Redemption Hills: The Complete Collection

19. Salem

NINETEEN

SALEM

The engine purred as I pulled into the driveway. You know, since Jud had gone and hooked me up with this cute little Mercedes SUV, kind of like the one Eden drove, but silver instead of black.

Putting it in park, I killed the engine then sat in the quiet comfort of luxury and leather.

Jud had to be careful, or I wasn’t going to give it back.

My friend who was far too good to me.

My bangs whipped when I blew out a sigh. I was the one who needed to be careful. I was getting too comfortable. Too complacent. Settling into a reality that just didn’t exist.

Because I didn’t exist.

Gloom seized my spirit when the thought hit me unaware.

It tried to seep in and take over.

The truth that the longer we remained in one place, the easier it would be for us to be found.

It warred with that overwhelming sense that kept growing stronger every day.

I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay.

I guessed being here with my family made it seem a possibility.

My stomach twisted.

Jud made it feel like a possibility.

But what had really changed?

The fact that Darius had insisted it was time? That enough time had passed, and it no longer mattered?

Sorrow shivered my spirit, grief cutting through the emerging hope.

I knew the lengths Carlo would go.

The sickness he would stoop to.

And that monster was still out there, and as long as he was, Juni and I would never truly be safe.

Before I let myself get too lost in the questions, I grabbed my bag from the passenger seat and opened the door.

Another week had passed with me working at Iron Ride. This week, checks had finally started coming in.

I tossed my bag onto my shoulder that held the stack of one-hundred-dollar bills Jud had paid me with just before I’d left.

Fifteen of them to be exact.

Yeah, a girl could really get used to this.

The truth was, I loved the job. Loved being a part of a team. Loved pouring myself into the work. Loved being a part of something bigger while being able to help my family at the same time.

Pride welled up. A feeling so foreign. One I hadn’t felt in so long.

I blinked against the weight of it and forced myself to walk up the sidewalk toward the front door, my heels clacking on the concrete. I slid my key into the lock, turned the knob, and cracked open the door.

The delicious smell of pork carnitas simmering on the stove wafted back.

I inhaled the warmth. The welcome of it. The onslaught of memories that rushed as I stepped into the house, tossed my bag to the floor, and clicked the lock to the door behind me.

“Hello?” I called.

“We’re in here, Mommy! You better get your booty in here because it’s almost times for dinner and me and Mimi have been in here sweatin’ in the kitchen all day.” Juni showed at the archway, hands on her hips and full of sass.

A giggle worked its way free. “Is that so?”

She gave a resolute nod. “Yup. Mimi is showin’ me hows to make all the dinners from where she growns up, and sometime I want to go to Mexico on an adventure, but only when we decide and we know for sure we gets to come back.”

Guilt swelled and obliterated the pride.

I hated the scars that had been etched on my daughter.

Seeing her then, I knew she’d come to feel the same about this place.

Comfortable.

Relaxed.

A part of something bigger, too.

This existence more than just the two of us.

As if she’d found home .

And there my child stood, voicing her anxiety that I might have to rip her from the safety of it all over again.

I wanted to drop to my knees and promise her that would never happen.

That we’d found a true refuge.

That we could stay.

But I couldn’t tell my daughter a lie that big.

I forced a smile. “I think that would be a wonderful adventure, Juni Bee.”

“Me, too, sweet child, me, too.” Mimi shouted it from the kitchen.

Love clamored through my chest when I peeked through the archway. Mimi was at the stove, stirring the meat and wearing the same apron I remembered her wearing for my entire childhood.

These tiny pink flowers with a row of three deep pockets in the front.

“How was work?” She arched a knowing brow.

I leaned against the counter. “Busy.”

That brow lifted. “And?”

“And what?”

“How was the eye candy?”

“Mimi,” I chastised, giving her a stern look.

“You means all the really awesome motorcycles and cars?” Juni screeched. “Did you see ’em, Mimi? Gage said his uncle is gonna make him one for when he’s sixteen, and he’s gonna give me a ride, I can’t even wait, we only gots ten years for that, but that’s where my mommy works at the coolest place ever in ever and her boss is a motorcycle man.”

Juni started galloping around the kitchen like she was riding a horse though she made revving noises in her throat and held back the throttle on her imaginary handlebars.

Just awesome.

Mimi laughed, pure affection. “Wow, that is something. Just ten years.”

Her gaze narrowed when she returned it to me while she dipped a spoon into the pot and took a sip of the broth the pork was simmering in. “Though I was getting the idea that your mommy’s boss might be the coolest ever in ever.”

“Mimi,” I chastised again, though this time it was a whisper, and that heat was lighting up my cheeks again.

Damn it.

“You think I don’t notice you waltzing in here night after night with that look on your face? With that light in your eyes? You’re different.”

A frown pinched my brow as Juni galloped into the other room, and Mimi took the opportunity to edge around the counter to where I stood. Reaching out, she rubbed the pad of her thumb between my eyes before she let her hand slide down to cup my cheek. “That light went dim four years ago, Salem. Wasn’t sure I was ever goin’ to get to see it again.”

Grief billowed through my being.

“I’m not sure I can ever get that piece of myself back.” The confession left me on a breath.

“No, sweet child, that part is gone, and that missing piece is going to ache forever. But sometimes someone comes along who can hold that piece with you.”

Agony wept in my spirit while my heart panged in my chest.

A tear slipped free.

Mimi wiped it away. “When I lost your momma, I thought I would die, Salem. I thought I would curl up in bed and close my eyes and I’d somehow float away to where she was.”

Emotion clogged my throat.

Devastating.

Too much.

My eyes closed against the onslaught, and Mimi pressed her hand tighter to my face in a loving embrace. “But then these two little angels showed up at my door, lost and without their momma…scared and broken…and that part of me that wanted to float away got tethered to that new home. The home I built with you and your brother.”

“But you never stopped missing her?” The question croaked from my throat.

“Of course not, and I wouldn’t want to. But you and your brother? You held that piece with me. Reshaped it. Reformed it.”

“I’m not looking for someone to fix me.”

“No, Salem, but do you think I don’t know your heart is aching for its home, too? For a tether? For someone to come alongside you and hold that vacant place? One who understands you? Someone who can support you in the times when you feel too weak to carry the burden yourself?”

Jud’s pained confession burned through my mind.

Gutting.

Whispering.

Begging.

“She took our one-year-old daughter with her, Salem, and I never saw her again.”

And I knew there was a part of him that needed to be held, too.

Loved.

Old misery moaned. I knew better than letting the thought infiltrate my mind. Knew better than to trust.

I lifted my quivering chin, the words hard with the hate that had petrified in my bones. “It’s funny how I thought Carlo would be that person for me. That he’d love and cherish and be the one to carry me through all of life’s tragedies and stand with me in its victories, and he’s the one who destroyed me.”

Mimi’s expression dimmed with sympathy edged with the old, old anger that had broken her heart. “Did you really believe that? That he would love and cherish you?”

My guts clutched with her truth.

“He was a wicked boy who grew into a wicked man,” she continued. “He manipulated you. Lied to you. Made you believe he was someone he was not.”

“And I fell for it.”

“You were sixteen, Salem. He was older. Powerful and charming and he had his sights on you. I never liked the boy, but none of us could have imagined how deep his evils went.”

“I was a fool.”

Her head shook. “No, sweet child, not a fool. Just a young girl who believed in the best of people. Believed they could be better. Believed through love, they could be redeemed and restored.”

More tears fell, and I gulped. “Can they be?”

A soft smile tipped at the edge of her aged, wrinkled mouth. “Some choose light in this life, Salem, others choose darkness. And some? Some get lost along the way, but inside of them, they burn with the fire of goodness.”

“How will I know?”

“I think you already do. Right here, you already know it. Deep down.”

She tapped the tip of her index finger against the riot in my heart.

She was right.

I did.

Even though I’d been so young then, there was a piece of me that had known, that had hesitated, my conscience whispering Carlo was wicked and wrong. Just like it was whispering now that Jud was right .

Then she stepped back around to the stove and sent me a wink. “Just make sure whenever you know it, whoever it is makes your knees knock, too.”

“Mimi.” I wheezed a breath, laughing low and shaking my head as I edged deeper into the kitchen to help her with dinner.

“What?” She knocked her shoulder into my arm. “Heck, girl, I’m pretty sure this looker makes you shake all over the place. Hopefully in the good bits.”

I choked out a laugh while my entire being went down in flames.

Memories of the man between my thighs.

That mouth and those hands.

What he’d done to me.

“Mmhmm…that’s what I thought.”

“You thought what?” I defended with a smile.

She sent me the most innocent shrug. “That you’d be famished for your most favorite meal.”

A giggle slipped free.

Warmth and welcome.

Home.

And I had no idea how to stop the hope of it from taking root inside me.

“Boo!”

Gasping, I whirled around with my hand pressed to my chest like it could stop my heart from jumping free of my ribs.

Tessa cracked up.

She was bent in two, slapping her knee from where she stood behind me on the front lawn of our house.

I’d been watching Juniper do somersaults on the lawn, and I hadn’t even noticed she was there.

Complacent.

Reckless.

I blew out a frustrated sigh directed wholly at myself.

“Oh my god, you just jumped like…ten feet in the air. You should have seen it.”

She kept trying to catch her breath, like it had been her that’d gotten the crap scared out of her and not me.

Juni cracked up, too. “She jumped all the way to the sky, right, Miss Tessa?” Juni turned her sweet eyes on me. “I saw Ms. Tessa comin’ the whole time, Mommy, because we gots you a very good surprise that you are gonna love with all your whole heart!”

My eyes narrowed farther, darting between the two of them.

“That’s right. We have a big surprise. We’re going out!”

“Umm?”

She grinned, her red ponytail swishing far too excitedly around her shoulders. “The correct response is, hell yes and hallelujah, thank you, Tessa, for dragging me out of my house and showing me a proper night of fun.”

“Thank you, but I have Juni…”

I trailed off when Juni giggled like my excuse was absurd, and I shifted toward the house when I felt the disturbance at the screen door. Mimi pushed it open and stepped out, grinning like mad, too.

“Correction, I have Juni, and sweet child, you now have friends, so you’re going to have yourself a night of fun. Kind of like you did last Saturday night.”

Mimi waggled her brows.

“And just where are we going?”

Tessa shimmied her hips. “Absolution, baby! Time to get your rocker on. There’s a band playing tonight that is supposed to be crazy good, and it’s my boyfriend’s birthday, but he’s kinda boring, and I’m afraid he’s not going to be any fun, so you have to come with us. I need a wingman.”

She jerked at my hand.

My brow furrowed. “Wingman?”

She waved an errant hand in the air. “Okay, okay, you need a wingman because I have a hunch this burly mountain man might show.”

She gave me three exaggerated winks.

Great.

When I didn’t bite, Tessa hiked an innocent, nonchalant shoulder while her voice twisted with casual manipulation. “I mean, I’m sure he could find someone else to keep him entertained. And I don’t know about you, but since Eden and Trent are getting married, I’m thinking that we should really be there to support Trent, anyway, right, you know, since that club is his baby. His heart and soul. His bread and butter. And now they’re going to have a baby to support?”

Her voice lowered with the tragedy.

I glared at her. “You’re so full of crap.”

Trent was clearly loaded.

Hell, all three brothers were rolling in it.

But what didn’t sit right was the way my stomach twisted with the idea of Jud being there.

In that club.

Without me.

Doing exactly what Tessa had implied. Finding someone else to keep him entertained .

Crap.

This was bad.

Juni Bee tugged at my opposite hand. “It’s a party, Mommy! You gotsta. And guess what? Gage is even gonna come to my house to haves a sleepover and Mimi is gonna make us her specialist tacos and we’re gonna have popcorn and tell secrets, so you gots to go because you’re not allowed to hear.”

“Whole thing is set. No bother arguing.” Mimi grinned as she passed my purse to Tessa.

Holy wow.

I jerked to look over my shoulder when a screen door banged and Gage’s little voice pelted the air.

“Hi, Juni Bee!”

Eden was holding his hand and leading him toward us. A giant backpack bounced on his shoulders as they approached. “Are you ready to have the most fun all the way to the highest mountain?”

“Yes!” Juni bolted that way, skidding to a stop at the curb and jumping in welcome. “This is the best day of my wholes life!”

I sent a death glare at Tessa.

She grinned in triumph. “I know, I’m amazing, right?”

Eden giggled a soft sound as she climbed the curb, and she gave me a tiny, apologetic wave. “I see you’ve been Tessa’d.”

“Clearly, it’s a deadly disease.”

“It is, and you’ll never recover. But don’t worry, DD here, we’re in this together.” Eden’s mouth slipped into a tender smile, and she spread her hand over her still-flat stomach.

Affection blossomed, all while fear sprang up in the middle of it.

I shouldn’t do this. Shouldn’t allow myself to get any deeper.

Because I felt it, spreading through me, sprouting through the cracks.

Love.

Hope.

Home.

It whispered in my ear.

I looked at my grandmother whose expression had turned gentle, and she mouthed, It’s time.

Juni took Gage’s hand, and the two of them went blazing by and scrambling up the steps. She shouted, “Bye, Mommy!” as she went, clearly all broken up about my being gone for the night.

I hesitated, warred, fully unsure.

“Go on then,” Mimi urged. “They’ll be just fine. I raised you and your brother just fine, didn’t I?”

My smile was somber, the words whispered from my mouth, “You raised us the best.”

“Eeeps! Let’s do this!” Tessa shouted beside me, and she yanked at my hand again, drawing me toward Eden’s car across the street.

I tried to skid to a stop. “Wait…I’m not even dressed.”

“Um, hello…do you actually think I haven’t already thought of this? We’re heading to my house to pre-game and get ready. I already have an outfit picked out for you.” Tessa opened the door and gestured for me to climb in, dipping low with a flourish of her hand. “Your chariot awaits, madame.”

I climbed in, barely able to contain the laughter that bubbled at the base of my throat. “You’re insane. Has anyone ever told you that?”

She grinned. “Every single day.”

“To tonight!” Tessa lifted her champagne flute and clinked it against mine and Eden’s, though Eden’s was filled with sparkling cider.

Apparently, Tessa really did think about everything.

My spirit swam with a softness I’d never felt before. Never, in all my life. Because they both did.

Thought about everything.

Truly cared and gave their best to make sure you felt it.

And god, I did.

For the first time in so many years, I felt the true meaning of what friend was supposed to be.

My spirit groaned with the loss.

With the treachery and the treason.

Terrified of repeating the same mistakes I’d made then.

But Mimi was right.

There was a part of me that’d known.

Shoving the reservations down, I took a sip of champagne before I glanced in the full-length mirror at the dress Tessa had found at the back of her closet, but since it was most definitely not her size, I knew she was full of it, but I didn’t bother calling bullshit.

Because I felt beautiful.

Alive.

Excited.

Real.

Emotion crested on my lips.

“You look freaking hot.” Tessa clapped her hands wildly. “I can’t wait for Jud to see you.”

“Jud and I are just friends.”

She rolled her eyes. “Um, I think there’s a chance Jud might have shit himself when you walked into the restaurant last weekend. Tell me he didn’t take you home after the party and ravage you?”

Fire hit my cheeks, and I pressed my lips together as the memories assaulted me.

“Oh my god, he did.” She pressed her hands to her face. “I was just messing with you, and he did. Tell me. This girl needs details.” She frantically gestured at herself.

“This is true. Only because her lame boyfriend doesn’t have a clue how to do her right.” Eden said it from behind her glass, taking a sip like she wasn’t the one responsible for the words.

“Hey.” Tessa pouted and smacked Eden’s arm. “It’s Karl’s birthday, no dogging him tonight.” She looked at me and overexaggerated that pout. “Even if it’s horribly, terribly, devastatingly true. But I love him,” she peeped.

Eden widened her eyes at me in clear disagreement, mouthed, He’s a total douche .

I choked on my surprise.

Well then, I guess I had become a part of their trio.

Tessa pointed at Eden’s face. “I heard that.”

“Heard what?” Eden giggled.

And there I was, caught up in that whirlwind again. Unsure of where it would take me or where I was going to land. Because Tessa took my arm and jerked me all over like the goof she was. “Well, tell me! I haven’t had an orgasm in like…five years. I need to know. Did he do it right? Treat you right? Is he your wild card?”

Confusion dented my brow. “My what?”

She sighed in exasperation. “Your ace? The one you didn’t expect?”

Nerves rattled through my being, and my stomach clenched in a bid of want while my mind spun with warnings.

You have to be careful.

Trust no one.

And whatever you do, no matter what, do not fall in love.

I looked at my new friends, that trust no one thing kaput, and whispered, “He’s definitely the last one I expected.”

Tessa squealed. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go get your man.”

I stumbled out behind her. Wishing it could be that easy. That I could love a man and he could love me in return.

That I could exist in his life.

But the sad, devastating truth was I was afraid that one day, I would disappear.