All My Heart (Count On Me Book 4) (14 page)

Other than the blue prison jumpsuit, h
e is exactly the same, right down to the smirk on his face.

Last year when I stood in his living room and called 911, I had no idea how things were going to play out. I didn’t know if he would step forward and stop me or if I’d even be able to find the words in order to get Kayden the help he needed. Every step I took was just one giant risk. It’s exactly the same thing I told Kayden earlier. Risk for reward.

The reward that night was getting him help. Saving his life. The life that Dean seemed to disregard so easily. The risk was speaking up for the first time, in front of someone I definitely didn’t feel comfortable with in order to make the reward become reality. It happened, but it wasn’t easy.

It’s not easy now either.

Sitting across the table from him, feeling his eyes on me, brown to Kayden’s light green, I’m nervous. I’m right back in that living room all over again, only this time, the reward isn’t someone’s life, its information.

Anxiety still rules my life. Talking, it’s still dependent on my comfort level with the person I’m speaking to and right now, there isn’t a level at all with Dean because I can’t get a rea
d on him the way I can with other people. He’s barren. A blank slate and it’s disconcerting.

The only visible sign there’s anyone even alive in there being that damn smirk.

“When Kayden went to get you, I wasn’t sure you would agree to see me.”

“She’s here the way you wanted, but I didn’t promise she’d talk to you. So just say whatever it is
so we can go.” Kayden interrupts before I can formulate a response.

“You should let her speak for herself, brother.”

Kayden’s arms are on the back of the seat I’m in, but they’re also stretched over enough to where his hands are resting on my shoulders. He tenses at what Dean said and I can feel the pressure pushing down on me. It’s a feeling I don’t like.

“Kay,” I turn and whisper. “
Relax please.”

Fo
r a few seconds he’s confused, but when he follows my eyes as they fall to my shoulders, he seems to get it because the pressure eases up.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I say before turning forward and facing Dean down again. “Why do you want to t—talk to me?”

“Can I ask you something?” he says and I just nod. With the way my voice sounded, quiet, unsure and then the hitch that happened halfway through, using my body to get my point across is a dream come true. It releases my own building tension.

“How much do you remember about when our mom left?”

“Not much. I remember Kayden coming over for a while after it though.”

“Do you remember the day she left?”

I start shaking my head before he’s even finished the question, that’s how easy this answer is. I don’t remember that day at all, but it doesn’t surprise me because I wasn’t the one impacted by what happened.

“You spend a lot of time watching people, so I gotta figure you pick up on a lot more than the rest of us. What do you remember about our mom?”

This is a little trickier. I’m a blank slate for a lot of the younger years stuff, but the times she was over at our house, I remember her smiling a lot and b
eing really connected to Kayden. Inseparable even.  I’m just not sure that’s what Dean wants to hear. I know how he feels about her, so hearing how much she loved his brother might not be the way to get the answers we want.

“She smiled a lot. She was happy. Her and my mom used to spend a lot of time laughing.”

“Dean, what the fuck is with the twenty questions?” Kayden cuts in and despite not liking the anger in his tone, I’m thankful. It’s something I want to know the answer to as much as he does.

“The day she took off, she didn’t just take off.”

“What does that mean?” Kayden asks, beating me to it.

“She was running.”

Kayden turns to me at the same time as Dean’s eyes go wide and his stare is so intense that it’s like he’s drilling a hole through me with his eyes.

I don’t know why I said that but with the way Dean said what he did, it made me think of another reason for someone leaving. If she wasn’t just bailing because she
didn’t want to be a parent, she did it because she was running from something.

“How did you know that?”

I shrug and I feel Kayden’s hands squeezing my shoulders. He might be wondering the same thing but he wasn’t voicing it. He’s being the way he’s always been with me since that day in the parking lot. Concerned and protective.

“You said she didn’t just take off, so I thought about it and it made sense.”

“Running from what, Dean?” Kayden asks once I’m finished and I watch as Dean’s body goes rigid. Whatever it was Daphne was running from, it’s obviously something he hates as much as he does her.

“Dad. She was running from Dad. There’s a whole lot more shit that went on but it’s not important.”

Dean’s version of important isn’t the same as mine. I think if he wants Kayden to understand everything their mom said, he has to tell him everything. Giving half of it will only breed more questions later.

“She brought us to Isabelle’s house. Her mom took us in.”

Now I understand why he asked what he did. He wanted to know if my mom had told me or I remembered and was just keeping it all a secret. Dean doesn’t know anything about me other than my diagnosis, so he doesn’t realize that I wouldn’t hide something like this.

“You really didn’t know this?” he asks, and there must be something in my eyes because he starts speaking again and it’s actually the last thing I expected to ever hear out of his mouth. “Of course you didn’t. I’m sorry. That was a shitty thing to ask.”

“It’s okay.”

I’m not sure how I feel about this. My mom has never had a problem talking to me about things
before, treating me like an adult a lot of the time, but she never mentioned anything about this. I want to be mad that she didn’t tell me, but I can’t because I understand it.

She may
have treated me like an adult, but I wasn’t one and this is something that back then I definitely wouldn’t have understood or accepted.

She helped Kayden’s mom leave him.

“Are you saying Grace hid us?” Kayden finally asks and as I turn in the chair I see the way I’m feeling reflected right back at me in his eyes. He can’t understand this any more than I can.

“No. Once
she took off, he followed her. With the way she tells it, that was the whole point. Grace kept us overnight, but after that it was on me.”

“She was there when you told me Mom left.”

The way he sounds, it’s like he’s remembering something for the first time. Like he went back in his mind and the picture’s becoming complete.

“Is that all you wanted her in here for? So you could tell her that her mom kept something from her when she was a kid?”

“No. I wanted her in here because I want to ask her for something, but I knew she needed to know that so I ran with it.”

“You’re an asshole. Why didn’t you just say that from the beginning?” Kayden snaps, his voice raising
.

“You wouldn’t have let her in here if I told you what I wanted to say.”

“Spit it out.”

As much as I understand Kayden’s reaction to Dean and him choosing to hide his true reason for wanting me in the room, I don’t feel the same. I don’t want to sympathize or agree with anything he has to say, but I’m doing it and it makes me feel bad.

“The reason I wanted you to come in here, Belle,” he starts and again I feel Kayden tense. “Is because I know the way Kayden feels about our mom. I know that despite her taking off, he still cares about her. He loves her, but I know her better than he does. I spent a lot of years with her before he came along. I don’t trust her and I want you to know that so you can take care of him. The way I should’ve been doing all along.”

“De—” I go to speak but before I can even get his name out, Kayden cuts me off.

“I don’t need to be taken care of. I’m fine! Just because I wanted answers about where Mom is doesn’t mean I’m going to go running back to her.”

“Kayden.”

“No, Dean! You spend the last ten years beating the living hell out of me because you didn’t like the way your life turned out. You made me think everything was my fucking fault! You don’t get to sit here and lie to her face. She deserves better. You don’t give a shit, so stop pretending you do!”

His arms fall away from my body and I watch as he storms toward the door, his stance hard, his face angry and I jump to my feet, moving around the table in an effo
rt to follow after him. Before I can get very far, Dean reaches out and stops me.

“I can’t take back everything I did with him, but with me in here, he’s safe. I want to keep it that way. Take care of him, Belle. Don’t let Daphne hurt him again. He barely came ba
ck when she left the last time. I don’t think he’ll come back at all if it happens again.”

Kayden

I knew coming here and doing this was a mistake. Sitting in front of Dean, even before Belle came into the room, I knew it was going to blow up in my face. Belle might believe in taking a risk to get a reward, but knowing what I do now, the reward wasn’t worth it.

Storming out of there, leaving her behind, that’s something the old Kayden would have done. Everything Dean said, especially near the end wi
th his fake fucking concern, was too much. I saw myself changing and the only way to stop it was to get the hell out of there and away from her.

Even if it meant leaving her alone with the enemy.

It’s gotten easier now, being able to breathe in the fresh air, but it’s still not perfect.

I never should have come here and even worse, I never should have brought her along.

I saw the way she looked at him before I stormed out. Belle is sympathetic to my brother now and it sickens me. Dean shouldn’t get to sit with her for a few minutes and erase everything that happened last year, but I get the feeling that when she finally gets out here, that’s exactly what’s gonna happen.

E
verything that happened a year ago will cease to exist.

“Kay,” she says before placing her hand on my shoulder, the small touch forcing
me to turn around and face her. “Talk to me.”

It’s funny. Last year, Belle didn’t speak at all. Everything was written on paper or in text message, no sound able to escape from that pretty little mouth of hers and all I wanted was to hear her. Having her stand he
re now wanting me to talk, it’s like our roles are reversed.

I’ve become a whole lot like her and she’s become me. The stronger one.

Who am I kidding? She’s always been the stronger one.

“What did he say to you after I left?”

Moving in closer until her arms are sliding around my back, she hugs me tightly.

“He wanted me to take care of you.”

I want to laugh. Be snarky and tell her that he doesn’t have the right to ask anything of her, but I can’t do it. Dean asking her to take care of me, it’s something she does already. She’s always done it.

“He wanted you to do something you’ve already been doing?”

She laughs, but it’s tight. “Yeah I guess.”

“I hate him, Belle. I hate that you had to be in the same room with him. I hate that he said things about your mom when I know her and I don’t think she has it in her to keep something like that a secret.”

Where I expect her to agree with me, knowing her own mom even better than I do, she doesn’t. Her body tenses the same way it did when I told her my mom was back and just like then, I get the feeling she knows something she’s not saying.

“Dean’s full of shit right? Your mom wouldn’t keep that from you.”

“Kay…”

No way. I don’t like the way she’s saying my name right now. She does know something or at least she suspects and that’s enough to make the already overwhelming nosedive my mood is taking even worse.

“I think she did it.”

“How?”

I legitimately want to know how she can think her mom would do this. Sure, I can remember being in their house and my brother telling me that my mom was gone, but that could have happened for a million different reasons that have nothing to do with my mom dropping us off there.

Dean’s the liar. Not Grace.

“She used to get on the phone. I thought it was because she was talking to my dad and she didn’t want me to hear, but he never used to come around. He’d completely given up on me. I think that maybe she was talking to your mom.”

“Wait,” I say, holding up my hand and taking a step back, separating her arms from around me
so I can look at her while I piece this all together. “You think they were in contact even after Daphne took off?”

She nods and my heart, I’m pretty sure it falls deep into the confines of my stomach. Th
ere’s one thing I know for sure. Belle wouldn’t lie to me. She wouldn’t bring something like this up unless there was no doubt about what she saw.