Unbearable (20 page)

“Okay, stop.” Booker stepped over next to Seth and looked down at the list. “I never agreed to this. I never even hinted that I’d agree to this.”

“Chicken?” Lilah asked.

“No!”

“Oh, then you’re saying you don’t have enough self-control?” Lilah took the sheet of paper and wadded it up. “That’s what I thought.”

“Hold on. I am not lacking in self-control. In fact, that’s one of my best qualities,” Book insisted.

Lilah straightened out the paper. “So the bet’s on, then?”

“I’m being railroaded,” Booker said.

“Yes or no,” Seth said. “Are you man enough?” Booker rolled his eyes.

“It’s okay, Book,” Maggie said. “We understand if you don’t feel up to the challenge. Your little brother can kick your butt when it comes to self-control. We get it. Not everyone can have his incredible stamina.” Seth beamed proudly at his wife’s words. She kissed his cheek and said, “Come on, everyone, it’s Christmas. Let’s open some gifts.” We all turned for the family room and the large Christmas tree in the corner as Booker grumbled under his breath, his lips curled.

“Ugh! Fine. Deal,” Booker growled. Everyone, myself included, turned to Booker, our eyes wide. “I’m more than capable of controlling myself, thank you.” He folded his arms triumphantly over his chest.

“Book, you’re letting your pride get in the way again,” Seth counseled. “You need to stop and think this through. You know how you get. You’re like a dog with a bone when it comes to making bets. You hate losing. In fact, you’ve never lost.”

“Yeah, I was mostly teasing anyway, Book,” Lilah said, patting his arm.

“The deal is on,” Booker said firmly. “Unless you’re all afraid of losing your money, then by all means, chicken out. I’ll give you all one last chance to not be part of the deal.”

You could have heard crickets chirp. No one changed
their mind. Lilah broke the silence first. “I’m not interested in backing out, but can I up my bet?” That earned a few smirks, myself included.

Booker ignored us. “To prove to you all,” he said glaring directly at me, “I’ll double the bet.”

“So if we win, we now get double that?” Lilah pressed.

“Exactly,” Booker affirmed.

Maybe I should bet more
.

“This is all premature,” Seth said. “Booker hasn’t dated anyone seriously since Nikkolynn. At the rate he’s going, we’ll all be dead before he gets even gets a girlfriend, let alone marries her.”

“Dang, I hadn’t thought about that,” Cole said, frowning. “Too bad, I wanted to upgrade my motorcycle.”

I chuckled to myself. Cole and Harley’s were two things I’d never put together, and yet he owned one and rode daily until the weather got bad.

Seth tucked the paper in the drawer. “You got my hopes up, bro.” Seth’s mouth turned down, clearly disappointed.

Booker rolled his eyes. “You all are pathetic actors.
Each and every one of you. Oh, and p.s., Tess and I are dating. Game on.” He looked at me and shrugged.

Lilah and Maggie grinned from ear to ear. “I knew it. I could tell when you walked in,” Maggie swore.

“You could not.” As he and Mags debated whether or not she could tell, I helped Seth set the table for dinner.

“He’s a great guy, Tess,” Seth said. “We tease a lot, but I don’t know a better person. Mags told me you had a rough marriage and I want you to know, Booker would never hurt you like that.”

“I know. I trust him.” And I did.

***

Seth’s restaurant was going to be a hit if Christmas dinner was any indication. The tofu salad was out of this world, and I hated tofu usually. Sofia was the big winner of the day, scoring so many gifts she was a grumpy mess by the time evening came due to overstimulation.

“Merry Christmas,” Cole yelled above Sofia’s screams as they left.

Seth turned, leaning against the closed door and said, “Just think, Mags. That could be us next Christmas.”

“I can hardly wait,” she smiled.

“We’d better get going, too.” Booker helped me with my coat. “We have work tomorrow and this one’s boss,” he squeezed my shoulders, “is a Scrooge if we’re late. . .” His eyes widened in mock fear.

We said our goodbyes and exchanged Merry Christmas’ again and left. “I thought the office was closed tomorrow,” I said as we drove away.

“It is. I’m hoping you want to spend some alone time with me.” He took my hand. “I have something for you at my house. Do you mind if we swing by?”

“Sure. With the bet in place, I have no need to worry about any ulterior motives.”

“Don’t remind me.” He muttered something under his breath again, but the music on the radio drowned him out as we drove to his house.

“Here.” Booker handed me a small gift wrapped in red and gold paper after letting Daisy May outside.

“Thank you, but you already gave me a bonus.” I took the gift and tugged on the gold ribbon, looking at him as I did.

“That was from your boss,” he explained as I peeled the paper back. “This is from the devilishly handsome guy in your life.”

“You forgot modest.” I chuckled.

“And humble.”

I open the box. Inside was a picture of a gun. I looked at him, confused.

“It’s the Glock nineteen you said you wanted,” he explained.

“The Gen four?” I smiled wide.

“I love it when you talk guns,” he growled into my neck before running a trail of kisses across to my lips. “Monday we’ll go pick out the exact one you want and fill out the mountain of paperwork now required to get a gun, and start the process going. If you want, you can get a concealed weapons permit.”

“Thank you,” I said, hugging him, and wondering how I was going to fill out the paperwork with my fake ID. I’d have to tell him the truth.

“I hope you’ll feel a little safer with one of these in your purse,” he said, pointing to the picture. “When the weather warms we’ll go do some target practice. Heaven knows we won’t have anything else to do.”

***

“We can head over to the gun shop tomorrow. Sound good?” Booker kissed me before I could answer. “You’re intoxicating,” he said heavily, opening the door to the trailer and stepping onto the front steps. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

We came back to my place after I opened my gift and spent the night talking. It was now two-thirty in the morning. I enjoyed every minute of it. I turned and went inside, watching him drive away before shutting the door completely. I missed him already.

Before going to bed, I decided to send Booker a quick email.

“Thanks for making my Christmas wonderful. I miss you.”

I hit send, but didn’t close the laptop, in case he answered. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, then checked my email. No messages. He probably hadn’t checked his email.

“Unlike you, Tess, he’s gone to bed.” Exhausted, I turned my Lindsey Stirling CD on and fell asleep quickly to the vibrant melodies of the violin, happier than I’d been in a very long time.

I awoke to hands wrapped tightly around my neck.

Chapter 23

Four years ago

“Mom.” I threw my arms around her neck and held her tight while my sister grabbed my one and only suitcase from her car. Tears streamed down my mom’s face as we stood outside the red brick rambler I grew up in.

It hadn’t changed. Even the Hawthorne tree looked frozen in time with its bright pink flowers and rough bark. I tipped my head back and let the sun bathe my face as I wiped my tears away.

My mom cupped my still bruised face in her hands. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry. I wish you would’ve told us.”

I looped my arms in hers and my sister’s as I nudged them toward the house. “I should have. I know that now. I just didn’t want to admit I’d failed. Plus, with Daddy being sick and all . . .”

“Failed? I hardly call this failing, Tess.” The look of indignation on my mother’s face gave me comfort. Dark circles hung beneath her eyes, and her hair had grayed significantly since I’d last seen her, probably because of my father’s cancer.

I opened the screen door and stepped into the living room. It hadn’t changed either. Same green couch. I ran my hands over a misshapen cushion and smiled. Same huge TV sitting on a rickety stand. We kids tried relentlessly to convince Dad he needed to upgrade to a modern, sleek flat screen right after I got married. Dad, ever the saver, simply refused. “Not until this one stops working,” he’d say, patting the monster TV proudly.

A shadow caught my eye and I spun around quickly, fearing Garen had followed me. The sudden action pulled at my still tender incision and I winced. I smiled when I realized it was my dad.

“Sugar Cube.” He ambled toward me. It’d been a lifetime since I’d heard him call me Sugar Cube. He pulled me into a hug. He looked good, better than I’d imagined. Thinner and with less hair, but his skin had a healthy glow. “I wish you’d shared with us what was going on. You deserve so much better.” He pressed a kiss to my temple.

“I should’ve listened to you, Dad. You were right about Garen.” I pulled back and dried my face with my hands again.

“None of us knew he was a monster, Tess.” As he carefully turned my face side to side, his bright blue eyes darkened. “I know the good book says we are supposed to forgive, but I’m struggling with that right now.”

“Me, too. The past eighteen months have been a nightmare.” I sank back into his arms. “I’m so happy to see everyone. I don’t want to talk about him right now.”

“Go ahead and put your suitcase in your old room.” Mom kissed my cheek again. “Freshen up. I’m making grilled salmon for lunch.”

Abby grabbed my hand and dragged me down the hall to the old bedroom we’d shared. Unlike the rest of the house, this room looked completely different. A queen bed and a faded, floral print quilt replaced
our twin beds and silky pink bedspreads. The room no longer screamed a couple of teenage girls live here, that’s for sure.

Abby laughed and plopped down onto the bed, crumpling the bedspread. “Grandma’s old quilt, remember?” I smiled at the faded old thing as she picked up a corner and showed me where my grandmother had hand stitched her name and the date.

“When did all this happen?” I gestured to the room as I sat next to her.

“After I got married.” I missed her wedding. Garen insisted we couldn’t afford to go. She leaned over the side, grabbing something from under the bed. “But I saved these.”

She handed me a CD and my old ballet shoes from when I danced in the Nutcracker as a child. “My Taylor Swift CD.” I remembered Abby had given it to me for Christmas right after I got married, but Garen didn’t care for country music. Being newly married, I didn’t want to rock the boat so I asked Abby to keep it for me until I could soften Garen up a little. That worked out well.

I flipped the CD over and smiled. Taylor stood there, her curly blonde hair flying everywhere. The word “Fearless” was printed across the bottom. It was exactly how I felt at the time.

How things had changed.

Abby went over to the white dresser and took a pushpin from a small glass bowl and pressed it into the wall. She tied the ribbon from my ballet slippers together and hung them over the pin.

“Thanks, Abby,” I said, setting the CD on the dresser. We lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, neither of us speaking for a bit.

“Life sure didn’t turn out how I’d imagined it.” I twisted carefully onto my side. “Are you and Calvin happy?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “He’s a wonderful guy, Tess. He treats me like a queen. He . . . ah . . . he has a brother that’s single. After your divorce is final we thought it would be fun to fix you two up.”

“No. I’m done. I’ll never marry again. I doubt I’ll date again either.” I cringed at the thought. “Lesson learned.”

She sat up and crossed her legs. “You can’t judge all men by Garen. Calvin’s never hit me. He’s never even come close. He wouldn’t.”

“I know they’re not all evil like Garen, but I’m not so lucky when it comes to men. Remember Tim Soren in tenth grade? He was a loser, too.” Tim never hit me, but he did struggle with telling the truth and stealing. “Last I heard he was serving time for car theft.”

“Tess, you dated the guy for two months,” she pointed out.

I shrugged. “No more men.”

“After the divorce is final, and you’ve had some time to heal, you’ll feel differently,” she said with confidence. Not wanting to burst her bubble, I let the subject drop.

“Dad talked to Martha’s dad, Mr. Velazquez. He’s agreed to help with the divorce. From what Mom was saying, he’s pretty sharp.”

The Velazquez family had hosted my wedding in their backyard. We’d come full circle now. They were there to help me celebrate my wedding, and they’d be there to help me end the nightmare.

“Garen’s going to cause problems. It’s going to get ugly, and expensive. He considers me his property. No way is he going to let go easily . . . if ever.”

“Dad said Michael Velazquez would work his fee into the settlement. It won’t cost you a thing, considering the circumstances,” she added softly.

“Good luck with that. Garen’s pretty tight with his money. We always seemed to have money when he needed something, but never when
I
did.”

“Tess, how did it happen? You used to be confident and sure of yourself. Why didn’t you leave when he started hitting you?” Abby asked softly.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “At first it seemed insignificant. A slap here, a shove there. I brushed it off, thinking it wasn’t a big deal.” She started to say something and I stopped her. “I know. Major mistake. Hitting and shoving are never okay.” She settled back down.

“He picked away at my self worth, little by little, every day. I doubted
myself and my abilities. I kept trying to please him, to make him happy. I thought if I could get him to see I wasn’t a total mess up, or a waste like he told me I was too many times to count, he’d love me as much as I loved him.” Rubbing my temples to relieve the pounding in my head did little to subdue the pain I now felt from rehashing my failure. “I lost myself.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Finally, I realized I had to get out or he’d eventually kill me. I was trying to get a job so I could save enough money to come home when . . .”

“Don’t worry. The worst is over.” She wrapped my arm in hers and squeezed.

I lay back down on the bed as my stomach knotted. My family had no idea what we were up against.

As I predicted, the divorce proceedings were ugly. I tried shielding my parents from Garen’s lies, worried about my dad’s health, but they overheard enough to figure it out. Garen not only gave his lawyer a copy of the video he’d made of me drugged up, but he had pictures of me that fed his paranoia. The situations were innocent enough, helping a random stranger pick up some spilled groceries, or a lunch with friends. But somehow everything looked salacious simply by the angles of the shot or they’d been cropped to create an intimacy that just wasn’t there. The photo of me having a soda after the dance tryouts was the worst. Whomever Garen hired to follow me positioned the shot so it looked as if I were whispering into one of the male dancer’s ears, which was not the case at all.

“You have no case, Velazquez. This is one of many men she was having an affair with,” he bellowed during a meeting with my lawyer. He slapped the picture down on Michael’s large oak desk, and I jerked back. Garen demanded the meeting to try and work out our problems without lawyers. He claimed that he wanted to reconcile. I refused to meet without Michael present,
which angered him, but he agreed anyway.

I picked up the photo and pointed out that I was talking to someone next to the dancer, and that the dancer he said I was having an affair with was, in fact, gay. Garen produced several more pictures, most were clearly manipulated, but a couple were damning.

When Michael stepped out into the hall to take a phone call, leaving the double doors wide open, Garen came next to me. I stood my ground, fighting with all I had not to flinch. “You’re my wife, whore. I’ll destroy you before I let you go. Capiche?”

“Move away from my client now or I will have you arrested.” Michael had placed a restraining order against Garen, angering my soon to be ex to no end.

Garen spun around, shooting daggers at Michael with his eyes. “I will destroy you and your client. You’ve been warned.” Garen scurried out of the room like the rat he was, slamming the door behind him.

I dropped my face into my hands, flooded with feelings of hopelessness. “This is never going to end.”

“Tess,” Michael said, passing me a tissue, “it will, we just need to get something on him. He has a lot of damaging photos and videos—”

“All false.” I shot to my feet and crossed the room, staring out the window at the ocean.

“Be that as it may, they do make you look bad.” He picked up a yellow notepad and sat in his leather chair. “We need something on him. Something big.”

“How about the fact that he tried to kill me?” I spit out.

“Unfortunately, that’s your word against his. He’s still claiming your house was broken into.” He rubbed his forehead in frustration.

Garen went all out to make it look like we had a break-in. The front door to our little house had been kicked open, shattering the doorframe. Our living room furniture was in complete disarray, with the couch flipped onto its back and the chair onto its side. He’d emptied the contents of the dresser drawers onto the floor, and pushed the mattress off the box springs. Garen even went so far as to file a police report.

“Okay, he works for Senator Graft, who has a pretty shoddy reputation himself. Did Garen ever talk about questionable tactics he participated in? Maybe election fraud or illegal use of power?”

I spun to face Michael. “Several times. One evening after dinner, they talked about illegal voter registration, and about hacking into emails. Oh, and they said they were going to pay off some judge.”

A smile grew on Michael’s face. “This could work. I know a top-notch private detective that specializes in political investigations. Let me give him a call and see what we can come up with.”

It didn’t take long. Two days later Michael came by the house with not only photos of Garen and Senator Graft with a notorious crime boss, but phone records as well.

“These records are not admissible in court,” he waved the paper at me, “but now that we know what Garen’s been up to, we can request a search warrant and obtain them legally,” he chuckled. “My guess is that Graft will cover his sorry butt and put pressure on Garen into signing the divorce papers, mostly to cover his own skin. Graft’s not going to want this to get out, not with his dream of becoming Governor.”

That was all we needed. Garen crumbled, just as Michael predicted, though he didn’t go quietly. He called me the night before I signed the papers and laid into me, swearing he’d get even for my threat to expose him and his criminal acts. My dad grabbed the phone, reminding Garen we had a restraining order against him and he’d better not call me again.

“Here and here, also.” Michael pointed to the last two places I needed to sign the divorce document.

“I don’t trust Garen. He’s going to come after me. He hates losing. He’s a major control freak, if you haven’t already guessed.” I set the pen down and slid the documents across the desk to Michael.

“I thought the exact same thing, so I hedged our position. I contacted Senator Graft directly and told him if Garen comes within five miles of you or your family, or if any of the photos or the video mysteriously gets out, my information would be turned over to the attorney general’s office in Texas, ASAP.” Michael beamed proudly.

I sat back in my chair, relaxing a little for the first time since leaving the hospital. “So this is it. My maiden name’s been restored, and no more Garen Johnson to worry about?” Michael nodded. I wanted to dance around, shout for joy, but part of me still didn’t believe it was over. I knew Garen too well. He didn’t lose, ever.

It’d been seven weeks since the divorce became final. Six months since I left the hospital broken and crestfallen. Garen was back in Texas working for Graft again, who’d announced his bid for the office of governor. I never heard from Garen. Not a text, not a phone call. Nothing. Life was slowly getting better. My sister was pregnant, and my dad’s cancer treatments had finished. My mother celebrated his success, while dad celebrated that his hair no longer fell out.