Page 31 of Hideaway Whirlwind (Big Boys of Berenson Trucking #4)

I can’t face Davis when I leave the woman I’d sell my soul to the devil for crying in the bathtub because of me.

Because I didn’t listen. Because I couldn’t keep my hands to myself.

I’m not surprised when I find Layla and Russell in the living room, figuring they must have sped over as soon as Goldie told them I had shown up uninvited.

My suspicion is confirmed when I spot Russell’s dually through the window, their doors left hanging open in their rush to get inside.

Layla, Kendall, Sydney, and Lily are holding hands in a circle, laughing and jumping around to the music, and it strikes me then—someone must have turned the volume up to drown out the sound of Birdie’s screams. The fried chicken comes back up, lodging in my throat as I wonder if Birdie ever employed this same tactic when she was trapped with Quincy.

Dustin, however, hovers in the kitchen, darting a look from one man to another, finally landing on me with suspicion. It’s him I go to first.

I bend low so he will hear me over the music. “Let’s go outside.”

It takes him a few heartbeats before he lifts his hand to mine, already having lost some of his trust in me, as he should after what I’ve done, even if he’s not sure of the details.

Russell tries to step in my way, but one look at him— try and stop me, brother, and see what happens —has him retreating. I’ve lost his trust as well. The pain of it doesn’t come close to the pain I’ve dealt Birdie.

The music is dulled enough that we won’t have to yell to hear each other once the front door is closed behind us, and I lead Dustin over to the wooden porch swing hanging to the side.

I don’t try my luck sitting on the swing, unsure of how much weight it can bear, and choose to sit in the rocking chair closest to him.

Dustin surprises me by speaking first. “I’ll kill you dead if you hurt Mommy.”

I rub my jaw and tug on my beard. “Alright.”

His brows go up, his mouth falling open with shock, revealing the empty space where his two bottom front teeth should be, which he must have lost in the last few days, proving how much I’ve already missed out on. “You’re weird,” he says, twisting his hands on his lap.

I lay my right hand on top of his, squeezing gently. “You love your mama.”

Dustin nods, sniffling.

“So do I,” I say, though I should have said it first to Birdie. Still, I think he needs to hear it. “Same as I love you and the girls.”

“Then why’d you make her cry?”

“I didn’t mean to. Sometimes we fu—mess up and accidentally hurt the people we love.” It’s a lousy explanation, but the best I have to offer on the spot.

Dustin yanks his hands out from under mine. “Did you hit her?”

“No,” I reassure him quickly, scooting to the edge of my chair to get closer. “I would never hit her. I’d never hit any of you, not ever. But I…” I take a deep breath and tap the side of my head. “But I didn’t listen to her when I should have, and that’s just as bad.”

“You’re bad?”

“I try not to be. But sometimes, yeah, I am,” I answer honestly. There’s plenty I’ll have to atone for when I meet my maker.

“Me too,” Dustin whispers.

“No, you’re not, son. I can promise you that.”

Tears roll down Dustin’s face, and he openly sobs when he says, “Quincy and Priscilla hurt Mommy bad…and I c-couldn’t stop…stop nothing.”

I lift him off the swing, crushing him in a hug when I stand. I’m lost as to what to say, so I simply hold him, crying right along with him as I think of the hell they’ve been through when they’re all still so young.

Finally, it comes to me. “I’ll never let anyone hurt her again.

” Not even me . “And when you’re a little older, I’ll teach you how to keep you and them safe, too, ok?

” I don’t know if that was the right thing to say, promising a little boy things I probably shouldn’t, but maybe it was what he needed to hear, since he nods and hugs me back, tightening his skinny arms around my neck.

Too few minutes later, Davis appears behind me, though he keeps his hands to himself like I should have. “Time to go,” he says, and damnit , I am a bad man, because I want to kill him for interrupting.

The music has been turned down, and Layla and Russell step out onto the porch.

Russell gives me a dark look, almost as if he doesn’t recognize me, but uses a gentle voice when he says to Dustin, “How ‘bout we start your new puzzle before bed? The girls are getting it set up, and I think they’re going to need their big brother’s help. ”

Dustin shakes his head, but I squeeze him extra tight before lowering him to the floor. “That sounds like fun. Bet you and your sisters will love it.”

“You wanna help too?” he asks .

I want to . Oh, how I want to. But Davis clears his throat, tipping his head toward the driveway.

“Not tonight,” I say. “I have to get home to feed the dogs and let them out so they don’t piss—I mean, potty on the floor.”

“I’ll come with you!” Though he’s not wearing shoes, Dustin tugs on my hand, hoping I’ll follow him off the porch.

I lift him back up and carry him to the door.

“You need to stay here with your mama and sisters, ok?” Dustin slumps, no more fight left in him, which I both love and hate.

Davis’s mouth is set in a grim line, his hands low on his hips when I try to pass.

I say to him from the side of my mouth, “Let me say goodbye, then I’ll go. ”

“Fine,” Davis grits, moving out of my way but following me through the house with Russell like prison guards.

Russell takes a seat at the head of the kitchen table, and Dustin sags in the chair I pull out for him.

The girls are flipping over puzzle pieces, thankfully distracted so they don’t really notice it when I kiss each of their heads, murmuring a goodnight, then slip out the front door afterward, leaving a piece of my heart with each of them, the biggest piece laid at Birdie’s feet.

Layla takes her turn following me next, the silence suffocating as she escorts me to my Bronco parked a quarter mile down the road. When we get there, she surprises me by hopping into my passenger seat.

“I don’t need you to ride with me to make sure I leave,” I tell her, sliding into the driver’s seat.

“What you need to do is think about Teagan,” she says when she buckles her seat belt and adjusts it around her baby bump.

“She’s all I can think about.” I drag my hands down my face before turning the key in the ignition and pulling away from the ditch. What a fucking, heartbreaking mess I’ve made. “I know—”

“You don’t know shi–oot, Elliott. Either that, or you’re willfully ignorant of what Teagan has been through—what you’ve been putting her through, too.

” After that barb, Layla sighs and says, “Look, Teagan and I have been getting to know each other, but there are still some things I’ve had to put together myself.

That, and what Goldie has shared with me.

” She takes a deep breath, then says, “Teagan is only twenty-two, and—”

“I know I’m too old for her,” I say, taking the pitch-black road away from my family.

“This isn’t about you, Elliott. This is about her, and—”

“I know.”

Layla twists in her seat. “Do not interrupt me again.” When I first met Layla, she was shy and soft spoken, beaten down by family and life itself.

Dealt a shitty hand of cards that was crushing her, and not just figuratively.

But my sister-in-law’s voice is steady and strong, fire blazing in her eyes when she says, “Right now, what you need to do is stop feeling sorry for yourself and just listen.”

I grunt, pinching my lips together.

Counting on her fingers, Layla lays out the facts.

“Teagan grew up in a sickening cult and was forced into marriage when she was fourteen—a child. She had her first baby when she was sixteen. Escaped to Las Vegas with two small children when she was eighteen. She had no money and no family or friends to call for help.”

She’s not telling me anything I don’t already know, and I flex my knuckles on the steering wheel, trying to keep from butting in, which is unnaturally difficult right now.

“She had no formal education past the fifth grade and zero options except working a few low-paying jobs off the books. At nineteen, she met Quincy and got pregnant almost immediately afterward. And then, even though she couldn’t afford rent on her own with three young children to take care of, when she found out who he really was, she kicked him out of her apartment.

And yet ,” she emphasizes, “she somehow still ended up getting pregnant again. How do you think that happened?”

My hands shake with the implications I should have seen ages ago. Birdie kicked him out . She wouldn’t have taken him back . My breath comes quicker, hysteria rising as it did that night at Birdie’s apartment, red bleeding into my vision.

Staring directly at my profile, Layla says, “I love you, and I’m sorry—this is going to hurt, but you need to hear it from outside of your own perspective.

Teagan has just barely survived and escaped another horrific situation, and the six-foot-six felon who carries a shotgun at all times and once kept her isolated at his cabin in the woods is now stalking her and her kids. ”

“It’s not like that,” I insist.

She gives a sharp shake of her head. “He gives her a car, buys her kids presents, and brings home cute little puppies to win them all over. Almost immediately after they meet, he tells her that they already feel like a real family. That her kids are his kids. That she is his . In fact, he starts to act and sound just…like…Quincy.”

“No. No, that’s not—” Lightheaded, I drift out of my lane and have to swerve at the last second to avoid a head-on collision with a jalopy coming the opposite direction, the driver throwing their hands up in front of their face in my headlights.

I stomp my feet on the clutch and brakes, the Bronco skidding forward on the asphalt until it comes to a lurching stop.

I clutch my chest over my heart that’s beating wildly out of rhythm.

“You’re twisting it all up to make it sound dirty and manipulative.

I love her. All of them! I’m nothing like Quincy! ”

“Stop thinking about yourself!” she yells with frustration, slapping the dashboard. “Think of Teagan and her kids and her experience with the men who claimed to have loved her, and then answer this question: did she choose any of that?”

I bite my fist and turn away, wanting to throw myself out the door so I don’t have to listen to any more.

Me, me, me . I flinch when Layla lays her hand on my arm.

She waits it out patiently until I can finally bring myself to meet her dark brown eyes, wishing it were Birdie and her amber eyes staring back at me instead.

I know nothing will ever be the same again when Layla asks, “Or did Guxxer, Quincy, and you choose for her, even when she begged y’all to stop?”

I drop my face into my hands with a head-splitting gasp, dealt a deathblow by Layla’s words, knowing tonight, in Birdie’s nightmares, the monster who slayed her demons will have joined them. “How do I make it right?” I ask when I can come up for air.

She tells me exactly what I don’t want to hear. “You stay away from her and the kids until she chooses you.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

Layla shrugs. Her fire is extinguished, replaced by a deep well of sorrow when she says, “Then you have to accept her decision and love them from afar.”