Uncontrollable (41 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

It’s been a week since Slade
surprised me with the bakery. I never imagined how much is involved in trying
to open a bakery. The city told me it could take up to three weeks to get an
inspection. I completed my class and took the test for a foods handler permit
this morning. Now I’m back at home trying to figure out what I need to do next.

I walk into Slade’s office and sit behind his
computer. I move his mouse to turn the screen on when I see he must have
checked his emails this morning before he left for work. I scroll down to the
bottom of the page and see one that was sent a week ago.
Tate
is typed
in the subject line. I find myself clicking on it.

Slade,

Sorry it took me so long to get the info you
asked for. It’s hard to look up someone when all you know is that he goes by
Tate (which his actual name is Jonathan) and that he was born in Tulsa,
Oklahoma.

Anyway, there is no paper trail that suggests he
is in fact Jack’s son. His birth certificate says father, Jonathan and mother,
Laura. He was born May 20
^th
, 1982 at Saint Francis hospital. A woman
by the name of Lacey, purchased your wife’s house, which was left to her by her
father, Jack. Then Jonathan (Tate) purchased from her only days later.

 Sorry I couldn’t dig up any more info. I hope
this does help you out in finding out if he is Jack’s son or not.

Miller

I sit there staring at the screen, my heart
pounding in my chest with watery eyes. I blink a few times and the tears run
down my cheeks as read it over again. Once I’ve done that two more times, I’m
even more confused than when I first did it. What does all of this mean?

Is Tate my brother? Half-brother?

I shake my head as I close out the email. “No,” I
say aloud as I stand and run my hands through my hair. “This is not possible.”

 I reach over and pick up Slade’s office phone and
call his cell. Can he give me more info than what that email just did?

He picks up on my first ring. “Hey, Angel.”

 “Slade,” I say almost frantic. “Why are you
looking into Tate?” I ask quickly.

 He’s silent on the other end, and it makes the
lump in my throat grow.

 “Slade,” I say in a high pitch, “tell me. Is Tate
my brother?”

 I expect him to say ‘no, baby’. Or even to ask me
‘if I’ve lost my mind’. Instead he asks accusingly, “Were you going through my
emails?”

 “What?” I shout as my body starts to tremble.
“That’s all you have to fucking say?” I scream, and my voice trembles. “What
are you hiding?”

 “Nothing.” I hear him sigh. “Everything... I don’t
know what to tell you, Angel. I don’t know enough to say anything.”

 “All you need to know is yes, he’s my brother. Or
no, he’s not,” I demand harshly. “Is he my brother?” I shout. “Slade,” I plead
as tears run down my cheeks. “Please,” I cry. “Just tell me. Is Tate my
brother?”

 A part of me is thinking I’m overreacting. I’ve
just imagined everything that I read and none of this is possible. The other
part is saying please say yes. Please tell me that I have family left. A
brother. Someone who I already call a great friend.

 “I’m sorry, Angel,” he says softly, and it almost
has me sigh in relief. I misunderstood it. “But Tate
is
you brother. I
didn’t want you to find out this way.” His voice is soft, and I can practically
hear him running his hand through his hair nervously.

And just like that I can’t breathe.

I have a brother!

“How do you know?” I choke on my words. “The email
didn’t clarify it.” I still can’t believe it.

 “Tate told me, baby,” he says sounding like he has
a lump in his throat as well.

 I hold onto the phone as if it’s my lifeline. My
body falls into his office chair, and I stare at the blank computer screen in
front of me.

Tate told him.

A sob escapes my mouth, and I drop the phone to try
and cover it up. I hear him yell for me a few times, and I feel my anger rise.
How could he not tell me this? How could he keep this a secret from me when he
knows how I feel about family?

But I shake my head. Is Slade the one I should be
mad at? What about Tate? Why hasn’t he told me? Did he think I would reject him
as family? As my brother?

 That thought alone has me jumping up and grabbing
the truck keys, my purse, and running to the garage. I just spoke to him
earlier, and he said he was off work today. I need to see him. I need to know
the story. Why he kept this from me.

As I’m driving toward Tate’s house Slade calls me.
After the second time I just turn my phone off. I don’t want to talk to him. I
just want to be left alone with my thoughts.

The truck tires squeal as I pull into his driveway.
I slam the truck door and run up to his front door. I can hear music coming
from his house, and his truck is parked outside, but Parker’s police car is
gone.

 “Tate,” I try yelling over the music when I find
the door locked. My hand shakes, and my lip trembles. What am I going to say?
What if he doesn’t want to be my brother? What if he never told me because he’s
ashamed of me?

 “Tate,” I cry out and get no response once again.

 I walk to the side of his house and throw my purse
along with my cell and keys over his fence. I climb the short chain-link fence
and run to his back door. I come to a quick stop when I find him sitting on his
back porch with a bottle of tequila in his hand. He sits there and looks over
the trees behind the house. He doesn’t even move to look at me.

 “Tate?” My voice trembles, and my body shakes.

“Slade called me,” he deadpans still looking
straight ahead.

“I know about you. That you’re my….” I swallow
nervously.

 He slides his head to look over at me, and my
breath catches in my throat. His dark blue eyes are red and swollen. “Must be
your lucky day then,” he says before turning to look back over to the backyard.
He brings the bottle up to his lips and takes a drink of the tequila. He
swallows as if he just took a drink of water, the burn not even having an
effect on him.

I walk slowly over to the chair next to him and sit
down bouncing my knee. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask softly.

“Would you have cared?” His voice is flat, and it
makes my heart sink.

I feel like the wind was knocked out of me. “How
can you ask that?”

 He ignores my question. “Why didn’t you call me?”
he asks not looking over at me. “When your…Jack died and your mother pushed you
away. Why didn’t you call me?”

 His question catches me off guard but I answer in
hopes that he will answer mine. “I hadn’t seen you in years, Tate. What did you
want me to say? I have no one? Please come and save me? What could you have
done?”

He stands quickly and turns to look down on me. I
can see it in his eyes, the hatred that he feels. I just don’t know who it is
directed to, me or himself.

“I could have helped you. I would have come running
to you. Been the big brother I should have been way before then,” he yells. “I
wanted to.” He sighs as if his anger is fading at that thought. “I wanted to
help you out.” He shakes his head. “Instead I got a call from your mother.” He
laughs bitterly. “She had a dying wish. A wish that I stupidly agreed to. I
thought that was the only way I was ever going to see you again.” He turns from
me and takes another swig of the bottle. “You know, you once asked me why I
didn’t call you. That’s why, Sam. I was keeping so many secrets they were
eating me alive, and you weren’t ready to hear them.”

 “I’m here now. You can tell me anything, Tate.” I
plead for him to understand how sorry I am. I know how secrets will eat you up
inside. They can control you.

 “Oh my little sister has come to save the day,” he
spits out.

 “Why are you being such a prick?” I ask standing
from my chair. “I’m the one you have been lying to.” My hands fist down by my
sides. “I’m the one who has been left alone, pushed away.” Tears threaten in my
eyes, and my throat starts to close once again. “Where were you when you knew I
had no one?” I ask angrily. “When you knew what I was going through?” The words
spit out of my mouth.

He spins away from me and the bottle dangles in his
hand down by his side. It makes my anger rise. “I’m here, Tate. How many lies
does our family have to have?”

I place my hand on his shoulder and spin him
around. “Tell me what has you holding onto that bottle as if it were your
lifeline. Tell me what makes you shut everyone out. Me, Missy….”

 “Don’t bring her into this,” he growls tightening
his hand on the bottle.

I rub my hand over my cheeks, wiping the fresh
tears off of my face.

 “I’ve already hurt her enough,” he whispers.

 I release a sigh. “Talk to me, Tate. Haven’t we
missed too much of each other’s lives already? I’m not going to say what I feel
and then run away.” I shake my head. “Not this time. Not like I did with my
mother.” I turn and face the backyard that is covered in various trees and
hills. It reminds me of the backyard of our father’s house back in Oklahoma. “I
would have given you Dad’s house if I had known…”

 His body stiffens. “I know,” he growls
interrupting me. “I don’t want a hand out, Sam. I’ve worked hard for what I
have, and I didn’t need my little sister handing me things,” he says flatly.

 For the first time since Tate has come back into
my life, I feel like he resents me. I don’t know how long he has known that he
is my brother, but it has obviously been a while.

I don’t know what to say so I just sit back down
and look down at my fingers knotted together. Is that why my mother always
offered to look after him? Because she knew that he belonged to the man she
loved?

“Why didn’t Dad help you?” I ask angrily as tears
sting my eyes. “Why didn’t he pull you away from that life?”

“He didn’t know about me,” is all he says before
taking another drink of his liquor.

My head snaps to him. “Never?” I ask shocked.

He shakes his head. “Why would he?” His voice has
me cringing. So hard and full of hate.

 “I just thought…”

 “Well stop thinking,” he snaps at me. “Quit trying
to figure shit out, Sam. You don’t know anything, so stop pretending that you
do.” His words hurt. Why wouldn’t I want to know?

“Why won’t you tell me?” I cry.

He runs his head over his cropped hair as if he’s
getting irritated. “What do you want to know, Sam? The part where my childhood
was spent watching the man I thought was my father beat my mother and me? Or
the fact that my mother was such a coward that she couldn’t walk away from
him?” he snaps.

My breath catches in my throat at him mentioning
his father hurting him. I knew his father beat on Laura. I had no idea he ever
laid a hand on Tate.

 “Or the fact that I thought I didn’t deserve you
as a sister? How could I protect you, when I couldn’t even protect myself?” He
throws his hands out to the side as if at a loss. He points the bottle at me,
and he swallows hard making his Adams apple bob. “Do you know how much I wanted
to strangle your mother for what she put you through?” He spins away from me.
“And then I realized I was no better. I wasn’t the big brother coming to save
the day. I didn’t want you to know about me. It was just easier that way. I’d
always been the secret. It felt right to continue on that way. And it meant you
wouldn’t leave me when you found out.”

“I wouldn’t…”

 “Stop,” he yells making me jump. “That’s what you
do, Sam. You did it as a kid, and you still do it now. Don’t tell me you
wouldn’t have run from me. From this.”

“I did,” I cry out, my vision blurry from my tears.
“I did run. Right to you, Tate. I just found out not thirty minutes ago you are
my brother, and I ran straight to you. Doesn’t that count for something? I’m
tired of losing the ones I love.” I sit down in the chair and cover my face
with my hands. I cry loudly as he just continues to stand staring down at me.

“I never wanted to hurt you,” he says softly.
“That’s why I haven’t told you.”

I remove my hands from my face, and he squats down
in front of me. “I didn’t think you would want me as a brother. I wasn’t there
for you when you needed someone.”

 “But you’re here now.” I try to give him a small
smile. My eyes fall down to his tequila bottle. “And it looks like you could
use someone.”

 He sighs and I can smell the tequila on his
breath. “I thought I had lost you. Slade called me and said you knew. That you
had hung up on him and wouldn’t answer any of his calls. I grabbed a bottle. I
thought I had lost you altogether.”

 “I’m not going anywhere. We need to stick
together.”

 He shakes his head. “I’m not a good person, Sam.”
He pulls away and stands up. “I was a better friend than I could ever be a
brother.”