Promise Me Light (19 page)

It was time to tell him.

“Ryder, I need to tell you something,” I said, pulling away and
hating every second of it.

“Later. I need you now,” he said, grabbing my loose hair in a
fist and tugging me closer.

“A gunshot wound won’t stop you?” I asked with a smile.

“Not with you, baby.”

Hearing his words, I threaded my fingers though his hair, bringing
his mouth back to mine. He growled as I kissed him, his hands going to
my hips.

I grabbed one of his hands. With my fingers around his wrist, I
slowly started to bring it to my stomach. My heart raced and my hands
shook. This was it.
What is he going to say?

He was an inch away from touching my stomach when the bedroom door
opened.

His mom stood in the doorway, tears in her eyes. Behind her was
Roger, holding a ball cap in one hand and shifting from foot to foot
nervously.

“Mom. Dad,” Ryder said, his hand going to my hip, keeping me
close.

As soon as he said her name, Janice rushed into the room, sobs
shaking her body. I pulled away from Ryder, giving Janice the room she
needed to reach him. In seconds she was throwing her arms around Ryder,
holding him like she probably did when he was a child.

“Ryder, oh honey,” Janice whispered, smoothing down his long,
unruly hair.

He wrapped his arms around her thin frame, looking over his shoulder
at his dad. Roger stood in the doorway, watching his wife and son
carefully.

“It’s okay, Mom,” Ryder said in a soft voice.

Janice sniffed and pulled away, keeping her hands resting on his
shoulders. “We thought you wouldn’t make it. Your fever spiked
and--”

“I’m fine,” Ryder interrupted, his eyes finding mine. “Never
been better.”

His words sent a tingle through me. The need that lived between us
was just as strong now as always had been. Time couldn’t change that.
Nothing could.

Janice pushed his hair away from his forehead. An image of her doing
that when he was fourteen raced through my mind. Ryder had always got
mad at her, saying he wasn’t a baby. In response, she would tell him
that he would always be her baby. I understood now that it meant more
than just something a mom said to her child.

For ten or fifteen minutes Ryder talked to his parents, reassuring
them he felt okay. Janice listened but her brows were furrowed with
worry. I could tell she wanted to say more and finally she did.

“You’re okay. I couldn’t ask for more. But there’s something
you need to know, Ryder. Something I should have told you long ago. I
was just so afraid of hurting you and I was afraid you would leave.”
Janice cleared her throat, the tears making her eyes brighter. “When I
thought you were dead, I almost died too. I had so much guilt, so much I
hadn’t told you. It’s time you know the truth.”

Ryder held his side and tried to sit up straighter, suddenly very
alert.

“What’s going on?”

I felt uncomfortable, eavesdropping on a very private moment. I
started to leave when Janice stopped me.

“Stay, Maddie. For him.”

I nodded, taking a seat in a nearby chair. The same chair I had sat
in when Ryder lie bleeding and dying when we first brought him home.

Taking a deep breath, Janice told Ryder everything. She told him
about his real mom, her little sister. How she had a drug and alcohol
problem and was always in trouble. She described all the years of trying
to help her sister, the agony of not knowing where she was most of the
time. Janice explained the phone call she received and the night she
took him home from the hospital, the night that he became hers.

Ryder kept his eyes on his mom, not moving a muscle as she spoke.

“She loved you, Ryder, in her own way. I don’t want you to think
badly of her. She just didn’t know how to raise another human
being,” Janice said, softly. “She had problems and knew she
couldn’t be the mom you needed.”

Ryder’s jaw clamped harder beneath his thick beard. I saw hurt in
his eyes, hidden behind the hardness that was always there.

“You
are
our son in every sense of the
word,” Roger added. “Don’t ever forget that.”

Ryder’s mouth set in a grim line, his eyes hardened as they glanced
from his mom to his dad.

“But I’m not your son. Sounds like I’m just like her. I have
her need to fight and drink and be pissed off at the world.” He shook
his head, disgusted. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me? It explains
damn near everything.”

Roger pushed away from the doorframe. “No it doesn’t! You are who
you are. You make your own decisions. You want to go out and get
stinking drunk, you do it. Not because of your damn genes!”

Janice stood up, straightening the sheets and blankets on the bed in
a nervous gesture.

“I know it’s shocking and we should have told you sooner but
you’re my child even if I didn’t give birth to you. You’ll always
be my son,” she said.

Ryder nodded, his hands tightening into fists. “Understood,” he
said, harshly.

For a few moments, no one spoke. The silence in the room was heavy,
making me squirm in my seat. I wanted to go to Ryder, knowing this had
to be hurting him, but I stayed seated.

Finally, Roger gestured to Janice. “Let’s give them some space,
honey,” he said. “I think maybe they need it.”

Janice looked at Ryder reluctantly with indecision on her face but
Roger took her hand, leading her out of the room.

After the door closed, I was uncertain what to do.
This is life-changing news. Did he want to be alone? Should I
leave? Stay?

Ryder clenched and unclenched his fists, making the muscles under his
shirtsleeves bunch.

“Did you know?” he asked, his eyes glued ahead.

“She told me the day we found you,” I answered.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he sighed. “Damn,” he
whispered.

That one word held so much pain and heartache, that I had to go to
him. Rising to my feet, I crossed to the bed. When I was close enough,
he reached for me, pulling me between his legs.

For moments, we held each other. His hands cradled my head as my
fingers rested on the warm skin of his neck.

After what seemed like eternity, he pushed my hair away from my neck,
leaving my ear exposed.

Lowering his head, his lips brushed against the delicate skin of my
earlobe as he whispered in my ear, “Thank you for putting up with me
all those years. I wouldn’t have survived all the crazy shit I did
without you.”

His hands roamed down my ribs, stopping on my hip. His lips left my
ear, pulling away from me.

I grabbed his head. Turning his face toward me, I lowered my lips to
his.

“I love you, Ryder,” I whispered against his mouth.

A moan was his answer as my lips parted under his.

We were alone. Now was the time to tell him about the baby. But I
couldn’t. He had just been told that his whole life had been a lie,
that he had been adopted. To tell him that he was going to be a father
moments later seemed too much, too soon. Call me what you will, I
couldn’t utter the words.

His hand slipped under my shirt, touching my bare hip. He might be
hurt and I might be hiding my pregnancy, but I wanted him. Nothing would
have stopped that.

His hand was moving around to my abdomen when the door creaked open
again, stopping him.

I tore my lips away from him.
Has everyone forgotten
how to knock around here?

“Shit. Kind of busy here, Gavin,” Ryder said, slipping his hand
out from under my shirt when he saw his brother standing in the
doorway.

“Well, hell. Look who has risen from the grave,” Gavin joked as
he strolled into the room. “The almighty Ryder himself.”

I tried to move away and let the two brothers reconnect but Ryder
kept me next to him, refusing to let me go.

“How are you doing?” Gavin asked, stopping at edge of the bed.
Putting his hand on Ryder’s shoulder, he gave him a good, firm
pat.

“I’ve been better,
brother
, or should I
say cousin?” Ryder said, his tone flat.

“So Mom told you?” Gavin asked, his smile slipping.

“Yeah. Some fucked up shit, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Gavin scratched his whiskered chin, appearing uncertain.
Sticking his hands in his back pockets, he cleared his throat. “She
told me a few days ago. But all that shit doesn’t matter. We’re
still brothers, Ryder.”

“Well, it matters to me. Any other secrets I don’t know about?”
Ryder asked, his eyes piercing.

Gavin rubbed the tip of his nose and glanced at me. I waited for him
to say the words that would destroy Ryder;
I kissed
Maddie.
I held my breath, praying Ryder wouldn’t hate us when
he heard them. But Gavin didn’t say anything.

I looked away at the same time as Gavin shifted to his other foot and
focused on his boots. Ryder watched us, his eyes going from Gavin to
me.

“What’s going on with you two?” he asked, dropping his hands
from me. “What are you not telling me?” Hardness lined his voice and
his eyes turned cold, a look I recognized so well.

“Nothing,” Gavin answered, glancing my way again.

“How come I don’t believe you?” Ryder retorted. Like a creature
camouflaging itself for protection, I saw Ryder hide his emotions,
covering them up with anger and spite. He was pulling away from me,
dragging a solid curtain around himself so no one could reach him.

Shrugging, Gavin turned away, guilt written all over his face. Unlike
Ryder, he couldn’t hide his emotions so well, usually wearing his
heart on his sleeve. Grabbing a ladder-back chair from the corner of the
room, he carried it over to the bed. Turning the chair backwards, he
straddled it, facing Ryder.

“Let’s get down to business,” he said, folding his arms over
the back. “What happened out there?”

“What part do you want to hear? The part where they shot me then
dragged me to their hellhole or the part where they beat me, leaving me
in a bloody pile for the flies to fest on?” Ryder asked, not pulling
any punches.

All the blood drained from my face. Suddenly needing to sit down, I
lowered myself into a chair. I knew Ryder had been beaten. His back was
nothing but a crisscross of lash marks and cuts, placed there by either
a whip or a chain. Huge bruises intersected with the marks, the perfect
size of a man’s fist. He had been beaten, tortured, shot, and left for
dead. It was miracle he was even alive. But to hear him talk about it
was awful to hear.

“How many soldiers were in the camp?” Gavin asked, sounding like
he was undertaking a military inquisition.

Ryder shrugged. “Don’t know. If I had to guess, I’d say a
hundred but they came and went so I can’t be sure.”

“How many prisoners?”

“Fifty? Sixty? I was out of it most of the time so I have no
idea,” Ryder answered.

“Weapons?”

“Everything you can imagine. Machine guns, grenades, RPGs. They
also had generators. Big ass one’s with enough power to light up a
building.”

“What about--”

“Listen, Gavin, why don’t I just tell you what the hell happened.
We’ll be here all night if you ask a bunch of damn questions.” Ryder
glanced at me, his eyes dropping to my lips. “And I’ve got more
important things to do.”

“Then spill it,” Gavin said, his hardened voice matching
Ryder’s. “And I’ll let you get back to what you were doing.”

Ryder shot Gavin a look of annoyance. “You want to know what
happened? I went to hell is what happened. They beat me at least twice a
day with anything they could get their hands on. Wire, pipes, chains.
Didn’t matter to them. They gave me bread full of maggots and water
that looked like someone had pissed in it. Smelled just as bad too.”
He rubbed a hand over the nape of his neck, the motion reminding me of
someone that was nervous, uncomfortable with the conversation. “They
tried some kind of mental torture crap, like something out of a damn
movie. And hell, it worked. I was afraid to sleep. The nightmares were
too terrible. I can’t say they’ve gone away either.”

I shifted in my seat, feeling anguish as I remembered all the nights
he woke up screaming, thrashing about like he was fighting someone. I
thought it was due to the fever raging through his body but now I knew
it was the nightmares that haunted him.

Ryder ran a hand through his hair then down to his beard, looking
uneasy talking about all of it.

“What is on my face?” he asked, scratching his cheek. “This
shit itches. I need a razor.”

“Later. We need details before any more bastards show up here,”
Gavin said, growing impatient.

Holding his injured side, Ryder sat up straighter, all humor
disappearing. “More? What the fuck happened while I was out?”

“You don’t remember?”

“I don’t remember shit,” Ryder admitted, growing annoyed.
“All I know is I was shot and I dragged myself home. The last thing I
remember is seeing Maddie in the pasture. You telling me some shit went
down and I was lying in bed like an invalid?”

“Calm down. You’ll pull a damn stitch if you get worked up,”
Gavin grumbled. He rolled his shoulders and stole a glance at me.

“A few days ago, hell, maybe longer, one of them came looking for
you. Found Maddie instead,” he said.

“Dammit,” Ryder muttered, turning his eyes on me. “You
okay?”

“I’m in one piece so yeah, I’m good,” I answered, feeling
redness creep up my neck as his eyes assessed me.

Ryder started to say something else but Gavin cut him off. “You
somehow got outside and fired off a few shots. You put a slug in the
man’s shoulder but he took off. We couldn’t find hide nor hair of
him. Not one damn trace.”

“They’re sneaky sons-of-bitches,” Ryder said.

“So what do they want?” Gavin asked.

I saw Ryder’s mind working. His eyes stayed on me a second longer
before answering Gavin.