by Kristen Lamb
Ed crossed his tree-trunk arms. “Tito’s crazy. Sometimes he chews through his leash. You her man?” he asked Sawyer.
“Yeah. Give me one reason not to bash in his skull,” Sawyer said, his eyes dilated with rage.
A group of large leather-clad bikers now crowded the end of the hall. I tugged at Sawyer’s shirt, but he ignored me, and continued to stare down Ed.
“We take care of our own. Including our own problems,” a grizzled biker at the end of the hall said. He had flames tattooed up his neck and his face was pierced so much he reminded me of Pinhead. It was clear he was baited for blood, and I was glad he appeared to be on my side.
Ed calmly met Sawyer’s stare. “The Devils don’t roll that way. We don’t hurt people unless they need hurtin’.”
Pinhead shoved past us and kicked the now semi-conscious man hard in his ribs with his heavy biker boot. I heard a distinctive crack of breaking ribs. My assailant curled up and groaned.
Ed smiled. “See? My boys will teach him a lesson he won’t soon forget.”
Sawyer narrowed his eyes, never backing down. It reminded me of two Alphas squaring off. “You better, or I’ll take it out of you.”
“We’re good, man. You have my word. Here,” he said and slipped Sawyer a roll of cash. “In case your woman needs help. We’ll take out the trash.”
“I’m fine,” I said and slouched against the wall to keep my balance. “And when that asshole wakes up?” I wiped the blood from my cheek. “Tell him he hits like a bitch.”
The Devils cheered and howled with laughter. Sawyer reached for me, but I pushed him away. “Give me a sec.” I stumbled toward the ladies’ room for a wet paper towel. I was also betting the knife slid that direction. I heard loud voices and jeering behind me as I closed the door, but ignored them. When I searched the filthy floor of the closet-like restroom, I spotted the weapon. I bent to a knee and scooped up the harpy knife with a towel and slipped it in my purse.
“What are you doing?” Sawyer demanded through the door.
“He knocked off my earring,” I yelled and wet a paper towel. I checked my face in the mirror. My eyeliner was smeared and I had a small cut in my swelling cheek. The blood made it look worse than it really was. The skin under my eye was already tight and turning color. I’d have a hell of a shiner. My neck had red finger marks. “Found it,” I said, holding up a giant sparkly hoop as I exited. I pressed the cool paper towel to my cheek as Sawyer threaded his arm around me and helped me to the truck. He returned a moment later with a bag of ice from the bar, and I pressed it to my face.
“Now will you go to the ER?”
“No, take me to my dad’s.”
“Your dad’s?”
“Nana was a nurse. She can check me out. Just need sleep.”
“No, you need to stay awake. You can’t help me if you’re dead.”
“I’m fine,” I said, but wasn’t as confident as I made it seem. My vision was blurry but that could have been too much trauma mixed with beer. I squeezed his leg and tried to smile, but smiling make my cheek hurt. “If we go to an ER, what are we going to tell them? Dressed like this, they might even think you beat me up.”
Sawyer steamed in silence.
“I’ll make you a deal,” I said in my sweetest voice.
“What?”
“I’ll stay awake, but you take me to see my grandmother—”
“Romi—”
“She was an LVN for twenty-five years. If she thinks I need a hospital, I’ll go.”
“Why can’t I take you over to the next town?”
“Too small. Too close to Bisby. You know if we go to an ER, people talk. They’ll think you beat me up and then you’ll have to tell them you’re FBI and then we lose any advantage.”
“Do you always get your way?” He scowled and sped out of the parking lot. The sound of tires against gravel made my head throb.
“I wish,” I said and let out a small laugh. I started to argue but then felt Sawyer shaking me awake.
“No going to sleep. That was the deal,” he said as we raced down the black highway. I saw the turn for FM1313.
“Just for a minute,” I said, my words slurred and I dropped the ice bag in the floorboard between my feet, my body falling in sync with the throbbing in my face. “I’m fine. Need a nap is all.”
“No sleeping or I’ll take you to the ER.”
“Nap Nazi.”
“You were hit in the head pretty hard. Sleeping right now is bad,” he said and I heard the tires squeal as we rounded the turn.
I touched my fingertips to my swollen cheek and winced. “People were hit in the head for thousands of years and didn’t run to the ER.”
“They also died. You’re going.”
“Only if Nana says I need it. You made a deal.” The world felt surreal, like I was in a car chase in a movie. I swear he was doing over a hundred. I slumped against the window. The warm dark riptide of sleep tore at my body, trying to drag me under.
“Wake up.”
“Watch for deer. You’re speeding.”
“I know how to drive. Stay awake.”
“Then tell me something interesting,” I said, my voice scratchy and thin.
“I was born in Heidelberg, Germany.”
“Ich spreche bier,” I said and laughed at my own joke. “You’re German?”
“No, Irish-Italian. Army brat. Youngest. Two older sisters. Joined the Navy even though Dad didn’t approve.”
“No wonder you’re tough.”
“Lived all over the world and most of the US. Was a diver then a SEAL. Left after too many tours in Iraq and Afghanistan to attend Quantico.”
“Where’s your wife?” I asked, vaguely recalling he’d mentioned being divorced.
“Ex-wife. Married two weeks before I deployed the first time.” He rubbed my arm vigorously. “Wake up. Keep talking. We’re getting close.”
I flipped down the vanity mirror, the light hurting my eyes.
“You’re checking your makeup?”
“No. Maybe a little. You gotta pen light?” I asked.
He batted at the glove compartment as he drove. I shone the pen light in each eye and both pinpointed. My pupils were also the same size. No sign of a concussion. “Why’d you split?”
“Huh?”
“With the wife.” I saw the glittering lights of Bisby rise into view.
“A little personal?”
“Says the person who’s been running surveillance on me for over a year.” I gave him a dirty look and closed the vanity mirror.
“Nice enough girl. Not cut out to be a military wife. Couldn’t take being alone.”
“So….”
“So, her College Lit professor kept her company.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not. We were young. Stupid. Last I heard they were married with a kid. Better to find out who people really are sooner than later.”
I reached in my bag and changed back into the plain black t-shirt and slipped off the belt, then peeled away the eyelashes and removed the earrings and tossed it all in a satchel.
“What’re you doing?”
“Daddy will be far less fond of Bad Sandy than you,” I said. I pulled out a package of portable wipes and removed my makeup, careful around the cut on my cheek. Then I brushed out my teased hair and smoothed it into a simple ponytail.
“You’re prettier without all that anyway,” he said.
“Though Bad Sandy rocked,” I said, even though it hurt to talk.
He laughed. “Yes. Yes, she did. Keep that outfit.” He winked. “You doin’ okay?”
“I’m good.”
“You’re a lousy liar,” he said.
“That I am,” I said right as we made the turn into The Cactus Flower. Sawyer parked, and removed his bandana and earring. He said, “Wait here. I’ll get you in a minute. No sleeping or deal’s off.”
“Jah, Herr Sawyer,” I answered and sat up straighter in my seat.
“Smartas
s. Stay awake,” he said and gently closed the door and for that I was grateful.
Sawyer knocked on the door. There was a short conversation at the threshold and then my Nana was down the stairs and at my side. “Rosemary Johanna Lachlan. What in holy hell happened to you?”
“Long story,” I said. It was the first time I’d heard someone use my full name since my mom.
“Oh, honey. Come on inside. Let’s get a look at you,” she said in her baby-talk way that I hadn’t heard since I was a kid. I felt tears. I hadn’t realized how much I missed her. My family was bat shit crazy, but they were mine. Sawyer and Nana helped me up the stairs and into the trailer. I hadn’t set foot in here since I was eighteen. Nothing looked the same. The walls were piled high with junk, knick-knacks, boxes, and magazines. My dad cleared a spot on the old sofa for me to sit. He moved like an eighty-year-old man, clearly in pain, but gutting it through. The coffee table was lined with a wide collection of knives, old bandanas, lubricant, and a whetstone. He resumed scraping a blade across the whetstone, testing its sharpness by shaving the hairs on his forearm. I was beat to hell and Daddy still showed more love to his knives than one of his girls.
Nana, on the other hand, was in full medical mode. She returned with her hair pinned back out of her face, wearing her dentures and I saw the faintest hint of how beautiful she once was. High cheekbones and deep blue eyes. She kneeled in front of me with Sawyer’s penlight and checked my pupils. She made me follow her finger different directions.
“Was she drinking?” she asked Sawyer.
“Yes, but not much. Maybe two beers over almost three hours, if that.”
Nana frowned and I really wanted her to stop blinding me with that pen-light. It felt like an ice pick being jabbed through my cranium. “She has a touch of nystagmus, but the beer can explain that. Her pupils look fine. No signs of a concussion,” she said, flicking off the light and handing it back to Sawyer.
“She’s been complaining of wanting to sleep,” Sawyer said.
“Think it’s because she might be tired?” Nana shot back. She pressed around my cheek and I wanted to scream. “Doesn’t seem anything’s broken. She’s gonna have a hell of a black eye.”
“Told you.” I stuck out my tongue at Sawyer.
She felt my head, checking for lumps, then prodded around my throat, making me wince. “Ouch.”
“You’ll live,” she said.
“Now you are starting to make sense,” Sawyer said, a touch of a smile on his face.
Nana gave him the stink-eye. “My granddaughter’s no wuss. Good warrior stock.” She smiled at my dad. “Ilsa was a hell of a woman. I told you.”
“You did, and yes, she was,” my dad said, but I saw love in his face. As much as it hurt that my mom was dead, I was relieved my father had found some peace.
My dad set down the knife and rifled through a stack of old newspapers piled near his recliner. After a couple minutes searching, he teased out an old photograph. “I don’t understand computers, but maybe you can make a copy?” He handed the photo to me. It was old and faded. My mom and dad as high school sweethearts, the St. Jude around her neck. My dad was so damn handsome. They were posed in front of an old well.
“Where was this taken?” I asked.
“At the Eisler place,” he said and lit a Marlboro, even though he was on oxygen. I was waiting for the entire place to go BOOM.
“But where’s this well? I don’t remember a well,” I said.
“Taken years before you were born. Eisler expanded the front of the house.”
“He had a water well in his living room?”
Dad laughed. “Kind of. We’d go over there drinking and toss shit down his well, so Eisler finally had a local carpenter encase it in hardwood. It was low enough that it made a hell of a coffee table.”
“You knew Eisler?” I was young. Knew my dad liked to party, but we were kids and kids weren’t exactly privy to where Daddy went or what he did.
“Used to drink beer with the old man before he had his fourth heart attack. Got too weak to care for the horses. His grandson was a worthless druggie.”
“Delroy.” I hadn’t thought about that name in years.
Daddy laughed and turned to Sawyer. “Romi here called him Dipshit. Wouldn’t even call him by his name.”
“Because he was a total loser.”
“Worthless as ice trays in hell,” Nana added.
“Come on,” I said. “How can you name your kid Delroy and expect him to grow up to be a brain surgeon?” Cotton and I fought constantly, but he was ever loyal to his childhood friend. An old anger flickered to life.
Daddy nodded. “Delroy dumped his grandfather in a home first chance he got. I visited Old Eisler until he died. Damn shame. Especially because he willed the place to that worthless grandson.”
“He gave the ranch to Dip—um, Delroy? Why?” I said.
“No other family. Delroy’s mom ran off with a trucker when he was five and his father was killed in a bad pileup near Lampasas when he was ten. State left the boy in the care of his grandfather,” Daddy explained for Sawyer’s benefit.
“But he left the ranch to that loser?” I said.
“Maybe hoped the kid would get his act together.” He turned to Sawyer. “Romi’s sister hooked up with him for a while when Old Man Eisler was still alive. Rebellious teenager crap. But I put the kibosh on that. No daughter of mine would run around with some dope-head loser. Grounded her ass for a month.”
“What happened to the ranch?” I pressed the slushy ice bag to my aching throat.
“Last I heard, Delroy was mixed up deeper in drugs then vanished right after you left. Him and Cotton. Wasn’t sad about Delroy, but Cotton was a good kid. City took over the property, and haven’t done a damn thing with it.”
“Cotton?” Sawyer asked.
“Cotton was always trying to save Delroy from himself,” Nana interjected.
“I know. Trust me,” I said.
Daddy kicked back in his recliner. “Anyway, Cotton left one day to help Delroy out of another jam. Never came back. Ferris didn’t exactly try too hard to search for his boy. Haven’t seen hide nor hair of the kid in years. Though guess by now he ain’t a kid no more.”
I didn’t know what to think. I felt it was somehow my fault. Cotton had wanted to leave with me, but Delroy was in trouble yet again. We fought and I gave him back his ring and that was the last time we spoke. I’d expected him to call, to make up, to still meet me in Fort Worth like we’d planned. After a couple years with no word and his family stonewalling me, I gave up.
I had to stop thinking of it, so I stared at the picture, the image of my parents in love. “Can I keep this?”
“Make a copy,” Dad said. “I’d like the original. Been a stupid jackass for so long. I miss her. She was the only one who could love a sorry bastard like me.” He sank further into his battered recliner.
I met his eyes. “Daddy, I don’t blame you.”
“What?” He blinked, confused.
“Been there. One day I was in love, planning my wedding and then he was gone without so much as a reason why. You have nothing to be sorry for.”
He turned away, but his teary eyes shimmered in the frail glow of the floor lamp.
I continued, “But Mama didn’t leave us. She died for something and I swear to you I’ll find out what.”
He nodded slowly, sorrow carving deep lines around his eyes.
“Why don’t you take Heather’s old room tonight? Rest,” Nana said as she returned from the kitchen with a glass of water and handed me two pills.
“What are these?” I asked, eyeing the pills warily.
“Vicodin.”
“It’s illegal,” I said and pushed her hand away.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” She huffed and gave me that look I used to get right before a wooden kitchen spoon met my hind end. “You go to the ER and they’ll tell you the same thing I did, give you a script for Vicodin, and charge you a thous
and bucks. The pills are mine. For my knees and I never take them. I don’t like taking it because it affects my libido.”
We all let out a collective groan.
“Oh hush, all of you. I’m old not dead,” she said. “They’re low dose. Barely stronger than Tylenol.” She pressed the pills in my hand.
Normally, I might have objected, but I felt like I’d been the victim of a runaway steamroller. Though it took a couple tries for my swollen throat to cooperate, I swallowed the pills.
Nana patted my arm and took my glass. “I’ll go find some clean sheets and make the bed. You can sleep in Heather’s old room.”
“Her old room?” I said.
“Yes, she’s been moving her things for a while. Took the last of her stuff and that stupid rat she calls a dog yesterday. Left you some more of her old clothes, though.”
“Why’d she move out? She didn’t mention it to me,” I said.
Nana shrugged. “Finally getting hitched with her boyfriend. Take her room. Bed’s still there,” she said.
Daddy interrupted, “But yer sister heard about what happened at your trailer. Said she’d talked to the boss and moved your start day to Friday. She knew you’d need somewhere to go, so she cleared everything for you.”
