Wicked Intentions (Steele Secrurity Book 4) (5 page)

The main discrepancy that concerned her was the color of his skin had significantly changed since she last saw him. That could be chalked up to a byproduct of the chemotherapy, but it was significant enough to be noted in his chart. The optimist in her hoped it was simply a side effect of the nearly lethal cocktail he’d been given to stop the progression of his disease. The realist in her told her nothing good came from kidding herself.

This was the part of her job she hated, when she had to face the fact one of her patients may no longer be responding to treatment. The time when they had to have “the talk.” The one where she helped the doctor convince the patient to stop focusing on the future and start focusing on the present. The discussion that inevitably left the patient with thoughts and feelings of hopelessness, because the message they delivered essentially said to give up hope that the treatments could change the prognosis.

While Steve still joked and played along with her, she sensed a distinct change in his overall demeanor. A peaceful acceptance of what will be will be, regardless if he tried to alter the course or not, had replaced the tough as nails, hard as Steele man she’d met initially. He was no longer fixated on eradicating all the mutated cells in his body. His focus was on his family, mainly his wife, who’d been by his side every step of the way.

Steve often joked that he was made of Steele, an obvious play on his last name, but when Sara was out of earshot, he openly confessed she was actually the strong one who made him keep going. Keep trying. Keep fighting. The last time he’d said those words to Heather, her initial gut reaction was Steve was preparing to face the end of his life. He kept trying, kept fighting, kept going for Sara, but when it was clear it was no longer helping, he could accept his fate as long as she held his hand.

“Who did Sara say she was going to call?” Heather asked Steve to test his cognitive skills again and to clear the morbid thoughts from her own mind.

“Our son, Noah,” Steve replied proudly.

Heather stopped writing and jerked her eyes up to meet Steve’s. “Your son is Noah Steele?”

“Yep, that’s my boy.”

“Noah Steele from Miami?”

“Born and raised.”

“Noah Steele of Steele Security?”

“That’s exactly right. Wait. How did you know that? How do you know Noah?”

H
eather walked
into her parents’ house, located in one of Houston’s more upscale neighborhoods, and headed to the kitchen where she knew she’d find her mom. The house itself was gorgeous, set on just over an acre of lush green grass, professionally landscaped sweeping gardens, and a backyard pool oasis that boasted an outdoor kitchen. Inside, every room was decorated by an interior designer who stayed booked up to a year in advance. The fine dark wood trim accented both the expansive arched windows that spanned the front of the house and the wood flooring with alternating planks of light and dark shades. Everything about the inside and outside of the house exuded opulence, but it reminded Heather of a museum more than a home.

Her childhood home where she grew up next door to Braxton would almost completely fit inside the entertainment room of their current house. Their old home may have been small, but there was so much love and so many wonderful memories in it. It was pure coincidence that most of those beloved and cherished childhood memories in the other house involved Braxton in one way or another.

Kay Greer wrapped her arms around Heather and squeezed her tightly. “How’s my baby? I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Heather replied, although she was actually anything but fine. Depressed. Sad. Lonely. Despondent. Those were more accurate descriptions than “fine,” but that wasn’t a conversation she wanted to have again that day.

“You’re so thin. You’ve lost more weight, Heather,” Kay insisted, her tone rife with genuine concern. “You’re not eating, are you?”

“I said I’m fine, Mom. That means I’m fine,” Heather insisted stubbornly. “Don’t start. I just got here.”

Emmett silently stood in the doorway through which Heather had entered, intentionally not announcing his presence so he could listen to their exchange. “Your mother’s right. You’ve lost weight. Sit down and eat.”

Heather turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. “Don’t think I didn’t know you were back there eavesdropping. I’m not one of your employees you can just order around. I may be your daughter, but I’m also a grown woman. I’m married. And I make my own decisions.”

“Eighteen is hardly a grown woman, Heather. You’re not even old enough to buy alcohol yet. But you’re definitely my daughter—there’s no denying you got that stubborn, defiant streak from me. Speaking of being married, did you get the papers I had my lawyer draw up?” While he meant well as a father and a businessman, Emmett had a tendency to run over everyone else’s thoughts and feelings.

“Yeah, I got them all right.” She made no attempt to conceal her contempt or the challenge that her arched eyebrow conveyed.

“Did you sign them?”

“Nope.”

“Heather.”

“Emmett,” she retorted, mimicking his stance by putting her fists on her hips and staring him down.

“What did you do with the papers?” His voice was even, showing no signs of his frustration. But she knew all too well that was just part of his tactic, an act to encourage others to lower their defenses so he could pounce at the opportune moment.

“I put them on my kitchen counter,” she replied.

“Good.”

“With the rest of the junk mail that needs to be shredded,” she added.

“That’s not funny.” He was beginning to lose his composure. Tiny cracks in his armored façade were beginning to show.

“It wasn’t funny when I opened the packet and saw divorce papers, either,” she snapped. “No warning. No heads-up. You could’ve said, ‘Hey, Heather, my lawyer is sending some papers for you to read over. Let me know what you think.’ But no, you didn’t even give me that common courtesy. I thought they were from Braxton when I first opened it. Do you have any idea what that did to me? Don’t you think I’ve been through enough already?”

“Baby, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think—”

“No, that’s a lie, so don’t even finish that sentence. You thought about it enough to have your damn lawyer write up a very detailed, explicit legal document that divides everything between us, right down to the couch and the loveseat. You try to control everyone and everything in your life, but I will not be controlled. Do you understand me? You will not steamroll over me and my decisions for my life.”

“What are you going to do, then?”

Exasperated that he would even ask that question after the outburst he just experienced, her jaw dropped open, and she blatantly glowered at him. “Whatever the hell I want to do. That’s what. I don’t need your permission or your approval. Or even your support. But if you want to stay in my life, let me live it myself. You’re not living it through me.”

“I can’t talk to her,” Emmett complained to Kay. “There’s no reasoning with her.”

“You’re exactly right,” Heather replied. Emmett raised his eyes to meet hers, hopeful she had seen the error of her thinking, until she continued. “So stop trying because it’s really irritating when I have to keep repeating myself.”

“You’re still young, Heather. It’ll be good for you to start over with a clean slate,” Emmett pressured. “You need to trust me.”

“A clean slate?” She emphasized each word as she spat out her reply. With her pointed finger in his face, she continued. “Since you’re my father, I’m giving you one chance to rephrase that and then never say it again. Because if you ever even tiptoe around the words ‘clean slate’ to me again, as if I should just
forget
, I promise you will regret it.”

“That came out wrong, Heather. Of course, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry. The last thing I’d ever want to do is hurt you.”

“Don’t you see? That’s exactly what you’re doing every time you want to sweep everything under the rug and pretend it never happened. It did happen—and it happened to me. Stop trying to make it seem insignificant, like a few sheets of legal paper will make it all disappear.”

“I’m just trying to do what I think is best,” Emmett replied softly, humbled. “I said I’m sorry, and I mean it. Forgive me. Your mother and I were just about to throw some steaks on the grill. Do you want to stay and eat with us?”

“No, I need to go. Errands to run. I just wanted to stop by for a minute to see you.”

“There’s no need to run off. I promise to be on my best behavior if you stay,” Emmett pleaded. “I don’t get to see you nearly enough.”

His eyes begged her to stay. His own pain at not being able to shield his daughter from the cruel world lay just beneath the surface.

“Okay. I’ll stay for a little while longer,” she conceded, though she was still mad and upset with him.

“That what I want to hear. I’ll go fire up the grill and burn some steaks while you ladies handle the fixings.”

Heather and Kay started pulling items from the pantry and refrigerator to begin cooking the side dishes. As they worked together to accomplish the tasks, Heather instinctively knew her mother wanted to continue the conversation, but she didn’t know how to approach it without alienating her daughter.

“Just come out with it already. If you keep holding it in, you’ll end up in the bell tower with a high-powered rifle,” Heather deadpanned.

“I didn’t know your father had our lawyer draw up divorce papers, Heather. Not until you’d already received them, and it was way too late by then. I’ve already told him what I thought about it, but you know how he is once he gets something in his head.

“My concern is about you and your well-being. What are you going to do, Heather? Braxton has been gone for going on three months now. How long do you plan to wait for him?”

“I’m fully aware he’s been gone for eleven weeks and three days. That’s exactly eighty days. One thousand nine hundred twenty hours. One hundred fifteen thousand two hundred minutes, give or take, since I don’t know exactly what time he left. I only know what time I found the note.

“What you and Dad don’t seem to grasp is this isn’t puppy love. What I feel for Braxton isn’t just young love that’ll fade as I get older and realize it was just infatuation. He’s been my best friend for as long as I can remember. We know each other better than anyone else does. Every dirty, rotten secret we’ve kept from everyone else. Every good deed we did without letting anyone else know. Our imperfections and perfections only made our bond stronger. If you and Dad had faced what Braxton and I have faced, could you simply walk away from him as easily as you expect me to walk away from my husband?”

“You’re right. We’ve underestimated how much he means to you and how being in love at your age can be just as real as being in love at my age. Your love for him really hasn’t waned in the least bit, has it?”

“No, and it won’t. We’re both dealing with the aftermath the best way we know how. I’m partly to blame for why he left the way he did. Not that it doesn’t hurt like hell, but I have to be fair about it. Sure, there are times when I get really mad at him for leaving me. I scream, cry, make stupid threats I know I’d never go through with, try to strike a bargain with God. Then I remember how I mentally checked out for a while and left him feeling responsible,” Heather explained.

“You stayed away from your dad and me for a long time,” Kay said sadly. “Your dad thought maybe you came back around us after Braxton left because you’d changed your mind about being married.”

“I stayed away because neither of you respected my marriage, especially Dad. I didn’t come back around because Braxton left. It was because I knew how badly it was hurting you.”

Kay glanced out the window and saw Emmett was busy in the outdoor kitchen, fighting with the grill and marinating the steaks with his signature mixture of steak sauces and spices. “While the potatoes and rolls are cooking, let’s sit down and have a little girl talk.”

As they sat at the kitchen table, Kay deliberated how to share the personal information from her youth with her daughter. “I know you’ve loved Braxton since you were kids, but it doesn’t happen like that for most people. When I was a sophomore in high school, a handsome boy my age moved in to our neighborhood and, of course, every girl in our class had a crush on him. Including me.

“When he asked me out, I was ecstatic. Out of his pick of all the girls, he chose me. We went on several dates before he asked me to officially be his girlfriend. We were perfect for each other—we were interested in similar things, we had plans to go to the same college, our families became friends. I was so in love with him I didn’t feel like I could breathe without him.

“Our senior year, we debated about going to the prom. I wanted to go because it was the last one we’d ever have. He didn’t want to go because our junior prom wasn’t any fun at all. But because I wanted to go, and he loved me, he gave in.

“I was so excited. It was a night to dress up in a formal gown, go out to eat, dance in the arms of the love of my life, and at least pretend to be adults. Mom took me to get my hair, makeup, and nails done. My dress and shoes were a perfect fit. Dad had the camera out, ready to take more pictures than we could ever use. All the things that seemed so important at the time were working out perfectly.

“While we waited for him, Dad took several individual pictures of me. He had me doing so many poses in so many different places around the house and the yard, I didn’t realize how much time had passed. When I saw the time on the clock, I knew something was wrong. Chris knew how important that night was to me, he wouldn’t have intentionally made us miss our dinner reservation time.

“Mom called his house, and Chris’s aunt answered, crying hysterically. Mom had to break the news to me that Chris wasn’t coming. We weren’t going to the prom together. We weren’t going off to college together. He’d planned to make that night extra special for us, and that’s why he’d tried to talk me out of going to the prom. He had planned to propose to me, but he wanted it to be in a more intimate setting. So he’d arranged to do both. We’d spend a while at the prom, then leave and have the more romantic evening he’d envisioned.

“He had a job after school and had gotten off late. So he was late picking up his tuxedo, late getting home to shower and change, late to pick up the ring he was going to use to ask me to marry him. His car had been acting up, and I remember he’d told me he needed to check it out after work…but he was late. It broke down in the middle of the road on his way to pick me up. He had his head stuck under the hood when another car came flying up behind him on the wrong side of the road. Kids who had been drinking, having fun on their way to the prom, and not paying attention to the road.

“Chris died at the scene with my ring still in his pocket. The teenage driver of the other car was charged with vehicular manslaughter, and because he had a significant blood alcohol level, he went to prison. The others in that car never recovered from what they saw, what they felt responsible for causing. And I never forgave myself for insisting we go to the prom. Because if I hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have been there at that exact time.

“I understand the pain you feel, like you’ll never be happy again. Like you’ll never have a normal life. Like you’ll never experience an entire night of sleep from now on. It won’t be anytime soon, but it will get better. It’ll become more tolerable because you’ll learn to live with the pain, but it’ll never completely go away.

“Heather, what you need to take from my experience is none of us, no matter what age, has a promise for the next breath. If you love Braxton the way you say you do, and he loves you, then you need to fight for your marriage. Not sit back and wait. The longer you go without talking to him, the more damage you’ll have to repair and the more risk you run that you’ll never have the chance at all.”

Tears soaked Heather’s face as she grabbed her mother in a full embrace. Her own grief had blinded her to the pain her loved ones felt. That included Braxton, as much as she hated to admit it. He’d been her rock for so long, she took for granted that he’d save her from this nightmare, too. She’d selfishly never considered that he may need saving just as much as she did.

“I love you, Mom,” was all she could manage to squeak out.

She knew Kay was right, though. She and Braxton had to talk. They had to reconnect. There was no other way to begin to heal.