Devil's Ruin

by Bijou Hunter

  I ought to tell her how I’m only guessing half of the time, but she plants a kiss on me, and I forget about everything besides how perfectly she fits in my arms. I’ve gotten hung up on plenty of broken women over the years—usually from afar because I knew getting close would be a mistake.

  With Yarrow, every warning goes off in my head, but I can’t help ignoring them. Logic’s never been my strong suit, so once again I give into a primal impulse and worry about the consequences later.

  ➸ Yarrow ☆

  Blackjack doesn’t eat the seventeenth piece of pork chop until I use my fingers to feed him. He finishes the fries the same way. I don’t mind feeding him. I do it all the time with Duffy who doesn’t like touching her food and gets frustrated with a fork. Blackjack’s brain isn’t like Duffy’s, but he gets distracted a lot just like she does.

  “Let’s go upstairs,” I say and walk toward the stairs.

  I pause long enough to study the twenty steps up to the second floor. Scanning the top of the stairway, I look for movement. I know people shouldn’t be up there, but knowing isn’t the same as believing. Every room could hold danger.

  “Up here, you say,” Blackjack announces, going around me and making quick work of the staircase. Once upstairs, he looks down at me. “Left or right bedroom?”

  “The one with the bed,” I mutter and finally head up the stairs.

  He stands at the top, blocking the light with his wide shoulders and massive height. I get to the last step and stare up at him.

  “Who’s bigger, you or Oz?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a competition, and the winner gets a prize.”

  “What kind of prize?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll give you one of Ginger’s candies.”

  “I’d rather have something of yours.”

  “You can have my shoes,” I say, pushing past him and walking into the bedroom. “See, it’s big enough for you. Lots of space. I only have a few things in the closet. You can have the rest of the space, and I’ll have rent. I like that.”

  “What will you use the rent money for?”

  “More pork chops,” I say, smiling over my shoulder.

  “I could stay in the smaller bedroom.”

  “There’s no bed in there.”

  “I don’t think I should take your room.”

  “I don’t want to sleep in here,” I say too loudly. “They made me have a townhome, but I don’t want to be here.”

  “It’s cool. No need to scream at me,” he says, putting up his hands.

  “I’m not screaming.”

  “You’re pretty loud.”

  I take a deep breath and let loose a scream that sends the cat flying out of the room. Blackjack grimaces but doesn’t cover his ears like I would if he screamed.

  “Now that’s a scream,” I say once finished. The walk-in closet’s open door catches my eye, and I frown. “There are too many shadows up here when the sun gets low. I don’t want to be here anymore.”

  Blackjack’s long legs only need two steps before he’s on top of me. Startled, I push him away.

  Except he doesn’t budge, not even a tiny bit.

  “Your puny arms sadden me, Yarrow Jones,” he says, with a mocking smirk.

  Narrowing my eyes, I shove him as hard as I can, but he only adjusts his footing and remains a brick wall. Next, I wrap my arms around his waist, press my shoulder into his gut, and push with all my might. I think maybe he wiggles before I hear Clove’s voice at the door.

  “What the fuck is this shit?”

  Without letting go of Blackjack’s waist, I blow my hair out of my face and frown at her. “I’m trying to knock him down.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t remember.”

  Blackjack’s right hand caresses my cheek not facing Clove. Is he worried she’s angry with me and I need comfort? If so, he’s stupid. I don’t tell him, though, because I like when he touches my face. His rough fingers are always so warm, and I think back to when he kissed my neck earlier. I wish I hadn’t been so scared he’d bite me. That felt good, and I should ask him to do it again.

  “Stand up straight, Yarrow,” Clove orders.

  “No.”

  “Now.”

  “No,” I say, giving her my most “fuck off” stare.

  Clove shoots me a look that means I’m in trouble. Now I think maybe I should try to knock her down instead of Blackjack.

  “Why are you in your bedroom?”

  “Blackjack is moving in.”

  “Nope,” she says, shaking her head and making her long dark hair shimmer. “No, no, no, no.”

  “Why are you here?” I ask.

  “I heard you scream.”

  “So?”

  “I thought you were in trouble.”

  Pushing against the unmoving Blackjack, I sigh and finally let go. “If I were under attack, I wouldn’t scream. I would open fire or stab someone. It makes no sense to scream.”

  “You’d be awful in a horror movie.”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “If you don’t scream, how will you warn the rest of the group before the killer or monster gets to them?”

  “I’d kill the monster.”

  “And if you didn’t?”

  “I’d be dead, so I wouldn’t care what happened next.”

  Clove glances down the stairs, and I assume more of the crew is here. “She was screaming for kicks apparently,” she says to whoever is downstairs.

  “Why are they upstairs?” Pepper asks.

  “Blackjack is moving in.”

  “Nope, no,” Pepper says, marching up the stairs. Once her head peeks around the corner, she adds, “Not going to happen.”

  “He needs somewhere to live.”

  “He isn’t living with you.”

  “I know. I’m never here.”

  Pepper and Clove glance at each other before shrugging. “Fine, whatever. Run it by Ginger and Oz first.”

  “No.”

  Clove laughs, nudging Pepper. “Soon, you’ll have a toddler who tells you no constantly. Lucky bitch.”

  Pepper gives Blackjack a dirty look, but his gaze is on me. I prefer it there. I rest my hands on his hard, muscular chest and start pushing, but my feet can’t get a good grip on the carpet.

  “I guess you should have kept your shoes on,” he taunts and places his hands over mine.

  “No. Shoes are for stupid people,” I grunt and then give up. “You’re too big. I can’t knock you down.”

  “Go for the balls,” Pepper says before walking downstairs.

  Following after Pepper, Clove snickers.

  I shake my head and study Blackjack. “I don’t want to damage anything important down there.”

  “Yes, I don’t want that either,” he says, nearly laughing now. I think he’s happy I stuck up for him with the crew.

  “I think maybe our date should be over soon. It’s getting dark, and I don’t like being here. I’ll give you my key, and you can move in.”

  Blackjack cups my face, holding me still while his lips brush against my forehead. I return my hands to his chest, but this time I don’t try to knock him down. I want to feel his heart beating. I also wonder about the tattoos hiding under his shirt.

  One day, I’ll have them all memorized. For tonight, we end our date with only a soft, wet kiss that I feel on my lips for the rest of the night.

  Chapter Seven

  Life Lesson #7: shoot to kill, cut to castrate

  ➸ Blackjack ★

  I move into Yarrow’s townhome before Ginger and the crew has time to stop me. Considering I only own a few shirts and pairs of jeans, I easily fit all my crap into a small duffle bag which now sits on the floor of Yarrow’s bedroom.

  Her bed is probably the most comfortable I’ve ever slept on. I can barely force my body up long after the sun rises. Only thoughts of Yarrow inspire my ass to get moving.

  Peering out the shades, I catch sight of her in the back of the
property with Duffy. They’re circling the gate surrounding the pool. Yarrow removes chunks of a banana and hands them to the child. I think they’re speaking, and my curiosity urges me to open the window enough to hear them. Instead of talking to each other, Duffy is repeating the word “banana” in a singsong voice while Yarrow counts what I realize is the bars on the metal fence around the pool.

  I watch them make six passes around the yard before I’m able to tear my gaze from the sight of a relaxed Yarrow. She looks terribly young when her hair’s up in a ponytail. I’m struck by the nagging fear that I’ve started something sexual with a stunted child trapped in a sexy woman’s body.

  Immediately, I tell myself how Yarrow is damaged, but she isn’t a child. She knows her power, playing with me more than once. She knows how to ask for what she wants and tell me when I’m pissing her off. The reality is she’s healthier than a lot of normal women. I doubt my dull, well-adjusted sister, Bev, can handle herself half as well as the broken, sometimes bizarre Yarrow.

  By the time I clean up in the brand new, seemingly never before used shower, Yarrow and Duffy are no longer outside, and the gray sky dumps chilly drizzle.

  “I ought to get a fucking car,” I mutter while heading downstairs to the eerily quiet and nearly empty townhome.

  Despite cooking dinner in the kitchen, Yarrow has no other food in the place. I’ll need to do grocery shopping after running out to the trailer park today. Wouldn’t hurt to buy a coffee pot too.

  A knock on the sliding glass back door startles the shit out of me, and I curse loudly even after finding Yarrow peering inside. She smiles at my anger.

  “What’s a twat stank?” she asks once I open the door.

  “Ask Ginger.”

  Still smiling, she looks around the townhome as if wary of the shadowed corners in the dim living room.

  “I want to spend time with you today,” she says while glaring at the laundry room door.

  “Are you talking to me?”

  Yarrow pries her gaze from the room down the hall and focuses on me. “Oz says you have to check in with the hookers. I can come with you. I didn’t eat breakfast, and you can take me somewhere for food.”

  “Do you really want to drive around in the rain?”

  “We can take one of the SUVs or the F-150,” she says, now watching me as if I’m a pile of pancakes and she’s got a sweet tooth.

  “Let’s do that then.”

  Yarrow’s smile returns and she tells me to meet her at the front gate. I try to stop her before she heads out the back door, but she yanks her hand free and begins running. I lean out the door to see her disappear into Ginger’s place.

  Throwing my hoodie over my head, I zip my jacket and walk to the front door. I hate the cold weather, and the holidays piss me off too. This is the first year in a long fucking time that I don’t plan to hide in my place and avoid everyone as much as possible. Though I wouldn’t say I feel cheery, a tree in the townhouse is a fine idea.

  Yarrow pulls up to the front gate in the gold, four-door F-150. I open the passenger door and lean in.

  “Switch places, so I can drive.”

  “No,” she says and revs the engine.

  “Yarrow, get your sweet ass out of the seat.”

  Narrowing her gaze, she smiles. “Hurry up, or I’m leaving without you. I can talk to hookers by myself.”

  Deciding I’ll steal the keys and drive later, I climb in and get comfortable. Yarrow watches me, again revving the engine.

  “You waiting for something?” I mutter, irritated by the chill and having to be the passenger in a car.

  “How come you aren’t kissing me hello? If you have stinky breath, I have mints.”

  My lips are on hers by the time she gets out the word “mints.” Yarrow smiles before kissing me back for the first time. Usually, her lips remain still while mine sucks at them. This time, she meets my affection with her own.

  “You’re in a good mood,” I say when she finally turns her head and pulls the truck away from the curb.

  “I usually am.”

  “You seemed pretty bitchy when you first moved to Rawlins.”

  “Change is hard. We lived in the B&B that was too fancy, and I worried I would break stuff. My bedroom there was too fancy, and the bed was too high, and Clove and Bay kept saying the house was haunted. I didn’t like anything about this town. Now I like it fine.”

  “Easy as that, huh?”

  “I can’t control a lot about the world, but I can control me. I don’t like everything about Rawlins, but I think about the ones I like more than the ones I don’t. Nothing’s perfect. Not even Ginger or you.”

  Smiling, I can’t believe anyone would consider me anywhere near perfect. I’ve been an asshole for half my life. I never think positive or see the best in people. If I didn’t focus on the negatives in life, I wouldn’t think of anything at all.

  Yarrow, though, makes me search for something positive. I know her past is fucked up, and I’ll probably fuck up her future too. Until then, I’ll hang onto these brilliant moments in the midst of the mud.

  ➸ Yarrow ☆

  Blackjack is a pig.

  He devours a stack of pancakes along with an omelet and hash browns. Alternating between drinking orange juice and black coffee, he eats every bite of food before sitting back and sighing.

  “How are you not fat?” I ask, still eating what’s left of my once dissected into seventeen bites of scrambled eggs.

  “I have a physical labor job,” he says, stretching. “And I work out at the gym a few times a week. Aren’t you hungry?”

  “I’m a slow eater.”

  “Still getting used to forks, huh?”

  Clenching my teeth, I glare at him. “Why would you ask that?”

  “Ginger told me where she found you.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  “Never said you were, foxy fox.”

  The “foxy fox” thing is stupid enough to make me laugh. I’m sure that was Blackjack’s intention.

  “I want to order a pie,” I announce.

  “You didn’t finish your eggs.”

  “I don’t want them.”

  “Then why did you order them?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “I grew up thinking wasting food was akin to shitting on starving children’s faces.”

  “Then you eat them. I want pie,” I say, pulling Denny’s dessert menu from the rack on the table.

  Blackjack reaches across and takes my plate. “A good night’s rest will do wonders for a man’s appetite.”

  “It’s good that you liked the bed.”

  “Your bed is fucking perfect. I haven’t slept so well since I was a kid.”

  “It’s not my bed. I don’t want it.”

  “Don’t get bitchy.”

  “No,” I say, just like I always say when I can’t think of anything else to say but I still want to say something. “Did you fall off the bed?”

  “Why would I?”

  “I think it’s too high.”

  Blackjack chews on my eggs and watches me with a cocked eyebrow. “You could get rid of the frame, so the bed rests closer to the ground. That way, if you fall, you won’t fall far.”

  “Cayenne said I could get a bed railing like the one Duffy has on her bed. Even though I wouldn’t fall with it, I don’t want that bed.”

  Blackjack leans forward. “If you had a baby, you couldn’t sleep on the floor of Ginger’s house.”

  “Why not?”

  “The floor isn’t comfortable with a big belly.”

  I can’t imagine why sleeping on the floor wouldn’t work. I’ve slept on it most of my life without any problems. Blackjack is someone who likes a bed, so he doesn’t understand how the floor is better.

  After the waitress takes my order for a slice of apple pie with ice cream, I smile at Blackjack.

  “I liked knowing you were in the next townhome. I thought about you all night.”

  “Didn’t a
tiny part of you want to crawl into bed with me?”

  “No. I don’t like that bed.”

  “Man, you’re fucking stubborn.”

  “That house feels wrong.”

  “My mom would call your home unloved. Ginger’s place has things on the walls and lots of furniture. It feels lived in by happy people. Your townhome feels abandoned.”

  “You have it now.”

  Blackjack chuckles. “I bet I could get that place fixed up enough for you to want to spend time there.”

  “No.”

  Laughing again, Blackjack shakes his head. He’s foolish to think I haven’t heard all these ideas before from Ginger, Clove, Bay, Pepper, Cayenne, and even Oz. They always promise the townhome needs a few personal touches and then I’ll love it.

  No.

  Nothing about that townhome feels right. Nothing will ever make it feel okay. I don’t want to live there. I refuse to live there.

  No.

  Blackjack’s mention of a baby makes me overly aware of the many children in the restaurant. I normally ignore people when I’m in public. Rather than be hyper-aware like my friends, I build a wall around me so I can function with the noise, lights, and people. Getting jumped scares me less than losing my mind from overstimulation.

  “What are you thinking about?” Blackjack asks after my pie arrives.

  “Nothing matters. Besides loving my people, life has no meaning.”

  “True,” he says, and the corners of his mouth turn downward. “I don’t even have people to love.”

  “What about your club?”

  “I keep them at arm’s length.”

  “How come?”

  “Trusting people hasn’t worked out well for me,” he says and crosses his arms defensively.

  “Do you trust me?”

  “No.”

  “Good. I don’t trust you either.”

  When Blackjack grins, I reach over to tug gently at his beard. His smile grows, but I can tell he’s still sad that he doesn’t have anyone to love.

  “Why can’t you be close to your family now?” I ask.

  “They wrote me off after juvie.”

  “Wrote you off?” I ask, not understanding his meaning.