A Beautiful Funeral: A Novel (Maddox Brothers Book 5) (5 page)

Driving the commander’s truck proved advantageous as I passed two police cruisers exceeding the speed limit by at least fifteen miles per hour. When I finally reached the station, I ran in long enough to drop Tyler’s keys on his desk and to grab my truck keys, wallet, and phone before getting back on the road for Colorado Springs. The plume of smoke from the warehouse loomed in my rearview mirror as I left Estes Park. I dialed Tyler’s number, but it rang four times before the voice mail picked up. I couldn’t shake the same ominous feeling I’d had while watching my brother leave for the warehouse fire without me. We’d fought fires separately before, but this felt different. That feeling had made me jump in the truck with Tyler before, and the farther away I drove, the more wrong it felt.

I concentrated on Falyn and the kids. The thought of Hollis and Hadley’s excited reaction was an easy distraction. The combination of thinking about having my family back together and my gut feeling about the fire put the night Falyn left in the forefront of my mind.

We almost didn’t go.
Fuck, I wish we hadn’t gone.
The babysitter had backed out, and if Ellie hadn’t called Falyn last minute, we would have just stayed home. What we thought was a stroke of good luck ended up being the worst night of my life. It had been over a year since we’d even gone on a date; it had been even longer since I’d seen Falyn interact with any other men besides my shift partners. My jealousy had never really been under control, so when a younger man approached my wife, swaying from a day of drinking and smiling at her like he knew he was taking her home, there was no thought process. Falyn tried to talk some sense into me, which only made me angrier. By the time he stumbled over and grabbed her ass, I was already beyond reason. I attacked. I beat the hell out of him. He went to the ER, and I went to jail.

The mayor made sure I spent all weekend in a cell. Tyler and the guys tried to bail me out several times without success. Falyn wouldn’t answer my phone calls, and by the time I’d finally gotten home, she had packed up the kids and left.

I gripped the steering wheel. It whined under the pressure of my fingers, bringing me back to the present. The dread and utter fucking despair I felt coming home to an empty house were still fresh. The panic I felt after our first phone call, upon recognizing I couldn’t beg, demand, or guilt her into coming home resurfaced. Love was fucking terrifying, laying your heart out in the open for someone else to protect or trample. My happiness depended on Falyn’s forgiveness, and I still didn’t know if she was willing.

My phone rang, and I pressed the button on my steering wheel. The display already told me who it was, but I was caught off guard, worried she would tell me she’d changed her mind. “Falyn?”

“Dad?” Hadley said.

“Hi, pumpkin! How was the last day of school?”

“It sucked.”

“Again?”

“I got in trouble.” She sounded disappointed in herself, and I imagined hot tears running over her chubby cheeks. She would start middle school next year, and I knew she was going to sprout up three or four inches at any moment. She was already taller than Hollis was, but he would overtake her in high school. I wasn’t happy that she was growing up so fast, but at least she would be back in Estes with her friends.

She sniffed. “Hollis got into a fight today.”

“Don’t worry, Hadley. It’s going to get better. I promise, okay? Very, very soon. Daddy’s going to make sure of that.”

“How?”

“You’ll see. Put Mom on the phone.”

“Hello?” Falyn said. I was sure the conversation with the school about both kids hadn’t been easy.

“I’ll be there in less than an hour,” I said.

“Really?” she said, already sounding perkier.

I smiled. “Yes, really. I told you I’d be there, didn’t I?”

“Yes, but … I saw on the news about the fire. I assumed you’d be there.”

I thought about telling her there would be no more fires but decided it wasn’t the right time. “I was. I left.”

“Before it was controlled?”

“Close enough.” I could practically hear Falyn smiling, and warmth ran through my body. I’d won big points for putting her first, even though I thought I always had by working hard and making a good living. She’d clearly needed me to prove it.

“I … thank you, Taylor. That really … means a lot.”

I frowned, wondering why she was trying so hard not to love me. The things she’d said while I was being arrested cut me so deep I wasn’t sure I could recover, when just her leaving was agony enough. She could have tied me to the bed and lit the house on fire, and I would have loved her still. I didn’t understand the point of pretending, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she
didn’t
love me anymore. I cleared the emotion from my voice before I spoke. “Are you packing yet?”

“What I can without the kids noticing. I didn’t want to give away the surprise before you got here.”

“Good. I’ll be there soon, ba—Falyn,” I said, correcting myself.

“See you then,” she said. No emotion in her voice, no disdain or sentiment. Nothing.

I wasn’t sure what I would do if we couldn’t work things out. She was it for me. Falyn had been my life since we were practically kids. She was the only life I wanted. When she left, I was miserable, but there was still hope. That hope motivated me. The dashboard lights switched on just after the last bit of daylight slipped behind the mountains. A sign on my right read
Welcome to Colorado Springs
, and I shifted nervously in my seat. I still held on to the hope that this weekend was going to be our point of turnaround instead of the point of no return.

CHAPTER FOUR

TRENTON

I
WAITED OUTSIDE THE DOOR
, listening to Camille trying not to cry. Every month was an endless cycle of hope and devastation, and almost eight years into our marriage, she was getting desperate.

The lights were dim. She liked it dark when her soul felt black, so I’d pulled the curtains when the three minutes was up, and she didn’t say anything. Now, nothing was left to do but wait, listen, and hold her.

We lived in a small two-bedroom, just six blocks from Dad and Olive. The bedroom, like the rest of the house, was bright and minimally decorated with interesting art or my drawings. We’d repainted and laid new carpet, but the house was older than we were. Even though at the time of purchase it was a steal, the fixer-upper had turned into a money pit. The central heat and air and much of the plumbing system were new. At one point, we had to peel back the new—but wet—carpet to jackhammer the foundation to get to the pipes and replace them. The last ten years had been a long haul, but now we lived in a like-new home, even if we did have to deplete our savings four times to do it. We were in a good place, finally, and neither of us knew what to do with it but move to the next step. Infertility wasn’t something we could fix, and that made Camille feel broken.

“Baby,” I said, tapping on the door with my knuckles. “Let me come in.”

“Just … just give me a second,” she said, sniffing.

I leaned my forehead against the door. “You can’t keep doing this to yourself. I think maybe it’s …”

“I’m not giving up!” she snapped.

“No. Maybe try a different avenue.”

“We can’t afford a different avenue,” she said. Her voice was even quieter than it had been. She didn’t want to make me feel worse than I already did.

“I’ll figure something out.”

After a few moments of silence, the door clicked, and Camille opened the door. Her red-rimmed eyes were glossed over, and red blotches dotted her face. She was never more beautiful, and all I wanted to do was hold her, but she wouldn’t let me. She would pretend her heart wasn’t broken to keep me from hurting as she always did—no matter how many times I’d told her it was okay to cry.

I touched her cheek, but she pulled away, her painted smile fading just long enough to kiss my palm. “I know you will. I just needed to grieve.”

“You can grieve out here, baby doll.”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t. I needed to take a moment for myself.”

“Because otherwise, you’re worried about me,” I scolded.

She shrugged, her feigned smile turning into a real one. “I’ve tried to change. I can’t.”

I brought her into my chest, holding her tight. “I wouldn’t want you to. I love my wife just the way she is.”

“Camille?” Olive said, holding one side of the of the doorjamb. Her waist-length, platinum blond hair cascaded in waves from her center part down each side of her face, making her sadness seem to weigh her down even more. Her round, green eyes glistened, feeling every disappointment, every setback as deeply as we did because she was family, too. By chance and by blood, whether she knew it or not.

As I watched her lean the delicate features of her oval face against the wooden trim, I remembered being blown away by the truth: Olive, my neighbor and little buddy since she could walk, was adopted, and somehow, her biological mother had fallen in love with my older brother Taylor almost a thousand miles away in Colorado Springs. By chance, I’d helped raise my niece—involved in her life even more than my brother or sister-in-law.

Camille looked at Olive and breathed out a small laugh, pulling away from me while simultaneously licking her thumbs and then wiping away the smudged mascara from beneath her eyes. Her hair was longer than it had been since she was a girl, grazing the middle of her back and the same hue as Olive’s, with a shaved patch just above her ear to keep it ‘edgy.’ I’d just redone the tat on her fingers—the first tattoo I’d ever done for her, and her first tattoo ever. It read
Baby Doll
, the nickname I’d given her early in our relationship, and it had somehow stuck. As hard as she tried not to fit in, Camille was a classic beauty. The name fit her then just as it did now.

“I’m okay,” Camille said, following with a cleansing sigh. “We’re okay.”

She walked over to the doorway to give Olive a quick hug and then tightened the folded navy blue handkerchief she was using as a headband. She sniffed, the pain visibly fading away and disappearing. My wife was a badass.

“Cami,” I began.

“I’m good. We’ll try again next month. How’s Dad?”

“He’s good. Talking my ear off. It’s getting harder to get him to come out with me. Tommy and Liis are bringing the new baby …” I trailed off, waiting for the inevitable hurt in Camille’s eyes.

She walked over, cupped my cheeks, and then kissed me. “Why are you looking at me like that? Do you really think it bothers me?”

“Maybe … maybe if you’d married him … you’d have one of your own by now.”

“I don’t want one of my own. I want
our
baby. Yours and mine. If not that, then nothing.”

I smiled, feeling a lump rise in my throat. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She smiled, her voice sounding relaxed and happy. She still had hope.

I touched the small scar at her hairline, the one that never let me forget just how close I was to losing her. She closed her eyes, and I kissed the jagged white line.

My phone rang, so I left her long enough to grab my cell phone from the nightstand. “Hey, Dad.”

“Did you hear?” he asked, his voice a bit hoarse.

“What? That you sound like hell? Did you get sick within the last two hours?”

He cleared his throat a few times then chuckled. “No, no … every inch of me is just older than dirt. How’s Cami? Pregnant?”

“No,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck.

“Yet. It’ll happen. Why don’t you two come over for dinner? Bring Olive.”

I looked at my girls, and they were already nodding their heads. “Yeah. We’d love to, Dad. Thanks.”

“Fried chicken tonight.”

“Tell him not to start without me,” Camille said.

“Dad—”

“I heard her. I’ll just get ‘em battered and seasoned and get the potatoes in the oven.”

Camille made a face.

“Okay. We’ll be over in a bit.”

Camille rushed around, trying to get out the door to beat Dad to the oven. He’d left the stove on more than once, fallen more than once, and didn’t seem fazed when he did. Camille spent nearly all of her spare time trying to help him avoid accidents.

“Can I drive?” Olive asked.

I cringed.

She smiled mischievously. I groaned, already knowing what she was about to say.

“Pwease, Twent?” she whined.

I winced. I’d promised Olive when she first got her license that I’d let her drive me when she turned eighteen, and her birthday was months ago. It was second nature to say no. I’d never had an accident, even as a teen. The two I’d been involved in were horrific, and both were with women I deeply cared about behind the wheel.

“Goddammit, fine,” I swore.

Camille held out her fist, and Olive bumped it with hers.

“Did you bring your license?” Camille asked.

Olive answered by holding up a small brown leather wristlet. “My new Eastern State student ID is in there, too.”

“Yay!” Camille said, clapping. “How exciting!” She looked at me with a fake apology in her eyes. “You promised.”

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” I grumbled, tossing Olive the keys.

Olive clasped the metal in both hands and then giggled, running for the door and out to the driveway where Camille’s truck sat. As I walked down the flagstone walkway, I noticed Olive hop in and pull the seatbelt across her chest, buckling in and grabbing the wheel with both hands.

“Oh, stop. You’re not bad luck.” Camille opened the passenger door of her Toyota Tacoma quad cab and then pulled open the backward-facing rear door. She clicked her seat belt as I sat next to Olive. She immediately connected the Bluetooth on her phone to the truck, carefully choosing a song. Once the music began to play, Olive twisted the ignition and backed up. A new energy settled all around us. Camille rubbed my shoulders for a second to the beat thumping through the speakers.

“Maybe we should turn off the noise and let Olive concentrate,” I said.

Camille’s massage turned into a playful karate chop. “Noise?”

If I hadn’t experienced it, I would have never known she was crying in our bathroom ten minutes before. She was recovering quicker each time, but part of me wondered if it was real, or if she was just getting better at hiding it.