“You’re gonna do what you feel you have to do, and I won’t stop you. But I’m beat. So how about you stop bein’ so damn cute so I can deal with this condom and we can get some shuteye before I wake you up and do it all over again?”
I couldn’t argue whether or not I was being cute. I thought I was just being me. But if he thought that was cute, who was I to disagree? “Fine,” I relented on a teasing sigh. “I’ll give you a reprieve, but you better be on your game later.”
He laughed as he kissed me, then slowly pulled out. “That’s a promise I can keep, sweetheart.”
I watched his naked form just like I always did as he moved to the bathroom to deal with the condom, and as he disappeared from sight, there was only one thought rolling around inside my head.
Each day with Cannon was even better than the last. And I couldn’t wait to wake up tomorrow and discover what Fate had in store.
* * *
Lifting the beer bottle to my lips, I took a pull as I stared around in wonder at my new house. Typically, I would have toasted something as awesome as moving into my brand new dream home with a glass of champagne, but I lived in a biker town and I was dating a biker. There was no way the people in my life now were going to drink champagne, so when Darla and Buck showed up to join in the celebration, they brought a case of beer with them.
And I was just fine with that.
The last moving truck had taken off five minutes earlier, and even though every piece of furniture was right where it was supposed to be, there was still a lot of work to be done. Unlike Cannon, I fully intended to put my stamp on this beautiful old Victorian. There were boxes to unpack, art and pictures to hang, and toss pillows to toss. It would take several more shopping trips to fill all the space; a challenge I was more than up for.
But all of that could wait. I was finally home, and that was the only thing that mattered to me.
Clay and his men had done better than I could have imagined. Every room was warm and inviting and absolutely perfect. They’d even worked a miracle with my bedroom walls. You couldn’t even see the crappy paint job I’d done when you looked at it now.
I thought back to that very first day, when I’d stepped through that front door into a dilapidated pit. I thought back to the warmth rooting in my chest, and I knew I’d never forget that moment, because it was the exact same warmth I felt as I looked at all my friends and family gathered in my new kitchen, drinking beer and cutting up.
Bennett and Jase were there. Cannon, Shane, Brantley, and Poppy. Banks had shown up with Bev earlier to help with the move. Scooter was there with his wife, along with Danno and Fletch. Several of my regulars at the bar had come bearing housewarming gifts. Everyone I cared about was standing in this room, and as I looked around, I discovered something that had me dangerously close to tears.
I didn’t have enough chairs.
“What’s on your mind, sweet pea?” Jase asked, coming over and slinging his arm around my shoulders. “This is supposed to be a happy day, and you look like you’re about to start crying.”
“I don’t have enough chairs,” I whispered, my voice scratchy with emotion.
He looked down at me like I had lost my mind. “You’re about to burst into tears because you don’t have enough chairs? That’s an easy enough fix, Farah. Or have you forgotten you’re loaded?”
I let out a watery laugh and smacked him in his stomach. “It’s not that, you jerk. I’m not upset.”
“Then what is it?”
“All my life, I’ve only had two people, Jase. You and Bennett, that’s it. And that was always enough for me. I was lucky, having the two of you. But now . . . now I have this.” I waved my arm out. “Now I have so many people who mean something to me that I don’t have enough chairs for them all to sit in. So, yeah, I’m close to crying, but it’s only because I’m incredibly, stupidly happy.”
His eyes flashed with emotion as he pulled in a large breath. He tugged me deeper into his side and leaned down to press a kiss on my head. “I’m thrilled to hear that, sweetheart. Over the goddamn moon.”
“Only thing that could possibly make this day any better was if you told me you decided to move down here too.”
Letting out a sigh, Jase straightened his head and scanned the crowd gathered in my kitchen. His tone held a hint of melancholy as he said, “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, little sis.”
“About what?”
“Happiness,” he answered. “After what happened to you . . .” His throat bobbed on a heavy swallow. “It’s a miracle you came back from that. Hell, you almost didn’t. I almost lost you, but you made it through, and you found the strength to go after your own happiness.” His gaze returned to mine, and it was swimming with a whole riot of emotions. “I’ve never told you this, but I envy your courage. If my little sister could come back from something like that and still find the strength to build this incredible life for herself . . . well, I don’t really have a reason not to go after my own happiness, now do I?”
I held my breath for so long my lungs began to burn like fire. “Are you saying—?”
“I’m not saying anything. At least not yet. But I will tell you, I’m going to start looking at the big picture. Who knows where that will lead me?”
I hoped like hell it would lead him right to this perfect little town, but if it didn’t, as long as he was happy wherever he ended, I would be okay with that.
But that didn’t mean I wasn’t above fighting dirty. “I think there’s a certain redhead that would like it very much if you decided to put down roots here.”
I caught his gaze flash in Poppy’s direction before he returned it to me. “Don’t push your luck, sweet pea. I said I’d think about it, so let it go, yeah?”
I blew out a breath, but let the subject drop. At least for the time being. “You know I love you, right?”
“I do. And you have that right back from me, little sis.”
With that heaviness out of the way, my brother and I sucked back more beer. And we did it surrounded by the loving embrace of incredible people.
* * *
It had been four days since I’d officially moved from the inn into the Victorian, and it was Jase’s last night in town.
Darla had offered to give me the night off so I could spend it with him and Bennett before he flew back to Connecticut in the morning, but I’d already taken a handful of days off since they’d come into town, and the fewer days I worked meant the fewer tips I could “sneak” to Shane. The holidays were only a couple months away, and I was going to do everything in my power to make sure she had enough to give Brantley a great Christmas.
So with that, Jase had chosen to hang at the bar with Bennett, Cannon, and the rest of the guys while I worked.
Usually I would have had plenty of time to visit with them during breaks or when my section was quiet, but tonight, the bar was a madhouse.
According to Shane, there was a big motorcycle rally that took place around Memphis every year, and during those four days, Bad Alibi was overrun.
I was used to bikers by now, but these guys were even louder and wilder than the regulars I’d gotten to know, and several of them were already drunk out of their minds.
“Jeez,” Shane grumbled as she joined me at the bar. “I swear, if tips weren’t so good, I’d put in for vacation this time every damn year.”
I gave her a sympathetic grin and looked back out to the floor. “This is insane. I’ve never seen anything like it.” With such a huge crush of people, it was hard to make out any of the tables or chairs. To accommodate the larger crowd, the two other waitresses who worked the day shift were also on the floor with us, and there was a third bartender slinging drinks with Buck and Darla. Still, I felt like I’d been run off my feet, and I still had half my shift left to go. The later it got, the drunker they became, and I was counting down the minutes until Buck announced last call.
“Yeah. Welcome to what I like to refer to as Hell Week. Sure, it’
s only four days, but Hell Four Days didn’t have quite the same ring to it.”
I gave her a tired laugh and bumped her shoulder with mine as Darla sat two pitchers of beer on the bar in front of me. Grabbing them up, I started for the pool tables.
Cannon spotted me the second I hit the section, and as soon as I placed the pitchers on the table, he grabbed me by the belt loop and pulled me into his lap. “Hey, Hummingbird, how you doin’?”
I turned back to him and smiled through my exhaustion. “Beat, but okay. Just ready for this night to end.”
“Just a few more hours, then we can get outta here.”
I let out a deep breath and sank into him, pressing my lips to his as I muttered, “Can’t wait.”
I pushed off his lap and took a step to Jase, placing a smacking kiss on the top of his head before I started back to the floor.
I was moving through my section when I felt a hand wrap around my forearm and pull me to a stop. “Hey there, sweetness. How about a dance, huh?”
I looked down at the big, burly biker who had my arm in an uncomfortably tight grip. His pot belly hung over his jeans, his hair was at least a month past needing a cut, he reeked of booze, and his eyes were red and glassy, indicating he was already well past drunk and firmly into shitfaced.
I did my best to smile through the swell of panic gripping my chest as I replied, “Sorry, but I can’t.” I gave my arm a subtle tug, but he didn’t take the hint and let go. “It’s really busy, but if you’d like another drink or something to eat—”
“Don’t want somethin’ to fuckin’ eat,” he said, his words coming out slurred. “What I want is for the pretty waitress to dance with me.”
I pulled harder on my arm which only made his grip tighten, taking it past uncomfortable and right into painful. My panic swelled bigger and began to take up the room my lungs needed to pull in oxygen. I felt my skin start to grow clammy but did my best to push the fear down. “And I said I can’t. Now please, let go of my arm.”
“What, you think you’re too good to spend time with me?” the drunk biker hissed, gnashing his teeth. “You an uppity bitch or somethin’?”
Darkness creeped in along the edges of my vision, and my heartrate kicked up. “Let. Go,” I repeated, struggling against the dizziness in my head as I gave my arm a hard yank.
The biker jerked back, and I cried out at the sharp pain that caused in my shoulder. The instant he had me in his lap, his thick arms circled around me, pinning me in place. I began to struggle, fighting to get away from him, but his hold was unrelenting. “Let me go!” I shouted, thrashing wildly.
“You won’t dance with me, then how ’bout a kiss?”
His head started to lower, his face coming closer to mine. And all of a sudden, I was back in that dark parking lot.
“Let me go!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, the words so loud and ravaged they felt like they were slicing my throat on the way up. “Let me go! Let me go! Let me go!”
The sounds of the bar grew dim and muffled, like I’d suddenly been submerged under water. I couldn’t breathe. God, I couldn’t breathe. I was going to suffocate to death.
I fought and screamed and clawed until the steel bands holding me in place let go, and I fell to the ground.
“What the fuck!” I heard shouted from feet away, and I thought the furious roar might have come from Cannon, but it was hard to be sure over the blood roaring through my ears.
I heard what I thought was flesh hitting flesh, quickly followed by the sound of furniture breaking. I got the sense that pandemonium had broken out all around me, but I couldn’t move. All I could do was curl into a ball with my arms covering my head as I fought against my body’s refusal to pull in oxygen.
I felt a pair of hands came down on me, and my brain screamed at me to run, but the panic attack had taken over completely. I was frozen in fear, unable to move. I couldn’t fight, all I could do was whimper as the hands grabbed hold of my arms and pulled me from the floor. A second later, I was wrapped in a familiar embrace.
“Shh, I got you, girl,” Bennett said as he picked me up in his strong arms and began carrying me away. “It’s all right. You’re okay, my sweet Farah. I have you. You’re going to be okay.”
Then his voice faded away.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Cannon
I paced the length of the hallway outside Farah’s bedroom door, feeling like I was about to come out of my skin.
What had happened earlier was nothing short of pure chaos. I’d seen it just as it began, when that fucker grabbed Farah’s arm, but before I could push through the crowd to get to her, the shit hit the fan.
I heard her scream and I swear to Christ, the blood in my veins turned to ice. The moment I cleared the circle and saw my woman curled up on the floor with her arms over her head like she was trying to protect herself, I lost it. All I saw was red.
I acted without thought, throwing myself at the son of a bitch who’d put his hands on her. My fist connected with his face, followed by the gratifying sound of bones breaking. But that wasn’t enough.
I was out for blood, and I couldn’t stop. That was the start of a full-on bar brawl, and everything that came after that was pure, unadulterated shit.
By the time Holt and a few other deputies got there to break up the fight and get shit sorted, Bennett and Shane had already gotten Farah out of there.
The bar was a goddamn wreck. The asshole who’d manhandled Farah had been hauled out in cuffs after several witnesses stated seeing him getting physical with her. And for our part in it, Jase, Dad, several of the guys, and myself had walked away riddled in bruises. The cut over my left eye had only stopped bleeding a few minutes ago, and my eye was swollen nearly shut.
But I didn’t care about any of that. The only thing I cared about had been behind a closed bedroom door since I arrived at her house twenty minutes ago. A door that no one besides Poppy and Shane had been allowed to pass through.
I continued to pace, my worry and my anger boiling to the surface, damn near about to bubble over. Cutting my eyes over to where Jase was sitting, I took him in, seeing the desolation carved into every inch of him. His back was pressed against the wall, his wrists dangling over his cocked knees, looking as destroyed as a man could possibly look.
“I wanna know what the hell is goin’ on, and I wanna know right fuckin’ now,” I clipped, that haze of red still painting my vision.
“Cannon”—he let out a sigh, pressing his head back against the wall—“it’s not my story to tell, brother. Please, give her time—”
“Fuck time!” I barked.
My father moved from his place where he’d been holding up the opposite wall, coming close and pressing his hand to my chest. “Calm, son. You two fightin’ now isn’t gonna do that girl in there a damn lick of good.”
“Time for calm is long fuckin’ over,” I growled, throwing my arm out and pointing at the door. “You heard her. You fuckin’ heard her scream! Tell me you didn’t.”
“I heard it, son,” Dad grunted.
“Then you know.” I looked back at Jase. “My woman was lyin’ in a ball on the goddamn floor, nearly catatonic. So don’t tell me it’s not your fuckin’ place. For fuck’s sake, I can’t fight somethin’ if I don’t know what the hell it is!”
Jase shot off the ground and came within an inch of me, his face laced with agony. “You can’t fight it at all!” he bellowed, losing hold on his control. “Christ! You think I haven’t tried? I’ve been going out of my goddamn mind for nearly a year! All I want to do is make it better for her, but this isn’t something either of us can fix for her!”
“What the hell is going on up here?” At my mother’s stern voice, we all turned in time to see her climb the last step to the second level. Her face was mottled with red splotches, telling me she’d been crying, but her eyes were burning with an angry fire as she took Jase and me in. “That’s enough. Do you hear me?” she clipped. “The both of you, step back ri
ght now.”
“Bev, honey,” my dad spoke in a soft, placating gesture. “What are you doin’ here?”
“Shane called me. Told me what happened. Told me I was needed and why, so I’m here.”
“Why would you need—” My father’s voice trailed off at the same time his face blanched white as flour. “Ah, fuck. No, baby. Not that.”
I didn’t know what was going on, but whatever my dad had just realized, it was bad. My mouth opened, ready to ask what the hell was going on, when the bedroom door swung open.
I whipped around as Farah stepped out into the hall with Shane and Poppy standing close behind her. Her whole face was unnaturally white, with the exception of the deep purple smudges beneath her eyes.
Her gaze was glassy, like she’s just woken from a drug induced sleep, and when she saw my mom standing among the fray, her forehead pinched in confusion. “Bev? What are you doing here?”
My mom moved to her, taking Farah’s face in her hands and giving her a tender smile. “You and I have some things to talk about, so we’re gonna go back in there and get comfortable. I’m gonna take care of you sweetheart. Then we’re gonna get you the help you need. Got it?”
I knew the fight had been drained completely out of her when all Farah did was nod before turning and disappearing back inside her room.
Shane and Poppy followed after her like they couldn’t stand the thought of not having her in their sights. And as hard as it was for me, I fought against my need to rush after her and pull her into my arms, and stayed rooted in place, all the while, feeling like my heart was being torn in half.
Mom took a step toward the room, but before she entered, she turned back to us and looked right at Jase. “I’m gonna take care of your sister, honey. You can trust me on that. But while I’m doin’ that, you need to tell him everything.” Jase started to argue but went silent when Mom raised her hand. “The secrets end tonight. The truth was gonna come out one way or another. Only way that girl in there has any chance of healin’ is if everyone in her life has the tools they need to help her along the way.”
Bad Alibi: a Redemption novel Page 21
