by Eden Butler
“I couldn’t disappoint you, shoushou…”
“No?” His expression was incredulous, angry. “But you could rip my heart out? You could hear me begging for you to stay and still walk away from me, telling me it could work when you knew you didn’t want it to?”
“I wanted it to.” He didn’t flinch or back away from me when I leaned forward, my fingers curling into his shirt on their own. “My God, Ransom, I did. But I wasn’t going to let you tie yourself to me when I couldn’t give you a family.”
“Fuck’s sake, Aly,” He grabbed my wrist, holding me still when I tried to pull away from him. His voice had lifted, cracked with the emotion, with his anger as he yelled at me. “You were my damn family!”
The seconds passed, inflated between us with the thick scent of kerosene from the fire pit as we watched each other. Ransom kept my hand still, gripping it even as my fingers relaxed from his collar. We were frozen in the charges laid before us, the flash of bitter memory that came between us like a wedge.
“It wasn’t the only reason,” I said, slipping my gaze to his. “You know it wasn’t.”
Ransom nodded, his features tightening as he looked at me. “I know that.” When I shook my head, unwilling to believe him, he came closer, catching my gaze. “You walked away from me because I didn’t see you, because I didn’t make our lives about anything but me and my career. Every damn thing was so one-sided. You lifted me up, gave me everything and I was too absorbed in what I wanted to see that.” The wind blew a strand of my hair against my face, catching in my eyes and Ransom moved it back, tucking it behind my ear. “But I see you now, ku`u lei. That recital, the new school, how hard you worked, what you’ve done, what you’ve accomplished. Aly, you did that with pure determination. You made successes for yourself without anyone at your back.” He cupped my face then, stilling my trembling chin as it moved. “You are such a badass woman, nani and I’m so damn proud of you.”
The tears came then, filling and falling from my eyes. I’d waited so long to hear those words and had no idea what they’d do to me if Ransom ever uttered them. Now he had and I saw the steel in his eyes, the determination, the honesty in them that kept his expressions still, as though saying the words out loud, to me, meant something to him as well.
But the truth was, it was too late. What he saw in me now was wonderful, what I had waited for so long, but it didn’t take away what I couldn’t give him. No matter how much I wanted it to. So much had changed while I was waiting.
I lowered my eyes, focusing on his knuckles as they kept my hand clasped at his chest. There was no way I could make this easier. “It doesn’t matter now.”
“Why?” He was shocked. He hadn’t considered that I might dismiss what he’d said, and to him it must have sounded like I was brushing him aside. “Because you’re so in love with Ethan?”
Ransom could be cruel when he was hurt and no doubt my agreeing to marry Ethan made that hurt run deep. Still, I didn’t appreciate the sarcasm in his tone. I jerked my hand from his shirt. “Don’t do that. Don’t turn this around…”
“You told me even he knows you aren’t all in with him.” I tried to move, but Ransom kept me still with one hand on the back of the chair I was sitting in. “You let me touch you.” Eyes closed tight, I let that slow growl of his words soak into my ears. His voice was a tease that licked against my senses, promising, provoking. Ransom’s voice was low, his fingers over my skin, across my face, feather light. “You let me taste you. You wouldn’t have if you were in love with him. This,” he said, grabbing my left hand, the ring glittering on my finger, “this is nothing. This means nothing.”
“Ransom...”
“Mother fucker. No, Aly. It doesn’t mean a thing.” And he kissed me, hard.
At eighteen Ransom kissed me like he wanted me. He sought permission with every touch he gave me back then. At twenty, he’d learned that my permission was always his. Still, he’d glance at me, checking to see if every touch, every graze of his hands on my body was allowed. Now he took my face, moving my head to guide me, rule me, take from me what he wanted and with the strength of his touch and the way his mouth, his tongue insisted, I understood that he wanted it all. Everything I had. Anything I had given to Ethan, he wanted it back. That eager, greedy swipe of his lips, the twist of my hair between his fingers, told me Ransom wanted me now. That he hadn’t ever stopped.
When he pulled away from me, holding me close, keeping me still, I didn’t bother wiping my eyes, didn't hide that I wasn’t crying, that I wasn’t so damn twisted with guilt and confusion and indecision. He didn’t seem to care that I was.
“I’d adopt or steal or buy a hundred babies that weren’t mine just to keep you with me.” He kissed me again, holding my face as though he was scared I’d try to pull away from him. “And if babies were too much for you, I’d find you a litter of puppies or kittens or, fuck’s damn sake, I’d steal some baby birds and build them a nest between our bedroom pillows.” Ransom’s face was wet and when I moved my fingers over his forehead, across his cheek, taking the kiss he offered, I couldn’t tell if it was my tears or his that smeared my mascara. His eyes were red and his nose leaked, but Ransom kept watching me, looking like he wasn’t sure what to make of this entire day. “Kids would have come. Or they wouldn’t. You don’t see that? My sweet love, my badass woman who doesn’t need a damn soul, who can do anything at all, I know that now. I see that now. More than any damn thing on the planet, baby, I want you. No, I don’t just want you. I need you, Aly. I need you like I need the breath in my body, the blood in my veins. There is no me without you. Not then, ko`u aloha, not now. Not ever.”
My love.
Was I still? Had I ever been? Or had I merely been ripe and convenient? I didn’t know, God help me, I couldn’t decide, but that didn’t make me stop Ransom when he kissed me again or explain why I responded to his kiss, his touch, how I let him pick me up, hold me by the waist to get closer to my mouth, kiss me deeper.
“Aly, please. Tell me you don’t want Ethan. Tell me you’ll be my family again.”
“Ransom…I…I need…”
The sound of that cracking, busted engine made us both stop, had our attention on the back of the house and the loud music booming from Cass’s busted Ford pickup. Ransom set me on my feet without a word, pulling me away from the pit with a firm grip on my hand and just before we made it to the patio, he stopped, turning on me as he brushed the back of his hand across his damp face.
“Don’t think that this asshole is going to get me to forget you owe me an answer.”
My laugh was brief, but it still pulled a grin from Ransom. “Fine. We’ll table it.” And before I could follow him up the steps, Ransom grabbed my face, kissing me quick, but deep once more.
“I’ll get it from you, makamae.” He pushed me close, resting his large hand against my ass. “Trust that.”
Your tongue is heavy
Thick
Clustered with words,
Break
Burn.
Your heart is empty,
Weak
Vacuous.
Your mind is twisted,
Sick
Like your soul
Like my pity.
Eighteen
I’d take a million mediocre days to get me from the moment I was in just then: Aly leaning next to me against the wall just outside of my mother’s studio, smelling like something out of my best damn wet dream, the feel of her tears still drying on my face and the recall of her taste teasing my mouth. She wouldn’t let me charge into the studio and for a moment, I didn’t mind. My fingers itched to throttle that idiot cowboy, but a more driving urge compelled me to listen. I guessed that had more to do with Aly leaning against me as we eavesdropped.
“Keira, you take on too much,” I heard Cass tell my mother. “You don’t deserve this, especially not from him.”
That slick fucker was using his inside voice—smooth, sweet, as though he wanted my mother to believ
e he was only worried about her and not his contract, not the record Mom had assured him would make him a household name. She really was a little gullible when it came to men, but damn, no one was that blind.
“Cass, please don’t say that.” I could hear the sluggishness of her words. She wasn’t drunk, would likely sober up the second we went through the door, but Aly wanted to wait. She kept her hand on my arm, holding me back and I was torn between the feel of her soft touch and the desire to get that asshole away from my mother.
“Not yet,” Aly whispered, tugging on my sleeve until my shoulders were against the wall. When I glanced down at her, she only shook her head, lifting her index finger to her lips to keep me quiet.
“I just think you deserve better than some dumb jock who can’t control himself.” If Cass meant to convince my mother that Kona was worthless, he was barking up the wrong tree. She might be mad at her husband. She might not even be bothering to answer his texts, but that was her. She could say and do whatever she wanted about him because he was hers. Cass insulting her husband? No. That wouldn’t go over well, a point that got proven in the handful of seconds that Cass finished speaking and my mother’s low, lethal voice whispered back at him.
“The hell did you say?”
I heard that familiar slip of temper. How many times had the echoes of cold fury bit into her tone over the years? How many times had Keira Riley donned the vestige of a mama bear when someone threatened me? How many prejudiced assholes did she kick out of the diner when they caught sight of Mark and Johnny sitting too close together or heard me, clearly not a white boy, calling my very white mother “Mama” and Bobbie, my adopted black grandmother “Granny B”? Mom was a tiger blinded by loyalty when anyone she loved got threatened or insulted. Smack talk wasn’t allowed. Neither were assumptions made that she knew were dead wrong. That’s why she now hurt so badly—that life long, burning loyalty she felt for Kona. Because she felt so deeply, so surely that he’d never hurt her and then it seemed like he had—that betrayal stung worse than she’d ever admit. But that was her business. Not some damn cowboy she’d found playing his guitar for ones in the French Quarter.
Cass really had no idea what he’d stepped in with that insult. He was about to find out.
“Answer me,” Mom said, any remaining hints of her depression or mild drunk gone. “You think my husband is guilty of the shit being thrown at him?”
“Keira, that’s not…” The cowboy’s tone was faint, a little frustrated and I leaned closer trying to hear him clearly. “Well, shit,” he amended, releasing a frustrated breath, “yes, I do. Someone like…that…with all that money, all those years surrounded by women throwing themselves at him, it’s a wonder this is just coming to light now. You know, the other kids.”
“Nothing is coming to light, Cass, except for how full of shit you are.” Mom’s voice lost some of its edge but I still picked up the caution. “Those women are lying. I’m not stupid. I know my husband.”
“Do you really?” For a few seconds I didn’t hear much more than the low exhale of Aly’s breath next to me, then the bristle of feet against the rug on the studio floor. There came a quick gasp and then Cass finally spoke again. “I’d never give you a reason to doubt me, darlin’. Not ever.”
“What are you doing?”
I got to just within the threshold of the door before Aly tugged on my arm, then pulled harder when I lunged, catching sight of Cass looming over my mother, his palm against her face, his arm around her waist as he tried to kiss her.
“What you want, sugar,” that asshole said, leaning in as I dragged Aly behind me.
Something stuck in my gut, made my throat work and sour, a sick taste coated the back of my tongue, but before it could gain purchase, my mother stepped back, pushing against Cass and maneuvered her foot to turn, right out of his touch so that the pivot she made had her away from Cass’s reach and the dumb cowboy bumping into the wall.
“Don’t you put your fucking hands on me, you asshole.” The quiet mouse, drawn and depressed that my mother had been for a solid week was suddenly gone, spurred on, it seemed, by insult and anger. “How dare you try…you must be out of your mind!”
“Keira, hold up now,” Cass started, lifting his hands, waving them as some lame attempt to pacify. “Baby…”
“Don’t you ever, and I damn well mean ever call me baby.” The idiot was thick, didn’t take her loud tone, her pinched, angry expression seriously, something Mom seemed to notice as the cowboy tried to approach again, completely ignoring me and Aly as we came fully into the room. And when Cass reached out, trying to get hold of Mom’s arm, my attempt to subdue him halted, made utterly pointless as Mom jerked back, slapping Cass’s face so hard that his pale skin welted quick and he frowned, clearly shocked at the sting she delivered.
“Get out of my house,” Mom said, stepping back, eyes cutting a cold threat in one flick of that hardened gaze. “Now.”
He seemed to cotton on quick that once pushed too far, my mother could be a rattlesnake striking, stinging so viciously that you’d find little chance at recovery. At least, I liked to think that’s akin to what Cass thought as Mom held his attention, kept it as the cowboy backed away, only stumbling back when I blocked his exit from the door. I wanted so badly to do a little chest thumping myself, to show I was as much the alpha that I knew my mother to be just so this asshole would catch the hint and keep it.
“Let him pass, Ransom.” Mom’s voice had returned to normal, but still held a warning I recognized.
A quick step back and I was out of his way, though I followed behind him making sure Cass retreated out of the house before that urge of mine to strike got too bad.
“Mom,” I started, stepping back into the studio, but stopped in the middle of the room when my phone rang. It took a glance to change my instinct to silence my phone when the 615 area code flashed across the screen. The few friends I had left from Nashville were named in my phone. As were Bobby’s sons, my unofficially adopted uncles, so I knew there could only be one other person from Tennessee hitting me up. The smile that moved over my mouth was quick, maybe a little worrisome but I still grinned, nodding to Mom and Aly as I hit the speaker icon. “You might wanna hear this,” I told my mother.
“Hey, Sara, how you doing? I’ve got you on speaker and Mom’s in the room. You find out anything?”
“Well shit, hey y’all. Keira, you there?”
“I’m here, honey,” Mom answered, smiling at Sara’s pleased accent. “Ransom said you did a little digging?”
“Oh hell yes, I did,” Sara answered and I sat on the console next to the soundboard, pulling Aly to my side as I held up the phone. Mom flanked my other side and the flush of color in her cheeks had paled, telling me her anger at Cass’s classless move had been forgotten as she listened to her former writing partner on the other end of the line. “And girl, you’re gonna shit. In fact, I’d be willing to bet my open toe Louboutin’s that you’ll be pulling that little shit’s contract faster than a duck on a Junebug.”
“Oh…okay,” Mom said and I got why her face had gone even paler, why she rubbed the back of her neck as though she wanted the tension there to disappear. I knew the way my mom’s mind worked—she’d brought Cass into our home. She’d been sure he was the real deal and had the talent to really make something of himself. But at what price? “Sara, tell me.”
“Well, turns out the Sony talent search did end a little different than the organizers wanted. Cass and that Aymes fella were the last two competitors in the contest. You remember Elvin Reynolds, Keira? That fat asshole who used to troll the Bluebird on writer’s night?”
“I do. The one always chasing after the waitresses fresh off the bus?”
“That’s right. Turns out Reynolds got himself sorted. I ran into him last week at the Hermitage. I’d heard he’d left Sony but knew he’d been there long enough to remember the last competition, definitely the gossip, nosey old thing that he is. You owe me a beer, at the ve
ry least for giving that man half an hour of my time.” Mom winced, didn’t join in with Sara’s laughter as she listened and I realized she was too anxious, too eager to hear what her friend had discovered to relax enough to joke.
“What’d he say, Sara?” I prompted, nodding at Mom when she squeezed my arm.
“Right, well to hear Reynolds tell the story, it wasn’t Cass who looked like the sure thing to win the competition. He said all the dirty details came out a day or so before the winner was to be announced. By that time word had gotten around that the Aymes kid had hauled ass back to Oklahoma. Turns out he’d been caught with some girl who wasn’t even eighteen at the Drake Motel. Couple of nights before the winner was supposed to be announced, Aymes gets a visit from a P.I. who hands him over pictures of him and the girl at the hotel bar. Then Aymes and the minor making out against his hotel room door. Then, one of Aymes passed out, hickeyed up and completely naked in the bed next to the girl.”
“Jesus.” Aly’s unrestrained oath echoed in the studio before Sara’s raspy alto started up again.
“Well that ain’t the hell of it all. Reynolds says the higher ups wanted to know what had happened. It was one thing for a married man like Aymes to get caught with his Wranglers around his boots. It was something else altogether for that very same married man to get caught with a minor just two days before he won a hundred grand contract with Sony.”
“What did they find out?” Mom stepped closer to the phone, as though willing Sara to hurry along with her story.
“They tracked down the P.I. You know how that elements works, Keira. How many did you serve coffee to in Bobby’s diner while they were on a case?”
“Too many,” Mom said.
“Well, it wasn’t hard getting the man to talk or to find the girl once Aymes had left town. Turns out there had been copies of those pictures sent to his little pregnant wife in Tulsa. And it turns out the girl had been hired, she admitted to it. Given two grand to find Aymes and get him drunk. She swore nothing had happened between them so he couldn’t be charged with anything, but the damage was already done. Aymes was gone and trying like hell to keep his wife from leaving him. But the girl admitted that it was the P.I. who paid her to find Aymes and stage those pictures.”
