Their Divine Doctor(Divine Creek Ranch 9)(32)

“Gage?”

He’d thought she was already drifting toward sleep. “Hmm?” he murmured, placing a kiss on the top of her head.

“Can I ask you about what happened? With your mom and dad, I mean?”

Gage looked over Emma’s head and caught Duke’s gaze in the dim moonlight. Duke lay there awake as well and nodded at him, encouraging him to tell her. Duke had always been there when Gage was growing up and had seen how he’d struggled with being bullied by other larger kids in school. Duke had also encouraged him when he’d asked if he could talk to a counselor when he got older. Duke wanted him to trust Emma, and that was the least he could do.

“What would you like to know, angel? Ask me.”

“Tell me about your biological parents.”

Gage released a soft, deep breath. “I barely recall my father. His name was Roger. I was almost three when Duke’s family took me in. I’ve been told he was sadistic, and as you can imagine, I believe it. He’s dead now. He died in a prison fight.”

“What about your mom?”

“My Aunt Mary’s sister, Regina. Aunt Mary always smiles when she talks about her younger sister. I miss her, even though I hardly remember her. I do recall her hugging me a lot. She met Roger and his friends and made a mistake getting tangled up with him. He got her pregnant with me. She never even finished high school. He moved her away from San Angelo for a year or so to find a job. When that didn’t work out we came back. My aunt told me that it was obvious he’d gotten Regina hooked on heroin, which he was dealing by that point.” He was ashamed that he was related to anyone who’d resorted to dealing drugs to make ends meet, but it was part of his history, so he told her.

“Did Regina try to get help once she came home?”

“Yeah. My aunt and uncle would give her money for food and clothes for me. Regina was pretty closemouthed by that time, but when Aunt Mary offered to take her to a doctor and a counselor, she accepted.”

The grief he felt for his mom that never quite went away surfaced, creating a lump in his throat. Aunt Mary had assured him as he grew up that Regina had loved him and had taken as good a care of him as she’d been able. Regina Randall had been every bit as powerless as her toddler son, and addicted to heroin besides that. Even though it meant wishing he’d never been born, Gage wished that she’d never met his father because then she might still be alive and happy.

“Was your dad in prison for dealing drugs?”

“No. He’d been in jail on drug charges before but that’s not what landed him in prison. Aunt Mary had taken Regina to see a doctor and a drug counselor one day. I was left in my father’s care, because nobody knew just how brutal he was. Uncle Joe told me once just a couple of years ago that they felt guilty for years. They were so happy to have Regina and me back that they somehow overlooked signs that Roger was abusive.”

“They didn’t want to rock the boat for fear he’d take off with the two of you again?”

“I suppose. Roger was sneaky and they wouldn’t have known I was being abused unless they stripped me naked, which they didn’t do. They both wish they had now. Anyway, I don’t remember very much of what happened that finally got him arrested. I was too little, or my mind shut off the memories…I don’t know.”

Emma stroked his shoulder and murmured, “It happens. So they left you with Roger to take Regina to an appointment and something happened?”

“Yeah. Aunt Mary walked in the house with Regina and they found Roger passed out on the couch with his belt in his hand. They found me in a closet.”

He told the tale with a mixture of emotions. It had been so long ago that he normally looked at it very clinically, but this time he imagined being his aunt or uncle searching for the little baby whom Roger was supposed to be watching over and finding him terrified and injured, hiding in a closet.

“He had harmed you?”

Gage nodded. “Aunt Mary said I was covered in welts and I had cigarette burns all over. I was still in diapers at that age but they said I was naked when they found me. They looked me over and discovered healed burns as well as the fresh ones and a laceration from his belt buckle on one side of my buttocks. When pressed, Regina finally told them that Roger had been abusing both of us and my uncle called the police. I went to the hospital and Aunt Mary and Duke never left my side. She tells me that Duke insisted on sleeping in my hospital bed with me. I don’t remember.”

Gage wiped the tear that strayed down his cheek. The thought that Duke had felt so protective of him even though they were both little more than babies had always touched his heart in an unspeakable way. He supposed that was why he’d always felt closer than a brother to Duke. Emma stroked his chest and let him be for a moment.