Phoenix (The Colton Cousins Book 1)

by Rebecca Rennick

  Walking toward the back French doors that lead to the pool, I keep my smile playful, reassuring her. Hoping she doesn’t catch on to what I’m about to do. Her banter is teasing and mischievous. But her eyes are showing the war within. Her desire for me and her resistance.—she doesn’t want to want me, but she can’t stop herself. I know the feeling, my ginger chipmunk. Someday soon, we’ll delve deeper into those waters, but today we’re going to take a dip in a different pond. You deserve this, after all these weeks of ignoring and avoiding me.

  “Oh, you deserve all kinds of punishment, little chipmunk.” It’s the first time I’ve called her the other nickname I gave her, the one that I usually keep to myself. It just slips out, and I can’t stop myself. A flash of confusion crosses her face before she shakes it off and notices we’re no longer inside.

  I’ve managed to make it out back and stand at the edge of the pool. Our deep end reaching ten feet instead of the customary six. All the men in my family are large and tall—a six-foot, deep end just didn’t cut it.

  “What?” Confusion and panic lace her one-word question. She realizes that I have her at a disadvantage.

  Reluctantly, I slide my hands down Clover’s thighs to unhinge her legs from my waist.

  “Nix? Nix, what are you doing?” She starts squirming, trying to break free. But she’s tiny—I’m large, and there’s no way she can escape me now.

  “Sorry, little chipmunk, but you need this.”

  Her hands reach for me, trying to hold on so I can’t do what she knows I’m about to do.

  “No, no, no, no—.” The last no turns into a scream as I toss Clover right into the pool, fully clothed. She makes a huge splash because her arms and legs are flailing every which way. I howl in laughter.

  Breaking the surface, her head pops up, and she’s spitting out water and gasping. Arms flying, water is splashing everywhere. She keeps going under and popping back up.

  “Haha, very funny, Clover. But I’m not going to jump in and save you. You’re a great actress, but you can’t fool me.” I yell to her from the safety of dry land. But she doesn’t yell back at me or pout in defeat. Instead, she slips under the water again, and this time her head doesn’t pop back up. A few moments pass, and I start to panic. Crap, maybe she isn’t acting.

  “Clover? Clover? Oh, shit!” Frantically I pull off my shoes and have enough forethought to remove my phone and wallet from my pockets before diving into the clear blue water.

  I can see Clover thrashing about under the surface, trying to do something, anything to get back above the water. Fuck, what is she doing? She’s going to drown.

  Reaching her, I wrap one arm around her waist and use the other to propel us up to the surface. Swimming to the shallow end before heading to the edge of the pool, I lift her up and set her gently on the tiled side. She’s coughing and hunched over with her head between her legs. Spitting out water and wheezing. Patting her back gently, I rub in a circular motion. When I’m sure she’s not choking anymore, I climb out—grab a pool towel and wrap it around her.

  “Are you ok? Are you hurt?” Looking over her, I don’t see any wounds. Tenderly, I reach under her chin with two fingers and lift it, forcing her to face me. Cupping her cheek in my hand, I stare into watery, tear-filled eyes.

  Shit. What did I do? I fucked this all up again.

  She still doesn’t say anything. Sucking in a shaky breath, a single tear breaks free from her glistening blue eyes. I wipe it away with my thumb—intentionally lingering on her cheek.

  “What happened, Clover?” I ask softly, trying to get her to say something. Trying to reassure her with my calm voice so she’ll speak. She’s starting to freak me out, and I don’t know what to do.

  “I…I can’t swim,” She finally stutters out.

  “Shit. I’m sorry, Clover. I didn’t know. I just assumed you could,” I’m rambling like an idiot. I can’t believe I almost killed my little chipmunk. Fuck! The throbbing in my chest sends a rush of guilt and panic through me. Why can’t I think before I act? I’d never have forgiven myself if I actually hurt her.

  It looks as if another tear will fall, but before it can, Clover pulls away from me. Rising, she walks back into the house without saying another word. A path of water trailing behind her.

  Oh man, Nix, now you’ve gone and done it. She’s going to hate me forever now. She was just starting to open back up. Now, I doubt she’ll ever speak to me again. Idiot.

  Rising to my feet, I’m still fully dressed and soaked. I have to peel off my wet clothes. Throwing them onto a nearby lounge chair. I grab my phone and wallet and head back inside. There’s no sign of Clover anywhere in the living room. She probably went back up to her bedroom. No doubt locking herself inside, so she’ll never have to see me again.

  Giving in to my self-loathing, I chug a beer in my wet underwear, standing at the open fridge. The water is still dripping off of me, making a small puddle at my feet—I don’t care. Regret is eating away at my insides like acid. Water on the floor is the least of my concerns. I shouldn’t have thrown her in the pool. It was a childish prank—I should have acted more like the adult I’m supposed to be.

  Finishing one beer, I reach for another before heading up to my room. What should I do now? I the only thought in my mind as I climb the stairs and sulk down the hall. Before I can make it to my door, a soft whimper comes from Clover’s room. Is she crying again? My chest stings at the thought of being the one to make her cry. Perhaps I should check on her. No. No, she wouldn’t want me to. Not now. Not after I almost practically killed her. I’ve killed a lot of people in my life, including drowning a couple. Not once did I ever regret it. I never regretted anything. Now I’m filled with regret that my actions could have led to her drowning.

  Another soft sob drifts from her room. I can’t leave her like that; even if I am the last person she wants to see, I have to make sure she’s ok. Fuck my newfound conscience. Placing my beer, phone, and wallet on the end table on the landing, I cautiously make my way down the hall to her ajar door.

  Deep breath, Nix, don’t be an ass. Be gentle and calm, even if she hates you. After a quick mental pep talk, I’m composed enough to continue.

  When I lean in and slowly press her door open the rest of the way, I’m not prepared for what I see. A distraught Clover huddles on the floor by her dresser, her back pressed up against the wall. She managed to strip out of her wet clothes and put on dry panties and a white tank top, but muffled sobs shake her body. Growing tremors spread across her skin. Vibrating her arms and legs.

  She doesn’t notice me because her head is buried in her knees that are pulled up to her chest. That’s when I notice what she’s holding in her hands: wrapped around her head, she’s holding pill bottles—prescription pills bottles.

  More are strewn about the floor, and a black zipper pouch sits open nearby. Fuck.

  “Jesus, sweet cheeks. What did you take?” I’m across the room in three long strides, kneeling at her side. Ripping the bottles out of her hands and tossing them across the room. I can hear the tiny pills insides rattling around like a maraca. Lifting her head, I need to see her eyes. I need to know how much she took and if I need to take her to the hospital. I need to know if I’ve lost her. My heart beats furiously in my chest as I try to brush her wet hair out of her face.

  “Look at me, sweets. What did you take? How much?” I can’t hide the panic that laces my words. First, I almost drown her, and now she’s trying to OD because of what I did.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Please, don’t do this to me, Clover. You can’t leave me now. Not now that I know, I want more with you. Jesus Christ. I want more with her. My body constricts at the thought. I’ve only just found her, and I may have already lost her.

  When she looks up at me, her eyes are brimming with tears as they stream down her beautiful face. I can barely see her pupils through the tears, and I’m not sure if they’re dilated or not.

  “None.” The word comes out in a sob, and she
breaks—crying large whale tears. She reaches up and wraps her arms around my neck, burying her face in my shoulder. Leaning down, I scoop her into my arms and place her in my lap. Leaning against the wall where she just sat, she curls into me. I don’t let her go; I only hold on tighter. The sharp pain in my chest starting to subside, knowing she’s okay.

  The second I saw her, it felt like I had snorted a whole handful of blow. My heart almost stopping at that moment, and the adrenaline shot through my veins so violently, making my hands shake. Whispering softly into her hair, I gently nuzzle my cheek against her damp locks. Helping the muscle in my chest return to normal operation, pumping blood through my body. Returning feeling to my extremities.

  “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. You can cry for as long as you want. I’m not going anywhere. I’m right here.”

  She does just that. For a good half hour, she cries, shakes, and holds on tight to me. Never do I let her go, never do I leave her. Gradually she calms, and the waterworks finally turn off. Lazily, I draw patterns on the exposed skin of her thigh with my fingers. It seems to help calm her. It sure as shit is helping to calm my racing pulse.

  Her soft breathing warms my chest. Pulling her close, I keep her wrapped tightly in my arms. She responds in like, curling into me. Nuzzling her face into the crook of my neck. She’s falling asleep, and my ass is going numb from sitting on the floor, but I don’t care. My whole body can go numb if it means she’s comfortable and no longer crying—no longer hurting.

  “Don’t you scare me like that again, my little chipmunk,” Whispering into her hair, I press a soft kiss to the top of her head. A small sigh slips from her lips. I’d like to think it’s a sigh of contentment.

  Taking this quiet moment, I give in to my mental exhaustion and relax. There’s no one here watching us, no one to place judgment. I can just be without worrying about anyone else but Clover and me.

  In this moment, she is mine, no one else’s. Finally, I allow myself to feel everything. To feel what it would be like to be with her, to allow her to own me. Not just physically, but emotionally. It scares the living shit out of me. I keep my distance from women for more than one reason. The life I live is not normal. There’s no white picket fence and Sunday brunches—okay, sometimes there are Sunday brunches—but there’s nothing simple or easy about my life. Finding a woman who can handle me is hard enough. Finding a woman who can handle me, my family, and the family business and violence that comes with it is near impossible. Let alone find one who doesn’t scare easily and can handle herself.

  Hold on a second. Did I just describe Clover? No couldn’t be. Although she can handle herself pretty well, she proved that at the bar the night I tried to get her to quit. She also doesn’t seem bothered by what we do. Thankfully, before I can sink deeper into that pit of confusion, Beau appears in the open doorway.

  “What the hell is going on in here?” He demands, confused and understandably shocked. To see me in only my underwear, cradling a similarly disrobed Clover in my lap. I quickly shoosh him. Gesturing with my hands to be quiet, pointing at the sleeping Clover in my arms. He does and takes in the state of the surrounding room. This really must look strange and bizarre to him.

  He mouths. “What happened?”

  Nodding, I gesture toward the door as I force myself to stand while holding Clover in my arms. He understands and quietly backs out of the room. Leaving me alone with Clover again. Laying her in the white bed, I cover her with the fluffy comforter. She doesn’t even flinch when I place her in the bed, must have exhausted herself with all the crying. This has to be more than just not being able to swim. No one breaks down and has that many pill bottles on hand to take, just because they were thrown in a pool. I expected her to be mad at me, call me names, hit me even; never would I ever have expected this.

  Brushing the damp hair out of her face, my hand lingers on her cheek. I can’t stop myself as I lean in and press a soft kiss to her forehead. Her breathing is calm, and even as she continues to sleep.

  “Sleep, little chipmunk. It’ll be better when you wake up. I promise. But we’re going to have to have a serious talk about this.” I know she can’t really hear me, but I want to say it, anyway. Needing to reassure her everything will be okay, but I am not letting her off the hook. These many pill bottles are serious shit, and it almost killed me seeing her like that.

  I have to know why. Why she has them and what she was planning to do with them. First, I will beat the information out of Beau and find out why he didn’t tell me about this. Then, when she wakes up, I need to hear it from her. Need to know that I’m not going to come home one night and find her dead in her room from OD’ing on pain pills.

  First things first—Beau.

  Chapter 21

  Phoenix

  A fter collecting the pill bottles from Clover’s room and putting on some clothes, I make my way downstairs to find Beau in the den. He’s fiddling with a billiards ball, rolling it around in his hands anxiously. Hearing me enter the room, he puts it down, standing straight.

  “What the hell was going on up there? Why were you in her room practically naked?”

  He’s pissed at me. I know he cares for Clover like a sister, and he knows I’m not the most gentlemanly when it comes to women. He doesn’t yet know my true feelings for her. That I would never hurt her and that I’m ready to hurt him if he doesn’t tell me the truth about the pills. I ignore his questions and ask one of my own.

  “Did you know about these?” I drop the overflowing canvas bag of pill bottles on the pool table. Slamming them down to emphasize my lack of patience.

  “Know about what?” He pulls out the bottles and reads the labels before placing them in a line on the table. The growing frown he’s wearing giving me my first answer. He doesn’t seem to recognize them.

  “Where did you find these?”

  “Clover had them.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes. Did you know about her addiction?” Because that’s obviously what this is. I had taken a moment upstairs to read the labels when picking them up off her floor. Oxy, Percocet, Vicodin, Hydrocodone, Demerol. She has almost an entire pharmacy of painkillers in this bag. No one needs that many sedatives. Not to mention, each label had a different name on it.

  “No. I had no idea. She never said anything about it to me. I swear, Nix. I had no fucking clue.” He sounds broken, betrayed. She had told him everything about her life—everything but this.

  “What the fuck happened, Nix?” His voice is strained as he looks at me, worry creasing his brow.

  “I may have added my clothes to Clover’s wash this morning. When she found them, she bleached patterns onto them.” Placing myself by his side, I lean against the pool table and continue. “When I came home and found them, I put them on to show her how I felt about her new designs. Then, I may have picked her ass up and thrown her in the pool.”

  “What does that hell does that have to do with the pills?”

  I can’t answer that without telling him what led up to it. He’ll probably hate me too for pushing her, but I’m not the only reason she was clutching them. I know there’s more, and I fully intend to find out the rest from her when she wakes up. Instead of answering his question immediately, I continue with the story of my fuck up in the pool.

  “What I didn’t know was that Clover can’t swim. I had to jump in and pull her out. After she stormed off, not saying anything, I heard her crying in her room. I went to check on her, and when I did, I found her on the floor clutching these.” I gesture to the dozen or so pill bottles now sitting in two straight lines on the green billiards tabletop. The next part almost catches in my throat at the memory of the moment I felt my heart leap out of my chest, thinking she’d taken them.

  “I thought she had taken them. Luckily, she hadn’t taken any. I had gotten to her in time. She broke down crying, and all I could do was fucking hold her and let her cry.” I didn’t need to go on. He could figure out the rest for himself from w
hat he saw when he found us in her room.

  “She never said anything about taking pills. She never displayed any signs of an addict.” He whispers thoughtfully as we stand together in contemplation.

  The little orange and white bottles mock me from where they sit, taunting me to toss them across the room. I almost do. I really want to. I never hated drugs so much in my life, and drugs are part of my daily life. We have been delivering them and selling them for years, and I never cared before. Hell, I take them myself when I feel the desire. But never have I despised them before. They threaten something I care about, and for that, at this moment, I hate them.

  I must have been staring intensely at the bottles for a long while because I hear Beau’s voice shaking me out of my thoughts.

  “What?” I ask, not completely hearing what he said.

  “I said you really care about her, don’t you?”

  Shit, he can tell. I’m not ready to talk to him about this. Hell, I’m barely ready to talk to myself about this.

  “No, I don’t. I just need to know if she’s an addict and if it’s going to cause problems for my Pop at the bar.” That’s a lie. I know that I do care about her. A lot. More than I’m going to admit to him, more than I’m admitting to myself. Doesn’t seem to matter, though, because it doesn’t look like he believes my lie, anyway.

  “Sure. Whatever you say, Nix. But we both know the truth.” He gives me a knowing look before his attention returns to the pill bottles.

  “She never mentioned this to you at all?” I ask. I know he already said he didn’t know, but this is kind of a big thing to hide.

  “No. I never saw her take any. Never even saw them in her bag. She must be really good at hiding them.”

  “Addicts usually are,” I say roughly. I’ve had enough experience dealing with them to know.

  “She doesn’t have any of the usual behaviors of an addict, though. No ticks, no mood swings, nothing.” As he talks about her lack of symptoms, a thought occurs to me.