Phoenix Burning (21 page)

Chris seemed to find a shred of his composure. “It never bothered you that I was gay. Why?”

“Your mama once told me that God made you like he intended. We both knew you had to live your life as you were made to do.”

Emory knew the precise moment her aunt’s words sank deep into her twin’s psyche. Chris visibly relaxed in Fox’s embrace. That final piece, the knowledge that his mother had accepted his life choices, meant everything to her brother. Her heart sang with the knowledge that they’d both beaten back the past.

Warm and vital, Alex held her as if he never wanted to let go. Emory rubbed her cheek lightly against his T-shirt, idly wishing she could take it off and feel him beside her skin to skin.

“Your mama told your daddy how she felt about that too, Chris. Turned that evil bastard’s piety right back around and tossed it neatly in his face. My Liza could always turn a phrase.” Maude’s dark eyes were sad. “She never meant for you two to suffer like you did. She just didn’t want to raise you to be monsters.”

Emory had never fully appreciated her mother’s balancing act until that moment. The woman had stood like a shield between her children and their father. She had tread a line so thin she was constantly trying to readjust. She’d taught them what they needed to survive, without allowing them to be sucked into a creed that would have left them no better than a man who preached hatred from the pulpit twice on Sunday and once on Wednesday.

“I suspect the lot of you are all worn out.” Maude stood and stretched. “Now, I have some rules here in my house about young lovers.”

Emory exchanged a look of surprise with her twin. Where was this going?

“I don’t hold with courting couples spending the night together without some kind of promise between them. It just makes things too complicated by half. Don’t you think?”

Emory couldn’t resist nudging Alex in the ribs with her elbow.

“We’re engaged,” Fox announced happily. “Chris and I are going to marry as soon as we get home. And these two” —he jabbed a thumb in their direction— “are also engaged, though they haven’t set a date just yet.”

“Well then, I suspect ya’ll will be just fine up there without me chaperoning.” Maude clapped her hands together. “You boys can take the bedroom at the top of the stairs to the right. Emory and Alex can have the one to the left. Just keep it down up there. An old lady needs her beauty rest.”

Emory managed to wait until her aunt’s bedroom door had snicked shut before covering her mouth against the giggles threatening to burst forth. Foxy did the same, the both of them suppressing peals of laughter that were a result of the stress as much as the situation.

“I think I’m relieved we don’t require chaperoning,” Alex drawled.

Chris chuckled. “Me too. As much as I appreciate your looks, Alex, I don’t relish the thought of sharing a bed with you.”

Fox stopped laughing. “Damn straight.”

“I think you mean, I’m straight,” Alex quipped.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I need a shower.” Fox stood up.

Alex nudged Emory to her feet. “And I need to call Gabriel. We’re expecting a shipment of hard liquor, and I need to tell him where it goes. Last time I let him handle a delivery solo, we ‘lost’ three cases of top-shelf vodka.”

Emory’s heart gave a little lurch when Alex pressed an affectionate kiss to her brow. “Don’t stay away too long,” she said.

He gave her a heart-stopping grin on his way out the door. “I’m not sure I’d make it more than a few minutes.”

Chris waited until the front door closed behind Alex. “With all of the family drama, I haven’t even had a chance to process this thing between you and Alex.”

“And now that you have?”

“I don’t know what to think.” Chris looked pensive. “It’s hard to reconcile that guy with the one I’ve seen tending bar at the Phoenix for the last several years.”

“Alex has his own share of issues. I think the reason this relationship works is that our baggage just kind of fits together.” She laughed, reminded of the twisted path that had led to this moment. “He’s taught me to let go, Chris. I never thought I’d be able to do that, but he’s changed how I think about things, about the past.”

Chris reached over and tugged a loose curl. “Then you belong with him.”

“God knows I’d never make it through this without Alex’s support.”

“I know what you mean, Emmy Lou. I’m not sure either of us would’ve had the balls to come back down here and face that bastard until now.”

She knew her twin was right, but Emory couldn’t help but worry that facing her father was going to push her courage past its limits.

Chapter Nineteen

The drive through their tiny hometown was beyond surreal. Scrunched into the backseat between Fox and Alex, Emory tried not to dwell on the unpleasant memories. The town was only four blocks long and three blocks wide. The paved main street wound its way past a squat municipal building that functioned as the local sheriff’s office, post office, and meeting place of the village council. There was a grocery, a gas station, and a barbershop all built from the same dull brown stone, with faded lettering on their weathered signs.

“Good Lord, Chris, is that your school?” Fox pointed at the tiny A-frame schoolhouse.

“That would be it,” Chris murmured. “K through twelve all in the same place.”

Emory was glad for Alex’s strong arm around her shoulders as she watched children playing in the yard of the white clapboard building. It looked exactly the same as it had the day the twins had left town.

“Oh, God.” Emory couldn’t choke back her whimper as they drove by her father’s church.

The pristine stone structure shared the quaint style of the schoolhouse save for the whitewashed cross firmly planted in the neat green square between the buildings and gravel parking lot. A flat-roofed structure sat slightly behind the church building. The fellowship hall had been the site of many potluck dinners, youth activities, and her father’s torturous revival meetings.

“It’s just a building, love.” Alex’s soothing tone helped her to breathe. “There’s no power in a building. It’s just a pile of stone and wood.”

“Your young man is right, Emmy Lou,” Aunt Maude added. “It’s your daddy that thinks that place has power. And we all know what he’s full of.”

The buildings abruptly stopped just beyond the church, the town giving way to the encroaching wilderness. Chris slowed as they approached a break in the thick trees. A wide clearing opened up to their right, and he turned the SUV onto a lane between two crumbling stone pillars. They drove beneath a wrought-iron archway, and Emory could see acres of cleared land studded with tombstones.

“Looks like we’re right on time.” Maude gathered up her handbag and smoothed her floral-patterned skirt.

Chris parked Fox’s SUV alongside the road at the tail end of a long line of dusty cars. Alex climbed out of the vehicle, and Emory was hit with a wave of admiration. He looked amazing. His suit fit as if it had been tailored to show off his gorgeous physique. He’d opted not to wear a tie, the neck of his bright blue dress shirt open to show a hint of the glorious tan chest she knew so intimately. His golden curls were artlessly tousled, and his blue eyes were alight with concern directed at her.

“You look amazing, Emory.” He took her hand and helped her down.

She’d agonized over what to wear to her mother’s burial. Her desire to wear a dress to please her mother and yet thwart her father’s sexist views had made it almost impossible to choose anything. In the end she had opted to wear a skirt for the first time in years. The clingy pastel blue material swished lightly around her thighs, resting above her knees. Her top was snug, the neckline showing a hint of her cleavage. Her yellow cashmere wrap covered the dainty cap sleeves of her blouse. Bare of any jewelry, she’d secured her hair into the semblance of a ponytail on top of her head, intentionally letting the mass curl wildly around her shoulders. It was a style guaranteed to make her father grind his teeth.

Alex took her hand and pressed his lips against her palm. “Since we don’t have a proper ring, I thought we might make do with this.”

He’d removed the thick carbide ring from the middle finger of his right hand. As she watched, he slid it down over the third finger of her left hand, where it sat, a little loose, below her knuckle.

Things had happened so fast between the two of them. It was so important that she understand what this meant. “But I thought this was a connection to Gabriel, to the no-strings-attached life the two of you shared.”

“You’re right. The rings were meant to be a reminder not to give a fuck what anyone thinks.” He cupped her face and stroked her cheek with the pad of his thumb. “But I’ve realized that I might not care what anyone else thinks, but your opinion of me matters a lot. I love you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, and I want everyone to know it.”

Her heart was thumping out of control. His declaration had swept away all of the tension and horror of this day and turned it into something beautiful. She flung her arms around his neck and hugged him for all she was worth.

“I know it isn’t on the correct finger, but I’ll be damned if I let you go without something marking you as mine.” He gave her a hard kiss.

“As if my heart doesn’t have your name tattooed on it.”

“I want something that bastard father of yours can see plain as day,” he muttered. “Other than the fist I’ll plant in his face if he pisses me off.”

Emory clasped his hand tightly as they followed Chris, Fox, and Maude toward the decent-sized crowd gathered at her mother’s gravesite. Part of her was still in total shock that she’d come back at all. It was a little bit like walking into the fiery furnace featured in one of her father’s Bible stories.

An unwelcome tingle slid down her spine as they drew closer to the group. A man stood at the head of the open grave. The Reverend Jonathan Banks still carried himself as though he were God’s mouthpiece on earth. His hair had once been the same burnished copper as Chris’s, though it was now shot through with strands of silver. He stood with his spine ramrod straight, a closed Bible in hand as he spoke to his congregation.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” The reverend’s eyes swept the assembled group.

Emory’s skin began to crawl. She knew the verse from Ecclesiastes. It had been one of her father’s favorites, something he pulled out whenever he wanted to back up one of his decrees with a bit of Scripture, mostly because it could be twisted to any purpose. Her grip on Alex became so tight that he shifted to put an arm around her shoulders. His warm presence kept the demons at bay, but just barely.

The reverend continued his recitation. “A time to be born, and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted. A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh. A time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together. A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to get, and a time to lose. A time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate. A time of war, and a time of peace.”

To Emory’s left, Chris made a low sound in his throat as their father’s gaze settled on them both. It had been so long, but inside she knew it would never be long enough. Years of conditioning sent cold fear rushing through her veins. Her fingers grew icy where they rested against Alex’s warmth.

A smirk twisted the corner of the reverend’s mouth. “And t’would seem that this is the season in which a man’s prodigal children return to the fold.”

“Like hell,” Fox muttered darkly.

Emory had never seen her brother-in-law look so tense. It was ironic really, that her father had spent so much time ranting about how homosexuality turned men into women. There was nothing remotely feminine about her brother’s lover at the moment. Fox was ready to throw down and brawl in the tradition of every other angry male throughout history.

“We came to pay our respects to our mother,” Chris said.

She’d never been so proud of her brother. Everyone was staring at them. The expressions were varied, but most bordered on hostile. Her heart began to pound frantically against her ribs.

“Is that right?” Their father stared down, judging them with one look. “In light of the circumstances, I might offer you absolution for your sins if you repent and come back to a godly existence.”

Fox snorted and Chris laid his hand on his lover’s arm. “I didn’t come here to make peace with you, old man.”

“Are you certain you and your sister both feel that way?” Their father’s smile grew snakelike.

Maude puffed out her birdlike chest. “I’m nigh certain we
all
feel that way, you old windbag.”

“Don’t press me, old woman. You took my wife to the hospital against my will. It is for God to decide our fate, not men and medicine. Liza was made to suffer for her sins as we all should.” The reverend drew himself up as if he had been the one to suffer a slight and not their mother.

“Don’t you dare talk about my sister in such a way! Liza’s only sin was that she didn’t murder you in your bed.” Maude started forward, as if she might forge right through the crowd and smack the self-righteous reverend with her handbag.

Several of the men at the back must have thought she had ill intentions toward their religious leader, because they began to crowd Maude in an attempt to push her back. The Chrises took immediate exception to this, but Emory didn’t get a chance to see how it all played out.

Their father’s gaze settled on Emory, and she began to tremble. His eyes—she’d never forget his eyes. The way he would stare as he stood over her kneeling form while she prayed endlessly for forgiveness. Her breathing grew ragged. She tried to block it out, but the memories came fast, like a film she couldn’t stop. She recalled his hands, probing, prodding, and hurting her delicate flesh as he examined her relentlessly for signs of impurity.