Wallflowers: One Heart Remains

by CP Smith

  I jerked around to hide my reaction. I hadn’t meant to say that when I’d lost control. Didn’t want anyone to know about the dragon in the dark. “Nothin’. I don’t remember what I said.”

  I caught the look Cali threw my direction, but I ignored her. “Go to that gas station a few blocks from the SCAD dormitory on Oglethorpe. That’s far enough away from where we’re headed and close to the on-ramp for the Talmadge Memorial Bridge. That should throw them off our trail.”

  Cali did as I asked, then went inside the station to phone Devin when we arrived. I nibbled at my thumbnail as I waited. The sooner we got the heck out of Dodge, the sooner I’d be able to relax. All my problems lay within Savannah’s city limits. I needed distance so I could breathe again.

  “Poppy?” I jumped. I’d forgotten about Sienna.

  “Yeah?”

  “Bein’ sisters means we can tell each other anything.”

  I turned my head slightly but didn’t look at her. “I know.”

  “I hope you do,” she whispered. “’Cause I loved you before today, but learnin’ who we are to each other makes that love deeper than before. Bein’ your older sister, I want you to know if I’d been there growin’ up, there wouldn’t have been any creepy old guys botherin’ you. I would have kicked their behinds for you.”

  My eyes closed, as did my throat, then I reached behind my seat and opened my hand. She grabbed it, and I squeezed until I could speak. “I’m glad you weren’t there.” Her hand jerked, no doubt assuming I was rejecting her. “I’m glad you weren’t there so they couldn’t find you.”

  Sienna’s breath hitched. “Poppy . . .”

  I needed to distract her from the current topic. I also needed to take her pulse on the whole Dad situation. I wasn’t the only one who was thrown for a loop today. Maybe if I focused on someone besides myself, we could both come out of this with our heads still intact. “How are you holdin’ up? Findin’ out about Knox must have thrown you as well.”

  There was a long pause, then she sighed. “I won’t lie and say findin’ out he’d known about me for a year, and failed to reach out, didn’t sting a little. But what should I have expected after what he did to you? I guess, like you, I need time to sort out my feelin’s before I sit down with him and move forward.”

  “So, you’re plannin’ to talk to him?” I wasn’t exactly shocked by that.

  I received another pregnant pause. “Aren’t you?”

  I pulled my hand from hers, looked down at my fingers, and began to pick at a cuticle. I shouldn’t be jealous that she intended to speak to our father. I couldn’t talk to him yet, because every time I looked at him, the pain came racing back. I needed a break from the heartache before I even considered speaking with him. “I haven’t decided. But if I do, it’s only to find out more about my mother. I’m finished with him as my father.”

  “We could do it together. Maybe have lunch or dinner with him.”

  I pressed my lips tightly together to keep from answering. Right now, all I could focus on was leaving town. I needed a vacation away from my vacation, one that was turning into Poppy’s Not So Excellent Adventures. The whole week had been ridonculous. Eff’d up. Craptastically bad. Wallflowers tried to avoid swearing, if at all possible. Especially the big guns. But I had a bad feeling I’d be breaking that code soon if I didn’t get a handle on my life.

  I leaned my head back and sighed, ignoring her question. “It’s probably a good thing we took my car,” I stated. “I have a feelin’ Devin’s probably hooked one of those GPS doohickeys to Cali’s car, so he can find her.”

  Sienna giggled. “Cali said he’s got tons of equipment. Even listenin’ devices that look like earbuds, so it wouldn’t surprise me. He still hasn’t recovered from her bein’ kidnapped. I bet anyone she’s close to probably . . .”

  Both our eyes grew round, and we jumped out of the car. I dropped to my knees and looked underneath the passenger side. “You see anything?”

  “Not on this side.”

  We both looked at the hood. Sienna opened the driver’s door and popped the hatch. Together we lifted the hood and peered inside at the engine.

  “If we had a phone we could Google what they look like,” Sienna said a little sarcastically.

  A motorcycle pulled up to one of the pumps, carrying a guy who looked way out of place on the machine. I pegged him for a biker wannabe, some accountant who thought if you put on a leather jacket and straddled a Harley it made you a one-percenter like the Sons of Anarchy. “I bet he’s got a phone we could use.”

  Sienna turned her head and sized him up. “Piece of cake,” she mumbled, then straightened her shoulders and sauntered over to him like any proper Southern belle knew how to do. When the man looked up at her, she flipped her hair and tilted her head, smiling the dang smile that reminded me of my father. The man’s eyes instantly grew warm while she spoke. Two seconds later, she had his phone in her hand and she was walking toward me.

  “You’re good,” I whispered.

  “You don’t have a former beauty queen for a mother and not learn a thing or two.”

  She pulled up his Internet and Googled tracking devices. We scanned through the pictures then looked at the engine again. Nothing.

  “What about the wheel wells?” Sienna questioned. “Seems like that’s an easy place to hide one without it bein’ seen.”

  I shrugged and began searching each well. On the third one, my hand grazed over something small and hard. I yanked, and it dislodged. A small, gray square of plastic with sticky tape attached to the back, lay in my hand when I looked down.

  Devin had to be stopped or taught a lesson.

  Cali exited the gas station, breaking off my inspection of the apparent tracking device. I observed her carefully, trying to read her expression. She looked pissed, which surprised me. Where Devin was concerned, she usually glowed.

  “What?” I asked when she walked up.

  She stopped and raised a single brow. “Did you know it’s a miracle I survived twenty-seven long years without anyone needin’ to save me from myself?”

  “He said that?” Sienna asked.

  “He said, and I quote, ‘You need to come home right effin’ now, or we’ll be draggin’ the Savannah River by the mornin’ for your bodies.’”

  I snorted. “You chose to hook up with a macho man-slash-former cop-slash-PI.”

  I held up the GPS tracker to prove my point, and she narrowed her eyes. “What’s that?”

  “GPS tracker I found on my car.”

  “He wouldn’t,” she whispered, then she closed her eyes and shook her head. “He would. That man needs to be taught a lesson.”

  I snickered. “I had the same thought.” I looked over my shoulder at the man waiting patiently for his phone. “Oh, Sister . . . think you can swing your hips well enough to plant this GPS on his bike?”

  Sienna’s face turned speculative, then brightened as she held out her hand. “Does a creek rise?”

  I handed her the tracking device. “Make me proud.”

  She flashed me a grin then turned on her flip-flop and sauntered, yet again, toward the motorcycle man. The sway of her hips was a thing of beauty.

  “She’s good,” Cali chuckled.

  “Oh yeah, it’ll be easier than takin’ candy from a baby.”

  We both cringed when she dropped his phone on purpose. Lordy, I hopped the screen didn’t crack. When the man bent to retrieve it, Sienna slid her hand along his back fender and pressed hard, so the sticky tape would grab hold. Except she pressed too hard and the bike started to tilt off its kickstand. She pulled it back as the man stood, narrowly avoiding a whopping lawsuit in the pursuit of teaching Devin a lesson in trust.

  Sienna waved at the man as she walked away. His eyes turned soft again before he climbed on his bike and awkwardly started it. I held my breath as he eased into traffic, smiling with satisfaction when he jumped onto the on-ramp for the Talmadge Memorial Bridge, which would take him across state line
s and into South Carolina.

  “If we’re lucky, he’ll keep on goin’ all the way to New York instead of Hilton Head,” Cali bit out, clearly still pissed at Devin.

  “Devin said we’d be dead by mornin’, huh?”

  “Yep. Arrogant man that he is.”

  “What was your reply?” Sienna asked.

  “I told him I’d take that bet and raise him three days on our own without nary a scratch.”

  “What’d he say then?” I inquired.

  She shrugged. “I hung up when I heard him bellow my name.”

  Oh boy. Bellowing wasn’t good.

  “I guess I’ll go call Bo,” Sienna sighed, then slid around us and headed inside the gas station.

  I watched her enter, then turned to Cali, feeling a tad guilty about all the fuss I was causing. “I don’t want you riskin’ your relationship if you’re uneasy about leavin’ with me. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  Cali pulled out her sunglasses and began cleaning them, her face still a mask of irritation. “You know Bernice says that men need to be put in their place from time to time. That if you don’t, they’ll ride roughshod over you and think they can dictate to you all your life. I think this is the perfect opportunity to train Devin before he gets too cocky, thinkin’ he can dictate to me our whole lives. Besides that, there is nothin’ dangerous about spendin’ a few days on Tybee Island, catchin’ some rays and drinkin’ beer.”

  I raised a hand to stop her before she got on a roll. “In his defense, we don’t exactly have the best record for stayin’ out of trouble the past few weeks.”

  She slid her sunglasses onto her face and sniffed. “Wallflowers have each other’s backs with either friend or foe. That means if you can’t agree with me, then you must be supportive in my anger. It’s Wallflower code.”

  I rolled my eyes. Somebody needed to give me this codebook already. “You’re absolutely right. He shouldn’t have implied we can’t take care of ourselves,” I conceded. “Bless his arrogant heart.”

  She pushed down her glasses and looked at me over the top of them, raising a brow as she studied me for a moment. “Quite right,” she finally agreed, then leaned in through the driver’s window and laid on the horn, hollering, “Daylight’s burnin’, Sienna, get the lead out or we’ll miss the sun settin’ on the water.” It was then I realized, Cali was quite scary when she wanted to be.

  _______________

  Nate pulled three beers from a cooler at Jacobs’ Ladder, the bar he’d built from the ground up with his own blood, sweat, and ambition. He had the beginning of a headache, caused in part by lack of sleep, and in part by his missing Wallflower. He should have known better than to believe Poppy would give up the ghost that easily. She’d been avoiding him since day one, an avoidance that hadn’t set well, but one he’d allowed since he’d feared what would happen if he gave in to his desires. But he was done avoiding what he wanted. He planned to bury his past with a woman who made his skin burn with need and his cock hard when she turned her smile his direction.

  Poppy had fascinated him from word one when her eyes had sparked with anger at the very sight of him. She’d called him ‘one of those men who promised forever but didn’t mean it.’ Now he knew where the hatred came from. He would prove to her, in no uncertain terms, there were still men who were as good as their word. Men who committed to a woman so fully, she’d never be left wanting. Or have a desire to look elsewhere. Nate was one of those men. A man of his word. One who’d never back down from a fight, once he made his mind up. And he’d fight dirty if he needed to. Fight until Poppy was precisely where she belonged: by his side and in his bed where he could heal her scars, until her past was a distant memory.

  Nate watched Devin escape into his office with his cell plastered to his ear and fire in his eyes. Calla had finally called, and Devin was fighting mad. They all were. They needed to find the wayward women and lock them down before they did something stupid.

  Placing the beers on the table in front of Strawn, Nate turned to watch Poppy’s father across the bar while he waited for Devin to get off the phone. Knox had followed Nate when they’d realized the Wallflowers had flown the coop, still wanting to smooth things over with his daughters. He would have refused Knox entrance to his bar, if Poppy and Sienna had come back like said they would. Since they’d pulled a disappearing act, he didn’t have to worry. He’d only allowed Knox inside for one reason: to pry information out of him like he’d intended before the girls took flight.

  Knox had spent the last twenty-four years hiding Poppy to keep her safe, and Nate needed to know if the threat had been neutralized once and for all, or if he needed to stay vigilant with his woman. Which was another reason they needed to hit the road and wrangle the Wallflowers up quickly. Whenever their emotions ran high, trouble seemed to find them. Chaos, catastrophe, whatever the fuck you wanted to call it seemed to have a hard-on for all three of the women when they were in that state. After that scene today, their emotions were off the charts.

  His Aunt Martine finished taking Knox’s order, while Nate scrutinized the man. Nate rolled his eyes as she threw back her head and laughed at something Knox had said. His aunt could flirt better than a cheerleader in a locker room full of football players, but thankfully, she was hell on wheels when it came to Jacobs’ Ladder. His aunt had waltzed in from Glasgow, Scotland, less than a week ago, and taken over as his general manager after leaving a bad marriage. For the first time since he’d opened his doors, Nate finally had time to breathe and enjoy the fruits of his labor.

  Once Martine had left Knox’s table, Nate headed his direction and pulled up a chair, sinking into it before crossing his arms.

  “You said you stayed clear of Poppy to keep her safe,” Nate growled. “I’m assumin’ since you’re here now, the threat has been neutralized?”

  Knox stared blankly at Nate, assessing him before leaning into his forearm resting on the table. “You think I’d give up bein’ in my daughter’s life all these years, just to bring the threat to her front door?”

  Nate cocked his head to the side. “You think I’m gonna take the word of a man who abandoned his own kid where my woman is concerned?”

  Knox’s faced hardened, and he leaned in farther. “I don’t want you anywhere near my daughter.”

  Nate returned the favor until they were eye to eye. “Here in the South, a man’s only as good as his word. From where I’m sittin’, yours means dick. So, I’ll ask you again. Is the threat to Poppy dead? Because that’s the only way, she’s truly safe.”

  Knox sat back and studied Nate, his jaw twitching with anger. He kept quiet, an indication he had no intention of sharing.

  “I can get the information from Strawn if need be, but I’d rather get it from you, so I can run damage control. Like me or not, I’m your only hope of gettin’ through to Poppy, if that’s what you really want.”

  Knox’s face turned scarlet at the implication he’d need Nate’s help “He’s dead and buried as of fifteen years ago. He got shanked through the heart in lockup after he was arrested on an unrelated charge.”

  Nate’s brows shot to his hairline. “Then why the fuck didn’t you come after Poppy before now?”

  “Because his son was involved with Chrissy’s death. I had to bring them both down, so Christiana would be safe.”

  “Christiana?”

  “Poppy,” Knox clarified. “In order to hide her, we changed her name. But she’ll always be Christiana to me.”

  Nate rolled the named around in his head. Poppy suited her better. “And the son? Is he still a threat?”

  Knox rubbed his jaw, considering his answer. “He’s in San Quentin. I never could pin my wife’s murder on either, so I bided my time until he screwed up. He went down for premeditated murder six months ago. He got life without parole, so Poppy is finally safe.”

  “You couldn’t pin her murder on her father and brother?” Nate asked skeptically.

  Pain flowed across Knox’s face. “No. No
t a scrap of evidence. Chrissy’s father had a source on the inside and found out I was a plant with the ATF. After confronting Chrissy about the fact she’d married a federal agent sent to investigate their MC, Charlie “Dog” Wilkes and his son were caught on video after leaving my house. They didn’t have a lick of blood on them or their shoes. We had probable cause, but no evidence on either to charge them. They denied having any involvement with her murder, then tried to turn the tables on me. Dog accused me of doing the deed, then threatened to take Poppy away from me like I’d taken Chrissy from him. The rest you know. I love my daughter, Jacobs, and I’ll do anything to keep her safe. Even,” he leaned forward, and his voice dropped to a threatening level, “if it means staying away from her or making sure she doesn’t hook up with some asshole, who uses his fists just like his old man.”

  Nate blanked his face, taking a deep breath to control his sudden rage. He clenched his fist twice to release the tension rolling through his body, then he stood slowly, towering over Knox. “Keep clear of Poppy unless she reaches out…” Nate let his warning seep into his eyes, “and you and I won’t have a problem. You don’t…” He let his threat hang in the air a moment before he finished, “and you’ll find out exactly what kind of man I am.”

  Without another word, he turned and walked away, ignoring the hard stare Knox threw his direction. He didn’t give a fuck what her father thought of him. He could hate Nate for the rest of his natural life, for all he cared. His sole focus wasn’t to win favor with a man who’d lost sight of his priorities, but to heal the damage he’d caused. And he’d get started on that just as soon as he found Poppy and hog-tied her to his bed.

  As he made his way across the bar, he caught Strawn’s eyes watching him as he spoke on the phone. They darted once behind Nate’s back, no doubt taking in the man who also fathered Sienna. Strawn’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he mumbled something to Devin and waved Nate over.

  “You find them?” Nate asked both men as he walked up.

  Strawn punched his phone OFF in agitation, mumbling, “Fuckin’ headache.” When he raised his eyes to Nate, the anger rolling off Strawn made him brace for another bombshell.