Authors: Joey W. Hill
“When he took me to the Hill farm, Mom…it was there. Like he’d stepped into my
mind and figured out what I wanted the most, even before I knew it. It’s like he’s the one who holds the book of my life, and I’m waiting with all this breathless excitement to see him turn the page. I can see us being there, close to you, going back and forth to New York when we’re needed, but renovating it, building a home there.”
“You didn’t fall in love with New York?”
“I fell in love with Marcus,” he said simply. The first time he’d ever said it so easily to his mother. The first time he ever thought he
could
say it. “New York was home because he was there, the way this is home because you, Rory and Les are here. If that’s where he wants to be, and as long as I know you’re okay, I’ll be happy there. But there’s something about here, North Carolina…there’s a peace, a steady constancy to it.”
“Out of all my children, you’ve gone the furthest away in distance, as well as in your hopes and dreams.” Elaine nodded, her eyes as steady and thoughtful. “But your heart, the core of you, has always been about home, family. And I think that’s where the puzzle falls into place for me.”
He raised a brow. “How so?”
“We may not always act like it as we should, or deserve it, but there’s something instinctual that makes us want to love our family unconditionally. That’s why we’re called a family. And you said that Marcus doesn’t have that. He would have found it in various places, with friends, but that’s not the same. It was you who called to him. He knew you epitomized everything that family is about. Loyalty, sacrifice, no matter the personal cost.”
She laid her hand on his stomach then. He shifted, but she made a noise, holding him still. “Love and joy. Laughter. He couldn’t have made a better choice. And because he was smart enough to seek it in you, he may be a finer man than I gave him credit for being.”
“Mom.” Thomas’ throat was tight as she curled her fingers into the front of his sweatshirt.
“And you may not listen to Marcus, but you’ll listen to your mother. You’re having an appointment with Dr. Lassiter next week or I’m making it for you. You’re going to get a complete physical. If he says you’ve got something like an ulcer going on, you’re 244
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going to do whatever he says to make it better, even if that means you cut back on your hours at the store.”
“But we’ve got the planting rush about to—”
“My eldest son happens to be a very important artist who makes boatloads of
money. We’ll be hiring some help. And Rory…what you did before you left, it was good for him. You’re right. We were wrong to treat him as if he were helpless, as if he deserved our pity. He’s still a man, and he deserves to be treated like one. He’ll be the general manager of the store. Your father left me in charge of operations until I say otherwise, and I’m demoting you. You’re holiday help and part-time grunt only.”
He looked away, this time at the church. “Mom, are you okay with…this?”
She turned to look as well. As she did, she leaned back against him, putting a hand up along the side of his face. It encouraged him to put his arms around her, squeeze her tight, until she made an “oof” noise that made him grin, even as tears stung the back of his eyes.
“I don’t know, Thomas,” she said at last. “I know what the Bible says. I know what I’ve been raised to believe. But I’ve always turned to the church in comfort during the hardest times of my life because I believe He’s about Love at the root of everything.
“Though I don’t understand it, I can’t deny it anymore, that what you feel for one another is as real as what I was given with your father. If you don’t take and make a life out of that, you’d be a fool. And I didn’t raise a fool. So I think it’s time for it to be between the two of you and God, and I’ll pray for you both.”
He squeezed her again, holding her tightly so his heart wouldn’t break. “I love you so much, Mom. I never stopped. I never would have, no matter what.”
Her shoulders hitched in a little sob. She put her face into his shoulder and he felt her swallow, then she drew back, squared her shoulders and gave his hands a pat.
When she gave him a quick smile, her eyes glinted and she swiped at an escaped tear.
“Let’s get home now. Tomorrow you’ll go back to New York and get that smart-
mouthed Yankee’s butt on a plane back here. If you aren’t back in time for your doctor’s appointment, I’m coming to get you both. And I can promise you, New York is not ready for me.”
* * * * *
“I thought you’d left.”
Lauren paused at the open door of the gallery, arching a brow. “And a good
morning to you too. We thought we might stay one more day.”
“Statue of Liberty’s open for viewing. Then there’s the Guggenheim. I’m busy.” He glanced at her. “Where’s Josh?”
“Getting us coffee down the street. He’ll be here in a minute.” She glanced over at the woman going through a box of receipts. “You must be Linda, his general manager.
We heard good things about you the other night.”
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Linda nodded with a smile, a wary glance at Marcus.
When she and Josh had been unable to get Marcus to answer his cell after lunch, Lauren had suggested they try the gallery, since it was not far from their hotel. Since they both knew Thomas had headed back that morning, they’d agreed they weren’t
going to return to Florida until they were sure Marcus was going to be okay. She was glad they’d gone with that intuition.
Lauren put her hands on her hips. “Linda, I think you want to take a personal day.
Your boss is acting like a jerk, and I’m more equipped than you are to slap him around until he pulls the stick out of his ass.”
Marcus raised his head, met her cold blue stare with one of his own. “You come
here to fight?”
“No. But if you’re rude to me one more time, that’s what it’s going to be.”
Marcus slapped the ledger closed, extended it to Linda. “File that in the back.”
“Please,” Lauren added. “He meant to say please.”
After Linda disappeared, Lauren made her way to the counter, one casual step at a time, surveying the layout and artwork in this front area. Marcus stood behind a high walnut counter. His restless energy made him prefer to work on his feet. He’d told her it made a better impression on clients if the proprietor was standing when they arrived anyway, as if waiting just for them. With his forbidding expression today, she thought they might scream and run the other way.
When she got to the counter, she pivoted on her heel, presenting her back to him to see what art he’d chosen to place in his direct line of sight.
There were a couple of Josh’s sculptures on pedestals of course, the first thing people saw when they came in. But on the wall, with a distinct but discreet block letter sign, “Not for Sale—Other Work by This Artist Available” was a farm scene. A man leaning shirtless against a fence, watching the sun set, the image so vibrant and strong, so real, that anyone would feel they were standing just a few feet behind that man.
Watching. Absorbing everything he was.
She turned back to face him. “You put him here, where you could see him every
day.”
“Get out, Lauren. I mean it. You don’t want to be around me today, and I’m not in the mood for games.”
Lauren put her palms flat on the carved and polished wooden surface and looked
up into his face. Marcus was truly intimidating when he was pissed and broody, and there was an even deeper level to it, something volatile and dark, layers of past poison injecting itself into the present. Everything pulsing off him said he wasn’t in control, and what’s more, he didn’t really give a fuck that he wasn’t.
She’d once stood toe-to-toe with Josh, called forth his demons and unleashed them upon herself. She’d taken him down with nothing but nerve and the expert use of a 246
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whip that, in the face of a powerful man’s rage, hadn’t lasted five seconds. The nerve had. The love had.
Marcus was a different entity, with even more violent spaces. She could sense that, but just like with Josh, she believed she knew the core of the man. So when she reached up with both hands to frame his face, she wasn’t surprised when his hands caught her wrists. But he didn’t push her away. He held her there, his grip squeezing her as if she were a lifeline.
“You’re a great Mistress, Lauren,” he said quietly. “But you’re a woman. I’m
stronger, bigger and a hell of a lot meaner than you’d ever dream of being. You value our friendship, you don’t fuck with me today.”
Thomas had said something about the polish being all seared away when they were in the kitchen. She understood it now, seeing the coldness in his eyes.
“Marcus, if you value our friendship, you’ll take your hands off my wife. Now. I mean it. Because I
am
bigger and stronger.”
Josh set down the coffee cups on the entrance table and moved forward, his gray eyes hard. He took Lauren’s elbow, drew her away. When he did, Marcus let go.
Josh took her wrist in one hand, looked at the red marks and looked at Marcus.
“Josh—”
He’d leaned over and snagged the front of Marcus’ shirt before Lauren finished the thought. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
Marcus yanked loose, shoved Josh back and came around the counter.
“Stop it, both of you.”
But Marcus wasn’t after Josh. Lauren realized it a blink after Josh did. They both lunged after him, but it was too late.
Marcus ripped the framed picture off the wall hard enough to tear a gash in the sheet rock and broke it over his knee. The frame snapped like kindling in his frustrated hands. He tore the canvas loose as Lauren cried out and Linda emerged from the back, her eyes round. Taking the coffee, he dumped it over the now ruined canvas.
“Marcus—” Lauren leaped forward.
Josh picked up the nearest statue, a hefty bronze of a Minotaur, and yanked Lauren back as Marcus turned on her, rage gripping his features. Josh struck him across the jaw with it, knocking Marcus back into the wall.
“Josh!” Lauren tried to move forward again, but Josh held her firmly.
Marcus was breathing hard, leaning against the wall. Blood slipped through his
lips, proving the blow had made an impact, not just in the evidence of the blood but in his sudden stillness, hunched against the wall as if he couldn’t move, as if frozen by the horror of a Medusa’s gaze. A look into his Fate, his life without Thomas.
Josh handed the statue to Lauren. Despite the fact he needed her to be his Mistress on a lot of levels, he didn’t assume the mantle of submissive in any way when her 247
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wellbeing and protection was at risk. “You stay right here,” he ordered her. “Not a step.”
He moved to Marcus. When he got there, he reached out, laid a careful hand on
Marcus’ shoulder.
Marcus raised his gaze, and it was as if Josh was looking into a hell-filled abyss, all the conflict and turmoil roiling in the green of his eyes. “He’s coming back, Marcus,”
Josh said.
Marcus shook his head. “He’ll get down there, and it will all be about his mother and…what he has to be. He can’t walk away from his responsibility to them.”
“He’s not walking away from anything,” Josh said firmly. “That’s why he is going back, Marcus. Have faith in him.”
“I do. I know who he is, everything about him.” Marcus abruptly straightened,
shrugged past Josh and squatted by the mess on the floor. Running his fingertips over it, the layers of now wet paint mixed with coffee staining his hand. “I know him inside like it’s my own inside, my breath and bone. This painting…it captured his soul.”
Is it bad to just stop? Maybe it hurts less. Maybe Emile, Toby and Mike were the lucky ones.
Marcus shook his head again. Stood. “I’m sorry,” he said with forced politeness to Lauren, and included Linda and Josh in his gesture. “I can’t be here today. Linda, please close up. Don’t clean this. I’ll do it later.”
Lauren did step forward now. “Where are you going?”
Instead of answering, he looked at the statue in her hand and shifted his gaze to Josh. “You hit me with a Royce sculpture? Do you know how frigging expensive that piece is?”
“It’s bronze. Something even harder than your head would be needed to dent it.
And I’m not the one who just shredded the painting you paid thousands of dollars for at an auction.”
“Your hand.” Lauren caught it, and Marcus noticed the gash caused by the wood
frame, the nails. “When was your last tetanus?”
Marcus pulled away. “Leave it.” He stared down at the wreckage. “It will heal over.
It always does. Doesn’t even leave a scar.”
When he was a boy, they’d had a cat on the Iowa farm whose eyes were always
messed up, as if the poor beast suffered allergies. Upon eventual inspection, they discovered his eyelids grew inward and his lashes were abrading the surface of his eyes. Of course, by the time they figured it out, the corneas were scarred such that the cat lost part of his sight, but he lived a fully functional life anyway.
It occurred to him then that he might have a peculiar phenomenon like that cat.
Perhaps the scars from all of his wounds were on the inside, a protection method that allowed him to maintain his looks, his most potent survival weapon. But somehow, along the way, the wounds had begun to fester. Because of Thomas, his torment and savior both.
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He had to make peace with it. He had to go back to the beginning. Where he could turn the wounds into calluses, before he bled to death internally.
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As Thomas chuckled and rose, offering his mother a hand up, the cell phone
Marcus had given him began to buzz in his coat pocket. He withdrew it as they made their way down the stairs. When he glanced at the display, he started. “Mom, I’m sorry, I need to take this one.”
“Is it Marcus?”