by Brandy Ayers
“And this is earth. That’s where we live.” Rose stuck her finger in the book to save her place, then turned to Harper. Her little face was scrunched up in obvious displeasure, her nose wrinkled and eyes narrowed. “Miss Jess says that Earth is the only planet with life on it, but I told her there could be other planets far far faaaaar away that could have people too. We just can’t call that far yet, so we don’t know.”
Harper’s smile widened; she loved listening to Rose talk more than anything else in the world. “And what did she say?”
Rose rolled her eyes dramatically. “She patted me on the head and said I have an active imagination.”
Harper schooled her expression, not wanting to give away that she agreed with Rose’s teacher.
“But you think I’m right, don’t you?” Rose’s big brown eyes widened, looking at her aunt with hope.
Harper couldn’t let down the little girl who occupied her whole heart. “Of course!” She flipped to the back of the book where two full pages were black with hundreds of multicolored dots littered across them. “Our solar system is just a small part of a bigger galaxy, and there are hundreds of thousands of other galaxies. Ones we don’t even know about yet. Who knows what’s out there?”
Rose nodded emphatically. “Exactly.” She turned to the book, looking at the image of galaxies stretched across inky blackness. “I’ll find them.”
“Find what, sweet pea?”
“All the other galaxies and people in them. I want to be an astronaut. Maybe I’ll even find heaven and get to see mommy again.” She looked up at her aunt with that innocent hopefulness shining through again.
Harper just didn’t have the will in her to crush that spirit. She’d burned down her own hopes and dreams so Rose could have the life she wanted. “I think you’d make an excellent astronaut.”
****
Rose raced into the small ranch home, with Harper trailing behind. Dread built up in her chest; she hated coming home to see her mother. The women didn’t exactly see eye to eye on everything when it came to Rose and how she was being raised. Not to mention her mother still hadn’t forgiven Harper for dropping out of school when she had such a bright future in front of her.
The screen door was still rattling from Rose’s enthusiastic entrance when Harper grabbed it to follow the little girl inside.
“Grammy, Grammy, Harper says I can be an astronaut and maybe find heaven someday.” The little ball of energy bounced up and down on her toes, looking up at her grandmother with joy.
The older woman was not as happy. “Oh did she?” Doris shot her daughter a disapproving look and rolled her eyes, before looking back down at Rose. “Honey, do you remember what we said about managing your expectations? Sometimes you don’t always get everything you want.”
Harper wanted to pull her niece away and tell her not to listen. That she could have anything and everything she wanted in life if she put her mind to it. And that Harper would help her at every turn. But she only watched as Rose’s face fell, her bright smile dimming. Unshed tears shimmered at the edges of her eyelids, but like the strong, stubborn girl she was, she held them back.
“Yes, Grammy. I’m going to go wash up for lunch.” Rose turned and ran down the hall to the bathroom, where Harper was sure she would finally let those tears fall.
“Why do you have to do that?” Harper spat at her mom as she passed by to set down the bag full of books they had taken to the park.
“What? Not fill her head with nonsense? I’d rather hurt her feelings a little now than have life break her when she finds out it isn’t all sunshine and rainbows.” Doris opened the fridge and pulled out a package of hot dogs and jar of applesauce.
Harper leaned back against the counter, futilely trying to rein in her annoyance with the woman who raised her. “I’m pretty sure she knows life isn’t all sunshine and rainbows already, Ma. After all, she knows her mom died when she was a baby, and that her father wants nothing to do with her.” She glared at the meal Doris prepared for her niece and felt indignation rising up in her chest. “And why are you feeding her that processed crap? I gave you money for groceries. Buy her some real food.”
Doris threw the spoon she’d been using to scoop out the applesauce down onto the counter, splattering sauce across the counter and backsplash. “You think you can do so much better for the girl? You take her. I raised my kids. I should be done with this shit by now. I worked two jobs, minimum, my entire adult life to keep you and your sister alive. What did I get for it? One turned out to be a druggie that OD’d and the other takes her clothes off for men I would cross the street to avoid. For your information, hot dogs and applesauce is Rose’s favorite right now. I give her proper dinners every night, and don’t let her eat that sugary cereal crap in the mornings. But when she’s home for lunch, I give her what she wants. Go look in the fridge for yourself if you don’t believe me. It’s filled to the damn brim with that organic crap you want her to have, that I have to fight to get her to eat.”
Her mother heaved in a breath and dropped her chin to her chest. Guilt surged through Harper. The truth was she did want to take Rose. Wanted to have her every day to love and cherish. But in order to give her the best chance at a good start in life it just wasn’t possible. Not yet.
“I know, Mom, I’m sorry.” She crossed the kitchen to lean on the counter next to her mom. They were never a very physically affectionate family. Hugs and kisses were reserved for special occasions. One of the many things Harper hoped to change about Rose’s upbringing. “I’ve been thinking. Maybe if we can get Rose into that Pre-K program at the school district next year, maybe I can go back to a desk job. Quit the club. Without the cost of her preschool it will ease the money strain a lot. I could move in here with her, and you could move to Florida with your sister, like I know you want.”
Doris nodded, still refusing to make eye contact with her daughter. “I think that would be good. Rose would love to have you here every day. She misses you when you’re not here. I just can’t keep up with her anymore.” She rubbed at her hips, probably sore with the arthritis Harper knew plagued her. “Don’t get me wrong, I love that little girl as much as anything in this world. But a grandmother’s job should be to swoop in and spoil her for a couple days, to babysit on occasion. Not raise a child as energetic as Rose.”
“I know, Mom. But we’ve been over this. That daycare we had her in before was horrible. They just left the babies crying in cribs all day. They weren’t even officially licensed. I can’t put her back in a place like that just because I hate my job.” Tears burned behind Harper’s eyes at the memory of picking up her niece from school when she was barely two years old, to discover her diaper hadn’t been changed in hours and she had been left to play with a few blocks in her crib for most the day.
That was the day Harper quit her job at the law firm, dropped out of college, and took Kandy up on her offer to get her a job at The Beanstalk. Harper couldn’t think about the days before working in the club. It was too painful. She missed her days in college. The classes, the discussions, the camaraderie. She even missed the shitty job at the law firm. The lawyers had been leering scum bags, but they kept their distance. And it gave her a little insight into the profession she had so desperately wanted to pursue.
Criminal psychology. That had been her passion. Growing up in the kind of neighborhood she had, she found herself wondering why the men standing on street corners between drug deals, robberies, and forcing their women to turn tricks, did what they did. Was it simply that they only knew a life of crime? Did they get a thrill out of it? Could they truly reform, turn away from that life?
The need for those answers only increased when her baby sister turned to those men early in her teens, desperate for their validation. Harper had wanted to find a way to help her sister, get her away from the dark path she had wandered down.
But she gave all that up. Instead, she now danced for the men she used to scrutinize and dream of bringing to justice.<
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A deep sigh slipped through her mother’s lips. “I know. We’ve been over this before. And honestly, I’d do just about anything for that little girl. I’m just so tired.”
“I know, Mom. I’m sorry.” Harper bumped her shoulder against her mother’s and gave her a small smile.
The older woman returned the smile and slumped into the contact with her daughter. “The curse of mothers everywhere is always wondering if there was something you could’ve done better. Some way you could have made your kids’ lives better, guaranteed them a better future. But you’ll never know. In the moment you’re just trying to survive one minute to the next. Keep food on the table. Get homework done. Teach the lessons that need to be taught.” She sighed, leaning her forehead onto Harper’s shoulder. “I don’t know if it’s any easier when you have money or a husband who didn’t drink himself into an early grave. But I did the best I could. And so are you.”
Harper’s mom picked up her head and gazed deep into her daughter’s eyes, her expression softer than Harper could ever remember seeing it before. She didn’t realize there were tears streaking down her own face until Doris reached up to wipe them away.
“Because you are that little girl’s mom, regardless of who gave birth to her.” Her mother’s voice softened in a way she had never heard from the woman before.
Rose picked that moment to come barreling into the kitchen, a whirlwind of neon green, pink, and spunk. “What’s for lunch? Reading makes me hungry.”
Doris laughed and turned to her granddaughter. “Your favorite: hot dogs, apple sauce, and just to make Harper happy, peas.”
Rose scrunched up her nose and rolled her eyes at her aunt. “Ugh, okay, but only because I know astronauts need nutrients to survive in space.”
Harper smiled, loving the little bit of sass the girl obviously threw her grandmother’s way with that comment. Her heart swelled as she took in the little girl’s determined expression.
And right along with her, Harper’s own determination solidified. They would be a family someday. She would find a way to get out of the shadow of The Beanstalk and give Rose the maternal figure she deserved.
And with that thought, the man she had been trying to push from her mind for the whole day popped suddenly into the picture. Jax. She had no business thinking he could be a part of their lives. He was everything she didn’t want for a partner and father. A low on his luck bartender, overbearing, possessive, quick-tempered man.
Yet, something deep inside Harper told her not to judge him too harshly. That something lurked under the surface. The instincts she had honed over the years growing up on the streets and studying psychology told her she could trust him. That he was different.
She just hoped her gut feeling didn’t steer her wrong this time.
Chapter 7
Jax
Jax glanced at the door again, for what felt like the millionth time that night. When it swung open, the parking lot lights illuminated the dark club for a moment. He held his breath, waiting to see who would walk through the door. When another customer filed in, Jax huffed the breath back out, getting more frustrated with himself.
It had been two days since he’d seen Harper. The place felt empty without her magnetic presence. The overwhelming need to see her confused Jax to no end. Never before had he longed for a woman like he did Harper. And they weren’t even together; other than their two intense hook-ups, they barely knew one another. Yet that didn’t seem to matter to his body or his heart.
Some part of himself recognized, the moment he saw her step onto the stage, that she was a part of him. Not seeing her for such a long stretch of time caused a chasm inside his chest. Only seeing her would close it.
Once again the door swung open, and Jax turned his head to see who entered.
“Dude, what is uX p with you tonight?” Rick punched Jax’s shoulder as he passed by him to serve a customer at the other end of the bar.
“Nothing.”
Another sleazy man looking to get his rocks off stepped through the door, and Jax fought the disappointment seizing his chest.
“Bullshit, nothing. You’re watching that door like it holds the secret to being able to suck your own cock. You barely look at the dancers.” Rick stopped pouring the drink in his hand and glanced over to Jax. “And come to think of it, I’ve yet to see you take up these wenches on their offers to fuck you. They all drool over you; you could be rolling in the pussy anytime you wanted.”
Rick’s comment, though crude, held more truth than Jax liked to think about. In the two weeks since he began working at The Beanstalk, he’d had more than a few phone numbers shoved in his jeans. One girl even followed him to his truck after work one night and offered to let him do anything he wanted to her, for the low price of twenty dollars. It turned his stomach.
“You queer or something, dude? Not that I care. More pussy for me.” Rick went back to pouring the drink before handing it over to the customer who was too distracted by a passing dancer to notice he got more water than anything else in his cocktail.
“No, Rick, I’m not gay.” It figured that the idiot would automatically think Jax liked men simply because he didn’t openly stare at the strippers’ tits when they talked to him and had no desire to pay to get his rocks off. In Rick’s book you either treated women like your own personal cum receptacle, or you were gay. But as much as Jax would’ve loved to put the Neanderthal in his place, he had a job to do, and a front to keep up. “I’m also not a two pump chump that comes the minute any warm mouth wraps around my dick.” Jax tossed the towel slung over his shoulder at the other bartender, hitting him in the face.
“Fuck you, man.” Rick slapped the towel on the bar and turned away from Jax in a huff.
Determined to put Harper from his mind, Jax turned to survey the room. There had been no sighting of Royce since the day he’d shown up in the bar and fucked Peaches into a near coma. However, the surveillance bug they’d rigged in George’s office had picked up two phone conversations between the men, planning another shipment. The team could only assume that shipment would be more girls. It seemed another delivery this close to the last one was somewhat out of the norm, and it appeared a third person was in the on the trafficking operation, though they hadn’t named him. However, it became clear from their conversations that whoever the third partner was, he knew nothing about this extra shipment, and Royce and George wanted it to stay that way. The men were getting sloppy, greedy, and over confident. And it would be their downfall.
The case couldn’t have been coming together any smoother. Thanks to a little snooping Jax had done the day before, they discovered a tunnel connecting the club to a house a half mile away. A trap door in the storage room led to the tunnel, and after sending down one of the smallest camera equipped drones in the world, they found it ended in the basement of a dilapidated house. The only way to and from the house was that tunnel or a dirt road behind the club. The drone got shots of a cache of weapons kept in the dirt floored basement, piles of narcotics and cash left out on tables throughout the building, and at least a dozen girls huddled together at one end of the house.
The video, along with the audio recordings and Jax’s own observations, ensured they could put an extraction plan into place. In exactly twenty-four hours, a team would descend on the club and house at the same time the truck would deliver the latest round of girls. Jax hated knowing women were being victimized at that very moment, but he accepted that if they moved too fast, the truck full of kidnapped victims could be rerouted to another location, and they, along with Royce, would be lost forever.
Since there was nothing Jax could do to speed the case up, he decided to use the time to his advantage. He had one day to ingrain himself so deeply into Harper’s psyche that no matter what happened, she would no more be able to resist him than he could her.
As if conjuring her from his mind, the door swung open once more. But now the backlit silhouette filling the doorway had indecent curves, even under
a baggy T-shirt and jeans.
Instantly, his cock stood at attention, recognizing and saluting the woman he would make his. She stood frozen in the doorway for a moment, staring at him, her chest rising up and down with each breath. Jax couldn’t have stopped his eyes from sliding to the large round mounds if he had tried. Which he made no attempt at. Taking in her body, he schooled the need to launch across the bar and take her in his arms. Prevent her from taking off the baggy clothes she wore and showing what hid underneath to these assholes. But he couldn’t do that. They were so close to finishing their case. He had to keep his cool, for just one more day. Then he would never let Harper step foot in this hellhole again. She wouldn’t need to.
