Текст книги "Family Love"

Автор книги: Liz Crowe

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Chapter Fourteen

Her brothers kept her fully apprised of their father’s condition as he slipped even deeper into the bottle after his wife’s death. After a few attempts to get him to stop or at least slow down the boozing, and receiving near-violent rebukes, they’d stopped trying.

He’d given up, they claimed. He wanted nothing more than to pass out drunk one night and never wake up. On December 23rd of that year, he got his wish.

Arranging a funeral for a man with such far-reaching connections in the horse world, and at Christmas, and while nearly eight months pregnant, was a trial. Doing it without any help from Anton was even more so.

But after his temper tantrum and the ripped up check, Lindsay had not let him in the house. It had taken about three days of yelling, pounding on doors, intervention from his mother and brothers for them to get her message: Anton was no longer welcome in her house, near her boys or in her life.

The months between that dramatic weekend and what had once been her favorite holiday were full of long, sleepless nights, coupled with vast stretches of days she stumbled through in a haze of exhaustion.

After about a week, both Antony and Kieran were asking for their dad. By the end of the third week without him, they were all thoroughly sick of one another.

But Lindsay was resolute. No amount of begging, pleading, or even several visits from the new priest from their church would move her.

She surrounded herself with friends. Young mothers she’d helped out, and her brothers—and in the case of JR, his fiancée—all provided support. But at the end of every day, she looked at her sons in their high chairs, and honestly believed she was doing the correct thing. Even if it meant, by then, missing Anton so much it was a physical pain in her chest.

Various epiphanies during long, lonely nights forced her to admit to herself that she’d only married Anton out of pure spite. That she’d not had sex with him that first time out of any real emotion—merely a deep, unmet, selfish, physical need. It took her self-enforced separation to realize that she relied on him, she required him … that she did, now, in fact, love him.

But it was too late for that revelation.

She would not be spoken to or treated as he had done. She was a partner in this business of their marriage. She had a say in the overall health of it, and that included the financial side.

All it took was for her to close her eyes and remember that scene on the lower patio—the tiny drifts of paper and the oppressive heat … the raw fury on his face when he told her she “had to” return it … and her memory of all the sacrifices she had willingly made in order to have a life as Mrs. Anton Love—and she would gird herself for the next twenty-four hour period of single motherhood.

She had her checkbook from their account, and would visit the bank every other day or so to ensure there was money for the bills she had to pay, the groceries she needed, mainly to feed the boys. Her appetite had more or less disappeared the split second she made the decision to keep Anton at arm’s length, much to the dismay of her doctor, who reminded her every month that she had a responsibility to the child in her womb.

The bank tellers were always polite, even when imparting the bad news that there were only a few dollars left until Mister Love could make another deposit. Many of them knew her from church.

In the small town she now inhabited, pretty much every living soul knew about her, her wealthy, horsey background, her stable-hand husband, and their struggle to make a brewery profitable. She hated that. The stares in the grocery. The whispers on the street. She blamed Anton for every damn one of them.

She felt nothing for the child. If anything, she resented the hell out of him—her—or “it” as she would say under her breath when “it” would make itself known via fluttery kicks, rolls and other annoyances. Her basketball-sized belly swelled out from her hips, stretching her skin so thin she could trace the pattern of veins under it when she sat and studied it late into yet another sleepless night.

She’d taken to dragging the boys out to the rented stable where she kept a much more patient Zelda and the “new” Daisy her brothers had bought for her. They also paid for the boarding and upkeep of both animals, thank heaven. She’d never be able to manage it or enjoy what she considered the ultimate luxury—the company of her horses—otherwise.

When she was still able to ride, she would put one or the other of her sons in the saddle in front of her and wrap her hands around his small ones while he held the reins. Antony took to it like a duck to water, asking daily about another Zelda ride. Kieran was less inclined, but after a couple of calm sessions cantering about the small paddock, had at least stopped screaming in fear at the sight of the barns.

Kieran stopped asking for his Daddy well before Antony gave up on it. The first day that happened, Lindsay had cried for hours after putting them to bed.

And now she had another funeral to plan. She and her brothers spent as little time as possible on the decision-making about the service and large reception. And when she arrived for the funeral at the large Methodist church where she’d married Anton, it had made her cry even harder. Recalling herself, giddy with the thrill of pissing off her parents, fairly zinging from head to toe with a constant, low-level horniness, and eager to get her husband alone, she’d spent that day flushed with success.

Now it represented her failure at everything. She gripped her boys’ hands, and they ascended the long flight of steps to the door. They were both somber, thanks to her lecture that morning about best behavior. They’d reached a shaky detente after being together non-stop, more or less twenty-four/seven, for six solid months. Antony had calmed considerably, as if worried he’d upset her. He had done that very thing enough times to scare him. Kieran was sweet and easy-going as always, less inclined to dramatic reactions to his brother’s random bouts of bullying, which had a welcome calming affect on Antony.

Her head had been pounding for three days straight. She’d tried to eat some of the food people brought by once word got out about her father’s passing. But every bite she put in her mouth gave her heartburn, so she’d been living on protein drinks, interspersed with the occasional banana and cup of coffee, the two things she did crave.

The baby felt like a bowling ball hanging off her front, heavy as lead, and constantly throwing her off balance. It had been kicking up a storm for the past two days, but thankfully had gone quiet this morning. The whoosh-whooshing sound she kept hearing, the echo of her own heartbeat, got louder, almost drowning out the words coming at her out of the mouths of the people gathered to honor her father.

She wiped shaking fingers across her dry, cracked lips, letting go of Kieran, since he could be trusted not to run off. Antony pulled at her once he caught sight of his uncles, so she released him with a sigh of relief. Surveying the huge sanctuary, stuffed full of horse cronies, church friends, golf and card-playing families, she got a scary rush of déjà vu from the service for her mother that she’d also attended without Anton, at her insistence.

He’d shown up to that one of course, with his mother and brothers, and left before she could tell him to do just that. She hadn’t brought the boys, though, thinking he might show and they’d flip out. Her fury had sustained her then. But now all she had was bone-deep exhaustion, an eye-burning headache, and a barely functional existence that she was starting to question.

“Don’t try to out-stubborn him,” her father would probably have said to her.

“I’m not,” she’d reply. “I’m right. He’s wrong.”

She blinked, realizing that Kieran was no longer clinging to her skirt. Her vision was getting fuzzy around the edges, and a thirst the likes of which she’d never experienced gripped her, making her lick her lips and look around for a water fountain, all the while knowing there weren’t any in the vestibule or sanctuary. The whooshing noise increased. Her skin prickled, and she broke out in a cold sweat. People kept coming at her, moving their mouths and saying words she couldn’t hear.

A small tickle of fear hit her brain. Was she dying? Having a stroke? Going into early labor?

As if hearing her own wildly churning thoughts, her stomach tightened, making her gasp and bend over on reflex. Someone grabbed her arm while someone else was yelling, but she kept her eyes on the floor, concentrating hard on not dying at her father’s funeral in front of her children.

“Lord, help me. Please, please, please, oh, Jesus God, that hurts!” She yelled the last words.

Out of the corner of her eye, while her vision went nearly all dark, she spotted him.

“Anton,” she gasped, holding out her free arm. “Ow … ow … Oh … no …” She looked down and saw the dark stain between her feet, then glanced up and saw him, her husband, his face thinner, lined, and gray with panic.

“We called an ambulance,” somebody said.

“Out of my way,” Anton insisted when people tried to help her to a chair. But all she wanted to do then was drop to her knees in the spreading pool of blood. So she did. But then she was lifted up. She put her arms around Anton’s neck and tried not to hear the panicky sounds of her sons calling for her, crying, and, in the case of Antony, yelling to be “put down! Mama is sick!”

“Shhh, honey, it’s all right. I’ve got you. Move!” Anton’s deep, gravelly voice made her want to cry, but she hurt too much, all over, head to toe. And she was so thirsty she didn’t believe she could produce any tears.

“It hurts. There’s b-b-b-blood.”

“I know. I’m taking you to the hospital myself.”

That was the last thing she heard for a while.

She woke in a near-dark, stuffy room, pinned in place by IV lines in each arm. Her throat felt shredded. When she tried to move her legs and sit up, the pain nearly made her pass out. Alarms sounded. Her door opened and a cadre of nurses piled into the room. Lindsay hated hospitals. She’d checked herself out as quickly as possible after each of her boys were born.

She froze, terror gripping her from head to toe when she felt for the distinctly non-existent lump of her pregnant stomach. That thing she’d been hauling around, resenting it and everything it represented had become so much a part of her, she burst into tears at its absence, knowing it could only mean one thing.

“Hush now, honey, it’s all right.” A nurse patted her arm while she lifted the cover over her lower half and made an adjustment.

“Ow!” Lindsay flinched.

“It’s just the catheter. Doctor says we have to leave it in a few more hours, but I sure don’t know why. You’ve recovered so well.” She patted Lindsay’s leg. “Try to relax and lie still. You gave everybody a real scare.”

“B-b-b-baby?” Tears blinded her. “I lost it?”

“No, quite the contrary. We almost lost you.”

Lindsay blinked and put one of her needle-speared hands on her flatter stomach. “But it’s too early.”

“Well, he’s in the NIC-U for now, but only because it’s protocol. He was already over six pounds, and with a great set of lungs on him if his caterwauling is any indication.”

“He’s … crying …” she said, feeling idiotic and slow, but unable to process that the “it” she’d been harboring had materialized into a living, breathing baby. “Him?”

“Oh, yes, without a doubt.” The nurse winked at her. “But you were touch and go. They took the baby by C-section. Your husband was there, and he got to hold his boy for a minute before they had to take him to isolation. Poor old thing. He’s not been happy since.”

“The baby?” She stared up at the blank white ceiling when the nurse said she needed to check her stitches.

“Well, him, too.”

“Where is he?” She didn’t even know which he she meant at that point. “And can I get a cheeseburger?”

The nurse chuckled. “The doctor will be glad to know you asked. You are way too thin, dehydrated, and borderline diabetic, but we’ve fixed that up. Time to eat so you can feed that fine young man screaming his fool head off in the nursery.” She covered her with the thin blanket. “I’ll get them both for you, honey. The nurses will be glad to have the boy with his Mama, I’m thinking.”

Chapter Fifteen

Life, as it was wont to do, eased into a familiar, post-baby rhythm. Lindsay considered herself a semi-expert now. Less inclined to freak out at every sniffle and cry. More relaxed, which she hoped would translate to a relaxed newborn.

But Dominic Sean Love was the sort of baby who nursed so often he seemed permanently attached to her boob, and who, when he wasn’t eating or shitting, was crying.

Anton had apologized, tears streaming down his face as she held her third son for the first time and put him to her breast.

He’d brushed her hair off her face, kissed her forehead, nose, cheeks and lips while Dom latched on so hard she winced. But she accepted it, and did her own apologizing for being so stubborn. They sat together, watching Dominic nurse, his tiny fists covering his face or pressing against her skin as if to force more milk out of her.

Once home, Anton had been in full charge of Antony and Kieran for a couple of weeks while she regained her strength and tried to keep Dominic satisfied. By the end of the first month, he was still nursing five or six times a day, but had caught up, nutritionally speaking, to the point where he would actually sleep a few hours at a stretch.

Antony mostly ignored him. But Kieran was fascinated by the tiny baby, and would stand by her chair while she nursed, touching his face, his hands, his feet. He also loved to sit on the bed, watching him sleep in the bassinette she kept on her side for ease of nightly duties.

It took almost three months before he settled into something resembling a routine and became more than simply a screaming, eating, pooping machine.

He would gaze up at her, his Love-brown eyes shining, giving her almost more guilt than she could bear over how badly she’d behaved by refusing to take care of herself—and him—while carrying him.

Perhaps, because of the guilt, she allowed herself to enjoy him more than she ever had the other two.

By his sixth month, Dominic had formulated a flirty personality. He’d charm the pants off total strangers in the grocery or at church with his huge grin and grabby hands. His newborn tufts of dark hair had fallen out and been replaced by light, golden-blond strands. But he was volatile, and she still couldn’t predict when he’d start screaming for no apparent reason—too early to be hungry, diaper dry, nothing poking him.

She was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing him and thumbing through the newspaper one early summer morning, when Anton appeared, surprising her. They had not been sleeping in the same room since Dom’s birth. She insisted that he get a full night’s rest so he could manage the other boys. He’d been taking Antony with him to the brewery for the past few weeks, a few hours each day, hoping to redirect the recent destructive, temper-tantrum streak he’d been on.

At that moment, the sight of him sent a bolt of lust down her spine, reminding her of what she’d been missing for well onto a year now. They hadn’t communicated much beyond logistics, either, since the three boys sucked so much energy from them both, not to mention the fact that Love Brewing was attempting to expand, and negotiations with real banks had been underway for about a month.

Dom dropped off to sleep, as he usually did after his mid-morning meal, releasing her nipple with a pop, milk dribbling out of one corner of his pursed lips. Anton just watched them, hands in his jeans pockets, a small smile playing at his lips. She burped Dom, inhaling his baby smell, and wondering what in the world could have torn her husband away from his precious brewery at ten thirty in the morning.

“Let me,” he said, taking the small, curled-up boy and cradling him close. “Why don’t you take a bath?”

She frowned, taking in the chaos that passed for her kitchen these days. Antony was at the church pre-school, terrorizing his friends and teachers, no doubt. Kieran was still in bed. That kid would sleep until noon if she let him. She got up and stretched, wincing at the ache between her shoulder blades.

Wandering out into the living room, she was thinking about lying down and catching up on an hour of sleep herself when she heard the water running into the tub. She went in to find Anton filling it, sitting on the side and adjusting the water temperature.

“What in the world?”

He rose and went to her, smiling. She cocked her head, curious, but also getting hornier by the second. Without a word, he unbuttoned her shirt the rest of the way, slipping it off her arms and to the floor. Her unclasped nursing bra joined it, as did her sweat pants and panties. She stood, a bit self-conscious of her soft belly and the still-red scar above her pubic bone. He dropped to his knees and pressed his lips there, licking along the edges of the line where they’d opened her and taken Dominic from her quickly failing body.

He gripped her hips, keeping her close while he slid his fingertips between her legs. She gasped at the sensation of him, touching her there, of his lips and tongue, teasing her softest, most intimate parts. It felt so illicit, and wrong, and yet utterly perfect. Leaning against the wall, she threaded her fingers through his thick, black hair and draped one leg over his shoulder.

He gripped her even harder and she tilted her hips to give him the access he wanted and she required. He teased her flesh, and when he slid fingers inside her, her entire world coalesced around a flash of pleasure so bright and so intense she couldn’t help but cry out. Her hips moved against his face and hands. Her breathing came in loud gasps. The death grip she had on his hair, holding him in place so she could ride out the incredible orgasm would make his scalp hurt later. They’d joke about it.

But it was a moment long in coming, and one they both required. She let go of him and slumped against the wall, every inch of her thrumming with satisfaction. He got to his feet, unzipped his jeans and gripped his erection. The glistening moisture at its tip made her lick her lips and grab at him, kissing him while he backed up until he had to sit on the closed toilet lid.

“No, no, I don’t want to hurt … oh dear Jesus, God in heaven, yes …” He hissed as she lowered herself onto his lap, taking all of him, even though it hurt a little. Grinding down, gripping the towel bar behind his head, she let herself relive that first time in the shed, sitting on the hay bale.

She stood again, almost releasing him, just for the sheer joy of feeling it inside her, his dick, his cock, his penis. Her husband. “Faster,” he whispered into her breasts. “Please.”

She went faster. And when he filled her with a moan of something that sounded almost like pain, she kissed him and kissed him and wished she could never stop kissing him.

Later, lying in the tub while Anton distracted Antony, who’d been dropped off by a friend after his morning at pre-school and about five minutes after Anton had lifted her off him and helped her climb into the warm water, she relaxed for the first time in a year.

She heard their voices, both raised slightly—Anton tended to match the boy’s volume instead of telling him to tone it down—then heard Kieran running down the hall from the room he now shared with his older brother. Warmth and happiness filled her from head to toe.

She washed, got out, and made a mental note to get condoms the next time she was at the store. She’d missed her husband and the extreme physicality of their relationship. She had no intention of going without any longer. But she was also not about to have any more babies.

Chapter Sixteen

Lucasville

Eighteen months later

“What d’you mean ‘angel investor?’ ”

Lindsay was setting the table for supper while Anton sipped iced tea and bounced Dominic on his knee for the few seconds the kid would allow himself to be held by anyone.

Antony, who would start first grade in a few weeks, played in the bottom basement with the train set his uncles had given him. That thing ran almost nonstop while he was home and awake. He had a penchant for placing his matchbox cars on the crossings and letting the train demolish them, which worried her a little … when she had time to worry about such things.

“Exactly how it sounds. A guy with a giant bank account who wants to help pay for the brewery to move to a bigger location outside of town, so we can widen our distribution.” He put Dominic down when he started yelling for his brothers, then wrapped his arms around her from behind, kissing her neck and cupping her breasts. She smacked him away.

“Hands off. I have hot food and it’s the wrong time of the month, mister. Apparently, I can’t count on you to put on a rubber, and I am not having any more kids.”

He laughed and smacked her behind. “I don’t really understand it, either. They don’t want to be known as anything but ‘silent partners.’ It’s kinda weird, but Joe says I should seriously consider it.”

“Joe, huh?” She put the casserole dish on the table, poured milk in three cups and hollered for the boys before turning to face him. “I don’t care for him. You know that.”

Joe Patterson was a hotshot attorney who’d wandered into the Love Pub about a year prior, seeking “something different” in beer. A native of California, he’d attended law school in Louisville, and had set up a thriving practice there, been married and divorced, and now practically lived in Lucasville, offering free legal advice “in exchange for beer,” he claimed.

Lindsay wasn’t sure what she didn’t like about him. He was tall and slim, a former swimmer or water polo player or some such foolish California thing. His dark brown hair was cut close, and his hazel eyes were sharp, knowing, and never still.

He was, in a word, handsome, and he knew it, which rubbed Lindsay all kinds of wrong ways. Handsome men were better off humble, in her opinion. The ones who weren’t were trouble waiting to happen. This was something she realized she’d better impart to her own potentially handsome sons soon enough.

“I know, honey.” Anton patted her behind again and made a sound low in his throat, indicating his preference for a bit of alone time.

“Off me,” she said, giving him a flick of her fingers and smiling when the boys barreled into the kitchen. With their contrasting dark, light, and rich auburn heads of hair, they were as different in looks and temperament as three humans who came from the same DNA combination could be. “Hands?” They all trooped to the sink and stood on the stepstool she kept there so they could soap, rinse, dry and jockey for position.

They sat, and Anton said grace, adding a bit about the Reds beating the Cubs, which made the boys giggle and her frown. Antony talked a mile a minute, barely pausing to eat. Kieran ate while observing his brothers and his parents. Dominic played with his food, eating a little, but getting most of it on his face, the table, and the floor. She’d put away the high chair since he refused to sit in it after figuring out how to climb down when she made him sit there. “Me,” he’d said simply, pointing to his brothers at the table, one in a booster seat the other on a pile of phone books. “Table.”

Once finished with the nightly battle-slash-ritual of a little outdoor basketball playtime with Daddy, using the miniature hoop Anton had installed, they trooped in for their baths. A loose term, meaning more “water all over the bathroom and sometimes tears” than “cleanliness.”

She plunked them in front of a half hour of recorded cartoons, and then carried Dominic into his brothers’ room so she could read them all a book. Antony fell asleep first, as usual. Kieran next. Dominic would require a second book, a glass of milk, a toy, a snack, and sometimes a stern warning from his father to “hush up and go to bed” before he finally succumbed. She kissed his slightly sweaty forehead and turned on his ceiling fan.

“Mama,” he said, sounding sleepy, thank the good Lord.

“Yes, my darling?”

“Am I your fav-rit?”

She smiled and turned to him. “You’re my favorite blond Love.”

“Ant-nee is fav-rit black hair. Kee-an is fav-rit ginger.”

“Don’t call him that.” She occasionally wished he weren’t so verbal already. Damn kid was ahead of the curve on almost everything, it seemed.

Dominic giggled. “’Night, Mama. Love you.”

She flicked off his light and closed the door, eager to get to her husband, until she recalled the bad timing. She grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge—a new, dark chocolate stout she really loved—and poured them into tall glasses.

He was sitting on the lower patio, a huge fan trained straight at him while he leaned back, hands behind his head, eyes closed. She observed him for a few minutes, taking in his strong, reliable, stocky physique, hardly changed from the day she met him, wearing his usual jeans and brewery t-shirt.

The reunion after Dominic’s early, chaotic months at home had brought them closer. He’d even begun to talk about the brewery and his plans for it, which pleased her. It was her name on those bottles and kegs, too, after all. She’d gotten him to teach her how to brew a few batches, going so far as to create her own special hoppy wheat variety for summer they called “Ginger-Head Wheat.”

“The lawyer called again today,” she said, by way of making her presence known. She handed him a glass. He took it, drank half, then stared down into it.

“And?”

“And, I have to decide what I’m going to do about it.”

He finished his beer and set the empty on the table with a distinct bang.

She frowned at him. “You’re not going to change your position about this? Remain as stubborn as my daddy’s mule?”

“Lindsay, I can’t stop you from accessing your inheritance. But I’m telling you right now that if you use it for anything but the boys’ college funds, we are gonna have a problem.”

“Anton,” she said, trying to arrange her face in neutral, calm lines. “The house needs a new roof. We won’t make it through another winter without one. I’m wasting time and money taking our clothes to the Laundromat because the dang dryer keeps giving up the ghost. Dominic’s hospital bill is enormous.”

He raised a dark eyebrow at her. She fumed but forced her voice to remain calm. “And don’t even start with me on why that is. I’m not about to listen to it. The dishwasher is on its last legs. You want to build a pole barn. The money for all of these things and more is there, in that trust fund, waiting for my signature.”

He sighed and looked up at the darkening sky. Lindsay waited him out, sipping her beer, watching the fireflies flicker in the yard behind him. “No,” he said, leveling his stare at her. “When your father fired me for something I did not do to his precious baby daughter, no matter what I or anyone said—even his beloved Patrick—I swore to myself I’d never again accept anything from him. I didn’t even take my last pay packet, and I needed it.”

“No, you took me instead.” She knew she was treading thin ice now, but she was sick to death of this lame excuse.

“No, you offered yourself up to me, if I’m not mistaken, and I don’t think I am.”

“You wanted it as much as I did.”

“I won’t deny that, Lindsay, but I wasn’t going to act on my base impulse, unlike some folks I know.”

“Damn good thing I did, I guess.”

He studied her, eyes narrowed, as if pondering her statement. Anger heated her face. Her throat closed up. Memories of the most God-awful months of her entire life, spent trying to manage the boys, the house, herself—alone—washed over her. “I mean, maybe I’m assuming you’re as glad about it as I am.” She rose.

“Oh, sit down and calm your horses. Lordy. You are the most hair-trigger woman I know.”

“So let me get this straight. You’re happy to consider taking … how much was it again?”

“Two-hundred fifty,” he said under his breath.

“A quarter of a million dollars from a total stranger so you can move a perfectly good-sized brewery out of that beautiful old building you spent years and thousands of dollars bringing up to code and prettifying. So you can maybe, hopefully, possibly sell a few more bottles in states that don’t even border this one.”

“That about sums it up, yes.” A hard edge had crept into his voice. She knew it well, and also knew she’d be better off dropping the subject now and picking it up again later.

“And yet, when I tell you our very house is coming down around our ears, you still won’t allow me to touch the money my family left me legally in order to make a few God damned repairs.”

“No need to curse.”

“Fuck you, Anton. You are the stubbornest damn wop on God’s green earth.” She jumped up and headed indoors. He grabbed her arm.

“Let go of me.”

“Honey, you’re as stubborn a cursed red-headed Mick, and I love you. But I won’t have a dime of your father’s money spent on my house. We’ll get the stuff done, and we won’t freeze in the winter or hand wash dishes. And I’ll buy you a new dryer next week. I can swing that.”

She sighed. They stood, glaring at each other in the darkness, the fan blowing her hair in her face.

“Whatever,” she said, too tired at the thought of arguing anymore to bother.

He tugged her and she dropped into his lap.

“I’m not having sex tonight, Anton. I can’t afford to risk it.” He lifted her hair and started kissing her neck. Her body reacted instantly. She squirmed, sighing when he cupped her breast, already sensing herself giving in to him the way she wanted.

As she was about to pull him up and into the house, wondering if they should head for the bottom basement since it was cooler there, a loud crash and terrifying shriek from Kieran made her leap to her feet. Anton barreled into the house, taking the flight of steps in two strides. She ran behind him, heart in her throat. The scene was so confusing at first that she had to look everywhere to sort out who was hurt and what had happened.