Phoebe: Book One of Broken Girls Series

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  That she’d been shuffled off to an aunt in Ohio by her parents in the dead of night didn’t give me a thrill of victory when I’d been named valedictorian, when I’d been accepted at every university my guidance counselor suggested. Or when I’d scrambled to write my speech to be delivered at graduation to my peers as the top student in my class.

  Because it wasn’t a fair fight.

  I’d only won by default or, as Vonnie constantly sneered, by a dick.

  If Selma hadn’t gone out with Brad Thomas and gotten knocked up (then subsequently dumped) by the clown, she would’ve given the speech at graduation, not me. Her dreams of Georgia Tech, of getting her engineering degree, were nothing but dust in lieu of pending motherhood.

  All due to her forsaking her life-goals in favor of being with Brad.

  Where Selma failed, I’d taken it as a lesson in sticking with my plan, determined to complete every goal until I was ready to meet a man and start a family (in a vague sort of ‘someday’ way).

  “Should I stop?” I asked my Ryker, eyeing the purple binder I’d dragged to my lap. The one touting an invigorating ‘2009’ across its front in a gleeful hand.

  “Yeah,” he breathed. “Because I think get the gist of the remaining stuff.”

  A few beats of silence ensued, ones I didn’t interrupt just as I hadn’t when he’d read through all the crap I’d deemed to show him. But, I didn’t know what to do with my hands as I eyed him over the yet-unread binder I held in my lap. “No, I don’t think you do, honey,” I replied softly.

  Which brought his beautiful eyes back to me.

  “This last one gives you the ‘why’ all of my lists and journals. Why they were so important to me. And how I felt I absolutely couldn’t fail in obtaining my goals, Ryker.” I took a deep breath in an effort to steady both my trembling body and my mind.

  He frowned and I took heart in knowing that he was at least still listening.

  “I needed to control my life…every moment, movement and corner of my life to keep my sanity. Accomplishing what I set out to do was the only thing that made me feel worthy and more like a normal person.” I licked my lips and searched his face. “Maybe that way, my successes would balance out the not so good parts of me. I mean, who in their right mind wants a partner who is deathly afraid of the dark?”

  My eyes dropped to the binder as I tried to find more words to tell him, to explain.

  “Am I in your journal for 2016? ” I raised my head when he spoke. His slight grin tried to make his words into something light and teasing, but his steady gaze told a different story.

  Inhaling deeply, I shook my head. “No, honey. Because some things are meant to be notated, captured on paper as a goal or a memory…and other things are too important to forget. For me? Mere words can’t capture you. Or me with you. The ‘us’ we are when we’re together. So you may not have been added but you’re in every line, every entry even though I didn’t know your name. Just your heart.”

  His face softened as his green-eyed stare bored into mine.

  And I knew it was time.

  Time to tell him.

  “I love you,” I breathed into the quietness of his office and made sure he could see the truth of my words in my face. “You are my world, my everything, Ryker. And no matter how much I accomplish, no matter how many career goals I realize, they won’t mean shit if I can’t have you in my life.”

  *.*.*.*.*

  Ryker closed his eyes to better savor what she’d admitted, but her words grew inside him, filling every empty space until he couldn’t sit still and shot straight to his feet, turning to the windows. He dragged a hand through his hair as the other one propped on his waist before he crossed both on his chest as he stood in a wide-legged stance.

  He wanted to ask her if she meant it, but he knew his girl well enough. Knew almost all of her expressions and after reading her journals, understood her thoughts. So he abso-fucking-lutely knew.

  She did.

  But he couldn’t say it back. Not yet. Not until they’d gotten a few things straight between them.

  “So you did consider me an important part of your master plan?” He couldn’t help the growl in his voice, nor the challenge.

  “Yes, honey.”

  “Even though you didn’t add me to the list.”

  “Even though…” Her voice held the trace of tears but Ryker didn’t want to look at her, and become sidelined by the beauty of her face, the way she wore her beautiful heart in her direct blue eyes.

  “So just how the fuck did you think this would go down, with me here and you there, Phoebe?” That was the rub, the part that hurt. That she’d planned to simply walk away from him in order to take two goddamn years in order to gain her extra degree. A master’s, for fuck’s sake.

  “I-I didn’t, honey, in all honesty.” Maybe it was because of her hesitancy or her stuttering, but Ryker took hope in the sound of it.

  His eyes didn’t take in the view because his mind was trained on the woman seated behind him, even though he couldn’t look at her. “What about me being an ex-con. You never said anything about that.”

  “Because it means nothing to me,” she confessed on a harsh whisper. “I only know you as my Ryker, the man you’ve shown yourself to be. The one who makes me feel safe, wanted. And I gotta say, I love that guy. Who you were at seventeen is not the person you are now.”

  Fuck!

  He did another hair-rake with his fingers before he turned completely around, bracing his shoulders against the windows as his gaze sought her blue eyes. It was, at least in his mind, a do-or-die moment.

  “I love you too, Phoebe Marquette. And I don’t want you to leave me. Not for two days, two weeks and especially not two fucking years!” Jesús, could he expose anymore of his hurt, his heart?

  Another silence took over as he stood before her, all his vulnerabilities on display. And his girl, his woman’s stare never broke away from his, though he saw her swallow hard and deep.

  “I never ever want to take away your dreams, mi cariña,” he admitted. “But to add to them.”

  She didn’t reply but her blush and the warmth in her widened blue eyes told him he’d said the right thing.

  “Can’t we find a way through this, where we can be together and you still reach your dreams, baby?” To his mind, his heart was bleeding, leaking out onto the length of carpet that separated them.

  “I’d do anything, Ryker,” she mumbled, her lips barely moving, but with a fervency his heart recognized. “But I’ve already given my notice at the hospital and the apartments. And have my housing placement in Denver and...”

  Taking two long strides forward, he grabbed the hair at the back of her head with one hand as the other reached for her waist, yanking her up onto her feet and bringing her body into his, the thud of the binder falling from her lap only a secondary noise.

  “We will find a way, Phoebe,” he announced before his mouth dropped to hers, unable to hold back any longer. He’d gone too long without the feel of her pressed against him, of her taste and smell taking over his senses, to be denied as his body demanded he reclaim her. And recognizing it, he pulled back a bit, reined himself in. “Let me just go tell Max I’m leaving for the day.”

  Her look of confusion when combined with lips swollen and wet with his ravishing kiss was absolutely adorable. “You are?”

  “We need to talk and research the best way to move forward, don’t you think?”

  “Do you think we can, Ryker?”

  His smile grew, coming from a deep, deep place inside. “I think together we can do anything, mi bella cariña.”

  Disengaging from her at that moment was hard, but he managed to do it knowing they’d have the rest of the day to be together. He went back to his desk in order to shut down his computer.

  “Oh uhm, Ryker?” Phoebe reached for the other cloth bag and set it on his desktop. “I got you a present. It’s not much, in fact it’s a little cheesy but I wanted get you something t
o remember me by. You know, in case you couldn’t forgive me or something.”

  As if he’d ever forget her. Still, Ryker opened the bag and took out a box, his gaze moving between it and Phoebe. Finally his eyes caught on the words and picture adorning the box’s sides. “A bagel cutter? You got me a bagel cutter?”

  “I know. Dumb, right?”

  Rounding the edge of his desk, held back a laugh somehow knowing it wasn’t appropriate, not when she still seemed nervous and tentative, almost as if she was afraid to hope in their future. “It’s perfect, mi amor.”

  She lifted her hands and placed them on his biceps as his fingers found her waist. And just as he dipped his head, aiming in for another kiss, she pulled back and stared up at him. “Ryker? What about your dream? What do you want for your future?”

  Without even pausing for a moment, he told her the truth, the abso-pinche-lute verdad from the depths of his soul. “You. Just you, my Phoebe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I restacked my bags with the binders while Ryker went to tell his brothers he was leaving early, smiling when I heard Cruz yell, “Fuck”, loud enough to penetrate Ryker’s side of the massive office.

  The plan was, he was going to follow me back to my place so we could discuss my current circumstances and figure out a way for me to study for the master’s program while staying in Grantham.

  Which I thought was a worthy goal and more than a good enough reason for Ryker leave for the rest of the day.

  But when I heard yelling from down around Max’s office, I had no qualms in off-loading my bags in the nearest empty cubicle and calling Maggie to ask for her help in getting Ryker’s brothers off his ass. She immediately agreed and disconnected without a goodbye.

  Instead, I heard a Mariachi ringtone while Max yelled, “Shit! It’s Ma!” There was a flurry of Spanish interjected with a lot of cuss words (both in English and Spanish), before Ryker strolled out of Max’s space as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  But his eyes were dancing as they met mine and he gave me two thumbs-up in victory as we met at the double doors, before piling out into the hall. “Don’t know how I feel about having my girl and my mother in cahoots. But if it gets my brothers off my ass, guess I can’t complain.”

  I smiled but kept my silence. At least until we were on the elevator. “I just figured since they liked to use her to get you to do what they want, then turnabout is fair play, right?”

  Ryker’s laughter boomed in the small elevator, my accompanying giggles a counter-note.

  Leave it to Maggie to get things done!

  But both of us sobered the minute the elevator dinged ‘L’ as it approached the ground floor. It wouldn’t do for DB (otherwise known as Daisybelle) to see our hilarity in light of Ryker leaving the office early. She didn’t say a word as we affected straight faces trying, as well as we could, to sail past her desk as cool, calm and collected as we could be.

  Just two steps past her post, though, she spoke. “Mr. Ryker? May I suggest, sir, that going forward, you remember to press the end button after each of our interoffice communications?”

  Ryker stopped, but I kept going although I held a palm over my mouth to try and prevent more of my mirth from escaping. Turning around to step backwards so I could watch him, I saw my man (my man!), blush. “You heard?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied smartly, and in a way that more than spoke of her military experience. “But a good soldier knows when to shut the fuck up about private matters, sir.”

  “Thank you, DB.”

  “Enjoy the rest of your day, sir.”

  Ryker rushed towards me, bugging out his eyes and his mouth holding an ‘eek’ expression before he caught me and rushed to the outside doors. “I’ll be right behind you, babe.”

  “My place then?”

  “Unless you want mi madre to overhear all of the next stuff,” he replied with a wicked grin. “And believe me, she would love to have a ringside seat.”

  I shook my head, effecting my own sort of ‘eek’ at the thought of Maggie overhearing all I wanted to do with her son before we broke away to go to our separate cars.

  We got to my apartment without incident, but after exiting Ryker held up a finger in a ‘just a moment’ gesture before pointing to his uncle Jose working on Mrs. Byrd’s doorway. I nodded while smiling and giving a low wave as I slipped my key into the lock.

  I turned the key with my eyes and mind on Ryker, only a slightly surprised that the door swung open so fast when I pushed on it.

  With my mind on what was to come later, I dropped my cloth bags on the dining room table before looping my coat around a chair. It was almost noon, so I thought should probably be considering lunch, but in order to do that I also had to consider dinner because, as far as I was concerned, once I got Ryker naked, neither one of us would want to get fully dressed for a while. Going to my fridge, I peered inside to see what I had on hand.

  I sensed more than saw a shadow in the kitchen doorway. Thinking it was Ryker, I straightened. “There’s stuff for sandwiches but I think we’re gonna have to call Red Dragon for dinner.” Turning to look at him while closing the refrigerator, I stilled.

  Because it wasn’t my man standing in the door, but a tall, huge woman with short salt and pepper hair dressed in t-shirt and jeans. A lady I didn’t know, but whose expression and body language scared me shitless with the hate I could not only see but feel beating against me in waves. I tried to take in a breath, but couldn’t seem to get any air into my frozen lungs. “Wh-who are—”.

  “Why do you make everything so motherfucking hard, kitten?” The woman’s voice was deep and gruff, almost masculine, but it was her use of the word ‘kitten’ that found me quickly backing away from her, my steps jerky as I stumbled into the various stacks of boxes in my packed kitchen.

  Only one person in my life ever called me that. And although I didn’t have a clear memory of the individual, that word alone made me want to run for my life. But I couldn’t blink, much less look away from the woman blocking the only exit. The one gripping a wicked looking knife she held at her side.

  “You and those other little pieces of shit cost me a lot,” she sneered, leaning towards me, an unholy light in her eyes. “Me and Sloan had a good thing going ‘til you three fucked everything up! Twenty years of my life gone because of you little brats. All because the court said we ‘abused’ you.”

  She brought both hands up to make air quotes and the sunlight streaming in through the bank of windows over my sink caught on the edge of her blade. Her eyes shifted to it as if surprised to see it in her hand, but that look was fleeting and the sneer quickly returned as her gaze came back to me. “Did the time, so now I get to do the crime, kitten.”

  I had one trembling arm wrapped over my stomach and the shaking fingers of the other hand clutched my throat as I reached for a coherent thought. The prickles of sweat at my hairline, armpits and groin only added to the cacophony in my head. I opened my mouth to speak but all that escaped was a stuttering whimper.

  Swallowing thick and deep, it came to me who she was.

  “M-Mrs. Davis?” I managed to stumble over the thrum of blood that raced through my body at breakneck speed, viewing my former foster-parent in my doorway.

  Her lips twisted in some sort of grimace I thought meant a smile. “One and the same, kitten.”

  God!

  I’d always hated her and her man calling me that, although in the time I’d spent in their so-called care, it had been applicable. I’d been small, unable to defend myself against either Marcy Davis or her hulk of a husband when either of them found reasons to punish me.

  Which to their twisted minds, happened daily.

  And included locking me in a closet for multiple lengths of time without end.

  “Glad you remember me ‘cause, sure as shit, I remember you,” she said on a deep inhale. Dear god! She was huge and not only in stature but in bulk. “Thought about you and the other two every fucking d
ay I was in the joint. You fucking turds destroyed everything and took away my Sloan.”

  “Yo-Your Sloan?” The knife she waved my way froze my insides as she slowly stepped toward me.

  “Yeah, bitch,” she yelled, her eyes blazing again with an unnatural gleam, making my brain scream ‘crazy’. “He died in prison from prostate cancer. But I fucking know. I absolutely know it was you and the other piss-ants testifying against us that caused it.”

  She took another step towards me, waving her long wicked blade, as I stumbled back on lead feet bumping into more cardboard towers. “Ca-Cancer isn’t caused by other people thinking—”.

  “Stop lying, cunt!” Her screaming started my own as her knife swung at my belly, making me to lift onto the toes of my boots, my hands reaching blindly behind me for some form of protection. “You fucking owe me!”

  “RYKER!” I don’t know when my unintelligible shrieks changed to a real word, but as soon as it left my mouth, I continued to screech it at the top of my lungs when the countertop met my back. My feet started a side-step, my boots connecting with the boxes lined up next to the cabinets.

  “Oh no, he’s not going to help you. Nothing can help you now, kitten.” Marcy’s voice was only a harsh rasp as she swiped her huge knife towards my belly, close enough I sucked in a breath as it whispered and caught on my blouse. “I know for a fucking fact you two broke up. And he never wants to be around you again. ‘Cause I’ve been watching you, bitch!” She took in a deep breath before lifting her chin to the ceiling and screaming again. “You killed my man with your lies and now I get to kill you!”

  She was lunging my way before the last vowel left her mouth but her forward movement stopped abruptly and I saw her twist to look over her shoulder as she wrenched her arms against whatever held her back.