Page 24 of Love Me Back (Diamond Creek #2)

Jessie

I stepped into the kitchen and froze.

I’d just left Grayson in his office, where he had promised to help relieve the tension from my harrowing horseback ride. And that man kept his word. He delivered on his promise and more.

But now, as I stared at my uncle, who sat at the old wooden table while Addie flitted around the kitchen working on dinner, all the tension Grayson had uncoiled was back in place, tighter than a rattlesnake ready to strike.

Not that I had ever seen a rattlesnake. Oh God, there could have been rattlesnakes in the brush. I was alone with a horse in a dense forest that could have had— Who am I kidding? —that likely had rattlesnakes.

My body jerked as a shiver ran all the way through me from top to bottom. If I’d been bitten, no one would have been there to help. Ellie was going to kill me when she found out.

“ Yessica .”

The sharp sound of my uncle’s voice brought me back from the ramblings inside my head. I glanced at Addie, who tried hard to appear as if she wasn’t paying us any attention, but I’d gotten to know her pretty well in the time I had been here.

With a heavy sigh I moved to the table. “Uncle.” I leaned over and kissed his cheek. It wasn’t that I didn’t like my uncle, the opposite actually. I loved him very much. I just didn’t want to be a part of what he did. Hell, I didn’t want him to be a part of what he did.

I constantly worried about him and my parents and the rest of my family. Every day, I dreaded getting a phone call that would tell me one or several of them were gone .

At Christmas, Alejandro Vasquez, the previous head of the cartel was taken out. Along with his wife and his children.

His children!

Being a drug lord was not honorable work. It was dangerous and selfish, and I hated that my family was now at the center of it. My uncle might not be as bad as Vasquez was, but he wasn’t a saint.

I had seen him correct his men. I had seen him correct my father. I loved my uncle, but he was a very dangerous man, and now he was sitting in Grayson’s kitchen. The one thing I had tried to avoid by holding Grayson at arm’s length all this time was now staring me in the face.

“I do not wish to bring you harm.”

“I know.” I sat beside my uncle, my face down as I stared at my hands resting in my lap.

“I do not wish to bring your man harm.”

“He is not mine.” I shook my head, hoping that would convince him.

“By the way he makes you scream, he had better be, or I will do him harm.”

My head snapped up, and I gaped at my uncle. My mouth hung open as his words penetrated my brain.

“Close your mouth, Yessica .”

My lips crammed together, creating a thin line. “Y-you heard us?”

“I heard you.” My uncle grinned. “It is not something an uncle wishes to hear from his sobrina . But it is good to know he can take care of you. Especially given his predicament.” He took a sip of his coffee before adding, “I assume everything still works?”

“Uncle Mando, no!” My head shook violently as my uncle laughed at my humiliation. “Where is Father?”

“Dario is with Jaime . They are getting a tour of the ranch.”

“His name is Jamie.”

Uncle Mando waved his hand in the air. “Your mother and her American names.” His disgust of my mother was all bluster. He loved her as a little sister .

“We are American.”

“You are Mexican, Yessica . You always will be.”

Addie chuckled at the sink, and I watched her clean her workspace as she cooked. I wondered again why she was in school. She didn’t seem to care much about her studies. But here in this kitchen, she glowed.

The kitchen was not somewhere I wanted to spend my time. No, the kitchen stressed me out. Being responsible for feeding everyone? My body shuddered again.

As if reading my mind, my uncle leaned over and whispered, “Some women were born to lead, while others were born to serve. Both are noble in their own right, and it is not for us to judge what makes a woman feel fulfilled in the life she chooses for herself.”

Twisting around to face my uncle, I explained, “I wasn’t judging.

I was actually admiring her. She’s so at peace in this kitchen.

” I kept my voice low, even though I was sure she could still hear me.

“She moves around as though she loves every minute of her day. Until someone mentions school, that is. Then she loses a little of her light.”

“She is young. She will find her way with no interference from you.” I scowled at my uncle. “Do not look at me that way. I know you, Yessica Garcia—”

“It’s Montoya.”

Now it was my uncle’s turn to scowl. “You may use your grandfather’s name, but you are a Garcia. One day you will leave us behind and take a new surname. An American one to add to your American first name.”

“Then will you pronounce it correctly?”

“Fuck, no.”

I laughed out loud. My uncle didn’t often curse in front of women. He believed himself a gentleman. But my name and that of my siblings were a sore spot for him.

“I would like you to take a walk with me. We have something to discuss.” Uncle Mando stood from the table, and Addie rushed over to take his cup. I followed him outside quietly until we were away from the house.

“You know, don’t you?”

“I do, Yessica . It is not good. The answers you asked for will cause great pain to your man and his family.”

Uncle Mando told me everything he found. My heart broke for Grayson. This was a betrayal that could never be forgiven.

I asked Uncle Mando to hold off on saying anything until Sunday. With the extra brothers here now, and with King and the rest coming tomorrow, there was no worry about anything happening to Grayson or Thunder.

We’d tell them over family dinner. I wondered how they would react. How would they feel to know they were betrayed so brutally by a member of their family?

I wandered around the yard, my thoughts running loose in my head.

“Jessie.”

The sound of my brother’s voice brought a smile to my face, and as soon as he stood in front of me, I wrapped my arms around him.

“I’ve missed you so much!” I cried into his chest.

“You could have come home.” At my frown, he added, “At least for a visit.”

“Mexico isn’t my home.”

“It’s not so bad. Justina is seeing someone. One of Uncle’s men.” He leaned in and lowered his voice. “He doesn’t know.”

“Of course he doesn’t. Otherwise, the man would be dead.” I laughed, then sobered, quickly realizing that might actually be true.

“How’s Mother?”

“She’s good. She misses you. But she’s happy. She actually loves Mexico. But then she didn’t grow up there like Father did. ”

I stopped in my tracks and grabbed Jamie’s arm. “Is he not happy to be home? He always talked about going home.”

“He is,” my brother confirmed.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I studied my brother’s face, looking for his tells. He had gotten good at hiding them. But I knew him like I knew myself. He would never be able to hide things from me. “Jamie!”

He released a long, tired sigh and looked away. “He’s different there. Different under Uncle Mando. Harder, more strict. He’s not the man who raised us.”

“Uncle Mando always said he was too soft for the business.”

“Soft is not the word I would use to describe our father.”

“Why is he there if he hates it?”

My brother had a sad look as he shook his head. “Family, Jessie. You show up for family, even if you hate it.”

Later that evening at dinner, I couldn’t get my brother’s words out of my head. I looked around the table at every person there and wondered how many of them were truly happy.

When the kitchen was clean, and my family had gone to the cabins for the night, I followed Grayson into his room. He got undressed and lay on the bed.

Absentmindedly, I began working the muscles in his legs. My mind was distracted as I thought about everything I had learned today.

“Hey, come here.”

Grayson grabbed my arms and hauled me up beside him.

“Was I not thorough enough today? Do you need a few more orgasms to loosen you up?” he asked as he kissed down my neck.

I smiled at the attention, but I wanted to talk. When I pulled away, Grayson pouted like a child who had his toy taken away.

“Why is Addie in school? ”

Surprise quickly turned to confusion, and he answered, “Because she wants to be a vet.”

“Does she, though? Or does she feel like that is the best way she can help out at the ranch?”

“School was Addie’s idea. No one asked her or pressured her to go to school.” His voice was hard, defensive.

“That’s not what I’m saying. I was talking to my brother today, and he said he didn’t think my father was happy being back in Mexico.

When I asked why he was there, Jamie said, ‘You show up for family, even if you hate it,’ and I immediately thought about Addie.

She won’t tell you, but she hates school.

Did she choose that path because she felt she needed to in order to be useful around the ranch? ”

Grayson shifted, lifting his body up to lean against the headboard. He rubbed a hand over his face as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I suspected maybe she wasn’t really happy at school. But every time I try to talk to her, she cuts me off and tells me it’s all she’s thought about doing.”

“Which isn’t the same as wanting to do it.”

“No, it isn’t,” he agreed. “But unless she admits it, there is nothing I can do. I won’t cut her off. I don’t want her to think all she’s good for is cooking and cleaning at the ranch.”

“But what if that’s what makes her happy?”

“What?” Wrinkles appeared in the space between his eyebrows, and I reached out to rub my fingertip over them until they relaxed.

“What if what makes her happy is cooking and cleaning at the ranch and taking care of her family?” I sat up on my knees. “I was sitting in the kitchen with my uncle today”—I glared at Grayson—“who heard us in your office, by the way.”

Grayson laughed loudly. “Good.”

I swatted his arm. “Anyway, I was talking to my uncle as I watched Addie moving around the kitchen. And I was thinking about how I hated the kitchen. My uncle read my expression wrong and leaned over and whispered, ‘Some women are born to lead, and some are born to serve.’ He said both are noble, and it isn’t our job to question what makes a woman feel fulfilled in the life she chooses.

Whenever Addie talks about school, she loses the light in her eyes.

I watched that happen to Ellie for years when we were in college. I hate seeing it in Addie.”

Grayson smiled at me. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?” He leaned forward and kissed me. “We’ll talk to Addie. But right now, I want to make love to my woman.”

Grayson pulled me across his body until I was straddling him. We couldn’t make love in any other position, and if this was all I had for the rest of my life, it would be all I needed.