More Than Lies (47 page)

She doesn’t have to ask twice. I kick my boots off and I’m behind her over the covers within seconds of her asking me to stay.

“Go to sleep, baby.” I pull her into my arms and wrap myself around her. At this point I’ll take any bone she throws. This is a pretty big one in my book.

I close my own eyes and I’m out within seconds myself.

I wake to the sound of yelling. It’s loud and coming from within the house. When I open my eyes I realize where I am and the events of last night come back like a flash of lighting, quick and unexpected.

I’m warm. My body feels liked it’s wrapped in a cocoon, I’m so hot and I know why, too. I’d know the feeling of that body from another any day. Shawn’s still here in my bed with me.

I ache all over and I need more sleep, but the voice starts again. It’s my mother’s voice and she is the one yelling. Mother. But she isn’t my mother, now is she? Wow. If I hadn’t have seen the photograph of the other woman, my real mother, I don’t know that I would have believed my dad’s story. It’s the next day, okay really it’s probably only a few hours after he told me, but I have no clue how to process all that yet.

Shawn’s arms tighten around my middle.

“Do they argue like that often?” He doesn’t sound like himself. His voice is scratchy.

His words filter back in, too. All of them, especially the ones he said before I fell asleep. He loves me. The sucky thing is, I believe him. It’s sucky because I’m still upset and now I’m mad. His lies ripped me to shreds. How do I forget them? How do I forgive him? I don’t know.

“No. I’ve never heard them yell like that.” It’s Katherine that’s doing the yelling. I haven’t heard my dad, but from what she’s saying, he’s the one taking the brunt of her wrath. “She’s not my mother.”

Saying it, out loud, feels freeing. I don’t know why. Shouldn’t I feel a loss? Then again, you have to have something to lose it. I never had her, not really. I just didn’t know that until however many hours ago it was that my dad told me.

“What do mean?” He turns me so my back is flat on the mattress. He still looks almost as bad as he did when I walked into my bedroom in Oxford.

“Apparently, I’m the product of an affair my dad had. Only my real mom couldn’t deal with not having him completely so she killed herself and I’ve been made to believe the evil bitch downstairs was my mother this whole time. Makes sense why she hates me so much, huh.”

“Holy shit, are you serious?”

“Oh, yeah. That was sprung on me last night on top of everything else that happened.”

“Why would he choose then to tell you that? Shit, Tara, I’m so sorry.” His head falls against the top of my forehead.

“I don’t see there being a good time to tell me something like that, Shawn. Waiting…prolonging it would only serve to make me even madder at him than I already am.”

“I didn’t tell him everything last night so he probably didn’t know how bad last night was for you.”

“I can’t deal with that right now, Shawn. I need to get down there and see what’s going on.” I toss the covers off my legs and push away from Shawn. There’s something in the back of my head that doesn’t like it when I do that. Deep down, I want to stay in his arms and never leave them. That’s not the real world though and doing so would not fix any of my problems.

I’m still dressed in my pajamas that I put on when I got to Pam and Bills. This’ll have to do; I don’t have any clothes here.

Shawn follows me down the stairs. The voices are coming from the kitchen so I head in that direction.

“You need to back off, Katherine.” My father’s tone is full of venom. “I’ve had a bad night. I thought I lost her.”

“I wish you would have. Then you’d know what it feels like.”

“You don’t think I don’t know what it feels like? Trent was my son, too. I lost him the same as you did. I loved our son, too. And last night I thought I lost the only other person in this God awful world that means a damn to me so you need to walk away and leave me alone.”

“It should have been Taralynn, not Trent. Not my son. He didn’t deserve to die, but that useless garbage taking up other people’s air shouldn’t exist. You should have never brought her into this family.”

Wow. That stings.

I stop at the entrance to the kitchen. Shawn grabs me before I realize what’s happening. He pushes forward, entering the kitchen. That’s when I see the look in my dad’s eyes.

Hatred. It’s directed at his wife. The moment he goes for her is the moment shock takes hold of me. He intends to hurt her. Shawn reaches him before he’s able to lay a hand on her thank God.

“Jacob, no.” Shawn shoves his shoulder into his chest and locks his arms around him as he pushes forward, forcing my dad’s body backwards. “She isn’t worth it, man.”

She turns, her face screwed up as she eyes me from head to toe.

“You ruined my family. You ruined my life. I hope you’re happy.”

“Do not talk to my daughter like that. Shawn, release me.” He tries to shove him away, but Shawn’s hold tightens. “I’m not going to touch her.”

With those words, Shawn lets go. My dad straightens his suit. The same one I’m pretty sure he was wearing early this morning before I went to my bedroom.

“I want a divorce.”

She turns so quick her hair whips around hitting herself in her face. Then I see her expression harden into the evil she usually holds for only me.

“You think it’ll be that easy to walk away from me, darling husband? I don’t think so. You want out of this marriage, it’s going to cost you every dime you have.”

Then she walks away.

“Daddy, are you okay?” He doesn’t look okay.

“I’ve been better, sweetheart, come here.” I hesitate for a second. I’m not over what he’s done to me. By keeping the knowledge of my real mother hidden from me, he’s caused more pain and confusion than I know what to do with. He’s lied to me all of my life. He’s made me a lie. It makes me feel like I’ve been nothing more than a lie all these years.

“I can’t.” I shake my head. I can’t walk into his arms as if this never happened. I can’t say that I’m not mad. I don’t know what I’m feeling. I have too many of them that I can’t decipher between them.

His eyes close. It pains him that I won’t walk toward him. When he opens his eyes, he nods his understanding then directs his attention toward Shawn. “Take her home, please.”

“I’d like to, but I don’t exactly have transportation.”

“Taralynn’s car is parked outside.” I feel him dig into his pocket, and then hear the sound of keys jingling. “Your patents brought it a few hours ago.” My dad looks back at me. “You still look tired, sweetheart. Go home and get some rest.”

Without saying another word, I turn and follow Shawn outside to my car. When get inside, I buckle and recline the seat. I don’t want to talk. I want sleep. I’ll deal with him later. Much later.

Not being able to help himself, Shawn slips his hand into mine, entwining our fingers. I look down at them for a second. I can’t deny that his touch feels good. It feels right, but he shut me out so I’ll shut him out too. I pull my hand out of his and close my eyes without looking at him. I want to shut out the rest of the world too.

The sound of a car door slamming wakes me. When I open my eyes, I see my car is parked in the driveway at Shawn’s house and I’m alone or so I thought. The passenger side door opens, when I turn, Shawn is leaning down and reaching for me. I allow him to pull me out of the car, but once I’m on solid ground, I push him back.

Looking at him, he looks just as exhausted as I feel, but that’s his problem. If he wants to sleep, he has a bed in the house just like I do. I probably need a shower, but there is no way I can stand long enough to take one. I’ll do good getting up the stairs to my bed.

“Tara, please let me—”

“Stop. I got it, Shawn.” I walk past him, but I hear the dramatic sound of him blowing air out of his mouth in frustration.

We both walk inside; I kick off the flip-flops I took from Pam and Bill’s last night and leave them on the floor. The house is quiet, but then it’s still really early in the morning. Before I make it to the steps in front of me, I look into the living room and see bodies on the couch so I detour and head that way.

Matt is asleep, reclined in the recliner with a blanket over him. Mason and Samantha are wrapped up in one another on the couch. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I’d raise an eyebrow at this. I suspected they were doing the nasty, but cuddling I would not have figured.

“Taralynn.” My eyes slide back toward Matt. He throws the blanket off, jumps out of the chair, and within seconds is crushing me to this chest. “Fucking hell. I’ve called your phone all night. Shit.”

“Matt.”

“Oh my God. You’re here. You’re actually here.” I look over to see Samantha unwrapping herself from Mason. My eyes move past her eyes to his. I see relief right before he stands and pulls me away from Matt.

He hugs me for a least a minute without speaking. I can feel his heart beating rapidly inside his chest, but eventually it slows to normal and he pulls back from me. Cupping my face, he says, “Do you have any idea how good is it to see this beautiful face?” Mason pulls my forehead to his lips where he places a long soft kiss on me.

He steps away looking at me, then his facial expression change seconds before his right fist connects with Shawn’s jaw. No one, not even Shawn saw it coming. He goes down, hard to the ground, but lands on his butt and has to throw his hand out to catch himself.

They look at each other. We all look at each other for a moment.

Shawn’s eyes flare right before he jumps to his feet. I slip between them, placing my palms on the center of their chests.

I look at Shawn first.

“Don’t.”

Then rotate my face to look at Mason.

“Feel better?”

“No. He deserves worse.” Mason’s eyes are locked with Shawn’s, only Mason looks like he wants to murder his best friend. Given what I told him and my friends last night, I have no idea what they know or don’t know. I get the feeling they still think Shawn cheated on me like I told them.

“Chill for a minute, Mase. Everyone just freakin’ chill out.” I drop my arms but continue standing between them. “I’ve had a long night and frankly I’m not up for recounting what happened or what lies where spewed out of people’s mouths.” I train my eyes on Shawn. “I going to get in bed now. I’ll leave you to fill them in on the truth, okay?” He nods, but I add making myself clear. “Without anyone else getting hit.”

He huffs, but again nods his head.

Beast is lying on the end of the couch. I step backward and go around Mason to grab the overly large cat. He’s fluffy and warm. I need fluffy and warm. With him in my hands, I head up to my bedroom.

When I’m behind closed doors, I dump the cat on my bed and then sit my purse on my dresser that’s when I take in the wreckage from last night. This wasn’t a good idea. Retrieving my cell phone, I scoop the cat back up and leave the mess behind.

No way can I sleep in that room with shit and glass and everything looking as though my things threw up.

I walk into Shawn’s clean room. Why couldn’t he destroy his stuff?

No, his things are neat and clean all because I cleaned his room yesterday morning.

I sit Beast down on his bed then sit down on the mattress. With my cell phone in my hand, I turn it back on. Once the screen loads, tons of dings and chimes sing out telling me I have text messages and voice messages. I ignore them and locate Jared’s number. He doesn’t answer when I call. I’m not sure if that’s because he doesn’t want to speak to me or because he can’t.

Next, I call Cole. I need to know Jared is okay.

He answers on the third ring.

“Speak to me. I need to hear your voice.”

“Hey.” Beast crawls onto my lap so I start to stroke his soft fur.

“I need more than a hey, doll. Shit, I thought you were…”

“Apparently you and everyone else.”

“Yeah, because I told them it was you. I feel like shit for that.”

“It’s okay. I know you wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t believe it, Cole. Don’t beat yourself up over it.” I can hear it in his voice. He’s torn up over it. “How’s Jared?”

“Alive.” He pauses for a moment. “He’s still unconscious, but that’s because the doctors are keeping him that way until they finish running tests.”