by A. J. Downey
I looked up at him and told him the truth, “I don’t know how any of this is supposed to work. I don’t want to screw up again.”
“Me either,” he said, “but it’s gonna happen. We’re human, baby, and this is part of it.”
I held to him tightly and muttered the first thing that came to mind, “Well then, I don’t want to be a human anymore. I want to be a horse.”
He laughed for real then, a deep rolling laugh that made me smile. It smoothed some of the jagged edges just to hear it but I was far from healed. I was afraid I’d done too much damage for that, and the world in which I lived, the kind of damage that was inflicted by feeling like you slighted someone at a golf game would follow you for years. Keeping you looking over your shoulder waiting for the consequences to appear. What I’d done was unforgivable where I came from, that he was just willing to forgive me, just like that? It was unheard of and usually came with strings attached at some point. I was afraid, and so I told him so, stumbling over my words, trying to make him see.
He leaned back and smoothed some of my tangled hair out of my face, his gaze drifting to the corner of my mouth and hardening for a moment.
“That may be how your rich world works, but that ain’t my world, baby.”
“I don’t feel like I belong anywhere,” I whispered and he tightened his hold on me, giving me a reassuring squeeze.
“Sure you do, you belong with me.”
I looked up at him and he was ready for it, his lips gently finding mine before I could say anything. The kiss so light and so careful, it took my breath away.
Chapter 23
Rush
“Hey, you guys okay?” my twin’s voice startled us and I looked over.
“Yeah. Yeah, man, I think we are. Babe, I’d like you to meet my twin, Nox.”
“Oh!” Bailey sounded startled but she smiled and it transformed her whole face, despite her damp lashes. “Hi, I’m Bailey,” she said and held out her hand. Nox gave it a shake and smiled back.
“You two look like shit; no offense. Seriously, you should get a nap. Dragon’s orders, actually. He wants everyone rested for your big family meeting.” Nox made a face and Bailey laughed a bit nervously.
“Um…”
“Shit, man. I gotta finish this door and –”
“Later; Reave and Trig already headed out to Bailey’s farm, Data too. You guys go in, get some sleep, fuck, do whatever you’re gonna do, but no one wants to see your asses until some kind of rest happens.” When we didn’t move right away Nox rolled his eyes and said, “Seriously, bro. Your girl looks like hell. Get some sleep, honey. You need it.”
“Close up the shop for me?” I asked and Nox nodded. “Thanks, bro.”
I held Bailey close and guided her to the outbuilding that housed my room asking her, “Ready to see how the other half lives?”
She smiled a bit wanly, and said to me, “I’m ready to see how my other half lives.”
Chills. Motherfucking chills. I tightened my arm around her shoulder and leaned over kissing the side of her head. I wanted her in my bed, between my sheets, her body twined around mine. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to hold her, and I wanted to move inside her slowly and savor that shit. I knew when I’d left her place last night that it wasn’t the end; that I would see her again, but I didn’t know what form or shape that meeting would take. I hadn’t expected tears. I hadn’t expected she would come to me or so soon.
It was everything I ever wanted, a strong, beautiful, funny, and committed woman who wanted me, flaws and all. That was intense. The fact that I was definitely in love with her back was just mind blowing. I seriously never thought in a million years it would happen to me but here we were…
I opened the door to the outbuilding for her, the outside walls made from cinderblock like the main clubhouse, the roof sheeted with tin. It was long and held doors down both sides. A lot fewer than what’d been here before, which had been cells for the old juvie facility. We’d completely gutted the place when we’d first got here and built it out the way we wanted it. First thing we’d done was put a roof on the building, then completely knocked out the interior walls and re-studded, partitioning out the new rooms.
I was telling Bailey about it as I led her to my room. “We tore out all of the existing plumbing and electrical, put a bathroom at either end of the hall.” I opened up the bathroom door at this end and told her, “The other bathroom is on the opposite end opposite side of the hall from this one.”
“Reminds me a little bit of a locker room’s kind of vibe.”
“Yeah, we went for efficiency over style, that’s for sure.” Each bathroom in the outbuilding had three showerheads in a very gym-like setup with drains set into the tile floor. On the other side of them, there were three bathroom stalls and against the back wall as you walked in, two urinals. To the right, just through the door, was a pair of sinks with a mirror over it. I grinned wryly and said, “Have to admit, I like your bathroom better.”
“It’s nice in here for what it was meant to be,” she hugged me tight around the waist and I smiled pulling the door shut.
“Come on, my room’s up here.” I opened up the door for her and let her go through and she just stopped about half a step inside. It made me smile knowing what it was that stopped her. I had a king sized bed taking up the majority of the room, but what stopped her was the rustic head and footboard. I’d used a light, honey colored mesquite to do it and it’d turned out pretty fantastic. The headboard carved in a desert scene of saguaro cactus over a rock landscape, surrounded by a different, but prettier cactus flower than the saguaro produced.
The flowers I’d modeled? The ones I’d carved into the headboard and footboard of this piece, had come from a much smaller and much spinier cactus I’d found growing in a pot outside Mel’s old place. They’d had wide centers and the layered petals, white towards the center and a light, dusky pink toward the outer, delicately curved to a point petals had captured my attention like no other. I just knew I had to do something with them and so I’d created this piece. Probably one of the most labor intensive I’d ever done. Hundreds of hours had gone into this bed, and I didn’t regret any minute of it.
Bailey went to it, her gait slow, and touched the footboard, running fingertips along the top of the satiny wood, her eyes wandering the landscape in front of her.
“It’s so beautiful,” she murmured.
“Eh, it was the only way to bring home with me… I miss AZ sometimes. It’s a different kind of beautiful out there.”
“I can see that,” she murmured.
I pulled back the corner of the native blankets piled on the bed revealing the black sheets under them and said, “Sit.”
She did and I knelt in front of her, cupping one heel of her boot with my hand and the other behind her knee to steady her lower leg. I pulled off her boots and set about getting her naked. I was serious about everything I’d listed earlier and it all started with getting us both naked.
“There’s something about taking a woman to your bed when you’re a man,” I murmured.
“Yeah?” she asked, a little breathy as I carefully pulled off her clothing a piece at a time.
“Since I built it, I’ve never had a woman in this bed,” I confessed. “Fucked plenty, sure, but never in this bed. We’ve got general purpose rooms around this place for that.”
She smiled a bit wryly and said, “How romantic.”
“I’m not trying to be romantic, baby. I’m trying to make you understand something.”
She fell silent and tipped her head gently, searching my face. Finally she said, “I’m listening.”
“You’re the first woman I have brought to this bed, and I never intended on bringing any woman to it that I didn’t feel like she would be the last.”
“Oh.”
“Stand up,” I ordered and she did. I hooked my fingers in the waistband of her jeans and she gave that little shimmy of her hips to help me ease them and her panties dow
n in one go. It drove me crazy, absolutely wild, to see it.
I stood up and pulled my shirt over my head in a single easy movement. Bailey put her hands to my waist, head bowed; the fingertips of her one hand gently grazing the one percent diamond I had tattooed on my ribs.
“What you thinking?”
“Is it always like this?” she circled the dark ink under my skin with a fingertip.
“Only when people fuck with what’s ours. Our family, our lives… We won’t stand for this shit.” I tipped her face up to mine and gently touched the stain under her skin where the bastard had hit her.
She closed her eyes and nodded, and I tucked her into my bed while I finished stripping out of my clothes, letting them lay where they fell. I didn’t care about being neat right now, I cared about holding her close, about getting some sleep, and yeah, I’d be lying by omission if I didn’t say I was thinkin’ about getting in that pussy.
First, though, we needed some sleep, the both of us. I had her turn on her side, back to my front, the little spoon to my big, and pulled her into the curve of my body. Kissing the back of her shoulder, I let the peace of having her near, our emotional wounds on the mend, lull me into a restful sleep.
I think she was out before I was.
The next thing we knew, the door to my room was swinging open. We’d shifted in our sleep, Bailey might have gotten up at least once to pee or something, because while she’d started out with me between her and the door, she was tucked into the front of my body on that side, now. My shirt a puddle by the bed that said she’d worn and discarded it. I liked that.
“What the fuck, over?” I demanded, scowling at Dray while Bailey hid her face in my chest. The blankets had slipped while we’d slept and her back was bared to the cooler air of the room. I didn’t move, adjusting her coverage meant I’d probably expose more of her rather than just the relatively safe zone that was already showing.
“See, I told you she was fine,” he said and Bailey’s mom stepped half way into the room Bailey twisted around and looked over her shoulder.
“What the hell, Dray!?” she demanded and hid closer to the front of my body. I scowled at my club brother and let him know with my look alone that there would be some kind of reckoning for this down the line.
His smirk told me that his aunt had been a special kind of pain in his ass and that whatever was comin’ was gonna be worth it just to take her down a peg or two. To her credit, Bailey’s mom didn’t flip out. If anything she went total ice queen and said quietly in a voice and tone that was completely crisp and even.
“Get dressed, I’ll be waiting with your uncle, Jose. We have things to discuss.” And with that, she turned and strode from the room and back down the hall outside, the heels on her fashionable and likely expensive pumps muffled by the office style carpet out there.
“You’re a real dick, you know that?” I shot at my VP.
“Can’t be sorry, was totally worth it,” he said. Bailey turned and glared at him.
“Worth it for you and your point zero two seconds of revenge, nice to know you totally give a fuck about how it’s going to affect me. Thanks, so much, Dray.”
His expression darkened and he went out, shutting the door behind him. Bailey let out a breath and bowed her head. I palmed the back of her head and drew her forehead to my lips.
“It’ll be alright,” I told her.
“Easy for you to say, you don’t know my mother,” she groused and pushed away so she could get up and get dressed.
“Glad I’m not the only one gettin’ tired of mitigating family drama and emotional damage.”
“I swear to Christ I’m getting ready to inflict some,” she muttered darkly and I gave her a crooked grin as I pulled on my jeans.
“That’s what I like to hear, now you’re gettin’ it.”
She gave me a slight smile that screamed she was callin’ me a smart ass and I couldn’t disagree with her. I pulled my cut off the hook behind the door and put it on. Bailey took my hand and I grabbed the knob, giving it a twist and dragging the door open. Whatever shit show was about to go down, I needed her to know I was with her.
We went to the barroom where we held church and found Dragon, Dray, and Trudy sitting around a couple of tables that’d been pulled together. Trudy had her legs primly crossed at the knee, her arms crossed over her chest and was sitting there in an isolating cold silence. Dray was leaned back casually in his seat, a slight smile on his face while Dragon? Dragon just looked tired.
Trudy’s dark, gleaming eyes went to rake angrily over her daughter but the second they fixed on the bruise staining her face, they hardened and I could tell her anger had redirected. I didn’t know what to make of Bailey who was half a step behind me but still clung to my hand. It was as if she were back to being a small child or something, waiting for the wrath of her mother to come down. I suddenly had images of Joan Crawford screaming ’no more wire hangers ever!’ in my head. It’d been a favorite movie of Norma-rae’s. She watched it every time it came on the damn TV and I swear to fuck, I hated that goddamn film. Especially after the first time she picked up a wire coat hanger against me.
Trudy’s eyes trailed from her daughter’s face to mine and she asked so calmly it was scary, “Did you kill the man who did this to my daughter?”
“No, ma’am. Not for a lack of trying. Bailey just wouldn’t let me. Your daughter’s a good woman.”
“Did you at least break his hands?” she asked and Bailey’s mouth fell open.
“Mother!” she cried and Trudy lifted her hand, palm out to stop her daughter’s objections.
“No ma’am, I broke his face. Bailey didn’t let me get to his hands.”
“No worries, Trudy. I broke his hands for you,” Dragon said and Trudy turned to look at him.
“Thank you, José.”
“No problem.”
I pulled out a chair for Bailey and she dropped into it saying, “It’s like I’m in some kind of alternate dimension!”
“Think they call it the Twilight Zone, baby.”
“Think for our generation it’s an episode of Black Mirror,” Dray said.
I shrugged and told him, “Haven’t seen that one, dude.”
“It’s on Netflix, you should check it out.”
“Enough,” Trudy snapped and looked disgusted. Bailey’s hands were over her mouth, her elbows propped on the edge of the table, I dropped into an empty seat near hers and put a hand on her knee under the table, propping my elbows on my own.
“Great, so now what?” Bailey asked.
“Now, you listen to your mother,” Dragon said, clearing his throat. He leaned back in his seat and Trudy leaned forward.
Bailey looked like a deer caught in the headlights.
Chapter 24
Bailey
Not how I wanted my mother to find out about Rush. I didn’t know how I wanted her to find out, but this certainly wasn’t it. I sat with my hands over my mouth half because I couldn’t believe what was coming out of hers and half to keep from screeching at Dray. I was so pissed. I was well aware my mother could be an unyielding pain in the ass but that was no reason to sell mine down the river.
The fact that she was asking the men around the table if they’d killed a man and was genuinely disappointed when the answer was ‘no’ just left me reeling. The only thing steadying me at that point was Rush’s hand massaging my knee under the table.
I stared at her and said nothing, ever the obedient child, I’d never gone against her wishes, not once. Though she’d never specifically said who I could and could not be with, I knew damn well her views on Uncle José. Miscreants, dirty, thieves, murderers, rabble, a bad element, all words she’d used to describe them at one time or another. She missed a few descriptors from what I could see though, passionate, committed, honest and honorable were on my list, though I understood that while they were all of the things I listed, it wasn’t necessarily by regular societies’ standards. Of course, my family was regular
society, and look how we turned out…
“I’ve made several mistakes in my life,” my mother said quietly. “I never imagined your brother would be chief among them.”
“Mom!” I cried, horrified. She put up a hand, and shook her head.
“I don’t want to hear it, Bailey. What he is doing to you and the people who work for not just you but him… I can’t…” she pursed her lips.
“Yer brother put his buddy up to what happened last night, didn’t even have t’ break his hands to get it out of him.” Uncle Dragon looked sad to have to say it but not one bit surprised.
“There’s spoiled, and then there is what your brother has turned out to be.” My mother’s eyes welled up and she looked at the ceiling trying to get it together which just made me want to cry. It was a worldwide main event when my mother cried, the kind of thing to rock you to your core if you knew her at all. She’d always been the strong one, a real iron lady, so to see her careful façade crumbling really distressed me in a way I couldn’t even begin to convey.
“Mamma, don’t cry,” I said and she looked at me so full of sorrow and disappointment my heart seized in my chest automatically, even though I knew the look wasn’t meant for me.
“I am so proud of you, Bailey.”
Her words caught me off guard and I said, “I don’t understand.”
“For turning out the way you did. For turning out better than your brother despite what a failure I am, and that your father was, as a parent.”
“Mom!” I cried. So not how I wanted their approval… so not. Damnit!
“No, Bailey. No arguments. My own son sent a man to my daughter’s home with a key with express instructions to hurt her badly enough; to scare her into submitting to his will… and for what? Money. We have money! We have enough money for your brother, you, and me to live comfortably and never work a day in our lives! If that isn’t a monumental failing at parenting my child, I don’t know what is.”
It sounded like something Philip would do, as much as you never want to think of any kind of family that way, and he wasn’t wrong. Girls like me were raised to think if it happened to you, it was your fault. Leave it to Philip to go there, if Ken had succeeded, my brother would have swept right in while I was shattered and shaking with the paperwork to sign. Probably with some song and dance about how if I’d only signed in the first place, it never would have happened to me; that my own stubborn willfulness had been the cause.
