“So, no accidents on the way here?” I find myself saying.
She glances at me, still wearing that smile, only now it grows wider. “Not today.”
“There’s always tomorrow right?”
“Oh, you’re funny.” She glances down at her watch and sighs. “Shoot. Okay Spencer time to wrap it up.”
“You’re leaving already?”
“I have a bridal party coming in at eight. Hair and makeup. I know it’s only seven fifteen, but I figure it’ll take me at least thirty minutes to get him in the car. As it was this morning, I had to cover up all the clocks before we left so he wouldn’t know we were leaving the house early. Spencer doesn’t like changes to his routine. There are rules, and those rules can’t ever be broken.”
I nod my understanding though I’m disappointed I don’t get to spend longer with her. With them both. Seeing Nuke be a dog for once? Well, it’s nice. We play fetch all the time at home, but it’s work for him and a coping mechanism for me. When those dark thoughts begin to creep back in, throwing myself into something physical is just the distraction that I need. It also helps that he looks so stupidly happy when he retrieves the ball and drops it at my feet all covered in slobber.
“I ain’t leavin’. You can’t make me,” Spencer says, tears forming in his eyes. His face turns red and he stamps his foot hard on the white sand. Nuke whines and nudges his huge black head against Spencer’s side. “I ain’t goin’, Mamma.”
“Spencer Mason, do not sass me. Now, we’ve had a nice time, but we have to say goodbye to Nuke and Jake and get in the car. Mamma has clients this morning.”
“I don’t care. I don’t wanna go.” He stamps his foot again and folds his arms across his chest. “You’re the worst mamma ever. I hate you. I ain’t leavin’.”
Tears prick Ellie’s eyes and she blushes. “Spencer Mason, you are gettin’ in that car.”
“No!” He picks up the stick and throws it again, and Nuke takes off to retrieve it. I call him back with a whistle and he abandons the hunt to flank my side. I pat his head and move closer to Spencer.
“Hey, buddy.”
“My name ain’t buddy. It’s Spencer Mason. You can call me Spencer Mason.”
I nod. “Spencer Mason, your mamma has work to do today. Now I’m sure she’d like to stay as much as the rest of us, but sometimes grownups have to work.”
“I hate her work; she’s always workin’.”
“I know, but you see adults have to work to keep you in food and clothes.” I pause to let him take that in. His lips purse and his eyes narrow. I can practically see the little cogs in his head turning. “How old are you, Spencer?”
“Eight years old.”
I nod. “And I bet you’ve grown real big since you were seven, right?”
“Yes, sir. I got muscles on top of muscles.” He flexes.
“Whoa. Don’t go flashing those things around, Spencer, you’ll scare everyone.”
He laughs and wipes at his nose with the back of his hand. “I’m gonna be a U.S. Marine.”
My smile falters, and I swallow hard. I look at his mother. Tears slide down her cheeks and ruin her makeup. “Well, you know the Marines don’t take to insubordination of any kind. Do you know what that word means?”
“Insubordination is the refusal to obey orders,” he says, and I could have sworn he’d rolled his eyes at that and his head was screaming, “Duh!”
“That’s right. Now you got ten more years before you can enlist, but if you wanna be a Marine you gotta take orders from your mamma. It’s that simple.”
“But I don’t wanna go.”
“I know that, but I’ll make you a deal. Nuke and me, we gonna be walking this beach tomorrow. You and your mamma are welcome to join us, but you have to go with her now, and you have to be good the whole day.”
“On Sundays we have church,” Spencer says, matter-of-factly.
“And after that?”
“After that we go to the market.”
I nod. “And what then?”
“Then we have an hour of free time, Mamma does the laundry and I play with my toys, and then we have lunch.”
I run my hand over my stubble with a puzzled expression. “Wow, that seems like a pretty busy Sunday.”
“We have another free-time hour after lunch. We could do it then?”
I glance at his mamma, who watches me with a wide eyed expression. “Elle, you okay with that?”
She nods, blinking back tears. “I think we can manage.”
“It’s a deal,” I say.
Spencer frowns, glances nervously from his mother to me. “You’re supposed to shake on it, right?”
I clear my throat. “Yeah, that’s usually how you seal a deal.”
“I don’t like to be touched,” he says, wringing his little hands together.
I lean forward and whisper, “Can I tell you a secret?” He nods. “I don’t like to be touched either.”
“You don’t?”
I shake my head. Spencer’s face explodes with a grin. “Do you have to have all the tags cut off your shirts too?”
I shake my head and his face falls. “No, but I hate fireworks and other really loud noises. That’s why I have Nuke. He helps me deal with everything when my head gets too messy.”
“I like Nuke.”
“He likes you,” I say, grinning at the boy. “I can tell.”
“How?”
“Well, for a start, he won’t just let any old person throw a stick for him. And he does love snickerdoodles.”
“I gave him snickerdoodles at Aunt Olivia’s.”
“I know.” I can’t help smiling at his enthusiasm. “So tomorrow we’ll meet here after lunch and we can throw the stick some more.”
“Deal.” He nods and picks up the stick and holds it tight to his body.
Nuke goes on alert, ready to seek it out. “You gonna take it home with you? Why don’t we just leave it here and pick it up tomorrow?”
“No. then it might be different. It might wash out with the tide, or someone might pick it up and take it. It’s our stick. We need to keep our stick.”
“Alright then. You bring it back tomorrow; you hear?” I say. “And be good for your mamma.”
He nods as if he’s cementing those thoughts inside his head, and with a wave at Nuke, he runs up the beach to the near empty lot. I turn to Elle.
“Thank you,” she says.
I shake my head. “It’s nothing.”
“You don’t know Spence. It weren’t nothing, trust me—it was something. Spencer doesn’t just change his routine like that on a whim.” She sighs, watching her boy as he climbs in the back seat of her car. “I’ve been trying for eight years to accomplish what you just did in one minute.”
“You need to stop being so hard on yourself. You’re a good mamma, Elle. I don’t even know you that well, but I know that much about you at least.”
She runs a hand through her hair, untangling the locks that the bay breeze had caused. It looks like a nervous gesture. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s true.”
“Yeah?” I say, surprised. “Sometimes I wonder if I actually went crazy over there in that desert, and I’m not really here, but moments like this prove me wrong.”
She laughs half-heartedly. “Point taken.” Elle adjusts her purse strap on her shoulder and says, “Oh shoot, I almost forgot to give you this.”
She pulls a cello bag of fluffy white candies out of her purse and holds it out to me. I take it from her, my whole body tenses when her fingers touch mine. “Divinity?”
“Payment for helping me find Spence. Or a part of it anyway. I haven’t had a chance to bake the cookies yet, but I will. I always settle my debts.”
I don’t bother telling her that she doesn’t owe me a thing because I always was a sucker for a woman who could bake, and the idea of having her make something for me? Well, I ain’t gonna lie. I like the thought of that a lot.
“Thank you,” I say, holding up
the bag. I never cared for the candies much, but unless she had them in her house already, she woulda had to get these late last night after we talked or first thing this morning. I happen to know that Punta Clara don’t open this early or stay open that late, so getting her hands on these woulda meant she’d called in a favor or two.
She smiles sheepishly, as if she figured out what I was thinking. “I better go. Don’t wanna be late.”
“Yep, you better,” I say with a grin.
“Goodbye, Jake Tucker.”
“Goodbye, Elle.”
She hurries to her car and turns the key in the ignition. She backs out without even a second glance behind her and speeds off like a race-car driver about to lap the track. I shake my head. That woman is a walking time bomb and the more I talk to her, the more I don’t care that I’m going to be swallowed up by the blast once it goes off.
And it is sure to detonate. Anything that comes from this, anything we build will be blown to smithereens because if she is a time bomb, I am a nuclear weapon.
Chapter Seven
Jake
Sunday came and we met after lunch just like we’d said we would. Elle bought coffee in paper cups and Spencer threw the stick to Nuke as they walked along the beach ahead of us. Elle talked pretty much nonstop. She mentioned before that she rambled when she was nervous. Apparently, she was nervous a lot around me.
Throughout the week, we continued training the pups for Olivia and come Friday, we had a graduation party for them before we bade them farewell and Olivia loaded them into crates in her minivan and took them to Mobile. Ellie and Spencer had gone with her to hand them over to the foundation.
As if by some unspoken agreement, the four of us met every morning before Spence started school, and every afternoon too. I never said much because Elle did the talking for both of us, but I liked it. All I had were tales of blood and war, things far too gruesome and dark to be mentioned in the daylight if at all.
From Elle, I learn that with the exception of Olivia and Mr. Williams, she has no one. Her parents are alive but they weren’t on speaking terms with their daughter, and to this day Spencer has never met them. I get the feeling there is no love lost there, but when she talked of her Memaw, her whole face lit up, and I found myself asking more questions so I could see her smile just a little longer.
At night, when the walls of my living room pressed in too tight, I’d find myself walking by her house. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was because I wanted to be close to her or maybe I’d finally come to care about someone other than my dog and I wanted to make sure they were safe. All I knew was that I’d take Nuke out for his evening walk and somehow wind up two miles away, standing in her front yard and staring up at her living room window until Nuke pawed at me, and then I’d move on way before I was ready.
Tonight I didn’t bring Nuke with me because I know Williams won’t let me bring him inside, and the old bastard watches the house like a hawk. Even now, well after ten, I feel his eyes on me from the porch as I knock lightly on Elle’s front door. I know she’s awake because though the lights are dim and her curtains are closed, the living room lights up every few seconds with strobe-like flashes from the TV. A part of me wants to flee, and another wants to barge in and take her in my arms.
Footsteps. Each second I wait for her to open the door feels like an hour. I smooth my hands over the box in my hand. She mutters, “What in the world?”
A beat passes and the door rattles as if her weight is pressed against it, and then the lock turns, and she stands before me, damp hair, makeup free, and so fucking beautiful it hurts. My chest aches from just looking at her.
“Jake, are you okay? What are you doin’ here?”
I tear my gaze away from those deep brown eyes and take in the rest of her. She wears only a shell pink negligee and satin robe. The later slips open to reveal the outline of her dark rose nipples beneath the sheath of fabric. She stares down, horrified, and ties her robe closed, and I turn away, shamefaced.
“I’m sorry.” I shove the glossy Cherrywood box toward her and she takes it from me. Not that I gave her much choice to do otherwise. “I just came to give you this.”
“Wait, don’t leave,” she says, wetting her lips. Her cheeks are flushed and all the blood rushes to my cock as I imagine her eyes fever bright, her lips full and swollen from my kisses and her skin flushed with desire. “Let me go get changed and I’ll be right with you.”
“No, don’t,” I say, quickly. “I shouldn’t be banging down your door in the middle of the night.”
“It’s hardly the middle of the night, Jake.”
“It’s too late for visitors with good intentions, that’s for sure,” I whisper.
“Jake, stay.”
“I just came to give you that.” I nod toward the box she’s holding. She unfastens the latch and opens it. Her eyes grow wide. “To replace the one I ruined.”
“This costs a lot more than the one you ruined.” She runs her fingers over the ivory handle and the stamped-lettered Wade & Butcher logo on the blade, and shakes her head, carefully closing the lid. “I can’t accept it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“Do you have any idea what this is worth?”
I nod. “My granddaddy restored them; I have another just like it. It may not be pink like the one I broke, but it should tide you over.”
“This is . . . it’s beautiful. Thank you, but are you sure?”
“He’d want you to have it,” I say, frowning because try as I might to be a gentleman, I can’t keep my eyes off of her in that robe. “I want you to have it.”
That’s not all I want you to have.
“Well, thank you. Now, why don’t you come in and take a seat? We might not be ready for another close shave, but I been fixin’ to get my hands on that hair of yours. Do you think you could handle that?”
I hesitate for a moment, but even if it kills me I’ll do it if it means being closer to her, so I nod and step inside. I can smell her shampoo, roses and lavender. Good God, I am rock fucking hard. Would it be weird if I pulled her to me and sniffed her hair?
Elle takes a step back and sets the box on the hall table. “Why don’t you head into the salon and get yourself situated? I’m going to put some more clothes on and I’ll be there in just a moment.”
“Okay.” I head down the hall and open the sliding door to the salon. I find the light switch and flick it on, blinking as the fluorescent overhead stutters to life. The gentle hum of the dryer and the scent of fabric softener soothe me, and I take a seat in one of the smaller salon chairs. I barely fit. Moments later, she enters the salon wearing an Alabama Crimson Tide T-shirt and another pair of those teeny-tiny white shorts that she likes to kill me with. I can’t decide if this is better or worse than the robe.
“You ready?” she says, taking a cape from the pile. I love that she didn’t touch her hair or makeup while she was gone, but just got dressed. She doesn’t feel the need to appear presentable for me—and, if you know anything about southern women, it’s that they’re always presentable. Hell, my Memaw used to say, “A good southern woman will always leave the house like she’s about to meet the love of her life,” and she’d been married to hers for some sixty years.
“I’m ready,” I say, bracing myself as those metal buttons snap closed around my neck.
“Alright then.” She picks up a spray bottle from one of those little buggies and spritzes it over my hair. I tense, more from the cold than anything. She combs through all the tangles with her fingers first, and then with what looks like a florescent pink grooming mitt. My scalp tingles from the attention.
“You should know I still ain’t giving you a buzz-cut.”
“Give me whatever you think I need.” I don’t mean for that to sound so suggestive, but when she looks at me like she wants to straddle my waist and fuck me in this very chair, I’m glad it did.
“I can do that,” she whispers, and all bravado I feel vanishes instantly when the f
irst zinging snip of the scissors echoes in my ear. Panic spreads through me, but Elle is careful not to make any sudden movements, and after a while I stop shaking and breathe normally. Her presence is soothing, so much so that I don’t flinch when she presses the clippers to my nape and tidies up my neck. When she moves in front of me, my hand brushes her thigh. It isn’t intentional, the first time. I reach out and graze a fingertip over her soft skin, wanting to feel more of her.
She jumps as if I’ve frightened her, as if she wasn’t aware that she’s slowly been driving me mad every second of these past few weeks. I draw my hand away and ball it into a fist as I rest it on my thigh.
Ellie sets the scissors and comb down on the tiny counter behind her. She stares at my hands and slowly reaches out to trace her fingertip over the scarred knuckles. I want to pull away, but I don’t. Instead, my skin crawls as she works her fingers under my hand and unfurls my fist, drawing it back to her smooth thigh. The fingers of my free hand dig into the soft flesh over her hip as I pull her closer. A gasp escapes her, and I roll my gaze up to meet one filled with longing and what looks to be nervous anticipation. She stands, straddling one of my legs, and I lean forward, pressing my forehead to the softness of her breasts. She runs her hands through my hair, and I inhale deeply. Never in a million years did I think I’d ever get this close to a woman again, to her scent, her softness, or enjoy her willingness to let me put my hands on her, but then it dawns on me. Ellie Mason, a woman that looks more angel than human, is touching me, and my scarred hands grasp her body as if it belongs to them, as if she wouldn’t turn away if she saw the rest of me. The dread, the absolute horror of wanting her, of undressing in front of her and seeing the sheer repulsion on her face as she takes me in, is too much.
“No!” I grip her hips with both hands and push her into the counter, holding her at arm’s length. I stand, and hurry past before she can touch me again. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Jake,” she begins, but her words are cut short by the salon door closing behind me.
I shake my head and turn to flee, but my feet won’t move. It’s as if they’re glued to the spot and all I can do is sink my fingers through my freshly cut hair and bury my face in my hands.
Toward the Sound of Chaos Page 5
