Authors: Lauren Dane
“Fuck you, Chase. For the better part of my life Tate took responsibility for me. Paid my father hush money so my siblings and I could live safely and be fed. That’s why we’re always at her house. She feeds us emotionally and physically. There’s never a bare pantry at Tate’s house, not in her heart or in her kitchen. This is about me because Tate is about me. Tate is more of a mother to me than the woman who gave me birth. I owe Tate everything I am and I won’t stand by and let
anyone
hurt her. Not my father and certainly not you. Get out of my way Sheriff Chase unless you plan to arrest me.”
Shane sighed and moved to the side. “Nathan, don’t do this. Tate needs Matt, she loves him and he loves her. You know that. I know you’re upset but you have to let them work things out.” Nathan said nothing more but left The Pumphouse.
“Whatcha gonna do?” Shane looked down at Matt.
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“I’m going to go home and kick people out. Tate and I need to fix this without an audience.”
“I’ll go with you. I don’t think it’s going to be as easy as you think.” Shane rode over with Matt.
“I just needed some damned time to nurse some hurt feelings. I didn’t tell her I was breaking things off. I told her I’d be back,” Matt explained to his brother after he’d told him about the payoffs.
“I understand why you’d be hurt, Matt. And I think Tate does too.
But you’re going to have trouble getting past her siblings who’re all going to gang up to protect her from any perceived threat, you included. We’d do it in their place. I see their perspective very well. Cassie told me Tate walked past her and into her bedroom after you left, like there was nothing left to her.”
“Damn it. Okay, okay. I shouldn’t have left but…”
“But you felt like a failure for not protecting her. So you gathered up all your righteous indignation that she hadn’t told you so you didn’t have to feel like you’d failed the person who matters most.” Matt licked his lips as he turned down their street. “Yes. Shane, she’s so small, she’s mine to protect and cherish and I didn’t. And she didn’t trust me to.”
“Do you really think that? Do you really think this was about her not trusting you to protect her? I’m not saying you don’t have the right to be mad that she kept it to herself, I see why you are. But it’s who she is.
She’s going to choose to take on burdens to protect people she loves. You knew that going in, Matt. If you can’t handle that or this messed up family situation get out now. It’s unfair to keep going with this relationship if something like this is enough to break you up.
“Worse things will happen. Loving someone means they can get to you in ways no one else can. There are going to be times you’re so pissed off at her you want to rip your hair out, where you have to leave before you say something that’ll hurt her. But you do leave, or you do take a deep breath and go get a soda because you’d rather hold back than harm 182
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her. That’s what love is. And until I was with Cassie, no one meant that much to me other than my family.”
“I don’t want to leave her. I love her. I love being with her. I don’t know what to think or feel or do. I’ve never felt so fucking scared in my life other than when I first got to the hospital in July when that bastard put her there. I wanted to be the one she turned to, the strong one. And when she did turn to me I ran. Fuck.”
Shane snorted softly. “You’ll both get over it. You’ll work it out and the next fight y’all have you won’t turn tail, although you’ll make new mistakes because that’s the way of it. It’s not earth shattering. You had a fight. It happens. Now go in there and fix it because make up sex is the best.”
Laughing, Matt pulled into the driveway and saw boxes of stuff stood on the porch and Tim sat out there with Beth.
“You need to grab your shit and go. We’ll pay you back for the renovation when we can.” Tim blocked the door.
“This is my house. I’m going in, Tim.”
“No you’re not. You’ve done enough damage.” Beth shook her head at him.
“You’re just making things worse. Come on, you know I love Tate.
This is a huge overreaction.”
“Overreaction? And you’d know this because you saw the damage you did first hand? Oh, no you couldn’t have because you were off at your little bar drinking and looking at chicks.” Beth’s eyes narrowed.
“I wasn’t looking at anyone. I’d never do that to Tate, and I’m not interested in looking at other women. Don’t mistake me for your father either. I had
a
beer, most of it I didn’t drink because Nathan tossed it in my face.”
“You’re right, the running off when things got hard thing is more like my mother. Hit the road.” Matt hated it that Tim was so mad. He’d always considered Tim his greatest ally with Tate.
“Actually, this is his place of residence so he has a right to go inside, Tim.” Shane, thank God Shane was there.
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“I see, you’re going to use the sheriff in your pocket to hurt my sister now?”
“Oh stuff it!” Cassie pushed her way past. “This has gone on long enough. Tate is worked into a frenzy in there and none of you are helping!”
“Of course you’d take his side.”
“This isn’t about sides! All of you get the hell out of here.” Tate thundered out onto the porch, anger sparking in her eyes. She looked at her siblings and then Matt. “
All
of you. I want to be alone and I don’t need or want anyone speaking for me, thinking for me or taking responsibility for me. How dare you all pack Matt’s things and make that choice for him and for me.”
Matt nodded. “They’re just trying to help, Venus. They love you.”
“And you! You don’t know a damned thing about it.” She pushed Anne gently but firmly out and slammed the door, locking it. “None of you has the right!” she yelled from the other side of the closed door and turned out the porch light.
They all began to argue until Shane’s cell phone rang. He answered, listened and started laughing as he snapped the phone shut.
“That was Tate Murphy, she’s called the sheriff to file a noise complaint about a public nuisance in her front yard.” Matt scrubbed hands over his face. This had all spun out of control so fast. He didn’t want to be arguing on her,
their
lawn, he wanted to be inside, holding his woman.
“Y’all go on home. I mean it. I’m going in there to work this out with Tate. If you love her like you say you do, you’ll know she loves me and I love her too. We’re gonna have arguments and she’s going to be hurt and I’m going to be hurt. That’s natural and normal and truly, no one deserves normal more than Tate. So go. Please. I’m sorry I’ve upset you all and we can all work this out later but Tate is in there alone right now.” Matt sighed as he looked at the front of the house.
“Please,” Cassie added. “Please guys. You know they’re good for each other. I know you’re hurting for her but you’re the ones who started 184
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packing all this up. It wasn’t her idea. She’d have done it herself if she’d wanted to. It’s just a fight. God, if you all only knew how many fights Shane and I had our first year together. Okay,” she grinned at Shane and he laughed, “still have. Tate is a strong woman and Matt’s easygoing but they will have disagreements. If you gang up on him every time it happens, they’ll never make anything work. Let them make up. If they don’t, you know where Matt works. If you can get to him before Polly does, you can kick his ass.”
Matt heaved a sigh of relief—ignoring the comment about his mother—his moving out hadn’t been Tate’s idea.
Her siblings moved and Matt nodded at them, reaching out and squeezing Cassie’s hand when he passed. He unlocked the door and opened it slowly. When nothing took his head off, he went inside and found her scrubbing the tile in the bathroom.
“Hey, Venus. Whatcha doing?”
“Scrubbing the tile around the toilet.”
He leaned around. “Tate, is that my toothbrush?”
“
Hmpf.
”
Ouch
. “Oookay. Well, luckily there’s a spare in the medicine cabinet then. Will you talk to me?”
“I already did.”
“Tate, not that I don’t like the view and all, your ass looks particularly lovely and I can see your breasts coming out the top of that shirt reflected in the shower door, but can we move this to the living room? Our bedroom? Someplace we can be face to face?”
“Matt, what are you doing here?” She turned and tossed the toothbrush,
yep his
, into the trash and took off the yellow rubber gloves, laying them under the sink.
“I live here. I told you I’d be back.” He held a hand out to help her up but she ignored it and stood, brushing her hands off on the front of her pants and left the bathroom.
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He followed her into the living room where she took the chair so he sat on the table, leaning in and taking her hands in his.
“I’m sorry you had to deal with this insanity with your father alone for all these months. I can’t imagine how scared you must have been to keep it secret.”
“Fine.”
“
Fine
? That’s it? Your fucking family moves my shit out onto the porch and you scrub the toilet with my toothbrush after you hide something important from me for
five
months and all you give me is an okay?”
“Who’s got the fuck habit now, buster? Anyway, my family did that, I didn’t. And what’s more if you’d been here, they couldn’t have done it now, could they? And don’t you call them my
fucking
family, only I get to do that. I’m beginning to wish I’d fucking gotten in my car and headed to Atlanta for a few weeks like Liv did.”
“And Marc went insane with worry!”
“Yes, because it’s always about you people!”
“Back with that you people thing? Liv is from my side of town too!”
“Oh shut up! I mean you people with penises, not you rich people.
God. Look, you
asked
me to tell you. I did. And then you ran off. You can’t expect me to just be all,
hi honey, nice to see you, want a beer?
when you come back. You’re the one who’s always all,
I hate it when you
try to run off
and then you did.”
“You’re right. I was hurt and I needed to be away from here for an hour or so. God knows why I imagined hell wouldn’t break loose if I left.”
“You left, Matt. When things got bad you left. I may have been wrong for not telling you, and I’m sorry I hurt you, I am. But I’ve been trying really hard to make a go of this. Even with all the insanity, even knowing you don’t tell me everything to protect me, I stay and I try and today I trusted you enough to tell you and you threw it in my face and walked away.”
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“I felt like a failure out there on our porch this afternoon. You hid this from me when you should have been able to come to me and let me protect you. It shouldn’t be the other way around.” Her anger softened and her eyes searched his face. “You’re not a failure, Matt. My family is just too messed up. I’m messed up. You deserve more than that. Better.”
“I want you to stop that talk right now. There’s no breaking up here so quit it. I told you I’d be back. Okay, so I handled it wrong. I should have stayed and we could have talked it through without all the packing and yelling. But we’re together, Tate. We’ll work it out.” She listened to him and took a deep breath. The tentative smile fell away and her eyes narrowed. “Why do you stink of booze? It’s hard to concentrate right now with you smelling like that. Bad memories I suppose but I’d really rather you not go out and tie one on when you’re pissed. I don’t mind drinking, I do mind coming back so bad off you smell like a brewery.”
He laughed and then tried to get serious again. “Sorry.” He put his hands up. “I’m not drunk. I had three sips of one pint of beer. Nathan threw the rest on me. Why don’t I go shower and change and we can continue this?”
The corner of her mouth slid up a bit. “Nathan threw a beer on you?”
“Yeah. I thought he was going to pop me one and I’d have had to pop him back and you’d have been really mad at me for giving your baby brother a black eye. Luckily, Shane interceded so no blows were thrown.”
“
Hmpf
. Go on.”
He wanted to go to her and give her a kiss but his clothes stuck to him and now that she’d pointed out the smell it began to make him feel slightly nauseated.
“I’m saving the snuggles and sugar for after I’m cleaned up. But I’ve been running a tab.”
When he finished showering he found she’d moved many of the boxes back into the house and was in their bedroom putting his clothes into drawers.
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He approached her from behind wearing only a towel and put his arms around her.
“I could have done that.” He kissed the top of her head.
“It gave me something to do. Anyway, my family made the problem, I’ll undo it. They really didn’t get most of your clothes. I was in here so they didn’t touch what was in the closet and dresser. I think they took stuff out of the laundry. I’d done a load earlier today.” He turned her and his chest constricted a moment as he looked at her face, the features he loved so much. He could have lost her over something silly. That was untenable.
“First things first. Tate, we’re going to fight sometimes you know. But unlike what Beth might think, I’m not your mother. I’m not going to abandon you. I shouldn’t have left. I’m sorry. My feelings were hurt and I was upset with myself too, I needed a bit of space but I should have handled it differently.”
He’d moved her back toward the bed and with a flex of his hips, bumped her onto the mattress.
“If I thought you were like my mother I’d have done more with your toothbrush than scrub the tile with it. I love you, Matt, but I’m not a doormat. Even if I gave in to my father, I’m not someone you can walk all over. I won’t allow it.” She put her fingers over his lips as he loomed over her. “But that’s not what you did so calm down. I’m just saying that’s not what you did and that’s not who I am.”