Page 30 of Operation Annulment (Silent Phoenix MC)

twenty-five

Kate

“ H ello, Kate. Welcome to our home. I’m Beverly, but everyone calls me Bev. Or if you’re comfortable with it, call me Mom.” Nate’s mother pulls me into a crushing hug.

I give him a questioning glance, and he shakes his head. He hasn’t told his family we’re married yet, but his mother hugged me like she already knew.

“Mom, let her breathe.”

She releases me and grabs hold of him. “Nathaniel, you smart ass. She’s fine.”

She glances at me and then lowers her voice into a mock whisper. “And she’s gorgeous. You failed to mention that.”

He turns and looks at me. “Is she? I hadn’t noticed.”

She pops him on the arm, and I smile. I think I’m going to get along with her just fine.

“Aunt Katy! Aunt Katy!” Daniel runs in, holding a piece of paper in his little hands.

I kneel down to his level. “What do you have here? ”

It looks like two aliens floating beside a house.

He proudly points to it. “See! It’s you and me. And that’s the table with basketti on it. Just like how you made it for me.”

I smooth his unruly hair. “It looks just like us. Where’s that crazy dad of yours?”

He pulls back and turns serious. “He’s on the phone with my mama. She keeps taking off to god-knows-where, and there’s not a damn thing he can do about it.”

I instinctively cover his mouth, and he giggles. “Oh, we shouldn’t say that word. Um…”

Beverly leans down. “Daniel? What did Grams say about grown-up words?”

He looks down at his shoes. “We shouldn’t say them until we’re in college and ignore Daddy and Uncle Nate because they’re bad influences.”

She kisses his head. “That’s right. Now run on and tell Poppa that you need a snack before we have Thanksgiving dinner. Nathaniel, are you going to show Kate the property? There’s a lot to see, and we’ve got a little bit of time before dinner.”

Nate rubs at the scruff on his face. “Yeah. Can we take the Gator?”

She tosses him the keys. “Just promise you’ll wear the helmets.”

He laughs easily. “Mother, I’m a doctor. I know how important helmets are.”

My boots crunch over the fallen leaves as we make our way out to the barn. His parents live on an enormous section of land with mature trees surrounding the house. It’s only about a half-hour outside Lubbock, but it doesn’t feel like a desert out here.

Nate pulls the helmets from the back of the little vehicle. “You ready for a ride, Katy girl?”

I lick my dry lips and nod.

I do want a ride… desperately.

Has it been sixty days yet?

He brushes my hair back off my face and helps me put the helmet on, even taking the time to fasten the strap under my chin .

The cool breeze catches his cologne, and I fight the urge to clench my thighs together.

Keep it together, Kate.

We climb in and buckle before Nate takes off down a narrow path near the barn. The little vehicle easily navigates the steep drops and shifts in the terrain.

It’s exhilarating.

I am less aware of the landscape and more focused on the man operating the vehicle. He navigates the rocky path like he was born to do it.

Nate drives until I can no longer see the house. We pull up to another large barn surrounded by nothing but fields, and he kills the engine. I pull my helmet off and look around. “What do you keep out here?”

He takes his helmet off and runs his hand through his hair. “It’s mostly farm equipment. It was my favorite place as a kid, though. Come on.”

I take his hand, and we walk inside. It doesn’t look like there’s much to see, but he walks with purpose to the back of the barn. Then, I see the wooden ladder leading up to a loft.

“I used to climb up here as a kid. It was quiet, and I could read without anyone bothering me.”

“Did you read medical textbooks and dream of being a doctor?” I tease.

He gives me a guilty grin. “Nah. Mostly, my dad’s Playboy magazines. Do you want to see it? The loft, not the magazines.”

I swat his arm and climb up the rickety ladder. He follows close behind. There’s an old hay bale positioned to block the view of anyone walking in below and an old quilt covering the plywood floor.

“I like it. It’s warm up here, too.” I take off my jacket and set it aside before sitting on the quilt.

He nods. “Yeah, my dad has an office below this that he keeps heated during winter. In the summer, it’s not nearly as enjoyable.”

I watch Nate as he describes everything, his hands becoming more animated. I don’t know that I’ve ever observed him in his element. As he talks, I notice the cassette player in the corner, and he grins.

“You want to hear it, don’t you?”

I smirk. “Well, obviously. I need to get the full loft experience, don’t you think?”

He plugs the tape player in and hits play. The song is familiar, but I couldn’t tell you the band’s name. “Is it KISS?”

Nate’s mouth drops open in shock. “Please tell me you’re joking? This is Foreigner, one of the greatest bands of our time. How do you not know this song? Urgent? Come on, Katy girl.” He sings a few bars.

“Well, I am pretty young. So, tell me something I don’t know about you. This loft was made for secrets—give me one of yours.”

He cocks his head to the side, suddenly serious again. “What do you want to know?”

I settle in against the warm floor. “Everything. I want it all.”

“Okay. Even the parts about Jess?”

My smile fades, but I nod. “Especially those parts because they made you who you are.”

“Okay, Katy girl, it’s time you heard the whole story.

I met Jess in a bar when I was twenty-two.

I went home with her under the guise of losing my virginity, but I didn’t have any serious plans for a relationship.

I was supposed to graduate and move to Seattle in a few short months.

Well, I graduated, and Jess got pregnant.

“She tried pushing me to go to Seattle, but I stayed. I stayed and married her. I was young and na?ve; I just didn’t see any other options.

A few months after we got married, she lost the baby.

My life was chaotic at that point, though, as it was my first year of med school.

I was more relieved than anything. I wanted to quit so many times along the way.

I just felt like I was disappointing her at every turn by not being home much—hence, why I most likely have a god complex.

” He pauses to stare into the dim barn, the ghosts from his past very much visible to him.

I place my hand on his arm. “If this is too hard, we don’t have to?—”

He shakes his head. “No. I want to tell you. I did my residency in Dallas, so we rarely saw each other. I’d beg her to spend a weekend with me, but she always seemed to have something come up.

“I made the mistake of coming home a week early and caught her. The guy she brought home was just one of many. After our divorce, she even went after her best friend’s husband. That was the guy you met at the gym.”

The story pricks my memory, and I interrupt him. “Was this story ever on the news?”

Nate looks puzzled. “I don’t think so. I mean, our divorce was listed in the court section of the paper, but nothing that would have made headlines.”

I try to organize my thoughts into a sentence. “I have this patient, Carla, who went through something almost completely identical. It just doesn’t make any sense. Would Jess have told people about it?”

“Anything’s possible. Maybe Carla gets her hair cut by Jess? People have done stranger things for attention.”

I nod, still feeling like I’m missing something.

He takes my hand. “So, your turn. Tell me something I don’t know about you.”

“I, um, I don’t have a lot of hobbies because most hobbies cost money. That’s something we didn’t have growing up. I wanted to try out for basketball in junior high, but my mama couldn’t come up with the money, so I was a yearbook editor instead.”

He rubs my arm. “I’m sorry if I made you feel bad about that. Yoga and spinning are great hobbies. I never played sports in school—that was Garrett. I was usually reading.”

I smile at the thought of Nate ever being a nerd. I just can’t picture it.

He just told me the most painful thing he went through.

I need to be brave enough to tell him my own experience.

I take a deep breath. “My dad died when I was six, I think. Our mother struggled to keep the power on and food on the table. There was a man who would stop by from time to time. He never came inside, and it was always late when he showed up, so I never got a good look at him. He’d give my mother money, but it never lasted long.

“She began gambling. One day she took Dakota and me to our grandparent’s house, and she never came back.

I became Dakota’s mother that day, trying to take care of everything so that we didn’t burden our grandparents.

I was so afraid that if we caused any trouble, they’d find somewhere else to drop us.

When Dakota was arrested in the fall, I had to call my mom for bail money.

” I brush away a stray tear, and he jumps in.

“So, your mom gave you the money. If it’s a loan, I can pay it off for you. You shouldn’t have to work yourself to death trying to fix someone else’s mess.”

I laugh despite everything. “Then how will you ever prove to your dad that you don’t need to run the vineyard, Nate? You keep the tattoo money for your dreams.”

He cracks a small smile at my joke but waits for me to answer his question.

“It wasn’t a loan. She just paid it and told us where she’d been for the past decade. I guess her gambling got her into some trouble, and the mystery man had to bail her out. Oh, side note: The mystery man runs a motorcycle club… and is apparently my father.”

Nate whistles through his teeth. “That is some heavy shit, babe. So, he was never dead?”