by Beth Yarnall
They pulled up in front of an apartment building on the fringes of Dallas where families lived, kids played and parents probably didn’t try to choke their children to death. He escorted Mi and her mother carrying Ethan to the front door. Mi knocked. Then knocked again. Her brother answered the door after the third knock. He opened it with a scowl and the stale scent of whiskey on his breath.
They crossed the threshold, walking from suburbia to Animal House in a few short strides. Lucas had friends who had lived like this in their college days, but if he had to guess he would double down on Mi’s brother not being a student. This level of lazy came from selfishness and a general I-don’t-give-a-shit-about-anything attitude.
“Where’s Mom supposed to sleep?” Mi asked her brother out of the side of her mouth. She eyed the pile of laundry on the couch.
“Sorry, I didn’t have time to call the maid to have her spruce the place up before you came.” Jason kicked an empty chip bag on his way to the couch.
Her brother picked up the laundry and threw it on the floor. From Lucas’s angle, he couldn’t tell if it was clean or dirty. He guessed it didn’t really matter one way or the other to Jason since they were in the same shape as the clothes he wore.
Faye sat down on the couch, cradling her doll, and took up her rocking and singing again.
“Where can I put this?” Lucas asked, lifting the bassinet he carried.
Jason’s gaze flew to Mi. “Are you shitting me?”
“Jas, please,” Mi whispered. “It’s just for a few days until I can figure a couple of things out.”
“Fine. Whatever. But you owe me.” Jason turned to Lucas. “Put that in the bedroom. I don’t want anybody to see it.”
Lucas found the bedroom in even worse shape. He put the crib-thing in a corner of the room, feeling almost guilty. Jason could live how he wanted, but his mother shouldn’t have to step over her son’s empty condom wrappers to get to the bathroom.
Fuck.
He walked back into the living area and straight into a harshly whispered argument between Mi and her brother.
“—two hundred then,” Mi spat.
“Deal. But the price goes up if this goes longer than three days,” Jason replied.
“What the hell is going on here?” Lucas asked.
“Nothing,” Mi muttered, gluing her gaze on the floor.
Jason rocked back on his heels. “Just getting some things straight, man.”
“Mi, why don’t you show your mother where Ethan’s things are so she knows,” Lucas said.
She gave him a quick, hard warning look, then took her mother into the bedroom.
Lucas turned to Jason and fished his wallet out of his back pocket. He drew out a five one hundred dollar bills and shoved them at Jason. “Take her to a decent fucking hotel for as long as it takes to find her another place to stay. This will get you started. Here’s my business card if you need more. And you don’t take one dime from Mi. Got it?”
Jason bobbed his head, his eyes wide.
“You should wonder why your sister’s wearing a scarf.”
“What?”
“And keep your fucking mouth shut.” He dropped another hundred into Jason’s hand and put his wallet away.
Jason shoved the money in his front pocket. “Got it.”
They turned as Mi reentered the room. Lucas had to hand it to Jason, the kid knew how to act, slipping back into his surly brother skin in the blink of an eye.
Mi’s gaze bounced between the two men, then settled on Lucas’s chin. “Can you please get the car seat out of your truck?”
“Sure.” Lucas strolled to the truck, blindly trusting that Jason actually gave a shit about his sister.
By the time he got back with the car seat, Mi and her brother were going at it. Lucas hovered by the door just out of sight.
“Did that asshole do that to you?” Lucas heard Jason ask.
“No!”
“Then what the fuck, Mi? Who choked you?”
“Keep your voice down.” There was a long silence and then Lucas heard Mi’s voice, small and defeated. “Mom did it.”
“What?”
“Ssh, be quiet.”
Lucas picked that moment to walk back in. He took in Mi’s stiff posture and Jason’s fury flushed face. “What the hell’s going on?” He should really take up acting.
Jason pointed at Mi’s neck, directing his anger at Lucas. “Why did you bring our mom here instead of locking her up?”
In answer, Lucas turned to Mi.
Jason did the same. “Are you fucking kidding me, Mi? This has to stop. She’s sick. She needs help. What the fuck were you thinking bringing her here?”
“Keep your voice down,” Mi pleaded.
So the brother wasn’t in on the big secret. Interesting, Lucas thought.
Jason’s tone gentled. “Mi, she steals shit. She burns down houses. She takes care of a damn doll like a real baby. She fucking choked you. What else has to happen before you admit she needs help?”
Mi put a shaking hand to her forehead. “Back off, Jason.”
“Mi,” Jason urged. “She tried to kill you.”
“I know!” Mi backed away, her whole body trembling. “Just do this please. I promise you it will be okay. She’ll be okay. She’s taking a nap right now.” She looked up at her brother and what Lucas saw in her eyes nearly broke his heart.
He had to get her out of there. “We’ll leave this discussion for now. I’m taking Mi home.” He put an arm around her and herded her toward the door. “Let us know if anything… changes,” he told Jason as they left.
On the way home Lucas tried to make sense of what had happened at Jason’s apartment. The kid obviously cared about his sister. He and Lucas were on the same side as far as getting Faye help. And from the way it sounded, he’d been after Mi to do just that for some time now. So why wouldn’t Mi get her mother help? Fuck it. As soon as he was alone he’d call Malcolm and get him to dig deeper into Faye’s background and Ethan’s death. He already had Malcolm chasing down Mi’s missing friend Tracey, what was one more search?
They pulled into the parking garage of Lucas’s building and into his parking spot. He cut the engine and sat back. Mi reclined against her seat, her head turned away. From this angle, he could see the marks on her neck, just turning to bruises. A strand of hair blocked a portion of it, but not enough to buffer the punch to the gut seeing her injury delivered.
He climbed out of the truck, came around to her side, and opened the door. She looked at him then, her eyes full of need. He unbuckled her seat belt and lifted her. She wrapped her arms around his neck loosely. He carried her through the lobby and up to the apartment. The lobby guards barely paid them any attention anymore. He went straight to the bathroom and sat her down on the toilet seat, then turned the faucets on the tub. When the water heated, he plugged the drain and adjusted the temperature.
Turning back around, he found her watching him.
“Thank you,” she said.
“What for?”
She inched a shoulder up. “Everything. I know you don’t want to hear it, but I really am sorry about everything that’s happened. I bet you didn’t count on all this when you took the job as my bodyguard.”
“I didn’t count on a lot of things.” He walked over to her. “Arms up.” He pulled her shirt over her head, then knelt down and took her shoes off. “I didn’t count on you seeing more in me. I didn’t count on how incredible the sex would be. Stand up.” She did and he helped her out of her jeans and panties. “I didn’t count on you having secrets.” He paused. “That’s not true. I knew from the way you looked at those pictures in Crosby’s office when we first met that there was something you were hiding.”
Sweeping her off her feet, he carried her to the bathtub and eased her in. “I didn’t count on you surviving my family.” He stripped in a matter of seconds, then stepped into the bath with her. “Mostly I didn’t count on how hard and fast I’d fall for you.” Leani
ng against the back of the tub, he closed his eyes and let the heat of the water seep into tired muscles.
“Lucas?”
“Hmm?”
She moved, sending the water swirling around him, and shut off the tap. “I… I want you to know…”
“Will you do me a favor, Querida? No more talking for a while, okay?”
“Sure.” More water eddied around him, lapping up his chest as she went back to her seat.
He tried to empty his mind and just be, but her foot brushed his leg, then her hand. The image of her breasts bobbing in the water every time she moved played behind his eyelids, making it hard to relax semi-erect. After a while, he gave in and let his mind wander up the dark alleys of every fantasy he’d ever had about her.
He was enjoying a rather good one where Mi was on her hands and knees in front of him dressed in… nothing. Then from out of nowhere she pulled out the pink blindfold and fuzzy handcuffs from her show. Huh. She clamped a cuff to the headboard, then to his wrist. All of a sudden she had another set and did the same to his other hand. She slipped the blindfold over his eyes and then she—
“Lucas?”
He nearly groaned in frustration. “No talking remember?”
“Sorry. I was just wondering what your plans were for that massive hard on.”
He cracked an eye open.
“I still owe you sixteen orgasms. I thought since you’ve already done most of the work for me…” Her smile finished the end of the sentence.
He started to return her smile, about to take her up on her offer, but then his gaze tracked up from her nipples, hard in the warm water, to her neck, reminding him of what she’d just been through. “Not now, Querida. Maybe later.”
She edged toward him, the water rippling with her movement, until she straddled his lap. “Come on.” She wrapped her hand around his cock. “We could knock that number back to fifteen.”
He grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand off him. “Not now.”
She sat back. “Lucas…”
He saw the hurt in her eyes his rejection had caused and hated himself for putting it there. But he knew he’d hate himself more if he took what she was offering so soon after she’d been injured. Already his desire waned. He leaned forward and kissed her neck, circling the ring of bruises. She arched back and let him, her fingers laced in his hair.
He covered her neck with soft kisses, wishing for so many things: to make the marks disappear, to right the wrongs done to her, to take away her fear and pain, but most of all he wished she loved him. If she loved him she’d let him in. If she loved him she’d trust him. If she loved him he would never have to wish for anything ever again.
He folded her against his chest and held on, trying to imprint on his mind the feel of her skin against his, the slip and slide of their wet flesh. She sighed and relaxed deeper against him. Fingering the ends of her hair, he was reminded of the first night she’d spent in his house. She’d sat on the floor next to him, the cat in her lap, and he’d played with her hair just as he did now. He’d been fascinated by her, everything about her. And oh, God how he’d wanted her.
He wanted her still. That would never change. Buried deep inside her he found what he’d never expected… acceptance… a mate… a home…peace. He never wanted to be parted from her, couldn’t imagine himself without her. That’s why he’d backed off when she’d thrown down her ultimatum. He’d gone against instinct and let her have her way. He knew she’d been scared, backed into a corner. If he gave her time to think it through, he knew she’d see how not getting her mother help damaged them all. Especially herself.
He saw so much now, understood her better. Loved her more. But her threat still hung over them like a guillotine blade with her the one holding the rope. He wondered how long he could live like that, how long they could survive under it. Right now with her wrapped around him he felt like he could withstand anything.
“Lucas?”
“Hmm?”
“I’m okay, really.”
“Maybe, but I’m not. Are you hungry? It’s been hours since we grabbed those burgers.”
“Sure.” Mi climbed off him and watched him rise from the bath, the water sheeting down the hard planes of his body.
She’d tried to reach out to him, tried the method she knew best. There was a lot to make up for. Certainly more than a hand job could fix. She should tell him she loved him, but every time she’d opened her mouth something else had come out. So she’d gone back to the tried and true, the one thing between them that was easy and honest. And he’d rejected her.
She sat in the water long after he’d left the room, long after it had grown cold. Regret crept over her like a fog, obscuring all of her good intentions. She should never have gotten involved with Lucas and yet couldn’t see how she could have stopped it. They’d brushed against each other like waves lapping the shore, leaving a piece of themselves and taking a little something from each other every time they’d touched, every time they’d made love. Until they’d taken too much and left behind more than they’d intended.
And now she didn’t know where she ended and he began. He’d weathered the worst with her and was still here, battered maybe a little broken, but still here. But for how long? How long until something else happened? She’d already gone too far, had drawn a line he couldn’t cross. How long until he stopped trying to cross it and just walked away?
With a groan she rose out of the water and caught her reflection in the mirror over the vanity. She climbed out of the tub and walked dripping across the room for a better look. Oh, God. No wonder Lucas and Jason had freaked out. She leaned forward for a better look, hardly feeling the chill of the marble counter.
The awful look on her mother’s face as her hands had pressed against Mi’s neck came back full bore. Her eyes burning with hate, her teeth set hard to the task, the dots of spittle on her chin, her face compressed with the effort… that was not her mother, not the woman who had cared for and loved her. Where had that mother gone?
She eased back from the mirror.
“I ordered—” Lucas paused in the doorway, his gaze catching on hers in the mirror. “I got pizza,” he finally finished.
“Okay.”
He’d dressed in dark jeans and a black t-shirt, his feet bare. “It’s a nice night. We could eat outside.”
“I’d like that.” She watched him leave, then sagged against the counter as soon as he’d gone.
She’d put the wall between them, she knew. But she couldn’t take back the things she’d said or pretend she hadn’t meant them. He hadn’t asked any questions… yet. Soon he’d unload his questions and she’d stack them up with all of the others, building that wall higher until they wouldn’t be able to see each other over the top.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Mi fiddled with the edge of her napkin, folding and unfolding the corner. The awkwardness that had developed between her and Lucas was beginning to slide into arduous. They sat on the balcony, overlooking the Dallas skyline, the last dregs of cold pizza in front of them. They’d barely spoken except to pass this or hand over that. They were as polite as strangers, and that politeness ate away at her one please and one thank you at a time until she wanted to stand on the table and scream at the top of her lungs.
He hardly looked at her, his glances brushing over, then away. She missed his lingering looks, going from flicker to flame in an instant. Now it seemed as though looking at her was more than he could bear.
Her cell phone rang and her heart lodged in her throat. Pulling it out of her pocket, she dreaded what she’d see on the display, then let the breath she’d been holding out in a whoosh when she saw Lucy’s number glowing on the screen.
“Hello?” she answered.
“Mi,” Lucy panted. “I need you to come.”
“What’s wrong?” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lucas sit up straighter.
“I’m in labor. Oh, Mi, I can’t find Kevin anywhere. Ooohh,” she moaned, then panted.
Mi waited, worrying for her friend.
“Mi?”
“I’m here. What do you mean you can’t find him?”
“He’s not answering his cell. I called everywhere. Please come. My mom’s here and she’s driving me crazy. She won’t stop… ooohhh…”
“I’ll be right there. Parkland Hospital, right?”
“Yeeessss.”
“Hang on. I’m coming.” Mi punched the phone off and ran back into the apartment with Lucas on her heels.
“What’s going on?”
“Lucy’s in labor. I have to get to the hospital. Her husband’s not there. She needs me.”
They were out the door in less than five minutes and standing outside Lucy’s hospital room in less than twenty. Lucy’s piercing scream came through the closed door, and Lucas’s face lost all color.
“You should probably stay here,” Mi told him.
He straightened his shoulders. “I go where you go.”
“Uh-huh.” She opened the door.
Lucy was lying in the bed, her feet in the stirrups. A nurse stood between her legs, her mother stood next to her bedside wringing her hands and reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
“Mom, stop it!” Lucy barked, then let out a howl.
Lucas gave the room a quick scan and then stepped back, his face even whiter than before. “I’ll… ah… wait here.”
Lucas closed the door with Mi inside, the sound of her laughter echoing after her. Jesus. That was more than he ever wanted to see about the miracle of birth. If only he could wash his eyeballs. Leaning against the wall, he pulled out his phone, then spotted the no cell phone sign on the wall and shoved it back in his pocket.
A familiar voice caught his attention. He turned to see Cal leaning against the counter of the nurse’s station. What was he doing here? Lucas strolled over and positioned himself so he could see Lucy’s door.
“You’re the last person I expected to see here,” Lucas said to him.
