Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

29. Eden

TWENTY-NINE

EDEN

Do you remember…

Do you remember when Momma got sick?

She fought so hard because she desperately wanted to stay with us. But I saw her fear, the way she watched us each day like it might be her last. Do you remember how she promised that even if she wasn’t here, she’d be watching over us?

Do you remember how much it hurt?

Do you remember how Daddy pretended to be so strong? But he’d weep at night, his agony seeping through the walls and into our hearts. He’d beg and pray, ask for them to trade places, and still, she got sicker every day.

Do you remember how brave you were the whole time? You sat at her bedside for months and held her hand. Whispered stories in her ear while she slept and murmured your promises to take care of us in the moments she was awake. At night, though, you’d lean on Aaron. I think that was when you fell in love, in that quiet peace you found with him at your side.

Do you remember how I was jealous all over again?

You were in so much pain, Eden. So much pain, and still you stayed. You loved. You cared. You were willing to stand in the middle of the storm, your arms lifted high as you shouldered the burden.

Do you remember how I watched it from afar? Detached and floating away? The one thing I wanted was to feel something good or just not to feel at all because I found no comfort in those walls. I found only fear and hurt and the coming loss.

Do you remember when we laid her in the ground? It was so cold that day. The wind bitter and cruel as it howled through the trees. You held my hand so tightly. I’ll never forget it, Eden, the way you held on like you were trying to save me, too.

With your other hand, you held onto Daddy. A firm fortress in the middle of us.

You were our rock while I’d never felt so removed and so alone.

Do you remember how I ran? How I turned my back? How I stole? How I lied? How I caused more pain?

I remember, Eden. I remember it all, and I wish I could go back.

Harmony

With shaking hands, I folded the letter and stuffed it into my back pocket where I stood in Trent’s kitchen.

Grappling.

Battling.

Rocked again.

Unable to process what she was saying or what she wanted.

I’d felt my world shake when Jud had brought me a stack of mail from my house and there’d been another letter from my sister.

Part of me wanted to find her and shake her. Tell her I couldn’t take anything more right then. To just go. To stop the turmoil she caused and leave us behind the way she’d done for years. I was already dealing with enough.

The other? The part that would love her forever? Even when she’d destroyed me and my father again and again?

I wanted to beg her to return. To return the money she’d taken or find a way to help us repay it. Tell her we’d forgive her either way. Tell her she could go back and make it right.

“Miss Murphy! Miss Murphy!” Gage came bounding in through the archway, jarring me from the daze. “What are we gonna have for dinner? I’m so the hungriest, and you’re the best cook ever, even better than Uncle Logan, but don’t tell him that. It’s a secret. Can I help?”

Affection burst. The emotion I was trying to contain shifting and reshaping, taking new form.

“You’re hungry, huh? What do you think we should make?”

“Pigs in a blanket?” he asked way too excited.

A giggle slipped free, and I ran my hand over the top of his head. “We had that last night. How about we make something different? How about some chicken and broccoli?”

“Broccoli. Blech.” He curled his nose.

“It’s good for you.”

“I already take the vitamins. I’m as healthy as can be.” He showed off his tiny biceps.

I laughed. Couldn’t help it. He was a whip. A sweet little whip that had me completely wrapped around his finger.

The week that I’d been staying there had passed in a blur of worry and bliss.

I’d leave here each morning in the car Trent had rented for me, and he’d follow me to the school. I’d had to make an excuse to Tessa that my car had broken down and I’d gotten a rental upgrade.

“Lucky bitch,” she’d said.

She had no idea.

Trent would drop Gage off at the curb, the man watching me from afar, all that heat and intensity touching me from across the space.

He’d tried to convince me to take off the week like he’d done with Absolution, but I’d convinced him I needed to work. That I couldn’t leave my father in the lurch like that.

Besides, I still had a debt I needed to pay.

So, he’d post himself at the coffee shop across the street. Watching. Waiting. Continually on guard.

Then he’d pick Gage up and follow me home.

Home.

To this house that had started to feel that way.

Where we ate together. Laughed together. Worried together.

Loved together.

I gazed down at Gage.

That’s what this was, wasn’t it? This joyful fear that burned so bright?

The way I sparked and shivered every time Trent touched me. The way my heart felt lighter every time he took me into the safety of his arms. The way my spirit shouted each time I wrapped mine around his son.

It was exactly what I did right then.

I hoisted Gage into my arms, hugging him as I said, “Let’s make a deal…you eat some broccoli, and I’ll make corn on the cob, too.”

His sweet eyes doubled in size. Pure excitement.

“Deal!” Then his voice went gravely serious. “But we gotta shake on it because I don’t want you to go trickin’ me the way my uncles like to do.”

“Smart boy,” I teased.

“That’s why I got all the As, Miss Murphy.” He said it so matter of fact, and I was laughing again, emotion twining through the sound. I squeezed him tight. If I could, I’d just hold him like that forever.

Reluctantly, I set him on the island and stuck out my hand. “This is a binding deal, Gage Michael Lawson. Once I shake on it, I can’t take it back.”

“Like a promise?” he asked, words twisting up with resolute sincerity. Sprinkled with all that sweet innocence that he exuded. “Because promises are really important. You don’t go breakin’ those. No way, not ever.”

My chest ached. Brimming. So close to being full. “Like a promise, Gage, and I promise, if I make one of those to you, I won’t break it.”

He slammed his hand into mine, shaking it with all his might. “Then it’s a deal. And I promise I love you so much. All the way to the highest mountain in the world.”

He stretched his arms as high as he could over his head.

I felt impaled by his words.

Stricken.

Wrecked.

Whole.

And for the first time, I said it aloud. I whispered, “I love you, Gage. So very much. I promise you that.”

And I wanted to make a thousand promises right then. That I would love him forever, which was true. But more than that, I wanted to promise that I would stay. That I would never leave him. That I’d be his mommy if he wanted me to.

A fool.

A fool.

Because I could hear the mutterings from the other room. The hushed voices where Trent and his brothers talked below their breaths.

I had no idea how to break through the barriers Trent had resurrected between us this last week.

He treated me like a queen. Like his love. Like his life. Like he would throw himself in front of a train, sacrifice himself, if it meant keeping me safe.

But he was also keeping me in the dark. His fears and demons a writhing, living obstruction that separated us.

He might try to keep the conversations he had with his brothers hidden, but in the low murmurings, I heard the terrifying words.

The threats of retribution I knew they would make good on.

Sickness coiled in my stomach when I thought back to what I’d accidentally overheard when I’d gotten into his car after church last Sunday. The way Trent had jolted when he’d realized I was there, his mouth pressed into a grim line as he lied and told me he wasn’t talking to anyone when I’d heard it plain as day.

And with all the chatter? It wasn’t hard to figure out who it had been.

Gage’s mother.

And he’d threatened her.

I trembled when I thought of it. My own hate that burned and boiled as I stared at the child’s sweet face.

How could someone be so awful to put him in danger? So selfish? So unkind?

Her own son?

It made me want to fight, too. Lash out. Protect.

But I didn’t know how to do that when Trent was keeping me at arm’s length. Behind that wall he’d built like a hedge of protection that shut me out from the most significant parts of him. Where I felt him withdrawing with the strain. With his worry. With his belief that he was a darkness in my life rather than the light that flooded me every time he came into the room.

But the truth was, I’d rather stand in his darkness and see him for what he was than to flounder in his shadows.

“Come on, we’d better get dinner started.”

I hefted Gage up from under the arms, swinging him around, and landing him on his feet. He squealed and laughed and filled the vacant places of my heart.

The front door shut, and I could hear Jud’s motorcycle start.

Trent sauntered in through the archway. Hard as stone and as beautiful as could be. He walked straight over and pressed a kiss to my forehead.

Eyes dropping closed, I relished in the sensation, this man who thought he wasn’t capable of giving me his love cherishing me.