Gideon's Redemption Read Online Free PDF Page B

had to take a number and wait in line for your attention.”
    “That’s bullshit. I’ll admit the band was using drugs and partied way too much back then, but aside from some booze and pot, I wasn’t like that. In fact, you partied right alongside me. So that B.S. won’t fly with me, Shannon. And you know I never cheated on you.”
    “Do I? Well… I’ll just have to add big fat liar to the list of adjectives I use to describe you. I’d have respected you a little more if you were honest enough to tell me when it was over.” She crossed her arms and spoke through lips curled in derision. “I saw you, Gideon, with not only one but two blonde bimbos crawling all over you. It made me sick. I had an overwhelming need to go straight to my doctor and be tested for hepatitis and STD’s—after a long hot shower, of course. So I left.” Walking to her door, she opened it wide. “Now, if you don’t mind, that’s what I’d like you to do—leave.”
    Frowning, he stood there, frozen in confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. After that last show, I waited for hours, Shannon. You never showed up. You never answered my calls or returned any of my messages. I went looking for you and you had vanished. Then, five days later, I got that bullshit letter.” He paused, his memory a little foggy. She was right about the drugs. Sticks and Johnny were into some heavy shit, but not him. He remembered smoking some weed and he’d drunk a few beers after the show, but she was wrong about the women.
    “I’m surprised you remember anything from those days. You were pretty wasted that night. One of the bimbo’s was having a hard time getting a rise out of you, if I remember correctly.”
    “No, Shannon. That can’t be.”
    “You don’t remember the women, the drugs, me standing in your dressing room doorway devastated by your betrayal? Reynolds was there and told me to be patient and I’d get my turn. He’s a pig, by the way. I don’t know how you can stand him, but that doesn’t matter to me anymore. You don’t deserve me, Gideon Eli, Rock Star Extraordinaire. I’m too good for you. Now get out.”
    “Mom! I can’t sleep. You’re talking too loud.”
    He watched Shannon freeze, a horrified expression on her face. Gid’s eyes flew to the boy standing in the hallway behind her. In rumpled Batman pajamas, he stood, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He’d called her mom. Holy hell, was she married? No, she was using her maiden name. Studying the boy, he gauged him at eight, maybe nine. Gid quickly did the math, and a tightness, like a punch in the gut, started forming in the pit of his stomach. He looked at the wavy brown hair and the brilliant green eyes, just like Gid’s father and his sister—just like his own. The boy was a McCord up one side and down the other. Suspicion turned to certainty. This had to be his son, his and Shannon’s, and she had kept it from him all this time.
    “Who are you?” the boy asked, looking up at him for the first time. Gid’s heart pounded in his chest as he stood speechless, scanning the innocent face that was his mirror image on a smaller scale. The next instant, the last remnant of doubt was erased as twin dimples, identical to his, appeared on the boy’s face. “Hey, I know you. You’re the man in Mom’s pictures.”
    It was at that point Shannon moved. Flying across the room, she wrapped an arm around the boy’s slender shoulders as she directed him back toward his bedroom. “He’s leaving now, honeybun, and you are up way past your bedtime.”
    “But I want to talk to your friend,” he protested as he shuffled his feet. “I want to ask him about his cool guitar.”
    “Not tonight.” Looking back over her shoulder, she gave him a stern, no nonsense look. She was protecting her son, he knew that, but he’d be damned if he was going anywhere now.
    “You can see yourself out, I’m sure.”
    Anger flowed through him, his face tightened, and he felt a