Just Let Me Love You (9 page)

Mom chokes back a sob, and I put to words what I accepted today at my father’s grave. “You didn’t fail him, Mom. None of us did. Dad was fighting his own demons…and he lost.”

“But to kill himself,” she hisses as she swipes away tears.

I raise a brow. For so many years my mom has maintained that Dad driving off a cliff was an accident. She used to tell me and my brother she believed Dad had been running away that fateful night, that he had taken off so he could start a new life in California.

“You believe it, now?” I ask my mother in a low voice. “Are you saying you no longer think Dad was running away to start a new life? You finally believe he killed himself?”

“I think I knew it all along,” she admits. “I was in so much denial. I just loved him so much. He was my life, Chase, and I didn’t want to accept that he could so easily end it all.”

My father
was
my mom’s life, and, in many ways, she was his. I remember their love well. They were sweet and kind to each other, they loved hard and played hard. No matter what has transpired, I can’t deny that Jack and Abby gave me the tools to love like that myself.

My love for Kay is as true and pure as my parents’ love once was.

I only hope and pray our love doesn’t have a similar tragic ending.

I glance at Mom. She’s sobbing softly, wiping away tears. She still feels the pain from all she’s lost. All of the money she has nowadays means nothing. Fancy cars, a huge home, the best of everything and still, Mom’s as broken as before.

I put my arms around her and give her a heartfelt hug. “Hey, I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m sorry all this happened to our family.”

She holds onto me for dear life. “We were good once, weren’t we? The four of us really did have perfect lives. Tell me it wasn’t just an illusion, Chase. Tell me it wasn’t some image I conjured up in my head by always looking back.”

“It was real,” I choke out, closing my eyes.

My mom and I hold onto one another, adrift on the choppy seas of our post-destruction lives.

Mom finally speaks first, whispering, “I really messed things up after Jack died, didn’t I? I was gone all the time, lost in my own grief.” She leans back and looks up at me, sorrow in her big green eyes. “I was never around, Chase. No wonder you turned to drugs.”

Shaking my head to let her know not all the fault lies with her, I take a step back and say, “Your absence back then doesn’t excuse all the things I did. And, Mom, trust me, I’ve done far worse things than drugs.”

“Do you mean you did some bad things in prison?” she tentatively asks.

“Both in and out,” I admit.

It’s the truth. I’ve beaten men, I’ve used women. I’ve lied and cheated, and I’ve stolen things. I’m a would-be drug dealer and a one-time drug user.

And I still deal with temptation every day.

But I am learning.

“You don’t do any bad things now, right?” My mom wants to know.

Hearing the hope in her voice is nothing short of heartbreaking, and I think about some of my most recent transgressions—using Missy by letting her blow me behind the Anchor Inn, beating the junkie who hurt Kay, getting drunk and high at Kyle Tanner’s, threatening Doug Wilson, keeping secrets from Kay.
Shit.

I could easily lie to my mother, but what’s the point.

“I’ve done some things recently,” I confess. “Things I’m not proud of.”

Fear darkens Mom’s eyes.

She knows the hold one drug in particular used to have on me. And that is what surely prompts her to ask, “No cocaine, though, right?”

“No cocaine,” I assure her.

She visibly relaxes, her shoulders slumping. “Thank God.”

She sighs, like the possibility of coke ruling me again might be too much for her to bear.

I hear `ya
, I think.

Mom and I are quiet for the next several minutes, lost in our own thoughts. Eventually, she breaks the silence with a laugh.

“What?” I ask.

She points to the top drawer in the work bench. “There are cigarettes in there, and it’s taking everything in me not to go over there and light one up. I sure could use a smoke right about now.”

I’ve known all along Abby never quit smoking. But I’m not going to get on her ass now. Not after this talk.

Waving a hand to the workbench, I say, “Go ahead. I won’t tell Greg.”

She breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Chase.”

While Mom walks over to the workbench and lights up, I point to the motorcycle.

“What about this old thing?” I say. “Where in the hell has it been all this time? I thought we lost everything.”

“I thought we did, too,” Mom says on an exhale of smoke, her voice pinched with nicotine and tar.

I wave away the smoke and ask, “So, where’d you find the bike?”

I am curious since most everything my family ever owned was lost to bankers, creditors, or pawn shops.

Mom takes another quick hit of her cigarette, and then puts it out on the edge of the work bench. As she’s sliding the hardly smoked cig into the pack, she says, “One day, I was cleaning and came across an old shoebox of letters your father had written me. There was a key for a storage unit in the bottom of the box.” She shrugs. “Jack must’ve tucked it in there ages ago and forgot about it. Anyway, the name of the place was on the key, as well as the unit number, so I drove out to the address. That’s where I found the bike.”

“What else was in the unit?” I ask, curious.

“Nothing. Just the bike.”

I look over at the old Indian. “That’s pretty amazing we still have it.”

“It is,” Mom agrees. “And if you want it, Chase, it’s yours,” she adds with a smile.

I’m thrilled and touched. To have this piece of my dad would mean so much.

I thank my mother, and then say, “Guess Kay and I can drive back on this. We could actually
see
the country, instead of flying over it at thirty thousand feet.”

“It’s up to you,” my mother says. “I can just ship it to Harmony Creek if you change your mind.”

“We’ll see,” I say. “I’ll ask Kay what she wants to do.”

Mom nods, and then quietly says, “By the way, Chase, I like Kay. She seems like a very nice young lady, perfect for you.”

“She
is
perfect for me,” I agree.

“Well,” Mom continues, “if it’s okay with you, I’d like to get to know her a little better. Since she’ll be in town all week, would you mind if I ask her out to lunch?”

“I’m fine with that,” I say, since I am. “And maybe while you two are out to lunch, I can finally find some alone time with Will.”

Mom’s expression turns grim, “About Will,” she begins. “I’m sorry I pushed him on you this summer. Greg and I should never have gone on that cruise.” She shakes her head. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

Since I have Mom right where I want her—focused back on being a mother to my brother—I say, “Will needs more structure, Mom. He’s struggling. He needs some rules and an anchor to ground him. He needs someone to make him feel safe.”

With despair I’ve never heard from my mom, she says, “You mean he needs
me
.”

I sigh. “Yes, Mom, he needs you.”

We discuss Will for the next hour. Before we wrap up, Mom agrees to get him some counseling.

“Is he still doing drugs?” she asks.

I tell her the truth. “He used in Ohio, yes. But toward the end of his stay, he was sober every day.”

“Do you think he’s an addict?” Mom’s voice is a mere whisper, shaky and ragged. She fears my brother will end up in the same place I landed four years ago.

“I don’t think he’s there yet,” I assure her.

Mom blows out a relieved breath. “Thank God.”

“Hey,” I say sharply. “You still need to get him to talk to someone. Will’s not out of the woods yet. You and Greg have to set some rules, get him some help.”

“I know,” Mom says. “I promise I’ll get Will the help he needs.”

We talk some more. Talk, not argue. And for the first time in a long time it feels like my mother and I are on the same page.

Maybe, just maybe, with Mom and I working together, there’s hope for Will.

Kay

I’
m sound asleep, dreaming of Chase. More specifically, I’m dreaming of Chase touching me.

“Mmm,” I murmur.

“Kay,” he whispers huskily. “Wake up, baby.”

I do wake, emerging from a fog of slumber to find Chase undressing me. He is slipping my long sleeping tee over my head, tugging my panties down my legs.

I try to help, but he stills my hands. “Let me,” he says.

I nod, and when he has me how he wants me—completely unclothed—his hands ply at my breasts, before slowly trailing down my body.

“So sexy,” he whispers as he traces the curve of my waist with his fingertips.

Chase is already naked and glorious. Biting my lip, I soak in the breadth of his shoulders, the tapering
V
of his torso…and the hard length that awaits me.

“Take me,” I whisper, desperate for his love.

Chase is instantly over me, above me. He trails kisses down to my sex, where he hungrily laves my folds with his tongue. I grind and moan while he licks and laps, and when I’m just about
there
, he moves up and slides into me.

I come undone, panting, “Chase… Oh, Chase.”

In my euphoria, I am wanton. I moan louder than usual, thankful Abby and Greg’s bedroom is on the first floor, well out of earshot. Thus unrestrained, I writhe and lift my hips, encouraging Chase to take me in whichever way he desires.

But instead of plunging into me, he withdraws and holds my hips still.

“What?” I ask.

Chase doesn’t reply…he just stares at me with those penetrating blue eyes. And when I can’t move at all—I am at his mercy—he eases himself back into me.

“Oh,” I gasp as he moves in and out of me languidly, lovingly.

“Good?” he whisper-asks.

“Amazing,” I reply.

As he continues to make love to me, I moan, “God, you’re going to kill me, Chase.”

“How’s that?” he asks, chuckling as his lips brush over mine.

Against his mouth, I murmur, “Because you make me want to give you more and more. There’s never an end to my desire to please you. I want to give you all of me.”

He gives me a little more of his weight, and I spread my legs a little more to accommodate him.

“That’s good, Kay.” he rasps. “Since what I want is
all
of you.”

I open myself to Chase, and I give him everything I have—my heart, my body, my soul. I feel him taking a piece of me with every slow, savoring thrust. But for everything Chase takes, he gives back twice as much.

“I love you, Kay,” he murmurs in my ear. “I love you so much.”

As he pours his love into me, I think of the conversation we had back in Ohio, the one about having a baby. I wasn’t ready then, but I feel more than ready now. I have a few more weeks of active birth control, and then that’s it. I am definitely not getting another Depo shot in September. Chase will be happy with my decision. He wants a baby, and I am finally completely ready to give him one.

L
ater, wrapped up in Chase’s strong arms, but before sleep has found either of us, I ask him, “Do you still want to marry me?”

“Are you kidding?” he replies, chuckling softly. Pulling me close to him, he kisses the top of my head. “I’ll marry you right now, baby, if that’s what you want. We
are
in Las Vegas, after all. The chapels are open twenty-four-seven.”

Whoa, I hadn’t thought of that
.

But now that’s it’s out there…

“Hmm,” I muse aloud. “Father Maridale would kill us, though, if we were to get married here in Vegas.”

Chase counters with, “We could always get married a second time in the church back home.”

I prop up on one elbow and stare down at this crazy man who might really be thinking we should do this. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“About the church wedding?” he asks. “Or about the getting married tonight?”

“Both.”

His eyes meet mine. “Oh, I’m serious, Kay. I’m going to love you forever no matter what. So, I say let’s make it official in the eyes of the law. In fact, I think we
should
do it tonight.”

I can’t think of a single reason not to marry Chase as soon as possible, so I say, “Yes, let’s do it.”