His Everlasting Love: 50 Loving States, Virginia Read online

  “Ah, Sawyer, I think you should come out here.”

  “Tell whoever it is to go away, Grace,” The Admiral answered between clenched teeth. “We’re discussing important family business.”

  “I know, but—”

  Before she could finish, Trevor wiggled into the room with a, “Sorry, ma’am,” for Grace.

  He was wearing glasses now, Sawyer noted, but he didn’t look at all like a scrawny nerd as he stood tall and proud, surveying every man in the room until his brownish-green eyes landed on Sawyer.

  “Is it true?” the little boy demanded, his fists bunching into balls. “Are you my daddy?”

  17

  Please don’t be here! Please don’t be here! Please don’t be here!

  Willa begged the universe to grant her this one wish as she got out of the car in front of Greenlee Place.

  The universe’s answer to her pleas appeared in the form of Kate Greenlee Grant, blinking onto the porch, and bouncing from foot to foot as she said, “Oh, he’s wonderful, Willa. Just wonderful. I can’t believe I have a grandson!”

  She then screwed her face up with mock severity. “Though shame on you young lady for not telling me about him.”

  Okay, she did not expect these to be the first words out of Kate’s mouth upon finding out she had a half-“colored” grandson. Just went to show how much dying could change a person. Guaranteed, most people would have thought Katherine would be rolling around in her grave over this news. And chances were if she were alive, she would be. But Willa, who’d watch her Pappy go from an illiterate sharecropper to voracious crossword aficionado, knew better than most: death teaches you the lessons life doesn’t.

  “I’m sorry for not telling you,” she said to Kate. “If it makes you feel any better, everyone except Marian and Thel were surprised.”

  “Even your grandfather didn’t know?” Kate asked, eyes wide. So obviously fishing.

  Ghosts were the worst gossips.

  Instead of answering, Willa went around her to the door and pushed the doorbell.

  No answer.

  “Where are they?” she asked Kate.

  “Grace is serving them all sandwiches in the basement,” Kate answered. “But the door’s unlocked. Just go on in. In fact, I’ll walk with you. There was a major step forward in my plan to finally bring Grace and The Admiral together the other day, you know…”

  Willa turned the knob and let herself in as Kate filled her in on how she’d taken the book Marian had given Grace and placed it on a side table while The Admiral was visiting. And then knocked it off the side table just as Grace led him into the great room.

  “You should have seen the argument that followed!” Kate said with a titter as they followed the loud cacophony of what sounded like heavy sword fighting down the wooden stairs. “So much passion. So much unspoken. But Sawyer—he’s got my blood in him, all right. He told The Admiral point blank that he was being silly and it was obvious he had feelings for our Grace.”

  Willa could only shake her head. And now Kate was apparently full-on scheming to get the little Latino housekeeper with her widower husband? This was seriously going to be the summer of gossip as far as the ghosts were concerned.

  However, all thoughts of the soap opera Kate had been curating flew from her head when she saw the scene in the finished basement.

  Trevor standing with Sawyer in front of a huge flatscreen. Both frantically waving video controllers as two large Vikings went at it in a fierce sword battle.

  Sawyer’s brother, Josh, who was sitting in a leather chair nearby, laughing as he yelled at Trevor to, “Shift! Shift! Shift!”

  Trevor did as he was told, and his Viking suddenly turned into a massive werewolf with bristling fur.

  “Push A! A! A!” shouted Josh. “Go for the throat kill!”

  Trevor must have hit the right button, because the wolf lunged straight at the Viking’s throat, taking the giant man out in a spray of blood.

  To Willa’s astonishment, everyone cheered except for Grace, who muttered, “I really do not understand this game.”

  Kate had been wrong about Grace serving sandwiches. There might have been sandwiches involved earlier, if the empty paper plates sitting on the coffee table were any indication. But now, she and The Admiral were sitting side by side on the loveseat, his long arm strung around her plump shoulders.

  Despite the video game’s gore, the scene was so sweet, it stopped Willa’s heart with its sheer perfection. They already looked like a family. With Sawyer and Trevor obviously looking the part of father and son.

  But then Sawyer and his brother seemed to sense at once that she was standing there.

  All three men, including The Admiral, turned to face her. Their faces a dark cloud of foreboding as the werewolf on the screen behind Sawyer walked toward the camera in slow motion, it’s gruesome muzzle covered in blood.

  “Mama! Mama!” Trevor called, running up to her. “Hi! Hi! Did you see me win? And Sawyer is my daddy? Did you know that?”

  Even sweet Grace was staring at her hard now. She could practically feel all their judgment as she bent down to speak with her son.

  “Yes, I did hear something about that. But we really should be getting home, darlin’. Everybody there is real worried about you.”

  “I’d like to know how you let Trevor slip away so easily,” The Admiral said, glaring at her.

  “That’s my other grandpa!” Trevor whispered. “Now I got three!”

  “Okay, Trevor,” she said, standing up and taking him by the hand, before he tried to explain to the I Can’t See Ghosts Club who his other two grandfathers were. “Thank you all mightily for having Trevor over. I assure you he won’t be showing up on your doorstep unannounced again.”

  “But I don’t want to go!” Trevor whined, tugging against her hand. “Uncle Josh says he’s going to teach me how to fish in the river. And my other grandma says she’s going to read me a Dr. Seuss book, Mama. Dr. Seuss!”

  In Trevor’s mind, Willa knew, having a grandma who was actually willing to read him something at his grade level was huge news indeed. Marian wouldn’t even allow Dr. Seuss in the house. “I have no idea why the world is so in love with that man’s senseless drivel. Lucky you have me to curate your reading, Trevor,” she’d told her grandson on a few occasions.

  But The Admiral, Sawyer, and Grant were all looking at Trevor with quizzical looks.

  “Hey, buddy, what do you mean by ‘other grandma?’” Sawyer asked with a frown.

  This is why she hadn’t wanted them to know him. Trevor knew better than to talk about the ghosts at school. But he thought family was safe.

  But not this family. Willa’s heart constricted, watching the three men squint at Trevor like he was something other now. And not just because of the color of his pale brown skin.

  Grace stood up and chimed in before Trevor could. “I think he means me. But I don’t remember talking with him about Dr. Seuss, and sweetie, I’m not your grandmother. I’m just the help.” She threw Willa a rather harsh look as she said, “But I’d understand why you’d be confused about that, poor little thing.”

  “Ooh, she is truly upset with you!” Trevor’s “other grandmother” commented from her position, standing beside Willa.

  “You’re more than just the help,” The Admiral told Grace, ducking his head to look down at her from their great height difference.

  Kate nearly melted into a puddle beside Willa. “Oh, that’s sweet. I didn’t know he had such sweetness in him, I tell you I didn’t. Isn’t that sweet, Willa?”

  Dear God.

  “Seriously, honey, we need to go,” Willa said to Trevor.

  “But I’m not ready. You should have given me a five minute warning.”

  Geez Louise. That’s what she got for sleeping with a ghost who told her straight up that he’d one day become a lawyer. Trevor would bring up their five minute warning agreement now.

  Sawyer came over then and bent down to talk to Trevor.
“Hey, little buddy, listen to me. You’ve got to go now, but trust me, we’ll be seeing each other again soon.”

  Behind him Josh picked up a small cup from the coffee table and tipped it toward Willa as if making a toast. “Yes, little nephew. You’ll be seeing this side of the family a whole lot more real soon. You have my word on that.”

  “He’s so proud of that cup for some reason,” Kate, who’d left Mount Holyoke before so much as picking a major, observed beside Willa. “Earlier they were saying something about DNA, whatever that means.”

  Willa’s stomach rolled. Oh God, they had Trevor’s DNA now. Which meant they’d easily be able to prove to a court that Trevor was Sawyer’s son.

  “What’s wrong?” Trevor asked her.

  “I wouldn’t suggest crying,” Kate told her matter-of-factly. “I’m afraid after putting up with my hysterics for all these years, none of the men in this family are particularly moved by tears.”

  She was right. It was useless to cry in front of them. Useless to try to explain. It would all end the same way. With them taking away her son.

  This time she didn’t try to reason with Trevor, just turned and started up the stairs with him. And Trevor must have finally gotten that there was something truly wrong. For once he controlled his five-year-old tongue, going quiet as a mouse as she stormed away, dragging him along.

  However, even when she made it to the top of the stairs, she could still feel Sawyer’s eyes on her back. So hard and unforgiving, she now found it difficult to believe he’d ever had feelings for her. In spirit form or out.

  18

  He was dreaming again.

  He knew because Willa was sitting on the counter, clinging to him, with both her arms and legs wrapped around his body, as he drove into her. On two whole legs. Not one and a half. No balancing act required. Just pure-grade hardcore fucking.

  Willa was moaning, sweet as hell in his ear. Telling him how much she wanted this, too, with her response. Gasping his name.

  But it wasn’t real. He’d learned to tell the difference over the last three weeks.

  However, learning to tell the difference wasn’t nearly the same as not having a dream in the first place. And he once again found himself in this place with her, in some strange gym he’d never seen before. Unable to keep himself from touching her all over, or from fucking her like his life depended on it on top of some kind of royal blue table.

  “Why can’t I stop wanting you?” he asked her, shaking his head. “You’re crazy. This is crazy.”

  But he didn’t stop. Not until they were both coming, the orgasm blasting up his back with such force, he knew he’d be waking up to a sticky mess in the morning.”

  “Why do I keep having this dream?” he asked her when he finally came down. “Why can’t I hate you the way you deserve after what you did? What you kept from me?”

  But she wasn’t paying attention to him. Instead, her solemn brown eyes were glued on something over his shoulder.

  He followed their direction, and tilted his head in confusion when he saw a sort of oval. Cutting into the reality of the room. And inside the oval, was…

  “Mom?”

  His mother, in the same peignoir nightgown she’d been wearing when his father found her dead in their clawed-foot tub.

  “I’m sorry,” she said with a wince. “I promised myself I wouldn’t visit you like this. I knew it would hurt too much when you woke up, and I’ve already hurt you enough. Also, lately you often seem to be dreaming about...”

  She glanced at the half-naked woman behind him, and then cleared her throat. “Things you perhaps wouldn’t want your mother to see...”

  Embarrassed as hell now, Sawyer tucked himself in and zipped up his jumpsuit. “Okay, so then why did you choose now to visit, Mom?”

  “Like I said, I normally wouldn’t have imposed on you like this, but I was at the river and Jim called across to tell me Trevor and Willa were in a bad way. Unfortunately that Thel girl has run off again, and I saw Marian visiting with the tall, handsome fellow under the willow tree a couple days ago, before going off into the woods on one of her spirit excursions. So who knows when she’ll be back?”

  “Wait a minute, who’s Jim?” Sawyer asked.

  “Why, Willa’s grandfather of course.”

  He shook his head. “But he’s dead.”

  “Exactly why you need to go over there. According to Jim they need medicine, and the best he could do under his limited circumstances was come call across the river to me.”

  Feeling just as confused as he did the one time he tried to have a conversation with The Crazy Librarian, he admitted, “I’m not really understanding any of this.”

  “You don’t have to understand, dear,” Kate answered. “Just please wake up and go over there. Trevor needs you. Now go!”

  Sawyer woke with a start, the words still ringing in his ears. Trevor needs you…

  What the hell had that dream been all about? Admittedly, he’d been having some crazy ones lately, with the emergency custody hearing getting close—just three more days until Trevor would be remanded to live with him where he belonged. But fuck, that one had been strange.

  He sat up on one arm, shaking his head. But the image of his mother begging him to go over to Willa’s place remained, no matter how many times he tried to clear it.

  “IT’S GOING T-TO B-BE ALL RIGHT, Trevvie. Everything will b-be f-fine...”

  That was a total lie. But somehow Willa managed to tell it with a straight face…and ignore the churning of her own stomach. She rubbed the little boy’s back as she watched him vomit water with a few food residuals into the toilet.

  Everything was not fine. Trevor was sick as a dog, which normally wouldn’t be a problem. But she’d gone to bed early with a body ache that she’d mistaken for depression. Easy enough to understand that with the custody hearing she’d surely lose only three days away. But when she woken up just a few hours later, her stomach had been rolling with nausea, the intensity only matched by the blazing sun inside her head.

  Realizing she was going to puke, she’d run to the bathroom, only to find her son already there. One thin arm holding the seat back as he gave the toilet his entire dinner.

  His great-grandfather was bent down beside him, rubbing his back. “Yeah, that’s it, boy. Get it all out.”

  The scene would have been touching, if not for the fact that she’d had to crowd into the small bathroom with them and throw up her own dinner into the sink.

  That had been at least one hundred days ago, though. Maybe only a few hours—she could no longer tell. Time had become the thing that happened between bouts of throwing up.

  But she put on a brave smile for Trevor when he looked up from the toilet.

  That is until he said, “It hurts. My tummy, my head. I’m hurting all over, Mama.”

  She had to get him some help. She didn’t know how much time had passed, but she had enough medical knowledge to know they were both at risk of severe dehydration if she didn’t get them to a doctor soon. But she barely had enough energy to sit up at this point, and she cursed herself for not bringing her phone into the bathroom with her when she was still capable of walking.

  She’d thought she could wait the illness out—most stomach flus ran through her in less than forty-eight hours. But this one was holding strong for some reason, and it had completely debilitated her. She couldn’t imagine crawling to the bathroom door, much less all the way back to her bedroom to get a phone to call 9-1-1—if it was even still charged. It had been toward the end of its battery life when she’d gone to bed, and she hadn’t bothered to plug it in.

  She needed to figure out how to get Trevor some help. But fever set fire to every idea that came into her head, melting it into an incomprehensible mess before she could even start to come up with a good plan.

  The sound of thunder broke into her fevered thoughts. No, not thunder. But an engine, roaring so loud, the bathroom window shook in protest. Until the noise sudde
nly cut out.

  A few seconds later, Sawyer appeared in the bathroom’s narrow doorway.

  She would have thought him a hallucination if not for Trevor weakly cheering, “Daddy! You came to save us.”

  And Pappy suddenly blinking into the bathroom to say, “Good, it worked. I asked Missus Kate across the river to send him over, but I didn’t know if she’d be able to get through to him…”

  Yes, it really was Sawyer, in sweat pants and a leather jacket. But damn, if he didn’t look like Superman to her in the bathroom’s dim light.

  “Hell, you really are sick,” he said.

  “Sorry, Pappy,” Trevor said, when Sawyer charged right through him to get to Trevor.

  “That’s okay,” Pappy answered. “I’m just glad he’s here with ya’ll now.” He shook his head. “Never thought I’d say that about one of them Greenlee folks.”

  Sawyer planted his carbon prosthesis before bending down to run his hands over his son’s sandy brown curls. “Trevor, look at me, buddy.”

  Trevor did as he said, smiling up at him with wan fondness. “I’m looking at you, Daddy. Now what?”

  “N-now he t-takes you to a d-d-doctor,” Willa croaked. She swallowed dry air, grabbing on to her stutter with a Herculean effort in order to clearly say, “Please, get him some help. Tell them he’s been throwing up for days. He’s going to need liquids and something to suppress the nausea.”

  “Got it,” he stood up with Trevor. “Where are your keys?”

  She’d forgotten he’d come on that bike of his. “In my purse, near the front door. Take one of the big bowls from the kitchen with you, just in case he gets sick in the car.”

  “All right...”

  He disappeared with Trevor through the door. And she sagged with relief, laying her hot head against the toilet. Happy to finally be able to give into the weakness of her own sickness, now that she didn’t have to put up a brave front for Trevor.

  She heard a car door slam shut outside, and waited for the sound of the engine starting.