Gabe (Steele Brothers #6) (13 page)

“I don’t know about you, but I was fielding some pretty intense questions about us today. I guess it just got me thinking about the future.”

“Your family wants to know where we stand,” she said, her voice small and uncharacteristically timid. “They worry about you.”

“I wish they wouldn’t. I’m a grown-ass man. I can figure things out for myself.” I didn’t mean to sound so harsh, but I was sick and tired of everyone thinking they knew what was best for me, that they had my life map, and all I had to do was learn to follow their directions.

“Some people wish they had a family who cares as much as yours does.” She looked up at me. “Maybe you’re not really angry at them, Gabe. Maybe you’re angry at yourself.”

“What?” I stopped in the middle of the street, bringing a confused Poncho to an abrupt halt. “Why would I be angry at myself?”

“Because even though you claim to be all in with me, you’re not, and you don’t know how to get there.” She shoved her hands into the pockets of the hoodie she’d slipped on before we left her house. “Or even if you want to try.”

“I do want to try.” I hate that I was already making her question me when I’d sworn to myself I would never give her reason to doubt my feelings for her the way Jason had.

“You thought sex was the answer.” She shrugged, looking down at the pup instead of meeting my eyes. I knew that was a bad sign. “Maybe I did too. I thought that would make us feel like a real couple. But it hasn’t, has it?”

I swallowed, unable to respond. I knew she was waiting for me to say something, to give her some reason to stay and fight, but the words wouldn’t come because I wasn’t even sure what they were supposed to be.

I couldn’t tell her I loved her. I thought I did, but I’d been wrong on that front before and I refused to make that mistake with Kendra. I couldn’t tell her I saw a future with her when I wasn’t even sure what that future would look like. Marriage? More kids? A step-daughter who hated me because I’d broken up her family?

“I don’t know what we are, Gabe.” Kendra sighed, the sound laced with disappointment. “Friends? It doesn’t even feel like that anymore because we’re not being honest with each other. You’re standing there, staring at me, afraid to say what’s really on your mind. That’s not the Gabe I know.”

“I don’t know who you think I am,” I whispered, knowing I couldn’t let her walk away without another word. “But maybe I’m not that guy, the one you thought I was.”

She shook her head, looking more dejected than she had when she told me the reason her marriage was ending. “Maybe you’re not.”

Gabe

I showed up on my old man’s doorstep bright and early the next morning, wondering if Kane was right. Could laying the past to rest open the door to the future I wanted with Kendra? After last night, I didn’t even know if she’d be willing to give me another chance.

“Gabe,” he said, opening the door to his tidy split-level, “this is a nice surprise.”

We’d been living in the same city for almost a year, yet I’d never paid him a visit. “Can we talk?”

“Of course.” He stepped back, inviting me in. “My wife’s at church and the boys went to meet some friends at the gym.”

“Good, that’ll give us a chance to talk.”

I followed him into the kitchen. Since they’d retired to Florida so their sons could attend college here, the old man had retired from his trucking job. According to my brothers, he’d become quite the handyman, which was evidenced by the newly remodeled kitchen he’d been working on for months.

“Nice place you got here,” I said, trying to break the awkward silence with a few kind words.

“Thanks, we like it. It was hard to leave the old one behind,” he said, setting two steaming cups of black coffee on the table. “It belonged to Sandra’s parents and the boys were born and raised there. But we’re settling in here nicely.”

“Looks like you’re keeping yourself busy.” The shaker-style cabinets were painted a warm white, the appliances stainless and the countertops a dark granite. The space was warmed up with splashes of red, which I was sure had been at his wife’s suggestion.

“I am.” He smiled. “I hear you’re pretty good with your hands too. Maybe you got that from me, huh?”

I didn’t want to admit I’d inherited anything from him, but denying it would only steer the conversation off course.

When I didn’t respond, he ran a shaky hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Look, Gabe, if you’re here to let me have it, I wish you’d just get it over with already.”

Since Brody and Riley had invited him to the wedding and he’d been present for the birth of Nex and Jaci’s baby girl, we weren’t strangers to polite small talk, but this was the first time we didn’t have to pretend with each other. The first real chance I’d had to air my grievances without the risk of causing a scene.

“You taught me to hate.” I was surprised by the venom in my voice. “I was just a little kid. That was a lesson I shouldn’t have had to learn until later in life. And no kid should ever have to hate his own father.”

Jack took a deep breath, his hand trembling as he reached for his coffee cup. After raising it a few inches off the table, it became obvious he couldn’t bring it to his lips without spilling it, so he set it back down with a thud.

“You’re right about that,” he said finally, his blue eyes meeting mine. “No kid should have reason to hate his father. But I gave you plenty of reasons to hate me. I treated your mother like dirt. I raged at you boys like a lunatic. I was never there when you needed me. You couldn’t rely on me to keep a roof over your heads or food in your bellies. I was a poor excuse for a man, and an even poorer excuse for a father.”

I looked directly at him, noting he didn’t look away. “Am I supposed to be relieved to hear you acknowledge it? Is that supposed to make it all better?”

“I can apologize until I’m blue in the face,” he said, swiping a hand over his mouth. “But I know it ain’t gonna change a damn thing. I was a deadbeat loser back then. I’m not anymore.”

I couldn’t argue with his claim. I’d seen the evidence that he was a decent man who’d raised two great kids who loved and respected him. But that didn’t change the way I felt about him, the way I feared I’d always feel about him.

“I know this resentment is crippling me,” I said, staring into my untouched coffee. “It’s ruining my relationships and maybe to a larger degree, my life. But I don’t know how to let go of it or whether I even want to.”

“Because letting go of it would be doing your mother a disservice.”

I was surprised by his insight. I’d never considered that I was holding on to my anger toward him in deference to my mother, but maybe I was.

“One thing I can say about your mother, Gabe. She was the kindest, most loving, forgiving person I knew.”

“Which is why she deserved a hell of a lot better than you,” I said, curling my hand into a fist, wondering if it was such a good idea for me to be alone with him in my current state of mind.

“She sure did.”  He nodded slowly, as though he were trapped in his own bad memories. “But I’ll tell you one thing, I wouldn’t be the man I am today if I hadn’t had the love of a woman like her. If I could say one thing to her,” he said, raising a shaky finger, “Just one thing, I would say thank you.”

“Why?”

“Because if she hadn’t been so wonderful, I might not have felt so terrible about the way I’d treated her. If I hadn’t loved her so much, I might never have gotten the help I needed. It was the memories of our fights that got me through the dark days of sobriety, Gabe. When things were the hardest and I wanted to crawl back inside that bottle.”

“I don’t understand.” Nor was I sure I wanted to. He was trying to paint a picture of a man I didn’t know, one who’d fought hard to win his life back. And I wasn’t sure I wanted to know that man. It would humanize the person I’d always demonized.

“Some of the things I said to her…” His look was one of pure self-disgust as he snarled, “They were vile. Probably hurt more than if I’d used my fists.”

I swallowed back tears and rage, hating that my sweet mother had ever been subjected to his wrath.

“And for that, you have every reason to hate me.”

After a beat of silence, I knew I had the voice the one question that could change everything. “Do you hate yourself…? For the things you did to her? To us?”

He took a deep breath before staring out the window above the sink. I followed his gaze, noting the tree’s leaves blowing gently in the breeze. Reminding us of life, when all I could think about was my mother’s death.

“I did, for a long time,” he finally answered. “I was so ashamed of myself. That’s why I crawled inside that damn bottle and never wanted to come out. The shame was so bad I couldn’t see a way out of it.”

“But you sought forgiveness?” Brody told me he’d found a church that took him in, people who believed in him. But not a single one of them knew him the way I did. They didn’t know the man he’d been then, the one who tried to quash his dying wife’s spirit.

“You probably don’t think I deserve it.” He twisted the narrow gold band around on his finger. “Gabe, if these last twenty years have taught me anything, it’s that life and death are as inevitable as hard times. But it’s the laughter in between that gets you through. It’s the new memories that eventually banish the ugly, old ones. If you let them.”

“Are you saying you allowed the memories you made with Tanner and Beck to erase the years of hell you put us through?”

“No.” He shook his head, his expression somber. “Because I was there for all of their important moments, it only made me ache for everything I missed with you guys even more. The baseball games, teaching you to drive, school concerts, graduations…”

I swallowed, thinking I would have given anything just to have one parent there for most of those things. I had all of my brothers there and I was grateful for that, but I suspected there was nothing quite like a father’s pride in his son.

“They’re good men,” I said, thinking of the brothers I’d come to know and love. “I know that’s partially because of you.”

“You’re all good men too,” he said, his blue eyes, so much like each and every one of ours, shining with unshed tears. “In spite of me. And I am so very sorry for that.” He hung his head, his broad shoulders shaking with the weight of his tears. “You and Nex were just babies when you lost your mama. I should have been there for you.”

I stared at him, trying to sort out my feelings. I’d come here filled with rage. The same rage I’d been living with and trying to suppress for most of my life. He wasn’t an old man yet, but he was closing in on it. If I didn’t make my peace with him now, I may not get the chance.

“Maybe we can have some kind of relationship now,” I said quietly, wondering if I was proposing the impossible. My brothers had managed it, to varying degrees, but I wasn’t them. I had my own issues with Jack.

“I would give anything if we could,” he said, reaching into his pocket for a rag. He wiped his eyes and sniffled, looking embarrassed by his moment of weakness.

I had a feeling men like Jack had been raised to believe showing emotion was a punishable sin. And maybe, to some degree, I believed that too. If I wasn’t so cowardly, I would have opened up to Kendra by now.

“I don’t know how we’d even start,” I said, linking my hands on the tabletop.

“Well,” Jack said, with a gusty sigh, “it’s too much to hope that we might be friends right off the bat. How about friendly acquaintances?”

“I think I could do that.” It would be a vast improvement over the way I’d felt about him leading up to this meeting.

“I have a feeling you came here for a reason. I mean, you decided now was the right time to dredge all this up because…?”

“Kendra and I are getting closer.”

He nodded, looking thoughtful. “She seems like a nice girl.”

“She is.” I was grateful he didn’t ask me about the divorce. I couldn’t stand to think about Jason now.

“And that daughter of hers is a real sweetheart.” He smiled. “The kind that could steal your heart real quick.”

“She already has,” I admitted. “I’m crazy about her. And her mom.”

“But you’re holding back. Why?”

I swallowed, wondering if my emotional walls were as obvious to everyone as they were to him. Maybe he saw them because he’d had some experience letting his own walls crumble. “I’m worried that I’m going to hurt her.”

“Ah, I know all about that. When I met Sandra, I told her to stay as far away from me as she could get. I was scared to death I’d do to her what I did to your mama.”

It was probably good advice he’d given Sandra, yet she hadn’t taken it. “It’s not that I think I’m a bad guy,” I said, trying to make sense of my own warped perceptions. “I’m not. I always try to do the right thing. When a building goes up in flames, I’m always the first one to rush in, intent on saving lives, even at the expense of my own if it comes to that.”

“That’s heroic, no doubt about it.”

“I don’t want to be a goddamn hero,” I said, the anger re-surfacing. “I just want to be a whole man, one who can love a woman without all this fear twisting my gut.”

Jack looked hesitant, but gripped my shoulder. “I don’t know that there’s a man alive who doesn’t feel like his insides are being ripped out when he realizes he’s falling in love, son. I mean, even those guys who were raised by Ward Cleaver types are probably scared shitless at the prospect of being with one woman for the rest of their lives.”

I had to admit it made me feel marginally better to think I wasn’t the only one messed up. Everyone was… to varying degrees. “I just can’t stand the thought of disappointing her.”

“So don’t.” He shrugged. “Take it from a man who’s made just about every mistake you can make—it’s a choice. You have free will. You get to decide how things play out with Kendra. You treat her right, she won’t go anywhere.”

I wanted to believe it could be that simple, but I’d seen the fallout when relationships fell apart. “What about the things that are beyond my control?”

“Sure,” Jack said. “There are things that could take her away from you or you from her. Accidents, illness…” He let me process those possibilities before he asked, “But don’t you think she’d be taking a bigger risk than you would be?”