Quiet Angel (12 page)

“$250,000,” the attorney said again and passed Layla a piece of paper. “The money is already in an account with your name, and only your name, on it. No one can touch it but you.”

“We’ll see about that,” her mother spewed.

The attorney turned to her. “Your husband anticipated your reaction, so I have here a check for $50,000. It’s blank. It’s yours, Mrs. Baxter, so long as you sign this paper.” He held it up. “It states you will not contest his will now or in the future, or in any way seek to obtain for yourself or anyone else the $250,000 he has left to Layla. If you refuse to sign, I’ve been instructed to make the check out to Layla. Then she can walk down the street and cash it.”

Gage looked at Layla, her mouth still open, then glanced at her mother, seeing the manipulative wheels turning in her head.

“You’ve got two minutes,” the attorney said, looking down at his watch.

“Two?” her mother asked.

“Your husband’s requirement.”

“What about me?” her half-brother asked.

“You get nothing,” the attorney said. “All life insurance policies were cancelled, and all stocks and assets were sold or otherwise left to Mrs. Baxter and Layla. He wanted to make sure you didn’t see a penny. Now, if your mother chooses to take the $50,000, I can’t control whether she gives some or all of it to you. Mr. Baxter understood that. He didn’t like it, but he understood.”

A slow smile came across Layla’s face. Her father was finally protecting her. “Thank you, Daddy,” she whispered.

“You have no idea what we’re going through,” her mother said, reaching for her son’s hand.

“Can’t be worse than what I went through,” Layla said.

“Angel?” Gage asked.

“Who’s ‘angel’?” the half-brother wondered.

The attorney looked at his watch. “What’s it going to be, Mrs. Baxter?” he asked and picked up the pen.

The woman whispered something to her son and patted his hand a few times. “Where do I sign?”

*

Layla laughed out
loud when she got outside. “I’m done, Gage! I don’t ever have to deal with them ever again! I’m totally and completely free!” She flew into his arms and kissed him hard on the lips, running her hands wildly in his hair. Her feet left the pavement as he lifted her in the air, pulling her tighter to him.

Gage felt her smile and opened his eyes. He saw her half-brother staring at them from the curb and placed Layla down on the ground. “He’s coming towards us,” Gage said and moved Layla behind him.

“Layla, I need to talk to you,” her half-brother called out.

“Stay away from me,” she said, fidgeting with Gage’s shirt sleeve. “It was bad enough I had to just sit in the same room with you – and stand across from you at my father’s casket.”

“He wanted me there. Mom told you that. He loved me.”

Gage could feel her heart racing. “You should leave,” he said. But the man didn’t move a muscle. He just stood there, his eyes strangely yellow. Gage looked back at Layla. “Are you shaking? Let’s go.”

The man smirked. “She never could be still and quiet.”

Layla reared back and spit straight in her half-brother’s face. Then she lunged at him like a caged animal, flailing her arms, trying to claw and scratch his eyes out. Gage could hardly believe what was happening. He pulled her away and carried her a little ways down the street, hoping no one saw what just happened or recognized him as the head of Southern Wings.

Gage shoved her in a cab and looked back at her half-brother, a cold hardness on his face, the same creepy grin. He got in beside her and told the driver to head to the hotel. “What’s up with your family? What’s going on?” he asked and patted her knee. She moved her leg away. He reached out again, but she moved even further this time.

He could see her trembling. He held out an arm and waited for her to come to him. She looked over from under her lashes then slowly scooted towards him—until he could wrap his arm around her and stroke her hair. “Quiet, Angel, I’ve got you,” he said, his stomach twisted in knots but sensing her calming just a bit. “I’ve got you.”

After sleeping 15
hours, Layla woke up to find Gage asleep on an uncomfortable chair, his feet propped on the hotel room desk. A slow smile came over her. She rested her head on her knees and studied his face, his strong jaw, the way his sandy blond hair fell just right, the slightest stubble on his face. He looked the same as the last time she saw him sleep.

Then something caught her eye under his shirt collar, and her breath caught. She leaned closer to get a better look.
Amazing.
It was impossible he’d still have the leather cord holding her wings, let alone be wearing them. She got up quietly and headed for the bathroom, needing some space before she started to cry.

“Sneaking out again?” Gage asked.

Layla kept walking and slammed the bathroom door.
Another snide comment
. The man apparently couldn’t decide whether to be nice or a complete jerk, whether to avoid her or show up and apologize, whether to pull her into his arms or push her away. She was sick of it. She tore into her hair, combing out some tangles, then brushed her teeth like she was chiseling stone. She flew open the door and grabbed her suitcase.

Gage stretched and ran his hand through his hair. “Our flight’s not for another six hours.” Layla didn’t respond. She placed the suitcase on the bed and began to pack. “What are you doing?”

“I’ve decided to rent a car and drive home.”

“It’s like a two-day drive from Houston to Savannah!”

“So?”

“Is this about what I said a minute ago? Sorry about that.”

Layla finished up and slammed her suitcase shut. “If you hate me, I can handle that. I was always prepared for that, but the back and forth is driving me nuts. You fly all the way out here, stay with me all day and night, kiss me on the sidewalk. . . .”

“Wait a minute! You kissed
me
on the sidewalk.”

Layla put her hand on her hip and held his eyes. “It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

“Layla, it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Yes, Gage, it does. When you cut my heart out, I can’t take it.” She headed for the door.

Gage scooted in front of her. “Please don’t run off,” he whispered and lowered his head on hers, his dark blue eyes falling to her lips. “What if I kiss you?”

Layla threw down her suitcase. “That’s exactly what I mean! Decide! Decide if you love me or hate me or like me or never want to see me again!”

“I don’t know what to feel. I mean, you disappear into thin air without a word for 12 years and then suddenly there you are—looking exactly the same. You even smell the same. So I don’t know what to feel.”

“Seems to me like you’re angry at me, and you have every right to be.”

“Of course, I’m angry. Did you ever think what it was like for me, waking up after the best night of my life and finding you gone? Wondering if you regretted what we’d done, if I’d hurt you in some way? Wondering if I was terrible in bed?”

“I’m sorry.”

“I deserve to know what possible reason you had to leave me like that.”

Layla knew he was right. It was time to tell him what she couldn’t before. It was time not to be quiet. She sat him down on the bed and took his hand. “My half-brother molested me on and off since I was three.”

Gage’s eyes shot to hers, then he headed towards the door. “I’m going to kill him!”

She jumped in front of him. “No, Gage!”

“Move!”

“No,” she said calmly.

“Layla, move!”

“No.”

“Where does he live? Here in Houston?”

“Please calm down.”

“Tell me! Tell me where your mother lives! I’m going to deal with her, too. She didn’t protect you.”

“She didn’t believe me. She thought she had to choose between her son and her daughter. She chose him.”

“What the hell?”

Layla reached out and stroked his cheek, directing his eyes to hers. She could see him soften slightly. “I need you right now.”

Gage pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to control himself, to steady his breathing. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

“Not in any detail.”

“OK,” he said, “whatever you feel you need to share.”

Layla shook her head at his perfect answer. She told him it started when she was very little, around three, and her half-brother was 15. She spared him most all the details. He didn’t need to know about how her half-brother would slip into her bed at night, telling her to keep quiet, how she cried herself to sleep, how she prayed she’d never wake up, how she worked through it all a long time ago.

“Did you ever tell anyone?”

“Not for a long time. When I was real young, he would mutilate my stuffed animals, decapitate them. He’d tell me he’d do the same to me if I ever told.”

“Sick fucker.”

“He actually told my parents I was the one ripping their heads off. And since he was older, they believed him. So my parents considered me ‘troubled’ from a very early age—and not just for the stuffed animals. For as long as I can remember, I was seeing my angel, Aria, and talking to her. It was cute at three, but my parents were concerned at eight. They had no idea what Aria was doing for me. When my half-brother came at me, came in my room, she would come, too, and wrap her wings around me, protect me in her own way. Aria saved me—or at least tried to.”

“When did you tell your parents?”

“It was when my half-brother moved back in. He’d been gone a few years—out on his own somewhere—but he ran into some financial problems and came back. He was as crazy as ever. I was freaking out. I was so scared it would all start back up again. Thankfully, it didn’t. But he reminded me not to tell. You know how he reminded me? He snapped my puppy Coco’s neck right in front of me.”

“Jesus Christ! When was this?”

“A few days before our summer.”

“You told your parents anyway?”

Layla nodded. “They didn’t believe me. I was the ‘troubled’ girl, remember? I had to get out of that house. I couldn’t deal with my parents not believing me, or the fear he might hurt me again. He just killed my dog. So I ran off to my grandmother’s place.”

Gage looked into her eyes and felt the pieces coming together—her sudden arrival on the island without any family; her reluctance to talk about them; the uncertainty of her plans during and after the summer, not knowing if or when she’d leave, or where she’d finish high school.

“I took a bus from Houston in the middle of the night. My mother hadn’t spoken to my grandmother in years—they had a huge falling out a long time ago—so I figured I’d be safe there. Every few days, I’d fake calls home so my grandmother wouldn’t get suspicious. And I knew my mother wouldn’t be calling my grandmother about me, even if I was ‘missing.’ My mother hated her. So I figured I was safe, at least for a little while. I planned on never going back home. But I never planned on you.”

“I never planned on you, either,” Gage said, placing a hand on her cheek. “My life was planned out for me for like 10 years, but I never saw you coming. Knocked me right on my ass.”

“I remember,” she said. “You were so adorable. I didn’t want to leave you.”

“Then why did you?”

She shook her head, recalling how everything fell apart. “My grandmother got hurt. When I went to see her in the hospital, she told me she called my parents—only because she didn’t think she could care for me anymore. She said they were coming to get me, that they didn’t know where I’d been. She tried to convince them to let me stay, that I was happy. But they wouldn’t listen. I think deep down she knew something terrible was happening.” Layla took his hand. “I couldn’t go back there, Gage. I just couldn’t. I knew I had to leave that night before they got there. I needed a head start, but I wanted to see you first.”

“I’m glad you did.”

“I wanted to know what it felt like to have someone treat my body with love, tenderness, to know sex could be beautiful and special, that someone would see me that way instead of taking and using me. I knew I had to leave, but I wanted, I needed, to take those memories—
your
memories—with me. I needed to know that was possible, something to keep me alive, hoping for.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on? I could’ve helped you.”

“I was 16. You were barely 18. There was nothing you could do.”

“I would’ve gone with you. We could’ve gone off together.”

“I knew if I told you, that would be your answer. I knew you wouldn’t let me go. I couldn’t let you throw away your future, hurt your family like that.”

“Maybe my parents could’ve helped?”

“My own parents didn’t believe me, Gage.”

“
I
would’ve believed you.”

“I know that.”

“Are you OK now?

“Yeah, as good as can be. I’ve done a lot of work in therapy, and I’m in a good place now. When I was old enough, I changed my last name to Tanner. It was my grandmother’s maiden name. I prefer to look forward, not back. I won’t let him—or my mother—take anything else from me. He took enough. They both did.”

Gage paused for a few moments to take it all in. Of all the things he thought might’ve happened, he never considered anything like this. “Why didn’t you say ‘goodbye’?”