Place Your Betts (The Marilyns) (28 page)

“Need any help?” Tom stuck his head in the open doorway.

“Sure.” Betts spooned the mashed potatoes into a bowl, green beans went into another, and the salad was already in a giant bowl. “Here.” She handed the potatoes to him.

Kaitlin took the salad in one hand and the green beans in the other.

 “Can you grab a couple of pot holders and carry the roast?” She nodded at Gabe and covered the hot rolls with a kitchen towel and grabbed the pitcher of lemonade from the fridge.

They stepped into the night. Cicadas buzzed in the chilly, humid air. This could have been her regular life. It was poignant and overwhelming and absolutely perfect.

Gabe sipped his coffee and surveyed the damage. Dirty dishes littered the table, and his left butt cheek had gone numb from the hardwood of the picnic table, but he wasn’t ready to get up. The meal had been excellent and the chocolate cake the best he’d ever had. The animated teenaged voices bounced from subject to subject like hummingbirds gathering nectar. It was strangely peaceful.

He glanced at Betts, her hand motions helping her tell a particularly funny story about her start in the music business. She was something. Keeping the conversation going and making Kaitlin feel comfortable. The kids wanted to know about her life, so she told a few funny stories about being on the road, but mainly it sounded lonely. Holidays wherever her tour happened to be and family always a phone call away. No roots. No foundation. No home. True, she had a couple of houses, but nothing she was tied to, nothing pulling her back. From what he remembered, singing and having a real home had been her life goals. She’d achieved fifty-percent. Why hadn’t she achieved the other half?

If he hadn’t kowtowed to his father, would Gabe have been able to give her the home she’d always wanted? Some things a man regretted for the rest of his life, no matter how much penance he paid.

Would Betts still be a country singer if things had been different? Gabe chewed on the inside of his cheek. Probably not. Money would have been tight because his father sure as hell wouldn’t have helped them, and his mother had been too beaten down to defy his father. Gabe inhaled sharply. Things worked out the way they were supposed to.

“Dad?”

Gabe tuned back into the conversation. “Yes?”

“Kaitlin wants to see the horses.” Tom unfolded himself from the table.

“Sure.” Gabe glanced at Betts. “Take your time.”

Her cheeks flushed, and she turned to Kaitlin. “You have an open invitation to dinner. We eat around six.”

“Thanks.” Kaitlin smiled. “Let’s go see the horses.”

Tom helped her up. The boy was minding his manners nicely.

Betts began stacking the dirty dishes. “Tom’s one nice boy. You did a wonderful job.”

She said it with a smile on her face and no malice in her voice.

“He raised me as much as I raised him.” Pride puffed out his chest. The constant fear of becoming like his old man had driven Gabe to handle situations the exact opposite of his father. He glanced at Tom’s receding form. It had worked.

“It must have been hard for you.” She picked up another plate, scraped the leftover food onto a big tray, and stacked the plate. “Just turned eighteen and raising a baby.” Her voice was quiet and sad.

That was odd. He watched her. Why ask that? They both knew she’d given Tom to the Snyders and been paid handsomely. Gabe was careful to hide the resentment in his voice. “I was twenty-one when I found Tom and brought him home.”

Her head snapped up. “I don’t understand.”

She looked honestly stunned.

“Tom can do the dishes later.” Gabe laced his fingers through hers. They were beyond games now. It was time to iron out the past. “We need to talk.”

“Okay.” She sounded uncertain.

“Why did you give Tom up?” His pulse kicked up to about a thousand beats a minute. This was important. Ever since he’d found out about Tom’s illegal adoption, he’d wanted to know.

Her eyes went wide, and her pale skin turned a little green around the edges. “I…um.” She cleared her throat. “I didn’t have a choice. Gigi swooped in, said she’d found the baby a good home, and took him—”

“But you gave up custody—”

“I was a minor, so Gigi told me that I didn’t have a choice.” She blinked several times and took a couple of deep breaths, and then her shoulders slumped, she closed her eyes, and two fat tears rolled down her cheeks. “I gave in too easily.”

Was it possible that she hadn’t known about the Snyders? What about the money? Something close to hope eased the tightness in his chest.

Gabe put his arm around her. He hadn’t wanted to hurt her, but they needed to finish this. If he could, he would gladly take her pain, but the only way to slay her dragon was to find the truth. “Gigi came in, and then what happened?”

“I was tired and in so much pain…. It’s no excuse. I should have fought harder but…well, Gigi said he’d have a better life. She showed up—I don’t know how she found me—and called me selfish for wanting to keep him. She had it all worked out. Told me he’d have two loving parents, new clothes and toys, and a real home. All the things I never had.” Her voice shook. “I wanted to keep him so badly, but I wanted better for him. No rental houses or hand-me-down clothes or moving every few months. No scrounging together the money to buy food. I wanted him to have a chance at a good life. Gigi told me that because I was a minor, I didn’t have a say in what happened to my baby. I didn’t know that was a lie and everything she did was illegal until it was too late.”

Her whole body wilted. She was heartbroken.

And she’d been alone and scared.

“Thank God it wasn’t legal or I wouldn’t have been able to get Tom back from the Snyders so easily.”

Betts hadn’t been born with the money she had now, but it was hard to remember her without it. She knew only too well what true poverty and sacrifice meant. It had taken courage to put aside her wants for the betterment of her child.

“If I could do it all over again, I’d have, well…I’d have kept him…Charlie, Lucky, and I…we would have kept him.” Betts touched the gold, heart-shaped locket around her neck. “Until you gave me the photo album, this is all I had of Tom.” With her thumbnail, she pried open the clasp. “Charlie distracted the nurse while Lucky snipped it.”

“I’m glad they were there for you.” In the fading light, he made out a small clump of red hair taped to one side with clear tape gone yellow with age.

“I’ve never taken it off.” She snapped the locket shut and wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her sweater. “I mean…well…the chain broke once during a concert, and I’d thought I lost it. I had the road crew, band, and even some fans up until dawn tearing apart the stage until it was found.” She hunched her shoulders. “Dumb, huh?”

Any lingering doubts about Betts’s feelings for Tom disappeared. She’d always loved their son and had agonized over him since the day he was born. She had done what she thought was best. More than likely, she hadn’t seen a dime of the money the Snyders had paid for Tom, but he had to know for sure.

“Nope, I think it’s nice.” Gabe kissed her forehead and hugged her to him. “What about the money?”

“What money?” Her eyebrows went up in question. “I told you I tore up your daddy’s check—”

“No, the fifty thousand the Snyders paid for Tom.” He was hurting her, but Gabe didn’t want any past secrets between them. Not anymore.

She shook her head. “I don’t know…” Her mouth fell open as the full meaning sunk in. “Money for Tom. Are you telling me that the couple who adopted him paid money?”

“Yes, to your grandmother.” He looked her right in the eye and waited.

Her face didn’t crater with guilt or denial, it twisted in all-out rage.

“That fucking bitch.” Betts’s voice was calm, even, controlled. She picked up a plate and smashed it against the table. It shattered into three large pieces. “She sold our son.”

She’d called Tom “our” son and didn’t seem to have noticed. It was progress.

Her face crumbled. “Oh my God. She sent me five thousand dollars about two months after Tom was born. Gigi told me it was from an investment that had paid off.” Her eyes turned desperate. “Do you think it was part of the money?”

He opened his mouth to deny it, but they needed honesty between them. “The timeline is right.”

“I lived on the blood money used to pay for my son?” Her voice was monotone—as if she were trying to work it out in her mind. Anguish dawned on her face, and she shook her head in slow motion. Betts grabbed two handfuls of Gabe’s shirtfront. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know. Please forgive me.”

Gabe believed her. There was no doubt. He wrapped his arms around her. “You have nothing to forgive. You didn’t know.”

She took a deep breath. “Think Tom will ever forgive me?” she said in a tone that sounded like she’d never forgive herself.

The guilt on her face and the pain in her eyes were real. She’d had no idea about the Snyders. Everything he’d believed about Betts had been false, and all the years of hatred seemed like a huge waste of time.

She’d had to make all the hard choices because he’d been a coward.

Betts nodded. “Tell me the rest. I need to know everything.”

It would cause her more pain, and he hated to do it, but they needed to wipe the slate clean if they were to have a future. “When my mother died, she left me a letter in her safety deposit box telling me about Tom. A day later, I found him living in Longview with Deek Synder.” Gabe took her hand, brought it to his lips, and kissed it.

“I don’t understand.” She cleared her throat. “Gigi said that Tom would have a mother and a father. She probably lied about that too.”

The truth was all he had left to give her. “There was…Margot Snyder died. She had some mental health issues and couldn’t handle motherhood. She…” The last part was the hardest. Gabe squared his shoulders and manned up. “She committed suicide—”

“Tell me it wasn’t in front of Tom.” Her eyes pleaded as much as her words.

“No. She did it in her car in some parking lot—”

“But the dad—Deek—was good to Tom, right?” The pleading had become desperate.

Gabe shook his head. “I don’t think there was any abuse, but neglect was an issue. When I found Tom, he was locked in his room. Deek told me that the nanny was sick and he didn’t know what to do with the boy so he locked him in his room. Tom was two. Deek was more than happy to give Tom up.”

Her whole body tensed. “Oh my God. Does Tom remember any of this?”

“No, I don’t think so. When he first came to live with me, he had nightmares for a few weeks, but they passed. Everything’s been good since then. Tom’s fine. He’s happy and healthy—”

“Thanks to you.” She shook her head. “I should have known Gigi wouldn’t do the right thing. And what did she do with the rest of the money? Bury it in the backyard?”

“No idea.”

Her brow wrinkled, and her eyes turned keen. “Did you have to pay back the Snyders?”

He wriggled under her direct stare. “Yes. I mortgaged part of the ranch to pay them.” The part he’d lost and she now owned.

Gabe pulled her in tight against his chest and changed the subject. “Tom is okay.”

“How will he ever forgive me? How can you?”

“You were young and scared and alone. This isn’t your fault. Stop beating yourself up.” He was the one she should be beating up. “I’m sorry. I should have stood by you. I loved you and wanted to marry you, but I was weak. I let myself be swayed from the truth.”

“No, you did it to save your mother.”

He pressed a kiss in her hair. “You have to know that I didn’t choose her over you, it’s just that she was weak and you are strong.”

Betts let out a long, slow breath. “I wish you’d told me at the time. I’ve wasted a lot of years hating you.”

He nodded. “I’ve spent the last seventeen years mourning the loss of the future we should have had. It’s time to let it go and move on.”

And tonight he had. Years of regret faded like bad memories until they no longer mattered.

***

Kaitlin liked it when Tom rested his hand on her back like he was doing now because the heat from his hand went straight to her heart. The more time she spent with him the more time she wanted to spend with him. The corners of her mouth turned up. A term kept rolling about inside her head—soul mates—two halves of the same heart destined to find each other and live happily ever after. The romance writers had been right all along. “Wanna drive me home?”

Tom checked his watch. “It’s only nine.”

Kaitlin ran her hand up his chest. “I know. I was hoping we could stop off somewhere quiet. I have something I’d like to try.”

Tom took her hand, turned it, and kissed her palm. Her flesh tingled where his lips touched. “Let me go tell my dad.”

Kaitlin shivered. The night air had turned chilly, but the cold wasn’t the only thing that chilled her to the bone. Would she have the courage to go through with it?

Her older sister, McKayla, had been very specific, and the directions didn’t seem that hard to follow. But could she do it? Boys were supposed to like it more than anything else, and Kaitlin wanted to make Tom happy.

A warm denim jacket came around her shoulders, and Tom’s earthy scent—part fabric softener, part tangy maleness—enveloped her. He wrapped his arms around her from behind and buttoned the jacket.

“You’re cold. Why didn’t you say something?” Tom turned her around. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and had given her his jacket.

“Thanks.” She kissed his cheek. “Ready?”

Tom opened the passenger’s door of his truck for her and then climbed behind the wheel. “Someplace quiet it is.”

Kaitlin scooted across the bench seat and pressed her body next to Tom. “I called McKayla today.”

“How does your sister like Texas Tech?”

“Loves school, hates Lubbock. Pretty much like everyone at Tech.” Kaitlin ran her hand over Tom’s chest. Through the tee shirt, she could feel all the peaks and valleys of muscle. He had an amazing chest.

Tom turned down a dark road. “You wanted quiet. I don’t think it gets any quieter than this.”