Page 11 of Sebastian Gerald

“I wonder if she has these nightmares all the time.” Sebastian told him that he’d been there a month now and he’d not heard her. “That’s good. I’d hate to think that she goes through this every night. Poor little mite. I hate that she had to go through this at all.”

Sebastian rocked Toby back and forth, telling her over and over that he had her. That he’d not let anyone hurt her again. Tucker would comment, too, telling his granddaughter that he was there for her and that he should never have left her in favor of wallowing in his own misery.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Grandda. I just sometimes have bad thoughts that take over.” When she sat up in his arms, Toby looked at him. “You saved me just now. I don’t know how, but without you coming to my aide tonight, I don’t think that I would have—I was going to jump from the window.”

“Don’t do that.” He touched his fingers to her cheek. “Please don’t do that. I don’t know what I’d do—“ Sebastian looked into her face. “I’ve fallen in love with you, Toby. It just occurred to me how I don’t believe that I could survive without you near me or with me either. You’ve owned my heart since…I think we’ll before I thought of having someone in my life. But here you are. Here for me, and I don’t want to live without you and Kelly in my life. And, of course, Tucker. We’re going to be a good family together.”

“I love you too.” He held her tightly to his chest and watched Tucker pull out his handkerchief and wipe his eyes. Toby laughed a little before speaking. “You were forever with a hankie, Grandda. I remember thinking that it was magical in some way. You could get James to laugh with it by making little creatures with it when he’d scrapped his knee. Even used it to clean up his little boo-boos when he had one. Oh, and I remember once when we were at that Italian restaurant, you made him a kerchief like the cooks and waiters were wearing. I want you to show Kelly every one of those magical powers. All right?”

“Yes. Oh yes, I can do that. I’d forgotten about all those times until just this minute. Oh, what fun we’d have.” Tucker laughed again before he put his hankie away. “I used to do the same thing with your daddy. I did. He’d be upset about one thing or another, and then all I’d have to do was pull out one, and he’d be calmed down and watch me. I think he called it magical as well. Toby, honey, thank you for that memory.” He smiled; it was a watery smile, but Sebastian thought it was a happy one. “We should do that more often. Talk about the good times rather than dwelling on that one day. Yes, sir. I’m going to do that from now on. Get myself out of the funk that I was in. I’ll find you when I have me a good memory of your parents or little James. Even your grandma, too. Oh, what fun times we used to have around here. Surely you remember some, too, Toby. Don’t you?”

“Yes. The time that Mom and Dad hosted that cheese and wine party. You filled James and me up a plate of different cheeses and crackers.” Tucker started laughing hard before Toby had finished. “Yes, I can see you remember it too.” She looked at him. “That was the most vile crap I’ve ever tasted. Oh, James and I were sick for a week, it felt like. Nasty cheeses that came from all over the world, and we couldn’t understand why anyone would care. Oh, and Dad making fun of the three of us for thinking we’d gotten away with something. I don’t think I’ve had cheese since without thinking about that day.”

They talked about that party and many more that had been held in this house. The antics of them getting around their parents when it came to the holidays. Tucker told them of the day that he’d proposed to his wife. There was a story about the day that James had been brought home from the hospital. How he’d seemed so tiny to them all.

“He fit right in the palm of my hand. Almost afraid that I’d crush him when I sneezed that time.” Tucker laughed. “But he was a good little boy. Didn’t give anyone a bit of trouble when he was growing up. I miss that lad. I surely do.”

“I do as well.” Everyone turned to Toby when she spoke. “The man that killed him. I found out later that he was suffering from depression. He thought that having it all, as in a non-job that he didn’t have to come to work for, would please his parents in some way. But he’d already killed them before coming to our home that night. From what I’ve been able to figure out, he’d had such a hard life because no one believed that he could be as depressed as he said he was. That since he’d been found the one time when he’d tried to end his life, he’d been wanting attention and nothing more. I began to feel sorry for him and the people like him. There is funding for people like him now that I’ve set up. They can, and they do get the kind of help that makes it so that they have someone there with them at all times. It’s named for my parents.”

“That’s a right nice thing to do, honey. You tell me all the details, and I’ll help out with that. Depression is a nasty disease. I know that firsthand. But at least I had people around me all the time who understood what I was going through so they could help me out when I needed it.” Tucker stood up then. “Well, I think this old man has had enough excitement for one night. I love you two. And that little boy down the hall. You, the three of you, saved me. That day, you were coming there to show me little Kelly. I want you to know that I was going to end my life that night. I’d been saving up my medication, and I was going to take it all at one time.” He laid three handfuls of pills on the bedside that was beside him. “There they all are. I’ve no intention of letting myself get there again. Not now. I have a family. One that I’ve had all along but I never once thought of…well, I’m thinking right now, and I know how to get myself together. Even if it’s to take a short walk out in the town. I promise you both, I won’t do anything like what I’d been thinking.”

When he walked away, his hankie coming out of his pocket again, Sebastian looked at Toby. She laid her head on his shoulder while she watched the door close behind her grandda. When she got up off his lap and began cleaning up the pills, he grabbed the trashcan. He told her that they shouldn’t flush them, but they couldn’t leave them laying around either.

“No. I know that Kelly isn’t big enough to get to them. But I don’t want to leave them out either.” Once they were finished with the clean-up, he put them in a paper bag that Toby found for them. “I’ll take them to the pharmacy to have them disposed of in the morning. Well, I guess today. Are you all right?”

“To be honest, I feel wrung out but better mentally than I have in a while.” He told her good. “Will you hold me tonight? I need you there for me.”

“Absolutely. So long as it’s not this bed. It’s too small for my frame.” They held hands as they entered Kelly’s nursery, then again when they made their way to the master suite. “This room is so lovely. I have been trying to figure out a way to have you share it with me for days now.”

“I’ve been avoiding you somewhat.” He turned to her and asked why. “Because I wasn’t sure that you were in love with me too. I, like you, have been falling in love with you for so long. It’s like I don’t remember a part of my life that you weren’t there or needed to be there.”

He pulled her into his arms and then to the bed. After she was in the middle, he crawled in behind her, feeling her warmth all over himself. Once they were about as close as two people could get, he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer still. She was asleep in seconds. Sebastian wasn’t too far behind her, either.

Chapter 5

Toby wasn’t keen on hospitals. It had been a place that had never been high on her list of places to go. Not even if a friend was there. But today was something that she was going to do so that they could get this thing with the Roman family behind them. Going to the chemo floor, she was able to spot Mr. Roman, Parker, right away. She sat down in the chair next to him. It was then that she noticed that they were the only three people on the floor.

“You’re not going to be hurt. I promise you.” She asked Parker why she should believe him. “Because, even for what I’ve been all my life, I’m a man of honor. I will not allow you to be harmed while we’re here. I promise you on the heart of my mother.”

“You said while we’re here. Can I expect to be gunned down when we’re out of here? If so, you’re going to be gone before you get all that drug into your system, Mister. I’m not one to fuck with.” He said he wasn’t either and no, she’d not be gunned down by anyone because he didn’t want her dead. “I don’t either. I’ve only just found out I’m in love with someone, and I have a son of my own.”

“Congratulations then. I’m very happy for the two of you.” She thanked him. “I don’t wish to cause you any harm, and I am profoundly sorry that my brother harmed you. And pushed you to the point that you needed to end his life. I have seen the video of him grabbing you. Our mother she would have wrapped his head around a pole had she seen him touching you in such a way.” Toby asked him if she had forgiven her as well. “Yes. She wished that it hadn’t come to death for him, but she understands and says that she might well have done the same thing. Only he’d not been given the chance as you gave him. He knew better.”

“He should have. I warned him twice not to touch me and to unhand me. It was his fault that he chose to ignore a woman when she said no.” He laughed a little, then smiled at her. “You have more to say, I take it?”

“I do. However, you’re refreshing to me. Not many people who know who I am and what I am disagree with me. Nor do they challenge me as you have done. Killing my brother was quick and justified for you. The only other thing that I can tell you, Ms. Gerald, is that I respect you. You came here not knowing what I had planned, and that makes me think that you’re braver than even I am.”

“I’ve lost a great deal of people in my life. Most of my loved ones before I was very old. You learn to respect less and less as you begin to understand that most all people are only out for one thing and one thing only. Your brother was one of those kind of people.” He nodded. “You, however, aren’t. You give as you get, and you question before acting. That’s the kind of person that I think I’d like to be thought of as well. While your brother is dead, it was of no fault of my own. He knew the consequences before he was killed by me.”

“He did. And that is the main reason that I have no desire to have you killed. You were respectful in giving him an option. While he gave you none at all. Which brings me to your husband.” Parker turned to Sebastian. “I have a feeling that should I harm you in any way, Sebastian, your wife will not hesitate in ending my life—though much slower—just as she did my brothers. Won’t she?”

Toby didn’t speak but laid the gun that she’d been able to get past the guards on Parker’s lap. He didn’t reach for it but did laugh. Like her being able to sneak the gun in had been a treat for him. When he reached for her hand and kissed the back of it, she let him lace his fingers into hers. When he laid his head back on the chair he was sitting in, she looked at him.

“I’m dying. If I make it home today, it will be my last trip anyway, but to the funeral home. I’ve known that this would be my last few days on this earth since yesterday. It saddens me greatly that I have no time to get to know you and your family, Sebastian.” Sebastian asked him what he needed for him to do. “There is nothing you can do. Even the doctors, who keep telling me I have as much time as I need, haven’t any more tricks up their sleeves. I believe, as I told your wife, they are keeping on my good side so that I don’t harm them or their family. I shan’t do that. I’m an old man with cancer. Not the monster they believe me to be.”

“Does your family know?” Parker shook his head. “I see. So you came here instead of resting at home with your family around you to what end? Surely you don’t expect me to do the deed for you, do you, Parker?”

“Good heavens, no.” Parker sat up with laughter still spilling from his lips. “I had hoped I’d have another holiday or two, but that’s not going to happen. Or even one of my mother’s famous meals. She can cook as well as she did when she’d been in her twenties. But she does know that I might not be home today. But I have to tell you, this, just being with the three of you has given me a boost that I’d not expected.”

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