Undefeated (Undefeated Series Books 1-4)

by Charity Parkerson

  “You bastard,” she spat, “she came to us for help, and I promised her she’d be safe here.”

  Walt tried to calm her down but she still struggled against his hold. Ace didn’t know what was going on but he was pissed. “What the fuck was that about, Parker?”

  Bryant stepped between them and Parker switched her attention to him. “I promised her, Bryant. I told Lucy she wouldn‘t have to worry about any of the men here bothering her,” she repeated.

  “I know, baby, I’ll take care of it,” he soothed.

  Ace’s confusion cleared. He should have known Parker would get involved eventually. She seemed to calm under Bryant’s assurance. She looked back at Ace and he fully understood the saying, "if looks could kill."

  She directed her words at Bryant but her eyes never left Ace “You better fix this because if I got to come back he’s dead.” She shrugged off Walt’s hold, storming out.

  Bryant clapped a hand on Ace’s shoulder. “Let’s go to my office. We’re attracting attention.”

  Ace looked around numbly, just noticing the crowd they had drawn. He was barely holding onto his temper as he followed Bryant to his office. Friend or not, he did not appreciate people hitting him, even if he did deserve it. Sitting across from Bryant, he gently prodded at his bruised jaw. “No offense man, but your wife is crazy. She has a right hook like a sledge hammer, though. Damn, you should sign her up to fight.”

  Bryant nostrils were flaring and a muscle in his jaw ticked. Picking up a pen, he began tapping it rhythmically on the desk. Ace knew that look. It was the same one he got from his father right before he began lecturing him on his life. Bryant seemed to be thinking his words over. Finally, he said, “Parker’s not crazy, she’s pissed. You know most women cry then they call their friends and cry some more. When they get tired of crying, they get dressed up in their most revealing clothes, go dancing, and make us men very sorry for whatever it was that we did to make them cry in the first place. Parker’s not wired that way. When you made Lucy cry, she dealt with it like a man. She came to fix it by kicking your ass.”

  “We had a mutual agreement,” he told Bryant quickly, chafing at the implication that he had been completely at fault.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bryant shot back just as quickly. “She was crying. That’s all that Parker cares about. Do you know anything about Lucy?” he asked Ace.

  Ace thought it was dumb question, considering, but he answered anyway. “Sure. No dad, her mom’s a bitch, works for Parker.” And she belonged to him, he added silently.

  Bryant rocked back in his chair, crossing his arms over his stomach. “I know you’re kind of self-absorbed but seriously, dude. Did you not ask yourself some questions about her? Like, why did she leave Washington and move across the country to live here where she knew no one? She had no friends, family, job, or place to live here.”

  Ace let out a short bark of laughter. “You haven’t met her mother or you wouldn’t be asking that question,” he told Bryant dryly.

  “What‘s going on between you two?” At Ace’s silent stare, Bryant rubbed a frustrated hand over his head. Ace leaned forward, resting his arms on Bryant’s desk asking, “Do you know something I don’t know?”

  Bryant blew out a sigh. “No. Apparently, there is some girls' code of silence that’s keeping Parker from telling me anything.”

  “And you’re hoping I will?” Ace asked Bryant.

  Bryant shrugged. “You got to talk to someone.”

  Ace stared down at his feet. He knew Bryant was right. He did need to talk to someone. It was hard for him to put feelings into words but he tried. “I don’t know how to balance this life with the life I want with Lucy.” Once he started, some of the tightness eased in his chest, making it easier for him to continue. “I have had this burning need to prove that I can succeed without my dad’s influence for so long now that I don’t know how to live any other way. Lucy, she deserves to have someone who will put her before everything else. I want to let her find that person, but how can I?” he smiled ruefully before continuing. “She is perfect for me. She never stops talking, but not because she has a lot to say, but because she doesn’t have any one else to listen to her. I love listening to her talk because I don’t have anybody who ever talks to me. Without her there is only silence.”

  Ace heard a sniffle from behind him. He turned quickly in his chair to find Parker behind him in the doorway wiping the corner of her eye. She said, “That is why you are perfect for her. You already are putting her before everything else.” She swiped at her cheek again and both men sat in a shocked silence. She asked defensively, “What?”

  “Nothing,” Bryant answered at the same time as Ace asked, “What were we talking about?”

  Parker rolled her eyes. Walking away, she mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like, “Stupid ass men.”

  Bryant mouthed “hormones” to Ace.

  Parker yelled, “Do I need to come back in there?”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Ace looked at his caller id as his cell phone rang. Apparently, today was not meant to be his day. Flipping it open, he spoke quickly into the phone, cutting his dad off at the pass.

  “Hey, Dad. If you’re calling me to tell me how disappointed you are in me, then you’re just going to have to get in line. You couldn’t possibly be more disappointed than I am.”

  “How many times do I have to tell you that I’m not disappointed in you? I’m disappointed for you. Your mom left because I was never around. You barely speak to me because I was always out of town or training. Now you want to follow that same path and I don’t understand why.” Ace rolled his eyes at the familiar speech. They had this same conversation at least once a week. He answered by rote.

  “Because this is what I love doing, and I am not following down the same path.”

  “Then you’re not losing Lucy? Because that‘s not what I heard,” Sparky asked, shocking Ace.

  “It’s not the same. Thanks to you, I don’t have to worry about struggling to make ends meet. I’m able to fight just for the passion of it.”

  “If that’s the case, then why are you pushing Lucy away?”

  “I’m not pushing Lucy away. I’m working on it.” Then he added, “How do you know about Lucy?”

  “The harpy,” his dad admitted.

  “Caroline?” Ace asked in disbelief.

  “The one and only. I guess somewhere between the calls and email they exchange, she’s gotten the whole story.”

  “Not the whole story, I hope,” he replied.

  “Ace, how much do you know about Lucy’s life here in Washington before she left?”

  “Basically nothing, only what she‘s told me about her childhood, Why?”

  “Since I’ve been staying here in Seattle, forcing Caroline to follow her exercise regimen, I’ve been hearing some terrible things, and I’m worried about Lucy. Have you heard anything about this lawyer she used to work for, Mike?”

  “Only what I overheard her mom saying. She said something along the lines of Lucy should have snapped him up while he had still wanted her, but I did notice Lucy’s reaction to those words. She was pale and brittle, and when we got back to her mom's house, she asked me to take her home, but she didn’t know then that I had called you. I knew you could fix it,” he admitted with pride shining through his words.

  “There are some people around here who have a different take on the relationship between this lawyer and Lucy. The people around here love to talk, especially about each other.” Ace could hear the worry in Sparky’s voice.

  “What do they think?” he asked, knowing his dad would have already ferreted out the story.

  “They think that he‘s only walking around a free man because she ran away to Tennessee. Do you think any of that is true?”

  Ace let out his breath in slow increments, trying to hold onto his temper and ease the ache that was blooming in his chest. “I guess it could be. She came to Smith Brothers for self-defense classes,
and she doesn’t talk to any of the other men. Enrollment in Parker’s self-defense class went up by eighty percent after Lucy started managing it, and all the new women seemed to know Lucy, even though Lucy doesn’t have any friends here in Tennessee.”

  “What are you thinking?” Sparky asked, then after a moment added, “Ah, support group members,” he suggested.

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I was thinking,” Ace agreed.

  “Damn. Okay, let me tell Dragon Mom that I’ve got another job that I have to go to. I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to be out from underneath my thumb,” Sparky told him, resigned.

  “Dad, I need you to stay there and kill this lawyer for me.”

  “No, son, you need me to come to Tennessee and kill him for you.”

  “You mean to tell me he‘s here?” Ace asked, his temper rolling to a boil.

  “I mean he’s on his way there. Apparently, he’s been looking for her, but she’s living under the wire and he hadn’t known where to start looking until you two came to town a few weeks back. I don’t know what this guy's intentions are, but they can’t be good.”

  Ace was already making plans in his mind. “I need to go see Lucy, but she’ll probably slam the door in my face. Got any advice?” he asked hopefully.

  “Sure. Tell her the truth. Tell her that you love her, and you‘ve been miserable without her for the past few weeks.”

  Ace slid his cell phone into his back pocket after talking to his dad, intent on going to see Lucy, but the doorbell rang, stopping his progress. “Ugh, What else?” he groaned aloud. His long stride carried him across the room. Throwing open the door, he planned to get rid of whoever it was quickly, only to find Lucy on the other side. It was as if the past few weeks apart had never happened.

  Pressing him backwards into the house, she brushed her fingers over his bruised jaw. “Ohmigod, when I heard that Parker had hit you, I thought I would kill her. Why would she even do that?” she asked him, sounding mortified.

  “She had your best interest at heart,” he answered.

  “I’m so sorry. She had no right to do that. You are no more to blame than I am. I mean we had an agreement, right?”

  “No,” his mind screamed, “we don’t have an agreement.” But the words became lodged in his throat. What if he ruined her life?

  Instead, he heard himself saying, “I need to tell you something.” Not knowing how else to start, he said, “Mike is on his way to Tennessee.”

  “Who?”

  “Mike, the lawyer,” he added for good measure.

  “Okay,” she drawled. “Why?” she asked, sounding more confused than scared.

  “Um, well, I’m guessing for you,” he answered, unsure now.

  “But, why?” she asked again.

  “Well, Dad said the people he talked to seemed to think he had done something to you, to cause you to run away to Tennessee, and now he’s coming to find you.”

  Lucy pinched the spot between her eyes before saying, “Okay, there are a few things wrong here. First, it’s been two years since I moved. If Mike needed anything, all he had to do was pick up the phone. I moved; I didn’t enter the witness protection program. My mother would have gladly told him exactly where to find me. She might have even driven him here if he needed a ride. Second, Mike hates me as much as I hate him. He is the worst boss ever in the history of the world. He micro-manages to the point of exhaustion, and third,” she said, ticking off three fingers, “Mike is gay. What do they think he did to me? Redecorated my bedroom in a color I didn’t like?”

  Ace’s confusion grew. “But you moved across the country. You’re taking self-defense classes.”

  “Have you met my mother? Of course, I moved as far away as I could, and I live alone. Self-defense classes seemed like the smart thing to do.”

  “But you’re always so jumpy,” he said with less conviction.

  “Years of walking on egg shells,” she answered simply. After a moments thought, she said, “Wait a minute. Who are the ‘people’ who have been saying this?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered succinctly, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. “Let’s find out.”

  When his dad answered, he asked, “Hey, who told you Mike was coming here after Lucy? Caroline and Fran,” Ace repeated the names back to Lucy.

  She smiled brightly, asking, “Is he packing his bags?” At Ace’s nod she crowed, “Oh ha!” before bending at the waist, laughing.

  Ace watched her in confusion. At his dad’s inquiry, he said, “Hold on, she seems to be having some kind of fit.”

  Lucy shook her head at him, wiping the corner of her eyes. Gulping for air, she motioned for Ace to hand her the phone “Hey, it’s Lucy. What were their exact words?’

  “Fran said that Mike was coming for you, and that the only reason he hadn’t done so before now was because he didn’t know where to find you. They’re saying the only reason he’s still a free man was because you ran away to Tennessee, because you were the only person who’d be able see him in shackles.”

  Lucy chortled “Oh Sparky, they’re talking about marriage, and you, sir, have been bested by professionals. She must have wanted to get rid of you pretty bad to team up with Fran.”

  “The hell I have,” he retorted. “She doesn’t know who she’s messing with. I’ve been taking it easy on her, but no more nice guy. I see a future filled with fat girl comments.”

  Reaching her hand out, she snagged Ace’s t-shirt, pulling him towards her. She turned the phone to an angle where Ace could hear their conversation. She wanted him to understand that her next comment was for him as well. “Sparky, I need you to do me a favor.”

  “Anything, darling,” he answered automatically.

  “This is for all of us. We need to make a pact.” She paused to make sure she had their full attention before dropping the bomb. “I need all of us to try harder at getting along with my mother since we are all going to be tied together by blood.” That brought a complete silence to the room.

  Sparky was the first to speak. “Are you having my grandbaby?”

  Lucy tried to judge Ace’s reaction to Sparky’s question before answering, but his face was set, not giving away any clues of how he was taking it. Sucking in a deep breath for courage, she answered, “Yes, I am having a baby.”

  She watched as Ace’s eyes fell closed. Her heart plummeted at the sight, but when he opened them again, he was watching her with that look, the one that never failed to melt her insides and make her knees go weak. Speaking into the phone, she said, “Sparky, could you break the news to my mother? Be sure that she doesn’t miss any of the details, and feel free to make some up since she deserves it.”

  “Sure darling, I’ll get right on it, and congratulations to you and my son. I’m so proud of him.”

  She flipped the phone closed. “Did you catch that last part?” she asked Ace. He nodded, and she was unsure of what to do now that she had possibly ruined his life.

  He wanted to laugh aloud and throw his arms out wide. She had sealed her fate; she would never be free of him now.

  “You deserve to have some clean cut guy with a steady job,” he felt compelled to admit.

  “Are you kidding me?” she asked, incredulous. “Those are the ones that lie and cheat. It’s funny that it’s always the golden boy. You never hear about the stoner down the road who still lives in his grandmother’s basement. If it were that guy ruining your life nobody would be surprised, but it never is. It’s always the guy that was just so nice, or the one that had so much potential.” She let out a humorless laugh. “When I met you...” She shrugged, unable to finish out her thoughts.

  “You thought I still lived in my grandmother’s basement?” he asked.

  She laughed just like he hoped she would. “No. I thought, now here’s a guy who is going to be straightforward with me. Anyone brave enough to dye their hair green would face up to anything. I was right, you have been honest with me, painfully so.”

  But he
hadn’t been, not really. Honesty would mean she would have a power over him.

  Every time he was near her that felt less and less like a bad thing. Before he could stop himself, he admitted, “I haven’t been honest with you. If I had, then you would already know how much I love you and don’t want to be without you. If you get married to me, you’ll be constantly stared at, and possibly mocked. You’ll definitely get questions about how a nice girl like you ended up with a man like me.”

  “Was that a proposal?” she asked.

  “Oh no,” he said emphatically. “I’m not stupid enough to give you an out. You are definitely marrying me,” he told her.

  “Then it seems to me that you are more worried about those scenarios than I am. Would it make you feel better if I changed the way I look to better reflect you?”

  Even though he knew she was joking, it still bothered him. Burying both hands in her hair, he held her eyes with his. “Listen to me. I don’t want you to change anything about yourself. I think that you are perfect just the way you are.”

  “I am going to get bigger with the baby. I'll probably be huge since I have flabby butt genes,” she joked.

  “That’s my baby, and you are going to be my wife. That makes you perfect no matter what.” After a moment, another thought occurred to Ace. “Do you want me to change my looks to better reflect you? I don’t want you to be embarrassed by me.”

  She cupped his face with her hands, her eyes softening. “Baby, I could never be embarrassed by you. As a matter of fact, I’ve never been more proud to walk down the street with any man as I have you.”

  He captured her lips with his own. His relief at having her back in his arms was overwhelming. Never in all of his thirty-two years had he known such happiness. He couldn’t have dreamed up this moment. They were getting married, she was finally going to be his, and she was having his child. Everything was finally turning up aces for him.

  “Can you stay?” he asked, breathless. At her nod, he swept her into his arms. This time when he brought her to his bedroom, things were completely different. He placed her lovingly on top of the covers and began gently removing her clothing. She watched him in silence and he couldn’t help but smile. “Don’t hold back on my account,” he told her.