Heart and body.
He sits on the step above me and looks out into the front yard where our kids are playing.
Nicole Grace is toddling around, chasing her brother and sister. Sammy and Max are shooting each other with massive water guns, gifts from Bear. I’m rocking the soon-to-be newest addition to our family in my protruding belly as I take in the laughs and squeals of delight coming from our ever-growing crazy brood.
“I’ve got to go meet with the guys and go over some shit. You good here for a while?” King asks.
“I’m good. Everything okay?” I ask.
“It will be,” he responds, but I see worry in his eyes that wasn’t there before. I’m about to ask him what’s bothering him, besides the impending storm, but before I can get the question out of my mouth, we’re interrupted by a small head of long blonde curls.
“Mommy! Daddy, remember when you got mawwied wifout us!” Max calls to us with her bottom lip stuck out in an adorable pout.
I smile at King. “The kids are still kind of pissed at us for getting married at the courthouse. They wanted to be there. They’re more pissed about that than they were when I told them they can’t play outside tomorrow because of the storm.”
King gently places his hand on my throat. A possessive hold that I’ve come to love. “Yeah, but I couldn’t wait any longer to marry you.”
“Me, either,” I admit.
He leans in and presses a soft kiss to my lips.
“Ewwwwwww!” Sammy cries.
We break apart and look to Sammy, who is pointing at us, wrinkling his little nose. “That’s gross.”
King laughs. “Mind your business, boy. You won’t always think it’s gross. Someday, you might even want to kiss a girl yourself.”
Sammy shakes his head. “No way. It is gross, and I’m not changing my mind. Not now! Not ever!”
Max pops out from behind the thick trunk of the oak tree in the center of the yard and squirts Sammy from behind with her water gun. He lets out a shriek of surprise then takes off after her.
“Maybe, they need to see us get married,” King suggests. “When all this shit is over.”
My head snaps to him. “What?”
He watches the kids for a moment longer before turning to look at me. “I want them to see what’s between us for what it is. Something good. Something strong.” He stands and grabs my hand, pulling me up with him. His hand goes back to my throat and the other to my belly. “Go pick out a white dress, Pup. ‘Cause after the sky clears and the baby is here, you and I are having ourselves a real wedding.” He kisses me slowly, but it’s not tender. It’s a slow possession of my mouth and body. He pulls away, leaving me breathless. His eyes heavily lidded. “Now that you’re mine in every way, I think that’s something worth celebrating. Don’t you?”
All I can do is nod because just like every time he kisses me, he’s stolen my breath away.
“See you in a bit,” he chuckles. “I’ve got to get some more screws for the shutters. I’ll be back soon.” He heads down the porch steps and runs up behind Sammy, lifting him up into the air so that Max can get a good shot at him. He puts down Sammy, and the kids take off running yet again.
King places a kiss on top of Nicole Grace’s little icy-blonde head then walks over to his bike. Every stride he takes makes my breath quicken. He straddles the big black bike, and the engine roars to life. He flips his baseball cap around then takes off down the driveway.
I’m left gaping at him like a school kid with a crush because damn that man is still the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
I go down into the yard and scoop up Nicole Grace, setting her on my hip. I yell to the other two kids that I’m going to put the younger one down for a nap.
When I emerge from the house a few moments later, Max and Sammy are sitting in the grass, watching ladybugs crawl over dandelions.
A car that I don’t recognize pulls up on the driveway. My shoulders stiffen. My mind on full alert.
“Sammy, Max! Get inside, now!”
Sammy and Max do exactly as I order. Standing up and running past me into the house because they know my serious voice. They also know that mama doesn’t play around when there’s even a small possibility of a threat, especially when it comes to my kids.
* * *
I watch as a woman steps out from the shiny black BMW. She’s beautiful and blonde. Thin with not a hair out of place. She’s tall, wearing trendy large sunglasses and sky-high heels not meant for a gravel driveway, but somehow, she tackles the walk without a stumble.
“Is King around?” she asks, with a sweet southern drawl that makes my arm hairs stand on end. She glances up at the house and surrounding area before looking back up to me.
“Around here, we introduce ourselves before we ask questions,” I tell her, crossing my arms over my chest.
She doesn’t answer. Because she’s distracted by something. She takes off her glasses and stares up into the front window where Max and Sammy are peering out over the top of the couch.
No, she’s not looking at the kids as a whole. She’s staring at Max.
Dread pools in my stomach as a thought crosses my mind and realization hits me like a bat to the chest.
No. It can’t be.
She places her sunglasses atop her head. “As a matter of fact, there is something you can help me with,” she says. “I don’t know if King has told you about me, but I’m Tricia. I’m Max’s—”
“You’re not Max’s fucking anything,” I interrupt as blinding rage clouds my vision and makes my fists clench at my side.
She frowns, then straightens her shoulders as her lips flatten and her eyes grow wide with determination. “Oh, but, in fact, I am her something. A very significant something as it turns out. And by the looks of it, I think you know exactly who I am.”
“I’m her mother. I have papers that will back that up and a gun that will back them up. So, why the fuck are you here?” I manage to grate out.
Tricia touches the tip of her sunglasses to the corner of her mouth. “Why, I’m here to see Max, of course. My baby girl.”
Inside, I’m shaking. My heart is pounding. My protective nature kicks in, and I swear if I had a gun on me, I’d have leveled this woman on the gravel by now. Outside, I remain as cool and calm as I can.
I make my way slowly to the bottom step one slow step at a time until I’m eye to eye with the bitch. “You want to see my kid?” I chuckle because this will be the only warning I’m willing to give the bitch. “Over your dead body.”
“We had a visitor,” I tell King the second he pulls back up the driveway. My words tremble as they fall from my lips like grenades ready to explode at my feet. I feel my face pale. Speaking the words make what happened real, and it hits me that this woman could try and take my daughter from me.
“Who?” King asks, searching my eyes and gripping my shoulders.
I can’t breathe. I can’t fucking breathe. “Tricia. Max’s…” I pause, not wanting to say the word mom as bile spins in my already upset stomach.
His fists curl around a piece of notebook paper in his hand, crushing it in his grip. “That would fucking explain this,” King says, the veins in his forearms angrily protruding.
I unfold his fingers from the paper. “What is it?” I unravel what looks like a note.
King runs his hand through his hair and sucks in a deep breath. “Some fucking bullshit that was nailed to the garage door when I pulled up. A shipment was stolen from Pike and Nine a few days ago. A shipment I funded.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You’ve got a lot on your mind lately. I didn’t want to worry you.”
I want to be mad, but that would make me a hypocrite since I’ve been protecting King by keeping my troubles to myself as well.
King clears his throat. “I think it’s safe to say that whoever is responsible for jacking the truck is the one who wrote this note. Too much of a coincidence with Tricia showing up like t
hat. She likely brought it here herself.”
I look down at the note.
King,
Your reign is over. There’s a new King of the Causeway. I’ll continue to make business in Logan’s Beach impossible for you. I can take everything you have or you can hand it over. Give up your business in this town or give up the girl. The choice is yours.
Long live the King.
“I don’t get it.” I say, shaking my head. “Of course. The threat seems a little off.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that too. Anyone who knows me knows that business means shit to me compared to family and I’d give it up easily. Whoever sent Tricia is using her as a pawn to so they can claim Logan’s Beach as their own. I don’t think their end game is Max. It’s the money. Whoever it is, they’ve got a big fucking pair of balls crossing me like this.”
I lift my eyes from the threat in my hand and look to King. “What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to start by telling everyone bringing business in or out of Logan’s Beach to cease operations on whatever pays up to me. At least until we figure out who is behind this shit and slit the fucker’s throat, we’re at a standstill.” He cups my face in his hands. “Don’t worry. I can’t and won’t risk losing our daughter. I’ll keep her safe. No matter the cost.”
I turn the letter over in my hand as if there’s more to read when the few words on the page say more than enough. “How are you going to find out who sent it?”
“My guess is that there’s one person who knows.” His eyes turn dark and cold. “And the second the storm passes, I’m going to find her.”
Tricia.
“What if she won’t tell you?” I ask, feeling stupid the second the words leave my mouth because I already know the answer before it leaves his lips.
“She will if she wants to keep breathing.”
Chapter 6
Ray
I understand now why the phrase the calm before the storm is used. Because in the hours before Hurricane Polly brings her wrath upon Logan’s Beach, everything is unusually still, including my usually racing heart which is frozen as it waits for what’s to come.
The sky is clear of clouds. The breeze isn’t gentle; it’s nonexistent, as if holding its breath. Not a blade of grass is swaying. Not a bird is chirping. The bay waters don’t dare to ripple.
Even the smell of salt and fish that usually lingers in the air is more salt and less fish. Like even they know that it’s time to swim the fuck out.
Unfortunately, I don’t think our unborn child received the same message.
The baby is coming. I feel it in the bones the same way I feel the shift in the air as the storm grows closer.
Please, just stay put a little while longer, little one. Just give me two days. Please. Not just because I’m a few weeks early, but because I don’t want the baby born into chaos and that’s exactly what life in our house and in our town looks like right now.
Pure and utter chaos.
The pains I’ve been feeling are still far apart and only as strong as a cramp, but they are growing more and more consistent with each hour that passes. The roads are closed. There will be no heading to a hospital anytime soon. If only you can wait until you’re scheduled c-section.
If the new baby is as stubborn as it’s father or myself, there’s no amount of reasoning that’s going to keep it inside of me if it’s hell bent on entering the world.
“That’s it. It’s time to close this one, too.” King says, placing the last remaining shutter over the window and climbing down the ladder. He folds it and stores it on a strap hooked to the wall in the open area under the house.
I follow him, but as soon as I take a step, I feel another pain. This one stronger than the others.
Stubborn. I knew it.
I press my hands over my belly and suck in a deep breath until the pain passes.
“Moving a lot?” King asks, pulling away and rubbing his hand over my stomach.
I nod and blink back my unshed tears. “We’re fine. Just a little pain. It was the same way with Nicole Grace. Remember? There’s no more room in there, so all of those pesky vital organs are getting in the way, not to mention my spine.”
King holds me up even though the pain has passed, and I fold myself into his body, seeking support of a different kind. “That doctor is a fucking pussy,” he mutters.
I smile against his chest. “Why?”
“Because, he’s a fucking coward.”
Now, I have to laugh. “He’s a coward? Why, because he’s out of town on his scheduled vacation three weeks before the baby is due?”
“That’s part of it.”
“And because he won’t cater to your demand for him to find a flight that doesn’t exist because the airport is shut down and fly back into ground zero of a hurricane zone where there’s no power and the roads aren’t passable so he can deliver our baby if and when we need him?”
“You sum it up better than I can.”
“You’re impossible.”
“That might be true, but I’m still going to break every bone in that bastard’s neck the next time I see him.”
I pull back to swat at his chest. King catches my wrist and holds it against his chest. His eyes search mine, and I look away, uncomfortable under his determined gaze. Worried that he’ll see everything I’m feeling inside because if he’s sees it, then it will be real, and it’s the last thing either of us need right now.
“Look at me, Pup.”
I lift my chin, and reluctantly, my eyes meet his. “I’m here for you. You know that, right?” he asks into my hair. “You know that I’ve got you?” His words are about more than just the baby. There’s a pain in his voice that packs a punch much stronger than the pains in my body.
I know he’s here for me. That he’s got me. I’ve always known that. I hate that he could think for one second that I doubt that. That I doubt him. It’s others that I doubt. It’s the storm that I doubt. It’s my feelings that I doubt. It’s every fucking thing else. But not King. Never King. “I know. And I’m behind you. All the way. Always.”
King shakes his head and lifts my chin so my eyes meet his. “No, Pup, your place isn’t behind me. It is, and has always been, beside me.”
His words are a much-needed balm on my soul, and I can’t help the feeling of both happiness and sadness that takes over. I don’t know whether to kiss him or cry. It’s like knocking over several colors of paint that pool together and end up in a brown mess. I can’t discern one emotion from the other.
And I’m the fucking mess.
“Come with me.” King takes my hand and leads me to the porch. For a while, we sit in silence with King rubbing my belly in a lazy circle.
“I love you,” I tell him, placing my hand over his, feeling the words deep in my chest as they leave my lips. There is so much more in my words. So much I’m not saying, but I hope he feels the things I can’t seem to be able to say.
“I love you.” The sincerity in his eyes tells me he feels it.
I blink back my tears.
“Pup, you can talk to me. You know that. I know I ask this a lot, but are you okay? Because if you’re not, it’s fine and we can work through it. Together.”
Are you okay? It’s a question I’ve come to both loathe and love. A constant reminder that there is something wrong yet a reinforcement of how much he cares to keep asking.
There’s so much I want to tell him. So much I want to try to explain, but I can’t. I wouldn’t even know where to start. But I’m done telling him that I’m fine or just tired. I can’t lie to him anymore. It hurts too much, and he deserves more than lies, even if I’m not ready to explain the truth. I shake my head. “No, I’m not fine.”
He raises his eyebrows, clearly, he was expecting one of those two aforementioned answers. “You can tell me anything. Talk to me about anything. I can take care of the shit with Trish and the shit with Nine’s truck, but it’s killing me that you won’t even tell me what the
problem is or that you say you’re just tired when I know there’s more.”
How do I even begin to explain that in an attempt to not sink into the abyss growing in my brain I’ve been isolating myself. From my kids. From King. From life. Not physically, but emotionally. I’ve trapped myself in a panic room of my own making, terrified that if I open the door, my worst nightmares will be waiting for me on the other side. That over these past few months, I’ve frayed the chord that connects me with the ones I love. It’s kept the worry at bay, but it’s caused a different kind of pain that hasn’t allowed me any rest or feel any true happiness.
“I think I need help. Actually, I know I do. Professional help,” I admit, looking down at my hands. I’m surprised at the feeling of relief that comes with some of the weight being lifted from my body. It’s a real physical feeling. Immediately, my shoulders straighten. The tightness in my chest is still there, but not nearly as constricting. I take a deep breath. My first in what seems like forever.
“Done,” he says, pausing while waiting patiently for me to continue even though I know it’s killing him because King doesn’t do patience.
I sniffle and almost laugh at the absurdity of not being able to blurt out my problems to the man I love and person I trust most in this world. “I want to tell you more, and I will. I promise I’ll tell you everything.” I look up at the changing sky. “But if it’s okay with you, I’d like to take this one storm at a time.”
Chapter 7
Ray
“How are they doing in there?” King asks as I waddle from the hallway. He looks a lot less worried than before, and I’m relieved I could ease some of the tension with my confession and flatten the lines that have been an almost permanent fixture on his forehead.
“Nap time is in full swing. Preppy’s reading NG a bedtime story. Or should I say a nap time story.” I smile but it quickly turns to a cringe as another pain causes me to stop and hold onto the wall for support. This time, I’m panicking because again, it’s stronger than the last one.
King of the Causeway, a King Series Novella Page 4
