Draw (Gentry Boys #1)(33)
“Do you talk to them?” I asked. “Your family?”
Her mouth twisted, illustrating her pain. “They don’t wish to talk to me. They are very traditional, my family. They say Millie doesn’t exist, that I have violated nature, and that the boy they raised has forsaken them.”
I took her hand. “I’m sorry.”
Millie hugged me. “Why are you sorry? I still have hope that someday their minds will change. The world gets bigger all the time. And I am happier now than I have ever been.”
“You’re still the perfect couple,” I told her. “You and Bray.”
“Brayden is the first man who looked frankly at all my complexities and loved them. The first time we made love he told me he didn’t care what I was, only who I was. He’s rare, your cousin, but then you know that.”
“I’ve always known that. It makes me happy to hear someone else say so. You know, his dad, my uncle, is a real piece of work. Used to drink a lot and tear him down for not being tough and naturally combative, as if that’s the only way men ought to be.” I shook my head. “Asshole. I don’t exactly connect with my folks either, although I wouldn’t compare it to what you’ve gone through.” I paused and let everything sink in. “We’re all adrift in a way aren’t we, Millie? You, me, Brayden.”
“Cord,” she prompted. “His brothers too.”
“I suppose that’s true,” I said slowly, thinking of the Gentry boys back then and the Gentry boys now. “One time I remember they got in trouble for breaking into the elementary school after dark. They stole food from the cafeteria and for a long time I didn’t realize it was likely because they were hungry. My dad used to say those boys would wind up no better than their father, who was in and out of lockup.” I shuddered, picturing the Gentry patriarch. “That guy was a scary son of a bitch. Once he cornered my mom in a grocery store and groped her before she belted him with a chuck roast, grabbed me and ran away. I can still hear the sound of his gruesome cackle following us. She made me swear not to tell my dad because any confrontation between my dad and Benton Gentry was bound to end in blood.”
I stopped talking and stared at my hands. Cord wasn’t his father. I’d been unfair to him today. I’d seen how it pained him when I shrank back, regarding him as something less than human.
Millie knew what I was thinking. “You should go to him.”
“I’m not sure how I feel. Or how he feels.”
She cocked an eyebrow. “Well, isn’t part of the fun finding out?”
“I don’t know, it might be too soon. Maybe I should just concentrate on me for a while, read a bunch of self-help books, finish my novel, and perhaps befriend some battery operated satisfaction in the absence of the real thing.”
Millie laughed. “Is that what you want?”
“No,” I said with rueful honesty. “What I want is for Cord Gentry to take me apart in ten different ways.”
“Well that sounds more interesting than your first plan.”
“It does,” I said softly, suddenly awash in the steamy vision of Cord’s strong hands insistently exploring every part of me. He wanted to, I was sure of it. Although he might have revised his intentions after the day’s debacle.
“I can’t win with you.”
He’d said that in defeat. Maybe it was true. Or maybe it was never about winning. Maybe it was only about stumbling through the dark until you found someone who just might be a perfect match.
Millie embraced me again. I hugged her back and thanked her for being family, loyal and kind, the only sort that mattered.
I retreated to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror. My skin was red and blotchy so I ran a sink full of cold water to bathe my face in. The image in the mirror waited patiently while I inspected it. I had my father’s green McCann eyes and my mother’s chestnut hair. I hadn’t seen either one of them since I’d returned to Arizona. Suddenly it irked me a little, that there was so little connecting us that they were not the ones I chose to run to when I was in trouble. But I had Brayden. And now Millie too. I’d begun to understand something; that if you found even a few people to cling to in this sorry mess of a world then you were terrifically lucky.
Millie was right. I should go to Cord. And I would go to him. I should have done it hours earlier. I didn’t know what would come of it. He might refuse me. He might decide there was too much history, too many complications living between us. If he wanted a good f*ck he could easily find one for far less trouble than I was causing.
I heard Millie quietly talking in the living room and figured she must be speaking to Brayden. The two of them enjoyed a quiet ease with one another. It wouldn’t be like that between me and Cord. There was a volatile electricity between us which fairly screamed for a pounding flesh resolution.
An erotic chill washed over me as I pulled the straps of my dress down, curling my bra over my shoulders. I stared at my body. I wasn’t outrageously stacked or even much above average. My nipples hardened before my eyes as I pictured Cord’s mouth covering them. I shuddered, closing my eyes and grabbing onto the edge of the sink. The time he’d taken my virginity on the floor of my father’s garage, he’d shown a trace of conscience, although it was only later that I recognized it for what it was.