The Complete Box Set Demented Revengers MC - Quitman Chapter Read online

  To be a baby again. I look back over at Brody. “Okay, spill it. You’re dying to, so do it. You told Jilly you would help protect me so do exactly that. Be a friend and just tell me whatever you and Rebel were dancing around.” I never take my eyes away from his.

  What the hell am I doing? I feel like I am falling again, but I can’t seem to help myself. Brody moves his hands away, and I open the box and put a couple of slices of pizza on each plate. Brody looks away from me but then back with a determined look on his face.

  “Can we eat and then maybe watch a movie with Shelby?” I look into his eyes, and I can see he is battling some demon but can’t put my finger on what exactly it is about this man that draws me to him. “We can talk after you put her to bed, please?” When he says please I can see the vulnerability in his eyes, and I know I can’t tell him no.

  “Okay, but I want some answers tonight.” I give him a small smile and about that time Shelby throws her sippy on the floor. We both smile at her and Brody reaches over and picks it up for her and gives her a big smile. We finish our meal saying very little to each other. Shelby finishes, and she is a mess as she usually is when she feeds herself.

  “Why don’t you get her bath and I will clean up so we can watch that movie?” Brody is watching me and trying to guess my next move.

  “Okay, sounds like a good deal, but I have to say that Shelby is into princess movies right now so be warned.” Brody rolls his eyes, but he laughs at the same time.

  I take Shelby and get her a quick bath. Doesn’t take long and I have to change my clothes again because my girl loves to splash. Twenty minutes later we are downstairs, and we pop a princess movie into the DVD player. Brody is sitting on one end of my sofa with Shelby in between us. It’s not fifteen minutes into the movie and Shelby is out cold. She is snoozing away.

  “I’ll take her upstairs if you want to pop another movie in and then we will have that talk.” I look at Brody, and he doesn’t say anything, but his eyes tell me he is not looking forward to this conversation.

  I carry Shelby into her room and tuck her in quietly, and tippy-toe out leaving her bedroom door cracked so I can hear her if she wakes up crying. I look back at her and realize soon I will have to be looking for a toddler bed for her. My baby is getting big. I leave her there resting peacefully to get to a conversation I think I am going to have to pull out of Brody.

  When I walk in the living room, I realize Brody has not put another movie in, and he has the overhead light on. We’d had the dimmer lights on before, but I guess he feels more comfortable this way. I want him to know I am not going to let this go, so I get right to the point.

  “Alright spill it. What is going on between you and Rebel and what does it have to do with me?” I’m not attached to either of them, and I don’t want to be. I have to say I am attracted to both of them but that does not mean I would ever act on that attraction. I am just getting out of a very bad relationship, and I need to concentrate on getting my life in order and taking care of my daughter.

  I look at Brody closely, and he looks like he is fighting with himself over telling me what I want to know.

  “I think I have inadvertently put a target on you. Rebel and I have a history of caring about the same women. Rebel thinks I am interested in you, so he is determined to have you. There are things about the motorcycle club life you don’t understand.” He lets out a breath like it was hard to say but then he goes on. “You need to be careful when it comes to Rebel. I’m not saying he is a bad person or club life is bad but it is different, and you need to understand that before you get involved with him.”

  “Number one, what makes you think I will get involved with him? You two are something else. I am not looking for any kind of relationship. I just want to be friends. Why would he think you are interested in me?” I don’t understand any of this.

  “Most women fall for Rebel. Why I don’t know. The whole bad boy thing.” He looks into my eyes and then back down to the floor. “He could tell I was interested in you because he knows me. I won’t lie; I am attracted to you, and I want to be your friend and maybe more someday. Rebel and I just have a bad history when it comes to women.”

  “I got the part about you and Rebel not getting along so well, but I don’t want to be a reason for that. Wait, you’re attracted to me? Why?” I am shocked. This man is hot, and he is attracted to me. No, this can’t make a difference. “Have you looked in the mirror and then looked at me?” I don’t know why I just blurted this out but damn. I’m glad no one else is in my mind. Brody has an annoyed look on his face.

  “What do you mean by that? What is wrong with you? You’re beautiful, and any man with a brain would be lucky to have you with them. Your ex was just an ass and didn’t know what he had. Everyone isn’t like him Gracie.” That puts a smile on my face. Brody thinks I am beautiful.

  “Let’s sit and talk, but if I am going to give you Rebel’s and my story, then, you are giving me yours. It’s only fair, and I don’t want the condensed form that Jilly gave us. I want it all and in exchange I will give you the whole ugly story of Rebel, Jilly, and me. Deal?”

  “My story isn’t a storybook tale but you know that, and it gets ugly. Are you sure you want all the sordid details?” I want him to know this is not easy for me. I sit down, and he sits beside me. “You first.” That’ll give me time to clear my head and decide how to tell it all to him.

  “Well like you said this isn’t a pretty story.” He looks at me, and I nod my head to give him encouragement to go ahead. “You know I was adopted and Rebel and Jilly and I all grew up together. They were my best friends and my family and to this day I know in a crunch Rebel will always cover my back and I would do the same for him as long as it’s legal.” He hesitates and looks like he is trying to measure his words.

  “Jilly and I were raised like cousins, family. Rebel hung out with both of us. You can see how close we were raised in this neighborhood. Rebel always said Jilly was his girl. We both looked out for her, and she was our partner in crime. We were into everything.” I see he is having problems getting this out.

  “It’s okay. I’m not going to judge you. Just say whatever it is that you need to.” I try to reassure him. He looks at me and gives me a weak smile. For such a strong man he is having a lot of problems getting this out.

  “All of that was fine until our hormones took over and people started judging Rebel for some of the things he did.” He looks at me one last time and then gets up and starts to pace my living room floor.

  “Rebel’s dad was not the best dad, and Rebel started acting out. He started experimenting with the wilder side of life just to get a reaction out of his dad, and he got that in spades. Jilly’s parents started to dislike the time Rebel spent with Jilly. They loved Rebel, but they thought he would be a bad influence.

  “At the time dad worked at the Sheriff’s office, and he had to bring Rebel home a few times, and he was thrown in the drunk tank a few times when dad wasn’t there until someone picked him up.” Brody looks at me and smiles. “It wasn’t like it is now. Back then the whole neighborhood took care of each other’s kids. Instead of calling the state in they would just take the kid home and talk to the parents.”

  Brody looks deep in thought. “Back then sometimes that was worse. Now I sound like an old man always saying back then, anyway. After a while, Jilly and I had to sneak around to spend time with our friend and a lot of time he would be too busy with his new friends, so Jilly and I spent a lot of time together. That’s when we started having feelings for each other that weren’t appropriate for family.

  “We both fought it, and I finally couldn’t be alone around Jilly anymore. Our feelings were too strong for each other, but I promise you I only kissed Jilly a couple of times, and it felt so wrong in one way but so right in others and I had to stay away from her.” He takes a breath.

  “That’s when Jilly started sneaking out of her house with him and lying to her parents. By then we were in the last few
months of our senior year. Jilly wanted us to move away and be together, but I turned her down and told her it wasn’t right.” Brody paused. I give him a sympathetic look.

  “It sounds like a tough choice. Were you in love with Jilly?” I see a sad look take over Brody’s expression.

  “I was, but it would have torn our families apart, and I couldn’t do that. I love my parents, and it wasn’t something they could have accepted. No one here could have, and I wouldn’t take Jilly away from her family. Jilly will always hold a special place in my heart, but I am not in love with her anymore.” Brody looks at me, and I give him a small smile.

  “Rebel was pulling Jilly closer to him, and then he would push her away. When he pushed her away, she would cry on my shoulder. Hell, we were kids. We didn’t know where we were going or what to do with our raging hormones.

  “I tried to shield Jilly from the bad that was coming from Rebel going wild but it still hurt her, and I am not placing all the blame on Rebel. It was all of us.

  “Rebel and Jilly finally started having sex and neither one of them thought about protection. Jilly would have had to have her parent’s permission to get on the pill, and I don’t know if they used any other protection or not. Rebel was jealous of us, and Jilly always ran to me. They ended up breaking up, and she didn’t tell him she was pregnant right away. By the time Jilly went to tell him he was already fucking someone else, so she didn’t tell him. Then it was a lot of other girls and women. This is a small town, and it was all thrown in Jilly’s face.

  “We graduated she took off to college. I went to Oklahoma to get situated. I couldn’t stay around home and not spill. I felt guilty. She didn’t even wait until after the summer. I tried to help her but she told me to stay away, and I was too much of an ignorant ass not to tell her parents or Rebel.

  “Rebel thought when Jilly took off that she went to be with me. It finally weighed on me so much I called and told Rebel, but by the time he contacted her she’d had a miscarriage, and she had met Kevin. He helped her through it all.” I thought about it for a while.

  “Is that why Jilly can’t get pregnant now? Did she have complications?” I see the sadness in Brody’s eyes. He finally sits down beside me. I reach out and touch his arm. Trying to give him some comfort.

  “Yeah. I don’t know exactly what happened but Jilly was hemorrhaging, and they had to do a hysterectomy. It nearly broke her. She would have been a great mom, and she is.

  “Did you know that she and Kevin foster children from time to time? For some reason, they have never adopted. They attempted to a couple of times, but it just never happened for them.”

  I see that Brody is still haunted by his past with Jilly and Rebel. He lost both of his best friends at the same time. Jilly is still his friend but not close anymore. My heart goes out to him, but there is something else he is not telling me about him and Rebel.

  It seems if he finally told Rebel about Jilly being pregnant that he and Rebel would have already worked through their problems since they are still close to the same people. I wait but Brody doesn’t seem to be sharing anymore.

  He’s watching me and waiting so I guess it is my turn to share. Making new friends is having to retell everything. With Jilly, she had a front seat with all my ER visits, but the little I have told was hard enough, however, I said I would. It’s time to let it out and let it go. I will never forgive Kendall, but I can move on from it.

  It’s my turn to get up and pace. I start from the beginning. Running over the events in my mind and still feeling the pain they left on my heart.

  “Growing up, my family was like most families in our neighborhood. My mom and dad both worked and we always had food on the table and we lived in the same home, but we just didn’t have money for a lot of extras. Don’t get me wrong, we had what was important, each other and plenty of love. God, my parents loved each other. When we were walking in town or anyplace they were always holding hands or standing close to each other.

  “We went to church every Sunday as a family. They always kissed each other goodbye and said they loved each other and they did the same to me. When I got old enough to realize all families didn’t act like that, I wanted it. I wanted a love like that with a man someday.”

  I take a deep breath and try to calm myself so I can finish. I still miss my parents so much. “Everything in my life was completely normal. No child abuse, my parents loved each other and me, and I wasn’t a rebellious teenager. I got good grades in school and I wasn’t the most popular girl, but I had friends.

  “Then when I started high school, I met Kendall. He was one of the popular kids. His family was very well known in my hometown, and I never understood why he asked me out. I couldn’t date until I was sixteen but he came to my house and visited and we did things together in a group.”

  Now that I think about it, I never really fit in with his friends. If I am going to get this out, I have to keep going.

  “When I turned fifteen, and all my friends were dating, my dad sat me down and told me, first, I had to get my permit to drive and when I turned sixteen my license and a part-time job. If I did these things, he would consider letting me date at sixteen. I did just that, and after I had been working about two months, he said I could go out with Kendall. I had to keep my grades up and work enough hours to pay for gas to get to work in my mom’s car and any extras I wanted. I know he was trying to teach me responsibility, but at the time, I didn’t like it.”

  I look at Brody, and he is patiently listening. I am trying to work my nerve up to the hard part. “My dad didn’t have the money to buy another car, so I drove mom’s and started saving for my own car, but Kendall said I didn’t need a car. He would drop me off and pick me up, so I didn’t have to work every weekend. I see now he was being possessive, but back then I thought he was being a good boyfriend.”

  I know the next part is going to be painful. “We went through the rest of school that way. Kendall and I didn’t have the same friends, and soon my friends came around less and less. I was still around them at school, but we didn’t hang around each other away from school. Graduation came, and that’s when Kendall and I started making love, or I thought it was love. My part-time job became a full-time job until I could enroll in the college at home. Before that could happen my mom had a stroke in her sleep and died.”

  I go to the window and look out. It is so quiet in this neighborhood.

  “I’m sorry about your mom. It had to be hard. Why didn’t you go to school right off?” I look at Brody and I guess it is hard for someone who had a full scholarship to understand we just didn’t have enough money.

  “I received some small scholarships, but there just wasn’t enough money. I put in for grants and was going to miss the first semester and then pick up a full schedule the next one. Kendall talked me into it. He said it made no sense to try to work and go to school for a couple of classes when I could just save my money and go full time the next semester.

  “We planned on getting us a place of our own since he started school and was working full time for his dad.” I hesitate and then start pacing again.

  “My mom died the September after I graduated. Dad fell apart, and I have to give Kendall credit, because he took care of both my dad and myself. Just when I thought things were getting back to normal, dad began to lose weight.

  “By the time he went to the doctor, the cancer had already spread. Within six months he was gone, too. I was devastated. If it hadn’t been for Kendall moving in and taking over, I don’t know what I would have done. I couldn’t even function.

  “My parents had planned ahead and our home was paid off when my dad passed. They both had burial policies and life insurance. Kendall took care of the paperwork, and that’s why he was on my checking account where the money went after I took care of their estates.

  “Lucky for me the house was set up to go straight into my name. It took me a little while to pull my life back together but by that time the rest of my friends had b
een scared off by Kendall. He told me his woman was not waiting tables anymore, so I quit my job. Then he hit me with wanting to start a family while we were still young. My mind was still in a whirlwind from everything, and I was so grateful for everything Kendall had done for me, how could I refuse him?

  “He was the perfect boyfriend except for his possessive side. We had our first home, he had a great job and had started his education, and I wanted what my parents had, so I agreed. It only took me a couple of months to get pregnant and we were so happy. It seemed like my life had turned a corner.

  “Kendall lavished me with attention, and he took care of me so I knew he would be a great dad. He wasn’t really close to his family so I thought we could make our own family and everything was perfect, until it wasn’t.

  “The day finally came to find out the sex of our child. Kendall just knew it was a boy because his family always had boys first. I thought he was a little over the top with the boy thing, but I really thought he would be happy with either. When they told us Shelby was a girl he lost it. He scared everyone in the office. He said the baby wasn’t his and he wanted a DNA test, and he wasn’t raising anyone else’s bastard child.

  “I was so embarrassed. He left the office, leaving me sitting there wondering what in the heck just happened. I left with my head down so I wouldn’t have to meet anyone’s eyes.”

  I feel the tears running down my face. I thought I couldn’t cry over this anymore, but apparently, I was wrong. Brody gets up and takes me in his arms and hugs me. I cry on his broad shoulders and his arms around me feel so good. I know I owe it to him to finish. I agreed to it.

  “He came back, but everything changed. He was cruel to me, and he started staying out late and cheating on me. The first time he laid his hands on me was the day I went into labor. He backhanded me into the counter and later that night I went into labor. I called him, and he wouldn’t come to take me to the hospital, so I called a cab.