head to the side, trying to read me—“don’t you? Both of them.”
I nodded, and tears filled my eyes, but I couldn’t say the words out loud.
I’d cry like Stu if I did.
Clay had texted that he’d sent everyone home early but promised a full day’s pay. I knew Brand would be fine with it as soon as I told him what was going on.
I passed Merv’s finished blue house as I drove back to my cabin. The back door was still open when I got there, but it didn’t look like anyone else had been inside, and still no bears.
I closed and locked the door, jacked up the thermostat, dropped my keys on the kitchen table, then fell onto the loveseat in the living room. And then I called Brand.
“A baby?” he said. “Whose baby?”
“Your brother’s.”
“Bax doesn’t have a baby.”
“It seems Dixon does.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much what Bax and Abey said too.”
“ Fuck ,” he said again, and a garbled static noise filled my ear. I could picture him falling into his desk chair and swiping his hand over his face. “I can’t believe Dixon did this. I’m comin’ home.”
“You can’t leave, Brand.”
“Fuck this goddamn court case.”
“Just stay in Sheridan for now. There’s nothin’ you can do here. Bax is hurtin’, but he’s handlin’ it. How’s the case goin’?”
He sighed. “It’s almost done. A couple more days I think, and I can come home. I should already be there. If I’d gotten off my ass and made the move, I probably would be. I wanna talk to you about that soon.”
“Okay,” I said, but panic began to build in my stomach. It worked its way up my throat until I thought it would choke me.
“You haven’t checked in about the builds lately,” Brand said. “Everything goin’ alright?”
“Y-yeah. We’re gettin’ down to the wire, but everything’s on track. The last two houses are done.”
“Good. Thanks again for doin’ this for my family.”
I didn’t respond because now I was imagining what would happen when my job was finished. I didn’t like the images I’d conjured up, flying around in my head like a swarm of angry bees.
Every single one had me leaving soon. Winter would hit. Snow would fall, and I’d leave for home. But where was that exactly? Because when I pictured rolling back into Sheridan alone in my truck, pain cracked through my chest like someone had punched it into me.
But if Brand was really planning to move headquarters… What would that mean for me?
“Sweetie?”
“Mm?”
“What aren’t you sayin’? I’ve known you two years and you’ve never failed to tell me exactly how you felt about a situation, but you’re awfully quiet now.”
“I—”
What could I say? Not one thing that had happened in the last few weeks made any sense to me.
“Spit it out, Sweetie. Just say whatever it is.”
“I-I think I’m in love with your brother.”
Brand cracked a laugh in my ear. “Oh, is that all?”
“‘Is that all?’” I nearly screeched. “That’s what you have to say to me right now?”
“ There’s the Sweetie I know. And yes, that’s all I have to say. I saw it comin’ a mile away. Bax has had his eye on you since the moment he met you. Why do you think he got so drunk that night we all played poker?”
I stammered, “Uh, well I, I mean… Huh?”
“When I put my big, drunk brother to bed, all he could talk about was how beautiful he thought you were, and how guilty he felt for feelin’ that way. So maybe he’s finally figured out he has nothin’ to feel guilty about?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I’m not sure. We haven’t actually talked about it. Not really.”
“Well, my friend, it’s probably best now you do.”