by Tara Wyatt
“Benjamin Thomas Abbot! Did you hit your brother?” His sister Lacey’s voice came from several feet away, stern and annoyed. Colt hoisted the kid up and hung him upside down by his ankles. Ben squealed with laugher and tried to wriggle free.
“Are you being good? Or are you a troublemaker?”
“Mom says I’m a troublemaker like you,” he said, smiling upside down and revealing a missing front tooth.
“You know what they do to troublemakers like us?” Colt asked, struggling to keep his expression serious. Ben shook his head, his light brown hair fanning out around him. “Tickle torture!” He laid Ben down on the ground and went to town, eliciting shrieks and giggles from him.
“I’ll be good! I promise!” he gasped out between fits of giggles.
“Dude, you caved so fast. You’re such a baby.” Ben’s eight-year-old brother, Nick, stood over them, his arms crossed.
“No one can withstand my tickle torture.” Colt wiggled his eyebrows and let Ben up before he peed his pants.
Lacey crouched down in front of Ben. “No hitting. You know the rules. If you’re upset, use your words. Next time, you’re in time-out. Got it?”
Ben nodded. Nick smirked.
“And you.” She wheeled on Nick. “Enough with the tattling. Now please, go play without killing each other.” She waved them away and they took off for the play set on the other side of the backyard. By the time they got there, Nick had Ben in a headlock. Almost immediately, they were wrestling.
Lacey let out a long breath. “Boys. Only so much you can do, right?”
Colt smiled and gave her a peck on the cheek. “Pretty much. But they’re good kids, Lace.” She nodded and headed back into the house, a kitchen towel slung over her shoulder.
And they were good kids, most of the time. He loved his nephews. Loved roughhousing with them, tossing a ball around, playing Legos, watching Star Wars and The Avengers with them, over and over again. He rubbed a hand over his chest, and reminded himself to be happy with what he had. To stop wasting time and energy pining over something that could never happen.
Immediately, he thought of Taylor.
She’d spent several hours at her studio yesterday, ignoring him while she worked on a new song. While she’d been working, her manager, Jeremy, had reappeared, and he and Colt had had a serious conversation about making sure Taylor behaved. No more trouble. Her focus needed to be on writing new music.
At the end of the day yesterday, she’d tossed a casual “See ya, Priestley” over her shoulder and made for the door. Roman had come to pick her up and escort her home, where Colt would be joining them later. For the next few weeks, Colt and Roman would trade off on Taylor duty, never leaving her unattended. Thinking about it, he understood why she felt like a prisoner. Why she’d been so angry yesterday. He’d seen it—in her eyes, in the stiff set of her shoulders, in the jerkiness of her movements—but he hadn’t fully got it until he’d transferred her over to Roman’s care. They’d each set up in one of the guest rooms, trying to give Taylor as much space and privacy as possible while still making sure she was safe. Although considering she was her own biggest threat, the fact that her label had hired two professional bodyguards to babysit her was pretty damn insulting. But he was happy to be under the same roof, less than a hundred feet away.
Roman was with her now, giving Colt the afternoon off so he could go to Lacey’s for a barbecue and some time with his nephews. Reaching into his back pocket, Colt fished his phone out, knowing that Roman would call if anything came up. A couple of texts, but no missed calls. He opened the texts and frowned. Both were from unknown numbers.
What’s your favorite animal for playing?
He swiped to the second message.
Do you have more than one costume?
Weird. Wrong numbers, maybe. At least there was nothing work related. He was free to enjoy his afternoon.
“Hey, Colt. How are you?” His brother-in-law, Paul, wandered over from his position in front of the barbecue, a can of soda in each hand. He extended one toward Colt, who accepted it with a smile and cracked it open.
“I’m good. You?”
“Yeah. Good. Lacey tells me you’re working for Taylor Ross?” He arched an eyebrow and leaned in. “That true?”
Colt took a long swallow of his Coke. “Yep.”
Paul whistled. “Man. She’s on my list.”
“Your list?”
“You know, the freebie five? Five celebrities that, if given the opportunity, I can sleep with and get a pass.”
Colt almost snorted soda through his nose. “I see.” Not one to kiss and tell, Colt let the comment slide, and his phone buzzed again from his back pocket.
You make my tail wag back and forth really fast, cutie. What’s your favorite animal?
“The hell?” Colt muttered. Another unknown number.
“Something wrong?” asked Paul, trying to peer at Colt’s screen. Colt knew Paul liked to live vicariously through him—being a bodyguard to celebrities and other high-profile clients was a lot more exciting than being an accountant for a chain of sushi restaurants—and he was usually happy to humor him with what details he could without violating a client’s confidentiality. He knew Paul wasn’t trying to be nosy. In fact, he really liked Paul. He was the only one of Lacey’s boyfriends he hadn’t wanted to punch in the face. Hell, he had punched a couple. But they’d deserved it. No one hurt Lace and didn’t answer to him for it.
“Nah.” He tucked his phone back in his pocket just as it buzzed. Again. This time the text message was accompanied by a picture of a person wearing a head-to-toe fox costume, like the kind you’d see an entertainer wearing at Disneyland.
This foxy lady wants to play! What do you say, sexy?
“The fuck?” He muttered again.
“Watch your mouth,” chimed in Lacey, who’d just reappeared from the kitchen carrying a tray laden with watermelon slices, potato chips, sliced-up veggies, and a bowl of dip.
“Sorry,” he said, taking the tray from Lacey’s hands and setting it down on the nearby table.
“Can I talk to you?” she asked, and turned back toward the house without waiting for his answer. It was sweet, the way she pretended he had a choice. He followed her, and as he stepped inside the small but warm and welcoming Spanish-style bungalow, his phone buzzed again. He quickly checked it again to make sure it wasn’t Taylor or Roman. It wasn’t. With a grunt, he shoved it back in his pocket. But it buzzed. Again. And again. More texts came in, some featuring pictures of people dressed up as various animals.
A woman dressed as a life-sized bunny: Like what you see, your highness?
A man dressed as a bull: You make me horny.
His jaw tightened as he changed his phone from vibrate mode to ring, and assigned both Taylor’s and Roman’s numbers a unique ringtone, ignoring the rest for now. He needed either of them to be able to get in touch, but everyone else could fuck off. He tossed his phone, screen down, on the table, and sat down across from Lacey. A pair of green eyes that he knew were identical to his own stared at him, tension etched across her brow. She tucked a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear.
“She really wants to see you, you know.”
He knew exactly the “she” Lacey was talking about. Their mother, who’d blamed him for her first husband—and Colt and Lacey’s father—leaving. Who’d been nasty, and cold, and a shitty excuse for a mother. Who’d dragged him and Lace from one bad relationship to another. He’d spent most of his life looking after Lacey, keeping her safe and making sure everything turned out okay for her. Making sure that if anything bad was coming their way—and with their childhood, there’d always been something bad coming—he would be the one standing in front of her, ready to take the brunt of it. As far as their mother was concerned, anything that ever went wrong was somehow his fault, given his propensity for driving away her scuzzy boyfriends, and after he’d beat the snot out of that creep for touching Lacey, his mother had given him the boot.
He’d come home from his job at the Shell gas station up the road to find his stuff in a beat-up box on the porch. Lacey had sat on the stoop, her eyes red from crying. He’d never forget the feeling of disgust that had nearly choked him because all he’d ever wanted was to shelter her from as much shittiness as possible, and he’d failed. He’d spent his entire life protecting her, and ultimately, it had blown up in his face because their mother had repeatedly chosen her latest boyfriend over her own children.
This was the woman Lacey wanted to build a relationship with.
Colt sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah, well. I don’t want to see her, and frankly, I’m surprised you do. You don’t remember what she put us through?”
“Of course I remember,” she said softly, looking down at her lap. “But she’s still our mother. And she’s better, Colt. Better than I’ve ever seen her. She’s sober, and she’s got a job. A nice apartment. No man in her life. She’s really trying.”
“I can’t, Lace. I can’t open that door.”
“Why not?” She leaned forward, challenging him.
“Because I’m trying, too, and I’m finally in a good place with everything. Seeing her, talking to her, whatever…it’ll just undo it all.” He watched the storm clouds gather in his sister’s eyes.
“Bullshit. You’re not in a good place, Colt.” She reached out a hand and laid it on his forearm, her hand pale against the black feathers marking his skin. “I worry about you.”
He laid his hand over hers and gave it a squeeze. “Don’t. I’m good.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “You are not. You’re lonely, and I’d bet you still have nightmares.”
Lacey had always had a knack for making him feel as if she could see right through him. She was right; he did still have nightmares.
Except for the night with Taylor. He’d slept more peacefully that night than he had in years, and he knew it wasn’t just because of the fantastic sex. There’d been something about her, the peace that had settled over him with her in his arms. Something he needed to chase. Something he couldn’t just let go.
“I’m fine. I’m not lonely, or unhappy, so please don’t worry about me, okay?” He rolled his tight shoulders as he lied to his sister. He stood and paced to the window, his chest tightening as he watched Ben and Nick play pirates on the play set. She came and stood beside him, leaning her head against his shoulder. They stood in silence for a moment, watching the boys play, and then watching Paul chase them around the yard, each holding a foam sword.
“You said that you’re not lonely or unhappy, but you didn’t deny that you still have nightmares.” She looked up at him.
He didn’t say anything, just kept his gaze straight ahead, watching his nephews play.
She waited several moments before saying quietly, “You could tell me about what happened over there. It might help.”
He pressed his lips into a firm line and a wave of nausea rolled through him.
“Nothing to tell, Lace.” Even to him, his voice sounded strained, rough. He hated lying to her.
She wrapped her arms around his waist and gave him a sideways hug. “People don’t have nightmares about nothing.”
No. They didn’t.
* * *
Fuck. He was so fucking fucked. Frank Ross curled his hand into a fist and slammed it down onto the table, making its contents jump.
He hadn’t been surprised when Taylor had told him to go fuck himself. But the bitch had changed her number, and now his only connection to her was gone. He listened as the prerecorded message played over again in a robotic female voice.
“Welcome to Verizon Wireless. The number you dialed has been changed, disconnected, or is no longer in service. If you feel you have reached this recording in error, please check the number and try your call again.”
With a forceful jab of his thumb on the screen, he ended the call, then threw his phone onto the table and jammed his hands onto his hips as his pulse hammered away wildly in his throat. He paced the small room at the back of the bar. A loud shout erupted from the front room, followed by the thud of boots scraping over the worn wood floor as a couple of bikers from the gang came to blows. Just another Thursday night.
Frank stared at the table in front of him, at the neat pile of white bricks wrapped in plastic. Eight kilos of cocaine.
There were supposed to be twelve. And at $30,000 each, that meant he was in the hole $120,000. It was money he didn’t have. And if the rest of the gang found out about this, he’d have a mutiny on his hands. If they found out he’d started dipping into the supply, they’d kill him for bringing the Golden Brotherhood heavies down on them. And that was if the Golden Brotherhood didn’t kill Frank first for stealing from them.
The Golden Brotherhood, the biggest, most powerful organized crime group in Los Angeles, had contracted the Grim Weavers to move the cocaine the Brotherhood was bringing in from Colombia. According to the books, the Brotherhood had given them twenty kilos to move a month ago. They’d dealt eight, and they should have had twelve kilos left. Frank had no reasonable way to account for the four missing kilos. It had started out so small; he’d taken a little—such a fucking small amount, really—for himself. No harm in a little skimming off the top. But he’d done more than skim, and he’d quickly developed a ten-gram-a-day habit. So he’d taken a little more of the supply, selling it for a little extra on the side, trying to make enough to make up the difference. He hadn’t. So he’d sold a whole kilo to another gang, inflating the margins.
It still hadn’t been enough, and now he needed that $120,000 so that the Brotherhood wouldn’t know he’d stolen their powder. And the only person he knew who had that kind of money had changed her number. He rubbed a hand over his chest, acid burning a path up its center, and he forced several deep breaths down his throat. He raised a hand to wipe away the sweat dotting his forehead, his hand trembling. The tremble turned into a full-blown shake as his panic poured out of him like lava from a volcano. He spun, grabbed the desk chair, and tossed it against the wall, watching numbly as one of the little wheels popped off and rolled across the floor. Slumping against the wall, he pressed a hand to his face, cursing Taylor, cursing the Brotherhood, cursing himself.
He was running out of options, and running out of time.
* * *
Taylor sat on her couch, her acoustic guitar in her lap and her notebook open beside her, the page filled with her third new song in as many days. She strummed through the up-tempo, slightly grungy E-minor-A-D chord progression again, feeling more like herself than she had in weeks, despite the sex god camped out in one of the guest rooms upstairs. God, it felt good to write, to create something that was entirely hers. Writing music always made her feel like Rumpelstiltskin, taking something coarse and unrefined and turning it into gold. There was an alchemy to it she tried not to question. She ran through the chords again, her mouth quirking up in a smile as lyrics began to take shape.
You only get one night
So give it your all
Give me all you’ve got
Until the cops are called
Make me scream, make me beg
Try to make me fall
Make me wanna miss you
Let’s shake the walls
Realization crashed into her and she threw the pen down as though it had burned her. “Holy shit,” she whispered, her hand clasping the guitar a bit tighter.
She was writing about Colt.
Well, fuck.
And not only was she writing about him, but she’d written three new songs since he’d burst into her life.
Double fuck.
She pried her white-knuckled hand from the guitar and set it aside, swallowing thickly, her mouth suddenly dry. Pushing up off the couch, she walked into the kitchen, switching on lights in the dark house as she went, grabbing her phone from where it sat charging on the counter.
Colt. She couldn’t get his name out of her brain. His name, his face, his scent
, the way he’d felt inside her…all of it was always there, simmering in her mind. And when she wasn’t thinking about him, she was with him. It was a fucking nightmare. All she wanted was to stop thinking about him, and even when she pushed him down, away, he was still there, making his presence in her subconscious known through her songs.
Which was why she had to push him away. She opened the browser on her phone and navigated to the online dating site where she’d created a profile for Colt.
It was an online dating site that catered exclusively to furries. She smiled, biting her lip as she reveled in her own joke. She’d used his real cell number for the profile, and based on the number of views the profile had received—she had paid for the premium membership, after all—he was probably getting inundated with texts.
She studied the profile she’d created for him. Yes, it was childish and bratty, but she was so goddamn angry about the situation that she needed an outlet, and if she could channel that anger into an outlet that pissed Colt off, all the better.
At the top of the profile was his title: Prince Sparklepants, heir to the unicorn kingdom. She’d used some random pictures of a man dressed up in a full-body unicorn costume, complete with purple mane and tail, and a large glittery horn. She hadn’t used his real picture, but the texts alone were probably driving him crazy. She’d nearly cracked and asked him about it when he’d come home earlier, trading off babysitting duty with Roman, but she’d restrained herself. Instead, she’d shut herself away, working on her new songs, and trying not to think about the man under her roof she was doing her best to ignore. She’d avoided him as much as possible since he’d come back around seven o’clock, and she’d stayed in her room until he’d knocked on her door at eleven and told her he was going to bed and that he’d already set the alarm. She’d thought he and Roman—the pile of muscle and hair of whom she’d already grown quite fond—would trade off, but it seemed as though Colt intended to be around as much as possible, with Roman providing relief when necessary.
