Grace Anne

chapter 15



Michael had to go home. He didn’t want to. He wanted to stay here in Ohio and get to know Grace’s family and enjoy them. But the problem with his brother and his mother’s hysterics was too much for his dad to handle alone. He was tossing stuff into his case when Trace came into the room. Without stopping, he glanced at him and grimaced. Trace was upset.

“We’ll only be gone long enough to get this fixed then come right back. Grace said she’d even watch Walter for you and make sure he was—”

“I don’t want to go. I want to…I’m afraid to go back with you.”

Michael turned to look at his son as he continued.

“If I go back, Thomas will find me and hurt me. He’s told me that before. And maybe…”

Michael was almost afraid to ask. “Maybe what, son? What else makes you not want to go back with me? I promise you that Thomas won’t come near you. He’ll not get past me, I swear.”

Trace sat in the chair near the bed and looked at his shoes. Michael knew his son well enough to know that he needed to process. He was a brilliant little boy, but he was more of a thinker than he was a fly by the seat of his ass sort of kid. He waited also, knowing that rushing him would only upset him to the point where he’d clam up all together.

“Grace will leave us.” Trace looked at him now. “She’ll think she’ll be doing us this great big favor, but she won’t. My heart will hurt if she isn’t here when we get back. If I stay…” he said as he got up to pace. “If I stay, then I can make sure she’s doesn’t leave us. She wouldn’t leave me if I’m here. I can…I’ll make sure to call you if anything happens too.”

Michael had been afraid of the same thing. He’d even gone so far as to ask Cain and the others to watch her to make sure that she didn’t leave. He loved her with all his heart and he was sure she loved them both too, but she would bolt at the first opportunity.

“Your grandmother will be disappointed. She’s hoping that you’ll help her not think about what Thomas has done and give her hugs.” It was a cheap trick he knew, but the thought of leaving Trace where he couldn’t watch him was scary. “I can’t watch you if you’re not with me.”

“I sort of already called Grandma. I told her that Grace loves us, but… I told her I didn’t want to lose her. I need her too much to not want to be with her.” Michael couldn’t help but be very proud of his son. “She told me that if you were okay with me staying here to protect the woman I love then she was going to be fine with it too.”

Trace flushed and Michael knew there was more. “What did she make you give her back? I know there was something. Mom doesn’t just let an opportunity like this pass her by without extracting some sort of payment. Dishes for a month? Or was it something like weeding her flower beds for the summer?”

“She said I had to hug her at the mall,” Trace said with venom in his voice. “I don’t like hugs. Why would she make me do something like that when she knows it’s going to embarrass me to death? What if one of my friends sees me doing it? I’ll never live it down, Dad.”

Michael laughed. It was the first really good laugh he’d had all day.

“Because she knows it will embarrass you. When you do it, make sure you try to pull it off like it’s no big deal. She won’t do that again.” Standing, he knelt before Trace and looked up at him. This was as serious as it got. “Thomas is accused of murder; I know you know that. But do you know what else he’s done?” Trace shook his head. “He’s also accused of murdering two men and hiding them in the basement of an apartment complex. The police might not have known he’d done it if somebody hadn’t called them. It’s going to get ugly, son, and people are going to talk about this for a long time. Thomas killed four people, four innocent people.”

“Did he do it? I know what the news lady is saying, but do you think he did it?”

Michael wasn’t positive, but he didn’t want to say it out loud yet. He didn’t want to admit just yet that he thought for sure Thomas had done it. He didn’t answer Trace, but stood to finish packing. “Stay with Grace. I know I don’t have to tell you that, but for my peace of mind, please don’t leave her side. The others, all of her family, is going to help you watch her, but she’s tricky.” Michael smiled when Trace snorted. “She is and you know it. Thomas is in the hospital right now, but there are others…other people trying to hurt her and they might try to get to her by hurting you. Don’t let them. All right?”

“Yeah. Aunt Sin said that she was going to give me a whistle. That I was to blow it in the sucker’s ear if someone tried to grab me. She’s sort of scary, huh?”

That was an understatement, Michael thought. The woman was nursing a bullet wound that she’d gotten a few months ago during a raid on a house which was harboring a known cell that was plotting against the United States. She’d been shot because she went in first and came out last. She’d been hurt because she was the bravest woman he’d ever met.

“Yes. But she knows her stuff. So does her husband Payton and Lilliane’s husband Shamus. If they tell you to do something, I want you to listen to them as if I were telling you. They’ll keep you safe. Grace too.”

Trace came to sit on the bed and he played with one of the few things Michael was taking back with him. He waited for Trace to say whatever it was he needed. He was shocked when he finally spoke.

“I have a friend, Taylor Bennett. His dad just got married last year. His new mom was okay, he said, and he was excited about having someone to have fun with.” Trace didn’t look up as he spoke, his voice low and tense. “Then about a month ago, she decided that she wanted her own kid and had his dad put him in a different school. Taylor has to stay there all the time and wear this uniform like he’s in the army or something. He only gets to come home once in a while. I miss him.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Grace said from the doorway. “Never in a million years would I send you away from your father, and especially not away from me.”

“But what if you get tired of me? I’m not your kid, you know. I’m his.” Trace pointed at him, and Michael nearly told him to take it down a notch as his voice had hardened. “And my mom and dad weren’t even married when I was born. She didn’t want me.”

Grace walked into the room and sat in the chair. Michael knew that this was something the two of them had to resolve so he excused himself and left the room, closing the door behind him. Leaning back against it he closed his eyes, overwhelmed. The thought of Grace swollen with his child and Trace being a big brother had him thinking that he was the luckiest man in the world. He went down the stairs to find Cain’s little boy Connor, who he knew was tormenting Walter.

~~~

“I have something to tell you. Something that I’ve never shared with anyone in my life,” Grace told Trace when they were alone. “I’m telling you this so that you’ll know just what you’re going to be related to when I marry your dad. All right?”

“Yes. But if you think I’m going to let you go and run away then it won’t work. I love you even if you send me away.” Trace moved to lean against the headboard. “Are you going to have Dad’s kid?”

“No. Not yet. We’ve never talked about having other children. Though I would like to, but it’s a family decision, not just something that he and I can decide without your input. We’re going to be a family, all three of us, and any other child that comes along.” She watched as he absorbed this. “Trace, what do you know about my parents?”

“Your dad is dead. Captain Grant killed him when he tried to kill your sister, Aunt Quinn. He was in prison for a long time and he…” He didn’t finish, but looked at the empty fireplace.

“He killed someone. Yes, it’s true. He was drunk and drove up on a sidewalk because the cars in front of him weren’t going fast enough for him and he killed a man. My mother isn’t any better.”

Trace got up and sat on the footstool at her feet. “I heard Aunt Alyssa say that she was a peach. I don’t think she meant the warm and fuzzy kind that Molly cuts up on my oatmeal.”

Grace laughed. “No, she’s not. She’s…she’s evil. Do you know what that word means?” He nodded, but she didn’t wait for him to tell her. “My mother has split personalities. I’ve told your dad that. He also knows that she killed someone when I was a teenager. I didn’t see her do it, but I knew that she had. Or at least one of the people she has in her head did it.”

“She has people in her head that kill people? She’s crazy then?” Trace reached out for her hand. “I’ll protect you, Grace. I swear I won’t let her hurt you.”

“You have to stay away from them,” she told him quickly. “There are several of them. I’ve met them all and they’re dangerous. Promise me that you’ll keep away from them.”

“I will. I promise. What did she do to you, Grace? I know she hurt you. Tell me what she did to you.”

Grace looked away from him, ashamed. She was ashamed for what she’d allowed her to do to her and, worse yet, let her get away with.

“She had someone rape me. She held me down while she…she encouraged my father to rape me.” She still hadn’t looked at the little boy in front of her. “I wasn’t very old, seventeen. She’d tied me down after I’d been sleeping. I always thought she’d drugged me, but I couldn’t remember. When I told her about it later, she’d acted like she had no idea.” She was crying, the tears falling down her face hot and quick. When Trace said her name she didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to see the look on his face. When he said it a second time, she turned.

“I have a favor to ask you. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. You can say no if you want to, but I’m not sure it’ll keep me from doing it. Will you let me?”

She nodded.

“Will you please let me call you Mom?”

Grace stared at him for several seconds. He started talking again very quickly. “I’ve been thinking about it since that day you took me to the vet’s for Walter. You were so brave when that kid threw that cat on that lizard. And when you told his mom to shut up and mind her tongue I about busted with love. She looked like she’d swallowed a bug. A big one. Then that nurse was starting on you.” He laughed. “She backed up right away when you gave her that look. The one that said ‘I’m not going to take your crap either, lady.’ I still laugh about it sometimes.”

“I’m not going to be a pushover with you either, you know. I’m going to expect you to be the worst little boy sometimes, and I might let you slide on some things, but then you’ll be grounded when you need to be. And I’ll want you to have a sick day from school even if you aren’t sick; you’ll have to help me plan stupid birthday parties for your dad and when we all have another baby, if we want, then I expect you to be big brother to it.”

He looked like he was thinking about it then grinned at her. “Deal. But don’t expect me to hug you in public. Grandma does it enough and I hate it.” Then he grinned wider. “Not really, but I can’t let her know that. She’s my favorite grandma.”

“Trace, I would be honored if you call me Mom. Just please don’t call me Momma. I detest that stupid name.”

“You got it, Momma.”