Caged(74)

"Where do you find them?"

"YouTube."

"Really?"

"Yeah. All my fights from smokers the last three years are on there. So when I beat Needham, any organization that's interested in signing me will look there first to see my progression." He kissed the top of her head. "Sorry for boring you."

"Nothing about you bores me, Deacon."

"What job did you have in Colorado Springs?"

"A couple of updated exterior shots of businesses. We probably would've turned it down if we hadn't been right there."

"Why?"

"The need for custom photography has dropped off significantly in the three years I've been at Hardwick. Presley and I had fun, though." Until she got that stupid phone call on the way back to Denver.

Deacon tipped her face up. "What happened?"

Man. He'd picked up on that fast. "Jennifer and Brandi decided to include me on a phone conference."

His gaze sharpened. "Does your lawyer know about this?"

"He does now. And it was stupid. I shouldn't have answered."

"I'd tell you to block their numbers from your phone . . . but I know you won't do it."

He was right-she hated that he was right. It made zero sense why she couldn't just end all contact with them. She'd sworn she'd do it. But she hadn't followed through.

"What is the worst thing that could happen to you if you block them?"

"Nothing. My life would be better, wouldn't it?" She sighed. "Maybe I should hand my phone to you and have you do it."

"Nothing wrong with cutting people out of your life who treat you like dog shit, babe."

"Speaking from experience?" she asked.

He snorted. "You have no idea."

"Who'd you drop-kick out of your life?"

Deacon didn't answer for so long, she assumed he wouldn't. Shocked the hell out of her when he said, "My mother." 

Major reveal about his family. "How long ago since you excised her from your life?"

"Fifteen years."

"So you never see her?"

"Not if I can help it."

Molly nuzzled his chest. "I don't even remember my mother. But I still resent her."

He didn't ask why.

She decided to tell him anyhow. "I'm pretty sure she killed herself. Grams called it an accident, but she was the only one who believed it. I'm not resentful that my mother abandoned me by a selfish act of suicide. I'm mad because she never left behind any indication of who my father was. Grams suspected, given my 'coloring,' as she called it, that my father was Mexican. Sometimes I caught her staring at me like she feared I'd start speaking Spanish."

"Babe."

"When I think about it, which I try not to because it's so screwed up, my mother left home without a word and disappeared for twenty years. Her parents had no idea whether she was alive or dead. Who does something like that?"

Deacon's body went rigid beneath her.

"Then she returned home to Nebraska a few months after her father died. My uncle Bob said that my mother never got along with her father and he was the reason she left."

"Most people don't understand when leaving isn't an option; it's the only choice."

Molly had the feeling Deacon knew about that firsthand. "Of course, my nasty-minded, bully cousins had a theory on why my mom took off." The first time they'd shared that theory with her, she'd gotten violently ill. They teased her about that and kept detailing scenarios that were more disgusting than the last. When she became numb to it and didn't react, they moved on to some other verbal torture.

"What did they tell you was the reason?" he said tightly.

"That my grandfather had sexually abused her. They had no proof. Now part of me thinks they said that only because they wanted me to go to Grams to see how she'd react."

"Gimme your goddamn phone, Molly. I'm blocking those bitches from your life forever. Right. Fucking. Now."

When Molly thought of all the years of verbal abuse, all the years she'd cowered in fear of them, all the things they'd taken from her-not just makeup and toys and candy, but her sense of self-not to mention the atrocious lies they'd told . . .

Deacon's hands framed her face, forcing her to look at him. "Tell me why you just gasped like you're in pain," he demanded.

"Because I'm sorry. I didn't mean to talk about any of this."

"Tell me."

That Sunday morning after church became so clear in her mind, she could see the heat shimmers on the blacktop leading out of town. Her cousins had begged her to come along with them because they had a big, secret surprise for her. And they promised they'd be back at the church before the annual meeting that Grams and Uncle Bob had to stay for ended.