Hail No (Hail Raisers Book 1)

by Lani Lynn Vale

  Everyone was a sucker for Lucy’s blue eyes.

  Hell, I was, too.

  “Y’all ready to head back?” I asked as I gathered up our wrappers, napkins and cups and headed for the trashcan that was only a few feet away.

  When I turned around, all three were still sitting there, shaking their heads.

  “How about we run down to the gift shop…get something nice for mommy?”

  That got a bunch of head nods, so that’s what we did next.

  Thirty minutes later, we were on our way back up to the room, when a nurse flagged me down.

  I gestured for DJ to keep walking, thinking that it was something to do with Trixie.

  “Head on down there. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  DJ nodded, the big stuffed octopus in his hands as he lightly shoved Jack in the right direction.

  I watched for a few seconds before turning at the sound of the woman’s cleared voice.

  “Ma’am?”

  I turned, a smile on my face.

  “Yes?”

  Those kids made my heart happy, even when I was sad.

  “Can you meet me on the other side of the station?”

  I agreed, but held up a finger. “Let me make sure they get in the room all right.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, and I watched as Jaxon finally turned the corner to Trixie’s room, and then turned on my heel and met the woman on the other side of the nurses’ station, nearest the exit.

  When I met her at the corner, right at the opening of the nurses’ station, she started to wring her hands.

  “I’ve been asked to explain to you that you’re not allowed back inside the room while the family is there.”

  My mouth opened in surprise.

  “What?”

  She visibly winced.

  “The family has requested that no visitors be allowed back until they say.”

  “But…but she’s my twin sister.”

  The woman looked torn, but she held strong. “I’m so sorry.”

  Fucking Darren.

  Why did he hate me?

  If I was being honest, he’d always disliked me, and I could never figure out exactly why.

  I was good enough to watch his kids. I was good enough to do things for him and help around the farm when he needed it.

  “Are you okay?”

  I looked up, not realizing that I’d dropped my head, and gave one firm nod.

  “Yeah,” my voice cracked.

  “Are you sure?”

  No, I wasn’t okay. And no, I wouldn’t be okay.

  My sister was dying, and I’d never get to see her alive again because her husband was a douche bag.

  “Will you…will you call me?” I asked, my throat thick and my hands clenched tightly.

  Her eyes filled with sorrow.

  “I will. The moment that anything changes, I’ll give you a call,” she hesitated before saying what she said next. “I’m not supposed to give you any information on her, but she won’t make it through the night.”

  I closed my eyes for a few long seconds, then nodded once mutely. “Thank you.”

  My voice cracked, but I held strong.

  I made it all the way to my truck, which thankfully had started today, before I broke.

  ***

  Evander

  I watched her cry.

  I watched her cry for so long that I worried for her health.

  Just when I was about to get out of the truck, she seemed to pull herself together and left.

  I watched her go, then went on to the job I was supposed to be at over an hour ago.

  Chapter 17

  I run like the winded.

  -T-shirt

  Kennedy

  Three days later

  I was pissed.

  It’d been seventy-two hours since Trixie had passed, and I hadn’t heard word one from Darren the entire time.

  I’d had to find out from the paper—the fucking paper! —when Trixie’s funeral was. Too bad it was a day after the funeral.

  I didn’t even get to say goodbye!

  Now I was at his house, wondering why the hell I was getting calls from the school saying that the kids transfer papers were ready.

  “We’re leaving,” Darren said as he resituated the box that was tipping precariously over the top of the front seat. “Today.”

  “You’re leaving?” I gasped, so surprised to hear Darren’s words that they hit me like a physical blow.

  “It’s too hard on them to see you,” he lied. “Looking at you is like a reminder, every day, that their mother isn’t here anymore.”

  My mouth went dry.

  “Darren,” I paused. “That’s not my intention, but when I saw them at the hospital, they didn’t seem like that was bothering them. They seemed happy that I was there. What’s really going on?”

  He snorted, “Doesn’t matter what you think. What matters is what is.”

  Fucking asshole.

  “You’re moving. What about the house? What about the land?”

  He looked away.

  “I sold it.”

  My stomach sank.

  “You what?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

  He’d sold our family land? He’d sold the land that my father had given to him, thinking one day he’d give it to his kids.

  “You seriously did not do that.” I found myself biting my lip.

  He looked away again.

  “I had to have money to move away from here. Seeing you every single day is enough to make my heart hurt.” He turned to look at me. “The sight of you makes me want to vomit.”

  I looked down at my hands.

  I mean, on one hand, I could understand that by looking at me it had to be bringing up memories that were still too raw to touch on.

  On the other, though, he’d known that Trixie and I were twins. He’d known how close we were—at least how close I thought we were. He’d known that that land wasn’t just his. It was ours.

  And now it was gone.

  “Who did you sell it to?”

  “A corporation,” he said. “I’m not sure of their actual names. Listen, Kennedy.”

  I didn’t want to look at him. I was afraid that if I did, then my carefully constructed wall that was keeping my tears at bay would crumble.

  “The kids and I are leaving, and moving to Iowa, closer to my parents.” He paused. “I want you to give us a while before you come visit.”

  “How long is a while?” I finally asked, voice rough and raspy with my need to cry.

  “A year,” he paused. “Maybe two. I’ll let you know when it’s okay.”

  A year or two.

  Did he know that I saw those kids three times a week for hours a day for the last three years? Did he realize how hard it was going to be not to see them anymore? They’d think that I abandoned them!

  But there was nothing I could do, so I nodded, sick to my stomach.

  I didn’t agree, but these were his kids. I had no right to tell him how to raise them.

  “Thank you for understanding.”

  He started to close the door, but I stopped it by placing one hand on the side of the door. He could’ve slammed my hand in it if he’d wanted to, but I was betting he wouldn’t.

  “She was deathly afraid of that tractor.”

  Darren opened the door and glared at me.

  “We let our insurance lapse.” He said.

  I didn’t know what to say to that.

  “We couldn’t afford to pay it.” His face completely closed down. “This way the kids get money from the state for losing a parent. If we’d have had to pay for her medical bills, we couldn’t afford to live.”

  Then he closed the door, leaving me reeling.

  I knew what he was saying.

  They couldn’t afford to pay for the cancer treatment. This way, she died with dignity. This way, she
didn’t suffer. This way…this way I lost my sister a whole lot faster than I would’ve the other way.

  And just like that, he started the car—my old car—and drove away. It’d been mine when I was sixteen, and I’d given it to Trixie when hers had bit the dust a little over a year ago.

  Then I’d taken on a car payment for the old blue beast that I drove around now.

  Fuck my life.

  One of these days I’d wake up from the nightmare that my life had become.

  Chapter 18

  I don’t have to check the prices when I shop. I make my own money and spend it how I want to.

  -Me at the dollar store.

  Evander

  I went to her house three days after her sister had passed away. The funeral that I told myself I didn’t need to go to, yet went anyway. Though I hadn’t seen her there.

  Why she hadn’t been there was killing me.

  What would keep her from that?

  Needless to say, I needed to go check on her.

  I had to figure out what was going on.

  I didn’t know what I was expecting.

  One, I was expecting her house to be locked up tight. It wasn’t.

  Two, I was expecting her to be somewhere outside, tending to her animals. It was a routine of hers, one she was very meticulous about. She wasn’t.

  Three, I was expecting to find her raving mad and pissed off at the world. That was the furthest thing from what she actually was.

  I found her in the bathroom.

  Under water.

  With a snorkel attached to her mouth so she could breathe.

  It was surreal.

  When men say that they love their wives and girlfriends despite their quirks, I don’t think that Kennedy ever got the memo.

  Love was weird.

  I hadn’t felt it before…not like this.

  I’d loved my sister. I’d loved my dog. I’d adored my mother.

  What I hadn’t thought was that I would love Kennedy.

  But despite the weirdness and the quirky traits, I did. I loved her. I loved the way she loved her niece and nephews. I loved the way she doted on her chickens like they were actual human beings rather than animals. I loved that she always blurted out random stuff that wasn’t relevant to the conversation. I just loved her.

  But I couldn’t tell her that.

  Just like I couldn’t allow her to be more to me than what she was—a one night, one time, never going to do it again—stand.

  Kennedy didn’t know what I went through on a daily basis.

  She didn’t know the degree to which I was disliked in this small town.

  She also didn’t know that I had revenge in my soul, and the only way it was going to go away was when that corrupt asshole of a police chief got booted out of his office on his ass.

  She only saw the good in me. The things that she wanted to see.

  Because had she seen it all, she would know that she was in love with a man that had a very high likelihood of getting hurt.

  I was nothing but bad news. I wasn’t expecting my life to change anytime soon.

  My brother, who was supposed to be my friend—my own goddamned brother—didn’t even watch out for me.

  I had a way of getting rid of the people that were supposed to mean the most to me.

  But as I sat there and watched her through the water, all of my worries seemed to just…disappear.

  It sounded cliché, like I was just making excuses.

  But when it came to this woman, all of my carefully laid plans were shot to hell.

  I reached my hand down into the bathtub, wincing when the hotter than hot water hit my hand, and kept going until I reached her foot.

  Circling my hand around her ankle, I pulled her down the length of the tub until her legs were hanging over the side.

  She came willingly, and it was then that I saw her eyes on me through her mask.

  She was watching me watch her.

  “What are you doing in there?”

  She blinked, then shrugged.

  I offered her my hand, and she took it.

  The moment she was on the ledge of the tub, dripping wet, she said, “My head hurts.”

  “So you decided to submerge yourself underwater in hopes that it would stop?”

  She looked away.

  “Maybe.”

  A grin kicked up the corner of my mouth, and she turned around to glare at me.

  “What?” I questioned, my eyes sliding down her still wet body. “You have steam coming off your body.”

  She tried to cover herself up better, but her arm could only cover so much of her boobs.

  The other hand was at the apex of her thighs, covering up the thatch of hair that wasn’t covered by the way she crossed her legs.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, hoping to take my attention away from my perusal of her body.

  I ran a finger down the line of her jaw, and then up again to circle a strand of wet hair and tuck it behind her ear.

  “Doing things that I shouldn’t.”

  She bit her lip.

  “Like checking on you to make sure you’re okay.”

  Making sure that her roof was in good repair—which it was.

  She looked down.

  “Are you okay?”

  When she didn’t lift her head up, I did it for her by using one fingertip just underneath her chin.

  “Look at me.”

  When she finally lifted her chin, I saw the tears that were forming in her eyes, and once again, my belly clenched.

  It almost seemed like that was its usual state of feeling lately.

  Every time I thought about the woman, it’d clench up tight.

  “Why weren’t you at the funeral?”

  The first tear fell.

  “He told me it hadn’t been decided when it would be held.”

  Her breath hiccupped.

  “And everyone looks at me like I’m some sort of a traitor now, since I didn’t go.”

  I cupped her face with my hand and swept away the tear before it could make its track all the way down her face.

  “That has nothing to do with your sister and everything to do with you hanging out with me in public,” I told her honestly. “If you’d take time to listen to what they have to say, you’d hear.”

  She started to laugh.

  In my face.

  “I’ll give you that,” she agreed, wiping away another tear that spilled over. “But it wasn’t all of it. Mostly, they’re saying we’re good fits since we both have brother/sister problems.”

  I snorted.

  “My brother has always been standoffish when it came to me,” I told her. “He had a mom and dad who loved him. I had a mom, and a dad that loved another freakin’ kid. We all knew who my dad was, and we all knew who his choice was. To this day, there is still something between me and my brother, and it will always be there.”

  “That sounds…awful,” she admitted. “How can people be so cruel? I thought you were supposed to love your kids?

  “My dad met my mom, slept with her, while he was also ‘courting’ another woman,” I explained, stepping back and pulling her wet body with me.

  When she came, I lifted her up and placed her down on the counter, then went for the towel that was at her side.

  With slow, methodical movements, I started to dry her off, starting with her toes and finishing with her hair.

  “Apparently, the minute he won the other woman, he stopped seeing my mom. Only, he left a little something behind—that being me.”

  “I’m sorry, Evander.”

  I shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me much anymore. Hurt like a motherfucker to see them when I was a kid, though.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, then sighed. “I’m wallowing in self-pity.”

  He grinned.

  “I’m here to take you out.”

  Her hand found my chest,
and then smoothed down the length of my side until she came to my belt.

  “I’d rather you just take my mind off of my worries.”

  I leaned in and pressed my mouth to her forehead.

  “You don’t want that.”

  I was hanging on by a thread.

  If I distracted myself with how hurt and broken she was, then I could control my baser instincts.

  But when she started talking like that, I found myself unable to keep focused on what I’d come here to do—and that was to help her.

  I couldn’t help her by fucking her.

  At least, I didn’t think I could.

  Kennedy, obviously, had other ideas.

  This I found out moments later when she hooked one hand in the belt of my jeans and yanked me forward.

  The move put my cock up against the length of her now exposed sex.

  The towel that I’d spread out over her body was now shoved to the side, and the only thing covering her up was the length of wet hair that was curling around her nipples—which were now playing peek-a-boo.

  “I said, take my mind off of it,” she repeated. Slowly this time.

  Fuck!

  Out of everything, though, it was the intensity of her eyes that had me leaning backwards and unbuckling my belt.

  “This isn’t a good idea,” I told her bluntly.

  She shook her head. “Don’t you know?”

  “Know what?” I asked, pausing in my effort to loosen my belt.

  “I don’t care what everyone else thinks. I only care what you think.”

  Then she slammed her mouth down onto mine, making me temporarily forget what I was trying to do.

  When she broke the kiss, her eyes were liquid pools of need.

  “I care what everyone else thinks,” I told her. “I don’t want you hurt.”

  She reached for the hem of my damp shirt and lifted it up and off my shoulders.

  The move left the shirt inside out in her hands, and she shook it out, then started to shift so that it was underneath of her.

  “What’s that for?”

  She grinned.

  “You’ve fucked me once, Evander,” she said, shifting her hips so the shirt lay flat beneath her. “I know that you might start off all nice and slow, but you finish hard.”

  My dick hardened even further.

  “And I don’t want the skin of my ass getting countertop burns when I don’t shift with your movements.”