Jagged (Colorado Mountain #5)(50)

“Yeah. Hear you gave her a job, got her out of those apartments,” Mick said. “Good owners. Just lazy. Keep tellin’ ’em they should do somethin’ about their locks and peepholes before somethin’ not good happens and they keep tellin’ me they’ll get around to it. Zara, she’s a good gal. Well-liked. Glad you got her out of there and in a job where she can back get on her feet.”

“You don’t understand me,” Reece said. “She’s livin’ with me, as in she’s mine.”

Mick had no response but Reece again saw the man’s already acute attention that he hid behind his good-ol’-boy ways get even more acute.

Reece didn’t need a response.

He kept talking.

“Came in ’cause we were at The Rooster last night and Dahlia Cinders dropped by our table. She told Zara she had to speak to her father. This conversation did not go well, no information was shared, and it was, thankfully, brief. Zara’s worried, though. ’Spect, you know what went down, you know why she is. I’m wonderin’ if there’s somethin’ I need to know. That way I can cushion the blow when it’s time that she does know. And I figure, the person who knows the most around this town is you.”

There was a hint of surprise in his eyes when Mick asked, “Her father hasn’t called her?”

“They don’t speak,” Reece explained.

“Yes, I know, but…” Mick trailed off, looked to his desk, took a sip of coffee, then looked back at Reece. “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, son, and I’m sorry that you’re the one’s gonna have to tell Zara. But, two days ago, Xenia passed away.”

Just as he thought.

Reece’s eyes slid to look out the window as his lips muttered, “Shit, f**k.”

Nearly nine years ago, Xenia Cinders got high at the same time she got drunk. For reasons known only to her, and locked away now for near on a decade, she left her house, wandered into the street, and was hit by a car.

The car wasn’t going that fast. Her body took some damage but not much. But luck that didn’t shine often on the Cinders girls didn’t shine on Xenia that night. The hit she took meant she landed with all her weight and a goodly amount of momentum on her head. The head trauma was extreme and irreparable.

She was brain dead.

Unfortunately, her body didn’t know that.

Also, unfortunately, for a reason in the beginning but after that reason was no longer a reason it ended up being just plain stubborn cruelty, even though Zara had begged her parents to turn off the machines and let her go, they’d refused.

So now Xenia had lived an extra nine years without lifting a finger, blinking an eye, eating a bite of food, enjoying a drink, or actually living at all.

“You know anything about it, you know it’s a blessing,” Mick said quietly and Reece looked back at him.

“Not sure Zara’s gonna look at it like that.”

“I can see that.” His eyes grew sharp again. “You care about her though, son, enough to make her yours, you’ll guide her to that.”

This, they didn’t need. Reece had just got her back. They had shit to talk about, shit to do, and he wanted his girl to have it easy for a while. It’d been bad for her for too long. He’d guided her out. She was in a good place, close to happy.

They didn’t need this, but more, Zara didn’t.

Reece clenched his teeth, felt a muscle move in his cheek, and released his jaw to say, “Least they got that boy in a good home.”

“Sorry, son?” Mick asked.

Reece locked eyes with the man. “”Spect you know, maybe you don’t, but Xavier Cinders had no problem takin’ his hand to his wife or his girls. Didn’t do it often, used words most the time to make them feel shit, but he did it. Xenia got the worst of it but that didn’t mean he didn’t call Zara down to watch when her sister caught it. So it’s good that when they finally got that baby out of Xenia, Cinders put him up for adoption.”

Shaughnessy looked confused. “Zander Cinders is in a private school not too far from here, Reece. Xavier didn’t put that child up for adoption. His sister, Wilona, just in the next county, has raised him since birth.”

What the f**k?

“Are you f**kin’ shittin’ me?” Reece growled and he heard his voice. He suspected he knew what his face looked like and he suspected both were why Mick Shaughnessy straightened to alert in his chair.

“Son—”

“That motherf*cker promised Zara he would put Xenia’s boy up for adoption, make sure he got a good home.”

“Reece—”

“I stood there when they came to the only agreement they came to durin’ that mess. When he flat refused to let Zara raise him, he promised he wouldn’t raise the boy. He promised he’d put that boy in a good home.”

“It would appear he didn’t lie, since he didn’t raise him, but he did lie since he took custody of the child and placed him with his sister,” Mick replied carefully.

“So you’re tellin’ me Zara’s nephew has been growin’ up in the next goddamned county for the last nine f**kin’ years without him knowin’ his aunt exists and without her knowin’ her sister’s boy is that close?” Reece ground out.