Love Song Series Box Set (24 page)

Chapter 3
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Jase

Staying here in this fucking waiting room is pissing me off. I need answers, and I need them now. No one has come out to tell me any damn thing! Pop comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder. “Calm down, boy. You aren’t making the situation any better.”

“
Fuck calm. I want to know how my woman and kid are!” I yell out.

“
I know, son, but you have to calm down, or they will kick your ass out. Julie needs you here.”

I start to yell again but stop when I s
ee Bethany walk into the room. She’s been in another room getting seen to, only agreeing to go after Jenny fell asleep. She looks like she now has more than a few stitches. I think about the beating she must have taken to earn them, and wish I could have killed the fucker when I had the chance.

She walks straight to me and wraps her arms around me.
“Have you heard anything?”

I know if I open my mouth that I will scream. She doesn
’t need that. I find the willpower to shake my head no as I wrap my arms around her and place a kiss to the top of her head.

“
I’m so sorry, Jase,” she says, tears filling her eyes.

I don
’t even have time to respond before Matty walks over. “You do not have shit to be sorry for, girl. This was your brother’s doing. It has nothing to do with you or anyone else.”

Bethany looks over to him and shakes her head.
“That’s not true.”

“
Yes, it is! This is not your fault,” I say, giving her a squeeze. I will not let anyone take responsibility for this shit, especially the woman who took a beating, but still stayed by Julie’s side. No one but that fucking psycho Dean.

She pulls away from me.
“That may be true, but it does have something to do with Brittany.”

“
What?” Matty and I both ask.

“
Brittany was the one giving Dean Julie’s new numbers. She also gave Dean the key to the house. She had copies made before we even moved in.”

Matty looks to me.
“How did she even know about Dean in the first place?”

As soon as Matty asks, I hear a gasp. I turn around
, and Becca is standing behind me with tears running down her face. “I did it.”

“
What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask, but it comes out sounding more like a roar.

She shakes her head.
“I didn’t know.”

I
let go of Bethany and grab Becca’s arms to give her a shake. “What did you do?”

“
I told Brittany that Julie’s ex-husband was harassing her at work. She asked me all kinds of questions about him. I didn’t know much, just that he was a doctor and where he was from, but she just kept asking. I never thought she would contact him. I’m sorry, so sorry,” Becca says between sobs.

“
Dean said that you gave Brittany Julie’s number the first time.” Bethany’s face is fierce.

“
I did. It was the first day she came to work. Brittany asked if I had Julie’s cell number. She said she wanted to call her and tell her about sleeping with Jase. I was so mad that she was working with me that I did it without even thinking, but I only gave it to her the once. She kept asking for it each time Julie changed it, but I said no.”

I
’m mad as hell that Becca played a part in this shit, but I don’t doubt for one minute that she didn’t have a clue this fucked up shit would happen. I’m going to make sure Brittany’s life is shit from this moment on. I’m not sure how, but she will pay for what she’s done.

Our conversation slowly dies down, and I make my way to a chair. I sit down and pull out my wallet. I take out a picture of Julie and Jenny on Christmas morning.
They both look so happy, so full of life. I sent Jenny home with Shane. Neither one of them wanted to go, but I didn’t want Jenny to be here until we found out if Julie was going to be okay. But hell, I wish she were here so I could hold her. I’m just putting the picture away when I see a doctor walk in. “Is anyone here for Julie Walker?”

Julie

I wake up to the sound of monitors beeping. My whole body aches, especially my stomach. Dean must have kicked me a few times. I look around and see Bethany sitting at the end of my bed.
She has her eyes closed, but I don’t think she’s sleeping. The side of her face is black, her mouth is swollen, and she has a handful of stitches above her right eye. Dean must have got her too this time.

“
Bethany,” I say as loud as I can.

Her eyes pop open
, and she jumps up from her chair. She makes her way to me and grabs my hand. “How are you feeling, hun?”

She always ask
s the same thing when Dean beats me. Sometimes I want to scream,
how do I look like I feel?
But I know she’s just trying to be nice. I realize she’s struggling too, so I give her my usual answer. “I’m okay. How long this time?”

She blinks and gives me an odd look.
“You’ve only been out a few hours or so.” She looks over to the clock on the wall. “Its five now. We got here a little after eleven this morning. You’ve been out about six hours. You were unconscious when they got you here. You had lost so much blood they thought they might lose you. The baby was lodged in the birth canal, so they ended up doing a C-section. Everything turned out fine. You have a healthy baby boy,” she finishes with a big smile.

That
’s when it all comes back; divorcing Dean, returning to Cromwell, getting pregnant, Dean coming for us. I break into sobs. Bethany leans down and holds me. “You’re fine now. Your son is beautiful. Jenny is safe. Everything is perfect.”

“
What happened to Dean?” I ask.

She squeezes my hand.
“He was arrested.”

I can tell by the way she
’s speaking that there’s more. “What else?”

She shakes her head but refuses to tell me.

“Did they let him out again?” He was always out within a few hours of being arrested for beating me. Why should this time be any different?

She looks across the room, avoiding my eyes.
“After getting to the police station, they put him in a holding room by himself.”

“
Yeah,” I mumble, urging her to continue.

“
When they went to check on him a few hours later, they found him hanging from the top bunk with a sheet around his neck.” She moves her eyes to me. “He hung himself.”

Knowing that he
is finally gone, that I am finally free, doesn’t make me happy. It does make me feel relieved. For some reason, that makes me break into sobs.

“
Jase,” I say between tears. “I need Jase.”

“
Right here, baby.” I look up, and Jase is walking through the door. He’s smiling a beautiful smile while holding Jenny’s hand. The rest of the family is following behind them, but I only have eyes for Jase and Jenny.

Bethany steps away, and Jase takes her spot. Jenny starts to climb onto my bed, but Jase grabs her around the waist and pulls her down.
“Got to be careful, Sweet Pea. Momma’s sore. We can’t be crawling on her,” he explains.

Jenny nods and looks up to me.
“I got to see my baby brother. He’s all red and wrinkly. He’s kinda ugly.” She whispers the last part.

I start to laugh, but it hurts to
o much, so I settle for a smile. My baby; I feel my heart constrict at the thought of my son.

“
You weren’t the prettiest thing either, right after you were born,” Kristen says from the end of my bed. “You had a huge cone head. It was so funny looking that your mom kept you in a hat until you were two months old.”

“
Nuh uh! Momma says I was a pretty baby.” Jenny puts her hands on her hips and gives Kristen a bite me look.

“
Pretty ugly,” Shane says with a smile.

Jenny retaliates by sticking her tongue out.
I smile, but all I can think about is our son. Everyone starts to laugh, but they quiet down when the door opens. A nurse sticks her head in and asks if I’m ready to see my baby. I nod an ecstatic yes, and she shoos everyone but Jase from the room. He grabs my hand, and we both stare at the door until the nurse walks back in rolling a bassinet toward my bed.

I
watch Jase as he takes our son from the bassinet and brings him over to me. He places our son gently in my arms. I look down at his perfect face and tears fill my eyes. “He’s perfect.”

Jase smiles at me.
“He sure the hell is. So, what are we naming him?”

We
’ve had this conversation a million times, but he’s avoided giving me an answer until today. “I told you that I named Jenny without you, so I think you should pick his name, but I do want his middle name to be Andrew after you and Pop.”

He nods with a smile on his face.
“That sounds good. I think we should stick with ‘J’ first names,” he says smirking. “Jamison, Jordan, or Justin?”

“
Don’t leave that up to me. They all sound great.”

He looks down at our son.
“Hello, Jamison Andrew Gibson.”

Epilogue

Jase

It
’s been two months since Jamie was born, and things are just now starting to settle down. The doctors said that it was a miracle that he was so healthy. He was almost a month early, but he weighed over six pounds, and his lungs worked just like they should.

Brittany
was arrested about a week ago. She was charged with conspiracy to kidnapping. Becca came over to the house to tell Julie and me all about it. She said Brittany did it all because she wanted to be with me. Brittany even went as far as to say Julie destroyed her life. She claimed she was pregnant with my child when Julie came back to town. She said the stress of seeing us back together caused her to have a miscarriage.

I called her story bullshit
. She may have been pregnant, but it wasn’t mine. I hadn’t been with the bitch in months. If it had been mine, she would have been as big as a house by the time Julie got home. Plus, I always wore a condom. Julie was, and still is, the only woman that I have ever been bareback with.

Becca
knew all this because Brittany had the nerve to come into Mr. Friedman’s law office to ask him to represent her. Mr. Friedman told her there was no way that he would be representing her. Not only was it a conflict of interest with Julie working there, but also, he didn’t want anything to do with a woman that hurt one of his employees and used the other. So Brittany was going to have to find someone out of town.

Shaking off my wayward thoughts,
I look in the mirror and try to fix my tie. I haven’t worn one of these things since Mom died. I hope to never have to wear one again. I pull on it a little, and the damn thing looks more like a big knot. I’m just about to tear the thing off when Pop, Shane, and Matty walk into the room.

Pop shakes his head and laughs.
“Let me get that for you, son.” As soon as he’s done, he pats my shoulder. “There you go.”

“
Thanks, Pop. I’ve been working on the fucking thing for almost an hour,” I say with a little laugh. I look over to Matty and Shane. “Remember when Mom made us practice with a tie?”

“
Yeah, she made us work on it every day,” Shane says with a laugh.

“
She said we’d want to impress a woman one day,” Matty adds, then looks right at me. “Guess she was right.”

I nod my head and start to think about
Mom. God, I wish she were here today.

“
She wanted you to have this,” Pop says, holding out a small blue box.

“
What?” Did Julie send me something?

“
Chelle packed this up for you right after you were born. She said she was going to give it to you the day you got married.”

I guess
Mom is here in a way. Slowly, I open the box. Inside, there’s a flattened penny with Nashville stamped on it. I pull it out and shake my head at Pop.

“
When we got married, we didn’t have enough money to have a real honeymoon, so we went to Nashville instead. We spent the night at some cheap hotel. Best night of my whole damn life,” Pop says with a sad chuckle. “There was one of those penny machines in the office. Your mom wanted one as a keepsake. She carried that thing with her every day until you were born. Then, she taped it in your baby book. She said you were created not long after she pressed that penny, so it was yours. She wanted to give it to you on your wedding day. Chelle hoped maybe it would bring you all the love that it did us.”

I think back to growing up, watching
Mom and Pop together. Yes, Pop screwed up. He screwed up so fucking bad that Mom is now gone forever, but they did love each other. I look up at Pop and nod my head. I place the penny in my pocket, where it will stay until Jenny or Jamie gets married. “Come on. It’s time for me to get hitched.”