Brother to Brother: The Sacred Brotherhood Book I (20 page)

She blushed faintly and stared at the ground, “Sorry,” she said.

“S’okay, I guess.” I took another drink of coffee which was perfect. I liked that she knew what I liked. “What do you feel like doing?”

“A walk would be nice,” she said, and I nodded, the corners of my mouth turning down as I considered it.

“Not a bad start,” I agreed. “Go where you want, I’ll follow your lead.”

“Okay,” she said and hands buried in her pockets, turned. I juggled the breakfast offerings a minute and got the door shut and latched while Mel looked on amused.

“Would you like me to hold something?”

“Nah, I got it.”

I fell into step beside her and she strolled gently, giving me time to eat and drink my breakfast.

“Thanks for grabbing this for me.”

“Oh, sure. I figured you’d get hungry without anything. Lunch is a ways off.”

We fell into a silence that was more comfortable than not, and moved along at a sedate pace, towards the water.

“Mel, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.” She side eyed me curiously, as if surprised I’d asked her and hindsight being twenty-twenty, I guess I could have made more of an effort to talk these last few months. It was just hard for me to let anyone in; always had been. Once I did, though, for some reason it was like flipping a switch. Either you were out or you were in. There was no in between phase. I don’t know… maybe some of my circuits were fucked up from getting the shit kicked out of me when I was a kid so much.

“This whole thing with your parents, is that why you freaked the fuck out so hard when Noah hit his head a couple months back?”

She pursed her lips and nodded, “I thought for sure the hospital was going to alert CPS, and that they were going to investigate and find that I’d bolted from Arizona with Noah.”

I shook my head, “Mel, did your parents ever have any kind of
official
custody of our boy? I mean, was there any reason for ‘em to?”

She shook her head, “No, I mean, I was living with them, and they told everyone I was on drugs and was whoring myself out to the club. I was even tested for drugs at one point. Not just my pee, but they tested my hair too. They didn’t find anything. I guess I was lucky. I mean, I smoked weed before I found out I was pregnant… I stopped immediately once I found out I was though.”

I huffed a little bit of a laugh at that, “Seriously? Weed? That was it? I thought sure you bein’ with Grind he had you into some harder shit than that.”

She shook her head, “I tried ecstasy once when Grinder and I first got together; it scared me so bad I swore never again.”

“You and Grind were together, what? Three, four years?”

“About that long, yeah…” she murmured.

“You stayed faithful to him the entire time, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” so quietly I barely heard her; I sighed.

“Always thought you were wasted on my brother. I loved him, don’t get me wrong, but where you were concerned, I always thought he was a seriously dumb fuck. You knew he was fuckin’ around on you, why did you stay?”

“Because he said he loved me…” she smiled a little sadly, “No one had ever said that to me before him.”

Aw, Jesus.
That just about killed me. I swiped a hand over my face and turned down the dock. Melody following alongside. We reached the end and she sat down, letting her feet dangle over the water. I sat behind her, one leg to either side of her and snugged right up against her back. She gripped the edge of the dock tightly and squeaked.

“Don’t push me in, I can’t swim!” she said quickly and I wrapped my arms around her tight, frowning.

“I wouldn’t do that to you, why would you even think that?”

She laughed, a bitter and incredulous sound, “Grind would have, and he would have laughed. No guarantee he would be the one to jump in after me though. He could be an ass like that sometimes.”

I gritted my teeth. Man, I hadn’t come up with Grind so he could be that way. I found myself wondering what else I’d been blind to. If maybe I’d made too many fucking excuses for his ass-tastic behavior…

“You don’t think
I’d
do it though, do you?”

“I… I don’t know Archer. I hardly know anything
about
you. You’ve always been the quiet one, until you weren’t and when you aren’t, you’re always so
angry
all the time. I’ve seen you punch a brother in the face for as little as some
perceived
disrespect…”

“It can’t be tolerated, Baby. Respect isn’t something that can be held on to from a position of weakness.”

“Okay, but does it always have to be held on to through violence? Through fear?” she asked.

“They’re effective tools,” I countered.

“Okay, then what about Dragon?”

I frowned, “What about him?”

“Have you ever seen him raise a hand to one of the brothers?”

I thought about it…
Well shit… she has you there.

“I’ll take your silence as a ‘no,’” she said gently, “Let me ask you this, how would you like to see Noah raised? Do you want him to turn out to be like his biological father?”

“No,” I answered quickly.

“What about his father now?” she asked softly and I wished I could see her face, because her words sort of undid a hurt that’d I’d never speak on.

“I’d like to think I’m not so bad,” I said with a wan smile.

“You’re not, now… once you let someone in even the slightest little bit. Still, getting there, getting to a point where anyone can even
begin
to know you or even learn about you, you don’t make it easy Archer.”

“Insightful,” I murmured, nuzzling behind her ear. I pressed a kiss there and felt her shiver. I smiled, secretly to myself, glad I could elicit something other than a fear response out of her; that she was loosening up around me even just a little.

“Be that as it may, I would really like to break the cycle of hurt with my son. Grinder may have had his moments of being a complete asshole but, I think… no… I
know
there was good in him. I really do believe he would have come back to us or that if he were still alive, he would have let us in and lived up the situation and been a father to his son at the very least. I don’t think he left us in a bid to shirk his responsibility. I think he left out of
fear.
”

“What makes you give him so much credit?” I asked.

“You’re angry, I get it. Do you ever stop to wonder though?”

“Wonder about what?”

I could hear her smile, “You hold yourself to a very high standard, Archer. I can see that now. Your word is your bond and you follow through with everything you say, no matter what.”

“A man is only as good as his word,” I said.

“That’s just it, your ideals are sometimes superhuman. People have faults, and sometimes things happen outside of their control… failure is a part of the human condition but with you? It doesn’t seem to be an option. You can’t hold other people to the impossibly high standards you hold yourself to… it’s simply not fair and it’s the
one
thing that terrifies me when it comes to you raising Noah.” I blinked, surprised at her forthrightness, and here and now of all places. When I didn’t say anything, she continued.

“What happens when he doesn’t live up to those lofty expectations? Are you going to be so disappointed, will it make you so angry, that you’ll write him off? Will you continue the cycle of emotional violence against our son by withholding your love? That scares me so much, more than anything… You have proven yourself to be a good man, Archer, but I can’t and won’t let you treat our children that way. I grew up in a house of mental, emotional, and physical abuse. Everything I know about how you, Grinder, and the twins were raised tells me you come from much the same with maybe more emphasis on the physical abuse… I want better for our kids.”

“I do too,” I said quickly.

“You know my mom was an alcoholic right?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I murmured, wondering where she was going with this.

“She met Phil when she started going to AA meetings in his church when I was seven, it was either the meetings or they were going to put me in the system.”

“I didn’t know that,” I said.

“Well it’s true, but the point I’m trying to make, is if it’s one thing I remember from that time it was that in AA, the first step in dealing with the problem is admitting you have one. If you can recognize it’s a thing, you can deal with it.”

“Is that why you’re bringing this up now?” I asked.

“Partially… partially because I wanted to talk to you about it away from Noah, and before we got pregnant with another.”

“If you’re so concerned about this, why did you marry me yesterday? Why not bring this up before getting hitched?”

“Because I made a commitment to you, too. I promised to love, honor, and cherish you in sickness and in health, and I think that’s what this is. Not just for you, but for me too. We’re sick. We were made sick by our parents and how we were raised, and you and me? We’re the only cure for it. Each other, you know? Two people who have lived it, and recognize it for what it is. There to hold each other accountable and to be able to stand up to the other one and say ‘hey, you’re slipping, you can’t do that,’ you know?”

I felt myself smile slightly, “You’re brave enough to stand up to me?”

“Archer, these are my
children
we’re talking about,” I could hear her getting emotional and so I squeezed her gently. “If it came down to shooting you in the face to protect them from harm, it’d hurt, but I’d pull that trigger. You need to know that. I committed to you as much as you did to me yesterday, and I’m telling you, I never would have done it if I didn’t believe for one minute you couldn’t handle it. That you couldn’t maintain your control and not repeat the same horror that we went through growing up.”

“What are you saying?” I asked her softly.

“I’m saying
I do
, with every fiber of my being. I’m saying I believe in you, but that doesn’t mean that this conversation didn’t need to happen.”

Well fuck me, swingin’.
I thought to myself.
Color me impressed.
I’d set out a couple of weeks ago to work hard at being a good man for her and Noah, to make her fall in love with me… and damn if she didn’t go and just do it to me first.

We sat in silence for a really long time at the end of that dock, staring out over the water and soaking up some sunshine when the clouds let it through. I held her protectively in the curve of my body and thought real long and real hard about what she’d just said and decided, that she was right. That it was high time I got to work on my temper, and that I was out of excuses now that I was a father.

“You’re a smart and pretty fantastic woman, Mrs. Turner,” I finally said.

“I’ll remember you said that,” she said, “I might even hold it against you the first time we have a fight.” I laughed at that and she leaned back, tipping her head back against my shoulder her body language eased considerably.

“Thank you for believing in me,” I said and she smiled at me, the way she used to smile at my brother. I think my heart stuttered to a stop for a second in my chest.

“Thank you for really listening to me,” she said.

“Eh, I might not always, although you’re making a convincing argument right now for why I should.”

“We’re married, Archer. I’d be delusional to think we will never disagree, or that we will never fight.”

“At least there’s one thing I don’t think we’re ever gonna disagree on,” I said.

“What’s that?” she asked.

“That our children will always come first, come hell or high water.”

“No, on that I don’t think we will ever disagree,” she murmured.

As ass backwards as this whole relationship thing had gone together for us, I think we finally clicked right there on the dock. Common ground was a pretty good starting point as far as starting points went.

“Come on,” I said and scooted back so I could get up, “I got something for you back at the cabin.”

She looked up at me with a slight frown, “What?”

“Come on and you’ll see,” I said and took her hand, hauling her up to her feet. I felt really good about the talk we’d had. Like a new man, with a brand new direction. One that was hopeful, and maybe, even happy. I liked that, and I wanted to see if I could give her some of that feeling, so it was back to the cabin for a minute.

Chapter 23

Melody

“Okay, now I know this place is right out of a fairytale,” I muttered when we reentered the cabin.

“What?” Archer asked, smiling.

“I’m putting money on furry little woodland creatures following Contessa around, cleaning up our mess.”

Archer raised his eyebrows at me and I wrinkled my nose, “What?”

“Nothing, I’m just glad to see the woman I remember making an appearance.”

I tipped my head and regarded him, “What do you mean?”

“I mean none of this has been ideal, for you, hell, for
either
of us… I don’t think I’ve seen you smile, or be so light since you showed up at the club a few months back. It’s like you’re getting some of your sparkle and shine back. It’s good.”

“Oh,” I murmured softly.

He shook his head and went to the closet, pulling out his saddle bags, “Come sit on the bed,” he ordered in his gruff, typical Archer style. I kicked off my boots to preserve the nice carpet and went over to the bed as directed, hopping up on it and drawing my legs into an Indian-style sit.

“I got you this,” he said and pulled out a wrapped gift from one of the bags, handing me the box. It was heavier than it looked and wrapped in white paper, brightly colored streamers, confetti, and balloons were printed on it along with ‘happy birthday!’ all over. I raised an eyebrow and looked at him, smiling hard…

“Um, we just got married. Why does it say ‘happy birthday’ all over it?”

“Because, I didn’t know when it was and you didn’t say anything. I missed it, and I wanted to make it up to you now.”

I blinked, surprised. “I didn’t think you’d care,” I said softly and he had the grace to look guilty.

“I’m not good with people, Mel; I’ll be the first to admit that. I’m sorry you felt like you couldn’t talk to me, or tell me what you needed. That wasn’t right, and as my wife, I want you to come to me with anything, big or small. I remember that Grind always used to make a big deal about your birthday and gettin’ you at least
something
even when he couldn’t afford it. I just never kept track of when it was. I felt like a dick when the girls told me I’d missed it.”