For the Love of Gracie (37 page)

I sighed. "You know that isn’t true." 

He sneered, "Do I?  She made it pretty clear to me that she doesn’t feel anything for me.  She said she is attracted to me and we had fun, but it wasn’t going anywhere." 

"She lied, doofus. She's trying to protect you so that you move on." 

He sighed. "I know.  I can't make her stay though and give up everything she's worked for and I can't make her tell me that she's falling for me, too." 

I patted his shoulder. "Come downstairs and hang out with everyone." 

When we made it downstairs, Ash and Cameron were playing an intense game of pool.  The moment my feet reached the bottom step, the doorbell rang. I figured it was Mary Jane coming back.  "You go enjoy yourself, Derrick. I'm going to see who that is." 

On my way to the door, I had no idea of the next revelation I would discover.  The door opened and my mouth fell agape.  "What the hell are you doing here?" 

The man standing at the door was the one I had seen that day with Hudson. "Gracie, I'd like to come in and talk for a moment. I have some explaining to do." 

I lifted my cell phone and dialed Ash. "I need you up here now." 

Within less than a minute, Ash was beside me. "Can I help you?" he asked the man in front of me. 

"My name is Jackson Simms.  I'm one of the officers that worked Gracie's case against Hudson James." 

Ashton extended his hand. "Ashton Collins, Gracie's fiancé. Come in please."  He motioned the man to the couch. 

"Ashton, this would be the officer I saw at the coffee shop that day with Hudson." 

Ashton was shocked at this admission and he turned to the officer angrily. "I hope you're here to explain yourself." 

Jackson replied, "Yes, I am.  I came here to apologize to Gracie as well.  Hudson is my brother, half-brother. We have the same father different mothers." 

My body tensed and I began to shake.  Ashton quickly took my hand to comfort me. "I can speak to him for now if you'd rather go downstairs." 

I shook my head. "I'm fine. I want to hear what he has to say."

"Hudson and I didn’t grow up together. I'm about ten years older than he is…well, was.  Our father was…"

I interjected with, "An abusive arrogant ass? That's how Hudson put it at least." 

He nodded. "That's a perfect description.  I always felt it was my job to look out for Hudson and protect him.  He got into trouble in school and I always covered for him.  When your case was presented to me, no one knew Hudson was my brother so they didn’t know there was a conflict. I used my mother's last name and he used our father's."

"Can you get to the point of why you're here? Gracie has been through enough because of your brother and I don’t want her going through anymore pain," Ashton said, wrapping his arm around me.

"I don’t want that either.  When I read the report, I confronted Hudson. He swore to me that you and your friend had broken in to harass him. Normally, when he did something before, he always admitted it to me and begged for understanding and forgiveness. You must understand, I had no reason to doubt him." 

"I helped to cover up some of the details and I made sure to hire him the best lawyer who was able to get him released, based on the fact that he had no record.  Then, the call came about the attack at your house and I grew suspicious of his story. It was too late to change my mind on what I had done before, though."

"I confronted Hudson.  He broke down and told me that he made a mistake.  He told me that he was in love with you and heartbroken when you broke it off with him." 

Ashton tensed. "Look, she doesn’t need to be blamed for what he did to her!" 

Jackson waved his hand. "No, you're right. I don't blame her, I'm telling you what he said and that's it." 

Ashton relaxed. "Alright, continue." 

Jackson went on to say, "When I got the call that he was killed, I went to search his home. I found files on his computer where he had taped you.  There were hundreds of pictures of you at your work place, school, clubs, your home."

My chest tightened and I sat forward. "I didn’t know he even knew where I worked!  What…how…why?"  Ashton tried to soothe me but I pushed him away and stood up. 

Jackson continued, "It's classic stalker behavior."  His focus turned to Ash. "He even had pictures of you."

"I know now that my brother was a sick man and he needed help.  I wish I had seen that sooner so that I could've saved him.  Gracie, I wanted to come here personally and apologize to you for my part in your pain." 

I felt sick.  "Where are the pictures, all the evidence?" 

Jackson replied, "I turned it over to the police, along with my resignation and confession.  I will be charged with tampering with police evidence as well." 

"Were there any pictures, any videos of…" I couldn’t finish the thought of the compromising positions he may have captured. 

Jackson understood my concern. "No, there was nothing sexual, that I saw.  I'm sorry to drop all of this on you. I felt you deserved to know everything.  The police will contact you about it.  I felt as though I needed to tell you myself." 

Ash interrupted, "To clear your guilty conscience?"

Jackson dropped his head in shame.  "I know it seems selfish. I'm trying to be unselfish by apologizing in person instead of Gracie hearing about it second hand."

I stepped forward and extended my hand to him.  He shook it as I said, "Thank you.  I appreciate you telling me the truth.  I don’t mean to be rude, but I would really like you to leave my house now."

Ashton stood up and escorted him to the door.  Before leaving, he turned and said, "I'm so sorry for what he did to you Gracie. There is no excuse for it and he deserves the ending he received." 

I looked up abruptly, shocked at his words regarding his own brother.  "No one deserves an ending like that.  I didn't love Hudson and I hated him for what he did to me, but I never wished that on him.  I only wanted him to leave me alone and I wanted justice for what he did to me." 

Jackson nodded in comprehension as he stepped over the threshold and walked out the door.  Ashton closed the door and stood there waiting to see what I needed.  I collapsed to the floor in tears.  He slid beside me and wrapped his arms tightly around my body.  He pulled my head into his chest, comforting me silently as I sobbed.  It seemed that every time it felt like I could move on, something else made the world crash down around me.  Knowing that Hudson had been watching my every move, taping moments of solitude, it felt like being raped all over again.

"If you two are engaging in happy naked fun time again, I'm going to have to bust in there and end this madness once and for all! For freaks sake you have friends in the house!" Cameron yelled into the bedroom. 

He didn't notice us on the living room floor until Gavin said, "Ash…what happened?"

Cameron ran over and bent next to me. "What's wrong baby girl?"

I shook my head in defiance. "Ash, please can you tell them?" Ashton went downstairs to fill everyone in at once.  It was more than I could handle and I went to lie down. 

I was drifting to sleep, when a familiar cologne filled my nose and I felt the bed sink with his weight.  He pulled me close and kissed my head.  I grinned. "How'd you know I needed you right now more than anyone else?"

His head leaned against mine. "Because practically
from birth, it's been you and me, baby girl, against the world." 

I turned to face Cameron.  He kept his arms around me. I sighed deeply. "When do I get to be happy, Cam? When do Ash and I get to move on and enjoy our lives?" 

Cameron kissed my head. "Soon. Your time is right around the corner." 

He lifted my chin to look at him. "You can't let every obstacle that gets in your way, stop you from going after what you want.  You're about to marry the man of your dreams.  Hudson is gone. I can't imagine anything else will come out regarding that.  I know it hurts, but his brother offered you closure today. You now know everything that was going on and you know that Hudson was a sick man."

"Tell me you and Gavin are planning on living in Nashville. Please, I beg you." I placed my palms together, the way we were taught to pray in church. 

Cameron scoffed, "You can't get rid of me, you know that."  The thought of losing all my friends at once scared me.  Angel and Mary Jane were the two closest girlfriends I had ever had and soon they would be hundreds of miles away. 

The bedroom door opened, Ash walked in.  He sat on the edge of the bed next to me and reached for my hand.  Cameron glanced up. "You wanna join us in bed Ash? You can cuddle with me if you'd like."  He batted his eyes at Ashton playfully.  I giggled as Ash shook his head. 

He brushed my hair aside. "I may need to move you in with us Cam so you can keep the smile on her face." 

I sat up instantly, worried that I had made him feel inadequate.  "You make me smile too."

Cameron sat up. "I'm going to go round up the gang to head home and give you two some alone time." 

I stood up and hugged Cameron. "Call me later?" 

He kissed my cheek. "You know I will. I'll need to hear all the dirty details of the dirty deeds you're about to take care of." 

I smacked his butt as he walked out of the room.  He howled and stuck his hips out toward me. "Do it again, baby!"  I shoved him through the doorway, laughing as I followed behind him to say goodnight to my friends. 

Chapter Thirty-two

The next two weeks went by incredibly fast.  Mary Jane, Angel, and I tried to spend as much time together as we could by running errands to get them ready for their move. Packing the house got in the way of that, a lot. 

Ashton was helping me pack my room. I had gone down the hall to Angel's room so that we could switch back the clothes we had borrowed of each other.  When I returned a few minutes later, he was sitting on the bed with his back to me.

“Oh no, you found my senior scrapbook,” I said, as I groaned and took the seat next to him. 

He smiled. “These pictures are awesome. I had no clue you went to private school.”
 

I sighed. “Yep, not just private school, a catholic private school. Don’t ask if I still have the uniform.”
 

He snickered. “What? Why would I ask that?”
 

Rolling my eyes, I responded. “Every time a guy finds out I went to Catholic school, his next question is always ‘Do you still have the uniform?’.”
 

He flipped through the album remaining quiet.
 I watched his face as he fought with the urge to ask.

Finally, he grinned and looked up “So…do you?”
  I tackled him to the bed.  He guffawed with laughter, as I rolled around on the bed with him. 

After we settled down, he flipped through the book some more.
  “Oh what is up with Cameron’s hair in this one?” It was striped with purple and pink.

“He was going through a phase, trying something new. It lasted maybe a week before he grew bored with it. I snapped the picture as a reminder in case he got the idea again. A definite don’t.”

There was a knock on the door, Mary Jane entered.  "Ash can you help Cameron and Gavin with loading the van for Angel and me?"

Ash handed me the scrapbook and jumped up. "Absolutely."  He left and Angel came in behind Mary Jane. 

"We got you something," Mary Jane said as she sat next to me on the bed.  She handed me a small velvet bag that was tightened with rope to hold it closed.  "We wanted you to have something that you could carry with you to remind you of us."  I opened the pouch and dropped out two charms. 

Mary Jane lifted one from my hand. "High heels seemed appropriate for both of us.  These look like the ones you borrowed from Angel the night you met Ash."  She lifted the other charm which was a pea pod with three peas inside.  "This charm is to represent how we are three peas in a pod." 

Together they held up their wrists to show  matching bracelets with the same two charms. My emotions got the better of me and I began to cry.  Three sets of arms entwined in a huddle hug as we all cried together. 

Cameron pushed open the door and exclaimed, "What the hell is all this crying about?"  When we showed him the bracelets he stepped back, placed one hand on his hip and stuck the other out palm up.  "Where's mine?" 

Mary Jane reached into her pocket and pulled out a velvet bag that matched mine. "We didn’t forget about you."  Cameron pulled out his charms that were attached to a key ring.  He had two charms as well, one was a princess crown and the other was a tree symbol.

Mary Jane took the keychain from him and said, "The princess crown is obvious. The tree is the
Celtic symbol for guardian or protector.  You're our protector and we'll never forget that." 

He stepped back and fell to the bed covering his mouth.  He cursed, "I am so pissed at you bitches."  His face screwed up as he began to cry. 

The three of us embraced him. "We love you Cam." 

He sniffed and whimpered out in a high-pitched voice, "I can't believe you made me do the ugly cry today. I freaking hate goodbyes and you know that crying totally makes my face puffy and gross looking."  We tried to laugh through the tears, the tears won.