Page 40 of Fury
“Why haven’t you met him?” Michael shifted in his seat so he could watch her. “Any sisters I should know about?”
“I haven’t met him because my family is complicated. John is my half-brother and was raised in California.” She sighed as she stared out the windshield. “No sisters that I know of. I always wanted one, but no luck.”
“Your dad left and went to California?” He sounded shocked, but she was about to rock his world a little.
“No, Mom left us. I was just little. She went to California and had another family.” For a moment, echoes of Mason’s voice sounded in her head, retelling the story of their mother’s death. She pushed that aside for now. “Daddy raised me and my brother.”
“You’ve never talked about having family, Bethany.” As it always did, her name sounded funny coming from Michael. In her dreams, he called her mom. “Why’s that? I’ve never met anyone from your past.”
“You say past like I’ve lived some sordid life or something. I don’t keep in touch with anyone except my big brother.” After Tabby died, after Bethy had left the mountain and hollers, she hadn’t answered a single call or returned even a Christmas card. “You’ve met Ty.”
“Ty’s from here, not somewhere in Kentucky.”
“Right.” She turned onto a larger street, then took the next road to the right, knowing it was a winding thing, edging along old homes and buildings.
“I’m named after him, right?” Bethy glanced at him, seeing Michael’s focus was on his fingers, gripping and twisting together in his lap. “How’d you meet Ty?”
“If I’m going to tell that story, then I’m going to have to start at the beginning.” He didn’t say anything, so Bethy plunged in. “My daddy wasn’t a good man.” Might as well turn out all the pockets on that suit; she’d never get a chance to dig out the dirt any other way. “He made me marry a friend of his when I was fourteen.” A shocked inhale told her he was listening. “My brother had left the family farm several years before, so he never knew.”
Michael got out a stuttered, “What?” but she talked over him, needing to get it all out at once. Questions could come later.
“Things were bad up there back then. So much worse than anyone knew. When I was sixteen, my best friend committed suicide. I knew if I didn’t make a change, I’d risk following her footsteps. So I got some help from an old family friend. Her brother, actually. His name is Michael.”
“Like me?”
She nodded. “Mikey was like a brother to me. He got me out of that situation and brought me here. Ty knew them because he’d served with Mikey in the military. All I cared about was it was safe, and not where I grew up. I don’t know why me and Ty hit it off, but we did, and I moved into his apartment.” She took a breath. “Three weeks later I knew I was pregnant.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, kind of a mix of the worst and best kinds of wow. Did you know Ty was in the delivery room? He’s known you all your life.”
“So I’m named after Mikey and Ty?”
Bethy nodded, steering the car around another curve. “The two men who saved my life. Seemed fitting, and your mom and dad were willing.”
“Martha and Rodney.” He didn’t say anything else, and she wasn’t sure how to take that statement, so she left it alone for now.
“My brother had left home already and had all kinds of his own problems to tend to. He hadn’t known about what daddy did, and he didn’t know when Mikey rescued me.” She slowed the car, waiting for a cat to complete a deliberate promenade across the street. “He didn’t know about the pregnancy, either.”
“You mean me, he doesn’t know about me.” She shook her head. “Is it because of who my fa—the man was who got you pregnant?”
“No. He doesn’t bear the burden of why I’ve never told him. That’s all on me. Michael, I was sixteen and grieving for my best friend, torn willingly away from everything I’d ever known. But some of the lessons we learn when we’re young never go away. Like picking up your socks.” Something she’d heard Martha tell him countless times, and it earned a humorous snort. “I was told to suck it up, dust myself off, and figure things out.” She shrugged. “So I did. I’m really good at that. I knew if I told him while I was pregnant with you that he’d do his level best to help me do what he thought I wanted…I was so young, but I knew you deserved all the best things. Afterwards, if Martha and Rodney decided to close the door between us…” She shook her head. “But they didn’t. Then, like with all deceptions, the longer it drags on, the harder it is to change the outcome.”
“You were sixteen?” The heaviness in the air had been gone a while, his questions and her honest answers clearing things to a point she felt lighter than she’d been in years. Pulling the car into the parking lot of the nearest diner, she nodded. “That’s…young.”
“It is.” She gathered up her purse and turned to face him, bracing herself for the look of disgust she expected. Instead, she just saw Michael, intelligent grey eyes studying her from under the fall of dark hair. She smiled, and his lips twitched, sliding sideways in an attempt to remain stoic. “Let’s go inside and eat.”
“One more question first?” He waited and she nodded. His mouth opened and closed. Then he narrowed his eyes and opened it to speak. “If he knew, would he want to meet me?”
Bethy couldn’t help herself, laughter ringing in the enclosed space as she reached out, grabbing one of Michael’s tightly clenched fists. She squeezed and he turned his hand, wrapping his fingers around hers. “Oh, yeah. He’s going to want to meet you. He’s also going to rip me a new one when I tell him.”
“You’ll do that for me?”
Suddenly sober, she blinked fresh tears from her eyes. “Baby, I’d do anything for you.”
