Chasing Serenity (River Rain 1)

Rix’s fingers tightened in mine.

Judge kept speaking.

“She’d make me dance with her. Wake my ass up and yank me out of bed so I could dance outside with her under the stars. She’d build a fire in our Weber and I was scared as fuck she’d tip it over and it’d start a brush fire and catch the house. She’d dance and laugh and call some boyfriend, who was usually kitted way out with his own pharmaceuticals, and he’d show. I could go to bed then because she didn’t want me around when she fucked him in the living room on the couch where I watched TV. And in the hall outside my bedroom door. Fuck all night, loud and crazy. Then they’d pass out, so I had to get up, half dead because I’d have no sleep, and get myself to school.”

He looked to the couch.

“Vodka and valium, I should have known,” he snarled. “I shouldn’t even have had to ask.”

I jerked in Rix’s arms when suddenly Judge jolted violently, turning on his father.

It was only then I saw, and right on the heels of that, felt Jameson Oakley’s blinding fury.

Rix did too and edged us back two steps.

“Don’t take this shit on,” Judge growled to his dad.

“How did I not know it was that bad?”

“Don’t take it on,” Judge repeated.

“I had court ordered representatives come and inspect this home six times,” Jamie declared.

“Dad, do not take this shit on.”

“How didn’t I know this?” Jamie shouted.

“Granddad paid them off, and I couldn’t leave her, Dad. I’d clean up and hide shit because I couldn’t leave her. I wanted to live with you. But if I did, who’d take care of her?”

“Not you!” Jamie exploded with such force Rix pulled me two more steps away. “Not fucking YOU! Jesus fucking Christ,” he swore, wandering away from his son, tearing his hand through his hair. “Jesus…fucking Christ.”

“Dad, I got out.”

Jamie pivoted to him. “You were with her for twelve years.”

“Once I was fourteen, fifteen, I was never here. My friends’ parents knew how it was. They looked out for me. She’d lost hold, that’s when I could go spend more time with you. I was always somewhere else. You know that. I told you.”

“Who gives a fuck, Judge?” Jamie bit out. “Who gives a fuck? Do you know how Dru grew up?”

“Dad—”

“Her father was a different kind of piece of shit, and she went to private school and she got a diamond tennis bracelet for her sixteenth birthday—”

“Dad, don’t—”

“And we were all busy, Dru with her music and Rosalind with her practice and me with work, but Rosalind demanded we sit down as a family at least three nights a week, so we sat down as a—”

“Dad, stop.”

“And you were listening to your mother get fucked? Coming to me two weeks every summer, every other Christmas, every other spring break, and that was all I got to give to you?”

“You had me more later, Dad,” Judge reminded him quietly.

“And that was all I got to give to you?” Jamie repeated.

Father and son grew silent.

Jamie broke it.

“I wanted to give more to you.”

“Stop it, Dad.”

“I wanted to give you tennis lessons and take you sailing—”

“Dad, stop it.”

“I wanted to be a father to you.”

“Dad,” Judge whispered.

“Time to go.” Rix was whispering too.

He was right.

Jamie’s voice had fractured on that last statement.

Rix and I hurried out the door.

We were barely down the three front steps when Rix grunted. “Come here.”

“I—”

“Sweetheart.”

I protested no further.

I fell into his arms, and I let the tears flow as quietly as I could, because if Judge heard me, he’d come, and this was not about me.

When I could speak, I asked, “Did you know it was that bad?”

“Nope,” he answered, tucking me closer to his wide chest, that syllable a rumble of feeling that beat into me.

“God, Rix.”

I said no more.

“Yep.”

He understood.

He then tensed.

I did too, tipping my head back to look at him.

But he had his attention focused beyond me, to the road.

Wiping under my eyes, I twisted to look.

A very big white truck was headed our way.

“Three guesses,” Rix muttered.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

“Chlo—”

I tore from his arms and marched down the cracked walk.

Rix was on my heels.

We stood at the end of the cement that should have been dug out years ago and replaced with attractive pavers, me at the tip, Rix behind me, and watched AJ Oakley arrive, park and hoist his old man’s ass out of his ridiculously large truck.

We then watched him saunter our way on his short, slightly bowed legs, like he owned this house, the land around it, and the entire state of Texas.

He was in cowboy boots.

With a white cowboy hat on his head.

I would have selected black.

I’d recently spent quite a bit of time in a place where there were real cowboys, and they could set even my city girl’s heart to tripping a faster beat.