Page 21 of Jonny’s Redemption

“Baby—”

“No, Jonny. I heard what you said to your ma and I don’t pity you. So you’ll be returnin’ the favor. Not only don’t I want it, I don’t need it. I left that girl back in Kentucky. I’ve worked myself to the bone getting rid of all that was Shady Hollow. I’m not that girl and you won’t be treatin’ me as such.”

Jonny needed to add strong and resilient to the list of things that Bobby Layne was. And would, later, after he fed his woman and came clean.

If one good thing had come from his mother’s call, it was a resolute certainty Bobby Layne was meant to be his.

8

I was a little nauseous as Jonny led me into the house. A little light-headed, too.

So much for leaving the past in the past.

I should’ve kept my big trap shut, but I couldn’t stop myself. Not when Jonny looked the way he did when he was speaking to his mother. Beyond tortured. Beyond pained. The man had practically begged his mother to seek help. Something he’d said he’d done in the past to no avail.

I had no idea Mrs. Spencer drank. I’d only met her twice and neither of those times had she been intoxicated. At least, I hadn’t thought so—now I wasn’t so sure. What I did know was Jonny openly spoke to his mother while I was standing next to him; he hadn’t walked away, asked me to leave, or cut the conversation short.

He’d let it all hang out.

And there was a lot to sift through. His mother’s issue with alcohol was only the beginning. He’d mentioned his father had cheated and lied. I got the feeling that betrayal might’ve edged out the hurt his mother’s drinking caused. I knew this from experience as well. Elmer Layne wasn’t known for his faithfulness to his wife and family. Daddy didn’t hide his women, not even from his woman. As a child, I’d blamed his inability to be a good husband as the reason Kathy drank. I also blamed my daddy for her finally getting fed up and leaving. Growing up, I’d blamed a lot of what happened to my family on how we lived, where we lived, going back generations and neither of my parents knowing any better.

Then I grew up and learned that no matter where I was, Nashville, Tennessee, or Beverly Hills, California, men cheated, they drank, they lied. Women did the same. It wasn’t limited to the holler. It wasn’t about wealth, ethnicity, religion, or poverty. What it was, was wrong. Just wrong. Didn’t matter where you came from or your social status—people lied and cheated.

That was when I had to admit Kathy and Elmer Layne weren’t products of their environments. They were assholes. Both of them. The good news for me was, that meant there was a chance for me. I was born and raised in Shady Hollow. My kin were who they were but I wasn’t them. Knowing my parents were simple-minded, selfish jackholes and they were that because they wanted to be, set me free.

I wasn’t them.

I wasn’t my brother.

I was me.

I was proud of what I’d accomplished.

Yet, I was still embarrassed of my past.

Something to think of later when Jonny wasn’t vibrating with pent-up anger. When he didn’t look like the weight of the world sat on his chest.

I needed to be the woman Jonny needed me to be so he, too, could be free.

“Your dad cheated,” I blurted the moment Jonny’s rear end landed on the couch cushion next to me.

It wasn’t a question, it was a starting point.

“Yep.”

That was it, all he gave me. I decided to give him a few seconds to gather his thoughts. But when seconds ticked into a full minute and he offered no more, I questioned bringing it up.

“My daddy’s name is Elmer,” I told him. “My brother’s name is Elmer Junior. Everyone calls him EJ.”

Jonny said nothing and I was wondering why I’d imparted that stupid tidbit of knowledge.

“My dad’s name was Calvin Douglas,” Jonny returned. “My brother’s name was Doug. His mother named him after her father.”

Something funny tingled the back of my neck. Doug was adopted. I didn’t know much about how that worked but Jonny knowing how Doug got his name seemed weird. But more—the way Jonny said it gave me a chill.

“Everyone back home knew my daddy kept women on the side,” I told him. “I was too little to understand but he used to say he was going fishin’. Sometimes he’d only be gone a short while, sometimes a few days. I never got it, because Daddy fished a lot. And I’d see him down at the creek with EJ, both of them with poles, when he hadn’t announced to my mom he was goin’. It wasn’t ‘til I was older when I learned there was a difference between fishin’ and fishin’. By the time I understood, my mom was long gone, and Daddy’s fishin’ trips never dried up.”

I heard Jonny suck in a breath and I hoped like hell he didn’t offer words of sympathy. I could get through this one way and one way only—exchanging information. I could commiserate but I couldn’t handle him feeling sorry for me.