Tethered (65 page)

I immersed myself into the festivities, dancing, eating too much cake, laughing and chatting while actively avoiding Emmet. I allowed myself to enjoy myself for Emmy’s sake, and maybe for my own, too.

*~*~*

Sleep did not come for me that night. I lay in bed beside Jerry, staring up at the dark ceiling as the minutes and hours ticked by. I was unable to shake the images of the night from my mind. Harsh words that played like a broken record. The night had been going so well, and then Emmet and I were over that line again…

I had danced with Luke and we had a candid conversation.

“I just want you to always be conscious of your actions, Luke,” I had told him. “It’s very easy to find yourself standing on the wrong side of the line without ever meaning to cross it.”

I had made a mad dash off of the dance floor soon after that. I needed to get out of the building, away from Emmet and his wife, and Jerry. I had followed a stone path to the back of the building, away from the other smokers, away from the wedding celebration. I should have known that Emmet would follow me. It didn’t take long for him to come up behind me. I didn’t have to turn around to know it was him.

One of his strong arms encircled my waist. He plucked the cigarette I had just lit from my lips and tossed it away. He wrapped his other arm around me and I shamelessly let my head fall back on his shoulder. He pressed his cheek against me and there we stood, just like that, for several minutes as the sun sunk below the horizon and full darkness fell.

Emmet kissed the side of my head and his arms tightened around me. His mouth moved close to my neck and I knew he wanted to kiss me there. I wanted him to kiss me there and I hated myself for it. I turned in his arms to face him.

“Emmet.” His name passed through my lips in a breathy whisper. My palms were flat against his chest as if to keep some distance between us, but he had already pulled me close again. My hands on his chest only prevented my breasts from pressing against his chest.

One arm released me and then my eyes closed when his fingers lightly touched my cheek. He traced a slow swirling pattern to my lips where he paused for a moment before I felt his fingers move across my bottom lip. I opened my eyes and looked into his green eyes. My right hand slid into his coat, across his hard chest and stopped above his heart. His fingers moved languidly down my neck, under my coat and across my collarbone. He traced a line over the naked swell of my right breast and across my chest until he reached my heart. He flattened his hand over my heart.

“Do you still feel me?” he whispered.

“Always,” I whispered back.

“You are a part of me,” Emmet said.

“You’re a part of me, too.”

His hand moved to my neck and he slowly angled his lips to line up with mine. I felt his breath on my mouth, but I didn’t pull away. My lips parted slightly to give him the access we both wanted needed, and had been deprived of for too long.

“Emmet!” Fred’s voice was like a whip, snapping into us and forcing us to release each other and take quick steps back away from each other.

I stumbled in my hastiness and Emmet reached out to steady me as Fred approached like a deadly storm about to put lightning bolts in our asses.

“Dad, I -” Emmet started, but Fred held up a hand to silence him.

“There are not enough excuses in the world to explain away what you were about to do out here,” Fred growled. He got into Emmet’s face and said “Your
wife
and
son
are inside looking for you and you are out here with someone
else’s
wife!”

“Dad, I wasn’t -” Emmet stammered.

“You weren’t what?” Fred demanded. “You weren’t about to push your tongue against her tonsils?”

Fred Grayne is a man of impressive size. He was a Marine in his younger years, before Emmy and Emmet were born. Though he was in his early seventies, he had not gone soft. He still had a thick, muscular body and strong hands that could crack a skull. His temper didn’t flare often, but when it did, it scared even his grown sons. Emmet’s body tensed at Fred’s close proximity and his hands were balled into fists at his sides as if he was prepared to fight even though Fred has never given him reason to feel like he had to defend himself. But I couldn’t blame him I had never seen Fred this angry before.

“Your mother and I tried to warn both of you,” Fred said, glaring at us. “We warned you that Donya’s career and your schooling would push you apart and you both were so damn headstrong and think you knew it all.”

“That was a long time ago,” I objected softly and then winced when he glared daggers at me.

“And your inability to use your head then is having a calamitous affect now,” he growled. “You two had plenty of opportunities to fix your relationship. Emmet, when you graduated from law school, it was your bonehead decision to move
hundreds of miles away.
You could have sat for the New York and Connecticut bars. I know Donya was still traveling and busy, but her main residence was in New York. You could have made it work then, but you moved to
Florida
.”

Emmet looked away from his father with his brow furrowed.

“I maybe pushed him away,” I said in a small voice.

“Real men fight for what they want!” he snapped at me. “And you…”

“Leave her alone,” Emmet demanded.

Fred ignored him and said “As soon as you knew you were going to retire from modeling, you should have gone to him. Instead you married someone you didn’t want.”

“I loved Jerry,” I said defensively.

“That may be, but he wasn’t the one you wanted. I walked you down the aisle, Donya,” Fred said harshly. “I felt your hand shaking on my arm. I heard your anxious breaths and saw your tight, fake supermodel smile meant to appease anyone looking at you.”

Emmet looked at me now with questions on his tongue, but he remained quiet.

“I had just found out Casey was pregnant,” I said helplessly. I was startled to feel tears on my cheeks. I wiped them away and said “I would have canceled the whole thing. I begged him to ask me not to marry Jerry, but he couldn’t because he had just found out he knocked Casey up.”

“He shouldn’t have had to ask you not to marry Jerry!” Fred shouted.

“I begged you not to marry him,” Emmet said angrily. “I was on my knees
begging
you not to marry him!”

I shrunk back from the angry, yelling men and choked on a sob. Having both of them bitterly angry with me was too much.

“But she did,” Fred said, looking at his son. “And you married Casey, and that should have been the end of it. You both made your decisions, as poor as they may be, and now you have to deal with it. If you’re not happy in your marriage, fix it, or get out, but
this…
” he pointed at the ground between us as he looked back and forth at us. “This is unacceptable behavior. You are
married
with
children
. Casey is a good woman and does not deserve this from you,” he said to Emmet. He looked at me and said “I don’t know what is going on between you and Jerry, but don’t
cheapen
yourself this way.”

Emmet’s chest rose and fell rapidly as he stared at the ground again. There were too many emotions churning inside of him for me to get a fix. Suddenly he turned his back on us and took several quick steps forward. He halted for a moment and his hands flexed at his sides. He started to look back over his shoulder, but snapped his head forward and stormed down the sidewalk. The tether contorted and quivered and groaned in protest. I put both hands on my chest in an attempt to keep my heart from bursting from my ribcage and splattering red on the white snow.

Fred put his hands firmly on my shoulders.

“When you were still practically a little girl, you asked me how you would know if you were doing the right thing,” he said earnestly. “What did I say to you?”

“That I’d know when I was doing it,” I said as tears continued to pour from my eyes.

“Does this feel like the right thing, Kiddo?” he asked in a harsh whisper.

I shook my head and then a loud, keening sob broke free. Fred held me tightly and rubbed my back.

“Kiddo, I’m not telling you to ignore what your heart wants, but this isn’t the way to do it. You are my sensible child and I expect you to be sensible. Do you understand?”

I nodded my compliance.

Fred stepped back and pulled a handkerchief out of the inside of his tux jacket. He wiped away my tears, and like I was a little kid again, he even wiped my nose.

“Let’s get you back inside so you can get my beautiful granddaughter to bed,” he said with a heavy sigh. He offered me his arm and I took it, much like I did when he walked me down the aisle.

By the time we made it back inside, Emmet and his family were gone.

Jerry stirred next to me, bringing my mind back to the hotel room hours later, and the man beside me. I rolled on my side to look at his dark profile. There was a time when I couldn’t get enough of looking at his handsome face and long eyelashes and touching his strong body. I couldn’t remember the last time I paid it any mind. His reaction to Rosa was unacceptable, but maybe I didn’t help matters any. Jerry relished his time with me before I got pregnant. He soaked up every minute, even if he knew I was in the stands watching him play. Maybe if I gave him more of myself, he would soften again and maybe whatever it was that emotionally blocked him from his daughter would start to fall away.

When I stripped away my clothing and straddled my husband that night, I knew my reasons were selfish. I wanted to feel better. I wanted to push away the pain in my chest, but I thought it could be a start, too. Maybe things could change and I could be happy with Jerry again.

I shut off my brain and allowed my body to succumb to a physical pleasure that only proved to further scar me emotionally.

Chapter Fifty-Five

I had just fallen asleep when Rosa’s cries came through on the baby monitor. I waited to see if Jerry would go to her this time, but he rolled over, nudged me in the side, and told me Rosa was crying.

Sighing, I rolled out of bed, and stumbled to the nursery. My baby stood in her crib, nose running, cheeks flushed, and tears dampening her cheeks. She had been sick for days – we both had, and even though we had gone to the doctor’s when she first got sick, there seemed to be no improvement. She had been asleep for a couple of hours, but then I couldn’t fall asleep because I had been coughing. I was pretty sure I had bronchitis but I hadn’t had time to take myself to my doctor.

“Hey, pretty baby,” I said to her as I reached for her. When my hands made contact with her body, I felt the heat of her skin through her pajamas. I quickly picked her up and put my hand to her forehead. She was burning up.

I rushed over to her dresser and grabbed the thermometer. I took her temperature and my heart dropped. 103.3 was entirely too hot for anyone, but especially someone Rosa’s size. I raced into my bedroom.

“Jerry,” I called his name as I looked around for a pair of shoes or slippers to put on. “Jerry!”

He rolled over, grumbling, and pushed up on his elbows.

“I need you to get up and take us to the ER,” I said hurriedly as I struggled to push my feet into a pair of sneakers. “Get up!” I cried before racing out of the room with a crying Rosa.

I took her back into the nursery and gently laid her down on the changing table so I could change her diaper. Dusky sat at my feet, looking up at Rosa and whining with worried eyes for a moment before wandering back out of the room.

“And get a couple of her juice cups from the fridge please!” I called out to Jerry through the open door. “And maybe grab a few snacks incase she’s feeling better enough to eat later.”

I quickly stripped her out of the diaper only to realize I had no wipes. They were across the room on top of her dresser. Jerry appeared in the doorway then. I didn’t pay much attention to his facial expression, but I probably should have.

“Give me those wipes, will you?” I asked, with my hand extended but my face turned back to Rosa.

I heard him pick up the box of wipes and a second later I felt something hard slam into my side. I looked up just in time to see the sippy cup soaring through the air. I gasped and turned my body to block Rosa and the cup slammed into my back. I looked over my shoulder in absolute shock as the second cup flew through the air and slammed into my upper arm. Jerry wasn’t a pitcher for the team, but he had a very strong throwing arm. I knew whatever he threw at me would leave a bruise. And he wasn’t finished…

He snatched up the small pink lamp off of the dresser and threw that to the floor, but the heavy book of fairytales, he threw at me. The dog stood outside of the room barking at Jerry as I watched with wide, disbelieving eyes as he began to wordlessly trash the nursery. Pictures were pulled from the walls and thrown to the floor. The baby monitor was hurled into my back. Toys and stuffed animals were thrown at me and to the floor. When he began to stomp toward us with nostrils flaring and fists closed tight at his sides, I scooped Rosa up and tried to move away. He shoved me out of his way, sending me crashing into the crib and I nearly lost my footing as I struggled not to drop my screaming baby. I had just enough time to turn away from him as baby powder, diapers, lotions, and other baby items were thrown at me. Powder floated through the air after he threw a larger bottle against the wall in front of me and it busted open. Dusky was still barking, but he was not an aggressive dog. He didn’t enter the room to avenge me and Rosa.

“I am fucking tired,” Jerry said evenly behind me. I heard him trudge through the mess and walk out of the room past our whining first addition to our family. A couple of seconds later our bedroom door slammed shut.

I was stunned, absolutely bewildered, and hysteria was building inside of me, but I had to ignore it. I couldn’t think about what just happened because Rosa needed a doctor. Breaking down was not an option. Not an option.

With trembling limbs, I put Rosa back on the changing table and quickly put her in a diaper. I zipped up her pajamas and put her in the crib, the only safe place in the room, so I could quickly pack her a bag. I stuffed it with clothes, diapers, wipes, and her now empty cups. I was vaguely aware that my shirt was damp from the juice, but I didn’t care. I threw the bag on my shoulder, grabbed Rosa and carefully navigated out of the room. I hurriedly put her in her coat even though I worried that it would make her hotter. I didn’t bother to grab anything for myself to put on, there was no time. I picked up my purse and then raced out of the door to get my baby to the hospital.