If this is love, p.26
If This Is Love, page 26
Switzerland? Fletcher’s sending me to the place where Milo and Jolene honeymooned. His deplorability has no boundaries.
“Who gave you that?” I find a stronger voice.
“The big guy in the black truck yesterday. Sorry, I had a late shift. You were asleep when I got here. Out hard. And you didn’t move when I left at four this morning.” He jabs a thumb over his shoulder. “I’ve gotta get back to work. I just wanted to make sure you were good.”
“Um …” I try to keep my emotions in check. “Can you drive me to Dallas?”
He laughs. “Not today. I took Wednesday off to drive you to the airport.”
“Do you have a vehicle I can borrow?”
He shakes his head. “Sorry. Just my truck, and I need it.”
“Can you call me a cab or Uber?”
Baylor continues to chuckle. “They don’t come out to these parts. Sorry.” He opens the door.
“Baylor?”
“Yeah?”
“How is she … um … Mom?”
He frowns. “She died ten years ago. Overdosed. The depression won.” The door shuts behind him.
On a shaky breath, I quickly wipe my eyes. It’s a lot. The past two days have been emotionally more than one person should be asked to endure. My heart can’t take anymore.
Grabbing the blanket, I lie back down and close my eyes. I dream of burnt grilled cheese and lazy summer evenings on Ranger with Milo next to me.
I see Baylor for less than twenty minutes total over the next two days. He sleeps, welds on the pipeline, and eats on the run. We have a long drive to the airport, and I have so many questions.
“What was she like? I don’t feel like I remember much.”
“Mom?”
I nod.
Baylor steers his truck with one hand while holding his energy drink in his other hand. Three candy apple air fresheners hang from his rearview mirror. They don’t smell like candy or apples. “She worked a lot. When she was in a good mood, she was in the best mood. When she was not in a good mood, she didn’t get out of bed. And she missed you—her baby. The money didn’t matter. Hell, I knew nothing about the money until after she died.”
“What?”
He shrugs. “Yup. Apparently, she didn’t want to touch it. She felt too guilty. So Rosa and I split it. She went to med school, and I invested my share, so I don’t have to live in the middle of nowhere forever.”
I don’t know how to respond. It’s … tragic.
“What about you? What was it like growing up with a billionaire?”
I stare out the window and grunt. “Overrated.”
“After she died, I spent more time with my dad. He’s a veterinarian. Rosa’s dad owns a restaurant in San Antonio now. Had Mom not died, I wonder how many more of us there would be?” He laughs.
“Because she never settled down with one man?”
“Well, sure. I suppose that too.” He shoots me a quick side glance. “She was uh … an escort. You knew that, right?”
What?
“Our names. You were conceived in a private jet over the state of Indiana. I’m the hometown boy from Waco. She never explained why I was conceived at a university neither she nor my dad attended, and I didn’t ask. I was too busy thanking the good Lord that my name isn’t Waco.” Baylor chuckles. “And Rosa was a New Mexico conception in Santa Rosa. Supposedly it was a scuba diving getaway.”
In the next moment, I snort. Then I do it again, doubling over in a fit of laughter—the crazy kind.
“What did I miss?” Baylor asks.
I shake my head, wiping the tears from my eyes while gasping for breath. “Oh … oh my gosh …” My stomach hurts from laughing so hard. “I’m …” More giggles escape. “I’m the million-dollar baby of the devil and his whore.”
Baylor clears his throat. “We don’t call her that. I mean, she was a pretty good mom.”
“Sorry.” I wipe my eyes. “I didn’t get to see much of that side of her. Children are supposed to be priceless. I had a price.”
“To be fair, I think he held a lot over her head, and the money was just the final nudge to get her to walk away.”
Of course, Fletcher held something over her head.
I simmer into sadness, no longer feeling the effects of my temporary nostalgia. And for the rest of the way, I remain silent.
“Will I see you again? Rosa would love to see you too.”
I start to open my door when he parks his truck outside my apartment building. And I can’t help but wonder if Lincoln’s been looking for me. Has he contacted the police?
“I’d like that.”
“No phone?” he asks.
I frown. “Not at the moment.”
“Well…” he reaches for his glovebox and pulls out a pen, scrawling his number onto a torn-off piece of a fast-food bag and handing it to me “…this is me. Call me when whatever’s going on with you gets settled. Okay? And I hope I don’t get in trouble with that big guy for not taking you to the airport.”
I nod. “Thank you. I’m sure you’ll be fine.” I give him a second glance before closing the door. There are so many things I want to say and questions to ask, but now, I can only focus on Milo, wondering if I’ll ever see him again.
Wondering if he’s alive.
“Your rent’s late,” my landlord says, opening her creaking door. Her apartment smells like something’s burning.
Grilled cheese.
“I was abducted, but I’m back, and if you let me into my apartment, I’ll get you paid.”
She rolls her eyes, grabbing a ring of keys. “I’ll hand it to you…” she leads the way to the elevator “…you get points for originality. That’s the first abduction excuse I’ve heard in twenty years.”
When she glances over her shoulder, I return a tightlipped smile.
Stepping off the elevator on the fourth floor, she rattles her keys, searching for mine. “Texas’s wealthiest man died a few days ago. Did you hear about it?”
My gait falters. There are a lot of wealthy people in Texas. Maybe she doesn’t know who’s the richest. And my name on the lease is Indiana Hill, so she doesn’t know who I am … who I was.
Lorraine opens my door and narrows her eyes at me. “Coming?”
“Who?” I whisper. My body tingles like it’s been anesthetized.
“Fletcher Ellington. Blew his brains out. He’d been in a wheelchair after an accident. Maybe he no longer thought life was worth living.”
I don’t … I don’t understand.
“You okay?”
My body moves in her direction, but I can’t feel it. This is what I imagine it’s like to have an out-of-body experience. People talk, but everything echoes. Words mean nothing. Emotions shut off. Your body moves on autopilot.
“You don’t look well. Here … let me help you lie down.” She assists me to the sofa, covered in piles of laundry. “Should I call someone?”
He’s dead.
“Indiana?” Lorraine puts her face in front of mine. “Do you need me to call someone for you?”
“No,” I whisper.
She stands straight. “Have rent to me by tomorrow morning. And whatever you do, don’t die in here. Do you have any idea how hard it is to rent out an apartment after it gets out that someone died in it?”
When the door clicks, I fist my hands over my eyes. “No …” Emotion punches me in the face, and I cry. It kicks me in the gut, and I sob harder. “No!” I’m so fucking angry that I’m having these feelings. I’m mad that these tears won’t stop running down my face.
He doesn’t get my tears.
“Stop. Stop … just stop.” I shoot to my feet and scrub my face, trying to erase every tear, every last bit of evidence they existed. Clenching my shirt in my tight fists, I rip at it as if I could rip out my heart and stomp all over it for reacting this way to him.
Throwing open my kitchen cabinets, I look for any alcohol I can find, settling on a bottle of vodka. Tossing the cap aside, I bring it to my lips.
Then … I stop.
He would have done this. He did do it.
Fletcher tried to drink himself to death after Ruthie died.
Because he supposedly loved her.
Because he couldn’t bear a sober day without her.
Because he didn’t know how to love anyone else.
It’s too easy to imagine his impure spirit watching me, smirking, reminding me that I am his flesh and blood. Like father, like daughter.
Crash!
The bottle of vodka shatters against the wall. I wipe more tears, brushing my arm across my nose to wipe my snot. But I can’t stop. My emotional foundation crumbles. And I bleed all the tears and choke on every sob.
His evil spirit can watch me with that self-righteous smile, but he’d better know these tears are not for him. They’re because of him.
39
SLIGHTED
MILO
“Where’s Ty?” Pauline asks while I rock Benjamin and stare out at the trees by the pond. She hasn’t said more than a dozen words since returning to the ranch.
I’m okay with her remaining in a state of shock. After his funeral, I will have my judgment day. Jolene should be here soon. She’s avoided making the trip home until the last possible minute.
She’s avoided me.
But today, we say a final good riddance to the fallen master.
“I haven’t seen Ty.”
“What do you mean you haven’t seen him?”
The clouds grow darker. How fitting that it will storm today.
“I mean, I haven’t seen him like I don’t plan to see a handful of employees who never wanted to be here in the first place.”
“Ty was loyal to him. He wouldn’t miss his funeral.”
“I fear you’ve mistaken obedience for loyalty.”
“Well…” she clears her throat “…when you see him, tell him I’d like to have a word. And later tonight, I will have a word with you as well.”
There it is.
I say nothing.
When Benjamin falls asleep, I lay him in his crib, shave my face smooth for the first time in years, and don my whitest shirt, pressed suit, and black silk tie.
We dress our very best to grieve and celebrate. Today is both. A brother and uncle will be mourned. And a new freedom will be celebrated.
“You’re not in his will.”
Drawing a long breath, I close my eyes for a second before turning toward Jolene.
Her long, brunette hair is pulled into a tight bun.
Her lithe body clad in a fitted black dress. Black gloves. Black heels.
“And in our prenup, you get nothing if you cheat on me.”
Adjusting my tie, I don’t say a word.
“Was she worth it?” Jolene eyes me with a stern expression and a hatred more intense than anything I’ve seen from her in our short marriage.
Buttoning my suit jacket, I pull my shoulders back and make my way to the door, to Jolene. I stare down at her until she cowers, averting her gaze. “Yes. She was worth it.”
Fletcher’s butcher slash minister presides over his funeral service. His kind words are offered to a filled church. I am one of six pallbearers chosen to carry his casket from the front of the church to the hearse. From the hearse to his final resting place in the Ellington family cemetery next to his beloved Ruthie.
Pauline loses it during the burial service. Jolene passes Benjamin to me so she can console her mourning mother. I don’t look at the minister or the casket—my gaze slides along the acres of land surrounding us. And I imagine what my life will be like when it’s no longer my responsibility. When I’m no longer a slave to the man in that shiny box.
After the final prayer, family and friends disperse toward their vehicles. No one stays next to Fletcher’s grave as he did with Ruthie. I carry Benjamin to the limo and place him in his seat next to Pauline and Jolene.
“I’ll walk,” I say.
Jolene returns a curt nod before I close the door. When the limo pulls away, I meander to a dead oak tree, facing the hill where Fletcher’s casket has been lowered into the ground, where two men are covering it with dirt.
And then I see her.
A bright flowing sundress that sweeps to her knees.
Cowboy boots.
Hair floating on the breeze. A single rose clenched in her fist.
Thunder sounds in the distance while angry clouds converge into thick, dark mountains in the sky. The earthy, musky smell of impending rain permeates the air.
She stands over Ruthie’s grave for a few minutes. I lean against the tree and watch her. Taking a step forward, she lowers, kneeling on Ruthie’s grave, and places the rose on her headstone.
Ten minutes pass.
Twenty minutes pass.
Then she slowly stands. Touching her fingers to her lips for a long second, she reaches for the headstone and presses her fingers to it.
Passing Fletcher’s grave, she doesn’t stop. She doesn’t give it the tiniest of glances. It’s as if he’s not there. It’s as if she’s not acknowledging he ever existed.
Gaze angled at her feet, Indie makes her way down the hill. Brushing the hair from her face, she glances up. And she stops—eyes on me.
Indie has never looked more beautiful. More free. I should have given it to her years ago.
Her eyes fill with unshed tears, and she smiles. It’s blinding.
“Indie girl.” I push off the tree when she runs toward me.
“You’re alive,” she whispers in my ear with her arms around me.
Lifting her from the ground, I bury my face into her neck and breathe. She’s lavender and sunshine. She’s hope.
Easing her to her feet, I frame her face in my hands. Regret strangles me. I need to know if she’s okay. I need to tell her that she’s safe. Ty’s dead. No other man will ever touch her again. And I’m so fucking sorry for failing her.
“Hey …” Her brow furrows while her hand presses to my cheek. “What’s wrong?”
Slowly, I shake my head, forcing a hard swallow past that lump in my throat. “I’m sorry … I let him hurt you. But he’ll never touch you again.”
Indie squints for a second before her head inches side to side. “He didn’t hurt me.” Her thumb brushes my lips. “He took me to my brother.” Her mouth bends into a tiny grin. “I’d blocked out that time in my life. I have a brother and a sister.” Indie’s smile fades. “Are you okay?”
It takes me a few seconds to let the gravity of her words snake around my conscience—a poison to my already questionable soul. I manage a nod.
I lie.
Today I’m supposed to be free.
I’m not.
“Come back to Dallas with me?”
Holding her as tight as possible, I kiss the top of her head. “I have a few things to do. I’ll be there tomorrow. Okay?”
“I don’t want to leave without you.” She pulls back a breath and grips my jacket’s lapels.
My knuckles skate along her cheek while I dig deep for a reassuring smile. “It’s just one day, baby.” I see the concern, the doubt, in her eyes. “I’m yours.”
Still, she’s conflicted. And I don’t know how to ease her mind. It’s like she feels everything I’m feeling. Regret is a deep scar that never disappears. And maybe it’s not supposed to disappear. Perhaps regret is what keeps us from repeating the past. Regret is the ultimate accountability.
“Milo …”
I kiss her, closing my eyes to hide the pain that she doesn’t need to bear with me. Her fingers find my hair, and she kisses me with a need that envelopes me. It digs its claws into me.
My hands slide to her butt, squeezing and bringing her closer to me. So close, but not close enough.
She buries her face in my neck. “I’m happy he’s dead. I hate that kind of happiness.”
40
THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH
INDIE
Milo said he’d come to Dallas today. It’s nearly eleven at night, and he’s not here. I don’t know his number. I haven’t called Milo Odell in over four years and three phones ago.
What if something terrible happened? What if Ty got angry at him? Or Jolene did something terrible? What if he was on his way and got into an accident? How would I know? When would I know?
Over the past ten hours, I’ve prepared for his arrival—a clean apartment, fresh bedding, and a bouquet from the floral shop. I owed it to Lincoln to let him know I’m alive. He was relieved but angry that I wouldn’t give him the details.
The weight of his anger quickly dissipated by the time I got back to my apartment because I knew Milo would be here soon.
I was wrong. No Milo.
Until … now.
There’s a knock at my door, and I sprint to open it, casting all self-control into an ocean of disregard.
It’s him!
“I was so worried.” I throw my arms around him.
Milo backs me inside, dropping his bag on the floor and kicking the door shut behind us.
“Why do you look so sad?” I press my palm to his face.
He slowly shakes his head, having not said a word yet. His mouth covers mine.
Our clothes are lost.
Our bodies entwine.
Milo takes me again and again, until his eyes finally close, his body relaxes, and he falls asleep with me in his arms. My head on his chest. And all I feel is this deep sadness.
Isn’t this it?
Our time?
No more obstacles?
I don’t understand.
“Morning,” Milo says.
Nestled on the sofa with a tall glass of iced tea next to me, I look up from my book. It’s almost noon. “Hey. I wondered if you were going to sleep all day.”
He stretches and yawns. “You wore me out last night.”
I grin. And he does too. It’s a friendly grin, but it’s not my Milo’s. Something’s missing.
