HUCK:The Montana Brothers(18)

       
           



       

I followed his lead. "Tom Garvin?"

"Bingo. I'm him. I am my daddy. From the way I look to how I sound, to  whatever athletic talent I may have had, I'm Tom Garvin, the damn  sequel."

"But if you look just like him, handsome as you are, and he set all those records, isn't that a good thing?" I asked.

"It would be if he wasn't a woman-beating piece of shit who killed my  momma with his bare hands. Yes, it surely would," Huck said flatly.

My stomach sank through the soles of my feet, and was probably so heavy  it didn't stop sinking until it was a mile under where we sat.

"Oh," was all I could manage in reply.

"Most folks who like to beat up women need to drink a fair bit first. My  dad never needed that sort of an excuse. A cloudy day was good enough  for him. Or a dog barked at him on the way home. Maybe dinner was cold.  You know, good, sensible reasons like those. Sometimes for no reason at  all, just to show how ‘tough' he was. He'd slap her around and treat her  like his personal punching bag. Until her sons got big enough to try to  stop him, but then he'd just knock us down and step over us to get to  her. She used to beg us not to intervene, say that she had to take the  beatings since she chose to marry him, but that we did nothing to  deserve it. That we didn't get to choose such crummy parents. But she  wasn't crummy at all. She was just as perfect a momma as anybody could  ever want. She told me that it hurt her worse to see him hit her babies  than to take it herself. To not get in between them. But we just  couldn't, Belle."

I thought of my own father, how different he was. I tried to imagine him raising a hand to my mother. The notion was laughable.

"Just before I turned ten, he killed her. He beat her so bad she never  woke up. My brothers and I were over at Rick's that night, which is  good, because if I'd have been there or if Hayes and Hunt had been  there, he'd have had to kill us, too. And that coward, after he finished  her off, walked into the kitchen, made a sandwich, ate it, and went out  to his truck and put his pistol in his mouth.

"It was a week before my tenth birthday and I was the youngest and  closest to her. Hayes was eleven and Hunt was twelve. No momma, no  daddy. Rick took us in and raised us as his own. We took his last name  in honor of our mother. I turned my anger, my hate, to sports. I think  we all did. Rick took over the bar, I mean he still runs the place, but  when I turned twenty-one, I became the owner. Guess I'm a trust fund  baby, too, in a way."

Huck smiled at me.

"But the point I'm trying to reach, at the end of all this talking, is  that I am my dad. The same blood that ran through his veins is in mine.  When he was courting my momma, I doubt he ever thought to himself ‘man, I  can't wait to get married and have some kids with this beautiful woman  and then beat her until even those same kids can't recognize her'.  Right? He had to have had the best of intentions at one point in time.  So knowing what I know about him, how can I fall in love? How can that  ever be fair to another person? How can I let anybody get close to me?"

"But you and Amber … " My voice trailed off.

"Amber was the captain of the cheerleading team. I was the captain of  the football team. That whole thing was just a big ball of hormones and  cliché. I was a kid. The little head did the thinking for the big head  back then. Which sounds bad, because number one you're way more  beautiful than she ever was or could think about being. And number two, I  sound like I was just dog in heat."

"You were a high school boy," I answered. "The next high school boy who  doesn't fall in what he thinks is love with an Amber Halliday when she  spreads her legs will be the first. That's true in Montana, Kentucky,  and all fifty states. Right?"

"Yeah, I suppose you're right, Belle. But still, my dad … "

"Your dad was Tom Garvin. You're Huck Calloway. You didn't choose to  look the way you look or to be able to hit a baseball like you could.  Those are gifts from God. What you can choose is what kind of person you  are. And Huck, from what I've seen, you're a damn good man. If you're  willing to take a chance on me, on putting the pieces of Belle Delford  back together, I'm more than happy to try to be every bit as good a  woman as you say your momma was."

Huck kissed me, long and deep. And then held my face in his hands.

"I love you," he said. "I'd rather die than hurt you. The thought of  someone even looking at you funny makes me want to fly into a murderous  rage. But I'm scared of my own DNA. Scared of what it means to love  someone more than you love yourself. Scared of the stakes …  Scared of  ever losing you."                       
       
           



       

"We can't be afraid," I said. "And we can never find our destiny without risking something. Right?"

"You are my destiny," Huck said as he kissed me gently on the mouth.  "And I will do everything I can to be the man that deserves to be  yours."

"You already did," I said, kissing him back. "I'm just glad you can admit you don't hate me after all."

We both laughed at that. It was nice to know that laughter was still possible.

I never would have believed it before Huck.





12





After that morning of confessions and secrets revealed, nothing was ever the same again.

And I mean that in the best possible way.

A couple weeks later we "came out" to our co-workers and Huck's brothers  and uncle. Not that anyone was surprised. After that morning where we  told each other everything, there wasn't a person within a mile of us  that wouldn't be able to tell we were crazy about each other.

In a weird way, I guessed we had the Mutineers to thank. It's funny how  sometimes the worst things can be the things that lead to the best.  Without the traumatic events of that night it might have been a long  time before Huck and I would have been brave enough to open up to each  other.

But I liked to think it would have happened anyway. In its own time.



A few weeks later I was in bed taking a nap before a Wednesday shift at  The Side Pocket. Huck laid next to me, naked after having sweaty, dirty  sex with me for most of the morning.

There hadn't been a day that had gone by since our first night together  where we didn't make love at least twice a day. I knew this would one  day be the era in my life I would call the best of times. I was so in  love that my head was in the clouds most days. I just couldn't stop  thinking about Huck and how lucky I was to be his.

His cell phone had started buzzing on the nightstand next to us. At  first he'd ignored it, but whoever was calling him clearly wasn't giving  up.

Huck reached over and looked at his phone before answering. "Hey, Rick. Everything okay?"

I watched him furrow his brow as he listened to whatever Rick was  saying. He looked over at me with an expression I couldn't read.

"She's right here with me. I'll find out what it's all about. No, you did the right thing. Thanks. Later."

He set the cell back down and sat up straight in bed next to me. The  time for fun, I surmised, was over. Huck was very awake and alert.

"Dobbs Braddock."

Two words. The last two words I ever expected or wanted to hear from  Huck Calloway's gorgeous mouth. I felt like a cannonball made of ice had  just hit me in the stomach. The tears came, and I let them.

"Is he … ?"

"Yes," I managed to whisper. Huck understood.

Huck enveloped me in his incomparable arms, as I cried into his chest.  He ran a hand through my hair, pulling it away from my face.

"Shhh. It breaks my heart to see you cry, Belle. Whatever it is, I'll  take care of it. You know that," Huck held me tight until I was out of  tears, and he cradled my face in his hands, kissing the stains from my  cheeks.

"How does Rick know about him?" I asked, finally in full control of my  faculties, sitting up apart from Huck except for my hand in his and his  other hand softly rubbing my shoulders.

"First of all, Dobbs? That's not even a real name. Sounds like something an asshole prick would make up."

I managed a weak laugh.

"Rick says some fellas showed up at the bar tonight, guys he didn't  know. Which means out of towners. Rick knows everybody. They had a  picture of you, asked for you, by name. Rick told them he'd never seen  you before, had never heard of you. But the guy left his business card.  ‘Dobbs Braddock, president of Braddock Stables'. It had an address in  Paris, Kentucky on it. He told Uncle Rick he'd be in the area for a few  days, this Dobbs said it was critical that he found you. Said there'd be  a thousand-dollar reward in it for anybody who could point him in the  right direction. Rick says Dobbs' guys asked the waitresses, but  everybody followed Rick's lead."