Three Months Later

 

I held my arms tightly over my chest, my mind working over everything that had happened over the last few months: the changes to Aiden’s family, the craziness that had threatened to tear it apart. I thought about Gentry and Remy and the families they were creating with their lovers. I thought about the motorcycle club that had become a force to be reckoned with, and the way in which the Stones took them down.

We were a family now. All of us. Yet, I had family here in Memphis I had yet to speak to, a family who had a right to know the truth about what happened to their daughter, their sister, their aunt.

“It still feels a little selfish,” I said to Aiden as his beautiful hands guided the steering wheel down the curves and turns of the rural highway.

“It might be. A little. But they have a right to know, Carson. And you have a right to know them.”

It was the same argument he’d made to me over and over again the past few weeks, the one argument that broke through the wall fear had made around my decision. That and the realization that this would be what my mom would want if she were here, if she could have heard her brother talk about her at the Fourth of July picnic.

Had that really been more than a quarter of a year ago?

Aiden slowed the car as we approached the gate to Ross-Bailey Farms. I stared at the sign, remembering the first time I’d seen it on the website. It was a little surreal to see it in person for the first time.

They were waiting for us. Aiden had called, talked Reese into inviting us over for tea. I still found myself wondering what their relationship had been back in high school, but Aiden wouldn’t say. I think maybe it was weird to him now that he knew Reese and I were related.

I hesitated when he turned off the car, still not sure I could do this.

“It’s okay, babe. They’ll be happy to know.”

“Will they? What if my mom had real reason for not coming home after my dad died?”

“They still have a right to know about you, to know they have family they didn’t know about.”

I sighed, reaching up to run my fingers through my short hair. I had it cut in a salon a few weeks ago, but it was already beginning to grow out. I thought I wanted it in the same super short pixie I’d always worn, but I was beginning to think I wouldn’t mind something of a compromise, a little longer, just not the crazy long tresses I’d had before.

My natural color was back, too, the last of the dye cut off when I went to the salon. Aiden had seemed surprised by the change it created on me, but he didn’t seem to dislike it. And, finally, I actually recognized myself when I looked in the mirror. It was nice.

I could actually believe him when he called me beautiful now.

Aiden got out of the car and greeted Reese. Then he came to my side of the car and reached in to help me out. I unfolded my body slowly, the pain of my wound finally gone, but the memory of it still there despite everything. I didn’t think it would ever truly go away just like the scar that marked my body for life.

Reese was shocked to see the changes in me and was not sophisticated enough to hide it. I forced a smile, trying to put her at ease.

“It’s just hair,” I said, reaching up to touch it.

“It’s nice.”

But there was something in her tone that made me wonder.

She led the way up to the house, gesturing for Aiden and me to enter first. The front door opened directly into a big sitting room with overstuffed couches and a few arm chairs. There were pictures here, family portraits that probably dated back generations from the look of them. There were some that were a little more modern, pictures of Reese as a small child, as a graduate from high school. Not far from these hung pictures of a woman I knew instantly.

My mom.

Tears filled my eyes as I crossed to them. I’d never seen pictures of my mother as a child, never saw anything from before I was born. I knew I looked like her, but how much I looked like her had never been more obvious than at this moment. We could have been twins, down to the same haircut. Tears spilled down my cheeks as I studied one picture in particular, a photograph of my mom sitting atop a horse, a huge smile on her face.

“That’s always been my favorite.”

I turned, brushing tears from my face. “I’m sorry. I’ve just…I’ve never…”

He came to me, my grandfather. I would have known him anywhere. He had the same nose as my mom, the same low brow, the same intense emotion in his eyes. And a smile that burned through the sadness, the grief.

He pulled me into his arms and held me so tightly it should have been suffocating, but it wasn’t. I held him just as tightly, my tears flowing freely.

I was home. For the first time since my mom died, I was home.

*

They listened to my story, my grandfather and uncle weeping openly as they learned of my mom’s passing. Aiden held my hand as I talked, not interrupting a single time. It was an intensely emotional afternoon and I was almost relieved when it was time to go.

“Don’t be a stranger, Carson,” Reese said as she hugged me.

“I won’t.”

She pulled back a little and sighed. “I’ve always heard my dad talk about Aunt Christina, but none of it really rang true until you got out of that car today.” She smiled. “Thank you for bringing her back to us.”

That choked me up a little. I hugged her again, then climbed into the car, afraid I was about to burst into tears again.

Aiden didn’t push me to talk on the drive home. He held my hand as we walked through the door to our house—the house that was mine but was now remodeled and filled with both our belongings—tugging me toward the stairs that led up to the loft. I just wanted to disappear for a little while and I think he knew that. He pulled me to the bed and kissed me, his touch slow and gentle. He always seemed to know exactly what I needed exactly when I needed it. And this…this would forever be the first thing I needed.

Afterward, we lay against each other, my body fitting perfectly into his. He ran his hands over my side, my hip, his fingertips making little side trips to my nipples or my core from time to time just to remind me that he was still a man and passion was still very much on his mind.

“Do all doctors have a doctor’s bag?”

I laughed because it was such a random question after all this time.

“What?”

“It was just a thing, an old-fashioned sort of gesture one of my professors from med school made on the day I passed my boards. I don’t even know where he got the damn thing.”

“But you kept it.”

“Because it was full of things I thought might come in handy sometime. And it did.”

“True.”

“I really don’t know why I kept it. It was just a source of ridicule from my coworkers. They all thought it was pretty ridiculous, to be honest. I was embarrassed that he’d given it to me in front of them.”

He kissed my shoulder. “Am I hearing a little confession about your relationship with this professor?”

I shrugged. “We had a fling when I was in med school. But it didn’t last long and it was over by the time he gave me the bag.”

“He never got over it.”

I snickered. “I doubt that. Not only was he good looking, he was married.”

“Then you’re a cheater?”

I pulled away, not bothering to answer that question directly. “I’m a different person now, Aiden. I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

“Have I? Sometimes I wish I knew you then.”

“No, you don’t.”

I went downstairs to get a bottle of water, running my hand over the back of our new couch, touching the soft, lacquered top of my new desk. I had my credentials back now and a job offer at the local community hospital. I was due to go back to work in a week and I was excited about it. But nervous, too. I hadn’t practiced medicine in over three years. The idea of just jumping back into it was a little nerve-wracking.

I grabbed the water bottle, but Aiden’s comments made me curious. I pulled the medical bag down from its place in the cupboard above the fridge. Aiden had made a good attempt to clean up the blood we’d smeared on the thick leather the day I was stabbed, but there were still crusty spots here and there. I found myself wondering if I could send it to a cleaner to get that out.

I took the bag to the table and tipped it over, pouring the contents onto the tabletop. I couldn’t even remember half of what was in the damn thing. I shook it and watched everything fall out, bandages and tape and Betadine and a million other things I probably would have no use for. And then, on the very bottom, a small book fell out.

I picked it up, wondering what it was. I had no memory of ever seeing it before. Then I opened it and began to read and…

Hell, Stamosson hadn’t been insane after all…