Gypsy Brothers: The Complete Series (50 page)

NINE

Jase falls asleep on the bed next to me before I’ve even finished eating. He must be exhausted. I doubt he’s had much sleep at all, worried sick, staying up to make sure nobody hijacked our ship in the night as we drifted out of Dornan’s grip. I gently shift myself off the side of the bed and pad out of the room. It’s been raining steadily for a few minutes now, rain thrumming down on the tin roof, and I hear the guttering gush and creak with the onslaught of heavy rain.

I spot the top of Elliot’s head as he sits outside, under the verandah, just like he always used to in Nebraska. There’s a peace here that didn’t exist in Los Angeles, even when I was somewhere hidden away from Dornan. A quiet stillness punctuated only by the rain that pours from the heavens above us. The little old house almost seems to rattle under the weight of it.

I find a kettle and rinse it out, boiling it and making tea with the teabags I find underneath the sink. There’s no milk, not yet at least, so I put a little cold water and some sugar in each mug and give them a stir. Holding the two mug handles in one hand, I get the door open using a combination of my hand and my hip.

Elliot glances briefly behind him, his hand going to the gun beside him on the step. When he sees me, he smiles briefly, taking his hand from the gun.

“Hey,” I say softly. “Am I interrupting?”

Elliot’s always been a thinker. I know he likes his solitude; I don’t want to intrude.

He shakes his head, accepting one of the tea mugs. “Nah. I was just sitting.”

It’s awkward for him being here. I can tell.

“What’s the plan?” I ask him. Jase likes to shield me from things, to give me vague half-answers because he thinks I can’t handle things. And he thinks I am so weak and defenseless and pregnant right now, I doubt he’d share anything vaguely important with me if he thought it might alarm me.

Elliot shrugs lazily. “Get you out. And run. That was the plan. Now?” he takes a sip of the tea and pulls a face, “now, I don’t know.”

I nod, staring into my own tea. I probably won’t even drink it; I just like the way it feels comforting to hold tea in my hands.

“Where are the girls?” I ask, referring to Kayla, his daughter, and Amy, his ex.

“Somewhere safe,” he says. “Somewhere nobody will look.”

I nod. “And grandma?”

His face drops. “She’s at home,” he says, with difficulty. “Wouldn’t leave her place. Said the diner was too busy, and that she’d keep her shotgun loaded.”

“Oh,” I say.

“I’m going to get her to change her mind,” he adds. “Stubborn old woman.”

That makes me feel relieved. She shouldn’t be in the path of danger because of me.

“I’m sorry I put you in this position, El,” I say, and I am so fucking sorry right now I feel like my heart might break in two.

He nods, staring at the densely packed trees that surround the house. Some of them are so tall, I can’t even tell where they end.

“Yeah, well,” he says, giving me a small smile. “It was always just a matter of time, right? Until they figured out what happened? I mean, that guy at the diner years ago—that was just a lucky fluke I was there, and that I was packing.”

I nod, a chill settling into my bones as I remember the Gypsy Brother who inexplicably stumbled upon me, the girl everyone thought was dead, his greedy eyes lighting up in delight as he probably counted the bonus Dornan would give him for forcing me into his car and taking me back to him.
You look pretty good for a dead girl.
And then he hadn’t been able to see me at all, because Elliot had shot him in the head and buried the body in the woods.

“Yeah, I guess.”

We sit there, silent for a little longer, as our tea turns cold.

“A baby, huh?” Elliot says, finally. I hear the anguish in his voice. The torment.

“Yep,” I reply awkwardly, unable to meet his gaze.

“I’m happy for you, Julz,” he says, patting my knee. “You deserve something good after everything.”

Is it good, though?

“And Jase is a good guy. As much as I fucking hate saying that, he’s proven me wrong.”

He chuckles to himself, shaking his head.

“What?” I press. “Some inside secret I don’t know about?”

He shrugs, flashing me a dazzling smile. “Nah. Just that, I never told you how I almost killed him once.”

This is news to me. “What?”

He smiles self-depreciatingly, taking a sip of tea. “Had the motherfucker lined up in the crosshairs of my sniper rifle. Finger on the trigger and everything.”

I feel sick.

“What happened?” I ask, not sure than I want to know.

“I breathed in,” he says casually. “I breathed back out, and my fucking phone rang.”

“Who was it?”

“It was Amy. She was calling to tell me she was pregnant with my kid.”

Oh.

He shakes his head in disbelief. “I packed that gun up faster than you could say Gypsy Brother, and I got the fuck out of there.”

Huh. His girlfriend getting pregnant three years ago might have ruined any chance of him coming back to me, the girl who waited ceaselessly for him, but inexplicably, it had given me another chance at life with Jason. And, of course, the baby I carry inside me now.

He stands, throwing the last of his tea on the dirt beneath the steps. “Tell that to your kid one day,” he says with an amused smile, offering me a hand up. “Make sure Jase hears every word.”

I raise my eyebrows as he lifts me to my feet. “You are such a shit stirrer,” I admonish, shaking my head at him.

“You better believe it,” he says, opening the door and ushering me back inside.

TEN

The next day, Elliot leaves. He wraps me in a tight bear hug before he gets into the old jeep with Luis. I can see the worry etched onto his face. And it kills me that I’m the reason it exists.

After giving me another dose of the cherry-flavored syrup later that afternoon, Luis informs me he’s lined up a doctor for me to see. A
baby doctor
. He hands me a crumpled piece of paper with a hand drawn mud map and an address that’s barely decipherable.

“You mean, an obstetrician?” I ask him.

He clicks his fingers. “Yeah, that.”

“Thank you so much,” I say gratefully, feeling blessed to have someone—a virtual stranger—watching out for me. I still haven’t heard the full story about how he ended up working with Jase and Elliot to bust me out of Emilio’s compound, but I know the three have some kind of bizarre bromance going on. It’s kind of cute.

“Come see me before you go,” he says, giving me a meaningful stare. I nod, pocketing the directions.

Ten minutes before we are due to leave, I find him in the small woodshed attached to the back of the house. He’s sitting on an upturned milk crate, smoking a cigarette, almost like he’s been waiting for me. He stands and crushes the cigarette under his boot as I approach, waving the smoke away as if he’s forming a path of clean air for me. It’s insane how attentive these three are being on account of my being pregnant.

“Thanks again,” I say. “For setting this up. And for, you know…everything.”

He smiles. “You’re welcome,” he says. “Good choice on the outfit.”

I look down at what I’m wearing. I’m not sure what he’s saying until he pokes my arm. “The marks,” he says. “Don’t show the doctor, and if he sees, make something up.”

“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”

He shrugs, and starts walking toward the house. Right. That must be it.

The drive takes us half an hour. It’d be quicker, but a lot of the roads here are unsealed, and with the recent rain, Jase has to drive carefully to avoid us getting bogged. I can just imagine how that would turn out. Once we’re at the hospital and settled into the consultation room, Jase starts poking around at the equipment as I watch him from my spot on the exam table.

He pulls a face at me as he picks up a small replica of a woman’s pelvis with a cabbage patch doll’s head stuffed through the middle. It’s such a light-hearted thing, such an innocent moment, that I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at how little of these moments we’ve actually had together since he figured out who I was. I decide to go with laughing, and I have to cover my mouth with my hands to stop from sounding like the hysterical pregnant lady.

He puts the pelvis-doll display back down and smiles at me, a boyish grin that shows his dimples.

“I haven’t seen those in years,” I say, reaching out and pressing my finger into the deep dimple in his right cheek. He just keeps on smiling, a glint in his eye, and I realize that maybe he’s telling the truth. He’s
excited
. He’s actually happy to be here with me, even after everything that’s happened, even knowing that there is a chance this baby might belong to a monster instead of to him.

That realization makes me tear up, and his smile turns to concern. “You okay?”

I nod, smiling through my tears. “I’m better than okay,” I reply, reaching over and squeezing his hand.

The doctor arrives eventually, asking me a whole bunch of questions. When was my last period? Have I taken any drugs? Of course, I lie when he asks me that. Jase cannot find out what happened.

After he’s finished with his boring questions, and poked around my stomach a little bit—I’ve explained my wound as a burn from a wood fire, though I don’t know if he buys it—he sends us down the corridor with a slip of paper. As we’re walking to the ultrasound department, Jase stops me with a tug at my elbow.

“Why did you lie?” he asks me. “That’s not a burn.”

I shrug. “I don’t know. How do I explain what really happened?”

Jase seems to think about that for a moment.

“Like, really,” I add. “How do I even begin to put that into words?”

“Yeah,” he says, and the anger is back. “I suppose you’re right.”

I don’t want him to be angry. As we keep walking toward the radiology department, I slip my hand into his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. He squeezes my hand back, our secret language, the thing we used even as teenage sweethearts to talk to each other without using words. I look at him sidelong, and he flashes me a smile. We’re okay. This is going to be okay.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. I might’ve felt the baby move a few times, but I don’t know if it’s okay. I can only hope and pray that whatever horrors I’ve experienced in the past three months haven’t affected it.

It doesn’t take long for the technician to get me half-naked and on the bed. I should’ve worn a dress, I think to myself as I shed my jeans and climb up on the table. I take a deep breath as I realize my hands are shaking. I am so nervous right now.

The technician asks me a round of the same questions I just answered in the doctor’s office, and I repeat each answer. Last menstrual cycle. Average cycle length. That delightfully mundane stuff. Then, finally, Jase and I are glued to the monitor as hazy black and white snow fills the screen.

It doesn’t take long for something to materialize, and when it does, I gasp.

A baby. A fully formed baby, with arms and legs, waving madly as if it knows we’re looking. I actually hear Jase make a surprised noise beside me, and when I look at him, he’s beaming. I blink back a grateful tear as I pay attention to the screen, trying to follow the measurements but in the end just watching tiny limbs as they dance around.

The technician stops for a moment and leaves the room, calling “un minuto,” as she leaves. I look at Jase. “Do you think she’s worried?” I ask.

Jase shakes his head. “Nah. Maybe she’s getting someone to tell us in English.”

I nod. Yeah. That has to be it.

The doctor bustles in and takes one look at the screen, then nods at the technician.  “See these three lines?” he asks us, pointing to the screen.

I peer at what I think are three lines, but I can’t even see what context they’re in. The limbs are gone now, and this is a close up of something. Of what, I’ve no idea.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, my stomach sinking.

“No,” the doctor says quickly. “Everything is perfect. Three lines means a girl.”

Everything is perfect. Three lines means a girl.

I start a chin wobble that will surely dissipate into a stream of tears. “It…she…is okay?”

The doctor frowns, handing me a print-off of several grainy pictures that show our perfect baby in various stages.

“Madam, I am not sure what has happened to you to make you question your baby’s health,” the doctor says cautiously, his eyes dropping to my scarred stomach. “But I can assure you, from everything we can see now, your baby is in perfect health. You’ve passed the danger period, so you can go ahead and start telling people now.”

I nod, relief flooding my veins. “And the conception date, was that accurate?” I feel Jase tense beside me. The doctor scans his paperwork and nods. “Usually a conception date is hard to pin down, but in this case, your due date tracks perfectly with the baby’s size. You must keep a good diary.” He winks at me, and I can’t suppress the smile on my face. Jase kisses the top of my head.

A little more of the wall I’ve built around my heart crumbles. I let myself sink into the feeling of relief that floods me, just for a moment.

Because I can finally believe the words I keep whispering to myself in my darkest moments of doubt.

Everything is going to be okay.