Finding Serenity

by Eden Butler

  “Don’t you start in on her. Viv did her job and you’re helping to stop a lot of shitty people from being on the streets.” She hesitates, knowing her next six words could easily make this grizzled convict teary. “I’m so proud of you, Daddy.”

  And it does; her father’s stern features soften, the glare disappearing through Mollie’s sentence. “Baby, I’m so sorry you got mixed up in this.”

  “Daddy, it’s done. Really. And I come from some pretty strong stock. Well. The Malone side, anyway.” Mojo kisses her, right on the temple and finally, Mollie hears what she wants—that hard laugh, the honest, genuine relief and joy that tips between his heavy breath. It’s a great sound, beautiful even, and Mollie knows she’d never get tired of hearing it.

  Mollie doesn’t want to ruin the moment. She doesn’t want to shatter the mood without the reality of what will happen next. But she wants to prepare, to store up her memories like a kid collecting seashells. “How long do you have, Daddy?”

  “I can stay the night, but then I’ve got to go tomorrow morning.”

  “For good?’

  “For a little while, but no, not for good.” Mojo holds her hand and keeps their fingers laced. “I’ll stick around until after the trial, baby.” And Mollie likes how relaxed her father is, how the doubt of his future isn’t weighing on his mind right now. How he seems genuinely happy, content to be at her bedside. “Hey,” he says, sitting up. “Where’s that jarhead?”

  Mollie’s wince is quick, knee jerk and she knows her father catches it quick, but he doesn’t drill her, doesn’t reserve his concern for anyone but Viv. “What is it?”

  The D.A. drops her purse to the floor and grabs the chair against the back wall. Viv sits down, her back is straight, arms crossed—a nervous little wag of her foot has Mollie trying to guess if it’s the excuse she’s about to make for her brother or the way Mojo’s expectant frown has her inching back a bit.

  “I haven’t heard from him, Mojo.”

  The biker sits up, mimicking Viv’s crossed arms, eyebrow cocked. “What do you mean?”

  “It was the blood, I think.” Viv looks at Mollie, head shifting as she watches her. “Did he tell you about how our father died?” Mollie nods and Viv’s forehead wrinkles, as though she is surprised. “Then you’re the first without full disclosure to know. He didn’t even tell the guys in his unit.” She looks at Mojo as though she’s debating something. “Vaughn’s secrets aren’t mine to share, but he’s seen some things that haunt him.”

  “What’s this got to do with him disappearing?” Mojo asks Viv.

  The D.A. sighs, then brings her hand to the back of her neck, rubbing it twice. There is something in her eyes that Mollie recognizes. It’s pain. It’s loss, it’s longing.“Caroline,” she begins, scooting in her chair to get comfortable. “She was his wife. She killed our father and then killed herself. Vaughn watched the whole thing on his laptop in the desert and he’s never let go of that. I don’t think he can.” Viv stands and Mollie is grateful for the smile on her face. For the way she squeezes Mollie’s hand and pats her father’s shoulder. “You two should have some time together.”

  They watch Viv leave and then finally Mollie is alone with her father. No guards with suspicious glares. No coded languages. Just Mollie and her Daddy and the realization that their time together would be brief; that Mollie’s heartache is real and present.

  “Baby,” he starts, leaning toward her, grip firm on her hand.

  “No, Daddy, it’s fine. I’m okay, really.”

  He doesn’t buy it, doesn’t give her the slightest indication that her forced smile is remotely believable. He points to himself. “King of Bullshit, baby. You can’t con me.”

  And then Mollie lets her father hold her, lets those too-thin arms circle her shoulders, bring her swollen face next to his chest and Mollie cries. For the first time in ten years, likely longer than that, Mollie releases a body wrenching sob that wets the cotton of his shirt. It had been an exhausting, debilitating few months and Mollie was so tired, so worn and spent by all she had endured. The pain isn’t overwhelming; it isn’t all-consuming despite the fact that it was her father that soothed her and not Vaughn. This was enough too, for now; just her and her father in this quiet room.

  “I love him, Daddy.”

  Mojo sighs, moves back to sit down on the mattress next to her. “I know that look, baby. I’ve seen it in the mirror one too many times.”

  “He says he’s broken.”

  Her father nods, as though the disclosure doesn’t surprise him. “We’re all broken a little bit, sugar. That’s what life does to us all.”

  Mollie swipes at her face, annoyed by the pain and the burn she feels under her eyelids. “How do you stop it?”

  “You don’t, honey. You just learn to stomach it.” Mojo reaches toward the bedside table and pulls a Kleenex from its box. “Your jarhead has to figure that out. I don’t think he has yet.” He pats Mollie’s face dry. “When he does, he’ll come back around and then he won’t be so broken anymore.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “Because, baby, it’s familiar.” At her frown, he clarifies. “I never learned to live with that pain, I just let it fester. I wore it like a chain around my neck for years and it had me doing things I shouldn’t have. It cost me your mama. It cost me Katie and it made them both so damn angry.”

  Mollie smiles. “It’s not your fault they’re a couple of selfish bitches.”

  Her father returns her grin. “Maybe not, but if I’d learned to live with all that I’d seen, all that blood and violence, then maybe I wouldn’t have buried it so deep. Maybe then I could have made them happy.”

  “But you never made me unhappy, Daddy. You were always good to me.”

  “I like hearing that, baby, I do, but you were all I had left in the world. You were my second chance.”

  Second chances, she thinks, recalling Vaughn to the forefront of her mind; his scent, his touch. How can anyone be so battered, by loss and remain sane? How could he feel all of that and still love her, hold her the way he had? “You have to give him time, I think, honey.” Her father says. “You have to let him try to forgive himself.”

  Sweat was good, cathartic. It lets you know that you are moving. That you are alive.

  Vaughn leveled jab after jab against the punching bag, the sweat sliding between his shoulders, making his hair stick to his scalp, and he still didn’t feel alive. He felt numb. He went to her the night before. Heavy on pain medicine, caught still in whatever they had given her, he sat next to her bed, watching the labored movement of her chest. He wanted to touch her. God, how he missed touching her. But he had walked away.

  Jab, and another and with each sway of the bag, Vaughn exorcises her face. Another, two, three more and the taste of her skin is forgotten. This, he thinks, could work. This process of exhaustion, of utter physical torment could remove the smell of Mollie’s body from his mind. It could keep the demons that haunt him out of his dreams.

  “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 c
old, 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.