Chapter Fifteen #2
Alexis looked at her sharply. “This is your place?”
Roxie was caught off-guard and, for a moment, didn’t know what to say. The Ruckus was a biker bar. She’d never been embarrassed by it, and she wasn’t going to start now. Yet it wasn’t pretty or dainty or somewhere most people would want their daughter working.
But her life was what she’d made of it. Tilting her head, she said quietly. “Yes.”
The smile that settled on her mother’s face was warm and happy. “You have your own business? I’m so proud of you.”
Roxie’s tough heart stumbled a little bit. “Maxie and Lexie do, too.”
Maxie shrugged shyly. “I have a flower shop.”
“Oh, I love lavender,” Alexis said.
“It’s my favorite, too.” Maxie squeezed Zac’s leg, and he rubbed his hand over hers.
“What about you, baby?” Dex asked Lexie.
Her sister finally left her father’s embrace for Cam’s. “We just started a new business for recycling toys. It’s going really well.”
“Of course, it is,” he said, brushing the tip of her nose. “You always were the thinker.”
Skeeter helped Charlie carry over the drinks.
By now, everyone in the place was watching them.
Everyone from Whitey to Old Martha to the rough-looking guy with the tattoos who always sat alone.
There was nothing like a good soap opera to intrigue people.
The jukebox had been turned silent, and even the pool table was absent of activity.
Everyone waited for what would happen next.
Only now that they were here, now that they’d found each other, hugged, and shared a drink, nobody knew what to say.
Roxie certainly didn’t know what to do. She’d thought about this moment her entire life.
It had been that secret dream she’d never told anyone about, but this was as far as she’d ever let herself imagine.
Now that it was really here, she didn’t know how to proceed.
She’d always said she wanted answers.
She still did, but there was that niggling fear that all this could be ripped away. Whatever those answers were, this was the happiest she’d ever be. She wanted to freeze this moment in time, just lock it away and walk into the sunset with Billy.
But time moved on, and the truth had to come out.
It was Lexie who finally downed her bourbon, took a shuddering breath, and turned in her seat. “What happened?” she asked, point-blank. “Why were we split apart?”
Tension settled over the room like a heavy, dark cloud.
Dex looked at Alexis, who bit her lip. Their dad’s free hand fisted and he stared at the floor. Roxie was a bit surprised when it was their mother who started talking.
“Dex and I met when we were teenagers. He was a basketball star for West Cobalt, and I was a cheerleader for East. One game he chased a ball, trying to save it from going out-of-bounds, and he crashed into me. We literally fell for each other right then and there.” Lifting their joined hands, she kissed her husband’s knuckles.
“We started dating, but our parents didn’t approve of the match.
We didn’t care. We got serious really fast. Everyone told us it was puppy love and it wouldn’t last, but we knew better. ”
She tucked her hair behind her ear and her gaze dropped. “That talk all stopped when I got pregnant.”
Dex cleared his throat. “When we found out we were having triplets, we didn’t know what to do. We loved each other, but we were only sixteen.”
Roxie glanced at Maddox. Younger than him. Younger than even she had been when she and Billy had thought they were expecting.
“My father—your grandfather—was a powerful man in town,” Alexis explained. “He and my mother were horrified that I’d gotten knocked up by a boy from the wrong side of the river.”
Dex grumbled underneath his breath.
“Your grandfather owned the local newspaper, and he did everything in his power to keep anyone from learning that I’d gotten pregnant,” Alexis continued.
“The doctors and nurses were excited about identical triplets, but he made them sign nondisclosure agreements. He used his power to keep it out of the press. The news stations didn’t pick it up.
All my friends and schoolmates thought I’d gone away to boarding school. ”
Roxie bit the inside of her cheek. That was why she hadn’t been able to find any news articles or birth announcements.
“My mom wasn’t much better,” Dex confessed.
“She was a single mother who never really had any maternal instincts. She’d tried to trap her boyfriend into marriage by getting pregnant.
When that didn’t work, she resented having to lug me around everywhere.
There was no way she was going to help raise more babies that weren’t wanted. ”
“But we did want you,” Alexis said firmly, clearing up that matter right then and there. Her voice turned fierce. Some might even say mama bearish. “We loved you so much, even before you were born.”
Dex finished his bourbon and Charlie went to get him another.
“There were fights and a lot of yelling, but I refused to go away,” he said. “They didn’t know how to take that. Here I was, a kid they hated, but I was standing up and doing the right thing. Or trying to.”
Alexis sighed. “I don’t know what upset my mother more—that I refused to give my babies up for adoption or that I was pregnant out of wedlock.”
A corner of Dex’s mouth curled upwards. “In that regard, their conservative principals worked to our advantage. They gave their approval for us to get married, and my mother hopped on that bandwagon. She thought I was marrying into money.”
“Like I would have touched any of it,” Alexis hissed. Her jaw hardened, and she pushed her hair back and took a deep breath. “So, then we were sixteen and married.”
“Happily married,” Dex added. He comforted his wife with a kiss on the temple and glanced around the table. “I’m not advocating teen sex or early marriage, but you can’t control when you’re going to fall in love. It worked for us, and it’s still working.”
Roxie only remembered to breathe when Billy ran his hand up and down her side. Their life was mirroring her parents—or vice versa. She understood more than they could know. With her and Billy, it had been the two of them against the world.
With her parents, it had been the two of them and their babies.
Her, Lexie, and Maxie.
“We lived in my parents’ house, which wasn’t easy, but we were so happy when you arrived.” Alexis smiled weepily across the table at Maxie. “You were perfect in every way. Tiny, beautiful, and so loving.”
“But then the fights started up again about giving you up,” Dex said roughly. “Everyone kept telling us that we couldn’t care for you the way you needed.”
“That we didn’t know what we were doing,” Alexis added.
“That we were ruining our lives and yours.”
“And we were being selfish trying to keep you.”
“I finally had it,” Dex said, his voice like a rapier. “You were my kids, she was my wife, and I loved all of you. We belonged together.”
Alexis’ chin lifted. “So, we moved out.”
Dex shook his head, but there was a smile on his face. He was deep in memories. It was clear both of them were, and Roxie was just as rapt as her sisters.
“We made a go of it,” he finally said. “It was tough with three little mouths to feed, diapers to change, and the rocking… So much rocking…”
He raked a hand through his thick hair, and more auburn highlights jumped out. “I took on two jobs while Allie stayed home to take care of you.”
Alexis chuckled, sharing a glance with her husband. “We didn’t get much sleep, but we were young. We could handle it, especially since we were happy and in love. The three of you were so cute together.”
She reached over to squeeze Lexie’s hand. “Now you’re so beautiful.”
“We held it together for a long time, but we couldn’t avoid the truth,” their father said flatly.
“Food was scarce, and we weren’t living in the best neighborhood.
It was all we could afford. Your grandparents had cut us off in an attempt to make your mom do as they wanted.
They kept pushing her to give you up. They wanted her to come home, finish school, and start over. ”
“I refused,” Alexis said. “We were doing all right. We would have continued to be all right if…”
She went silent. They both did.
Dex finally cleared his throat. “If one day we hadn’t made a mistake.”
A knot formed deep in Roxie’s gut. These were the answers she’d always wanted. These were the facts that she’d been demanding her entire life. Now, she didn’t want to know.
But she had to.
“What happened?” she breathed.
Her dad looked at her, his eyes so sad. “You got away from us.”
You.
Not you, as in all of them, but you as in her.
A tremor went through her. No. Billy’s arms came around her, strong and warm, but it gave her little comfort. Please, no.
Her mom caught her hands. “Don’t. Don’t you dare go there. It wasn’t your fault, honey.”
“Damn it.” The curse burst from Dexter’s lips.
He stood and rounded his chair. He stared at the floor, hands on his hips, before coming back.
His fingers turned white against the back of his chair when he bent over it.
“If it was anyone’s fault, it was mine. One moment you were there, and the next you were gone. ”
“I… I ran away?” Roxie tried to understand. “You couldn’t find me?”
He shook his head. “I knew immediately where you were. You were only two, but you were fast and you were curious. There was a puppy next door that you’d been dying to pet. The problem was that that puppy was a short-tempered, ill-treated, full-grown German shepherd.”
Maxie gasped. “Oh, no.”
Her dad smiled at her concern. “Oh, yes. Fortunately, the snaggletoothed thing took a liking to the baby who wandered within the reach of its chain.”
“Took a liking?” Alexis scoffed. She rubbed Roxie’s hands, feeling how cold they were. “That thing adored you. He let you pet him and hug him and kiss him. We nearly had heart attacks.”
Dex pointed at Maxie. “I barely caught you before you tagged along right after her.”