The Gilded Cage (20 page)

“Wow…” Callie’s wide-eyed stare took in the sleek white jet.

Wes gave her a slow smile. “I’ll give you a ride sometime. That’s a promise.” He turned to Jim. “Mr. Taylor, keep me and my sister updated on the ranch. Hayden has some ideas to increase its income. And be careful. Both you and Callie need to watch yourselves. You have my cell phone number. I want either of you to call me if you think you’re in danger.”

Jim met his gaze and nodded. “Sure thing, Wes. Thank you for all your help. Take care of Fenn for us.”

Fenn tried not to let this departure affect him, but it did. He embraced Callie, giving her a squeeze and a whisper in her ear. “Take care of yourself, kid, and your dad. Stay out of trouble.” When he pulled back, she was wiping tears from her eyes.

“I’m so happy for you, Fenn. You’re going to meet your family.”

He kissed her forehead and met her gaze. “You and Jim are my family, too. Don’t ever forget that.” He reluctantly released her and shook Jim’s outstretched hand.

“Take care, son. We’ll be here when you’re ready to come back.” The old rancher’s eyes misted, but he didn’t cry.

“Thanks, Jim. Don’t you dare do any work around the Spur. If you do something to hurt yourself…” Fenn cleared the strange lump from his throat before continuing. “I need to know you’ll be okay while I’m gone. No more hospital visits, got me?”

“I got you, son. No work. Thorne said he’s spoken to a few ranch hands in town and they can take some work off my hands for a while. I’ll be paying Mr. Thorne back, of course.” Jim nodded at Wes, who nodded back in silent understanding.

“Good.” Fenn picked up his duffle and turned away, his heart seeming to splinter inside at the thought of leaving home and the only family he really knew. Coda followed him as he started to walk to the plane’s open door.

Hayden was standing at the top of the steps, having already said her good-byes. Her beautiful strawberry red hair was tugged in wild waves by the wind and she leaned against one side of the doorway, a little smile curling her lips as she watched him and Coda walk up the steps. The dog paused just at the entrance, sniffing the interior carpet, her ears twitching back.

“Come on, Coda.” She patted her thigh and the husky raised her head to study Hayden before slowly entering the plane’s cabin. Then Hayden focused on Fenn. “Are you ready?” she asked.

He shook his head.
Ready?
No one could really be ready for what he was about to do.

“Come on, let’s get you and Coda settled in.”

He climbed the steps and entered the plane. His mouth dropped open. Polished walnut wood and creamy white leather made up the plane’s interior. Six plush chairs filled the cabin. Coda slipped ahead of him and sniffed the chairs and the two glossy wooden tables before hopping up onto a seat at the back. He watched Wes and the flight crew come aboard. Fenn debated whether he should make Coda sit on the floor.

Hayden giggled behind him. “I think someone likes the jet.” She curled her arms around his waist and hugged him from behind. His blood heated at the simple but intimate embrace.

“I guess it’s nice,” he admitted grudgingly. He still didn’t like how small it was, but it was comfortable inside.

Hayden patted his lower stomach and rested her cheek against the side of his shoulder. “I was talking about the dog.”

Coda’s ears pricked forward, and she watched them, tongue lolling out of one side of her mouth. He laughed, relaxing a little bit.

“The pilot’s ready to take off.” Wes closed the plane’s door and joined them as they all took their seats. The leather was buttery soft and the chairs were cushiony.

“You called Emery?” Fenn asked Wes.

“Yes. He knows we’re on our way.”

“Good.” The empty pit in his stomach didn’t go away, even as the plane took off a few minutes later. He focused on the quickly shrinking ground and the rapidly rising clouds. Soon. Soon he would meet his family. And the idea of that meeting scared the hell out of him.

Hayden kept a close eye on Fenn. He hadn’t said a word in a long time. He just stared out the window, his gaze distant. What was he thinking about? His family? She wished she knew what to say to make him relax, but she had no clue what he must be going through. It was impossible to even begin to imagine being in his position, knowing he was going to meet his real family after twenty-five years apart from them.

“Mother says the moment we get home, you are to come back to the house.” Wes announced as he checked e-mails on his phone.

Hayden blanched. In the last couple of days everything had changed. She’d gotten a taste of a different life, a better one—one that was fulfilling and made her happy. The prospect of going home, seeing her parents…it was all empty. Proving she could bring Fenn home and earn some respect had ceased to matter to her. That desire was shallow in comparison to the other desires that had filled her heart the last few days. But what could she do? She was trapped in a gilded cage.

“Why can’t I come stay with you?” she begged Wes. “You know what they’ll do to me when I get back. Parties and fundraisers and…Oh please, Wes, you know I hate those things.” Besides that, she looked and felt like hell. With stitches and bruises, she wouldn’t be fit for any of the things her mother would plan. She could almost imagine how furious her mother would be when she found out about the gunshot wound. It would ruin Hayden’s marketability to her mother’s prospects if she had any damage or flaws.

Maybe I should get shot again
, she mused.

“You know I don’t like to get involved, Hayden. Just lay low for a few days, recover. Then we’ll talk about getting you out of there.” Wes was only partially paying attention to her as he typed on his phone.

“Brothers,” she muttered. “Completely useless.”

Wes didn’t even look up. “I heard that.”

“Good.” She flounced back in her seat and indulged herself in a full-on pout. Sometimes it was good to give into that, as childish as it was. He didn’t understand, though. He had a life, a job, a way to support himself. Their parents left him alone. With her, however, they actively tried preventing her from getting out on her own.

It had taken her twelve miserably failed job interviews to figure out they were sabotaging her. She knew this for a fact because she’d been doing really well with an investment firm interview in Manhattan before the interviewer’s cell phone rang. He’d taken one look at the caller ID, answered it, and then promptly exited the room. Five minutes later he came back, apologizing to her and saying that the position had already been filled. He’d collected the Human Resources packet he’d given her and escorted her out of their offices. When she’d gone home that night, her father had been wearing the particularly smug grin he got when he won a fight against someone. She’d realized it had been her.

The plane gave a little dip and began a slow descent.

“Passengers, please prepare for landing in about ten minutes.” The pilot’s voice came through the intercom.

Fenn sat up straight, suddenly seeming to be aware of everything around them again.

“Are you excited?” Hayden asked him, offering what she hoped as a supportive smile.

His lips pursed and he raked a hand through his hair. “Terrified,” he admitted, then looked away as though the admission had cost him too much.

She reached over the table between them and covered one of his hands with hers, giving it a little squeeze. He didn’t look at her again.

Hang in there
, she encouraged silently.

The plane began to descend and in a matter of minutes the wheels bumped down on the runway. Hayden held her breath.

Nerves fluttered inside her own belly, even though she had no reason to be scared. Fenn Lockwood was home. A smile curved her lips, but it was a melancholy one.

Have I lost him already? I wasn’t ready…

F
enn held his hat as he exited the plane and walked down the steps. He wasn’t sure what to expect as a greeting. What he got was a black SUV with two men wearing sunglasses standing by the vehicle. One was young, in his mid-twenties with shaggy blond hair. One of his hands was heavily bandaged and in a cast, as was one of his legs. He wore jeans and a graphic t-shirt with a hula girl on it. Fenn tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help but wonder who this man was. He seemed as out of place as Fenn felt in that moment. The other man was in his fifties but looked incredibly fit and trim. He wore jeans and a black shirt. He had a holstered gun near his hip. Fenn led Coda over to the men.

“Is Emery here?” he asked them. He hadn’t thought to ask Wes if Emery would be at the airport or not, but he’d assumed his brother would be there to meet him. Disappointment sank into him.

The younger man suddenly broke into a wide grin. “Hot damn, he’s just like him, isn’t he, Hans?”

The older man removed his sunglasses and held out a hand to Fenn. “I’m Hans, Emery’s personal protection. I’m now your protection, too.” He jerked a thumb at the younger man. “This is Cody, resident technology expert.”

Fenn shook Hans’s hand and couldn’t miss the other man’s strong grasp. His brother had a personal bodyguard?

“Nice to meet you,” he said, and then turned to Cody. “Cody?” he shook the younger man’s hand.

Cody laughed, humor in his eyes. “Wow, man. I just have to tell you how awesome it is to finally meet you.”

Hans shot Cody an amused look before he spoke to Fenn again. “Let’s get you loaded up and then we’ll go. Cody, have one of the attendants get his bag.”

“Sure.” Cody headed toward the plane where luggage was being unloaded.

“And who’s this?” Hans knelt down by the dog and reached out to pet her.

“Coda.”

“Coda?” Hans snickered. “I can’t wait to tell Cody that.”

The bodyguard’s amused attitude made Fenn feel more at ease.

“Fenn!” Hayden ran over to him, followed by Wes. “Do you want us to come with you?”

“Hayden, he doesn’t—” Wes began, but Fenn cut him off.

“You can come with me.” He hadn’t wanted to ask, and was glad Hayden had offered. She and Wes were the only two people he knew and he wanted them there as backup.

Her obvious relief warmed him inside. He didn’t want to let her go, even though he and Wes had agreed that she needed to be sent somewhere safe. Being with her would help him get through the reunion with his family. She was a rock, and he needed to lean on her for support, just as she had leaned on him when they’d been stranded on the mountain. Together they held each other up.

Once the bags were stowed, everyone crowded into the SUV, including Coda in the back, quiet and observant, as though picking up on her master’s distress and wanting to be vigilant in her protection. Hans drove, and Fenn held his breath for several long seconds as they reached the main road. Hans quickly re-routed them onto a smaller road. Hayden sat between Fenn and Wes in the middle seat. She covered Fenn’s hand with hers, and he squeezed her fingers back.

He had so many questions. “How long have you worked for Emery?” he finally asked Hans.

Hans didn’t answer immediately. “Actually, I work for your father. He hired me the day after Emery was found.”

Shock exploded through him. “But that was twenty-five years ago.”

Hans met his gaze in the rearview mirror, eyes heavy with sadness. “Yes. It was. I’m more of a shadow than a bodyguard now. Your brother has learned to take care of himself over the years. But after Emery was found, they were terrified he’d be taken again and were devastated by losing you. They needed someone to look after all of them.”

Fenn’s throat tightened as he imagined himself—only not quite him—going to school, going riding, always shrouded by the cloud of the past and the threat of it returning, and having to have someone like Hans following his every move. What sort of life could a man have if he couldn’t escape that?

The silence in the car was thick, but there was no easy way to penetrate it. Fenn was too lost in his thoughts.

“We’re here,” Cody eventually said from the front passenger seat.

Fenn leaned a little closer to Hayden and grasped her hands in both of his as he peered through the front window at the old Lockwood home.

Black wrought-iron gates stood before them. Two marble columns bracketed the gates, and beyond them, in the distance…home. A colonial-revival style, with four floors and ivy covering the walls and trimming the many windows. The overcast skies gave way to a light mist that partially obscured the distant monolith. Little shivers, like tiny invisible fingers, tiptoed up and down his spine as they drove closer. The gates opened, then closed behind them, and Fenn felt like he’d gone through a magic portal to another realm.

“Are you my sweet princes?”
a feminine voice teased. His heart stilled inside his chest. Mother. It was the first time he’d remembered her voice and the way she used to tease them.

“We’re not princes, Mom, we’re warriors,”
he’d corrected her.

He swallowed hard, hearing her bell-like laughter.
“Of course. You are my little fighter, aren’t you, Fenn? If you are a warrior, you must always protect those you love. It’s what brave men do.”

Had he been brave? The memories of those nights he and Emery had spent locked away in darkness were still hazy and only half-remembered. He was frightened by the idea of what might be revealed if he ever remembered it all.

“Don’t forget to breathe, Fenn.” Hayden’s sweet voice broke through his dark musings. He immediately drew in a breath and the burning in his lungs eased.

The SUV pulled up into a circular drive before the house, and the front door opened. His twin walked out of the entrance, wearing a pair of charcoal slacks and a light cream sweater. Emery’s hands were in his pockets. He paused at the top of the steps leading from the house to the car. An eerie sense of déjà vu filled Fenn, as if all those years of looking in the mirror and glimpsing another had finally led to this moment.

“Why don’t we give them a minute alone,” Wes suggested softly.

Fenn was only barely listening as he opened the car door and stepped out. He still held his Stetson in one hand, and he cursed inwardly at the way his hands shook. But when he climbed out of the car, the serious look on Emery’s face transformed. There was a small hesitant smile, an echo of his own, and he felt his lips curving to reflect his twin’s expression. He couldn’t think beyond the rush of emotions filing him. Emery closed the distance and gripped him in a crushing embrace.

“Welcome home, brother. Welcome home.” Emery’s words broke through the invisible barrier inside his head, shattering the last twenty-five years of emptiness.

“Emery,” he uttered his brother’s name as he held on tight. Memories overwhelmed him. Voices, sounds, visions of a childhood he’d never believed existed, one he’d thought forever lost, came flooding back.

“Oh God,” he whispered hoarsely. “Oh God.”
Cowboys don’t cry. Please don’t let him see me cry.

Miranda Lockwood waited in the blue parlor, holding her breath and clutching Elliot’s hand. She was shaking so hard her husband curled an arm around her shoulders, grounding her so she wouldn’t crumble. Emery checked his phone then stood, looking through the tall windows that faced the front drive. She studied her son’s body language and then she stood as well. A black SUV was headed up the front drive.

“Elliot.” She reached frantically for her husband’s hand, needing his strength. He rose and took her hand in his, placing a kiss against her temple. She couldn’t speak, could only try to swallow past the lump in her throat and the sudden wave of nerves that rattled her down to her bones. She just wanted her baby boy back; but instead she would be meeting a grown man.

They had waited so long for this moment. To know that their baby boy was alive and coming home. The days she’d spent in his empty room weeping, the nights she’d cried herself to sleep…they were all payment for the moment she would be reunited with her child. And yet, her heart still quivered as she was forced to accept that she would never reclaim the lost years of seeing her child grow up. He’d lived without her, his mother; lived without his father…

She and Elliot froze at the window, watching the car park only fifteen feet away. Emery touched her shoulder.

“Stay here for a moment. I think he should see me first. I’ll bring him here to see you, I promise.” Her second-born son wilted as though he regretted saying such a thing, but she understood. It might be too much for Fenn to see them all at once.

“Okay.” The word left her lips shakily, but she didn’t tear her eyes from the window as she waited to see her son.

The SUV’s door opened and a tall, lean man stepped out with a light tan Stetson in his hands. He raised his head, his face displaying a rapid play of emotions. His golden hair was tousled by the wind and he was dressed in faded jeans, a red plaid shirt, and boots.
A stranger.
He was a stranger to her, this beautiful boy all grown up.
Was he ever truly mine?
She bit her lip and clung to her husband, hating that she hadn’t been there to see her boy grow into this rugged man.

“He’s…he’s…” The words wouldn’t come.

And then the man caught sight of Emery, and they were smiling and embracing as they hugged. His dark hazel eyes were alight with tears; she could see them clearly even at this distance.

“He’s our son. And he’s
home
.” Elliot choked out and squeezed her so hard she couldn’t breathe. They had to keep it together, or she and Elliot would frighten Fenn.

Her boys, her lovely boys, moved out of sight as they came into the house.

“Let’s go meet them.” Elliot wiped a tear from his cheek and held her hand as they went to the doors of the parlor. The ache in her chest changed: like a gaping black hole filled suddenly with pure, white light. Warmth flooded her, heating her up in places she had long believed grown cold. The age of grief was over. Now was a time of peace and joy.

Fenn followed Emery into the beautiful old house and paused when he noticed a massive portrait of two little boys at the top of the stairs.

“Is that—”

“Us?” Emery laughed. “Oh yeah.” He stopped and looked back at Fenn. “Come on. Mom and Dad want to see you.”

Fenn swallowed thickly and joined Emery in the doorway of a beautiful blue room. Just beyond the threshold two people waited for them. A tall man in his fifties and a beautiful woman around the same age as the man. The world spiraled around him—grief, joy, terror—all of it mixing inside him, and he stumbled to a halt. His feet wouldn’t move.

What if they don’t love me as they once did?
Hs inner voice was a child’s voice, held a child’s fear, but the worry still rattled him even now.

His memories were filled with them, and they had aged only a little. Fine lines around their eyes and mouths, a deep grief in their gazes…but in many ways they were unchanged from the parents he’d known.

“Fenn?” His mother’s voice was barely a whisper.

Hers was the voice that had haunted his dreams so long ago, when he’d been confused and in pain and restless. A phantom mother trying to tell him stories, but he’d lost her, forgotten her, and the pain had taken over his life, dragging him into darkness until he’d buried the past and his own parents and twin with it.

He sucked in a hard breath, trying to clear the fog of renewed pain from his vision.

“My boy,” she gasped and held out her arms to him.

He moved without thought—the need to touch her, to be with her, was too strong to overcome. Only this time, when he met his mother, it was he who held and comforted her as she cried. And she did cry. His mother broke down fully, weeping inconsolably as she clung to him. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her close as the ghosts of years of being kept apart were released like mist vapors upon the morning air as the sun cut through them.

“It’s okay, Mom. Please, don’t cry,” he begged softly, kissing her hair. She still smelled like wildflowers. Even her watery laugh was just as he’d remembered. He raised his gaze to his father’s. The older man was watching them, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he seemed speechless.

“Sir,” he greeted his father with respect.

“Sir,” Elliot repeated in a daze. “Sir? You’d better call me Dad, or I’ll start to cry, too.” He warned, but then he curled his arms around his son and wife, cocooning them as he broke down, too, his body quaking with silent sobs. Fenn held his breath, his eyes burning with thick tears, which after several long seconds rolled down his cheeks and dampened his father’s shoulder. They were all shaking, holding each other up as the grief over years lost was unleashed.

He tried not to think of the years lost to him, of the afternoons he would have spent playing tennis with his father, or having breakfast with his mother, or of the mischief he would have gotten into with his brother.

For so long he had wondered about the part of himself deep within that had seemed devoid of hope, devoid of anything except painful emptiness. In just one moment, it had all changed, and like sand altered by a strike of lightning, he’d been formed into something new and wonderful.

His father stepped back, but only a step, his hand still resting on Fenn’s shoulder. His mother’s sobs finally quieted, but she held him a minute longer.

“I’m sorry. I’m just so afraid you’ll vanish if I let you go,” she whispered, her eyes wide and full of still more tears.

The splendor and the innocence of his past could never be reclaimed, never relived, and it saddened him to know that, but now they had the rest of their lives to live again, to love better, to live happy.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he promised his mother. “Now that I’ve found you, I won’t let you go.”

“You remember?” The hope in her voice cut him soul deep.

“I remember. Some things are still fuzzy, but I remember you.”

Elliot cleared his throat. “We’re so glad you came back. We thought you might not…” The agony in his father’s voice cut Fenn like a knife.