Forever Promised (23 page)

“Yeah?”

“What’s wrong with Uncle Collin?”

“He’s refusing to grow up,” Deacon said, although it was hard when that infectious laughter was still ringing through the soccer field.

“Can I do that?”

Deacon looked at her wistfully. “You can try, Angel, but if you don’t grow up, you’ll never get to ride Crick’s horse, remember?”

Because that was the deal. She could ride the biggest horse in the stable when she was eight, if she kept her grades up and didn’t get in trouble at school. Of course Parry loved school, so that wasn’t a problem, but Deacon just wanted some time to get used to the idea of seeing his angel on that monstrosity.

She sighed. “Okay. But unless something else good comes along, I’m stopping at eight!”

“Deal,” he told her soberly. Because of course other good things would come along. Second grade, third grade, field trips to the zoo, family trips to the ocean, best friends, slumber parties, favorite movies, and boys—it was all looming on the horizon for her, and Deacon would get to be a part of it.

But Drew would get to be a bigger part of it, and for the first time since Drew and Benny started talking about moving out—and making plans for a distant future—that thought didn’t hurt nearly as bad.

D
EACON
’
S
plan was to drop Parry off at the cottage, which was something he was getting more and more used to, and he enjoyed looking around the little yard surrounding the little house. He’d laid in sod after he’d had the house built, and put a little picket fence around it, thinking even then Andrew and Benny might live in it some day and he wanted it to be perfect. Parry’s toys were out in the lawn now—sun-bleached Barbies, a little blue wading pool with a tiny slide, and a bottle of bubbles near the front stoop—and he liked the way the place looked like the home of a young couple getting established in the world.

He did not, however, care for the rusted-out car parked in the driveway. The make and model had changed from time to time in the past few years, but Deacon knew the owners of that car.

He’d loathed them since Crick was nine years old.

“Angel,” Deacon said quietly, “I don’t want to leave you here in the truck, but if I ask you to sit in the shade on the other side, can you stay there until Crick or Drew gets here?”

Parry nodded soberly. Deacon wasn’t sure if she remembered the time her grandfather had shown up at The Pulpit after a tent revival and tried to kidnap her, but she had—wisely, it seemed—sure picked up on everybody’s reservations about Crick and Benny’s family.

Deacon pulled out his phone and started to dial Crick, and then he saw the cloud of dust as Crick and Flower Princess rode to the rescue.

“Awesome,” Deacon muttered.

Parry looked where he was looking and squealed, “
Flower!
”

“Yup. Here. Wait in the shade of the pickup. I’ll be right back.”

Deacon waved to Crick, pointed at Parry, and waited for Crick’s nod. As soon as he gave it, Deacon vaulted the little white fence and charged into that damned house.

He slowed down as he entered, wanting to hear what he was walking into. He closed the door gently and looked around the neat little kitchen. There was a mudroom around back, because the one in The Pulpit was right off the kitchen, and Deacon sort of hated that and he wanted it different for Benny and Drew.

The carpeting was dark blue, and Deacon winced when he saw the mud tracking across the white tile and Benny’s new carpeting. Damn her family—damn them all. He peered into the living room, where the people inside were too enmeshed in their own drama to notice him, for which he was grateful.

Step-Bob hadn’t aged well. Five years before, Deacon had beaten him into the hospital—he’d never gotten his nose straightened or his teeth replaced. His face was red and rough from alcoholism and his eyes were decidedly yellow. Deacon had heard he’d been taken from the drunk tank to the hospital a couple of times for throwing up blood, and right now he looked like breathing was a chore. His sweaty, rank, irritated presence felt like an abomination in the little room with furniture Benny had picked out special because green was Drew’s favorite color. There was a crushed beer can on a lace doily Benny had spent a month on, because it had apparently been a challenge. Deacon wanted to strangle the guy for that alone, not to mention what he’d done to his children, but not here. Not in Benny and Drew’s home. Not here.

“Are you telling me you haven’t even
seen
your sister since she went to that place? How do know they’re not molesting her or mind-wiping her or—”

“She’s been there for weeks, Melanie,” Andrew said. He sounded faintly out of breath, and Deacon figured Drew had probably seen Melanie’s car pull down The Pulpit driveway, called for Crick, and then cut across the horse fields to be here so Benny didn’t have to be alone with her family. “If you cared so much about the girl’s whereabouts, why didn’t you track her down after she’d run away?”

“Girl was out whorin’” came a gruff, blurry, masculine reply, and Deacon narrowed his eyes. Great. Step-Bob was
very
drunk. “Just like her sisters.”

“I haven’t seen her, because they asked me not to see her, because the more contact she has with this family, the worse of a human being she becomes,” Benny said sharply. “If you want to contact her, write her a letter, like Crick and I’ve been doing. But don’t mess with her life. She’s having a hard enough time as it is.”

It was true—the reports they’d heard from Shane and Mikhail weren’t encouraging. The pinch-faced, bitter girl who had passed Deacon on the road three weeks ago was not automatically going to become Miss Congeniality—Deacon knew that. But his disappointment that Crick and Benny’s sister should turn out to be such a singularly unpleasant human being was bilious and bitter.

“Well, those people are making her do all sorts of things she shouldn’t be, making her work with homos and druggies and ni—”

“Don’t say it,” Benny growled, and Deacon stepped into the front room from the kitchen in time to see Drew with his dark-skinned hand on her arm, trying to pull her back.

“Benny, they’re just trying to piss you off,” he said gently, and Benny bared her teeth and growled like a rabid terrier.

“They succeeded,” she snarled. “Now get out of my house. You want your youngest back at home, learn how to be her fucking parent!”

“You mind your mouth, girl!” Bob snapped, and without pause backhanded his daughter in her own home.

Benny’s head snapped back and Drew caught her, and Deacon tried not to become an animal.

The last time Step-Bob had laid a hand on a member of Deacon’s family, he’d beaten the man into the hospital. He couldn’t do that in Benny’s living room.

He had Bob’s arm twisted behind his back before he even finished the thought. “Drew, is she okay?” he asked, and Drew looked up, his eyes blazing. Benny was nodding and pretending her face wasn’t swelling, and Bob was hollering up a storm.

Deacon twisted his arm harder and ground out, “Shut. Up.” And that stopped damned quick. Melanie opened her mouth to protest, but Deacon glared at her. She stopped, and he took a deep breath. “Crick’s got Angel outside. How about you call the cops, and I’ll escort Bob here to the front porch.”

“You’ll kill him!” Melanie squealed. “You’ll kill him, Deacon Winters, I know you will—”

“Shut up, Mama,” Benny snapped, and Melanie looked surprised when she found herself obeying her daughter’s command.

“I’m not killing anyone,” Deacon growled. “But we
are
calling the cops, and we
are
filing a restraining order. You two aren’t getting anywhere near this family again, and if you do, I want the law on our side.”

They were big words, and Deacon had every intention of keeping them. He frog-marched Bob out to the back porch, Melanie yipping at his heels, and he stood up on the top stoop for a minute. Behind him, he heard Drew simultaneously talking on the phone while getting ice for Benny’s cheek, and he remembered again why he wasn’t letting his temper get the better of him and beating Step-Bob senseless.

The heat on the front porch was considerable. The full import of the 102-degree day was just waiting there to smack Bob in the face with the setting sun, and Deacon squinted past it to see Crick and Parry riding away, which was a blessing.

He’d no more than thought that when Step-Bob gave a groan, staggered down the two steps to the front lawn, threw up, and passed out, convulsing at Deacon’s feet.

Melanie ran down the porch and to his side, screaming his name, and Deacon shook his head, the anger draining out of him completely.

He popped back in the front door and said quietly, but with a voice that carried, “Drew?”

Drew looked up from the phone, and Deacon pulled him over with a nod. “You still on the phone with 911?”

“Yeah?”

“Tell ’em to send an ambulance. Bob just collapsed—he’s seizing on the front lawn.”

Drew’s eyes widened and then narrowed. “He couldn’t have done this at home, on his umpteenth beer?” he asked savagely, and Deacon shrugged and shook his head. From outside, there was a harsh burst of sobbing from Melanie, and a part of Deacon actually felt a little bad for the two of them.

He would have felt better about that sympathy if they hadn’t, characteristically, tried to spread some more of the goddamned pain.

“Apparently we don’t get a say,” Deacon said neutrally, and Drew crossed his eyes. Deacon suppressed a laugh and looked beyond Drew to the living room.

“Let her sit until the cops get here,” he said quietly. “Crick’s got Parry for the night. She didn’t see a damned thing.”

Andrew nodded. “Best news I’ve heard all day.”

Deacon thought wistfully about the story of the little boys and their soccer shorts, and how he’d been planning to tell Benny and Drew that when he came in. Another day, of course, but damn. It was a real shame to have this one ruined.

B
OB
ended up going to the hospital, but Deacon filed the restraining order anyway. The policeman who took his statement was Shane’s old partner, Calvin Armbruster, and Deacon was grateful. Calvin liked Deacon’s family—in fact, as far as Deacon knew, he and Shane still got together once a month for a beer and some gossip. More than once, Calvin had turned a runaway or a kid heading for juvie toward Shane’s center, which was a trick Deacon was pretty sure he’d learned from Shane himself.

When Calvin left—after seeing Benny’s bruised cheek and confirming Deacon’s version of events—Deacon brought her some iced tea while Drew started dinner.

“You all right, Shorty?” he asked, and she rewarded him with a wry smile.

“Yeah, Deacon, I’m fine.” She’d had worse was what she meant, but neither of them brought that up.

He reached across the table and grabbed her hand, and she squeezed. He heard a suspicious sound and looked up to see her dragging the back of her hand across her cheek. “I was so excited,” she mumbled, like she needed an excuse to be sad. “I was going to tell you that I took the little test tonight, and we can go in tomorrow for the insemination instead of Monday.”

Deacon hauled in a surprised breath. “Oh man,” he muttered. “I—”

Benny shrugged. “I know—you’ve got to meet with the Ren Faire people tomorrow, I made your schedule. But you don’t really need to be there, do ya, chief? Your part’s already done.”

She tried to smile winningly at him, but he still shook his head. “Well, I guess the good news is that I know Drew’s boss, so he’s free to come with you.”

Drew grimaced. “Why thank you, Deacon. Tell my boss that’s damned human of him.”

A wave of self-consciousness washed over him. Awesome. He’d just given the guy time off to go watch a doctor get his girlfriend pregnant with his boss’s baby. Well, fuck. There
was
no good way to put that, was there.

He looked at Benny, who was scowling at Drew, and decided that at this very moment, his one job—his
only
job—was to get out of their hair.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said quietly to Benny. “If Melanie ever comes up here again, don’t open the door, just call the cops and then me, okay?”

He stood up and moved toward the door, and suddenly Benny was hugging him and crying, and he just rocked her like he had when she’d been a teenager and life had seemed too hard.

“It’s okay—you don’t have to go tomorrow,” he said softly, and Benny shook her head.

“I want to go tomorrow,” she told him, sniffling. “It’s just… I was so happy. And Drew was happy too, and… and now it’s all twisted and… dammit, why did they have to remind me how fucked up I really am?”

“Stop that,” Deacon said sternly, pulling back to look at her. “This baby you’re so hell-bent on having? That there was some of the raw materials. Now, what they chose to do with those materials, that’s their problem. But the fact is, they gave you good building blocks, Benny. You are pretty and you are smart, and you are kind. You and your brother are creative, and you’re clever and you work hard—all the things I would want from a baby, you have. So you forget them, okay? Fuck. Them. All the doubts I had, all the hang-ups that held me back, and the
one
thing I never, ever doubted was you.”

Benny smiled at him brilliantly through her haze of sudden tears, and he wondered if she’d been taking hormones for the egg extraction, because as emotional as Benny was, she also usually managed to hold it together. “Love you, Deacon.”

“Love you too, Shorty.”

Deacon looked at Drew and felt another stab of guilt. “You can take the whole day off if you want it,” he offered and saw Drew looking at them while he stirred the spaghetti sauce.

“No,” he said quietly, like he’d come to terms with something. “Man, I take one day off, and you will find some way to fuck yourself up. I know it. I’ll be damned if you do it on my watch.”

Deacon shrugged. “That’s the truth,” he said, and then he winked. “Enjoy your night without Parry,” he told them kindly. “I’m pretty sure Crick made something awesome for dessert.” He didn’t add that he knew Crick had, because Crick had been making
them
a special dinner, but that was okay. He and Crick would get lots of quiet nights between this one and the baby. From the looks of things, Benny and Drew needed tonight.