He was bent over at the waist, his fists leaning against the wall as took deep, slow breaths. That dark energy swirled back to him. She didn’t know that she liked that he had that inside him. Not because she was scared of it, but because she worried what it was doing to him.
“If she’s gonna be yours, you need to learn how to control it,” Alec said, oddly. Who was he talking about? What did he mean by if she was going to be his? And what did he need to control?
Before she could say anything more, there was a knock on the door. Mia moved to open it and Alec shot her a look. She froze. He strode to the door and opened it carefully, keeping himself between Mia and whomever had knocked so she couldn’t see who was beyond.
“Alec,” a gravelly voice said. She knew that voice, even though she’d tried her best to avoid the man. Not because she didn’t think he was a good man, possibly even a kind man. She’d never heard a bad word about him, that was for sure. And that was unusual for a small-town sheriff. But when you were hiding what she was hiding, it never paid to grab the sheriff’s attention.
“Surprised to get a call from you. Think this is the first time you’ve ever invited me out here.”
“You’re not here to have a beer and shoot the shit,” West snarled.
She moved her gaze to West, her eyes widening. Didn’t he know he shouldn’t speak to a sheriff that way?
“Great. West is here.” The sheriff’s voice was dry, not angry though. More like resigned.
“He’s taken responsibility for her,” Alec explained.
Wait. Taken responsibility for her? Is he talking about me? And what the hell does that mean?
You know the rules of Haven. You know exactly what that means. Her gaze shot back to West.
“I don’t think so.” The word shot from her mouth before she could even think about them. And West turned to look at her.
“It’s already happened.”
“No, it hasn’t.” She glared at him. “No fucking way.”
West’s hands moved to his hips. His stance one of pure command. Meaning what he was going to say next, was an edict handed down from the top alpha dog.
What he didn’t seem to get what she wasn’t interested in belonging to him anymore.
“It has happened. I’m not arguing with you about it. And don’t say the word fucking.”
“You say the word fucking all the time.”
“I’m me. You’re you.”
“That . . . that doesn’t even make any sense,” she sputtered out. “What does that even mean? Is it because I’m a woman?”
“No, it’s because you’re sunshine. Sunshine doesn’t say fucking. Unless you’re actually talking about fucking. Then you can say it.”
“Well, that’s mighty big of you.” She scowled up at him.
“You’re trying to incinerate him with your eyes, aren’t you?” Mia asked her.
“I always wanted my superpower to be invisibility, or to be able to eat all the ice cream I wanted without an ice cream headache. But, right now, incineration would be an awesome power to have.”
Mia just nodded.
“So it sounds like business as usual at Lonely Horse Ranch,” Jake said dryly.
Alec backed away and let Jake into the room. There was a grin on his face, until his eyes hit her. Then his face went blank. But his eyes. Oh, shit, his eyes. They filled with a fire that was scary to see.
“What the fuck?” Jake turned to Alec. “You said we had a problem, but you said nothing about this.” He waved his hand over at Flick. She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about being called a problem.
Well, face it, you are a problem.
Or the fact that Jake was talking to Alec rather than to her.
West didn’t seem to like it either as he stepped forward and got into Jake’s face.
“She’s not a problem and don’t talk about her like she’s not in the room,” he told Jake softly.
Jake turned his gaze to West. The sheriff was quite a good-looking man. She’d met his wife, Molly. She was full of energy. A gorgeous red head with a kind smile.
Jake sent his gaze to hers. “Sorry, Flick. Somebody, tell me what happened. And I also want to know why I wasn’t called before now.”
“The reason you weren’t called before now,” Alec told him quietly, “is because we only just found out.”
Jake moved his gaze over her. “Those bruises are new?”
“No,” Alec replied. “Happened three days ago. And you didn’t know. We didn’t know. Which is why I called you. Because part of this is your fuck up as well.”
Her breath caught at the fury in Alec’s voice. Up until then he’d been calm. He’d been keeping everyone else together. But now his voice shook with anger.
“This happened on your watch, same as mine.”
“We’re all to blame,” West muttered.
She noticed Mia was leaning on Alec. She wrapped her arm around his back. He moved his over her shoulders, pulling her close.
She liked that. Like that Mia had that. Had a man who obviously worshipped the ground she walked on. She’d never have that with West. He’d made that abundantly clear. Which was why she was totally confused as to what he was doing here and why the hell he thought he had some sort of claim on her.
West moved back towards the end of the bed once more. He took up a sentry position, arms crossed over his broad chest, his gaze hooded and dark but watchful.
“Has someone called Doc?” Jake asked. His voice was softer now.
“Mia, baby, go call Doctor Harper, will you?” Alec said to her gently.
“I really don’t need the doctor,” Flick protested.
Three sets of eyes gave her disapproving looks and she gave in. “Okay, I’ll see the doctor.”
Mia looked down at her. Then she reached out and squeezed Flick’s good hand. “I’ll be back in a minute, sweetheart.”
She smiled at Mia. She hated the shadows under Mia’s eyes. That she’d put them there. “Pretty sure I’ll be right here,” she said in a cheerful voice.
Instead of smiling back at her, Mia gave her a sad look. Then she turned and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.
Jake pulled out his phone. “All right if I record this, Flick?”
“Um, yes, I guess so.” Nerves flooded her. She couldn’t tell Jake about Spencer. Could she? The only people she’d ever told had turned on her. Spencer had ensured that.
But the Malones weren’t like that. That was part of the reason she’d chosen West. He was loyal. Strong.
Jake gave her a nod, and she could tell by the look in his eyes he blamed himself for her injuries. Same as Alec, West, and Mia.
“This isn’t any of your faults,” she said quietly. “I’m an expert at hiding these things. No one has ever figured out that he beats me. There’s no reason any of you could have known.”
Jake went tense. So tense it was as though there was a magnet pulling everybody’s attention to him. “This has happened before?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
Mia opened the door and stepped in, freezing at the tension in the room.
“Kitten, come here,” Alec commanded in a low voice.
Mia moved to him and he snagged her around the nape of her neck pulling her to him and settling her into his chest.
“How often?” Jake asked. His voice was still soft. But, like West’s soft voice, she knew the angrier he grew, the quieter he became.
“Since I’ve been living here? Or in the last few years since it began?” she asked
Mia made a strangled noise in her throat. She hated she was upsetting her friend.
“Mia, maybe I could get something to eat? Something sweet? Although, it hurts to chew so something soft?”
Mia moved away from Alec. She looked over at Flick, tears in her eyes. “You sure?”
Flick tried to give her a smile. It failed, she grimaced instead.
“Stop trying to smile to make everyone else feel better,” West told her.
“It’s not her job to worry about everyone else. Her job is to rest, get better, and do as she’s told in order for me to keep her safe.”
Okay, she really didn’t like the sound of that.
“You’re not taking responsibility for me,” she told West.
“I am.”
“Are not.”
“Can we get on with this?” he asked Jake. “Felicity needs a nap.”
“I’ll go get you something to eat first,” Mia said quietly, leaving the room. But Flick barely heard her because she was too busy glaring at West.
Oh, no. He did not just say that. He did not just declare she needed a nap like she was a two-year-old having a tantrum.
“I do not need a nap.”
“You need a nap. You’re cranky. Obviously, you haven’t been sleeping well. And the pain probably makes you even crankier.”
“I am not cranky!” she yelled at him. Then she groaned. Yelling when you had sore ribs was not the best idea.
“Hate to tell you, sweetheart,” Alec told her with a smile twitching at the ends of his lips. “You do sound rather cranky.”
“I’m grouchy because West thinks he has to take responsibility for me because he feels guilty. Because he was mean to me the other day and then when I went back home, I got beaten up.”
The silence in the room was deathly. And she knew she taken that too far. Let too much out.
“I sent you home to him.” West’s voice was so quiet she could barely hear him. She didn’t need to be told that was a very, very bad sign.
“You didn’t know. It’s not your fault, West.”
His eyes blazed as he stared back at her. “Yeah, it is.”
“You didn’t hurt me. Didn’t grab my arm and twist it up my back until the shoulder popped out. You didn’t yank my fingers back until one crunched. Didn’t push me over. And you didn’t grab a cane and start hitting me with it. You didn’t do any of that, West. He did.”
More silence. She could hear everyone breathing.
“Your brother twisted your arm up your back, broke your finger, and then laid into you with a cane?” West asked. She didn’t really think he was searching for a reply considering that’s what she’d just told him. So she just nodded slowly.
“And your face?” Jake asked.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot about that.” With her good hand, she cupped her swollen cheek.
“You forgot about being hit so hard that your eye’s swollen shut, your face is bruised, and it hurts to chew?” West asked her. “Why’s that, because it’s happened so often?”
“I wouldn’t say often,” she told them. “He usually avoids my face.”
6
West just stared at her. It was taking every ounce of his control to keep from losing his shit. But Felicity came first, and she needed him.
“So, just to be clear, you are saying that your brother, Spencer O’Malley, beat you, Felicity?” Jake said quietly.
“Flick,” she told. “Felicity is what he calls me.”
Fuck. And it was what he’d been calling her as well. Because he’d refused, for some asinine reason, to call her by her nickname. A nickname she used, most likely, because her asshole brother called her by her real name.
Definitely gonna be a special place in hell for him.
“Okay, Flick,” Jake said gently. “I need your verbal confirmation.”
“What happens then?” she asked fearfully. “He’s not going to like me bringing in the police. I’m supposed to never talk to the police. I’m not supposed to tell anyone.”
“What happens next, darlin’,” Jake said carefully, as though speaking to someone who was delicate and about to break, “is that I call arrest him. Then he goes to jail.”
“He’ll get out. He’ll come after me.”
“You’re safe here,” West told her.
“We’re going to make sure he never has the chance to hurt you again,” Jake vowed.
“You don’t know him.” The fear in her eyes was almost too much for West to take. He dropped his head down and took a deep breath. One. Two. Three. Hold. Out. One. Two. Three. Hold.
Didn’t help much.
“You don’t know him. You don’t know the measures he’ll go to in order to keep me with him. You don’t know the power he has.”
“I’m going to keep you safe,” West told her fiercely.
“I wish I could believe that,” she said tiredly.
He studied her. He hadn’t been wrong before. She needed a nap. She hadn’t been sleeping, that much was obvious. How could you sleep when you lived under the same roof as a monster? But there was more to it than just that. It was obvious she’d been living that hell for a long time. And that she couldn’t see her way out of it.
“You fucking need to start fucking believe it,” West snarled. “Because that’s what’s happening. You. Will. Be. Safe.”
“That was two fuckings in one sentence,” she informed him, almost snootily.
For some stupid reason he couldn’t quite fathom, he wanted to smile. He liked this side of her. Was glad for it.
Sunshine was sweet and good. But he was glad to know she had an edge. That she could push back. That she wouldn’t let him walk all over her. Because he could do that. Easily, without even meaning to. He could take without giving back. And he didn’t want to do that to her. Didn’t want to take her over completely.
And it meant she hadn’t been broken by the bastard who’d done this to her. That could have easily happened. He could have worn her down into a mere shadow of herself. Instead, she got up with a smile on her face each morning. She spread cheerfulness wherever she went.
She might not have been able to fight her way free, but she’d done what she could to fight by not letting her circumstances dictate who she had to be.
Fuck. He was starting to understand how badly he’d underestimated her. Because Flick wasn’t weak. She was strong. She might just be stronger than him, because she hadn’t stopped hoping. Hadn’t given into the darkness.
Like he had.
“You see it now, don’t you?” Alec asked him.
“Yeah, I see it.”
“Strength comes in many forms,” Alec added.
“Flick,” Jake pressed.
She looked resigned. “Yes, my brother, Spencer O’Malley did this to me. He beat me up.”
Fear engulfed her face, and it hurt him. Actually, physically, hurt him.
“Christ,” she whispered. “What have I done?”
He was moving before he thought about it. Around the other side of the bed, opposite Alec and Jake. He carefully slid onto the mattress and then placed his arm around her shoulders. He grabbed the nape of her neck, squeezing gently.
Leaning in, he whispered in her ear. “You’re safe, baby girl.”
“I’m not. I never will be. You don’t understand. He’ll come after all of you.”
“Look at me.”
“No.”
“Sunshine, look at me.”
“Not happening. I’m ignoring you.”
Again, he felt the ridiculous urge to smile. Fuck. What if he’d succeeded the other night? What if he’d pushed her away for good, never to discover her other layers? And he had a feeling the layers ran deep. So deep he might never bare them all.
The what ifs would kill him. What if Mia hadn’t been worried about her? What if she hadn’t wormed her way into his brothers’ hearts? What if that bastard had gone too far and destroyed his sunshine?
That was never going to happen. Not ever.
“Just to tell you, sunshine, you’re not doing a very good job of it.”
“Hard to ignore someone who’s so annoying.”
He barked out a laugh, and could feel her surprise fill the room, mingling with Alec’s and Jake’s. He didn’t blame them. He wasn’t a man given to laughter. Not anymore.
“How did I never know you had this edge?” he murmured.
“Prob
ably because you spent all your time avoiding me.”
He leaned in, his lips close to her ear. “Well, that’s no longer happening. I’ve taken responsibility for you, sunshine. I take that very seriously. That means you’re mine to protect, mine to command, and mine to discipline.”
Her breath came in sharp and he cursed himself for that last part. No doubt it brought up memories of all the beatings she’d taken. He was going to do whatever it took to make her believe he’d never harm her. Not ever.
If that meant he never once got to put her over his knee, then so be it. He’d find other ways to teach her he was serious when it came to her safety. That there would be certain rules he’d expect her to follow or there would be consequences. But those consequences didn’t have to be physical.
He had a good imagination; he was certain he could come up with something else to make her think twice about disobeying him.
“Sun—”
“Command me?” she said. Her eyes sparked with fury. “News flash, buddy. Nobody is bossing me around.”
Shock held him immobile for a moment. That’s what she was objecting to?
“And who says I’m yours to fucking discipline?”
He whispered in her ear. “Say fucking one more time and we’ll just see who’s in charge.”
She stared straight at him. “Fucking.”
“Did you just dare me?” He was incredulous. Nobody dared him. Ever.
“Yep.”
He grinned.
She eyed him warily. “Um . . . why does that make you smile?”
“Because now I get to think of some way to prevent you from using that word again. And since spanking is out, I get to be creative.”
“Why is spanking out?” she asked curiously. Then she blushed bright red as though realizing what she’d said.
“Because in no way do I ever want you to think I could be like him. I will never raise my hand to you. Not in any way.”
She stared up at him, her lips parted, then she closed her mouth and swallowed heavily. He could see the tears in her eyes. He hated it. Those gorgeous violet colored eyes that should just be filled with laughter and happiness.
“You are nothing like him, West Malone. And don’t ever think you are.”
Somebody cleared their throat and, too late, he realized they still had an audience. Shit. Since when did he forget other people were in the room? Since just now, apparently. Not even Lana had had the ability to make him only see her and forget about the rest of the world. That thought rocked him and he pulled slightly away from Felicity. She looked at him in confusion. He attempted a smile. Her confusion turned to a hint of worry.
How West Was Won (Haven, Texas Book 7) Page 7
