Page 22 of Beneath His Robes

Elias’s eyes met mine the minute I walked forward. There was no turning back now. Our gazes were locked until Dawn grabbed my arm and squealed excitedly.

“Oh, my stars! My, how handsome you’ve gotten, Ronan. It has been so long. How are you, son?”

I was such a fucking softie. I had tears spiking in the corner of my eyes at seeing the woman who practically raised me. Unlike my broken mother, whom I was always mending, Dawn Cross was the woman who put me back together, and seeing her now, I realized how much I had missed her.

“Hi, Missis Cross. It is so good to see you again.”

I picked up the fragile woman in my arms, lifting her up to my height and giving her a squeeze that was probably tighter than her bones could handle, but she hugged me back.

“Oh, keep those muscles to yourself, young man! Jerry will go gettin’ jealous with how much you have grown.”

She was razzing me, but her eyes were as misty as mine. It felt so right to be under this roof. I remembered every crack of paint on the walls to the wobbly nail in the deck out back. The Cross’s house was my childhood, my escape, my home.

Maria walked over to us, blocking Elias from my view. He seemed to duck out of view and snuck away to the back area near the bedrooms.

Never thought you were one to run away, Elias Cross.

He was probably praying I would leave.

I should. It wasn’t my right to be here.

“Ma, What are you burnin’?” Maria said, waving her hand over her face and trying to hold back a cough.

There was billowing black smoke from the oven, and when Dawn opened the hinged door, it made us all choke on the cloud of smoke.

“Oh…shoot! Fire! I messed up our venison!”

Dawn’s face fell, and I smiled through the hazy black cloud. Maria ran to open the windows, and I grabbed a mitt to waft the thick smog out of the house. There was no saving the gamey meat. When the room finally cleared, we all stared at the charred remains of that poor deer.

“Uh, you sure you’re not a hunter, Missis C?” I teased, and she whacked me with her oven mitt.

“Oh. You are still such a bad boy, aren’t you? Haha! I definitely killed that thing worse than Pop did.”

The back door opened, and Jerry Cross stepped into the house. The chill outside blew in toward us, and Maria shivered, backing away from the kitchen.

“Ugh, it is so cold! Hi, Daddy! Get anything else?”

Jerry untangled himself from the layers of winter clothes and shook his gray hair, letting the snow fly off toward his daughter.

“Hey, now!” she said in protest, and we all laughed.

Jerry swiveled his head over to my direction.

“Who is…Get out of here,” he said, and I stiffened for a second.

But then the one man I ever considered a father ran at me like a linebacker and tackled me in a hug. He was shorter than me, but that didn’t stop him from yanking me down to his level and tussling my hair with his knuckle.

“I can’t believe it! How are ya, son? Last I heard, you moved to the big fancy city of Vegas. You’re back? We missed you, boy!”

He extended his arms and seemed to look at me for the first time, identifying the changes from over the years.

“Well, no, not a boy. Damn, you are a man now, ain’t you.”

I smiled and returned his play-fight stance. Jerry was getting older and more tired. I could see it in the way his back didn’t fully straighten. There used to be a room filled with trophies of his hunts, but now they were collecting dust. He wouldn’t say it, but I could tell he was struggling.

“I can’t beat you, old man. I found out some important things in my life, and one of the most important things was not to wrestle a Cross.”

Jerry smirked in a half smile that reminded me so much of Elias that I got a pang in my heart.

---