Page 2 of A Love So Wrong
Chapter 2
Like a cold draft rushing into a warm room, the mirth within him died.Sister, he wanted to laugh. Oh, how he hated and loved that title. Not one person at this table was related by blood to anybody. But here they were, all the family each other had. Schooling his features, Gideon buried the annoyance deep and looked at Jade, who was giving him an openly wary look as he gave her large predatory smile.
Patting her on the back with two, too strong thumps, he cocked his head to the side and gave her a mockingly contrite expression. "I'm sorrylil' sis."
With a small huff of air, she narrowed her hazel eyes at him with wintery accusation before activating her most powerful weapon in her arsenal—silence. A silence directed only at him.
A silence she knew provoked him more than words ever could.
Silence, she was an expert in.
Conversation flowed around him as he ate. Henry talked of getting his big-rig worked on before pulling his next haul from the meatpacking plant in Holter, which neighbored their town and taking it all the way to Houston. It was a conversation Gideon should have been listening to, especially considering he would be running the same haul for Henry at the end of next week, but Gideon couldn't bring himself to focus on the man's words. With each passing second, he could feel Jade erect the silent wall between them brick-by-brick.
Damn it! He needed to tear it down before she settled too comfortably behind that wall of aloof silence. If they weren't eating, he could do it too. He would poke and prod her sensitive flanks until a smile broke free through her resolve and ticklish laughter escaped her lips. Or he would pester her until she had no choice but to respond. But here and now, he could do nothing but wait and stew at her silent treatment. Something that was happening a lot more frequently as of lately, he noticed irritably.
Taking the last bite of his mashed potatoes, he glanced up at the calendar hanging off the peach-colored wall in the dining room. In a few days, it would be Jade's seventeenth birthday. Maybe that was it, he reasoned, maybe it was all a part of hormones or something or just the normal emotions of a teenage girl, maybe that was why it felt like every other week she would find something or another to be mad at Gideon about and sink into those silent depths of hers that she had been a master of since the moment they first met. Although he mentally hedged, as he snuck a considering glance at the girl to his left, that reasoning felt a little insufficient. Quiet and thoughtful, anybody who met her couldn't describe her as someone consumed by their emotions. Comparing her to the average teenage girl would be highly negligible. There was a maturity about the reserved young woman whose far-off, silent dreaminess separated her from the rest of the world and other people. So, what in the fuck was it that was creating this constant rift between them?
"Oh, that's right dear," in the middle of catching Henry up with the latest gossip at her quilting committee, Sandra's eyes lit up, and she turned from her husband, catching Jade's attention. "I almost forgot to tell you, I signed us both up for a competition next month. It will be on the second Saturday of the month, and the theme is American Dreams," Sandra announced with breathless excitement.
Quilting, sewing, and all other categories of crafting was Sandra's one true love, right after Henry, of course. Calling it an obsession would be an understatement, Gideon thought dryly. An obsession she all but forced on Jade from the moment they both stepped into their house. Being all too eager to please their mother, Jade picked up the inane hobby just like she picked up everything else she touched—with perfect precision. Winning contest after contest, Sandra shamelessly flaunted her daughter in front of their competition. The infuriating part was that Jade always went along with it. Not once did she ever tell her no. No, she did not want to go to a musty old community center on a Saturday and sit around a bunch of old ladies talking about quilts and the good ol’ days when she could be at home or hanging out with her friends. Nope, Jade just went along with it, eager to please and ever determined to show the Lattimores that they didn’t make a mistake in choosing them.
Glancing at the calendar again, Gideon rolled through the mental dates in his mind before pulling his phone from his jean pocket. With a few swipes, he found the information he needed before looking up to Sandra, who was still talking about the starburst pattern she wanted to make on the quilt.
Holding his phone face out, he looked from Sandra back to Jade. "You have a ‘Young Engineers of Tomorrow’ meet that day," he reminded them.
If he wasn't looking so closely, Gideon would have missed the faint tensing in Jade's shoulders.
"Oh, but you can go to those meets any time, sweetheart," their mother began in her most wheedling tone, a high pitch sound she used to get her way on everything. "But we must go to this competition because Monica Cornish will—"
Gideon couldn't take it. "No," he said, trying to be polite, but even he could hear the hard steel coating the word. Feeling Jade stiffen like a board next to him, he softened his tone as he gave Sandra a firm look. "There are only four more meets, and they all link up. If she misses even one of them, she is taken out of consideration for the scholarship."
Though it wasn't a huge scholarship, only about five thousand dollars’ worth, Gideon would be damned before he’d watch her blow it on a goddamn quilting show that had no cash prize.
Like a seasoned actress, Sandra's large grayish-blue eyes began to shine with the telltale sign of oncoming tears.
The sudden hand on his thigh stilled him from all other movements and, more importantly, sound. Looking down at his thigh, he watched as Jade's slender fingers sank into his jeans with a death grip in warning. Reaching out to their mother with her other hand, Jade placed it over the woman's hand and gave her an understanding expression.
"Please don't cry," she begged, and Gideon could feel his bones turn to stone as anger flared through him at her capitulating words. "I don't have to go to that meet, I can just go with you to-"
"No," the resounding voice of authority from Gideon's right felt like the saving grace of the first drops of rain on a raging brush fire.
In unison, everyone turned to look at Henry, who carefully sat down his silverware on his empty plate. Leaning back in his chair with the grace of a man who ate way too much, he placed one hand on his thigh as he sat back comfortably and gave his wife a firm look.
"Jade will go to her meet at school, and if there is time afterward, she can go to your quilting show with you then," he offered diplomatically.
"But Henry," Sandra shifted in her chair, her face becoming red with frustration.
Setting one meaty fist onto the table without a sound, the silent movement was the equivalent of a gavel in a riotous courtroom. Immediately, all sound from everyone hushed, and Jade's grip on Gideon's thigh froze before being snatched away.
"School is more important, Sandra. I shouldn't have to explain this," Henry said, his naturally low, calming voice coming off like a warning fog down a foreboding black mountain.
With a wide stocky build of a blue-collar man who enjoyed a nightly beer or two after a good meal, the large graying man with the huge handlebar mustache looked a lot like a retired biker who should be sitting at a bar instead of a dinner table. When Gideon first came to live with the Lattimores years ago, he had told the giant of a man just that and received a roaring laugh in response. He winked at Gideon and told him that he was the first one brave enough to tell him that directly to his face. Though having been around plenty of bikers over the years as an over-the-road long-haul trucker, Henry had never actually been one. Henry had stuck to driving semi-trucks since he graduated high school and never turned back. With his shoulder-length graying, brown hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of his neck, and his thick mustache always perfectly trimmed, the older trucker looked intimidating with his tall stature and naturally gruff face hidden behind the extreme facial hair. It was only the twinkle of laughter in his eyes and sitting down to really talk to the man would anyone know that Henry Lattimore was probably the nicest man Gideon had ever known.
With an expression of pure hurt, Sandra swept her eyes from Henry to Jade before landing them directly onto Gideon with hurt accusation.
Gideon suppressed the urge to let out an annoyed sigh. Jesus fucking Christ, the woman was so damn dramatic it drove him nuts. Looking back at her, he refused to let himself flinch under the assault of her warbling lip and watering eyes. Of course, she would play the victim, Sandra knew no other role. But it wasn't her reaction that he had to worry about.
Risking a glance to his left, he inwardly cursed at Jade's stiffened posture. Staring directly at Sandra, Jade's face held a pained expression as she looked at the woman, as if she was trying to absorb all of the woman's anguish. Thankfully though, Jade didn't argue. It was the only saving grace of having Henry intercede, Gideon thought glumly. Jade would never contradict any order from Henry, hell, neither would Gideon. When the man rarely did lay down rules or made demands, they followed them. Both he and Jade knew Henry loved them and anything he wanted was only for their best interest, the same couldn't quite be said about Sandra. Taking another look upward across the table to Sandra, Gideon groaned. In her own selfish, looney way, Sandra loved and cared for them too. No, she wasn't as thoughtful as Henry nor easy to talk to, but she did love them.
