by Jess Bryant
“I have to get going.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Probably.” He swiped a hand through his hair, “There always is when Decker is involved.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No.”
“Oh…” She fidgeted, her gaze darting to his feet and he knew his tone had been too harsh.
“Remember when you said you didn’t want to drag me into your mess?” He held his hands out, palms up, “Decker is my mess.”
“Oh… okay.” She nodded again.
“I’m sorry. I really have to go.”
“It’s okay. I understand.” She moved towards him and surprised him when she leaned up and brushed a kiss across his cheek, “Just be careful okay?”
“I will.”
He watched her walk back to her towel. Had he ever hesitated to go after his twin when he needed help with their father before? Never. But he’d also never had to walk away from Jemma to deal with this dark part of his life.
“I’ll see you around Jem.”
She slipped her shades back into place, “Don’t forget to write down your vacation at work.”
“What?” He paused.
“If you’re driving me to Houston in two weeks, you need to let your boss know.”
He grinned when she smiled up at him. And that was enough, he realized as he headed through the gate and towards his apartment. The instantaneous anger and fear, the jumble of emotions that always accompanied a trip to see Decker, mellowed to something controllable.
He could handle this. He would handle this. Because he had something better to look forward to than these dark nights.
He could still feel Jemma’s body against his. He could still smell her sweet, feminine scent. He could still taste her on his lips. And it gave him hope for a better life.
Chapter Nine
Jemma purposefully stayed at the pool until after sundown. Everything inside of her had been screaming to go after Cash earlier. To follow him, to find out what was going on, to help him in some way, any way, but then she would remember the look of horror that had crossed his face when she offered her help and she’d sink back into the water. Now it was dark, her fingers were wrinkled like an old lady and the twin’s apartment was still dark and empty.
She hustled back towards Skylar’s when she noticed her car was parked out front. Her friend was home from work. Finally! And if anyone knew anything about what was happening, it would be Skylar.
As she had quickly figured out, Skylar and Colt were friends. Not just friendly. They were actual friends. Strange but true. They talked every day and if what she had pieced together in the past few weeks was true, they had lunch together almost every day as well. Skylar hadn’t said much else about that particular half of the Bomar twins but she was more than happy to talk about Cash.
First had been the cautionary tales about rushing in too fast and the reminders of what he’d done. Jemma still felt a little bad that she hadn’t told Skylar the truth. Then again, technically Cash hadn’t told her the truth yet either so she was only keeping her word to Colt not to out the secret until Cash was ready. It helped ease her guilt that every time she’d run into Cash he looked on the verge of telling her something he thought was vastly important and though he’d yet to explain she knew he wanted to and that was enough. For now.
Skylar had filled her in on plenty of other stories as well. She’d told her all about the revolving door of women the twins brought home. Of course, most of those stories seemed to be about Colt but the message was the same. Women weren’t invited to spend the night next door but they came and went willingly and often.
She’d also told her all about their extracurricular activities, namely the fights they took part in. Jemma assumed that was meant to scare her and in a way, it did, just not the way Skylar intended. She didn’t like the idea of Cash fighting in a cage for money, or using his fists for anything.
He’d always had such a love hate relationship with his family, with that side of himself, that she couldn’t imagine he took it well even if he won. Maybe he’d changed. Maybe it was easier for him to let the violent side of him out and not blame himself for it afterwards, but she didn’t think so.
Particularly not after his reaction to Colt’s interruption at the pool.
Something had been wrong, badly wrong. She’d known that the instant she turned around and saw Colt with her own eyes. His usual smile hadn’t just been gone, it had been nonexistent. He’d been red-faced and breathing hard, his eyes wide and his fists clenched. He might not be identical to Cash anymore but the warning signs were all the same.
He’d been on the verge of losing control and he’d come to get Cash. Almost before her very eyes, the man she’d been making out with had transformed. A darkness had fallen over his features, dimming his bright eyes with something painful and hard. The lights had gone out, as if he was shielding himself, his true self, from whatever he had to do next.
And now they were gone. The tow truck Cash used for work was still in the lot but the old pickup Colt drove wasn’t there. They’d gone somewhere together which wasn’t odd at all but still worried her. Because they’d mentioned their father and nothing good ever came from that man being involved in the twins’ lives to her recollection.
She remembered the one and only time she’d made the mistake of driving out to the Bomar house. She and Cash were supposed to study together and he hadn’t shown up. She’d been annoyed and instead of letting it go she’d decided she would track him down and yell at him for wasting his potential. Only, when she got to his house, he hadn’t been there either.
Instead she’d been met by Decker Bomar, a man she’d heard of but never met. She wished she could still say that. He was a looker, nobody could say he wasn’t. Big and brawny, he’d had the same kind of chiseled features that each of his sons used to make the girls go ga-ga. Only where Cash and Colt were light-colored with blue eyes and sandy-brown hair, Decker was dark. Dark eyes, dark hair and a soul so dark the devil himself must have been jealous.
She still shivered when she thought about him asking her inside to wait for Cash and then cornering her. He’d pressed her up against the wall, using his big body as a weapon and he’d gotten right in her face. He’d reeked of alcohol and cigarettes but that wasn’t what had scared her. That had come when she heard what he was saying.
He’d spit some vile nastiness at her about his wife being a whore, Cash and Colt not being his sons, and him having free license to make their lives hell because of it. He’d laughed at the idea of taking Cash’s pretty little girlfriend and turning her into a junkie whore just like his mama. It was right around that point Cash must have walked in because after that all she remembered was screaming and fists and blood. So much blood.
By the time it was over, she was certain the older man was dead but Cash had assured her it took more than that to kill a demon. She could still remember clearly the cuts on his knuckles from the blows he’d rained down on his father. She could vividly recall the look of utter surprise in his blue eyes after he’d done it too, as if he hadn’t just beaten a man, his father no less, to near unconsciousness, as if someone else had and he had only just arrived and discovered the mess.
She’d known then that there were two distinctive men living inside Cash Bomar. There was the boy she knew and loved. The one who was quiet and rational, intelligent and thoughtful. The boy that wanted so badly to be more than the nothing he’d been told he was. And then there was the angry, damaged boy that couldn’t escape what he’d been born to be even as he raged against it. The one that got into fights and flunked classes because it was expected. The one that slept with a girl and then laughed about it and told the whole school so her reputation was ruined forever and she had to flee the only home she’d ever known to start over.
Only, she’d learned that wasn’t entirely true hadn’t she? It wasn’t the angry boy that had done that to her. It had been the kind one, thinking he was saving
her heartbreak by delivering it in one blow instead of tying her to a life that might have turned her into his mother. And that was the conundrum that was Cash Bomar, good intentions bound up in so much pain that he would always have to be a little bit of both boys even now, as a grown man.
“Sky?” She let herself into the apartment but didn’t see her friend.
“Back here!”
She headed towards the bathroom, “Hey!”
“Hey, where’ve you been?”
“Went to the pool for a couple of hours.” She leaned a shoulder against the open doorframe and watched Skylar brush her long blond hair out, a pink silk robe wrapped around her after her shower, “Where’ve you been?”
“Had a client come in late for highlights.” Skylar glanced at her in the fogged-up mirror and paused, “Uh-oh, what’s wrong?”
“Did you talk to Colt today?”
That got Skylar’s attention and she dropped her brush, turning to face her, “Yeah, earlier, why?”
“He came storming into the pool an hour or two ago and he looked like he was itching for a fight. He said it had something to do with Decker and he and Cash took off. Neither of them are home and I’m worried about them.”
Skylar’s face twisted, “Decker?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s not good.”
“I figured.” She fidgeted when Skylar didn’t elaborate, “I asked Cash if I could do anything but he said no.”
“No.” Her friend shook her head, “There’s nothing you can do. Whatever it is, it’s best you stay out of it. You don’t need their daddy drama clouding up your life.”
“Sky…”
“Look, I know that sounds mean but I’m being serious. You can’t help them and even if you could, they wouldn’t want your help, not with him.”
Her worst fears confirmed, she sighed, “So he’s as bad as I remember?”
“That man only gets more evil with age, honey.” Skylar turned back to the mirror and started brushing her hair again but when Jemma didn’t move she sighed, “Decker probably got drunk and started a fight. Sherriff Trebly throws him in the tank and calls one of the twins when that happens. They go down there, pick his sorry ass up and cart him out to that desolate little shack he calls home before he can hurt anybody else.”
Jemma winced at the matter-of-fact way Skylar said it. As if it were public knowledge, and maybe it was. But God, she knew how Cash must hate it if that were the case. Probably as much as he hated being called to take care of a man that despised him for ever having been born.
“If all they had to do was toss his drunk ass at home, why’ve they been gone for hours?”
Skylar frowned at the mirror, “You think Decker Bomar makes it that easy on them? Come on Jem, you know better than that.”
“Are you saying he puts up a fight? When they’re just trying to help him?”
Her friend nodded and she felt sick to her stomach. Why would they go knowing full well they’d have to fight their father just to get him home? Why didn’t they leave him in jail? Why bother, knowing they’d get nothing but pain for their effort? Sadly, she thought she knew the answer.
Cash. He couldn’t help himself. He had to try, no matter the odds, no matter how much it might hurt, he had to try to help his father. Because Decker was the only one he’d ever had and they might hate each other but family meant something to Cash, just in a different way than it did to the rest of the Bomars.
“I get why Cash would go…” She winced when Skylar gave up on her hair and turned to face her again, “But I didn’t think Colt had anything to do with their father.”
“He doesn’t have anything to do with their mom, not since they were kids. That’s what you’re thinking of. He sees Decker. Hates it, but he does. He’d never send Cash alone to deal with that man.”
God, her heart just about broke when Skylar explained that because it made sense. The twins were a team. They took care of each other. They protected each other but recognizing that was true, she knew it didn’t paint the entire picture. Because Cash might be the one with the heart of gold, the one that tried to hold them together, that cared more than he should, but he wasn’t the born protector.
That had always been Colt.
Even when they were kids he’d been just a little bit bigger and he’d dubbed himself the big brother because of it. He’d put himself in front of Cash in fights on the playground and he’d taken the blame with teachers to get Cash off the hook. He wouldn’t have left Cash to fight it out with Decker one on one, not in a million years.
She could easily remember Colt’s words from that morning in the bathroom. He’d said he did what he always did for Cash. He’d tried to protect him. From her. From himself. From the world. Because Cash might be just as big, just as strong, but his heart was soft and it needed protecting.
“When do you think they’ll be back?”
“Hard to say.” Skylar shrugged, “Could be any minute, could be hours, depends on how much fight Decker has in him tonight and whether or not Cash can keep Colt out of the bar after.”
“The bar?”
“Dealing with Decker, it leaves its mark and it’s more than physical. Some people drink to remember I guess. Colt drinks to forget and there’s nothing he wants to forget more than Decker.”
Jemma watched the expression on her best friends face change and knew she wasn’t the only one that cared about those two Bomar boys. Skylar could deny it. She would deny it if pressed, but her friendship with Colt was clearly important to her. She knew things about him, about them, that even Jemma didn’t. She’d be willing to bet, boyfriend or not, Skylar cared about Colt just as much as she cared about Cash.
“I think I’m going to wait up for them to get home.”
“Jem…” Skylar shook her head, “They won’t like that.”
“Oh come on, you want to make sure they get home okay just as much as I do. And if they won’t let us help, the least we can do is be there for them right? They’re our friends.”
“Is that what you’re calling Cash these days?”
“Do you want to call Colt something else?”
“No.” She shook her head quickly, “But like I said, it might be hours and when they do come rolling in, they’re not going to want to deal with some whiney girls throwing a fit about their bruises. Trust me on this.”
Jemma winced, “I want to be there for Cash.”
“Fine. Do what you want. Just ignore me when I say I told you so later.”
Skylar brushed past her towards her bedroom and Jemma sighed. She hurried through taking a quick shower and changing. Skylar only shook her head when she came out of the bathroom thirty minutes later. Despite her protests, she’d popped the blinds open and was sitting on the couch with a glass of wine, staring out the window in the direction the twins would come from when they returned.
Jemma accepted the extra glass her friend held out for her and took up a spot next to her on the couch to wait.
Cash winced when he took the turn into the apartment complex too sharp and Colt’s head banged into the window. He glanced over to find his brother scowling at him. Considering the blood that had dried beneath his nose and the busted lip he was sporting, Colt didn’t need to take any more hits tonight.
“Sorry.”
“Just get us home in one piece would ya?”
“Almost there.”
Colt was silent so Cash didn’t apologize again. It wouldn’t matter if he did. All he would earn in return was a snort at best and a cursing at worst. Colt hated it when he apologized for anything, particularly when it came to dealing with Decker.
They both knew that he only dealt with their father because Cash did. He would have cut him out of his life long ago if only Cash would do the same. But Cash wouldn’t, couldn’t, and so Colt was forced time and again to be part of the rescue squad when the Sherriff called saying Decker needed a ride home.
He owed his brother. Cash knew that. He had stepped in for him
time and again when they were kids. He still did. If it wasn’t for Colt, he never would have been able to free himself from the criminal life the rest of their family lived. Colt was the one that had given him a chance at something better. If he couldn’t force himself to walk away from their parents once and for all for himself, he should have been able to do it for Colt.
Colt needed distance from them to survive. He couldn’t face them or what they’d done to them. Either of them. Not the mother that had all but abandoned them for her drugs and not the father that denied them and hated every breath they took. He couldn’t look at them and see anything but pain and destruction. Neither could Cash but whereas his brother chose to deal with it by not dealing with it, he had never been able to go that route.
Everyone assumed Colt was the fighter of the two of them. He was slightly bigger. He’d been born slightly earlier. He was the one that stepped up and took the first punch or delivered it depending on the fight. He was the first to stand up to draw attention to himself, good or bad. But the truth that nobody could see was that Colt was far more sensitive about their family than Cash was.
Maybe he hid it better. Maybe it was just that he never let anyone else close to him. But nobody saw through Colt but him.
He felt everything, intensely. If he was happy, he wore it square on his face. If he was angry, you were going to hear about it. And he could switch from one to the other at whiplash speed. Most people wouldn’t have noticed the reasons behind those changes but Cash did because he’d been seeing it all his life.
Colt’s moods always came down to whether or not he had to deal with their family at any given time.
If it were up to him, Cash would deal with Decker alone just as he dealt with Chrissy, but Colt refused to let him. He insisted on being included whenever the calls came in about Decker. The one or two times Cash had tried to deal with their father alone, he’d come home to find Colt in even worse shape than he usually was after a fight with their old man. For the entirety of their childhood they had survived because they were a team. Two against one were better odds. Colt wasn’t risking Cash’s life now by leveling it to one-on-one even if Cash would have preferred it that way.
