by Eden Butler
“Hey, Vaughn. You okay, babe?” Kathy Whitmore. Her name pops into his head when she holds the bag against her sculpted arms. She’s been hitting on him since he opened his studio, but Vaughn isn’t interested. She was too fake; too blonde, too tanned, too silicone enhanced.
“Yep. I’m good,” he says, hoping that his voice is clipped enough to make her scatter.
Kathy pulls her bob into a ponytail holder and steps away from the bag. “If you say so. But listen,” she holds the bag again when Vaughn angles back for another punch. “If you need anything, anything at all—” her tongue protrudes just a bit behind her cheek and Vaughn almost laughs at her lack of subtly. “You just say the word.” She drops the bag and saunters away.
He doesn’t bother thanking her for the offer. He needs to focus. Mollie’s bloody face is still too visible in his mind, the feel of her cold face has him rejuvenated, working the bag until it swings in a steady rhythm.
From the corner of his eye, Vaughn sees Kathy and her friends head toward the door and his shoulders lose some of their stiff bearing. He spots them through the window, chatting in a small group and he can hear their muted voices, disregards the quick glances they level at him. The studio is empty now, just how he likes it, but then the women whistle, say something high pitched and flirty as Fraser passes through the front door.
Vaughn doesn’t know what he wants. His instinct is to prepare for a fight; Fraser is, after all, Mollie’s self-appointed body guard and Vaughn is guilty of hurting her. He hasn’t left the studio all day, hasn’t bothered to return his sister’s calls and texts. Surely Mollie is awake and then, just like that, with Declan glaring at him like he’d very much like to smash his head in, Vaughn’s imagination shoots forward and worry constricts his check.
“What happened?” he asks Declan, throwing off his gloves. “Is she okay?”
“What, mate, tired of the bit of stuff already?” Declan throw his thumb over his shoulder, somehow knowing that Kathy and her friends are watching through the window.
“What? Dude, please, give me a little credit.”
“How am I to know what you’ll do? Or who?”
Vaughn’s bark of laughter isn’t remotely amused. “I wouldn’t fuck her with someone else’s dick.” When Declan doesn’t smile, doesn’t show an emotion at all, Vaughn steps toward him, eye to eye with the Irishman. “Just tell me… is she okay?”
Declan takes a moment, seeming to mull over what he’d say before he spoke. Vaughn always liked this about Fraser. He generally always thinks before he speaks. Now, however, with knowledge of Mollie’s health and unanswered questions, he wished Fraser would cut him just the slightest bit of slack.
“I thought a lot about what I’d say to you on the way over.” Stance straight, Declan crosses his arms. “I had to reckon a few things, decide if I wanted to give you a thrashing, proper, like you deserve, or tell you why I understand what you did.”
Vaughn didn’t care what Fraser was thinking about. He didn’t care if he understood him. He just wanted to know about Mollie. So instead of waiting for the Irishman to take his time with his words, swishing them against his tongue like old wine, Vaughn pounced, catching Declan off guard, and managed for a moment to push him against the padded wall behind them. “Is. She. Alright?”
“Get your fecking hands off me, mate.” Declan shoves Vaughn back and the Marine reacts as his training allows. He takes a swing at Declan, tipping his jaw as the Irishman leans back and then they are shoving each other.
“Answer my fucking question,” Vaughn tells him, deflecting Declan’s fist as it flies toward his cheek. Vaughn blocks, lunges to the left and lands a quick fist right along Fraser’s nose.
“Listen, arsehole, calm down,” the Irishman says, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. After he settles, Declan runs his hands through his hair and moves his chin at Vaughn. “You alright then?” Vaughn sits on the floor, reclining with his hands behind him before he nods. “Good.” Declan sits opposite Vaughn with his arms on his knees. “She’s going to be fine. Battered all to shite, but Mollie is a tough sort. She’ll heal.” Not one to waste time, as far as Vaughn has noticed, Fraser gets personal. “You get scared?” No man will ever admit that to another, not unless they’re in combat. And Vaughn has no intention of telling Declan, a civilian, how he’s feeling.
“She deserves better.”
“My gut tells me to agree with you, but that’s not my place.” Vaughn doesn’t know what to make of Declan’s smirk. It’s hard to tell when this guy is joking. He gives nothing away, keeps his expression neutral, ditching the smirk and Vaughn is impressed. He’d have made a good Marine.
“If you’re here to lecture, then save it. I know what a fuck up I am.” Vaughn doesn’t like the cool way Fraser watches him, face free of expression.
“I’m not one to lecture, mate, but I think you’re being a selfish arsehole.” Declan exhales, sits across from Vaughn. “Mollie’s a good sort, fierce as hell.”
“I know that.”
“Do you now?” Declan stretches his legs out in front of him. “Seems to me if you’d sorted that out for yourself you wouldn’t be such a selfish bollocks. You’d certainly give a bit more concern about what’s going through her head and about what she’s feeling.”
“I’m not disregarding Mollie’s feelings, Fraser. I’m protecting her.”
“From you?”
When Vaughn nods again, Declan laughs, bringing his glare to the surface. “I tried that once, you know, mate. I didn’t tell Autumn the truth, didn’t tell her that Joe was my stepdad and I nearly lost her.”
“Mollie’s better off without me.”
Declan stands, reaches a hand to help Vaughn up. “You really don’t know shite about her if you think you can make that decision for her. They are all strong, self-reliant women and when they want something, they don’t ask permission.”
“You don’t get it, if you’d seen what I did, if you were helpless—”
“That’s my point. I was helpless. I was helpless when I lied to Autumn for weeks, months, when all I wanted was her.” Declan backs away, but keeps his eyes trained on Vaughn. “When she found out, she hated me and there is nothing worse in the world than someone who you’d kill for, who makes all the stupid things in life seem not so barmy, hate you. And then, someone else was touching her. Someone else was trying to make her smile. Some other arsehole tried to take what I wanted. Trust me mate, you don’t want that and if you wait, if you hold on to all that shite you had no fecking control over, Mollie will hate you too and she won’t wait around for you to sort out your shite. She sure as shite won’t be lonely.” Declan reaches the doors and leans on the handle. “You reckon you can live with that?”
As Fraser left his studio, walked away from the thick cloud of guilt and shame Vaughn had created in that room, he wondered if he could; could he stomach Mollie hating him? Could he see her on the street, with another man and be able to walk away? Be able to let someone else touch her? Love her?
“Shit,” he says to himself, knowing he couldn’t, finally realizing that he could finally have what he wanted. All he had to do was walk out that door.
Mollie knew she shouldn’t be here. It was his place. Limping through the house, leg wrapped and all her weight on a pair of metal crutches, to get to the backyard had been overwhelming. Every inch of this ridiculously decadent house smelled like Vaughn.
In the front room, pictures of him crowded around the fireplace, on the walls and when Layla pointed out how tiny he looked in his high school graduation picture, Mollie had to leave the house, seeing the smile on his face. It was before everything in his life had shifted. Before he was broken.
Viv had assured her that he wouldn’t be there. This whole day was Viv’s plan; sending Mojo off into God knows where with a down home barbeque, surrounded by friends. Well, her friends. Still, she wasn’t sure she should be here. But Viv swore Vaughn would be out. There was some Crossfit competition in Nashville
and he had clients competing. It had been days since she’d seen him. Days since Emily and Jimmy caused the rift between what she wanted and what she’d ended up with.
“Can you have a beer?” Mojo asks Mollie. He tilts the cold bottle of beer toward her, but keeps his grip tight around the neck. “That doctor said you shouldn’t take those meds and drink.”
She steals the bottle out of her father’s hand and takes a long swig. “Says the man with the Chemo port. You shouldn’t be drinking.”
“It’s my last night, Mimi. Besides, I was just holding it,” her father tries, but his smile breaks any attempts at honesty.
Viv’s home is ridiculously lavish. There is a large, wooden fence surrounding the property and a huge swimming pool with a dark blue bottom and a waterfall that pours into a hot tub. Banana trees and palms shadow on the stone and a large gazebo with a wide swing is tucked in the corner. It feels homey enough, welcoming, but Mollie thinks it’s too similar to her mother’s place, though it is not cold, ostentatiously decorated to fake elegance or taste.
“If you even think about messing with each other, I swear to Christ I’ll lock you in a room with nothing but a pot to piss and shite in and two loaves of bread.” Declan glares at Layla and Donovan, standing at least three feet apart, near the barbeque pit. Last night Layla attempted and failed at flattening the tires on Donovan’s brand new Charger. He had wised up and booby trapped it, leaving Layla with tinted purple skin to match the fading green in her hair. They were all exhausted by the pranks and when Declan mentioned locking them in a room, he met Mollie’s eyes, smiling at her to let her know he hadn’t forgotten her idea.
“I’ll be good if the brat can act like a real live human,” Donovan says, curling his lip at Layla and shifting his weight off his swollen ankle. “For once.”
“You know what, Cullen,” Layla starts but when she lurches forward, hands lifted as though she was prepared to claw out Donovan’s eyes, Declan stands between them and a low growl works in his throat.
“See now, you made him go all caveman,” Autumn says, pulling Layla toward the gazebo where Sayo is swinging with her thumbs moving over her phone.
Next to her, Mojo whistles, head shaking as he nods toward her friends. “They have a falling out or something?”
“No Daddy. It’s called sexual tension.” She laughs when he makes a face, as though he can’t stomach his little girl knowing what that means. “They’ve been at each other forever now. It started when they were kids and it’s just gotten worse over the years.”
“So, they’re not together?”
“Nope.” Mollie sips her beer laughing under her breath at Layla and Donovan actually admitting what all their stupidity was all about.
“You kids, I swear. You’re all clueless.”
Mojo leans back, slips his arm behind Mollie’s back just like Vaughn often did and she finds she is unable to disagree with her father. Not that it matters now, she thinks. She doesn’t want to think of him, not today, which is ridiculous considering this is where he lives. Viv had told her he’d finally come home, that he apologized for going dark and that he planned to move out within the month. Mollie finds that odd and she hates to admit that part of her wondered why he’d leave Viv’s home.
For a while, Mollie and her father sit next to each other, enjoying the smell of the pit as Declan cooks. She leans her head on her father’s shoulder and they discuss where he may go, if he’ll ever be able to contact her.
“Viv won’t let me get too far from you, baby.”
“Promise?”
He pulls her against his chest and nods. “Your daddy don’t break promises to his baby.”
“I’m kind of tired of promises,” she says, shaking her head to disregard her father’s curious frown.
There is movement from the gate and Mollie knows it’s Vaughn before he even makes it past the pool. She concentrates on the sweating bottle in her hand, the smell of burgers cooking on the grill, on the way her father still smells like butterscotch, how much better he looks despite the chemo that keeps him weak. But then, she sees Declan, twenty yards away, walk from the pit, spatula in his fist and he extends his hand, smiling too wide, calculating as Vaughn approaches. “Shit,” she says, enjoying the squeeze her father gives her shoulder.
Under the gazebo, her friends stop swinging, stop whatever it is they’re talking about to catch Mollie’s eyes. It’s Layla’s not at all subtle jerk of the head that has Mollie lifting her head off her father’s shoulder to turn toward Declan and when she sees Vaughn staring at her, a hesitant smile on his face as if he is unsure of himself, Mollie’s skin flushes. To distract herself from his heavy stare, she takes two gulps of her beer.
“Easy now, Mimi. You’ll get sick,” Mojo says and then that machine gun laugh echoes around the patio, bounces against the water. “Ah.”
“Daddy, don’t start.”
“He’s coming this way.”
She nudges her father in the rib trying to get him to be quiet, but then the man stands up, frowning when Vaughn approaches.
“Mr. Malone,” he says, dipping his chin and then, “Hey Mollie,” to her.
“Finally decided to grace us with your presence?” Mojo says, reluctantly taking Vaughn’s hand in a quick shake.
“I’m sorry about that,” he doesn’t look at her father when he speaks. “I was a little messed up.”
Mollie can’t take that stare or the way his eyes work over her face and stay on her mouth. She looks away, focusing on the small trickle from the ornamental waterfall, trying to block him out. But he smells incredible, so musky and male and as she polishes off the beer, Mollie decides to put some space between them. He should understand that. He’s done it enough times to her before.
She hobbles away, awkwardly moving the crutches around Vaughn and her father but hears Mojo’s little nugget of wisdom before she reaches the French doors leading into the kitchen. “Some war wounds stay with us, son. Sometimes we carry them with us. But eventually, you have to leave the battlefield. You have to come home and forget.”
Viv is at the counter laying buns on a tray to toast on the grill. When she spots Mollie leaning against the door with her hand behind her on the knob, the D.A. stops fiddling with the buns. “What’s wrong?”
Mollie shows her the empty bottle and Viv takes it from her, slips it into the recycle bin and grabs a fresh one from the refrigerator. Shutting the door, Viv hands her the beer, her head turning when she hears Mojo’s laugh. “Oh.” She touches Mollie’s elbow. “I didn’t think he’d make it.”
“You invited him?”
“Honey, he still lives here.”
Mollie pops the cap on the beer and take a long gulp, feeling stupid about hiding from Vaughn. “Bathroom?” she asks Viv, not yet ready to give up her brief seclusion.
“Down the hall and to the left.” She picks up the tray, but before Mollie leaves the kitchen, the woman calls her back. “If he’s here then that means he’s trying. That means he doesn’t want to run anymore.”
“I’m not thinking about him.” When Viv arches her eyebrows, Mollie rolls her eyes.
“Uh huh and that’s why you’ve already downed that beer and hiding in my kitchen?”
“Whatever, Viv,” she says trying to ignore the woman’s smug cackle.
She takes her time in the bathroom, running cool water on the back of her neck, examining the weird pills in the medicine cabinet, stealing a couple of squirts from Viv’s expensive lotion, but finally, she has to leave this room and face what awaits outside. She heard Viv call everyone to dinner twenty minutes ago and Mollie hopes that means Vaughn has joined them and will be too distracted by burgers and company to attempt speaking to her again.
Yeah. Right, dummy.
She takes slow steps down the hall, eyes going to the artwork on the wall, to the family pictures on the table at the end of it. Vaughn’s parents look happy in this photo, younger, vibrant and Mollie guesses this was taken before cancer had invaded
their lives. She makes to turn, to leave the hallway, but a noise behind her stops her short.
Vaughn is in the bedroom, sitting on a massive cherry bed with gray linens. In his hands is a picture, which Mollie glances at as she starts into the room. It is of his parents, on their wedding day, hopeful, exuberant but Vaughn’s face doesn’t light up when he looks at it. She knows he’s suffering, that he feels the dread, the loss that seeing the picture causes and it’s then, with Vaughn’s loose grip on the frame and the way every glance he makes at the picture seems to hurt him, pain him, that Mollie knows she has to forgive him.
He doesn’t greet her, doesn’t smile but when she sits next to him and puts her head on his shoulder, Vaughn takes her hand. Just like it is usual, a silent custom that they’d invented without much fanfare. Vaughn moves the hair from Mollie’s forehead and slips the loose strands behind her ear. When she looks up at him, catches the need, the hope in his eyes, Mollie takes the picture from his hands, sets it on the bedside table and kisses Vaughn.
The kiss is like comfort; the stark need of thirst that is filled, satisfied with the touch of lips, the quiet movement of fingers against cheeks, under her jaw. She has craved him for so long, waited so long and it is this moment she’s been anticipating. She wants it to be endless. She wants it to linger, to stretch until there is nothing else in the world but the sensation of his lips against her neck, her chest, his strong hands commanding, claiming.
“I came to see you. You were sleeping,” he finally says, when they have pulled away from each other.
“I heard.” She hopes her voice is strong, that he can’t make out the slight quiver she feels in the back of her throat.
“I brought you magnolias,” he says, adjusting his body on the bed as they lay facing each other.
