Page 37 of Knockout (Whiskey Dolls 2)

“Should he not have?” I asked, getting the impression all of a sudden that I’d been let in on a secret that most people weren’t privy to.

“No, no. It’s fine. I’m just surprised, is all. He doesn’t really talk about that with... well, anyone, actually.” A knowing grin pulled at her lips. “You must be very special.”

“Oh no,” I started, hoping to cut off her line of thinking before she got any grand ideas. She’d just be let down in the long run, and I didn’t want to do that to her. “I’m really not. Believe me.” I’d tried, but I wasn’t able to keep the bitterness out of those words.

I hadn’t spoken to Jude since I’d stormed out of the laundry room days ago, and I was still angry over that whole scene. I knew it wasn’t rational. He hadn’t technically done anything wrong, but my feelings had been hurt. I could haveswornthere had been something there, something big. I felt it like a tangible thing, stirring up the air between us, and I knew down to my bones that he had to have felt it too. I couldn’t shake the sense that he’d chickened out, practically throwing me at Bax rather than admit he was a coward. “I told him about how I grew up, and I think he felt obligated to share his story. That’s all.”

Leaning forward, she placed her hand on my knee. “Darling girl, I don’t think you give yourself enough credit. That boy doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do. Never has. Hell, he hasn’t even talked about Leah to me since that whole thing went tits up.”

A thought flitted across my mind, causing my throat to feel tight. “Do you—do you think he doesn’t talk about it because he’s still hung up on her?”

Sybil snorted and proceeded to crack up for a solid minute, laughing so hard tears actually formed in her eyes. “Oh my,” she breathed once she’d calmed down, chuckling as she daintily dabbed at the wet on her cheeks. “That was good. I haven’t laughed like that in alongtime. Whoo! Thank you for that. My poor, under-used abdominals needed the workout.”

“I wasn’t trying to be funny,” I said dryly. “That was supposed to be a serious question.”

“I know!” She patted my knee again. “Which is why it was so freaking hilarious. There’s not a chance in hell my Jude is still hung up on that raging harpy bitch, trust me. If I’m honest, I’m not sure they ever had the love that’s supposed to be between a man and a woman who are about to spend the rest of their lives together. That engagement spawned from convenience, not love.”

The skin between my brows pinched as I frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

She sat up tall, reaching for her teacup and taking a delicate sip, pinky raised and all, a complete juxtaposition to the wily, brash woman I’d come to know in such a short time.

“If Jude talked to you about his upbringing, then you already know my husband and I were the ones to raise him from the time he was twelve.” I nodded in confirmation, and she continued with her story. “For the first twelve years of his life, I watched my son and that royal bitch he’d married and knocked up treat their own child as though he was a second-class citizen, like he wasn’t even theirs. I joke and claim that Jude was born with a good head on his shoulders, but it’s the God’s honest truth. He was always mild-mannered, always well behaved. It’s like he came into this world with the personality of an old man. He never really put up much of a fuss about anything.

“From day one, he was nothing like his parents or any of the rest of them. And for some insane reason, they viewed that as a deficiency, like there was actually something wrong with him for beinga good person. I never understood that. I knew my boy was unhappy, and I knew that if he was made to stay in that environment, to suffer neglect at his own parents’ hands, it would eventually tear away all the good that was in him.

“We tried our best, Jude’s grandfather and I, to make him feel loved, to know he wasn’t alone, but I think the disregard he’d grown up with had already been stamped on his soul by the time we got him. When he met Leah, I think he was just so desperate for a family of his own, so eager to have somewhere to belong, that he was blinded to what or who she really was. Or maybe he just didn’t care. I’m don’t know for certain. So when I say I don’t think there was a real love there, I mean that I don’t think he asked her to marry him for the right reasons. She just happened to be there when he decided he wanted to fill the void left behind by those despicable parents of his.”

“Wow,” I said, reaching up to place a palm against my chest, feeling an intense, throbbing ache inside of it for the man who had a serious knack for pissing me off, even when he made me crazy with wanting him. “That breaks my heart a little bit.”

“Yours and mine both, darling girl. The reason he took the end of their relationship so badly wasn’t because they broke up, but because it was his own cousin who betrayed him. Even though he already knew, hell, webothknew, that the whole lot of them were nothing but bad seeds.”

I couldn’t help but want to dig for more when she made a comment like that. “How so?”

“I like to claim I have no idea how my flesh and blood, my own kids, turned out as bad as they did, but that’s not true. I coddled my boys. See, me and my husband, God rest his soul, all we’d ever wanted was a large family. We wanted to fill this house with kids.” A wistful expression slipped across her features. “One for every room, we used to joke.

“But pregnancy was hard on me. When I was pregnant with my first son, Jude’s father, it was rough. The whole damn thing. I had morning sickness that lasted all damn day the entire time I was carrying him. Got to the point the doctor was worried over how much weight I’d lost. I couldn’t keep anything down. The labor wasn’t any better. We were warned against trying again, but I refused to listen. I got pregnant with my second when Jude’s dad was only seven months old. That pregnancy was even tougher, then there was the fact that I hadn’t fully healed from the first one.

“I nearly didn’t make it. They had to take the baby, and I was in the hospital for two weeks, recovering. My husband put his foot down after that. No more. We had two precious babies, that was enough. We were happy, truly, but I had all this love inside of me that I’d always wanted to give to a whole bushel of children. When it became clear that wasn’t going to happen, I poured every ounce of that love into my boys. I enabled their bad behavior when they were kids. I made excuses when they would behave like little shitheads. I let things slide that I shouldn’t have.

“My husband was always telling me I needed a firmer hand, that I needed to stop letting them off without consequence. And I eventually saw reason and started doing just that. But I guess by the time I finally came around, it was too late. What they are now is what I made them.”

Uncrossing my legs, I placed my feet on the ground and shifted to the edge of my seat so I could reach out and take her hands in mine. “I don’t believe that, Sybil.”

Her smile was sad as she shook her head. “You’re sweet, but you’re also wrong, dear. They’re a product of their environment.”

“Maybe when they were kids, yes. But not now. Not as adults.”

“Layla—”

I held up my hand to stop her. “Did Jude tell you I was a foster kid?” I could tell by the shell-shocked look on her face that he hadn’t, so I pushed on. “Pretty much my whole life. I grew up in the system, and believe me when I tell you, I saw someseriousugliness. I was raised with it. I’m not going to lie and tell you I always made the best decisions. Yeah, sure, when I was young and stupid, I let my situation lead me to making some not so smart choices.

“But then I grew up. I realized that, as an adult, I could no longer use my childhood as an excuse to be an asshole. Eventually, I reached a point in my life where it was up to me whether or not I was going to be a good person.Ihad to make that choice. No one else could make it for me. Your sons had that very same choice, Sybil, and they chose wrong, flat out. And I think I know you well enough to know you didnotgive those boys a bad life.

“Okay, so you excused their bad behavior, what parent doesn’t? I’m pretty sure every person who has kids of their own looks back on the earlier years and wishes they’d done things differently. That doesn’t make them bad parents, it just makes them human. You’re a good person. You did what you thought was right by them. You loved them like crazy and eventually tried to fix it, but it’s not your fault your sons turned out to be world class pricks. That’s on them, Sybil. One hundred percent on them.

“You didn’t make your son the world’s worst father to Jude, because you and your husband were good parents yourselves. And I know all of this, because for the first twelve years of his life, Jude was stuck in that pit of snakes. And while he can be an asshole of the highest order when he wants to be, he’s a good man. I don’t doubt that for a single second. And that’s because ofyou. The time came for him to make the decision to let his past define him or to act like an adult and choose to be better. He made therightchoice, and I believe he did that because you showed him there was a better way. You helped guide him to that path.”

She sniffled, and for a second I worried she might actually burst into tears. She surprised the hell out of me when, instead of crying, she dropped her head back to the ceiling and declared, “Son of a bitch!”

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