Loving Her (12 page)

“Get your ass in that water.”

“But I don’t want to. I didn’t even get dirty today.” The child had played outside in leaves and a forest all day long, but was claiming he hadn’t gotten dirty. He had marshmallow around his lips with accumulated dirt stuck to it.

Jake laughed and stood there, completely naked in the tub. He wasn’t sitting down, but at least he was in it. “Sit your butt down before you fall.”

“I won’t fall.” He danced around like a fool. Sure enough, two seconds later, he slipped and went under the water. When he came up, he looked so embarrassed. Jax was cracking up and pointing at him.

“Idiot!”

“Jax, quit stalling. Get in the tub. I’m not sitting here all night with you.”

“But
—”

“But nothing.” I picked him up and stuck him in the tub behind his brother. Then I sat down on the closed toilet seat to monitor the two of them.

“Can we have bubbles?”

“No.”

“Can we have a little bubbles?” Jax repeated his brother’s question.

“I said no.”

I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and started reading, seeing Jake out of the corner of my eye pouring something on his brother. As I turned, I noticed that it was an entire bottle on conditioner. Jax punched him in the gut and water began to splash out of the tub as they wrestled for the remainder of what was left in the bottle.

I reached in, getting soaked myself, and grabbed it. “Seriously? What is wrong with you two? You could be done getting washed by now, but instead you choose to act like punks.”

“What’s a punk?” Jax asked while his brother giggled.

“It’s you two. Get washed, because if I have to do it, you’ll be sorry.”

Jake handed his brother the soap after lathering some up on his hand for himself. I looked back at my phone and heard them laughing again. This time, Jax was peeing, in the direction of his brother. Jake stood up and grabbed his penis, ready to attack with his own stream of urine.

I reached in and pulled him out, wrapping him
in a towel. “What is wrong with you two?”

“He did it first.”

“It doesn’t matter. You both were wrong.”

As the water drained, the boys dried off and headed to get changed. I wiped up the floor, so that Izzy wouldn’t slip when she came in to use the bathroom. We passed by each other and I handed her a fresh towel. “Here, sweetie. Use this one. You’re brothers soaked the other ones.”

“Thanks, dad.”

Hearing her call me that was enough for me to feel good. I found Miranda in bed, cuddled up watching something on television. “What was all the commotion about?”

“The boys decided to give each other golden showers.”

“What the hell? Are you kidding me, right now?”

I plopped down next to her. “Nope. Honest to God, they were peeing on each other and laughing about it.”

Miranda rolled her eyes, like she wasn’t that surprised. “What are they doing now?”

“Probably plotting to take over the world.” I kissed her neck and she started to pull away.

“Ty, wait until they go to bed.”

“That could take hours.” Knowing she’d been asleep before they were, I decided it would be best to get out of bed. Being that closed to Miranda, especially when she was in just a t-shirt, made me extremely horny.

I found the boys attempting to make chocolate milk by themselves. Of course, chocolate syrup was all over the co
unter. “Seriously. How much destruction can you two possibly do in five minutes?”

Their faces got red as they turned around and realized they’d been caught. “We’re thirsty.”

“Ask someone to help, why don’t you?”

“Dad, don’t be mad. We’ll clean it up,” Jax assured me.

“Just sit down and I’ll get it.”

I cleaned up the mess and made the three of us chocolate milk. We sat there at the round kitchen table looking at each other. “I want to milk a cow.”

The milk came out of my nose. “Why?”

“It looks cool. You get to squeeze th
ose nipples and milk just comes squirting out. I wish I could make my own milk, don’t you, Jake?”

Jake nodded.

I ran my hands over my face and thought about what I should say. I couldn’t deny these two numb nuts. No matter how much I tried to think I was better behaved, I knew I wasn’t. “Can you two finish up and get into bed? Dad needs some alone time.”

“How come you were kissing Mom’s private parts? I know you were.”

I looked at my son and clenched my jaw. “One day I will tell you both all about being with a woman. For now, you two need to go to bed, before I lose my mind.”

Izzy came walking into the room. She grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and kissed me goodnight on the cheek. I grabbed her hand as she was walking away. “Hey, you okay?”

She gave me a half smile. “Just tired, dad. See you in the mornin’.”

“Okay, goodnight.”

I sat there, watching the boys, with my mind on Izzy. As long as she loved me, everything was right in the world.

Chapter 16

Miranda

After a very exhausting weekend, we’d made it home in one piece. I say that with a grain of salt, because Ty wasn’t exactly feeling great about things.

Bella acted as if nothing was wrong, albeit he still seemed on edge.

Her big return to school, after having her lessons in the hospital for the past month, was the next day. I think she was excited to see her friends, but also nervous, like they were going to wonder if she’d contracted a contagious disease.

Amy and I had planned on giving her a special day, where we pampered her with a new haircut and some pretty decorated fingernails.

We headed over to the salon in the afternoon and Bella was in
a great mood. She gabbed to her aunt about Noah and their new puppy. She was happy after seeing her other grandparents and being able to do things again. For so long she’d been stuck in that bed at the hospital, and I often wondered what something like that did to her mentally, not that she talked about it much. With new devices and the internet, she had plenty to keep her occupied.

Nowadays
, playing outside had been replaced by kids staring at little screens as a means of communication. They no longer required face to face conversations. When I was her age, all I wanted to do was spend the night with my friends and be a social bug. Bella wasn’t like that. Sure, she was popular amongst her friends, but their interests were very different.

I hadn’t filled Amy in on the whole Tucker situation, so when Bella brought it up as she told the puppy story, I was
flabbergasted. She looked right at me as she spoke, as if she was trying to get a rise out of me. It was uncomfortable.

I knew if I responded negatively, it would give her a reason to think I was lying to her. For all I knew, her and Noah had only uncovered that Tucker had a daughter with the same name. I had no reason to believe that she knew anything else.

Looking back, I think I should have prepared for the worst, instead of hiding behind my faith that everything was goin’ got be fine.

After she was all dolled up and ready to go back to school, we started to head home. Bella was sitting in the car next to me
, and out of nowhere, she started asking me questions again. “Mom, are you certain that you never knew that guy, Tucker?”

I felt so frustrated that I pulled over to the side of the road. “Bella, I told you already. I don’t know who he is. Why do you keep askin’ this? Do you have any idea how upset your father is over this?”

She shrugged. “Don’t you think it’s weird how I don’t look like daddy? I mean, Jake and Jax look just like him. Even Noah said it was weird.”

“Did you ever consider that Jake and Jax look nothing like me? It goes both ways, Bella. You got my genes and they got your father’s. Listen, honey, I’m sorry you ran into that woman that got your head all messed up, but you need to drop this. Do you want to break
daddy’s heart?”

“No.” She seemed like it made her sad to hurt Ty. I felt bad that I was lying, but Tucker was someone I never wanted her to know about. Finding out that your biological dad was not only a criminal, but also an evil person that never wanted you, wasn’t
exactly something any mother wanted her child knowing. It hurt me that she was looking for answers when they were only going to cause her pain.

“I want you to drop this. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

By the time we’d pulled up at the farm, I think we both felt uneasy. I put the car into park and sat there.

Bella got out and headed inside like she was unfazed, while I was praying in my mind that this whole nightmare was going to be over. She was too young to dig into Tucker, not that she’d ever be old enough to learn the truth. I wish she could understand that we were doing all of this to protect her.

The boys saw me pull up and came running out of their grandparent’s house. Jax was carrying a little brown box. “Mom, look what we found in Mimi’s kitchen. It’s a snake. Can we keep it?”

They opened the box and a black snake came striking out at me. I screamed and fell back on the ground. The snake, who’d come halfway out of the box, was being scooped back up by one of my brave sons. “Get that thing away from me!”

I stood up and saw that Bella had run away too. Ty came walking out of the house with a sandwich in his hand. “Where’d you get that, guys?”

“Under Mimi’s sink. Ain’t it pretty?”

Ty picked up the snake
and looked it over. “You grabbed it with your hands?”

“Yeah. Mimi got us a box. She said you used to have a snake. Can we keep it,
dad?” Jake asked.

“Please,” Jax added.

Ty ignored the fact that I was wiping off my butt from being scared and falling down. “I think I have a tank in the barn attic. Let’s go see if we can find it.”

The three of them started heading toward the barn.

I looked at Bella and she looked back at me. “Keep it in that barn, Ty. I don’t want a snake in the house.”

Ty waved and kept walking with the boys, more proud that they’d caught it than the fact that I was petrified.

I put my arm around my daughter and we walked in the house. “What do you say we head into town and get you somethin’ new to wear tomorrow? It will be like the first day all over again.”

“Can we eat at the mall, too?”

I thought about the guys and their new obsession with a wild snake. “I’d love to not be here when they try to bring that thing back into this house.”

A few minutes later we were back in the car, heading to the mall. We rarely had time to ourselves, so it was fun to turn up the radio and sing at the top of our lungs. Bella was getting into music more
, and she had a couple posters of popular boy bands on her walls, even though it drove her father crazy. If Ty had it his way, she would be in a chastity belt until she was fifty.

Since it was still early, we decided to shop before getting something to eat. Bella pulled me in and out of three stores until she’d found the perfect outfit. Of course, according to the price tag, it was also the most expensive. I thought about all she’d been through and decided to splurge. When I handed the cashier my credit card, I leaned down and whispered in Bella
’s ear, “Don’t tell dad how much this was. He’ll freak.”

Bella gave me a funny look and shrugged. “Okay.”

She seemed thrilled to have a new look, and it was nice that we had some time alone together. We’d had plenty in the hospital, but it certainly wasn’t as fun as being out.

Bella loved a small restaurant that was located in the mall. Once we
were seated, she excused herself to use the bathroom. Since she always carried her IPod with her, she left her small purse on the table when she walked away.

Our waitress came over carrying our drinks and one spilled over on the table. I reached for the purse, trying to avoid it getting wet
, and Bella’s things came flying out of it. The waitress started cleaning up the mess, while I stared at a white folded piece of paper that had come out of the purse. I looked over and didn’t see my daughter, so I opened it up and couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

I didn’t remember ever seeing it in the paper, but someone must have called and had it put in. Our family was well known, so it wasn’t surprising.

It was a birth announcement and a picture of me and Tucker at the hospital holding Bella. There was another paper underneath, but I couldn’t stop looking at that one.

It was as if I was holding a paper that told me my life was over.

The waitress was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying. The bile was in my throat, on its way out. The room began to spin and my heart was beating out of my chest. This whole time she’d had this. Every question she’d asked me had been a test.

When I saw her coming, I folded the paper back up and shoved the purse over where it had been sitting.

It was hard, trying not to lose it, when I knew that she knew.