Chapter Fourteen
I Let You Down
Well, if I didn’t already know that the internet was prevalent in our society, not to mention people in a small town talked, the evidence of this would be overwhelming at Mom and Dad’s barbeque considering how many folks “popped by” to welcome me home from vacation like I’d come home from a two year Peace Corps assignment at a location where no communication could be had instead of being in Europe for five weeks.
At first, this upset me. Sam was not a museum display and although a few of the folks who “popped by” were cool, most of them were clearly there for the sole purpose of seeing him, they were star struck and thus acting like big dorks.
Sure, it could be said that just two weeks ago I, too, acted like a big dork when faced with sharing breathing space with Sampson Cooper but just then, I was jetlagged, tired and my mother, father and closest friends were meeting my new boyfriend for the first time and he just happened to be an internationally known and beloved hot guy. Even at the best of times and with a new boyfriend who wasn’t an internationally known and beloved hot guy, this would put me on edge. These weren’t the best of times so I didn’t have the patience for it.
But as time slid by, it penetrated that Sam was a practiced hand at this. He was friendly, accepting and had an ability to make people quickly feel at-ease.
What I didn’t know was if this was taxing for him.
This was because, almost the minute we hit my parents’ deck, after Sam met Dad, Missy, Rudy and our elderly widowed neighbor, Mrs. O’Keefe, Sam deposited me in a chair that was resting against the siding at the back of my parents’ house, bent to me and whispered in my ear, “We gotta be outside, you’re gonna stay right there.”
He lifted his head, looked in my eyes, his were serious so I nodded.
Clearly, if someone was insane enough to shoot at me in my parents’ yard during a barbeque, my position as decreed by Sam gave them a not-so-good shot.
Also clearly, Sam was not taking any chances with someone being insane enough to shoot me at my parents’ barbeque. That said, to actually be a hit man, you had to have some screw loose so obviously caution was a good way to go.
So, holding court in my chair at the back and with Sam called to meet half the town, I hadn’t had a second even to speak with him much less take his pulse.
Luckily, this died down but I still didn’t have a chance to make sure Sam was cool. This was because we got down to the business of a welcome home, everyone looking at the display on the back of my digital camera as they clicked through photos, them asking questions, me telling stories and giving out presents and those who meant the most to me in the world getting used to having me home and becoming comfortable with Sam.
This was until Ozzie, in uniform, popped by. I suspected Ozzie was there to see Sam but I also suspected he was there for other reasons, namely to see if I was still breathing.
What I knew was, the minute Sam saw him in uniform, got his name and shook his hand, Ozzie’s visit was going to take on a whole other meaning as defined by Sam.
Ozzie, being Ozzie, clocked this immediately and as he sat enjoying a Coke, his eyes often strayed to Sam.
Sam, being Sam, didn’t delay in sorting out what he felt like sorting out.
And this was done at three sips into Ozzie’s Coke (I counted) with a, “Ford, Sheriff, let’s have a minute inside with Kia.”
Ozzie sighed, unsurprised.
Dad’s eyebrows shot together and he looked at Sam then me.
“Is everything all right?” Mom asked.
Since it wasn’t, Sam didn’t answer. What he did do was get out of his chair next to mine then gently pull me up.
“All’s well, Essie,” Ozzie muttered, also straightening out of his chair and Dad followed suit, looking slightly bemused and not-so-slightly concerned.
“I’ll come with,” Mom decided and popped up.
Ozzie gave Dad a look, Sam gave Dad a look, Dad took in these looks and looked at Mom.
“Give me a minute with Oz and Sam, hon.”
“I don’t –” Mom started.
“A minute, Ess,” Dad stated firmly, Mom’s mouth got tight, her eyes started shooting daggers and I held my breath because I’d had twenty-eight years of this.
Dad was a man’s man, through and through. He poured cement for a living. He had his own business doing this, he did the best job of anyone in three counties and he didn’t employ slackers and that was known throughout town, maybe even statewide, seeing as your ass was fired on the spot if he found you not working to his exacting standards. Also I knew of two bar brawls he’d gotten into in town though I didn’t know the reasons he had them but, to me, bar brawls for any reason screamed man! He hunted (even though Mom, and then me when I was old enough to have and voice my opinion, hated this). Further, interrupting him during the Super Bowl, the World Series or the NBA playoffs was punishable by death; I didn’t know this for a fact mainly because I, like everyone else in my family, never interrupted him. He drank beer, not wine, not cocktails but if he felt like branching out, he might drink bourbon but only neat. You didn’t even look at the grill with the intention of using it because that was his domain. He mowed the lawn, he serviced the cars. And, on occasion, what he said went.
Mom, on the other hand, although they met and married relatively young, was independent and strong-willed. She’d been a Mom and a housewife and still went to night school when I was a kid so she could get her degree then moved on to get her Master’s. It took eleven years but she did it. Through this she worked part-time, finally getting a full-time job in the field she’d studied, Speech/Language Pathology. Yes, she cooked. Yes, she cleaned. Yes, in our household, Dad never did any of this. And yes, she did all this without complaint. But she had a say in her children’s lives and a definite hand in our upbringing. She might have been busy but she was not absent.
No, strike that, she had a say and an opinion about everything and didn’t mind voicing it.
And, on the occasion my Dad had something to say that he thought went, and Mom disagreed, things could get hairy.
Like they appeared to be doing now.
Until Sam stepped in.
“I appreciate you’ve cottoned on, Essie,” he said with quiet understanding. “But there are things I need to share with the Sheriff and Ford that I need to keep confidential for now. It’s about what I do. What Ford can share with you, he’ll share with you later. But I need to be able to be forthcoming and the fewer people who hear this, the better.”
Although this could only make anyone more curious, and from the looks on everyone’s faces, they were, Sam’s rough-like-velvet voice coupled with the quiet understanding could not be denied, not even by my Mom.
She held his eyes for a scary moment though but she must have liked what she saw because she sat back down.
Without delay, Sam led me into the house then stepped aside and when Ozzie and Dad followed, Sam looked at Dad and muttered, “Private.”
Dad held his eyes this time, nodded then led the way through the kitchen, into the dining room and through to the living room. He closed the glass-paned doors to the dining room and the wood door to the foyer.
When we arrived, staying standing, Sam wrapped an arm around my chest and pulled the side of my back into the side of his front and his eyes leveled on Ozzie.
Before he could speak, Ozzie did.
“Know what you’re gonna say, Cooper, and I get you. The Deputy who took the call from your people heard your name associated with Kia’s, got excited, shared too much. I can assure you he did not do this with the reporters that called and I can also assure you he will not do this again.”
“That wasn’t cool but that is also not why we’re standin’ here,” Sam replied and Ozzie’s eyes shot to Dad before they went back to Sam and he didn’t shake his head “no” but his eyes screamed it.
Sam shook his head “no” and then explained it.
“You know he’s gotta know,” Sam said softly.
“It’s in hand,” Ozzie returned.
“It isn’t,” Sam shot back.
“What’s this about?” Dad asked.
“Cooper –” Ozzie started, leaning into Sam but Sam turned to Dad.
“Sorry, Ford, this is going to come as a shock –” he began but Ozzie interrupted him.
“Cooper, I don’t advise –”
Sam looked to Ozzie. “Due respect and understand, Kia has told me about you, she cares about you, she trusts you and she’s explained you’re a friend of the family so when I say due respect, I mean it. But with this, you are not makin’ the right decisions.”
“I got experience, son,” Ozzie retorted. “I know what I’m doin’.”
“Yeah, you do then look me in the eye and tell me since she got on a plane and until you heard Kia hooked up with me that you slept good at night,” Sam volleyed.
Ozzie snapped his mouth shut.
“What is… goin’… on?” Dad bit out, eyes narrowed, body tight.
“Shit,” Ozzie muttered.
Sam looked back at Dad. “Jeff Clementine and Vanessa Cloverfield hired a hit man to take out Kia.”
My body was already tight through the preliminaries but it got tighter at these words.
“Yeah, this isn’t news,” Dad said, again perplexed.
“No, Ford,” Ozzie put in quietly. “They didn’t conspire to do it, they did it.”
Dad took a step back, his face going pale. I made to move away from Sam and go to him but Sam’s arm tensed and I couldn’t get away.
Dad was staring at Ozzie and he whispered, “What?”
“Vanessa pawned a bunch of stuff and talked Milo into gettin’ a second mortgage on their house, sayin’ she wanted a new kitchen or somethin’. They found a broker who hooked them up with a man who could do the job they wanted done. They made contact, they paid and the hit was placed on Kia,” Ozzie explained.
“You are shittin’ me,” Dad was still whispering.
“I wish I was Ford,” Ozzie was now whispering.
Dad shook his head, looked at me, Sam then Ozzie and asked, “Okay, well, so? Clearly Vanessa called it off.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Ozzie replied, Dad blanched and his eyes shot to me while Ozzie kept talking. “The broker took a percentage, gave the contact details to Coot and Vanessa and it was all done electronically. Three e-mails. One to inform. One to confirm wire transfer of the money. One to confirm they wanted him to go through with the hit. They were warned that once they sent that third e-mail, that account would be made invalid, they would not hear from him again and could not call him off.”
Dad’s throat was working, his eyes, locked to me, were working and I tried to pull away from Sam again but his other arm went around me, caging me in.
Ozzie went on.
“We had a man on her, Ford, all the time. We don’t really have the resources to do it but we did it. And we’re doin’ everything in our power to track this guy down.”
“And you went off to Europe,” Dad said to me. “Jesus, God, Kia, what was in your head?” he clipped.
“She didn’t know,” Sam stated and Dad’s eyes sliced to him.
“Say again?” he demanded.
“Kia didn’t know,” Sam kind of repeated.
Dad’s eyes sliced back to me then Ozzie when Ozzie spoke quickly.
“We thought, what Kia’d been through, what you all had been through, what you all were facin’ considerin’ Coot was gone and the time had come to face it, not to mention what he left behind just knowin’ all he was up to with Vanessa, we wouldn’t add to that burden.”
“You wouldn’t add to that burden,” Dad whispered.
“Ford –” Ozzie started.
“Are you out of your ever-lovin’ mind?” Dad thundered at Ozzie and I watched Ozzie clench his teeth and he held Dad’s eyes but he didn’t answer.
Dad tore his gaze from Ozzie’s and shook his head, running his hand through his hair while doing it and muttering, “I don’t… I cannot believe this shit. I cannot believe this shit.”
“Right,” Sam put in, Dad’s eyes cut to him and Sam announced, “This is where we’re at now. The Sheriff’s talkative deputy gave me the head’s up three days ago.” Sam looked at Ozzie. “So you need to know there are four men in your town who’ll be visible watching Kia and her home. I’ll get you names and pictures so your men can identify them. They are carrying concealed and three of four of them have a license to do that in this state. I’ll ask you to look the other way with the one who doesn’t. I can assure you he’s trained and he knows what he’s doin’ or I wouldn’t have him on Kia. I’m also carryin’ concealed and I don’t have a license in Indiana either. I’ll have a weapon on me at all times and another one in Kia’s house and, since I couldn’t get home to North Carolina to get my own hardware, I do not hold permits for either. I’ll ask you to look the other way on that too. There are also two men hunting this guy at my request. They’ll need information which means I’ll need a full brief from you and I’ll need to talk to Vanessa Cloverfield. So as not to fuck your case against her, you’ll not have anything to do with that. But, she doesn’t talk to me; I’ll escalate my tactics to get her to talk to me. You’ll need to look the other way on that too.”
“Son, you cannot ask me to do that,” Ozzie replied then finished, “Any of that.”
“I just did and you’ll do it,” Sam returned and Ozzie’s face started to get red.
“Cooper, I understand –” Ozzie started but I felt Sam’s body get taut at my back and I braced because I knew, for whatever reason, he was done.
“No, Sheriff, you don’t understand. If you did, at the very least Ford would have been aware of this situation before Kia’s ass was on a plane. For three weeks, she was wandering Europe alone and unprotected. For a week and a half, she was with me and I had no clue. You do not know who this motherfucker is therefore you do not know what resources he has available to him. She should never have been on that plane. In the months after you learned about this situation, she should have had more than the Sheriff Department’s protection but also the protection of her family and a security system installed in her house or, seein’ Ford’s reaction, her ass moved to this one and a system installed here. None of this happened. And months have passed and you have not found this guy. My experience, you haven’t found him yet means you got nothin’ on him and your leads have gone stone cold. So he’s not in the wind, he is the wind. And when that shit happens, your boys can be brilliant, but unless they’re trained to lock down that kind of target, they got no hope. They also got other shit to do. I do not. The hunters I called in on this do not. And the men at Kia’s back have one focus, Kia. I know you are not unaware of the last seven years of her life and what she’s been livin’ with behind closed doors at the hands of that piece of shit. Now he’s still controlling her life and he’s fuckin’ dead. I got the power and the means to make certain that shit stops and I’m gonna do it. And last, I’ll give you the head’s up that I do not make threats so take that into consideration when I say, I’m doin’ this and you do not wanna stand in my way.”
When Sam was done I was holding my breath, Ozzie was holding Sam’s gaze and Dad was staring at Sam like Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny popped in to give him a brand-new hunting rifle and a year-round permit to shoot all things cute and furry and a basket as big as a house filled with chocolate. In other words, like he’d just hit the mother lode.
The silence stretched so before I passed out, I decided to start breathing again.
Finally, Ozzie spoke.
“I’ll admit those leads are cold, Cooper, but they’re cold for us, they’ll be cold for you.”
“First, what’s cold for you is not cold for my boys and second, I’ll ask, you sure you got all you could get from that piece of shit’s bitch?”
Clearly knowing who Sam was referring to, Ozzie answered, “Vanessa was very forthcoming as advised by her attorney. She’s arguing that it was all Cooter’s idea and she was along for the ride, without collusion but with a fair amount of coercion, so I suspect her attorney wants to show she’s been helpful in order for it to assist her case.”
“Interesting to see if the woman who pawned a bunch of shit and conned her husband who she drove to committing murder into getting a second mortgage to pay for a hit can convince a jury of that bullshit but I don’t care about that. I asked if you’re sure you got all you could get from her,” Sam returned.
“And what I’m sayin’ is, yeah. She’s up the creek without a paddle. I reckon she thinks that’s her paddle,” Ozzie stated.
“Then you haven’t got all she could give you,” Sam declared.
“How you figure that?” Dad asked and Sam looked at him.
“Because she’s covering her ass. She was bein’ smart and doin’ the right thing, she’d come completely clean, cop to what she did, confess and use her tell-all as ammunition for a plea bargain. She’s hidin’ something,” Sam replied.
“You can’t know that, you haven’t even met her,” Ozzie told him.
“Have you found the broker?” Sam asked Ozzie.
Ozzie inclined and twisted his neck but didn’t answer. In other words, no.
“My guess, she or the piece of shit met with the broker, face-to-face,” Sam speculated.
“Yeah,” Ozzie confirmed. “She said Coot did but that guy’s in the wind too.”
“Bullshit,” Sam clipped. “His percentage is probably ten, at most twenty. He’s local. He does not evaporate after brokering a deal, he doesn’t make the kind of cake that lets him relocate like that especially seein’ as he’d need to activate or create a network of scum everywhere he relocates. He needs business. He’ll be reachable. We’ll reach him.”
“Vanessa told us he told Coot that he also doesn’t have contact with his men,” Ozzie informed Sam.
“Then either that bitch lied or the broker lied to her. If he doesn’t, he knows someone who does. He can hardly get them assignments without some form of contact,” Sam returned.
“We thought of that but we got a warrant for her computer and she gave us details and he’s unreachable. No one’s even heard of him,” Ozzie returned.
“Then she met with him personally and that’ll hurt her case so she’s hidin’ somethin’ from you. She’ll give it to me. And the way I’ll get it means either during or after your Department will get a call from her. If she tells you I’m there, your boys take their time showin’ up. If she calls after I’m gone, you cover my ass,” Sam demanded.
“You have got to know askin’ me to do that is not only unlawful, it’s insane.” Ozzie was getting heated.
“I get that you got a responsibility to all your citizens, including that bitch. I feel for you, that’s gotta tear you up. But straight up, I don’t give a shit about that either. You’ll cover my ass.” Sam was still cool as a cucumber.
“You need to stand down and let my boys handle this,” Ozzie snapped, at his end.
“And I’m tellin’ you, I’m not gonna do that,” Sam retorted.
“Then you’ll find trouble in this town,” Ozzie returned.
Sam was silent.
I waited.
Dad waited.
Ozzie waited.
Sam finally gave it to Ozzie.
“Seven years, you knew,” he said quietly.
Ozzie and Dad sucked in breath.
I held mine.
Sam wasn’t done.
“You, of all people, had a responsibility to her.”
“I –” Ozzie started but Sam cut him off, no longer cool, totally pissed.
“Don’t,” he bit off. “Do not. Do not stand in front of her and make excuses. Do not do it. Her friends, her parents, they were caught in his web, she was fragile, they had to be careful not to break her in trying to deal with that shit or tip him into making it worse. You have no excuse.”
“She never called it in, never made a report,” Ozzie said softly then his eyes came to me. “Darlin’, I’m sorry but –”
Sam cut him off. “That’s an excuse.”
Ozzie’s gaze sliced to Sam and he clipped, “You clearly do not understand the sometimes extremely frustrating limits of law enforcement.”
“Yeah, I do. But not for men who hunt with an abused woman’s father who’ve known that woman since she was a little girl. Men like that make shit happen so that shit stops,” Sam fired back.
It was time, I felt, for me to intervene and I did this by lifting both hands and wrapping my fingers around the arm Sam had around my chest, twisting my neck, tipping my head back to look at him and whispering, “Sam, honey, that’s not fair.”
Sam looked down at me. “Did you tell me you were contaminated?”
Another audible breath from my Dad.
I stared in Sam’s eyes, silent.
“Did you tell me that, baby?” Sam asked.
“I… yes,” I whispered.
“You’re terrified of me when I get angry. Not an adrenalin rush, you get the shakes. I see ‘em, it’s so fuckin’ bad.”
“Sam,” I was still whispering.
“First, a woman like you with a family and friends like yours, beauty like yours and a personality like yours should never feel like she’s contaminated. I do not know how that feels for you, baby, but I do know what your face looked like when you said it to me and I held you in my arms when you cried after you confessed that shit so I can guess and that is not right, that is not fair. And you jumpin’ straight to that kind of fear because you were trained to do so at the hands of your dead husband is also not fair.” Sam looked to Ozzie. “I know you’re a good man. I can see you warred with this for a long time. I can also see you carry a burden for the decision you made. So what you need to do now is stop makin’ decisions that cover your ass and start makin’ them to take care of Kia.”
“You don’t understand what you’re askin’ me to do,” Ozzie said quietly.
“I do and I’ll do my best to make sure nothin’ I do blows back on you. That said, shit happens and I’m focused on makin’ Kia safe so, if it does, you need to suck it up and think quick to cover my ass and yours.”
Ozzie stared at Sam and Sam held his stare.
Then Ozzie looked very briefly at me but he avoided Dad’s eyes before he looked back at Sam.
“You hurt Vanessa, I won’t cover for you.”
“I’d like to rip the bitch’s head off but that’s not how I work,” Sam replied.
Ozzie tipped up his chin then continued, “Whatever you get you also give to us.”
“Done,” Sam agreed.
“You track either the broker or his man down, you give them to us.”
Sam shook his head. “No fuckin’ way.”
“Then no deal,” Ozzie fired back.
“We get what we need from them; you can have ‘em. But not until we know shit is locked down and Kia is safe,” Sam returned.
Ozzie clenched his teeth. Then he nodded.
Then he added, “Heartmeadow is not the OK Corral. Your badasses do not have carte blanche to make it so. They see a threat, they call it in.”
“They see a threat, they neutralize it then they call it in,” Sam countered.
“Jesus, Cooper!” Ozzie exploded, “How exactly do you think I can cover for your crew if a man who is not licensed to carry concealed in the State of Indiana or you, who’s in possession of two firearms for which you don’t have permits, drills holes into a suspected assailant before he becomes an assailant?”
“That is not my problem, it’s yours,” Sam stated. “And it’s the whole reason for this head’s up and why Essie is not in here right now learnin’ about what’s goin’ down with her daughter because she also has the right to know. What she doesn’t need is to be accessory to anything that might turn bad.”
Oh man.
That didn’t sound good.
“Would I be an accessory?” I asked.
“No,” Sam answered, tilting his head to look down at me.
“Dad?” I pushed.
“Don’t worry about it,” Sam replied, this time giving me the wrong answer.
“But –” I started.
“Don’t worry about it, Kia,” Dad stated and I looked at him.
“I –”
“I want to know,” Dad said firmly and looked at Ozzie. “I want to know everything from now on.” Dad looked at Sam. “Everything.”
Sam nodded immediately.
Ozzie looked to his feet.
“Oz?” Dad prompted.
Ozzie looked at Dad. “You know I was only trying –”
“No,” Dad shook his head. “We’ll deal with that later, after Kia’s safe. Right now, no more hiding anything. This is my daughter. I want to know.”
Ozzie held Dad’s eyes a moment before he nodded his head.
Dad looked at Sam. Then he looked at me.
Then he commenced in breaking my heart.
Tears forming in his eyes, he whispered an agonized, “I didn’t look out for you.”
I pushed against Sam’s arms when I saw his tears, heard the tortured tone of his voice but Sam’s arms locked tight.
Dad wasn’t done and I suspected this was because Sam felt this was my due and Dad’s responsibility to say it.
But I didn’t want him to.
“Dad,” I whispered, still pushing against Sam’s arms.
“We all let you down,” Dad told me. “Me especially.”
“Dad, don’t,” I begged quietly.
“You said things have come up for you, they’ve come up for me and your mother too. And bottom line, we let you down.”
“Stop,” I pleaded.
“I can’t,” he said brokenly.
“I didn’t ask for your help. I kept my secrets. I –”
Dad interrupted me. “You ask for Sam’s?”
My head jerked. “Wh… what?”
“You told me you made it hard on him and there he stands. And there he stood when he laid it out for Ozzie how it was gonna go down. Did you ask for that?” Dad asked.
“I…” I shook my head, “No.”
“He’s lookin’ out for you. I shoulda looked out for you.”
“Dad –”
“I gotta say it, Kiakee. I let you down. Your mother let you down.” He held my eyes and the tears trembled in his as he whispered, “You thought you were contaminated. My beautiful girl thought she was contaminated.” He stared at me and his voice broke when he finished, “I let you down.”
I tore out of Sam’s arms and ran across the room into my father’s.
He shoved his face in my neck and I felt his body jerk in my arms as he swallowed a sob which made one tear from my throat so I shoved my face in his neck and let loose.
I held him, he held me and then suddenly Dad’s head snapped up and he ordered in a thick voice, “No. You stay.”
I pulled my face out of his neck to look over my shoulder to see Ozzie moving through the doors to the dining room, shutting them behind him but Sam moving to the couch and sitting on its arm.
I looked at Dad and lifted my hands to both his cheeks.
Then I whispered, “Please don’t let him get his claws into you. I couldn’t bear that, Dad. It happened, it’s over, we deal with what we have to deal with now, we bury it where it belongs because he’s dead and we move on. I love you. I always did, I always will. We all made mistakes, including me. You didn’t let me down. I didn’t reach out so you could hold me up.”
“Hon, I understand you see it that way but I’m your father and I knew. You didn’t say it. We didn’t see it. But deep down inside I knew and I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t –”
“Really,” I interrupted him, “we don’t have to do this.”
His hands came up, fingers wrapping around my wrists and he pulled them down between us and shook them while he said, “Yes, Kia, we do.”
I closed my mouth.
Dad held my eyes.
“Your mother and me, we talked about it all the time. We couldn’t figure out if you loved him and put up with it because you did. Or if he’d broken you and you were showin’ a brave face. Missy talked to us, told us you were not ready to go there and we just needed to keep an eye on you and be there when you were ready. She said if we pushed, we might drive you closer to him and deeper into that mess. But it went against everything I was not to step in. I talked to Cooter least half a dozen –”
At his words I felt my body jerk.
“What?” I whispered, my eyes wide, shocked.
“I talked to Cooter.”
“You did?”
“Half a dozen times. First to feel him out. Then I laid it out.”
I took a step back and stared at him.
Then I asked, “Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“You laid it out for Cooter?”
Dad nodded, studying me.
“What’d you say?”
“I said you were not my girl anymore, I didn’t know what was goin’ on but if what I suspected was goin’ on was actually goin’ on, if it didn’t stop, I’d stop it.”
I shook my head. “But… when did you do this?”
“Year ago,” Dad answered then finished, “Too late.”
“What did he say?”
“Gave me a bunch a’ shit about how he loves you, everything is good, you can get moody and you been tryin’ to get pregnant and it wasn’t happening so you were out of sorts.”
I blinked.
Then I asked, “What?”
“Honey, though I hope everything is all right in that department, God works in mysterious ways and maybe –”
“I wasn’t trying to get pregnant!” I said kind of loud.
“You weren’t?” Dad asked, looking perplexed again.
“Uh… no,” I threw out a hand. “I mean, seriously, the man beat me.” I powered through Dad’s flinch. “What kind of idiot would I be to have a kid with a guy like that?”
“Kiakee –” Dad started.
“He lied to you, point blank,” I informed Dad.
“Kia –”
I whirled then informed Sam of something he couldn’t miss seeing as I was being loud but also he was only three feet away, “Cooter lied bald-faced to my father.”
“Baby, seriously, you look pissed and surprised but this is that piece of shit you’re talkin’ about, how can you be surprised?” Sam asked.
“I don’t know but I am.” I threw up my hands. “I mean, he didn’t just lie. He lied about me trying to get pregnant! I mean, how messed up is that?”
My voice was rising.
Sam just rose, physically, and came to me.
With both hands on my neck, he bent his face to mine and whispered, “Calm down. He’s a dick. You know this. Baby, he put a hit on you. This is the least of his sins. Let it go.”
I glared into Sam’s eyes.
He was right.
I sucked in breath.
Then I let it go.
But I was still pissed so I turned to Dad, Sam’s hands dropped and I laid it out for my father.
“Right, you know everything now. And it’s bad. And I can’t say I’m not scared. And I also can’t say that I have my head straight about all that’s gone on. What I can say is, I don’t need the additional guilt of thinking you and Mom are beating yourself up about this. I understand how you feel and I’m sorry you feel that way, Dad. But the bottom line of it is, I picked him, I married him, I stayed with him and I put up with his shit without asking for help. I brought this on you, you didn’t marry him. So please, I need you to work through it and get past it because it’s done, that part at least. We all need to move toward letting it go. Can you do that for me?”
I watched my Dad’s face get soft and in an equally soft voice he promised, “Yeah, Kia, honey, I can do that for you. I can talk to your Mom too. What I can’t say is that it’ll happen tomorrow but I can say I promise we’ll try.”
I nodded.
Dad wasn’t done.
“But what we’ll need from you is to know where you’re at.” His eyes strayed to Sam before coming back to me and he whispered, “First time in a long time, standing right in front of me, I see even a hint of my Kiakee. I’m glad to have her back but I know there’s work you gotta do. What your mother and I need is for you to let us in and help you do it.”
“You’re already in,” I replied firmly and immediately.
Dad studied me for a long moment but his eyes darted to Sam and back to me before he whispered, “Thank you.”
I sucked in another breath as tears threatened again.
Dad’s eyes went to Sam and he stated, “You hold me responsible.”
My entire body grew solid because, after what Sam laid out for Ozzie, I had no idea what he’d say to Dad. The only thing I knew was he’d say it straight.
I wasn’t wrong.
“I don’t,” Sam replied and I relaxed.
“For Kia, you don’t have to –” Dad began.
“I’m not,” Sam cut him off. “I have not been in your exact position but I have been in a position to know that same shit is happening, to feel powerless, to try to run through every option available and think there are none. I said what I said to Oswald not only because he had the power to step in but he was objective and not intimately involved. The consequences you might have faced coming between a husband and wife, that wife bein’ your daughter who was too scared to be open with you so you could have no clue where she was comin’ from, were not the same for him. He compounded that by makin’ an understandable but incorrect decision on how to handle things after Clementine died. I do not hold you responsible, Ford. But it wouldn’t matter if I did because Kia doesn’t.”
I’m falling in love with you, my mind said as I stared at Sampson Cooper, listening to him speaking to my Dad as he had to me for the last week, removing the emotion, lifting the weight, taking action, giving peace of mind and doing it in a time still burdened with the unknown.
With effort, I tore my eyes away from him as this thought seared into my brain, down my spine, radiating out throughout my body and I looked to Dad who was watching Sam, his eyes working, his face suffused with a mixture of feelings he couldn’t hide, concern, gratitude and relief.
Then Dad nodded and looked to the floor, muttering, “Best get on out. Essie’ll wanna be makin’ the parfaits.”
“Sam and I’ll be out in a second, Dad,” I said to him as he turned toward the doors and I felt Sam’s gaze come to me as Dad looked at me.
Then Dad nodded and smiled, opened the door to the dining room and stopped, turning back halfway through and looking at me.
“I love you, my Kiakee, God shined his light on me the day he gave you to me and no matter what has come since I’ve never felt different, not one day, not for twenty-eight years.”
I pressed my lips together and only when I knew I could reply without it coming out on a sob, did I whisper, “I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”
“Kia –” Dad whispered back.
“Even then, Dad,” I interrupted him to say. “I just forgot for seven years.”
Dad closed his eyes, opened them, gave me a small smile, his eyes moved to Sam and his smile died, “None of my business, son, and you never have to tell me but I’ll tell you, whatever it was that made you feel powerless, I’m sorry you felt it. You gotta know what that means seein’ as you know I understand it better’n anyone.”
“Appreciate that, Ford,” Sam murmured, Dad nodded at Sam then he let it go and went out the door, closing it behind him.
I watched through the windows until he was gone then I saw through the windows to the outside that Mom was getting up and heading across the deck to the backdoor.
She was done waiting to find out what was going on.
Poor Dad.
“Kia,” Sam called and I looked at him.
“Thank you,” I whispered, his eyes shifted to warm, he started to move to me but I took a step back, lifting my hand.
His brows snapped together, he stopped, his eyes went to my hand then back to my face.
“Please, let me say this,” I said softly, he held my gaze, jerked up his chin and I continued. “Thank you for assuring my Dad I didn’t blame him. Thank you for understanding, not blaming him and sharing why with him. Thank you for taking care of me from practically the moment you met me and thank you for going all out to protect me. I haven’t felt safe in a long time, Sam, a very long time. I didn’t notice it missing but I noticed the instant I got it back and that was when I woke up in your arms in Luci’s villa.”
At that, his entire face warmed, his eyes got intense and he started toward me but I shook my head and took another step back.
He stopped and his head tipped to the side.
“I need to know you understand how much I mean all that I just said,” I told him.
“I understand, baby,” he replied gently.
I nodded.
Then I pulled breath into my nose, sucking in courage, definitely unsure and more than a little scared and went on, “I’m glad, honey, but now I have to be honest with you and tell you I wanted to go to my Dad during that. Several times. I know you felt it but you wouldn’t let me. That was hard on him and it was hard on me and a lot of what was hard on me was having to stand separate from him and watch him go through it without me close.”
Sam held my eyes for a moment before he replied quietly, “I get that.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
“But you were doin’ that for you, baby. I didn’t hold you back for you, I held you back for him.”
I felt my eyebrows draw together and I asked, “What?”
“I don’t know your Dad at all. But I know what I’d do, I found out that Oswald kept that from me. Your Dad had to be free to have whatever reaction he wanted to have and not worry about you.”
Okay, I could get that.
However…
“Okay, Sam, but when he was blaming himself, he needed me then.”
“No, honey, you needed him then. He needed to say it, he told you flat out. I didn’t hold you back for the reasons you’re thinkin’. I did it because he had to be free to let that shit go and you weren’t gonna let him.”
This was true.
“Right,” I whispered.
“There it is,” Sam whispered back and there was an unreadable expression on his face, I couldn’t get a lock on it, I just knew it was good.
“There what is?”
“You’re gettin’ to the place I want us to be.”
This time, my head tipped to the side. “What?”
He closed the distance, his hands went to my neck, thumbs to my jaw tipping my head back and his face came to within an inch of mine.
“Fearless,” he murmured.
“Sam, I’m not following.”
“You disagreed with me, you faced your fears, you told me what was on your mind. We disagreed, we talked, we listened. You said you feel safe with me but, Kia, honey, you don’t believe in it. Just now, you took another step toward believing and I gotta tell you, baby, it feels unbelievably fuckin’ good every time you do it when you place a little more trust in me.”
Oh my God.
That was so beautiful. So sweet.
So Sam.
My body swayed into his as my hands that were resting on his waist slid around to wrap around his back and I whispered, “Sam,” but said nothing else because I couldn’t find the words to say.
His hands left my neck and his arms folded around me as he promised quietly, “I’ll earn it all, baby.”
I pressed my lips together, nodded then dipped my chin and did a face plant in his chest.
Sam kissed the top of my head.
And just as I suspected I would never get used to him being so hot, I suspected I would never get used to him being so sweet.
And I really hoped I didn’t.
“We better join the others. Even though I got a week’s allowance of fat sittin’ in my gut, I don’t think it’d be good to dis your Mom on the parfaits at this juncture,” Sam noted, I pulled my face out of his chest and tilted it back to look at him, grinning.
“You would be correct,” I confirmed then asked with curiosity, “You count fat?”
Sam burst out laughing.
I watched and waited patiently for him to finish.
He finally did then answered, telling me something I already knew, “Baby, this body does not come naturally.” Letting me go with one arm but sliding the other one up to my shoulders, he moved to my side before he propelled us to the doors. “But I don’t count fat. You don’t have to count fat to know you’re consuming too much when you eat half a dozen onion rings and go through three napkins doin’ it in order to sop up all the grease.”
He was not wrong about that.
“Told you Mom was a comfort cook,” I muttered as he pushed one of the doors to the dining room open, I pushed the other one and we walked through.
“You did not lie,” I muttered back.
We walked through the dining room and the kitchen but at the backdoor I pulled him to a halt then curled into him and caught his eyes.
“Were you okay with before?” I asked quietly.
“Which before, baby?” he asked back and I laughed softly.
“Well, not the emotional scene with my Dad or the tense scene with Ozzie, the before where half of Heartmeadow came to check you out.”
“Am I slidin’ in bed beside you tonight?” Sam asked and I blinked.
“Uh… I think so.”
Where else would he sleep?
His face dipped closer, “If the answer to that is yes, then yes, I’m okay with half of Heartmeadow coming to check me out.”
There it was again. So damned sweet.
I slid my hand up his chest to curl my fingers around his neck and warned, “You’re also sliding into bed with Memphis and, head’s up, she seems really small but in a bed she expands to five times her size.”
Sam smiled at me. “I think I’ll cope.”
“Good.”
“Your bed is queen-size, Kia, my bed is king. Eventually, Memphis will have plenty of room.”
Sam, me and Memphis in a huge bed where everyone had plenty of room.
That sounded like heaven.
I smiled back.
Mom threw open the door and ordered, “Scooch! It’s parfait time.” Then she hustled Sam and I out of her way, continuing to issue orders, “Kia, sweetie, get the ice cream and nuke it. Thirty seconds, then check. You might need another fifteen. And grab ten bowls, Ozzie is still here.”
“Right, Mom.” I started to move away but Sam caught my hand and I looked back to see his brows raised.
“Nuke it?” he asked quietly.
“Mom doesn’t like hard ice cream so she nukes it soft.”
Sam stared at me.
Then he shook his head.
Then he bent it to touch his mouth to mine.
His mouth barely landed before I heard Teri shout, “Hot!”
He lifted his head and I was relieved to see his eyes smiling.
Then he let me go and walked outside.
I walked to the freezer to get the ice cream.