In Love with Lori Ch. 07 Pt. 02.1

Maude, standing only a few yards away, paled with fright and looked ready to change her underwear when I mentioned 'accomplices'; obviously she knew exactly who I was talking about.

"I will be pressing charges, Bella," I stated. "With those charges, and all the others the police will be bringing, you can look forward to a nice long spell in the lockup; who knows, while you're there, maybe you can write autobiographies of daddy the shit-shoveller, and your beloved uncle, you know the one I mean, the pimp and profiteer?"

The old woman had gone from purple fury to the color of old yogurt as I unreeled the list of things she'd done to piss the family off.

"One last thing, Bella: this is not your family, you have no place among civilized people, you've proved that again and again, and if you ever come within five hundred meters of my family, my home, me, David, or anyone else I choose to put in the restraining order, I think they call it a 'court order' here, or attempt to contact, intimidate, harass, or interfere in any way with anyone connected with me and mine, I will make it my business to make sure you go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass go, and do not collect $200; do I make myself clear? Rosie...?"

Rosie had been champing at the bit the whole time, obviously raring to go Ground-Zero on the miserable old bat, and Bella actually shrank back as Rosie let rip on her.

"How dare you set yourself up as though you have any say in this family, Bella? David was perfectly prepared to make your life comfortable for you, not because he had to, but because he wanted to, because he's civilized and compassionate, but you, you're such a venomous, greedy old rat-bag you tried to grab it all, when you're entitled to nothing from the Denham estates, nothing at all. Uncle David inherited everything, and he passed it on to his son; that David chose to share with you should tell you what kind of man he is. Now you get nothing, and you get to explain to the police the string of frauds you've perpetrated to squeeze money from funds and an inheritance that don't have your name on them, from a family you're not even a member of! Fine example of a grandmother you are! I hope they chuck you in gaol, you're a bloody disgrace!"

She paused for breath, glimpsed Maude cowering a ways back, and the battle-light in her eyes flared up again.

"And you, Maude, don't think you're getting away with anything! Aunt Jane left a detailed record of all the snide little tricks you and this disgusting, grasping old snob tried to use; David's trustees have all the lying letters and forged documents the pair of you concocted, and they make really interesting reading; when they pass those to the police, and trust me, they will, they're on tenterhooks just waiting for the word that will get you tossed in gaol, you're going to be sitting in the cell right next to Bella's! The two of you are a pair of disgusting, greedy, work-shy, lying, thieving criminals, and I hope they throw the book at the pair of you. Let's go, Lori, it stinks around here!"

'Nuff said.

*

A blast from the past and the cat's out of the bag (again)...

Josie and Sara's arrival finally cleared all the unpleasantness of the confrontation out of my head; my two best friends in the world were here, and soon I'd be marrying David in a beautiful, historic church. Life didn't get much better for me. They were both suitably impressed when I arrived in Jimmy's limo, and Jimmy stowed their luggage and bowed them into the car in the grand chauffeur style (winking slyly at me as he did so, while I struggled to keep a straight face).

The girls were agog to meet David, the mystery man I was marrying, but all I would tell them was that he was still at work and wouldn't be home until that evening; I'd managed to keep it from them that my David was also their David, but I think they were starting to put two and two together, or at least Josie was, and Sara was giving me some very odd looks. They'd already asked several times where Davey was (note how I was careful to keep 'David' and 'Davey' separate), and my slightly panicky, evasive, non-committal answers were beginning to make their antennae twitch.

I got the girls settled in, called Sophie to let her know they were here so Operation Bridesmaid could swing into action, and gnawed my fingernails down to the elbows waiting for Davey to call and tell me he was on the way; to be honest, I was unsure how to spring it on them that Davey was David; they'd known him since they were out of diapers, he was their almost-big-brother, and I had no idea which way they were going to jump when they found out. Just as my worrying reached fever-pitch, Jimmy called to say they were about 30 minutes out, and that's when full-scale panic-mode really set in; it actually took me a while to realize the clacking sound I could hear were my teeth chattering...

As soon as Davey walked in the door he was almost bowled over by the girls flinging themselves on him, hugging him, kissing him frenziedly, and chattering, laughing and crying all at the same time. Poor Davey looked a little startled by it all; I don't think he ever really believed that Josie and Sara had missed him so much, despite what I'd told him, so he was caught a little off-balance when they'd leaped on him like that, but it made me smile a little; obviously, their feelings for him hadn't dimmed with the passage of time and maybe, just maybe, it would make it easier to tell them what they needed to know.

Sara was the first to quit mauling Davey and stop for a breather, although that didn't mean she let go of him. Josie ditto, so the two of them were hugged onto him, his arms around them, big smiles all round, and then Sara asked the $64,000 question:

"So Lori, where's the mystery man? When's this 'David Denham' going to show up? Talk, Keene; where's the groom-to-be, shouldn't he be here too?"

This was it: showtime...

Davey gently unhooked the girls' arms from round his waist and came to stand next to me, knowing how difficult this was for me, and giving me his support. Sara had 'that look' on her face again, so I just plunged in.

"Sara, Jose, David Denham, the man I'm going to marry, is...right here; Davey IS David Denham, not Davey Keene; his real name is David Denham, it always has been..."

Sara's eyes widened, then narrowed, while Josie slowly nodded; obviously, something had just become clear to her. Sara, though, was a little more direct...

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" she yelled, "He's your fucking brother! What kind of fucked-up retards are you, the pair of you? You can't marry your brother, Lori, it's fucking illegal!"

I tried to step in, calm her down, something, anything, but she backed away, her eyes blazing.

"How in the name of all fuckery did you two manage to get to this? What were you thinking? Chrissake, Lori, he's your brother! Are you insane? Are both of you fucking crazy?"

Davey moved. Maybe he thought he could reason with her, but all he did was draw her attention.

"YOU!" she bawled, and in two quick steps was right in front of him. Before I could move, she'd slapped him across the face, the slap echoing like a gunshot in the sudden silence. Davey rocked back; she'd really put her shoulder into it, and it must have hurt him, but he made no move to push her away or retaliate.

"She's your little sister, you moron, you're supposed to protect her, not...be...with her like that, that's just sick! What the fuck were you thinking? You're both supposed to be grown-ups, what the fuck is wrong with the pair of you...?"

I tried to speak, to reason with her, but Josie held her hand up to silence me.

"Sara, calm down, there's more to this, Sara, listen to me!"

Sara paused in mid-tirade as Josie grabbed her arm.

"What, whaddya mean, what's going on, more what?"

Josie stepped between Sara and me, and motioned me back behind her back.

"Listen Sara, just shut up! Lori's been in love with Davey since she was a little girl; so have you, and so have I. Don't you remember how hurt she was, how angry, when Davey left? Only someone in love can be that hurt. Davey's only her half-brother, I worked that out a long time ago, maybe that counts for something, but right now Lori's alone, she needs you and me, we're all she has, so are you going to shut the hell up for five minutes and just listen?"

Sara glared balefully at Davey, then stabbed her finger forcefully at me.

"Five minutes, that's all, then I'm gonna knock your fuckin' heads together! Of all the stupid, hillbilly, shit-for-brains, fucked-up...!"

"Sara, enough!" barked Josie, grabbing her hand. "And you," she pointed at me, "start talking!"

Davey took my hand and squeezed it reassuringly. Sara's eyes narrowed dangerously at that, but she didn't say anything, so I started to explain, even rationalize, what really was so weird, but so wonderful, too.

"I guess the place to start is the day Davey left; you both remember how mad I was, how I felt; didn't we talk enough about it? All I wanted was Davey home, but the way I saw it, he didn't think my home was his home. He thought his home was here, and he wanted to come back here. So I decided to hate him, and I kept-on hating him; I kept that up for years; you remember that, both of you do, you were there with me, missing him as much as I did; I saw what you both did, how you were when you didn't know I was watching...."

Josie was nodding, obviously remembering how it had been with me, and her own silent pain that Davey had gone from our lives; Sara, however was flinty-eyed, her expression neither understanding nor compassionate. I plowed on regardless; I'd come this far, now I had to tell it to the end, and see what happened next.

"Then I found something, something that changed everything. I was thirteen and one evening daddy asked me to go get something from the bureau in the study, and a picture just fell out and landed in front of me. It was a picture of Davey, in school, almost eighteen, the first one I'd seen in over two years, but all I could see was his smile, that smile I hadn't seen in so long; he looked so beautiful, so different, yet still the same, still my Davey, and it twisted me up inside; I wanted to hate him, but I couldn't; I couldn't, he was there, and he was smiling at me, and it had been so long, too long..."

Davey hugged me close while I cried; even the memory of that long-ago feeling was still so poignantly painful I couldn't hold back the tears, and so he held me while those memories rattled inside me, undimmed by time, still vivid, still gut-wrenchingly intense. Davey gently blotted my tears, then smiled at me.

"Are you OK, Angel-May?" he murmured, and I nodded, determined to get this over and out of the way; his arm around me gave me the strength and courage to go on.

"I was a mess, all churned-up inside. I didn't know what to do, what to say, I didn't understand what I was feeling, and I didn't know if anyone could even help me; finally, it was you, Jose, you pointed out what was happening inside me, you showed me the truth, and it scared and sickened me, but I couldn't get away from it; once you told me, it all fell into place, and it scared me even more. I think Mom guessed. She tried to help me, but I wouldn't let her in, I couldn't, not this..."

I trailed off, because the tears came again, thick and hot, and hard as bullets, my guilt that I'd pushed Mom away rising up again, brittle and hard as slate, sharp as knives, feelings of loss, of regret, that only my mom could make right, and it was too late, it was all too late...

Davey held me close, his hand brushing my hair even as he wiped my tears away.

"Shhh, don't do this Kitten, please, calm down, it's not good for the baby..." he murmured, but Josie heard, if the sudden sharp glance she gave me was any indication.

I shook my head; we'd come this far, it all had to come out, and let the cards fall where they will; no more hiding, no more half-truths and white lies. He tipped my chin up and looked into my eyes, and he must have seen my resolve, because he nodded in agreement, so once more I plunged on.

"None of this was Davey's idea. It was me, all me. When daddy died, Mom asked me to call Davey home. She was so sick by then, and we needed him back with us. He came running, but it was almost over for her. I guess the strain of Daddy's funeral was too much for her, because we lost Mom two days later, so now Davey and me, we were alone in that house. Davey had bought Mom a house in Maine, in Bar Harbor; she wanted to go back there before she...died, but she never made it. So we decided to move there; I couldn't live in Des Moines anymore. There was nothing left there for me, and we thought a new start in a new place was what I needed."

Davey took my hand in his, lacing his fingers between mine, encouraging me to go on, to get this all out in the open once and for all.

"You can probably guess the rest. As long as Davey was here in England, all my mooning around over him was just that; it affected me, but it didn't rule my life, it was all just a treasured teen-dream, an impossible thing to mope about in my alone-times. But then he came home, and all that stuff just came back and hit me right where I lived. You have to understand, to me, there's no-one like Davey, there never was; you two, of all people, should know that; he was the best big brother, my close friend, my go-to when Mom or Daddy couldn't be there, and I loved him; when he left, that's when I realized how much I loved him, and how badly it hurt me that he left, and it scared me that I could feel so bad over something like that."

Josie was staring at me, obviously deeply wrapped-up in what I was saying, and even Sara had lost that hard, stony stare, and was looking interested, so once more I took a deep breath and went on.

"This is the part you probably won't understand, but please, just hear me out, then maybe you will. When I knew Davey was coming home, all those feelings I had for him rose up and bit me on the ass; he wasn't safely far away, thousands of miles away, just a figure in a daydream. No, he was coming home, he was going to be home with mom and me, and I just let myself go. I knew, flat-out knew, that he didn't want me like I wanted him; why should he, he hadn't seen me in years, and I knew that once the funeral was done he was going back home, what he called 'home', and I was going to be alone again, so I figured if I couldn't have him, maybe I could have a piece of him, some part of him that would always be mine, and that would be enough, I could let him go, and call it quits."

Josie stirred; I think she guessed what was coming next, but she held her tongue; Sara, on the other hand, seemed almost enthralled, her face expressionless, but at least that cold hostility was gone, and all she radiated was keen interest.

"There's no other way to say this, so I'm just gonna say it; I set out to seduce him. I knew he was going to leave me, I could feel him drawing away from me, getting ready to be alone again, and if he left, he was leaving without me and never coming back; it was my last chance to have something that was part of him and all mine, so I led him on, I snared him, and I seduced him."

I stopped and caught my breath. Both girls looked ready for more, so I squared my shoulders, and carried on.

"Now go ahead and say your piece, both of you. Tell me how wrong I was, how conniving and underhanded I've been. I have no excuses for what I did. All I can say in my defense is that I did what I did because I wanted to have some part of him so that when he was gone I could still have him with me, and that night that's what happened; Davey and I, we...he made love to me. I wanted him to, more than anything in the world, and then we talked about what I'd done, how I'd tried to trick him, and I told him how, if I had caught his baby, I wasn't going to tell him, because I wanted him to go back to England and be who he was supposed to be, and live the life he was supposed to live, far away from me and my hang-ups and fantasies. I told him that as long as I had his baby he'd always be with me, it was enough, and he could leave me and it wouldn't be so bad. As it turned out, Davey didn't care what I'd done, he brushed off what a bitch I'd been for plotting and planning to deceive him; he told me he loved me and wanted to make babies with me. Plural. He loves me, and I love him, and now we're having a baby..."

Josie had that triumphant little half-smile she always got when she knew she was right about something, and Sara, she just looked thunderstruck.

"Lori...you're pregnant...?" she breathed, and I nodded.

"Almost four months, give or take a couple weeks."

"And his family knows...?" she prodded, "They know you and he are...you know, half-brother and sister, whatever? And they're OK with this?"

I opened my mouth to speak, but Davey got there first.

"Yes, Sara, everyone in my family who matters knows the truth; they all know, or they suspect, and they're all still in love with Lori, just like I am. Sophie, my aunt, she knew almost from the beginning, and she's the lady organising this whole wedding thing; Sophie and Lori are so close now that none of this matters to her; as far as she's concerned, Lori's her 'Darling Girl' and no-one's going to gainsay her; it would be an act of ground-breaking idiocy to try and say anything negative about Lori in Sophie's hearing. Sophie's husband, my uncle Richard, is giving Lori away, and as far as he's concerned, Lori's his girl, he's the father of the bride, and he's prouder of her than a cat with two gold-plated tails. Everyone who meets her loves her, but none more than me; she and I are supposed to be together, we're all we need, we're all we'll ever need."

I watched Sara's face as Davey spoke, seeing her expression change from thunderstruck to incredulous, to perplexed, and, finally, to the mischievous smile I knew and remembered so well.

"You guys are serious, aren't you?" she grinned, and Davey and I both nodded.

"Serious as a heart attack, Sara; Davey and I are in love, we're pregnant, we're getting married and having this baby in the spring, and we need you to be there for us, for me. Now you know it all. So are we good now?"

"You're insane, Lori, both of you, you're both fucking nuts; how the hell are you guys going to pull this off? You're his sister, for criminy sakes!" grinned Sara, and that's where Davey played his ace:

"Actually, Lori and I are already married, all legal and above board! Mostly, anyway. We've been married almost four months now, since before we ever left Maine. This wedding is for Lori, and for the family; we got married kind of quickly, so now we're doing it right, the way we should have, with everyone we love around us. My family is already here, and as far as I know you girls are the closest thing Lori has to family, which is why you have to be here too; we need you to be here."

Suddenly both girls were all over me, hugging me hard enough to squeeze me to death, Davey off to one side, forgotten for the moment as I tried to answer a million questions from both of them, but I did catch what Sara muttered when she hugged Davey in a neck-breaker:

"When you left, it broke my heart, Josie's too; you were our big brother, too, even if you never realized it; losing you was the biggest hurt our hearts had ever felt, and we never really got over it. Lori did well to catch you, even if you are her brother, but paste this into your hat: you hurt her and I'll fix you, David Keene, or Denham, or whoever the hell you really are. Never forget this one thing, Davey; I love you like a brother, you ARE my big brother, but Lori's my girl; I'm watching you!"

*

That Denham Magic Does Its Thing, Again: