No Damaged Goods

by Snow, Nicole

  Two, if anyone followed her today, then I want them to see her car at my place.

  Let them know she’s mine.

  Well.

  Not mine-mine.

  But damn it, she’s with me, and I ain’t letting a single thing happen to her.

  We finish loading her stuff up pretty fast. There’s plenty of room in the back of my Jeep, enough to hold all the cases and folding things and suitcases she’d had in that Mystery Machine van of hers, and then some.

  There’s more teasing, lightness, but what I like the most is that it doesn’t feel like we have to make a thing out of it just now.

  The air’s easier between us, and she likes it, judging by how she keeps on beaming like the sun.

  I like it, too.

  It feels good to be out and about with her, the Jeep’s top down briefly to let the winter breeze wash over us. She asked me how it works, so I showed her.

  Then Peace lifts her hands up, letting out this soft whoop like she’s riding a roller coaster, her cheeks flushed with the chill and her eyes so bright.

  Yeah.

  Shit.

  This woman does things to my heart.

  It’s hard remembering she’s too young for me. Not when she makes me feel like I’m the man I was before this bastard leg injury and the scars on my heart flayed me apart.

  I sober up a little as we pull into the driveway back at my place.

  Light’s on in the upstairs window.

  And there’s angry heavy metal music thumping through the walls.

  Andrea’s home.

  And my little violet and I need to have a talk.

  I guess Peace picks up on the vibe. She goes sober as I park and cut the engine, scrubbing nervously at her cheeks.

  “Hey,” she asks softly. “Everything okay?”

  “Yep.” I flash her a smile. “Give me a sec, will you? I just need a few words with Andrea to let her know you’ll be staying. Then we’ll get everything unloaded and hauled up to your room.”

  The look on her face says she doesn’t quite believe me—like that’s all it is.

  With a gentle smile, she lets it go, squeezing my arm again with those warm, nimble fingers—I swear I feel her heat even through those silly yarn gloves—before unlocking her passenger door and slipping out.

  “I’ll get a head start,” she says. “Hopefully Andrea won’t mind having another chick trying to sort her crap out up in her space.”

  I chuckle, but I’m not really feeling it.

  It’s go time, and I have no earthly clue how Andrea will react.

  I pick up the heaviest suitcase, two birds with one stone, and heft it over my shoulder before I turn to follow her inside.

  The music is deafening, so I guess it’s a good thing we ain’t got much to say to each other as we trek upstairs. I leave Peace with her bag and the case of oils she hauled in, tucking her away in her room before heading to Andrea’s to knock on the door.

  I don’t think the girl even hears it over the racket.

  “Andrea?” I call, pounding on the door harder. “Yo, Andrea!”

  The music dies down for a second.

  Then up again.

  Damn her.

  I haven’t even done anything yet, and she’s already mad at me.

  I try the door, and...yep.

  Locked.

  I’ve got a key, sure. I mean, I respect my daughter’s autonomy and privacy and I’m not gonna barge in on her unless it’s critical, but I’m also a firefighter.

  If something happens, I’m not gonna let a locked door keep me from saving my daughter in a crisis.

  I’m just trying to figure out how much of an emergency this load of bull is.

  I sigh, closing my eyes, thunking my head against the door hard enough to make it rattle.

  “Please,” I say. “Open the hell up.”

  And the music cuts off.

  I straighten up, blinking.

  A few seconds later the door opens. Just a crack, enough for Andrea’s wary, suspicious face to peek out, just a sliver of her nose and mouth plus one eye.

  “What,” she mutters. “You cleaned out Mom’s stuff. Why?”

  Oh.

  That’s why she’s mad at me. I wasn’t thinking.

  Of course she saw the guest room when she came home.

  “Didn’t clean it out,” I say. “It’s packed up in the attic. It’s still there, baby girl. That’s your stuff now when you want it. I just needed the room. Thing is, somebody might be threatening Peace, so she’s gonna stay with us for a while.”

  “What?!” Andrea’s eyes widen.

  She actually opens the door fully, peering down the hall at the square of light spilling out of the guest room.

  “Peace is staying here?” she gasps, and that sullen edge is gone from her voice. “Really?”

  Peace leans out from the guest room with a grin and waves.

  “Really!” she says and tosses a wink at Andrea.

  My daughter lights up.

  “Cool.”

  Peace disappears again with a laugh, while I let out a sigh of relief, offering a dry smile. “I didn’t get a chance to tell you since you were out, and it was kind of sudden. It’s only temporary—”

  “It’s fine, Dad!” Andrea says, her eyes gleaming.

  I blink.

  I think my daughter’s got a case of heroine worship for the hippie girl down the hall.

  Fine. Peace ain’t a bad girl.

  Not a bad girl at all.

  Big heart, kind of flighty, but she’s got common sense where it counts and she’s smart as hell, plucky, brave.

  I can think of worse people for my daughter to admire.

  And with them having an understanding, it’ll make it a lot easier to keep the peace in this house.

  No pun intended.

  I’m not that screwy.

  Still, that’s not the only reason I need to talk to Andrea.

  “So, about where you were this morning?” I growl.

  Her eyes narrow. She leans back, her grip on the door shifts, and I know I’m about to get it slammed in my face. “I was out with friends, Dad. It’s Saturday. I don’t have homework.”

  “Not worried about your schoolwork, Violet. You’ve never let me down that way.” I sigh. “Just wondering who you were out with.”

  My fist trembles at my side.

  If she tells me she was with Clark Patten...

  I don’t fucking know.

  Maybe I’ll know it wasn’t him, the creep after Peace, even if I hate it.

  But if it’s not him, then who the hell is it?

  Andrea eyes me suspiciously. “Why do you want to know?”

  “I’m your father,” I say. “Got a right to know who my daughter’s spending her time with.”

  Wrong tack.

  I know it before it’s even out of my mouth, but it’s too late.

  Her mouth tightens, and she glowers at me. “Unless you’ve got a time machine, I don’t think you can undo who I was with this morning,” she bites off. “So, uh, why does it matter?’

  It’s not a question she wants an answer to.

  It’s not a question I get a chance to answer.

  The door shuts in my face, hard enough to slam in its frame, making the entire wall around it vibrate.

  I just stare.

  Peace leans out the guest room door again, arching a brow at me. “That went well,” she says lightly.

  “Yeah,” I grumble and sigh. “Welcome to the Silverton household.”

  * * *

  I guess not even Peace is enough to get Andrea to come down for dinner.

  It’s a quiet thing. I think Peace is feeling kinda awkward in the house with just the two of us around.

  She doesn’t even notice I made broccoli slathered in butter and garlic with dinner.

  And I’ve got too much on my mind to tease her over it.

  It’s not that things are off between us.

  Hell, there’s not really
an us to be on.

  We’re just on different planets right now. And she doesn’t look like she wants to talk.

  So after dinner’s done, I clean up and stuff everything in the dishwasher. She offers to help, but I’m a stubborn SOB.

  I got rules about houseguests, and houseguests don’t work.

  So with a faint smile and a murmur of thanks, she drifts upstairs to her room.

  I head out back to the deck with a beer.

  I know. I know I’m shutting her out. I know I shouldn’t, but fuck. I don’t know.

  Andrea’s my daughter.

  I gotta handle this myself, and not put it on anyone else. Peace doesn’t need to hear me worrying and getting all twisted up inside my own head.

  She’s got her own life, her own problems.

  I don’t need to pull her into mine.

  I stare out over the snowy night as I crack my beer, and forget to even take a sip. I’m just fixated on the silhouettes of the trees against the sky, and I can’t stop thinking about that truck Peace described. The guy.

  I can name a ton of tall, lean guys in town. I wish she’d seen his eye color, might narrow things down. But that truck sticks in my head.

  So does one perp.

  Clark’s uncle, Roger Patten, rents trucks for out of town work, sometimes.

  He does these flashy things for rock concerts and like, EDM shows. He can’t show up there in his grungy old beat-up camper with the big rust spots eaten out of the sides.

  So he’ll rent a big truck, something that looks professional. Usually slaps a removable decal with his company’s name on the side. Dolls it up like it’s a company car.

  Peel the decal off, though...

  I glug my beer down in fast, angry swallows.

  Without the sticker, Clark would have the perfect untraceable vehicle, whenever his uncle turns it back in to the rental place.

  Fuck, I hate thinking like this.

  Especially hate thinking that punk-ass kid might’ve tried to hurt Peace.

  It’s like thinking her name summons her.

  There’s a soft tread inside the kitchen a little while later, then the back door whizzes open.

  “Hey.” Her voice hits my back, warm as day.

  I hadn’t even realized I was freezing, my ungloved fingers numb and the tip of my nose frozen even with the fire pit crackling down to embers next to me. Not till that pixie’s warm presence hits, beckoning as alluringly as ever.

  “Do you ever sleep?” she teases gently. “Don’t stay up on my account. Promise I’m not waiting to ambush you.”

  I can’t help a smile.

  She just brings it out of me.

  I glance over my shoulder. She’s in her pajamas, an oversized pair of pants with sailboats all over the off-white silk, plus a little clinging tank top just barely visible under her oversized coat. Her feet are tucked away, nice and warm in a giant pair of fuzzy pink bunny slippers with trailing floppy ears.

  Nobody should be this damn cute, if I’m being honest.

  Nobody should be this knockout sexy, especially wearing that, but my eyes can’t stay off her hips.

  It’s like she’s this collection of impulses she wears with pride.

  My gut aches hot, my blood runs lava, wondering what it’d be like to just grab her and—

  Yeah.

  Pull her out of her moment, and into mine.

  “So what does this count as?” I ask quietly, half-smirking. “’Cause it feels a little like an ambush to me. I got nowhere to go, now, unless I want to run off into the snow like a Yeti.”

  She laughs. “You’re furry enough.”

  “Hey. I ain’t that damn hairy past the beard. I’ve got a pretty average to slightly above average amount of hair for any normal dude.”

  “Oh, so you’ve quantified it? Interesting.” Giggling, she steps out on the porch, letting the doors swing shut behind her, and pulls her thick coat tighter around her with a little shiver, exhaling a cloudy puff of breath. “Seriously, Blake, are you okay? I’m sorry if I brought more mess to your doorstep.” She cocks her head, studying me.

  “Not a mess. Just some welcome chaos.” I stand up, offering her my chair. It’s already warm, and I’m wearing a hell of a lot more layers and can stand the other chair. “Here. C’mon. By the fire pit. Those pants are too thin for you to be out here.”

  She settles down in the chair, tucking herself up in a comfy ball, leaning toward the fire.

  I drag the other chair closer, add some wood to the flickering circle of orange light and warmth, and sit, leaning forward and resting my elbows on my knees.

  My eyes catch on the flames, feeling like I dragged her into something, even if it’s not my fault.

  This mountain town is like an ocean.

  Seems smooth and calm on the surface, but underneath, there are dark things aplenty.

  Things with big teeth, waiting to drag you down and never let you come up for air again.

  If you ain’t careful, Heart’s Edge will drown you.

  And I’m scared I’m a weight pulling this girl under the surface and into that breathless dark, when she’d just wanted to spend a quiet winter here and then move on.

  Someone like Peace ain’t made to be held down.

  She’s the bird in that song she sang.

  Meant to fly.

  “Sorry,” I say. It’s out before I can stop it. “I regret getting you tangled up in this.”

  Peace makes a soft, quizzical sound. “I don’t get what you’re apologizing for? You didn’t do anything.”

  “I did, though. I...fuck.” I grind my teeth. “I think it’s Clark. That kid Andrea likes. And I can’t even fucking ask her about it because I’m a softie. Can’t face down my own daughter, so I’m just dragging this out and if I don’t do something, it could get even more dangerous. I wouldn’t put it past that little shit to really hurt someone, whether he means to or not.”

  Someone like Peace.

  No, dammit. I have to have that conversation with Andrea soon, like it or lump it.

  She sucks in a breath. “Clark? The tall boy we saw at the carnival grounds?”

  “Yeah,” I grunt. “His uncle’s a pyro expert. Does the holiday shows around here and big entertainment shit, too. Clark’s been training with him. He knows fire, and he knows just how to piss me off because I don’t want him around my daughter. I don’t know how it got like this. How Andrea turned into such a scary little cactus. She used to be this sweet thing, and now...girl’s a wild mess, hooking up with a reckless pyromaniac idiot.”

  “I don’t think you’re scared of her,” Peace points out gently. “I think you’re afraid of hurting her...and afraid of losing her. That’s a different thing, Blake.”

  “Doesn’t feel like it,” I admit, my voice simmering to a growl.

  I hate this shit.

  Always turning so rough and worn around this woman.

  And she just picks up all my pieces, smoothing them back together.

  I swallow hard. “Feels like I lost her already anyway, honestly. She’s so damn mad at me about everything.”

  I’m not expecting Peace to laugh.

  It’s a soft, soothing laugh, warm as the red-hot embers dancing in front of me.

  Instead of feeling mocked, I’m just enveloped in her sweetness, lifted by that sound.

  “She’s sixteen,” Peace says. “I didn’t stop being angry at my dad for dying until I was twenty. And I was sad and missing him. You’re right here, and you’re an easy target. Of course she’s mad at you. It’s your job to make her mad at you, just by being dad. Because dad lays down the rules that keep her out of trouble. Later, she’ll understand, especially when those rules mean you’re the guy she can count on to be there when things go bad, too. But if your daughter’s mad at you, then you’re doing something right, Blake.”

  “Yeah?” I smile faintly. “I spent a lot of time real angry at my ma, but she didn’t really do much right.”

  Peace doesn�
�t say anything, at first.

  I lift my head to find her watching me, her eyes glowing in the firelight, and my throat threatens to close.

  She’s so fucking beautiful it’s blinding.

  What I can’t get? What in the world draws a chick like her to some gnarled wolf as screwed up as me.

  But she reaches across the space between us, offering me her hand.

  Right over the fire pit, like it’s some kind of strange sweetheart ritual gesture.

  “Want to talk about it?” she asks, with that same openness that makes her so disarming.

  It’s almost like I can’t say no to her.

  Fuck.

  What can it hurt? I slip my hand in hers, and it’s her who folds my fingers up and squeezes real tight, even though her hands are so small, so fragile in mine.

  Doesn’t matter.

  She’s a healer. Feels like she could hold the whole world in those hands.

  I wonder if I’m losing it or is it just her superpower coming out as a massage therapist?

  “I don’t even know where to start,” I say, swallowing to wet my dry mouth. “If you just look at one little thing at a time, it wasn’t much. But when you add it all up over the years, it’s a whole frigging mess. Ma, she’d pit me and my brother, Holt, against each other. Like, she didn’t just play favorites. One of us would stop existing. Whoever was the golden child got everything, and the other would just get shit on. She wouldn’t feed us; she’d forget us at school...I had to walk home in threadbare shoes in the late spring one day when I was nine. All because she picked Holt up and drove off like she didn’t even see me.”

  Peace’s expression crumples softly.

  Almost like she sees that sad little boy I’d been.

  “Blake,” she whispers, squeezing my hand, stroking her thumb over my knuckles. “That’s not how any mother should ever treat her sons.”

  “Don’t I know it.” It’s hard to talk, but I can’t stop, either. “She always had to be messing with us. Like we were her puppets, and she just had to have her fingers tangled up in our strings, mucking around in our heads. She’d lie to us, tell one boy one thing, one of us the other. We never knew what was true, what was real, but she’d gotten us so hooked on her approval. Instead of leaning on each other like brothers, we’d keep at each other’s throats.”