Gaining Ground

by Nikki Bolvair

  “Do you forgive me?” he asked, not getting off of me.

  I rolled my eyes. “Fine. Yes, Kayden, I forgive you.”

  He leaned down and kissed me, before getting up and searching out his brother. “It’s a miracle, brother! Our one and only forgives me!”

  “Congratulations,” Tyler said, sarcastically. “Now get your ass to work. The truck has a few more boxes.”

  I helped with some of the small things, while the guys took care of the big stuff. It wasn’t much. An air mattress with sheets that were definitely Kane’s, some small dishes, bathroom things and some food for the fridge.

  “Are you going to let Raina pick stuff out for the house, and that's why you’ve brought so little?” I asked him when we were done, and Kane had closed up the house.

  “Yep,” he answered, pocketing his keys before turning toward the guys and me. “I want her to be able to decorate it the way she wants to. I just need to keep it a secret until then.”

  “I’m riding home with them,” Tyler said as he and Kane did a manly, bro handshake, followed by handshake, then a fist bump from Kayden. Kane drew me in for a hug, and then we said goodbye.

  Tyler had his arm around me, and Kayden held my hand until he let go to get to his side of the truck.

  Tyler had me sit in the middle and things were quiet until Kayden spoke, his voice teasing. “So... you’re covered?”

  I laughed.

  “This is not a laughing matter, woman.” Tyler played along. “Coverage is very important to us. Heck, haven’t you seen some those commercials? The State Farm ones are hilarious. I wonder how much that guy gets paid to do all those dangerous stunts.”

  I snorted as Kayden laughed.

  “And we can’t forget about Flo. She seems to hold her own, but we’re more partial to another kind of coverage. The one where it involves a dance between the sheets.”

  “Kayden!” I laughed.

  “And that’s one of the names you’d be calling,” Kayden quipped.

  Tyler was chuckling as he threaded his fingers through my hair and turned my head toward him for a kiss. “That’s not the only name you’d be calling,” he stated, when he pulled away. My insides curled with desire and the memory of what we had both done. He kissed me again, his hands slid down to my hips before dragging me across the bench seat until I was straddling his lap.

  “FYI guys, Dad’s a cop, and we’re not far from home. You might want to tone it down a bit. Especially if Linc sees. You know how intense he is about her being safe.”

  Tyler let me go, and when we got home both of them pleaded for a sleepover; saying that soon they wouldn't be able to do one there since they’ll be losing Raina as an excuse.

  I agreed and gave them both lingering kisses before I headed across the street to my house.

  Chapter 14

  Sunday was much the same as the day before at the antique shop, only I didn’t have Talia asking the questions. The guys were off working or hanging out at home, working on projects. It was in the middle of my shift that Tucker showed up. He looked down, frustrated.

  He came up to the counter I was working at and just stood there waiting for me to acknowledge him.

  “Tucker,” I clipped out.

  “Rella.”

  I sighed, looking him over. That name was not going anywhere, any apparently neither was he. “What do you need, Tucker?” I was afraid I was going to need to call Brady. At least he didn’t have his biker buddies with him.

  “I just wanted to talk to you,” he said, leaning over the counter, closer to me.

  I glanced at Nancy, who I was working with today, and pressed my lips together. She was blatantly looking at us, wondering what I’d do. Nancy was older than me and looked to be in her late forties, but she was full of questions. Maybe her desire to know everything about everyone was one the reasons she was single.

  “Nancy, I’m going out front to talk to Tucker,” I told her and noticed she didn’t looked surprised. She nodded toward me, before smiling at Tucker.

  “Hi, Nancy,” he greeted her before the two of us went out front. I was going to lay into him for deceiving me. He was on my shit list.

  “Rella, I’m—”

  I turned toward him and pushed him. He frowned his dark eyes glaring at me. “What—”

  “You lied to me, Tucker. Made me believe that Roxie was a girl! A person! Why?” I growled. My fist by my side was ready to strike. I didn’t care if he was associated with a biker gang or that his Grandfather might have danced on the wrong side of the law. To me, Tucker was just Tucker, the jerk who was just begging to be my punching bag. I could handle him. But as it was, I was trying to keep my cool. He made my blood boil and not in a good way.

  His brows pressed when I said that, and he frowned. “You know why,” he said harshly. “He probably told you his side of the story, but you have yet to hear mine.”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Tucker! All you want is to hurt him. Why? Why should I trust anything that comes out of your mouth, huh, Tucker? All you’ve done so far is lie to me.”

  His eyes flashed like black coals as he backed me against the wall. I flinched away, thinking back to another time and place. That threw me off. Tucker had caged me in with his hands, but his body was still a considerable distance away from mine, for which I was grateful. But the things that were happening began to blend with memories of the past.

  “Stop,” I whispered as I saw a flash of my dad doing something similar to my mom. It had been the first time my dad had started to get aggressive. It was three days after the funeral, the night my dad actually started drinking heavily. We had been eating and Mom had her phone out, flipping through pictures, when she brought up Austin’s name. My dad had gone crazy.

  “STOP! I had cried when I saw him cage her in with his arms against the back wall of the kitchen. He’d thrown her phone across the room, the sound of it hitting resonated within my bones.

  “Don’t talk about him,” he had grounded out, so softly to her that I’d had to strain to hear him. “Your fault.”

  “Daddy, please. Leave her alone,” I had cried, standing at the table where we had just been eating. “Please, Daddy.”

  “Your fault,” he’d said louder that time, and walked out of the room, not even giving me a glance. I’d run to my mom, wrapping my arms around her and cried. “Why, Mom? Why?”

  “Some things,” she cried as she folded me into her hug, “can’t be changed. No matter how much you want them to.”

  “Listen here, Rella.” Tucker’s voice drew me back. It was a deadly kind of quiet, just like my father’s had been. It made me shiver in fear. My heart beat fast as I dropped to the cement concrete to avoid him. I shrank back into myself as my daytime nightmare left me. He was going to hurt me.

  “Rella?” His voice was now confused. I folded my arms around myself and waited, quietly repeating, “Please... please... please...”

  I felt him drop down to my level, and his hand touched my shoulder. I jerked violently away, shaking my head. “No. Don’t touch me.” I was still fighting to get out of my head and back to reality. I was here in New York. Not in My old home. Not with my dead parents.

  “Jeez, Rella, what happened to you?” he whispered.

  “Please—just move. I need space,” I breathed out, trying to get ahold of myself.

  “Okay, Okay.” he said before sitting beside me. I calmed down, but the tears were coming, and I couldn’t break down in front of him; I did that with no one.

  “I lost my grandfather when I was fourteen. Then my father and mother when I was fifteen. They died in a plane crash when they went on a trip. One of the plane's wings caught fire. My grandmother is all we have left.”

  “My mother killed my brother in a car accident,” I spoke lowly. “Then my dad killed her and tried to kill me.”

  He was silently taking in what I had told him. His fingers curled around mine for comfort, but it didn’t feel right, so I drew my hand away.


  “I won’t lie to you anymore,” he vowed, and I turned to him. His eyes were intent on mine with a promise that I wasn’t sure if I should believe. “Please listen. After that, I’ll leave you alone.”

  I looked him over and relaxed. “Okay. You have five minutes to tell me your side.”

  “Do you like working here?” he asked, stretching out his legs beside mine.

  “Tucker,” I warned, not sure where this was going.

  “Give me a minute. I promise.”

  “Yes, I do. So far, at least.”

  “Did you hear about how it came about?” he asked softly.

  “Yeah. Your sister told me.”

  Tucker nodded. “I’m only telling you this because I trust you, Faith.”

  “Hey, you know my name,” I cried, and Tucker chuckled.

  “Yeah, I do. It helps to have a brother that’s a professor.”

  “So...you trust me...” I prompted.

  “Yeah. Roxie, that car, was one of my Grandpa’s collections. It was the first one he let me keep. We worked on it until he passed, then my dad and I did until my parents died.”

  I went from angry to empathic in two seconds flat. “I was upset that Tyler was leaving the racing world. I made them. Even though we were against each other, I was the reason they made it to the top. I had a following because of them, and then they wanted to leave. I was so angry that I didn’t think. When you leave, you have to race the person who brought you in. I was sure I would win, so I bet my car, and I couldn’t take it back. That car was everything to me. To my family. And I lost it. That’s why I harass Tyler all the time. That’s why I did what I did. I want him to sell it. To give me a chance to buy it back.”

  I understood. I understood completely. I nodded my head to him and sighed. It might get me into trouble with the guys but—“I... I’ll see what I can do, but if you're lying to me, then I’m getting a restraining order against you.”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded as his eyes went hard. “That's fair, but I’m not lying, and you have no reason to fear me. You’ll be seeing a lot more of me, Faith.” And then he got up and left.

  I understood Tucker, and his desperation to gain Roxie back. It wasn’t just a car to him. It was his past. Roxie held past memories from his grandpa and father, who were both now gone. I understood his reasoning. His love for Roxie. I was almost jealous of him that he had something he could hang on to like that. Something that meant the world to him because of who had given it to him. A remembrance.

  I watched him get into a relatively new racing car that told me his was still a part of the racing world. No car would be his Roxie. I went back inside the store, drumming up a plan. I wanted Tucker to be able to buy her back. I spent a little more time reigning in my emotions, then went back to work.

  That evening, Lincoln picked me up from work and took me back to his house for dinner. When we got there, everything was dark.

  “Lincoln, are you sure we’re supposed to be eating here tonight? It looks like everyone’s gone.”

  He put the key into the door and opened it up. “I’m sure,” he said, just as all the friends I’d made here yelled, “Surprise!” and shocked me. I finally realized what Kayden had almost spilled that night at Kane’s new house.

  I put up a smile, but it was hard to do so. I hadn’t had a birthday party in a long time. My emotions were still coming down from the conversation that I’d had with Tucker earlier, and now they were back up. It was sweet of them to do, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I blew out the candles on the cake being held in front of my face. Then Sarah and Brady swooped in for hugs, followed by Raina and Kane.

  When Kane hugged me, I held onto him. I knew what was happening tonight, and if he could change the attention from me to them, I wanted that. This was all too much.

  “Do it. Do it now! Please,” I whispered to him when I wouldn’t let him go. “Please?” I wanted the attention off of me, now.

  He chuckled and patted my back before letting go. “Happy late Birthday, Daniels.”

  He turned from me and raised his arms in the air to catch everyone’s attention. “Everyone, everyone,” he called out, until all eyes were on him. I backed up until I was pressed against Lincoln’s front and his arms came around me.

  “I have an announcement,” Kane went on. I spied Raina where she was standing across the room with her mom and dad. She looked very confused. “Kane...?”

  “Raina, I have a confession to make.”

  I could see her panicking. She was thinking the worse.

  Kane, seeing this, walked over to her and drew her into his arms. He bent his head and whispered something in her ear while everyone waited to see what the big deal was.

  Raina’s eyes went from worried to relieved, then to furious as she pulled away from him and smacked his shoulder. “Kane Emerson Nova! How dare you buy my house from underneath me!”

  “Whoa. I didn’t see that coming,” I whispered to Lincoln.

  With laughter in his voice, he responded. “It was coming alright, but watch.”

  “And Raina Gina McGuire, how dare you steal my heart!” he yelled right back, and that shut her up quickly.

  “What?” she was stunned.

  I snorted. Kane just declared his love for her, and Raina was still confused.

  “I love you, and want to give you everything I have...” he trailed off.

  “Like that haunted house!” Kayden yelled and everyone chuckled.

  Kane turned around to glare at him then looked back to her and kneeled down, “Raina will you marry me?” I couldn’t see him, but when I heard Raina and everyone else gasp, I assumed he’d pulled out a ring.

  She picked something up from his hand, and as she was hugging him, I realized that it wasn’t a ring, but a key... a house key. I laughed. Kane was original alright, and Raina was happy.

  Everyone was having a great time, and I was glad to be out of the limelight. I guessed with Raina moving out, I wouldn’t get to do her laundry after all. Kane could take that over, or she could finally step it up and figure it out.

  “Hey, Linc,” Mr. McGuire called out as he came up to us, smiling. “This came for you in the mail.”

  I watched as he handed a legal sized envelope to him, and then went back to Raina and Kane.

  “What is it?” I asked him as he sat in down on a counter, but he just shook his head.

  “Nothing.”

  But it wasn’t. I could tell he wanted to open it right then, but couldn’t. I glanced at the top and realized why he was waiting. The envelope was from Arizona State, the college he had applied to. I felt a knot in my stomach. I smiled and excused myself to the restroom to try and get some control over the things I was feeling. What did it say?

  I closed the bathroom door behind me and rested my back against it, unsure of what I was doing. Was I really going to leave to go with him all the way across the country? Could I leave everyone behind? Brady, Sarah, Raina, little Bates and Sonya? Did I have another move in me?

  My phone vibrated in my pocket. I reached for it and looked at the message that I had received. I thought it was probably one of the guys trying to find out where I had gone, but it wasn’t. The message was sent to me by a number I didn’t know. I opened it up and saw an image. My heart dropped as I stared at it. A verse of the tune came back to me as I looked at the news article that had been sent.

  Lost, lost, Lost, lost. Troubles caused, my soul defined. Memories fade, they won't regain, the truth will be mine

  My past still haunted me.

  Chapter 15

  Lincoln

  I watched Daniels leave me and head toward the hall bathroom. Her hips moved in a rhythm that was so hypnotic, I couldn’t ignore it. I glanced toward Kayden and saw him looking at her as well. The gaze on his face made me chuckle, because I was sure my face had mirrored his just a few seconds ago. When Daniels was out of sight, Kayden searched the room until his gaze met mine. As he came my way, he smirked, tilting his head tow
ard the hallway she’d walked down.

  He slid up beside me, with the countertop at our backs, and leaned on his elbow. “You know you were doing the same thing,” he stated, still staring down the hallway. “It’s those damn hips...”

  I nodded, knowing exactly what he was thinking. “And the way she moves,” I added.

  “The three of us need to keep a watch out for Tucker,” Kayden went on, and I agreed. Tucker had never gone this far before. Why obsess over that car? Why did he put Roxie up for the bet when she was so hard to let go of? Maybe there were things we were all missing. “Tyler talked to dad and Officer Brady about it, but they said there wasn’t much we could do without proof.”

  My body tensed. “Shit.”

  “He hasn’t really hurt her,” Kayden went on. “If anything, she’s the one hurting him.”

  “Yeah... but she wouldn’t have had to if she hadn’t felt threatened.”

  “You have a point. I still wish I could have seen it, though.” Kayden grinned. “Having her all riled up like that. The three of us could give her an outlet for all that pent-up energy.”

  I turned quickly and punched Kayden in the arm. “Get your mind out of the gutter.” Then I settled back where I had been.

  “Hey! It’s not like you weren’t thinking the same thing.”

  I folded my arms and grunted as I looked over to Kane and Raina. Maybe Arizona wasn’t a bad idea. We could start over. Leave Tucker behind.

  “You’re quiet,” Tyler said as he leaned against the counter beside Kayden and me. “Any news on the college yet?”

  I glanced his way. “Dad just gave me the letter.”

  Kayden was now quiet, listening. I’m sure both of them wanted to know. They couldn’t make plans unless they knew mine.

  “And? Are we going?” Kayden finally asked.

  “Haven’t opened it yet.”

  “I’m with you, with whatever you decide,” Tyler spoke up, “and so is she. But just because she’s willing, Linc, doesn't mean it’s in her best interest. Look at all of the options before you decide. Either way, we’ll follow.”