Chapter Nineteen
Jordan
Running back inside to answer the phone, I grab the receiver off the wall. “Golden Oaks,” I answer.
“Hey son, just checking in, seeing how you’re doing?”
“Hey Dad. All good here.” I hop up on the kitchen counter.
I can see Mia through the window with Dozer. She’s feeding him meat treats. Poor fucking dog is going out of his mind with that cast on, so we’ve been spending time with him.
In-between making out that is.
“How’s things?”
“Same.” I shrug, grabbing a nut out of the bag I opened earlier, I toss it my mouth.
“No other guests than our current one?”
“Nope.” I crunch. “The Perry’s are due later on today, though.” I lift my voice in optimism, hoping to pass some onto him.
“Christ, is it that time of year already?”
“Yep. I got their room all ready for them, so we’re good to go.”
Mia insisted on helping me prepare the room. It took a little longer than it usually takes me as we ended up having some fun which began with Mia getting down on her knees and taking my cock in her mouth, and ended with her legs wrapped around my waist, back pressed against the wall while I fucked her to orgasm.
“You’re a good son,” Dad says.
I shake my head.
No, Dad, I’m not, but I’m trying my hardest to be. And with Mia by my side, I think I can do it.
He lets out a sigh. “So we’ve definitely got no other bookings?” He checks this again as if I’m going to suddenly magic some up.
“No … I’m sorry, Dad.”
“It’s not your fault. Business will pick up soon, I’m sure of it.”
Always the optimist, my dad, but I hope for both our sakes that business does pick up.
“How’s Dozer doing?” he asks. “His leg healing okay?”
“Yeah, it’s healing fine, but he’s bored shitless not being able to go out for a run, so Mia’s currently keeping him entertained.” I look out the window at them again. Mia’s laying on the grass with Dozer standing over her, pinning her while he licks her face. She’s laughing, trying to push him off. The sight of them has me smiling.
“Mia – as in our hotel guest Mia – is keeping your dog entertained?” Dad says, wiping the smile from my face.
Shit. I shouldn’t have said that. He’s going to know something is going on between Mia and me now, but then he would have as soon as he got back home. I’m serious about her, so telling him now isn’t going to hurt anything I guess.
“Yes, Mia as in our hotel guest—”
“Is there anything I need to know?” he cuts me off before I get a chance to tell him about Mia and me. The ‘dad’ tone in his voice irritates me, so the immature side of me decides to play it out to annoy him.
“Like what?” I say with a casualness to my voice
“Like are you having sex with this girl?”
Okay. Straight to the point.
“Yeah…” I exhale. “I’m sleeping with her … but before you start kicking off, I want you to know this is different. She’s different.”
He’s silent a moment. “You’ve never told me that a girl is different before. Should I take this as a good sign?”
“Yeah.” I smile. “You should.”
“So you really like this girl, huh?”
Like, is the understatement of the century, but I’m not about to tell my dad that I’ve fallen in love with Mia.
Yeah, you heard me. I fucking love her.
I’ve never had feelings for a girl before, but the first time I do, I’m falling in love, and hard. I guess this is what happens to us men who don’t love easily. We love quicker and harder.
Now, I just need to find the nerve to tell Mia that, after just a little over a week of knowing her, I’m crazy in love with her. I’m hoping that when I do, I won’t sending her running for the hills. She can be skittish at times.
“Yeah, I really like her, Dad,” I reply, running a hand through my hair. “I didn’t intend to start anything with Mia. I meant what I said to you that time on the phone … but we just got close.” I smile at the thought of how good it feels to be close to her.
“She came here looking for her mother, and after she helped me with Dozer when he had his accident, I said I would help her try to find her mom, and we just ended up spending more and more time together. I got to know her really well, and she’s pretty fuckin’ amazing, Dad.”
“Sounds like you got it bad, boy.” He chuckles. “I’m looking forward to meeting this girl who’s managed to turn my horndog sons’ head.”
“Ha! Nice, Dad, real nice.” I laugh. “You’ll like her though. She’s smart, and real beautiful. She reminds me a bit of mom – tiny, blonde, has the tendency to speak without thinking. Actually, that reminds me. I’ve being meaning to ask you, have you ever heard of a woman called Anna Monroe who lived round here?”
It’s a fairly biggish town that we live in, so chances are he might not have, but in his old line of work, he tended to know everyone.
I get no reply.
“Dad? You still there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.” He’s a little short, and his voice sounds different … gruff, strained.
“Did you hear what I said? I asked you if you’d heard of a woman called Anna Monroe.” I’m pushing now because I know there’s something there. He knows something about Mia’s mom.
“Jesus Christ…” He sighs. “Jordan, I need you to do something for me. Do you have a photo of Mia that you can send to my cell?”
A hand comes around my throat. “Why?”
“Just do it!” he snaps.
My dad never raises his voice at me – never. Not even when I screwed up with the gambling did he once raise his voice at me. It’s just the type of dad he is – a reasoner, not a yeller.
“Jesus! What the hell is going on, Dad?” I say, equally irate.
He exhales. “Look, I’m sorry I snapped. Just … do you have a picture of Mia or not?”
“No, I don’t. But wait a minute, I can get one.”
I pull my cell from my pocket and set the camera on. I hold it up to the window, and zoom in on Mia’s face.
She’s smiling. She’s happy. And she has no clue that I’m about to take a picture of her to send to my dad for a reason I can only guess isn’t good.
The hand around my throat tightens.
I snap the picture.
“I’m sending the photo to your cell now.” I watch the little bar sending, then telling me it’s been sent.
I hear Dad’s message tone beep in the background, then I wait, holding my breath.
“Jesus Christ,” I hear him mutter. “It’s her.”
And this is the moment when I know it’s bad, real bad, and that this is going to somehow change everything irrevocably.
“Dad, you really need to tell me what the hell is going on.”
He lets out a resigned sigh. “I know. I just don’t know where to start.”
“Beginning works good for me.” I’m getting slightly pissed off, and my heart is beating like a bastard.
“Look, this isn’t technically my story to tell, so go easy on me, son.”
I sigh with impatience.
I hear the phone rustle, like he’s moving, then he starts talking, “You know that Belle lived away from Durango.”
“Yeah, she went to college. It was why you guys broke up after high school. Then she moved back home, and you got back together.”
“Right. Well the story in the middle is a little different than the one you know. And Jordan, listen, I only found out the extent of your mom’s time in Boston days before she died…”
Boston.
Oh no.
Motherfucking, no.
Annabelle – that’s my mom’s full name. I’ve always known her as Belle, but her name is Annabelle.
Anna.
Why didn’t it click before now? I’m so fucking stupid!
Belle is Anna.
She’s Mia’s mother. I know it in my gut.
“Belle is Mia’s mother.” I nearly choke on the words.
Dad sighs a weary sound. And it’s confirmed.
My heart feels like it’s just been ripped from my chest.
“Yeah, I’m afraid she is.”
My mom. The woman who raised me … is Mia’s mother.
The mother who abandoned her when she was a baby. Left her alone with that shithole of a father, is the woman who took me on as her own and raised me.
This is a wrecking ball. And it’s going to destroy everything in its path.
Mia … us.
My head drops in my hands. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!”
“I’m sorry, son. She told me days before she died about Mia. I didn’t know. I promise you. All I knew was that while she was in her last year of college, she met this doctor. He swept her off her feet, they got married soon after, but he wasn’t the guy she thought he was. The instant they were married, he turned violent. He hurt her bad. She ended up in hospital a few times because of him. Eventually, she left. Came back here. Divorced him. She never told me that she’d had a baby with him.”
I feel ill.
I slide off the counter. My feet hit the tiles and feel unsteady, so I sit on the floor.
Knees bent up, I put my head between them and take deep breaths.
“When Belle knew she was dying,” Dad continues. “She told me everything – all about Mia. She said that looking back, she thinks she was suffering with post-partum depression. And she was afraid, Jordan. Her ex-husband was a bastard of a man. The scars he left her with…”
I wince at his words, an image of Mia’s scars flashing through my mind.
“When I saw them the first time … I wanted to go there and kill him, but Belle wouldn’t let me. Obviously, she didn’t want me to go because she didn’t want me to know about Mia.” He sighs.
“Why did she leave her there, Dad? I don’t understand?” My voice cracks on the words knowing the life Mia had with her father.
Then I envision a different past for her.
One where Belle brought Mia back here with her. She would have been my sister. I would never have loved her in the way I do now, but rather that, then her have the life she had.
Her life with us would have been good. She’d have grown up happy. She would have had the life she deserved.
Not one filled with cruelty, and pain. Unimaginable pain.
I feel a sick, resentful anger toward the woman who raised me. The woman who patched up my busted knees when I fell off my bike time and time again. The woman who fed me. Bathed me. Loved me.
Jesus. Christ.
I get up from the floor and start pacing.
“Belle’s ex-husband was a rich, powerful man, Jordan. He was a doctor – a heart surgeon. People respected him. He wouldn’t let her take Mia. Told her if she tried that he’d have her arrested for kidnapping.”
Yanking out a chair at the table, I sit down. “But she could have called the cops – told them what was happening to her. She had the evidence – the scars, her being in hospital because of his beatings.”
“You’re right she could have. But you know how these things go. She’d have to prove it, and she was up against a man from a wealthy family who ran in high circles. His dad was a good friend of the chief of police. Power and money can make things go away, son. But for all he did to Belle, she knew he wouldn’t hurt his own child which was how she was able to leave Mia with him.”
I bang my fist on the table, hard. “Are you fuckin’ kidding me! I can’t believe I’m hearing this shit! He wouldn’t hurt her – Dad, I’ve seen her scars.” I’ve felt her pain. “He beat her until the day he died. He made her life a fuckin’ misery! And because of him, violence was all she knew, so she ended up in a relationship with an asshole exactly like the one who raised her! Why do you think she left Boston, Dad? The bastard she was with – he beat her – tried to rape her.”
“No.” His voice is filled with shock and disbelief. He sounds exactly like I felt in the moment when she told me.
“No,” he repeats. “I found her – Mia. That was one of the reasons Belle told me about her. She wanted to know Mia, make her peace before she died, but by the time I found Mia, it was too late and Belle had passed.
“But I still went to Boston. You remember when I told you I had that police conference? I went then. I watched her for a few days, not in a creepy way, I just couldn’t decide whether to tell her about Belle or not. In the end, I decided against it – I didn’t think it was worth hurting Mia by telling her that the mother who had abandoned her as a baby had just died. But I wanted to know she was okay – happy. She seemed it. She was in school, had an application for Harvard. Lived in a great place and drove a nice car. And I saw her with him – her father, Oliver. They seemed to get along well.”
“Yeah, well Mia can wear a great mask, Dad. She’s a fuckin’ specialist at pretending to be something she isn’t.”
“Jordan, if I’d have known, I would have done something. You know that.”
I exhale, heavily. “Yeah, I know. I just … god, I don’t know what to do – how to tell her.”
How am I going to tell the girl I’m in love with that her mother – who left her to be raised by that monster of a man – raised me instead of her?
She’ll blame me. I’m going to lose her.
I feel physically sick at the thought.
“Just tell her the truth. Exactly as I’ve told you.”
I scrub my hand over my face. “She won’t be able to get past this. She’s going to blame me. I’m going to lose her.”
“No, you won’t,” he states vehemently.
“Belle left her with him and chose to raise me instead. I know if it were me, it would kill me.”
“Jordan, this isn’t your fault. I’ll come home. I’ll explain it to her—”
“No.” I pull in a deep breath. “She needs to hear this from me.”
“You’re sure?”
No. “Yes. I’ll tell her.”
“Okay. You know Mia best. Call me when you’ve talked to her. Let me know how she’s doing?”
“Yeah, I will.”
“Jordan?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s going to be fine, son. I promise.”
I swallow past the burning in my throat, wishing I could be as confident as he is.
“I’ll call you later.” I hang up the phone, dropping it to the table with a clatter, I let my head follow.
A minute later I hear the backdoor open.
“Hey, you okay?” Mia’s soft sweet voice carries through the room, hitting me with a pure agony.
I lift my head, turning to her. The warm smile on her face instantly disappears, turning to worry at my expression.
“Jordan – is everything okay?” She moves quickly toward me.
“I–” The words stick in my throat, and start to sink fast … fast like rocks in water.
“Jordan?”
Oh god. I can’t tell her.
I can’t.
I get to my feet and take her beautiful face in my hands, forcing a smile onto my deceitful mouth.
“Everything’s fine, babe.”
Then I press my lying lips to her soft, warm, honest mouth, hating my weak, cowardly-self more and more, with each passing second.