Chapter Eighteen Gideon #2
“Your parents pretty much neglected you for all intents and purposes,” I reply, shaking my head. “If they hadn’t been wealthy and provided a nanny, CPS likely would have been called on them at some point.”
“Maybe they would have paid attention if Mom hadn’t decided to go into politics,” she murmurs with a shrug.
“We’ll never know. They’re not bad people.
Just bad parents. They love me in their way.
They just don’t love to be inconvenienced by me, so I’m sure that this whole situation is really irritating the hell out of my mom.
But when I was small, and Dad took me to those games .
. . those might have been some of my favorite memories.
So I probably saw you play at some point. ”
“It’s very possible,” Ryker says with a wink. “Do you enjoy sports now?”
“Um. Sure?”
The mood lifts with the laughter from her response, and I lean over to kiss her cheek.
She’s so precious. So fucking sweet. How anyone could ever ignore her is a mystery to me.
Even all those years ago, when our relationship was strictly professional, it was impossible to ignore her. But her parents?
You come from far worse. Don’t forget that.
“It’s official,” Willow says. “All four of us came from people who weren’t great parents. But I think we all turned out pretty fucking fantastic.”
Lena blinks in surprise, and then she turns to Willow, and I can see that she’s about to change the subject. “What’s the spiciest book you’ve ever narrated?”
“Oh, there have been some doozies.” Willow thinks about it and then glances at Ryker and me. “I’ll have to tell you about it when they’re not listening.”
“Deal.”
When I wake up the next morning, the bedroom still cast in darkness, Lena isn’t in bed with me.
Part of me panics. Did someone get into my house, through all my security, and take her while I was sleeping?
Unlikely.
But I don’t like that she’s gone, and I have no idea where she is.
I tug on some sweats and a T-shirt, throw on a flannel over that, and start searching the house. She’s nowhere upstairs.
The downstairs is quiet, too, and then I notice that the back door is unlocked.
Before I can freak out, I find her.
My girl is bundled up in blankets, and it’s snowing.
She’s sitting in the snow.
I shove my feet in boots and step outside, and Lena tips her head back, letting the flakes fall on her gorgeous face.
“It’s the first snow,” she says softly. “And I didn’t want to miss it.”
“Baby, it’s too cold.”
“Come here, I have blankets.” She holds her arms out, opening up the blankets, and I pick her up, sit on a snow-covered outdoor chair, and cuddle her in my lap. “Now you’re going to get wet.”
“I want to take you inside where it’s warm, but I have a feeling you’ll fight me on that.”
“Can we sit out here for just a little while?” Her voice is soft in the stillness of the snow falling around us. “It’s so pretty.”
“You do know that you can watch this from literally any window in the house.”
“It’s not the same.” She drags her knuckles down my cheek. “Were you mad that Willow and I drank too much last night?”
“Of course not. You weren’t hurting anyone. I’m just glad that you had fun and that Willow has finally come around.”
She nods and rests her forehead against my cheek, snuggling close. “I like her a lot.”
“I’m glad. She’s not so bad.”
“She told me a lot of things.”
I scowl. “Seems she has a big mouth.”
“I don’t think it was anything you wouldn’t have told me yourself.” She kisses my cheek, and it soothes my soul. “Just more about Ray and Debbie and how much you all loved them.”
“Yeah, we loved them, baby.” I kiss her head and lift her in my arms, taking her inside. “It’s too cold to sit out here, but we’ll watch from the sofa.”
“Okay.”
She holds on tight as I walk through the house to the living room and take the wet blankets off her, then bundle her in dry ones and go upstairs to change my wet clothes.
When I get back, she’s leaning on the arm of the couch closest to the windows, her eyes glued to the huge flakes falling.
“You’ve seen lots of snow before,” I remind her as I sit next to her and wrap my arms around her.
“It’s always magical, and there’s something extra special about the first snowfall of the year. It gets dirty so fast in the city. I bet it’s gorgeous here for a long time.”
“Hm.” I kiss the crown of her head, enjoying the quiet with her.
“Gideon?”
“Yes, sweetheart.”
“I’d like to ask you a question, but I don’t want to upset you or hurt you.”
I frown down at her and tip her chin up. “You can ask me anything. No guarantee that I’ll answer.”
Her lips tip up in a smirk. “Your standard response. Okay then.”
She takes a deep breath, as if she’s gathering her courage, and I press a kiss to her forehead. I haven’t been able to keep my hands off her. And for as long as she’s here, I won’t stop touching her.
Because for now, she’s mine.
“What happened to your biological family, big guy?”
I sigh and push my fingers into her damp hair, brushing it back from her face.
“It’s not a good story, Lena.”
“I’m trying to get to know you, and I feel like that’s kind of a big deal.”
Fuck. I hate talking about this. I haven’t in years. Since I was interviewing for the Secret Service, and it was brought up in that meeting.
“My birth certificate says that my name is Gideon James, and that my parents are Debbie and Ray James.” I swallow hard and drag my hand down my face. “And after I talk to you about this tonight, I’ll never speak of it again.”
She nods, her lavender eyes full of compassion and tenderness, and I know without a doubt that I’d give her anything she asked for right now.
Even this.
Even this horrible, twisted darkness that I come from.
“I’m originally from Bozeman. My parents were normal middle-class people. Dad ran a construction company, Mom was a teacher.”
She tilts her head to the side, listening intently. She links our hands together and kisses my knuckles, easing some of the tension in my shoulders.
“Dad was an alcoholic, and had a gambling addiction. He owed money to the wrong fucking people. Got arrested for theft, starting hitting Mom and got arrested for domestic abuse. He was a piece of shit.”
She clears her throat but doesn’t interrupt.
She also doesn’t pull away from me.
“I don’t know what happened that last day. Not for sure. I was about twelve, and I’d been at school. When I got home, I found my mom dead from a gunshot wound to the head, and my father nowhere to be found.”
Lena gasps, but she still doesn’t pull away from me.
“Gideon.”
“He’d killed her. He was probably high on something, who knows. They found him and arrested him, and he pleaded no contest because the evidence was everywhere. Because Montana has a three-strikes rule, he’ll never get out of prison.”
“He’s still living?” she asks.
“Last I heard, which was when Ray and Debbie petitioned the state to adopt me. He contested.”
Her jaw drops. “He fucking contested?”
I love that she’s pissed on my behalf.
“He didn’t have any rights to me anyway. I don’t know how he heard about the adoption. Obviously, it went through, and I’ve never heard from him again. I don’t care to. He died along with my mom and my unborn sister. Did I mention she was pregnant?”
Lena climbs into my lap, straddles me, and hugs me tight, her face pressed to my neck.
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“It’s not your fault.” My hands rub up and down her slender back, down her sides. She feels so right pressed against me.
“Still sorry,” she murmurs. “I know your mom would be happy that you landed here, with these good people.”
I smile softly and drag my hand down her soft hair. “Yeah, she would.”
I’m not the angry kid that I was when I came here. I’ve healed, and I’ve been loved. But thinking about that time always leaves me a little off.
“You know,” she says quietly, “it’s not lost on me that you came from all that, your mom died the way she did, and you ended up protecting a woman. You’ve done for me what I know you would have done for your mom if you’d been there.”
This woman. I don’t know what to say. Because she hit the nail on the head, and it has my chest aching with emotion.
“Gideon.”
“Yes, little rebel.”
I feel her smile against my skin.
“Let’s go back to bed.”