Beginning of Forever (Heaven Hill #7) (24 page)

Charity bit her bottom lip. “Dalton and I come from the same side of the tracks, and while I don’t discount what you and Drew went through before your mom was with Liam, let’s just say I know Dalton hasn’t had an easy time of it. For a while his mom worked with mine.”

That was a bombshell and a half. “He always talks like she’s gone.”

Meredith also knew some things about this family and struggled to know just what she should tell the young girl. “For all intents and purposes, she is gone. His dad too. Neither one of them were fit to raise kids.”

“How do you know?” Mandy asked. It wasn’t odd that Meredith had the inside scoop, but she definitely wanted to know how she did.

“It was a story when I worked at the TV station.”

That didn’t mean good things. “Like they were arrested or something?”

“They lost custody of Dalton and Deacon. Their uncle got custody of them after a few months, but you should know as well as I do that money has always been tight for their uncle. He’s taken care of them the best way he knows how, and I think no matter how badly they’ve struggled, they still have a better life with him than they would have with their parents.”

That was saying something, Mandy realized as she thought back to the trailer. Dalton and Deacon had lived in that place with their uncle when they had nowhere to go. While it had obviously provided them with shelter, she had to wonder how badly off they had been to use it as a home base. “I wish he’d let me in and let me know how he feels.”

“One day he will,” Charity told her from where she sat. “I know he will, because he’s a lot like Drew. I wondered if Drew would ever talk to me about something important. Now he tells me
everything
.” She rolled her eyes slightly. “Some stuff, I don’t even want to hear, but he treats me like an equal. At some point, you and Dalton will get there.”

Meredith agreed. “For kids who have been hurt by their parents or not even had parents,” she thought back to her own husband and how hard he had been to read at first, “they have walls built up for defense mechanisms. The longer you stay and the longer you prove you’re trustworthy, the more he’ll trust you. Believe it or not, Tyler was not an open book when we first started dating.”

“Yeah.” Charity giggled. “But Tyler’s
fine,
and that’s enough to forgive a lot.”

“Charity.” Mandy smacked her friend on the arm as she too giggled.

“That’s okay, I’m very well aware of the fact that women look at him, and some men too. I’d be stupid not to, but I know exactly where he comes home every night.”

They lapsed into a comfortable silence, and Meredith leaned forward, grabbing a bowl of popcorn off of the coffee table. She wanted to keep the two talking because she was interested in their lives, and neither one of them offered any feelings to her anymore. “So what are your plans after graduation?”

“I’ve got a full scholarship to Duke,” Charity told them. The smile on her face didn’t quite reach her eyes, and the excitement wasn’t all there.

“That’s an amazing accomplishment. Why are you not more excited about it?”

She ran a hand through her hair and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’m leaving my friends, my mom, and Drew. It’s mostly Drew. I’m going to be gone for years. Who’s to say he won’t find someone else?”

“Who’s to say you won’t?” Mandy countered.

“No, I know that if Drew will have me, we’ll find each other later in life. He’s been so understanding about this whole process, and it kills me.”

“He loves you,” Meredith mumbled around a mouth full of popcorn. “He’s young, but he knows how he feels. There’s nothing that says love like letting someone go so they can make their dreams come true. He’ll be here when you get back.”

“I don’t know, I worry about it. I’ve even thought that maybe I should give up the scholarship,” she admitted softly.

“Don’t you dare.” Mandy’s eyes were fierce as she looked at her friend. “You’ve worked your ass off, don’t give this up. We’ll
all
be here waiting for you when you come back.”

Uncomfortable with all the attention on her, Charity deflected. “So what are your plans after graduation?”

“Either the four-year or the vo-tech college. I have offers at both. I’d kinda like to get into the business side of things so I can help Roni out at the shop,” she explained. “I figure that’s kind of transferable anywhere. I could do anything from secretarial work to bookkeeping and managing. All good skills to have. I’m undecided on whether I want the bachelor’s or not.”

Meredith opened her mouth to respond when they heard a loud crash on the front porch. They all jump, startled. It was Charity who smiled first and then got up to go answer the door. “I swear, the guys think it’s funny to scare us. What asses—” Her voice cut off as she swung the door open and came face to face with a woman who had a crazy look in her eyes.

From her position on the couch, Meredith sighed. She’d known something like this would happen, and she’d known that it’d happen on a night like tonight. “Hello, Stephanie.”

‡
Chapter Twenty-Nine

M
andy got up from her seat and went to stand in front of Meredith. She wasn’t carrying a child, and she realized that at certain times in her life, she had been meek, but one thing she did know how to do was take care of herself. She realized that between the three adults in the house, she probably had the most experience, even though Meredith was older and Charity was the daughter of a stripper.

Looking back at the two of them, Charity wondered what she should do. Stephanie took advantage of the mistake, and pushed herself through the door, locking it before she took stock of the scene in front of her.

“Doesn’t this look cozy?” she asked, pulling a gun out of her handbag.

Meredith gasped as she saw the gun. A million thoughts ran through her head, and she wished with everything she had that Tyler would come home. Maybe he would realize that something was wrong, maybe he would feel it. It wouldn’t be the first time he had known. She wondered if Travis was in his cave; she hoped he was seeing all of this go down, prayed that he wasn’t taking a bathroom break. “Please don’t hurt them. They’re only trying to help,” she pleaded with Stephanie.

“The way you hurt me by taking away my niece? Did you even know she’s my niece? Were you even smart enough to figure it out? She’s the only thing I have to remember my sister by. It seems only fair that I make you live the way I’ve been living.”

Meredith wondered where and how the other woman had been living. She didn’t look good at all, and that didn’t sit well in the pit of her stomach. Worry was eating at her, as she wondered just how in the hell they were going to get out of the predicament they’d found themselves placed in. She placed her hand over her eight-month pregnant stomach and prayed silently that this would all be okay. She’d almost made it to the finish line.

At the worst possible moment, Addie ambled out of the room and stepped in between the two groups. “Momma.” She reached up to Meredith, wanting to be picked up, even though she knew her momma was off limits right now.

Mandy wanted to get the little girl out of harm’s way and quickly reached in, intercepting the toddler. “C’mon, you may need a diaper change.” She made a big show of sniffing and quickly walking her to her room. Stephanie didn’t need to know that they were all trying to potty train Addie. They didn’t need the distraction of the child in the room. She hated to leave Meredith and Charity there in potential danger, but she had to get hold of help.

Outside the door, she could hear Charity trying to talk the crazy lady down, and she could see her friend placing herself in between Meredith and the gun. That made her nervous, but she knew that if it had been her out there, she would have done the same thing. Her hands shook as she placed a call to Drew—when he answered, she didn’t hesitate.

“I need you to listen and don’t ask questions. There’s a woman with a gun at Meredith and Tyler’s. I’ve got Addie in one room; Meredith and Charity are in the other. We need help and we need it now. She’s shaky, and I don’t know for how long the two of us can hold her off Mer.”

She hung up just as quickly as she had made the call and hoped like hell that Drew had understood everything she’d said and that help would be on the way.

*

Dalton glimpsed the look on his friend’s face, and immediately he was worried. Drew didn’t get bent out of shape about much, and the look he wore right now said that things were not right. “What happened?”

“Someone’s at Meredith and Tyler’s, and they’re holding the girls at gun point. We gotta call Tyler, and we gotta get out there. They need us, and we might be able to help them,” Drew told him quickly. His heart beat a million miles a second as he thought about his sister and girlfriend in danger. They were supposed to be there in case Meredith went into early-term labor, not in case someone came to hold them at gunpoint. It was a sleepover for fuck’s sake.

Dalton was confused about how they could help them. Up against a gun, they were nothing special. Sure they’d kicked ass on the football field, but against a bullet, all they could do was take it. “I don’t know what you think we’re gonna do against a gun.”

Drew wasn’t waiting to answer the question; he was already on the phone, talking to his dad. He ran through the house, grabbing a key as he did, before he hung up the phone and made his way to a locker in the garage. “What I’m about to show you, you have to promise you’ll never tell to anyone.”

“Haven’t we made it further than that in our friendship?” Dalton asked, offended that Drew thought he would run his mouth. They’d been through much more than even brothers sometimes went through, and for him to question it at this juncture in the game flat-out pissed Dalton off.

“We have, but this is club stuff. This is stuff my mom doesn’t want me to know about, but Dad knows that he won’t always be around to protect us. He showed me this; so that I could use it if I ever needed to, and tonight, I think I’m gonna have to.” It felt like such a grown-up decision, to decide that this was the time to use the things he’d been taught, but he knew that there was no better time than the present. Lives counted on this.

Dalton watched with wide eyes as Drew popped the lock on the locker and then opened it, revealing a cache of guns that would make any redneck jealous. “Holy shit.”

“Yeah.” He smiled grimly at his friend. “Get what you want, but make sure it can be concealed. Then we’re headin’ out to Tyler’s. Dad and the boys are gonna try to meet us, but if we get there first, we need to figure out what we’re up against. I have a feelin’ this chick didn’t plan to do this on her own.”

He and Dalton armed themselves to the teeth, even putting on bulletproof vests, just in case. Whatever they would find, they would find, and he hoped like hell that they could make it in time.

*