Double Dare (A Neighbor from Hell Book 6) (13 page)

Chapter 20

              “How many nights will you be staying with us?” the cute guy working behind the front desk asked, giving her a warm smile that did nothing to help her frayed nerves.

              “I’m not sure yet,” she said, somehow resisting the urge to look over her shoulder, again.

              He nodded as he returned his attention to his computer screen. “Very good,” he murmured softly as he continued to type. “Would you prefer two doubles or a king?”

              “Doesn’t matter,” she said, giving in to temptation and looked over her shoulder to make sure that the coast was clear.

              “Third or fifth floor?”

              “Fifth,” she mumbled absently as she looked around the large foyer, making note of all the exits just in case.

              “I’ve placed you in room 517 with two double beds at the rate of one-seventeen a night. Is there anything else that I can do for you?” the clerk asked.

              “No, I’m good,” she said, forcing a smile that felt a little strained as she accepted the key cards and her license back, “thank you.”

              “If you need anything, please don’t hesitate to call,” he said, giving her an inviting smile that barely registered in her paranoid mind.

              “Thanks,” she said, shooting the double glass front doors a glance as she hefted her backpack over her shoulder and headed towards the elevators.

              Four minutes later she was closing her hotel door behind her and flipping the locks shut before she stumbled back and dropped down on the small love seat with a groan as she finally faced the truth.

              She was a coward.

              She’d planned on confronting Darrin and putting an end to this dare this morning, but one thing led to another and by the time that it was time to go home and face the music, something occurred to her. She’d not only willingly come between a Bradford and his food, but she’d actually destroyed it with glee. Over the years she’d done some really stupid things, but this was by the far the dumbest thing that she’d ever done.

              Even if she managed to convince Darrin to forget about this dare, something that she’d never been able to do before, there was no way that she was going to be able to get him to forget about the “Incident,” as she now liked to think of it, until he’d avenged the Chinese food that she’d destroyed. Since she’d seen what happened when someone came between a Bradford and their food, it was understandable, at least in her mind, why she wasn’t in a rush to face Bradford justice.

              They both just needed a few days to figure some things out and-

              “I’m done,” Darrin said, startling a blood-curdling scream out of her as she jumped up, tripped over her bag and landed with a wince on the floor.

              “What the hell is wrong with you?” she managed to ask between gasps as she willed her racing heart to calm down when she spotted him leaning against the wall, staring out the large window.

              “Apparently a lot of things,” he said, continuing to stare out the window instead of issuing a dare to get back at her for what she’d done to his precious food, letting her know that something was very wrong.

              “How did you get in here?” she asked, realizing that her paranoia had been justified.

              Then again, it usually was when a Bradford was involved.

              “Devin overheard your phone call to the hotel and decided to give me a call,” he explained as she stood there, silently cursing his cousin to hell and back.

              “That really doesn’t explain how you got in the room,” she pointed out.

              “It doesn’t matter,” he said with a shrug.

              “What’s going on, Darrin?” she asked, slowly pushing to her feet as a weariness that she couldn’t explain spread through her.

              “Jake came to explain a few things to me,” he said, destroying her entire world in a matter of seconds.

              Oh, God…

              “What did he tell you?” she asked, placing her hand over the hollow ache in her stomach.

              “Don’t play games with me, Marybeth. Not now,” he said, finally looking at her.

              She nodded numbly as she sat down on the edge of the loveseat and buried her face in her hands. She took a shaky breath before she told him the reason why this had to end now.

              “I can’t have children.”

*-*-*-*

              Oh God, he was going to be sick.

              Of all the things that he’d expected her to say, that hadn’t been one of them. He turned his back on her and gripped the windowsill until the backs of his knuckles turned white.

              “There’s more to it,” he said tightly even as he prayed that was the end of it, because honestly, he wasn’t sure that he could handle anything else. 

              “What did Jake tell you?” she whispered after a slight hesitation.

              That he should move on because Marybeth wasn’t interested in anything serious with him. As long as he was in the picture, Marybeth wasn’t going to be able to find someone that she could settle down with. Darrin needed to do the right thing and end things, because Marybeth deserved better than to be some guy’s fuck buddy. If it had been any other guy looking out for his sister, Darrin would have felt like an asshole, but this was Jake, who couldn’t lie to save his life. He’d known the second that Jake opened his mouth that he was trying to bullshit him, but he hadn’t known why.

              Until now.

              For years he’d known that Marybeth was keeping something from him, but he’d convinced himself that as long as he had her in his arms, even with the conditions that she’d set, that it hadn’t mattered. Now he was regretting that decision as well as the one where he’d foolishly agreed to settle for fuck buddy status.

              “It doesn’t matter what Jake told me. I want to hear it from you,” he said softly, terrified that if he spoke any louder that he’d start yelling and wouldn’t be able to stop.

              “I don’t know what else there is to say,” she said hoarsely.

              “Why don’t you start from the beginning?” he suggested, telling himself that it would somehow make a difference, but he knew that nothing could change his mind now.

              He was fucking done.

              “I was diagnosed with endometriosis, stage four, when I was fifteen,” she announced like he had some fucking clue what that meant.

              “What is that?” he asked, staring out the window that overlooked the busy parking lot.

              “It basically means that the tissue that’s supposed to be growing inside my uterus is growing where it doesn’t belong. Normally it can be controlled with medicine, but-”

              “Not in your case,” he guessed, finishing for her.

              “No,” she said, sighing softly. “Not in my case.”

              “When did you find out that you couldn’t have children?” he asked, needing to know just how long she’d kept this from him.

              “How long?” he asked when she didn’t answer him right away.

              “Since I was fifteen,” she finally admitted, making him shake his head in disgust, because everything made sense now.

              “That was the real reason that you dropped out of school, wasn’t it?” he asked, already knowing the truth and realizing that there was one more lie that he could add to the list.

              “I couldn’t keep up with the work after the first surgery and-”

              “Surgery?” he snapped, cutting her off as he turned around to face her.

              “They tried to remove the scar tissue,” she said, sitting on the edge of the loveseat, staring down at her trembling hands, “but it just kept growing back.”

              “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked, choking out the words as he remembered the time when she’d started skipping school.

              He remembered sneaking into her room at night and bitching about how much he hated school without her, bitching about homework, chores and all the bullshit that fifteen year old boys bitched and whined about, hoping to get her to tell him what was going on all while she laid there, resting her head on his shoulder and toying with the buttons on his shirt. They usually lay there talking about absolutely nothing or watched movies until her mother either called them for dinner or kicked him out. He also remembered the times when he’d snuck in her room only to find a note telling him that she was spending some time at her Dad’s, which had never made sense to him since her father was a fucking asshole, who couldn’t be bothered with her.

              Now it all made sense.

              “I didn’t want to worry you.”

              “You didn’t want to worry me?” he asked with a humorless chuckle as he thought about how much he used to worry about her when she’d suddenly disappear or when he found her crying and she wouldn’t tell him why.

              He’d been scared out of his fucking mind.

              “I asked you what was going on!” he snapped, furious at her, at himself for not pushing the issue and making her tell him, and at this whole fucking situation in general.

              No children…

              They were never going to have children, he realized, gasping for air as he turned around and grabbed onto the windowsill. He closed his eyes and dropped his head forward, trying to keep it together, but it was a losing battle. There would be no little boys wearing the Bradford smile stealing his food or little girls with the devilish glint in their eye that matched their mother’s, wrapping him around their little fingers. They would never hold their baby, watch him grow up and have children of his own one day. They would never have the family that he’d dreamed of giving her.

              “It had nothing to do with you, Dar-”

              “It had every fucking thing to do with me!” he shouted, gripping the windowsill as grief slammed into him. “You should have told me. You should have fucking told me!”

              “Darrin, I’m so-”

              “Don’t,” he said, cutting her off as he squeezed his eyes shut, because he didn’t think that he could handle hearing her tell him how sorry she was.

              “I never planned on telling you,” she explained, confirming what he should have known all this time.

              “Because you were never planning on giving me anything more than sex.”

              “I have nothing else to give you!” she screamed as he suddenly found himself yanked back until he was facing her. She shoved him back against the wall until he found himself staring down at the beautiful tear streaked face of the woman that had fucking played him.

              “You had everything to give me!” he shouted back, getting in her face.

              He was so fucking angry that he could barely see straight.

              She’d wasted six fucking years!

              Six fucking years that they could have been happy together! He would have been devastated that they couldn’t have children, but he would have had
her
.

              “You want a family,” she said, getting back into his face, “and I can’t give that to you!”

              “You are my fucking family!”

              “No, I’m not,” she bit out, glaring up at him through watery eyes as she stepped away from him, “and I’m not going to be the one that keeps you from having one.”

              “No,” he said, shaking his head, glad that they were finally in agreement about something, “you won’t.”

              “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, her expression instantly shifting to wary and for damn good reason.

              She’d been around him and his family long enough to know when something seriously fucked up was about to happen.

              “It means that you have a choice to make,” he said coldly, not caring that she was going to hate him for this, not after what she did.

              “Darrin,” she said, suddenly looking every bit as exhausted as he felt, “let’s just talk about this.”

              He ignored her, because there was nothing to talk about as far as he was concerned. “You have a choice to make. Marry me today or let me walk away.”

              She shook her head slowly, the tears rolling down her beautiful face, giving him his answer without a word. “I can’t,” she choked out around a sob. “I just can’t do that.”

              Jaw clenched shut tightly, he nodded as he stepped past her and headed for the door. “Goodbye, Marybeth.”

Chapter 21

Three Weeks Later…

              “Are you still mad at me?” Jake asked as they sat there, waiting to pull up to the curb so that she could get out and be miserable in a different state for the next two weeks.

              “Are you still siding with him?” she asked, absently watching the organized chaos around them.

              She should have just cancelled her trip and ate the cost of her ticket, but then she would have been forced to deal with questions from Mrs. Bradford and right now she really didn’t think that she could handle that without letting the woman know exactly what she thought of her son.

              “Yes, yes I am,” Jake said firmly as he pulled up closer to the curb.

              “Then I’m still mad at you,” she said, releasing her seatbelt so that she could lean over and grab her carry-on bag.

              “You didn’t leave him with much of a choice,” Jake pointed out, again, as he shifted forward in his seat so that he could pull out his wallet.

              “You’re supposed to be on my side,” she grumbled, double-checking to make sure that she had her boarding pass and paperwork.

              “I am on your side,” Jake explained as he reached over and stuffed some money in the front pocket of her backpack.

              “It doesn’t sound like it,” she said as she looked out the window, wondering what had possessed her to tell Jake.

              “You knew that he was in love with you,” Jake said, not sounding at all sympathetic the way that a good brother should.

              “And he knew that I didn’t want to get married,” she muttered back, debating her chances of making it to the sidewalk without getting run over.

              “He’s a Bradford, Marybeth,” he said, chucking and shaking his head in disbelief. “What did you expect him to do?”

              “To respect my wishes?” she suggested, not appreciating the way that he started laughing at her.

              “A Bradford?” he managed to ask between bouts of laughter as she sat there, seething with rage.

              “
Yes
,” she hissed, deciding in that moment that she no longer had to feel bad about telling their mother about his collection of
Playboys
to save her own ass when they were kids.

              Deciding that she’d rather take her chances with the taxi drivers suffering from road rage than to sit here and listen to another second of disloyalty, she threw her door open, grabbed her bag and stepped out with a grumbled, “Thanks for the ride, you insensitive jackass!”

              “You’re welcome, Goose,” Jake said with a wink and that same damned pleased grin he’d been wearing since she’d told him that Darrin had ended their arrangement.

              “Bastard,” she muttered as she opened the back passenger door, grabbed her bag and-

              Groaned when the large bastard that she’d been avoiding for the last three weeks was suddenly there, reaching into the backseat and grabbing her bag. Without a word, he threw her bag over his shoulder, closed the backdoor and walked off, leaving her to follow after him or get run over. Muttering to herself, she followed after him as she pulled out her boarding pass and ID to distract herself from just how much she’d missed him.

              When he reached the bag check-in line, he dropped her bag and walked off like he was the one that had the right to be angry. She considered going after him and throwing her bag at his head, but in the end she settled for dragging it behind her as she moved closer to the front of the line. If anyone had a right to be mad it was definitely her.

              “Can I see your boarding pass and ID, please?” the bag attendant asked as he picked up her bag and placed it on the scale.

              Silently seething at the bastard that had ruined everything, she pulled out her boarding pass and ID and handed it over. She glanced over to her right to find Darrin standing several lines down from her, glaring at her like he had every right in the world to be pissed. Eyes narrowing, she glared right back at him, reminding him that she wasn’t the one who’d ruined everything.

              “Ma’am, this ID doesn’t match your boarding pass.”

              Keeping her eyes locked on the bastard that she was tempted to kick the shit out of, she reached into her bag and pulled out a folded piece of paper and handed it over to the attendant.

              “Thank you, Mrs. Bradford.”

*-*-*-*

              “She’s still not talking to you?” Reese asked as he dropped down on the hard plastic chair next to him. He handed Darrin a bottle of water as they glanced around the gate.

              “Nope,” Darrin said, shaking his head as he opened the bottle of water and took a sip, keeping his eyes locked on the woman that he wanted to throttle.

              “Does anyone else know?”

              He shook his head, finishing off his water while he watched Marybeth sit down next to Aidan. She hadn’t spoken to him since he’d forced her to make a choice. Not that he cared, because he didn’t, he told himself as he watched his brother throw his arm around her shoulders and pull her close so that he could kissed her cheek. She laughed at something Aidan said, earning a second kiss that had Darrin deciding that it would probably be for the best if he had one less brother to deal with.

              “Does he know?” he asked, deciding that he should at least make sure that his brother was innocent before he beat the shit out of him and most likely dunked his head in a toilet.

              “About you and Marybeth?” Reese asked with a thoughtful frown as finished off his bottle of water.

              “Yes,” he said as his eyes narrowed on his smiling brother as Marybeth reached up and playfully ruffled his short hair.

              Reese nodded. “For the past few years at least.”

              “You’re sure?”

              “He was with me when I walked in on Marybeth dropping to her knees and-”

              He swore roundly, cutting his brother off. “I get the picture.”

              “I’m glad that you do,” Reese mumbled as they watched Aidan kiss the top of Marybeth’s head. “You’re going to beat the shit out of him, aren’t you?”

              “At the very least,” he said, getting up to do just that only to sit back down with a sigh when their mother walked over and joined them.

              “They make such a cute couple, don’t they?” she asked with a smile.

              Darrin automatically started to agree until he realized that his mother wasn’t talking about his brother Danny and his girlfriend Jodi, who were sitting across from them, but Marybeth and Aidan.

              “I’m so glad she came,” his mother said, sighing with content as Darrin sat there, making a mental note to make sure that his mother got coal in her Christmas stocking this year.

              “Me, too,” Reese agreed, noticeably trying not to laugh while Darrin sat there, fuming.

              “They’re not a couple,” he bit out, wondering what was wrong with this woman. Marybeth had been his best friend since they were seven. If anyone belonged with Marybeth it was him and his mother should damn well be able to see that!

              “No, but I think it’s only a matter of time,” his mother confided in a stage whisper that had him shooting a look of warning at his twin, daring the traitorous bastard to laugh.

              “Why do you say that?” Reese asked for him, his eyes twinkling with merriment.

              “They’ve grown so close over the years,” she said before she added a little sadly, “besides, neither one of them is interested in having children.”

              “Aidan doesn’t want children?” he asked, mostly to distract himself when his stomach dropped at the reminder that he was never going to have children even as he prayed that it would stop hurting so damn much.

              “No, he wants to expand the practice and travel and he doesn’t think that he’ll be able to do that with a family,” she explained in a resigned tone.

              “Dad more than managed with us,” Reese pointed out and he couldn’t help but agree.

              Their father had made a lot of sacrifices and busted his ass to make the practice what it was today, but the one thing that he hadn’t been willing to sacrifice was his family. Their Dad had always been up before the crack of dawn every morning, made phone calls to check on his patients while he made breakfast, helped everyone get ready, and made sure that they all sat down to breakfast together. At the end of the day, their father came home exhausted, stressed and sometimes upset over the loss of a patient, but he never showed it. He always made sure that they knew that they were the best part of his day.

              “Because your father’s dream was to have a big family,” their mother said, sending him a warm smile as she reached up and ran her fingers through his hair, “just like yours.”

              “That’s not my dream,” he said, looking up as his dream shot him another glare.

              “One day you’ll find a wonderful man who will treasure you and make you happy,” his mother said with a sappy smile as he sat there, giving his head a little shake, sure that he’d misheard her.

              “I’m sorry, what was that?” he asked, shifting his attention from the glaring woman to find his mother giving him a hopeful smile.

              “It will happen one day,” she said confidently, giving his cheek a small pinch as he shot a horrified look to his twin to find Reese sitting there about to laugh until their mother turned her attention to him and said, “Don’t worry, sweetheart. You’ll find a good man one day, too.”

              “What will happen one day?” he demanded weakly as they sat there, staring in horror at their mother, wondering, hell praying, that she was drunk, because otherwise they were going to have to start looking into places that could give his mother the kind of help that she so desperately needed.

              “You’ll both find good men that will love you,” she said with a firm nod as she grabbed their hands and gave them a reassuring squeeze.

              “Why the hell would we want to do that?” they snapped in unison as they sat there, glaring at the woman that had clearly lost her goddamn mind.

              Her hopeful smile turned thoughtful as she thought it over again. “You still plan on getting married, don’t you? You can do that now, you know.”

              “We’re not gay, woman!” he hissed, yanking his hand away from the psychotic woman that he’d once allowed the pleasure of cooking and cleaning for him.

              She blinked up at him. “You’re not?”

              “No!”

              “Oh, you’re not?” she asked with a frown, and God help him if she didn’t sound disappointed. “Then why would Jason and Trevor tell me that?”

              “Because they’re hateful bastards?” he suggested, wondering how she’d managed to miss that over the years.

              She gave him another hopeful smile as she asked, “You know that we’d still love you, don’t you?”

              “We’re. Not. Gay,” they bit out, glaring down at the small woman who actually sighed heavily with disappointment.

              “And I’m sure that you’d both be able to find wonderful men one day,” she continued explaining, apparently intent on ignoring them.

              Reese opened his mouth, no doubt to argue with her some more when something in their mother’s tone caught Darrin’s attention.

              “What do you mean that
you’re sure
that we’d be able to find wonderful men one day?” he demanded, highly offended that she was actually questioning their abilities to get a good man.

              “We’re a fucking catch,” Reese said with a glare, shaking his head in disgust while Darrin stood up.

              “Any man would be lucky to have us,” Darrin added, grabbing his carry-on bag before he stormed off in a huff, deciding that now was a good time to have a word with the wife-stealing son of a bitch.