Love Brewing (Love Brothers #3) (21 page)

“I know about a party. Wanna come with?” She stood, making
his mouth water at her curvy perfection.

“No, not really.” He got up and draped an arm around her
shoulder. “But I’d follow you anywhere, gorgeous.”

They ended up at some loud, obnoxious club, the kind he
usually avoided like the plague. At some point, his date pressed against him in
the crush of sweaty bodies and stuck out her tongue. In the flashing light he
thought he saw something on it but before he could ask, she had that tongue
halfway down his throat. A nasty, medicinal taste filled his mouth and he tried
to spit it out, but she grinned and yanked him out onto the dance floor.

The early part of the night he later recalled as a blur of
lights, lips, tongues, and fingers. Whatever the hell she’d given him made him
feel about eight-feet tall, and like he could rough-fuck every pussy in the
room, twice. He grinned and dirty-danced with the blonde, and with every other
woman, accepting drinks, kisses, strokes to his zipper.

Time got all rubbery and slippery. He couldn’t catch hold of
it. At one point he stumbled back into a smelly hallway, needing to take a piss
and unsure where to go for that. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and saw
he’d missed three calls from Jace.

He tried to call back, but it was way too loud in the club.
Even if Jace had answered, Dom would never be able to hear him. He looked up
and what had once been a pleasant, erotic haze of bodies and lights had morphed
into a nauseating blur. His stomach heaved and he stumbled forward, gripping
whatever he could find.

Air, I have to get some air.

He lurched forward, knocking into people, spilling drinks,
getting cursed and shoved and smacked. Finally, he felt a puff of somewhat
fresher air so he plowed toward it, blind with nausea and terror, his heart
pounding so hard it hurt. Fingers clutched at him, pulling him, going up his
shirt, tugging his nipple rings, slapping his ass.

With a roar of protest, he shoved everyone off him and
heaved toward the open door, spilling out onto the concrete on his side,
rolling to squint up at the night sky. He closed one eye, willing the universe
to halt its infernal spinning. A bunch of drunk, giggling women fell out the
door and reached for him, but he scrabbled away, his addled brain focused on
one thing—getting home and making sure his son was all right.

“I wish you’d cancel that damn thing.” Diana groaned as she
sank into the soft chair, which alleviated the pressure on her kidneys for a
few seconds. “Thanks.” She took the cup of tea Lee held out and eased her feet
up onto the ottoman.

“I’ll only be gone four days. And your checkup last week was
fine. Nothing’s gonna happen early, I don’t think.” Lee sat and propped his
legs up next to hers. She put her tea to her lips but hesitated, aggravated
that worry over Dom and Jace wouldn’t let go of her already overworked brain.
He’d sounded so manic, in a way she remembered well.

He used to complain that the drugs he had to take smoothed
out all his edges, the rough ones and the interesting ones, leaving him bland
and boring, like a bald head. But when he’d been on them a while, it got
better, she’d remind him. Going off and on like he did wasn’t the right way to
manage the frustration at the lack of ups and downs.

But he’d gone off of them again. She knew it now. Kieran had
suspected it the last time he’d been out visiting with Frankie and after he’d
called to tell Dom about the new baby, he’d panicked and called her. Which
promoted her to call him. Which she very much wished she had not done.

The baby shifted to one side, making her wince. “Ow.” She
poked her belly, prodding the kid to the middle and off her liver. Lee put his
large, warm palm on her stomach, then his lips next to her poked-out belly
button.

“Cut the crap in there. You’re wearing your poor mama out.”
The girl gave a quick flutter, like she always did when Lee spoke to her.

“Such a daddy’s girl already,” Diana joked as she threaded
her fingers through his dark hair. But she loved it, adored her husband and the
baby girl her body had finally managed to hang on to longer than four months.
They had a nursery ready, all in bright primary colors. Diana had no intention
of making her
girlie
like Jen had been or
tomboy
, as she’d been
raised in lieu of a son. They’d moved into her family farmhouse, redone the
kitchen to her specifications and added a master suite on the first floor. Lee
still owned his fancy log cabin by the lake, renting it out every now and then,
but unwilling to let it go.

The first months of their marriage had been consumed by her
total obsession with getting pregnant. She’d been manic. When not obsessed with
making Brantley’s Farm banquet hall a wild success, the fact that she’d not
gotten immediately knocked up cast a real pall over their relationship at
first. Diana truly had no explanation for it.

“Do you only want me for my sperm, Diana? Because I can put some
of that in a turkey baster for you,” Lee had stated once in that infernally
calm way he possessed.

“You’re an unbelievable asshole.” She’d glared down at the
monthly, bloody evidence of her body’s inability to do its simple, female duty.
“Go to hell.”

He’d handed her a washcloth so she could clean up, then gone
out and gotten tested to make sure he was capable of impregnating her. By the
end of their first year of marriage, she’d had one early miscarriage, but
hadn’t given up hope. When her second pregnancy ended right before the sixth
month in a horrific mess, she’d gone into such a deep depression it had taken
intervention from Lindsay Love, followed by a set of talk-therapy sessions with
Lee and Margot Love to help her over the hump.

She’d existed in a weird sort of bubble for a few months,
floating between devastated and determined. Lee had attempted to address that
by taking her on a dream vacation—three whole weeks, all the way to Spain and
France where the baby she now carried had been conceived.

And since she’d breached the wall and was on the downslope
of her much-desired pregnancy, some kind of hormonal panic button seemed to
have been pushed in her brain. Everything alarmed her, from barking dogs to car
horns, and the thought of Lee leaving her even for four days to attend some
horse conference out West wigged her out in ways she had never experienced
before.

“Jen’s gonna stay with me and bring her girls. I’ll be
fine.” But she didn’t mean it. A strange kind of panicky anxiety gripped her
and would not let go. Lee kissed her forehead, then sipped his tea as something
played on the television she barely registered. After an hour, she had to pee
again, so Lee pulled her up and she waddled toward the new downstairs guest
bathroom.

“Don’t worry about him. He’s a grown man. He’ll be fine.
Where’s the aspirin,” Lee asked. “This damn headache will not go away.” She
waved at the cabinet that held all the over-the-counter pills and vitamins and
leaned on the island, taking pressure off her kidneys and spine. Lee popped a
few pills in his mouth, drank a glass of water and smiled at her. “You’re so
beautiful when you’re miserable.”

“Oh, really? Well then, come to bed and rub my back.” She
straightened. The baby gave her a quick flutter-kick. She glanced down at her
phone when it dinged with a text from Kieran.

Can you call me?

She put the device to her ear and shot Lee an apologetic
smile. “Sorry, honey. Just a few minutes.”

Lee kissed her forehead then headed toward their bedroom,
mouthing the words,
hurry up, I’m going to bed
, to her.

“He sounded bad, Kieran. I’m really worried. Although if you
ask my husband, I worry about squirrels getting run over in the road right
now.”

“Yeah, Cara gets like that, too. It’ll pass. Do you think
someone should go out there? Check on the two of them?”

She pressed the small of her back against the countertop.
“Part of me says yes, the other, no. He’s a grown man and insisted on taking
Jace out there.”

“I know. I realize we enable him to fuck up when we keep rescuing
him.”

“Let’s give it another while, then check in again. Maybe we
caught him on a bad day. I just wish he’d call your mama and alleviate some of
her stress. How’s your daddy? I know he really latched on to Jace for a while
there.”

Diana heard the bleeping sound of a baby in the background.
“He’s…he’s Daddy. Stoic, won’t talk about it other than to curse if someone
mentions Dominic’s name. The usual. I gotta go. Duty calls.”

“Okay. Take care. I’ll call him in a few days and let you
know.”

“Thanks, Di. What’ve you got left? Few weeks?”

“Six.” She tapped her fingertips on tight drum of her
stomach.

“Good luck and be sure to keep us posted on it.” His voice
sounded unusually rough, and her chest constricted in a way that pissed her off
so much she had to end the call.

She the phone down and drank a glass of water with her
prenatal vitamin. Feeling wide awake and knowing she should take advantage of
it, she decided to do a bit of work on the upcoming banquet hall schedule.
After a few hours in front of the laptop screen, sorting through all the
requests for events she couldn’t meet because Brantley’s got booked up
something like a year in advance anymore, she took off her reading glasses and
rubbed her eyes.

Baby-girl Tolliver bumped and rolled, making Diana have to
pee again. After taking care of that business, she watched some late-night
comedian and dozed on the couch, waking with a jolt of sudden, unexplainable
terror.

It took her a while to get to her feet, go to the bathroom
yet again, and wander into her bedroom. Lee’s dog, Jasper sat outside the door,
his tail thumping nervously when he spotted her. Odd, she thought. Jasper would
usually be curled up on the rug next to Lee’s side of the bed. But the lights
from their bathroom cast strange shadows into the room.

She froze, immobile with fear.

Quit it. Just get a grip. You’re a hormonally-crazed
almost-mother. No more jumping at everything that seems out of place.

But Jasper stuck by her leg, and was now whining in a way
that forced panic up and down her spine, skittering with long, spidery legs.
Her cat sat on the bed, sphinxlike, its gaze glowing in the light from the
bathroom.

“Lee?” She took a step into the room. The silence pounded
her brain like a sledgehammer. She set her jaw, determined not to freak out.
Then she saw his foot, still in the goofy suede moccasins he wore in the house.

“Lee, what have you done?” she said, walking calmly across
the room to find him sprawled on the bathroom floor. She touched Jasper’s head.
The dog sat by his master, sniffed his arm, then started howling.

Diana pulled her phone from her pocket and dialed 911 before
dropping to her hands and knees and crawling up next to him, placing her head
on his perfectly still chest. She was numb, encased in a block of ice, but lay
on the floor, whispering to her daughter that everything would be all right.

Dom fell out of the taxi, got to his feet and managed to pay
the guy before puking all over the sidewalk. He wiped his lips and forced the
two apartment doors to become one, unlocked it and stumbled into the pitch-dark
kitchen.

The dog let out a loud bark, then jumped up on him out of
nowhere, giving his typical greeting. Strange, since Dom figured he’d be
sleeping in Jace’s bed by now. He poured and drank two glasses of water, hoping
to wash the X or whatever the hell it had been out of his system.

After deciding the water would not make a reappearance, he
worked his wobbly way toward Jace’s bedroom, wanting nothing more than to slide
in next to his son and hold the boy while he slept. The lights blazed bright,
which confused him for a second. He stepped across the hall, praying under his
breath that Jace had gone to his bed. He’d been known to do that before. He
gripped the doorway when he realized that his bed was messily empty.

“Beth,” he called out, trying to remember the damn sitter’s
name. “I mean, uh, Jane?” But the couch was as deserted as the beds. He pulled
out his phone and dialed the girl, going with
Jane
as the name he’d
contaced about the time he’d gotten the evening arranged.

She answered, sounding sleepy. “Oh, hi, Mr. Love. No, I
thought Jace had gone to see you. Chris came by. She took Jace. I thought…she
told me she was your…. Jace tried to call you, but… Oh no, oh God, I let him go
with her. I thought it was okay.”

He hung up, unable to placate her and sat at his kitchen
table a beat before dialing Chris’ number. The call went straight to voice
mail.

He groaned and put his head on his arms, trying to figure
out who to call, what to do, what that stupid bitch had been thinking taking
his son out of his house. He woke with a grunt, scrabbling for his phone, which
was vibrating its way across the dirty table top. He grabbed it and blinked at
the strange number.

“Yeah?” he answered getting slowly to his feet. “Chris? Is
that you? Where the hell is Jace?”

“Is this Mister Dominic Love,” a woman asked.

“Yes,” he replied, terror slamming him right between the
eyes.

“This is Suburban Hospital Emergency.”

He slid to the floor, back to the wall and listened to the
woman say words like
car accident
,
broken arm
, and
your wife
is fine
. He leapt to his feet at those last words.

“That woman is not my wife. She kidnapped my…my
s-s-s-s-son.” He tried to form more words but his mouth no longer took orders
from his brain.

“Well, she’s saying something different and was the one who
gave me this number to call. You’d better get over here.”

He shook so hard his teeth chattered. “Okay,” he managed
before ending the call and quickly dialing Kieran before he lost his nerve.

“It’s Jace,” he blurted out. “Put Mama and Daddy on a plane
out here, arrange a taxi to Suburban Hospital, Fort Collins. They have to come
get Jace and take him home with them.”

“Wait, Dom, what the hell happened?”

“Just do what I’m telling you, all right?” He ground out the
last words. “They have to take him, to get him the hell away from…here, and
from me.” He hung up, dialed a taxi service and went outside to wait.

Dom had never liked hospitals and had spent far too much
time in them during his mother’s cancer treatment and post-fall hip replacement
surgery. They smelled like rubber, piss and defeat to him, no matter what. And
a busy ER on a weekend night did little to dispel his aversion with its
sniffling, bloody, drippy, miserable population

A surly nurse finally pointed him to an elevator, which took
him to the fourth floor. The other passengers gave him a wide berth and he
realized that he reeked of booze and had flecks of his own vomit on his shirt.
When the doors opened, he ran out in front of everyone else and up to the
nearest nurse’s desk.

“ICU, uh, little boy? Car accident?”

The woman’s eyes flickered up and down his messy front,
picked up a phone and spoke into it. He spotted a couple of guys in scrubs
headed in his direction. He gripped the edge of the desk.

“Mr. Love?”

He nodded. They pointed to some chairs. “Let’s go sit over
here.”

He focused carefully on their faces and voices as they
informed him that Jace had been thrown from the car, which had likely saved his
life. But in the process had landed on his arm, breaking it in two places, plus
three of his ribs. He had bad road rash all down the left side of his body.

Dom nodded, trying not to breathe heavy so they couldn’t
smell the booze on him.

“He’s a lucky little boy, Mr. Love. One of the few times not
having on a seatbelt saved a life. Your wife— “

He shook hid head. “Not my wife. A crazy…girl…friend. She
took him, without asking me.”

“Ah, well, all right.” The doctor glanced at something on
the tablet computer in his arms. “Well, then you should know that she’s been
placed under arrest now that we stitched her up a bit.”

“Can I see him?” He stood, knees shaking, mouth coated with
disgusting ooze.

“Yes. This way.” They propelled him down a short hall and
opened a door, revealing myriad blipping machines surrounding his son, who
seemed for all the world like a baby in the middle of the giant hospital bed.
Most of his left side was covered in gauze, his arm invisible from shoulder to
wrist.

Dom stumbled in, unsure what to do. The boy’s eyes fluttered
open.

“Daddy?” His voice was barely audible, but music to Dom’s
rattled eardrums. “That Chris lady is bad.”

Dom went over to Jace’s right side and crawled up in the
bed, wrapping himself around his son.

“Shew, you smell bad. Did you have an upchuck? I’m sleepy.
Will you stay here with me?”

Dom had no words other than the ones he thought, sending out
a prayer of thanks on autopilot, his time spent in church making that reaction
a reflex. “Yes,” he whispered, tears blurring his vision. “I always will.”

“I’m sorry about the TV, Daddy.”

Dominic swallowed around the lump of emotion choking him and
tried to find the right mix of relieved the kid was alive and still pissed
about a stupid television. While he was doing that, Jace fell asleep in his
arms. Dom stayed awake, keeping his gaze on the boy and waiting for his parents
to arrive.

“Dom?” Someone shook his arm. He brushed them away, pulling
Jace closer.

“Dominic, honey, it’s Mama.”

His fell off the bed, got up and folded her into his arms,
chest heaving with relief and terror. She held onto him, then pushed him away.
“You look godawful, son. And you reek. Were you hurt in the accident?”

“I wasn’t in the accident, Mama. I…I…I left him alone with a
sitter and the woman I’ve been….dating came to get him because she got mad at
me or something. I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I failed him, Mama. You
gotta take him home. Get him away from me.”

“We will take him home, but you have to come, too.”

He saw his father standing in the doorway, his brother Aiden
by his side. Anton ran to the bed and glared at Dom. “A dang barn cat does
better by her kittens than you.”

“Anton,” his mother began, warning in her voice.

But Dom nodded, agreeing, and dying a little inside. He
pushed past his brother without acknowledging him and ran down the hall, out
the door and all the way home, five solid miles without even slowing. He took a
long shower, packed up Jace’s stuff and wondered how they’d get Skywalker home
on the plane, before dropping onto the messy couch, head in his hands. The dog
whined and shoved at his leg with his wet nose.

“Dominic.” A voice spoke from behind him. Dom turned and
observed his younger brother’s gaze taking in the room. He registered that
today should have been the day they cleaned together. The place must seem
pretty shocking to someone normal, and the face-down TV didn’t help. “Uh,
Daddy’s in the car. He….” Aiden began.

Dom rose when his father appeared at Aiden’s shoulder. “You are
a sorry excuse for a human being, Dominic Love. You have shamed me with this….”
He gestured at the chaos of the small apartment.

“You were hardly a model parent.” He surprised himself by
having the wherewithal to reply. “Don’t act like you were.”

Aiden’s eyes darted from him to their father and back.
“Listen, we’re all tired. Let’s not do—”

“Shut up,” Dom and his father said simultaneously.

“Jace’s stuff is in that bag.” Dom pointed at the suitcase.
“That’s his dog. Take them all. Prove yourself right, Anton. That’s what you
always wanted to do about me, isn’t it? To be right about what a colossal
screw-up I am?”

“Don’t you dare sass me, boy.” Anton advanced on him.

But Dom no longer cared. “Fuck you, old man. And the horse
you rode in on. I don’t know how my mother puts with you, but you can consider
me off the radar for you, permanently.” He kept his arms at his sides, even
when his father came at him, catching him under the chin with his hand, shoving
him up against the wall so hard he saw stars. “Go ahead, choke me. Then you can
blame me for killing myself,” he managed to blurt out before needing to
preserve his oxygen. His father’s eyes narrowed and he pushed harder.

Aiden reached for their father’s arm. Dom held up a hand.
“No, stay put, you brown-nosing little fucker. I never liked you either.” When
his father released him after only a few seconds, he dropped to his knees,
gasping for air. Anton left the apartment without another word.

After a while, Dom managed to get to a seated position up
against the wall. Aiden perched on the couch, his hazel eyes intent but
thankfully non-judgmental. “I never liked you much either, for the record.”

Dom shook his head, rubbed his throat and shoved the dog off
him. “Oh, Lord you’re so dramatic, Leonardo.” Aiden smiled at the use of his
over-the-top Italian middle name. “Why didn’t he take Jace’s stuff?” Dom got
slowly to his feet. Aiden didn’t move, but his expression was serious in a way
that sent alarm bells ringing in his head. “What?”

“Pack a bag, Dom.” Aiden got slowly to his feet. “I got your
plane ticket. We have to go home for Lee Tolliver’s funeral.”

Dominic froze on his way to the kitchen. “For…what?
Who…Diana’s…but she’s about to have a kid.” He blinked, absorbing what he’d
just been told. “Oh, Jesus….”

Aiden nodded. “Yeah, so, if you can round up some clean
clothes in all this crap, pack them. Is there a kennel or something we can use
for the dog?”

Dom nodded, remembering that several of Jace’s babysitters
dog sat as well. But his chest hurt and he couldn’t focus on anything.

“I should call Diana.” He fumbled for his phone.

“No, she’s with her sister right now. I haven’t seen her,
but Mama spent all day with her yesterday before she got word she had to fly
here and sort out your latest fuck-up.” Aiden grinned at him and smacked his
shoulder a little harder than necessary. “Mama and Daddy are gonna stay here
with Jace. You and I are flying home in,” he glanced at his phone,
“two-and-a-half hours. So get a move on.”

Dom stood in the middle of the floor, wrapping his brain
around what Aiden had told him. His brother prodded him to the bedroom, helped
him pack, threw him in the rental car and drove them to the airport while Dom
called to get dog coverage.

“Where will they stay?” Dom asked at one point before he
boarded the plane.

“Hotel. I was sent to scout the suitability of your place.
It failed. Go sit down.”

Once they were belted and airborne, Dom turned to study his
younger brother’s profile. The kid had been a nuisance to him his whole life.
He’d resented Aiden’s very existence, and the attention he stole from their
busy, frazzled parents.

“How old are you now, anyway,” he asked, attempting to sip
his coffee with a trembling hand.

“Almost thirty-three. Here.” He dropped Dominic’s tray and
plunked three prescription bottles on it. “Get your ass with the program. We’re
all sick of rescuing you.”

Dom picked them up and read their familiar labels. “Then how
come you look like you’re still twenty?” He opened the two he took in the
morning, and swallowed coffee to hide their metallic taste.

“Good genes. Same as yours, they tell me.” Aiden settled
down and tugged his baseball cap over his face. “Sleeping now. I recommend you
do the same thing.”

“I’m sorry. For everything.”

Aiden opened one eye. “I wish I could believe you.”

“Well, I’m not sorry for trying to sell you that one time. I
almost got enough to buy a bicycle, you know.”

Aiden chuckled. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Why did Daddy come into my apartment?” Dom gripped his
coffee. “If you were the ambassador of suitability?”

“He’s worried sick about you. You can drop the obtuse act.
It’s getting really old.”

Dom turned to the window, noting the mountains he’d grown to
love fading under cloud cover.

“For the record, they have no intention of taking Jace from
you. And I don’t hate you either, so you can quit using that as an excuse to be
a dick.”

Dom leaned his forehead against the cool window and exhaled
with relief.