Page 32 of Marrying the Gardener (The Bachelor Brothers #3)

?

Love is scary, and hate is complicated.

Crimson

“I’m sure everyone here is just waiting for me to die,” my grandfather says, looking down the long table at select portions of our family, whom he’s invited here today.

Among everyone, I am the only woman, but I suppose that makes sense.

My father was his only son, the obvious favorite, and I’m my father’s only child, who married the new obvious favorite—Kaleb.

Still. Something aches inside me at the knowledge that my grandfather didn’t invite his daughters to be here, at the knowledge that the three of them moved across the country after their children were old enough to stand on their own, at the knowledge that the sons they raised treat them how they learned to treat all women because of the influence of their grandfather and influences of the men who most reminded their poor mothers of him.

The abuse cycle really spun in my family.

And it’s too plain to see now that it led to nothing. The solemn airs in this room are fake, hiding an anticipatory joy that’s been hanging like a wraith over my grandfather’s life for the past month.

He’s absolutely right.

At the end of his life, everyone around him is just waiting for him to die.

Maybe that’s why when his gray eyes settle on me, sorrow leeches into my soul.

His gaze lingers, traces over all the men at the table, then returns.

“Matters of my will won’t be made public until I’ve dropped completely, so don’t think any of you can weasel your way into it now.

” He barks a laugh that ends in a coughing fit, several deep breaths, and chugging his glass of water.

Wordlessly, my father refills it with a nearby pitcher.

Grandfather proceeds, “You’re all here because out of everyone in my family who wants me to kick the bucket, I at least believe you want me to kick it a little less.

Whether that’s true or not, who knows?” He settles.

“What’s important is that each of you, in some way, has made an old man more comfortable in his final days.

I know I haven’t always been the best patriarch.

The best father. The best grandfather.” His eyes skim me again, and I can’t fight the stupid tears that well.

No one else is crying. I shouldn’t be. These people were treated a thousand times better by this man than I was. A thousand times. I do not get to give them the satisfaction that even here I’m emotional .

Kaleb’s hand discreetly lands on my leg under the table, tightening, and I draw strength from it.

My grandfather says, “I do still hope that I am leaving something worth remembering behind.”

One of my idiot cousins blurts, “Like your money!” And several of my other idiot cousins laugh.

I glare directly at Larry until he shuts his stupid mouth. The man’s a preacher at a mega church, for crying out loud. And, yet, once he trapped me in a biblical conversation to explain how man was made slightly below God, and woman drastically below man.

Which, for the record, is not biblical in any way at all, yet since drop kicking people also isn’t, I refrained.

I even prayed for his congregation, because I’m half positive with the way money rolls into his household it’s a cult roughly two wrong turns away from making women sit in a different room than all the men whenever they listen to his propaganda sermons.

But, anyway, that is neither here nor there.

The point is…

Shut up, Larry. Indefinitely, if you would be so kind. And, in case you didn’t know, kindness is a fruit of the spirit. So…

I should really stop having a mental argument with my idiotic cousin who I soon shall never have to see again and pay attention to my dying grandfather, whose will is the ticket to my freedom.

He’s saying, “I appreciate every one of you for joining me in these final hours.” Lifting his glass, he flashes his gold tooth in a weak smile. “May prosperity continue for our family even after I’m gone.”

As everyone raises their glasses, I fight the pit opening up in my chest.

?

Everything after dinner at my grandfather’s on Thursday happens fast.

We go home. A few days pass. And then that’s it.

One minute, I’m planning Kaleb’s and my Sunday date, the next I’m getting a call that my grandfather is in hospice.

No longer feeling like doing anything, I sit curled up on Kaleb’s lap in my bed, hugging myself, listening to his heartbeat, trying to…understand what’s going on.

“Why are emotions so complicated?” I whisper.

“Because you’re a girl,” he murmurs into my hair.

I glare at him.

His smile trickles away. “Sorry. That joke sounded better in my head.”

“Because you’re a boy.” I roll my eyes off him. “Everything sounds better in your head. The acoustics up there are fantastic .”

His body shakes around me as he laughs, and I melt into him, finding it within myself to smile.

“I hate this,” I whisper.

“I know.” He rubs my shoulder. “It will be okay.”

“I don’t even like the guy! I shouldn’t be mourning him. He’s not even dead yet! This is stupid.”

“Shh,” Kaleb soothes. “He’s human. You’re human.

Even though he’s not recognized that fact of you, you have of him.

His lack of humanity at times has not blinded you to the fact he exists with thoughts and feelings.

” Kaleb frees a short, shaking breath. “That’s something beautiful about you, Crimson.

You see the best in the worst people, immediately, unflinchingly. You even see the best in me.”

I bury my face against his shirt, soak in the musk of his cologne. “I think that’s just a coping mechanism. It’s hard to survive a childhood filled with so much bad unless you train yourself to find the good things.”

“That doesn’t make the skill any less beautiful, Rose-red.”

“It feels tainted by selfishness.”

“What isn’t?” He kisses the top of my head.

He isn’t. Or, at least, it has never felt like he is. He gives so much and shuns taking when he has the chance. I’m still trying to find a way to give back to him. Because even though he’s made it clear my existence alone gives him something, existence alone doesn’t feel like enough.

And it’s because of people like my grandfather that I feel like that.

Feelings aren’t facts. But no matter how many times I remind myself, they don’t go away.

My feelings for Kaleb only got worse when I tried to ignore them. So now I’m stuck here, feeling awful and complicated in his arms.

“I’m sorry I’m ruining another date day,” I murmur.

“We don’t need to go out and do things to learn more about each other, Crimson. It’s okay. We’ll have other chances, without this dark cloud hanging over us.”

“I wish you were less considerate. You should actually get mad at me once in a while, at least. When I deserve it.”

“You never deserve it. Also, you’d snap at me and put me in my place so fast…” He nuzzles. “Don’t for a moment think I don’t understand that you know I’m superfluous in your life.”

My chest squeezes, and I lift my head to meet his eyes. “Is that how I make you feel?”

“You’re capable, and independent, and you’ve taken too much crap from too many men. I know you don’t need me.”

If I lost him…I would survive. I would pick myself back up, figure out the feelings, and go on…but more than need … “Kaleb, I want you. Isn’t that more important?”

Red warms his cheeks. “It certainly feels less secure. Wanting me is choosing, which means you can negate that decision. Needing me wouldn’t leave you with such frightening options.

The moment this is over, you won’t need me anymore.

For anything. And if you change your mind about remarrying me properly, I’ll have to find a way to survive that. ”

Resting my forehead against his shoulder, I say, “I’m sorry I haven’t let you feel safe. How can I better support you so you feel secure in our relationship?”

Chuckling, he teases my hair. “I don’t think the answer is something you’ll be happy with.”

“Is it something I can do?”

“I’m not sure.”

“What is it?”

“I wish you’d rely on me more.”

My brow furrows. “Am I not relying on you right now? For comfort? And…for everything ? I wouldn’t have a chance of being free without your help.”

“You don’t have a choice where it concerns handling this will. You knew your grandfather wouldn’t include a woman in his estates, no matter what you did. As for the cuddling right now, I’m pretty sure it stems less from relying on me and more from guilt since you’re canceling another date day.”

I flinch.

“Am I right?”

“I suppose there’s…some obligation at play, but it is also helping me feel better? And I could have powered through on my own. With you, I just know I don’t have to.”

His palm smoothes down my back. “At the risk of sounding like a horrible person…I want you to seek me out when you feel helpless. I want no thought behind coming to me. I want no explanations to back your requests.”

“That seems unreasonable.”

“Exactly. I don’t want reasons. I want it to be second nature.”

He was right; I’m not happy with the idea of this. I’d have to heal an awful lot of trauma for my second nature to become asking immediately for help and support from someone else. I have never been in a position that allows me to face my issues with anything other than I’ll take care of it .

It doesn’t even have to be my own issue.

I’ll take care of it is how I respond to the entire world.

Even after everything, it’s how I want to respond to my grandfather.

But I can’t fix his declining health, and even if I could, he’s already decided he’s ready to go.

He’s already turned down the possibility that treatments might help him extend his life.

He is eighty-seven, and ready, and I can’t take care of that.

“I hate feeling helpless,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“It’s weakness. I’ve been raised to hide weakness. I’ve been raised to feel ashamed of it.”

“Weakness is nothing to be ashamed of. Weakness is human.”

Human. If only I’d been raised as a human instead of as a man’s least favorite tool.

It’s going to be so nice not having to juggle a hundred social engagements once I no longer am required to babysit my father’s clients.

I’ll be able to embrace clients of my own, the right way, with the humanity I used to manufacture for him.

I wish gaining my freedom weren’t so bittersweet.

“I can try to rely on you more, after all this,” I say, curling my legs up closer as I stop hugging myself in order to hug Kaleb. “I don’t know what that looks like, but I’ll try.”

“I love you, Crimson. I want the very best for you. Always.”

Smothering my face against him, I immediately fail to put relying on him into practice. Because—if I’m honest—I think I love him, too. I just don’t know how to confess that without feeling like I’m giving up an entire chunk of myself.

Which, of course, is probably the point.