He smiles a lot and it makes his dimples show. He used to be leaner than my brother, but now he's bigger. Mom says that's because he's getting muscles from always helping the elderly people in the neighborhood do stuff like mow or make flower beds. He takes care of everyone, even me. All the older girls flirt with him, but he never flirts back. He doesn't like them like that. I don't think he likes me like that either, but I wish he did.
Titan says Cade is his friend, but I think he's mine too. He tells me stuff sometimes. I don't think he tells it to anyone else. Like about how he misses his mom. It makes me sad that she died. Ma Rose is his family now, but I wish he still had his mom too.
"Why can't you ever just stay home?" Titan glares at me.
I bite my lip, refusing to tell him that I'm scared. He'll just call me a crybaby, and I don't want Cade to think I'm a chicken, even though I really am.
"She can come with us," Cade says with a shrug before I can think of a reason. He smiles, showing me his dimples. "You'll be good, right, baby girl?"
I nod and bounce up and down.
"Fine," Titan says with a scowl, "but I'm not playing any stupid baby games with you. And you can't follow me around."
"I don't play baby games and I don't follow you around!" I stick my tongue out at him. I don't follow him around. Mostly, I follow Cade around, but I don't tell Titan that. He'd just laugh at me. Sometimes, he's a jerk.
"Whatever." Titan rolls his eyes and locks the front door before jumping from the porch to the sidewalk. He's such a showoff.
I bounce down the steps, only to trip on the last one.
"Careful," Cade says, grabbing me before I fall. He always catches me when I trip. Mom says I'd be a mess without him. She's probably right. I'm kind of clumsy.
Titan snorts before stomping down the sidewalk.
I don't know why he's so mean to me now. He used to like to play with me. Him and Cade always watched out for me and made sure no one messed with me. But ever since he started the eighth grade, he's been different. He's mean to me a lot. I don't know why, but I wish he was nice again. I miss him.
"Why are you so quiet, baby girl?" Cade asks, tugging on a strand of my hair.
I like it when he calls me that. Titan says he does it because I'm just a baby, but I don't think that's why. He always calls me that. It's sweet. Titan's just jealous he doesn't have a nickname like me and Cade do. I call him Cade because when I was younger, I couldn't say his name right. It sounded funny. He says he likes his nickname better anyway.
"Why doesn't Titan like me anymore?" I whisper to him, staring down at the ground.
"He likes you," Cade promises me, reaching out to tug on my hair again. "He's just grumpy because Mandy won't kiss him."
"He's always mean to me." I scrunch up my nose at the thought of my brother and Mandy kissing. She's pretty, but she's not very nice. She's always watching Cade like she'd rather have him flirting with her than Titan. But she holds my brother's hand and calls him all the time, so I think maybe she likes both of them.
"He loves you, baby girl. He's just being a teenager. I'll talk to him and tell him he needs to be nicer to you."
"You're a teenager too, but you're nice to me."
He stares at me, his blue-gray eyes serious. "I will always be nice to you, January."
My stomach gets that floating feeling once more. I smile at him and then cast my eyes to the ground. We walk the rest of the way to the park in silence. When we get there, Mandy and some of Titan and Cade's friends are sitting on the basketball court.
There's an older guy wandering around on the other side of the park, but no one else is here.
"Let's go," Titan says to Cade and then jogs toward Mandy and their group of friends.
Cade hesitates.
"It's okay," I whisper even though I don't want him to go. "I'll be fine. I'm just going to swing for a little while."
"You sure?" he asks me, clearly not wanting to leave me alone.
I feel bad for that because he's with me more often than not. I used to get teased a lot about being so little, but he made them all stop. I don't want him to stop liking me. What if he does and the other kids start picking on me again? He said he'd always be nice to me. I believe him, but he should go with his friends. Just in case.
"Promise," I lie.
He peers at me for a minute and then nods before jogging toward Titan. I watch him until he's with them. He glances back at me and smiles, and then Mandy grabs his hand and pulls on it. He looks away from me to her and says something that makes everyone laugh.
I move my eyes away because I don't want to watch her flirt with him or see if he flirts with her, and then I mope toward the swings. The park is small and not very nice, but the swings are new. Someone broke all the old ones and they had to put up new ones.
I sit down in my favorite one and start pushing myself, but I don't feel like swinging today. Once I slow down, I drag my feet through the dirt and let the swing drift back and forth. Using the toe of my shoe, I draw a heart in the dirt and then write Cade's name inside it. I quickly wipe it away so no one sees. They'd just make fun of me if they did.
Mandy laughs incredibly loud. I peek over there to find her sitting between Cade and Titan. She's holding my brother's hand, but she leans over toward Cade and whispers something in his ear. He leans away from her, which makes me happy. I really don't like her very much.
Done swinging, I hop down and then gasp.
The older guy who was on the other side of the park is standing in front of me, smiling. I think maybe he's homeless because his clothes are dirty and he smells gross. He's missing some of his teeth and his eyes seem funny. They're unfocused like Mr. Ruben's when he drinks moonshine, the stuff my mom says is worse than normal alcohol. Sometimes he drinks a lot of it and gets loud and falls down.
"Hi," I whisper and take a step back. I wish I hadn't told Cade to go with his friends. The way the older guy keeps looking at me makes me uncomfortable.
"Sarah?" he says and steps toward me. His legs wobble beneath him and he stumbles before righting himself. He smiles real big, but his eyes still look funny. "I can't believe it!" He reaches out to grab me.
I try to step back so he can't get me, but I trip over my own feet and fall.
He quickly wraps his hand around my arm. His grip is tight and painful. I try to pull free of him, but he squeezes my arm even harder and I can't get loose. My pulse begins to race and my skin feels hot and sweaty.
"I missed you, Sarah. Your mom wouldn't let me see you, but it's okay now. I'm home," he says and yanks on my arm, trying to pull me to my feet. When I don't go, he starts to drag me through the dirt.
He's trying to take me away.
I open my mouth and scream as loud as I can.
"January!" Cade yells.
"Let go of my sister!" Titan yells at the same time.
"Shut up, girl." The guy tries to slap my face. He trips over my legs and falls down in the dirt beside me. He still won't let go of my arm though. He's starting to really scare me.
"Let me go," I cry, tugging on my arm.
The man tries to hit me again, but suddenly Cade is there. He kicks the man in the side and then grabs his arm, tearing it off of me. Titan rushes up a second later and kicks him too. He yells at him to leave me alone.
The man starts to cry.
"It's okay, baby girl," Cade says and pulls me from the ground into his lap. He hugs me tight, keeping himself between me and the man who was hurting me. "Everything's okay."
I bury my face in his shirt and cry. I don't mean to do it, but my arm hurts and I feel all shaky and scared still. I know the man won't get me with Cade here, but I'm still afraid.
"Don't cry, January," Cade whispers in my ear. His voice shakes like he's scared too. "Please don't cry."
Titan keeps yelling at the man not to touch me, and then a bunch of other people are talking all at once. A few minutes later, sirens wail in the distance. Cade doesn't let me go though. Not
even when a police officer comes running up to us to ask what happened.
"He was trying to drag my sister away!" Titan yells.
"Sarah," the guy cries. "My Sarah!"
"He had this in his pocket," Titan says.
I open my eyes to peek, but I'm too little to see over Cade's shoulder. He won't let me go. I don't really want him to anyway.
"Crack rocks," the police officer says. "Put those on the ground, kid. You don't want to mess with drugs like that."
I start shaking harder. We learned about drugs in school. Sometimes, we see people in the neighborhood who use them. They always twitch like they have something wrong with them. Mom says that drugs do funny things to people's heads. That they make them confused sometimes…and dangerous. I guess that's why the man kept calling me Sarah and tried to steal me. He's confused.
I'm still afraid of him.
"It's okay, baby girl," Cade whispers, rubbing my back. "Everything is going to be okay."
I believe him.
"What do you want to do today, sis?" Titan asks, pushing me back and forth on the tire swing in Ma Rose's backyard. It's been two months since the confused man tried to hurt me at the park. Titan and Cade don't go there anymore. I don't think mom or Ma Rose will let them after that man tried to steal me.
The police took him away, then an ambulance came and checked me out. Cade and Titan stayed with me the entire time, holding my hands. My mom was really mad when she got there. She yelled at the cop for not keeping people like that man away from little kids. She said if he did a better job, there wouldn't be dealers on every corner selling smack to junkies. I'm not sure what she meant by that, but the cop told her that she needed to lower her voice.
Cade held my hand while I told my mom and the cop what happened.
Titan didn't say very much, but he's been real sweet ever since. He's not mean to me anymore. He even told me that he was sorry for being a jerk and that he loves me. I hope he keeps being nice.
"You guys can go play with your friends if you want," I tell them. I feel bad because now they're both always with me instead of with their friends. I don't want Titan to have a reason to start being mean to me again.
Mandy doesn't hold his hand anymore. She doesn't even walk to school with him now. Titan says he doesn't care and that she's the B word. I think they broke up. I'm not sure why, but I think it's because of what happened. She wanted him to walk her home after and he told her no, that he was staying with me. She asked Cade to make sure she got home safely instead. He made one of the other boys do it.
She gives me really dirty looks now and calls me a crybaby. When Cade heard her, he told her to shut up and never talk to me like that. He was so mad at her. That made her even angrier with me, but now she's only mean to me when Cade isn't around.
"Nah, we're cool," Titan says and holds out his hand to help me out of the swing.
"Do you think we'll ever get to go back to the park?" I ask him and Cade once I'm on my feet.
They're both quiet for a minute.
"I don't know," Cade says then. "Maybe it's better if we don't go back there for a while. It's not safe for you with people like that guy wandering around."
"Oh." I sigh sadly. I liked going to the park. "I wish it was safe."
Cade and Titan stare at each other, but don't say anything. They do that a lot now. I think they're speaking some language I'm not old enough to understand. It's incredibly annoying and I wish they wouldn't do it.
"I'm going inside," I mutter and stomp toward the house. Once I'm inside, I kick my shoes off and flop down on the couch before turning on the television. Lizzie McGuire is on so I lie down and start watching it.
A few minutes later, Titan and Cade come inside. Titan goes to the kitchen, saying that he's hungry. Cade comes over to stand beside the couch. He peers down at me, frowning.
"Do you really miss the park?" he asks me.
"I like the swings there. They go higher than Ma Rose's swing," I say. After what happened, I don't think I'll ever go back there though. Not if I have to be by myself anyway. It's too scary. Dangerous, like mom said. That guy really frightened me. Sometimes, I have nightmares about him and wake up crying. I don't tell Cade that though. I don't want him to think I'm a big baby like Mandy does.
He squints at me like he's thinking real hard. There's a wrinkle between his eyebrows and his lips press into a thin line. "Then we'll make it safe for you, baby girl," he says after a minute and then nods like he's made a decision.
I don't know how he plans to do that, but he sounds serious. I think he means it.
"Okay," I whisper and then smile up at him.
He smiles back, giving me those dimples. The butterflies in my stomach start going crazy like they always do when he smiles at me like that. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy, like maybe he likes me like I like him, but that's probably not true. I'm still just a kid. He's thirteen…and I'm not pretty like Mandy is. She has boobs and gets to wear lipstick. I'm super small still and don't have boobs. He's just being nice to me.
"You're so nice to me," I say, even though I don't mean to say it out loud.
"I told you that I'll always be nice to you," he reminds me and then leans down to tug on a piece of my hair. "You're real easy to be nice to anyway, baby girl."
Chapter Three
January
Present Day
I wrap my arms around myself, watching as Michael Kincaid—Cade—jogs down the sidewalk toward Officer Hollis. My whole body feels like it's vibrating and my mind spins in dizzying circles. It's been ten years since Cade disappeared.
Back then, he was big and tall and handsome in a movie star sort of way. He's even bigger now, like he's one solid wall of muscle. He's still beautiful with that messy blond hair and blue-gray eyes, but there's no softness in them anymore, no sweetness. They're as hard as he is, steely and a little wild. The bandage on his forearm does nothing to cover the tattoos painting his golden skin. They run down his arms in bold colors and stark lines. They're beautiful, even though I don't think he intended them to be. He's beautiful, even though he isn't supposed to be.
What's he doing here?
For years, I've told myself it's better that he left. That I hate him and I never want to see him again. Some days, I almost believe it.
Today isn't one of those days.
I wish to God I could hate him. I've tried so hard to conjure that emotion, but I'm just lying to myself. Seeing him here now hurts like hell. He's a reminder of a past I'd kill to forget…and one I cling to because I have nothing else. He intrudes on all my memories of my childhood, overshadowing each of them with his powerful presence.
He's a cop now. No, not a cop. He's a federal agent.
I've heard rumors over the years, but I didn't believed them. When someone brought him up, I changed the subject. It was the only way I could protect myself from the devastation he left behind. He broke my heart when he walked away, leaving me to pick up the pieces during a time I needed him most.
I'm still not over it. I stopped pretending a long time ago that I was. I had no closure, no chance to move on. One day he was here…and the next, he was gone.
Anger courses through me at the reminder. I glare at his back, hoping he turns around to look at me, but he doesn't. He talks softly to Ben Hollis, speaking so quietly I can't hear what he's saying. He keeps his back to me the entire time, making it clear he has nothing to say to me.
I'm an idiot for hoping he would.
Michael Kincaid isn't an angel like I once believed. He's a devil in disguise. My own personal demon.
I think I still love him anyway.
"Dammit," I growl to myself and then stomp away, too pissed off to stand out here and let him ignore me. Too pissed off to look at him anymore. When I get closer to the house, I notice the screen pulled away from my bedroom window. Fear whispers through me at the sight, curling like icicles around my heart.
He said someone was trying to break into my house.
/> It's not the first time they've tried. Curtis Kaleo keeps sending his gang around here. He wants this block so his people can move in on the park at the end of the street. He's a drug dealer and worse. I know what he'll turn that park into. There will be dealers peddling from benches and an unending parade of shootings, stabbings, and other violent crimes…just like at all the other parks he controls. But this park is mine. I'm not giving it up and I'm not giving up my house either. It's the only thing I have left. He can't have it.
No way.
I make a mental note to replace the screen tomorrow and then make my way inside. It's not even five in the morning and I don't have to be up for another hour and a half, but there's no way I'm going to be able to sleep now. I'm too anxious.
Instead, I make myself a cup of chamomile tea and curl up in my favorite chair in the corner. I don't turn the lights on. There's no point. I'm alone here. I've been alone for my entire adult life.
I've tried to move on and date and do all the things a woman in her twenties should do, but no one ever managed to hold my interest. The few dates I did go on left me feeling even lonelier than I had before. The men never compared to him. Eventually, I stopped trying to forget him and relegated myself to a life of solitude.
Most days, I've learned to be okay with that. I don't love it. It's not what I want, but when you do something for so long, eventually it doesn't hurt as much. I'm used to being alone. I'm used to being afraid. It is what it is.
Sometimes, I wish I could hate him for leaving me. Mostly, I hate myself for pushing him away.
It's been ten damn years and I still regret it. It still hurts like hell.
"I wish you were here, Titan," I murmur, glancing up at the photograph of my brother on the entertainment stand. He's smiling in the picture, his hair in those stupid spikes. He's wearing jeans with the holes he loved so much and a t-shirt. His tawny skin gleams in the sunlight. He appears happy, carefree. He'd know how to make things better if he were here.
Fight for You: A Second Chance Romance (A Warrior for Her Book 1) Page 3
