Chapter 29 My Responsibility
MY RESPONSIBILITY
“What the fuck, Clay? Why the hell didn’t you call me last night when all this shit happened?”
His phone ringing at six with his brother’s name popping up had his heart ready to detonate in his chest. The minute he found out Reenie was safe, he took a few deep breaths to calm down.
All his brother said was he wanted him to come out this morning to show him where he was putting security cameras.
It wasn’t until he got out of his SUV at Reenie’s place that Clay hit him with what happened last night.
“I had it covered,” Clay said. “She didn’t want you to stay after everything that happened yesterday for a reason. Forcing you together wouldn’t help anyone.”
“I would have been here.” He ran his hands through his hair and paced. “She’s my responsibility.”
“She’s not. That’s the problem. You need to realize that.”
His brother wasn’t wrong.
He was in love with Reenie.
If he was honest with himself, he never fell out of love with her.
She wouldn’t want to be considered a responsibility.
It would have caused a fight last night when it was the last thing either of them needed.
“She’s not ready to hear more.”
“That’s between the two of you,” Clay said impatiently. “I’m putting cameras on both doors and security lights in the front and back by the entrances. Hidden cameras already monitor the driveway, as you know.”
“Did you see anything or anyone last night?”
“No. No one has come down the road other than you and her. Not last night. Other than family, no one has been this far down in a car.”
“That’s good to know. Do you think it was her imagination?”
“Probably, but I’m not stupid enough to insult her with it. There are some limbs down. The wind was whipping last night. There are footprints all over the cabin outside.”
“Again, you should have led with that.”
“They look like hers and Mom’s. She said Mom and Dad have been out there doing things. I know they’ve walked down or driven too.”
It all made sense. “That’s it? Nothing more?”
“There isn’t much more at this point,” Clay said. “The cameras will be delivered today and I’ll get them installed. I ordered them to be expedited yesterday afternoon. It’s my fault for only having them at the top of the driveway.”
Ford didn’t need his brother taking the blame for something no one would have thought of. In his mind, Reenie was safe on his family's land.
“Don’t,” he said. “Nothing has happened. I appreciate everything you’ve done. I’m going to talk to her about staying with me.”
“How do you think that is going to go over?” his brother asked. He didn’t like the older brother smirk being sent his way.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that she gets out of work at three and you barely get home by seven half the time. Do you want her in your house for hours when you’re not around? Where no one else can watch out or get to her if they need to? You know as well as I do, she’s safer and more protected here.”
Ford didn’t like being told what he should already know.
“I don’t like this. Not until we find out more information from Grady.”
“He’s working on it,” Clay said. “It takes time. I’ll reach out tomorrow if I hear nothing.”
He looked around the land his parents owned. That had been in his family for generations.
Few would dare step foot here without reason or consequences unless welcomed.
“Thanks. I don’t say it enough, but I should thank you daily. All of you.”
“Don’t,” Clay said. “You’d do the same for any of us. We know it.” His brother was quiet for a second. “Are you going to tell her you love her?”
“No,” he said.
Clay tossed a hand in the air. “Why?”
“Because she doesn’t need that pressure on her shoulders with everything else.”
“Do you really think she doesn’t feel the same way?” Clay asked.
He looked off into the distance again. Anything to avoid his brother’s gaze. “We haven’t talked about anything remotely close to feelings.”
“Dude,” Clay said. “She came here to say goodbye to the one place she had fond memories of as a child. The place she hoped to see you even if she didn’t know this would be the outcome. You don’t think that says everything you need to know?”
When his brother put it that way, he felt like an idiot.
“We’ll talk about it more when we feel ready. I’ll be staying here going forward if she won’t come to my place.”
“I figured as much. I’ll get the cameras installed once they come.”
“I owe you,” he said.
“No. You don’t. But you can bring me some breakfast after you stop to see Reenie. She’s liable to be pissed at me when you show up this early.”
He laughed. “Sure. I’ll bring it over.”
When he arrived at the backdoor of the cafe five minutes later, his mother was pulling muffins out of the oven and Reenie was frosting a massive pan of brownies. Double fudge.
His favorite.
“I figured I’d see you this morning,” his mother said.
Reenie swung around at the sound of his mother’s voice. She obviously didn’t expect to see him by the shocked look on her face.
“Ford.” Her smile dropped when she saw how serious he was. “Clay told you.”
“Did you think he wouldn’t?”
“I had hoped he’d at least wait until later.”
“Reenie,” his mother said, clicking her tongue. “My boys don’t keep secrets long. Clay did you a favor last night.”
She pursed her lips. “I know.”
“Can I have one of those while I steal Reenie for a few minutes out front?”
His mother was already cutting the brownies and putting one on a napkin for him. “Once Reenie told me what happened last night, I knew you’d be here.”
“And you didn’t want to give me a heads up?” she asked his mother.
“Learn your way around your relationship,” his mother said, smiling. “But I know my boys.”
The minute they moved to the front, Reenie started a pot of coffee. “You could tell my mother but not me you were so scared that you went outside to look around?”
“It was foolish of me,” she said. “Worse that Clay had to come save me when I didn’t need it. My mind got away from me.”
“As it’s going to do when you’re always looking over your shoulder.”
“Are we going to fight about this?”
“No. I’m not fighting. We are talking. I need you to come to me, Reenie. To trust I’ll be there for you and not worry that I can’t handle it.”
“I know you can, but I’d just told you to leave and then to call you back...”
“Would make you look weak in your eyes? Right?”
“Yes,” she said, her head dropping, her voice with it. She made him a cup of coffee and put a top on it to hand over.
“Nothing you do or say will ever make you weak in my eyes. It’s not possible. I don’t know how you could even think that.”
Someone who had done what she had to escape. Planned it, played it cool to get away, then disappeared.
She barely cried in front of him. And when she did, she almost always felt embarrassed over it and walked away or hid her face after a tear or so.
“Do you think I’ve ever had anyone other than you or your mother tell me positive things in my life?
Ford, you’re asking me to think, act, and believe things I’ve rarely experienced.
That’s a lot for anyone. Half the time I’m flying by the seat of my pants and just lucky I’m not getting a road rash on my butt cheeks. ”
He grinned. “You’re doing a great job at staying blister free.”
“I am. I’m proud of myself for how I can get through situations.
I know most people would scuff it off or turn their nose, but for me, it’s all I’ve got.
No one has lived in my shoes. No one has had to grow up not knowing when they were going to get a cuff to the side of the head.
And trust me when I tell you that was the least of the things I worried about happening. ”
They’d never had these conversations before.
“Why haven’t you ever said anything? Why not back then and why not now?”
“Because it’s difficult to tell anyone when you don’t trust them. And back then, I knew if people asked enough questions, my mother would pick up and move. Do you honestly think that in all the years I was in school someone didn’t question things?”
“I hoped someone had.”
“They did. And we’d be gone shortly after. I didn’t want to leave here. I wasn’t about to do anything that would expedite it.”
“I wish I’d known that. My parents would have done something.”
She threw her hands up. “What, Ford? What were they going to do? Take me in? Challenge my mother and become my guardians? Even though the courts usually side with the birth parent? Do you know how long it takes for those things to happen? In that time, I’d be gone.”
He knew that now, but hadn’t back then.
“You had no one you could go to? No family? Your father. You’ve never said.”
“No one,” she said. “My mother was on the move all the time. Different guys in different cities and states. I’ve lost count of the places I’ve lived.
I didn’t do that great of a job myself as an adult either, but not like she’d done.
I got away but then saddled myself up with losers that always dragged me back down to what I was trying to escape.
As for my father, no clue. His name isn’t on my birth certificate, but I was born in Boston. ”
“You have a family now, Reenie,” he said. “Me and my family. You know that, right?”
“I do.”
At least she didn’t hesitate to acknowledge that.
“Don’t forget it either. I mean that. We are going to get through this. Until then, I’m staying with you.”
Her nose twitched up several times. She was fighting the urge to argue.
“Do you think that is necessary?”
“Necessary or not, I think everyone will feel more comfortable.”
“You won’t be comfortable in that bed,” she said.
“No, but I’ve slept in worse. I thought about having you stay at my place, but you’d be alone for several hours a day. It’s better with you here.”
“Clay told you that,” she said, pointing her finger. “Right?”
Any other time he’d be happy that she knew him well enough to guess that. “Yes. So yeah, our choice is your cabin, or you stay with Clay.”
“No!”
He laughed at how quickly she’d denied that option.