Picture this (Birds of a Feather Book 3)

by Lena North

  “Crap,” Hawker muttered. “That was years ago so you must have been a kid. How could you even be there?”

  “I worked there,” I told him. “Life was shitty when I lost my family, and working at Kinkers was the only job I could get.”

  “You worked at a strip joint when you were sixteen?” Jinx asked, and since that was the lowest age anyone legally could hire someone in our country, it was a logical conclusion.

  “I was fourteen, Jinx,” I said calmly, but added, “And, yes. I saw the latex briefs. They were pretty.” I turned to Hawker and smirked, “There were tiny snowflakes around the edges and a big one right over –”

  “Ahhh!” Wilder cried out and slapped her hands over her ears. “God! My brain was hurting enough from the mental image of Dad swinging his butt, without having to imagine a...”

  She choked on her words then, but Mac helpfully filled in the rest.

  “A huge snowflake covering his di –”

  “Shut up, boy,” Hawker barked.

  I started giggling, and I saw how the others watched me curiously, but how could I even try to explain the warm, soft feeling I had in my chest when it was so new, and I didn’t understand it completely myself. Miller had said he loved me, and he was incredibly drunk, but he wouldn’t lie. Would he?

  Instead, I asked Hawker what the bet he’d lost was about, and he choked on the swig of whiskey he’d just taken. That led to a lot of questions that he refused to answer, and everyone kept the light and easy banter going. I knew they did it for me, and right then, I loved them so much.

  Miller walked out on the porch after a while, in a clean shirt, and wiping off his face and partially wet hair with a towel. We watched him in silence as he tossed the towel to the side, walked to his chair, sat down and closed his eyes. He didn’t move, and I wondered if he’d fallen asleep, and what I would do then. I’d promised the bird I would stay, but I couldn’t just spend the night, could I?

  “Did he die?” Wilder breathed.

  “Of course, not,” Jinx snorted, frowned and added quietly, “Dante, see if he has a pulse.”

  Dante leaned forward and stretched his hand out, but froze when Miller spoke without even opening his eyes.

  “Have three knives on me, man. Touch me, and I’ll give you a buzz-cut.”

  Dante jerked back and grinned toward Wilder.

  “He’s not dead.”

  Hawker got up and fetched a blanket that he threw over his friend.

  “He can sleep it off like that,” he told me.

  Then we sat there, and I told them about the drunken evening at Kinkers. Even Hawker laughed about it, after a while.

  “You saw Miller the first time when you were fourteen?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  Suddenly I felt Miller grab my hand and pull it in under his blanket. When I turned, his eyes were open, and he was looking at me.

  “You promised to stay,” he murmured sleepily.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll stay here,” he said. “You’ll be in my bed.”

  “Okay,” I replied quietly.

  “Okay,” he sighed, and closed his eyes again, but he didn’t let go of my hand.

  ***

  I woke up when I felt a hand gently slide across my belly.

  The others had kept me company the day before, Sloane had come with pizza, and we’d spent the rest of the afternoon and part of the evening together. We’d laughed and joked like we always did, and it had all felt completely surreal. Miller hadn’t moved, except for opening his eyes every now and then, looking for me and smiling a little when our eyes met. When they left, I walked into the house and looked until I found a big bedroom on the second floor that seemed to be the only one someone lived in. There was a tee thrown on the bed, and I sniffed it. It smelled like Miller, and a lot better than the tee I had on, so I slipped out of my clothes, threw it on the floor together with the clothes that were already there, and slid into the big bed.

  The hand stopped moving, and I opened my eyes. Hawker had assured me Miller would be fine on the back porch, and since he’d been asleep, or possibly passed out, I’d left him there. Now he was crouched next to me, looking a bit tired but wearing clean clothes and since his hair was wet, I assumed he’d taken a shower. He kept his eyes on the hand that was resting on my belly.

  “I will love this baby, Mary. I’ll die for it… kill for it. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for this child,” he whispered, and I felt my breath hitch.

  Then he turned his gaze to me, and my eyes started to burn.

  “But you have to know that if I had to make a choice between the two of you, it’d be you. It doesn’t make me a good man, or a good father, but you should know that it’s what I’d do.”

  “Miller,” I said brokenly.

  “Can I hold you while we talk?” he asked.

  I nodded, not trusting my voice, and he stood up. Then his tee and jeans were on the floor, he bent down and pulled off the tee I’d borrowed, and put a knee on the bed.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” he murmured.

  “Come here,” I said, and reached for him.

  Then I was in his arms, my head was on his shoulder, and he held me. I heard his heart beat under my ear, and felt his abs under my hand. He smelled like outdoors and soap, and I started crying quietly.

  He must have felt the tears because he shifted, and cursed.

  “Don’t move,” I sobbed. “It’s… I’m sorry, Mill. I…” He waited, and I held on to him until I’d calmed down. “I thought I’d never have this again,” I whispered.

  “Baby, I don’t get it,” he said. “You left me, and wouldn’t talk to me. I tried and tried, and when you finally let me in, you said you wanted nothing to do with me.” He leaned back and pushed my chin up. “If you wanted it… it was right there for you to take all the time.”

  “You left when Jinx told you about the baby,” I whispered.

  He leaned back and looked silently at the ceiling for a long time. I thought he wouldn’t explain, but then he suddenly murmured, “I work with all of them.”

  “I know you do,” I said when he was silent again.

  “I’ve known them all my life, and I still couldn’t let them –” he stopped talking abruptly, but when I didn’t say anything he sighed and continued. “I lost it, Mary. All I ever really wanted was suddenly right there in front of me, and I couldn’t handle it. I had to get out of there. Went up the river and sat on the river bank.” He made a short pause, and then he muttered so quietly I barely heard, “There might have been tears.”

  I stared at him, but he kept his gaze on the ceiling.

  “I wasn’t gone more than fifteen minutes, but when I got back, they’d closed the gates. Then Jinx came, and I thought she would spit me in the face. Dante and Danny Marconi had rifles aimed at me, and I couldn’t tell them why I left.”

  “Mill,” I whispered.

  “Hawker pulled me away, and I went back the next day, but I’d lost you by then. You were talking about how little you needed me and told me I had nothing to offer that you wanted.”

  “I didn’t say that, Miller. You kept talking about the child being yours, and how you didn’t even want to stay in this house if I was there.”

  He jerked back and stared at me.

  “You thought that’s what I meant?” he whispered.

  “I didn’t know what to think, and even before Jinx’ instant pregnancy test, I knew I was ruining everything for you,” I wailed. “You fought with your family, and you fought with your best friend,” I told him. He made a sound, but I kept talking, “I was leaving, but I heard you. Hawker said you’d regret this, and you agreed, Miller.”

  His arms twitched, but he remained silent, and so did I.

  “I’m thirty-four, Mary,” he said suddenly.

  “I know,” I said.

  “When you turn thirty, I’ll be fifty for Christ’s sake,” he wen
t on, and I blinked.

  I wasn’t a math genius, but I knew how to add up numbers.

  “No…” I said slowly. “You’ll be forty-four.”

  “I look like I’m fifty already,” he muttered as if he hadn’t heard my correction and I blinked.

  “No…” I said again. “You barely look like you’re thirty.”

  “Mary,” he said sounding frustrated. “I’ll always be older than you.”

  I sat up and stared at him.

  “This was why?” I hissed.

  “Ma –”

  “You told Hawker you regretted sleeping with me because you have some ridiculous idea that you’re old?”

  “I did absolutely not tell him I regretted sleeping with you,” he protested.

  “You said –”

  “No.”

  “But –”

  “You are gorgeous.”

  “What?” I asked, surprised by this change of topic.

  “Honey, you’re young and beautiful and talented. You could have… I don’t know. Someone like Kit, I guess.”

  “Are you out of your mind?” I asked because surely he was.

  “No,” he sighed, though his mouth curved into a rueful smile, “Maybe a little.”

  “Just so you know. I thought you meant that you’d regret it because you would get bored with your young and silly girlfriend, and then what would you do, with me being friends with Wil –”

  “Shut up,” he interrupted me rudely, and added sourly, “We really need to improve our communication.”

  I stared at him, and wondered how me being quiet would in any way improve our communication, and why were kind of fighting about stupid things we’d said and done.

  “We should probably talk more about things?” I asked uncertainly.

  “We should, so no more leaving like that, Mary,” he said.

  “Okay,” I agreed, but added, “No more fighting with your family or Hawker like that.”

  “Not sure I can promise that,” he countered, and added, “If someone behaves like an ass then I’m going to call them on it.”

  “But –”

  “Especially Hawk,” he muttered.

  “Really?” I sighed.

  “But if you don’t run away, I promise to let you yell at me afterward,” he said.

  I thought about what he’d said. Part of why I loved him was that he never took any shit from anyone, so to expect him to change that part was stupid.

  “Well, okay then,” I snapped and glared at him, although it was mostly fake, and he knew it.

  Suddenly his mouth curved, and he pulled me down to him again.

  “I love your hair, baby,” he said. “It makes you look like a pixie.”

  “You said so last night,” I said, thinking that we should probably argue about the rest of the things we’d said and done but not wanting to at all.

  “You said that you hated it and that my neck used to be yours but now it wasn’t…”

  I trailed off and leaned my head back to look up at him.

  “You used to have your hair tied back sometimes,” he said. “I…” he paused and then he turned his face toward me, smiling a little. “I used to love to look at that thin, fragile neck, and the soft hair that snuck out of whatever you used to tie it up. Wondered how it would be if I ever got to put my mouth there. How you would smell.”

  My eyes burned suddenly and I wanted to say something but my mind was blank, and all I could do was stare at him.

  “You look gorgeous with your hair like that, Mary, but now everybody can see that neck. And it isn’t just mine anymore.”

  “Miller,” I breathed. “I… I don’t know what to say,” I confessed.

  “No need to say anything,” he said softly. “Just wanted you to know.”

  “I thought you wanted to throttle me,” I whispered.

  He started chuckling and squeezed me a little.

  “That thought passed my mind,” he muttered.

  “I bet Hawker thought so too,” I said, and added, “Or maybe not. He seemed to think the whole thing was funny.”

  “Last night’s a little blurry, baby,” he murmured.

  I giggled and leaned back to look at him.

  “There’s only one thing you really need to know about last night,” I said.

  “What?”

  “You told me you loved me, and I didn’t know that,” I said and his face softened.

  “Baby, how could you not know?” he murmured. “Everyone else knows.”

  I stared at him.

  “Everyone?”

  “Honey, you said I fought with my family, but I didn’t. Kit fought with his family.”

  “What?”

  “Carson and Bo were on our side all along. They still are, and Kit’s latest idiocy put him in the emergency room when they heard.”

  “What?” I squealed.

  “Believe it or not, but Bo broke his nose,” he said with a chuckle.

  I tried to say something but there was only a small wheeze coming out, and he kept talking.

  “Kit called you a thief and a whore, Mary. Hawker told him he wasn’t welcome in Norton, my lovely brother-in-law put a fist in his face, and his father refused to even talk to him. Carson changed locks on the gate and the house, packed up Kit’s things and put them on the porch. That’s all for show, and they’ll get over it, but right now, Kit’s in some serious shit with just about everyone. I’m not.”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “I never meant to –”

  “When are you going to get it, Mary?” he asked exasperatedly. “You are not breaking anything up. Kit is, and I could probably have handled things better, but you aren’t responsible for any of this”

  “But, Hawker?” I asked because I’d been the reason they fought.

  He started laughing, and I hissed.

  “Baby, Hawk and I fight all the time. I don’t think there’s been a week since the day I was born without at least one argument with that idiot.”

  “He took me to you last night,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I remember that part.”

  “You told him that if he were cream, he’d go well with apple pie,” I shared.

  “Huh?”

  “You said that’s how whipped he is,” I explained, and he started laughing.

  “I said that?” he asked. “That was kind of funny.”

  “You said that Dante was more whipped than anyone on this earth,” I told him.

  “Well, yeah,” he chuckled, “He is.”

  “You also told everyone that you’d been a stripper and that you were better at it than Hawker.” I went on. He stilled, and I thought about the evening before. “I think that was it. No, wait, you also told us that your pubic hair is gray. Then you went inside to throw up, and after that, you mostly passed out.”

  “Shit,” he muttered.

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “You said it wouldn’t be dignified and I wasn’t allowed to watch, so I didn’t. I stayed outside.”

  He groaned, and the pained look on his face made me giggle.

  “I love you,” he murmured suddenly, and I melted into him, but before I could say the words back to him, he continued, “I told you that night we made love that I gave in, and I did. I’ll always be this much older than you, and if you can live with that, then I’ll live with it too.”

  “Miller,” I whispered. “You’re a legend in Marshes, and a hot as hell badass. I’ll always be this much younger than you, but I love you, and I’m not letting you go.”

  He rolled on top of me and started kissing me. Then he leaned back and frowned.

  “I’m a legend in Marshes?” he asked.

  Oh-oh.

  Cha

  pter Sixteen

  I apologize

  “Shut up,” Miller said rudely and turned out on Main Street.

  “But –”

  “I’m not going to argue wit
h you on this. I love you, you love me, we’re having a child. Right fucking now, we’re going to see Hawker because he’s the justice of the peace in this place.”

  “Miller,” I protested. “I’m not that pregnant, and we agreed to not tell anyone for weeks and weeks.”

  “You’re pregnant enough,” he said.

  “There is absolutely no need for us to get married and you are being completely ridiculous about it.”

  “That’s what you say, but see…” he said and parked outside Johns, the roadside bar that Hawker’s brother managed, grinned at me and said, “We’re still getting hitched.”

  Then he was outside, and suddenly I was pulled toward the low building.

  “I don’t want to get married, and I absolutely don’t want Hawker to do it,” I said quietly.

  He froze and turned to me.

  “Why not?”

  “Does it matter?” I asked.

  “Matters to me,” he replied.

  “He thought I came to Norton yesterday to get money from the trust,” I whispered. “That’s what everyone will think, and I hear what you’re saying Miller, but you need to get that I’m not marrying you. I can’t –”

  I stopped talking when I saw the look in his eyes.

  “He thought you came to Norton to get money from the trust?” he repeated slowly.

  “Yes, but he knows I didn’t. He –”

  “He said that to your face, Mary?” Miller asked in a low and scary rumble.

  “Yes, but –”

  He let go of me and started walking toward the bar, flung the door open and walked inside. After a moment of stunned immobility, I ran after him and heard Hawker greet him.

  “Miller, hey man, how –”

  Then Miller took a couple of quick steps forward and flew over a table to tackle Hawker, and his chair, backward. They crashed into the floor with a loud thump, and then Millers' arms were swinging wildly.

  “Mill,” Hawker grunted, and then, “Jesus, man.”

  “You thought she came for the money?” Miller barked and punched him in the face. “And told her so?”

  Hawker pushed him off and tried to get up, but Miller went at him again, and this time Hawker fought back. It was still afternoon, so the bar wasn’t crowded, but the ones who were there started forming a circle around the men on the floor. When Wilder suddenly cheered loudly, I unfroze and ran toward the fighting men, only to be stopped immediately by a strong arm around my waist.