Flagger

by Laramie Briscoe

  Sick of sitting in the car, she unbuckled her seat belt and carefully opened the door, walking slowly to the front of the convenience store. They always told her never go to anywhere without an adult, but her adult was inside. Shouldn’t she be there too?

  Right as she got to the door, she saw red, a pool of red, and the man who was supposed to protect her was running out holding a gun in his hand.

  “C’mon, Harper, we gotta go!”

  Harper sat straight up in bed, gasping for air. It had been a long time since she’d had one of those dreams. She still had them, but they were few and far between. Settling back down against her pillows, she willing her heart to stop pounding and closed her eyes, thinking of the time she’d spent with Cash instead of the awful memory that replayed in her dreams.

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  Chapter Seven

  “Are you sure you can take Remy today?”

  Cash groaned, taking a drink of his orange juice. He hadn’t slept a wink the night before; coming home after being with Harper had been a lesson in self-sacrifice. It had been a cold-shower-with-his-hand kind of night, and even that hadn’t calmed him down. He’d woken up way before his alarm was scheduled to go off, and now he was in a bad fucking mood.

  “Yes, Mom. I can take him.”

  “There’s no reason for you to be snippy with me, Cash,” she told him. “I’m just making sure you can still do what you told me you could. By the way, Tyler and Liam just pulled up.”

  He chose not to say anything else to her. If he said something else, they would end up in an argument. “I know. They’re here to fix the gutter.”

  “They don’t have to do that. We can fix it,” she told him, worrying her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “With what, Mom? Wire and pipe? Fixing that shit is not cheap. Liam offered to do it, and who am I to say no?” he grumbled, walking back towards his bedroom.

  “Cash Montgomery,” she yelled back towards him. “I don’t know what crawled up your ass and died, but you will not treat me this way.”

  There were a million retorts that rumbled around in his head and almost made their way out of his mouth, but he knew none of them would do anyone any good. Reminding her of the shitty mother she’d been when he was a kid only served to piss her off and put him in an even worse mood than he already was in. “Things can’t always be perfect, Janet,” the smartass in him sniped.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “Look, little man, change your attitude. You’re still living under my roof.”

  “That I halfway pay for.” The words were out before he could stop them, and he immediately regretted them when he felt her hand hit his cheek. The sound was loud in the tiny room, and the sting was painful.

  “Would you two stop fighting?” Remy worriedly looked between the two of them.

  “We’re not fighting.” Janet grabbed her youngest son’s shoulder and pulled her over to him. “You’re brother just needs to learn some manners.”

  “Hey, Rem, go get your clothes on, and we’ll leave here in a few minutes,” Cash told his brother. He had a few words to say that he knew were going to piss her off, but he was sick of pretending life was perfect now that she’d decided to get her shit together.

  “There’s no sense in your being this way, Cash,” she told him. “If you need to get laid, go do it. Maybe you need to take up smoking. Either way, you’re too tightly wound here lately.

  That pissed him off. “You know what?” He fought to control his temper. “When you treat me like the man of the house for most of my life ’cause you can’t handle your shit, you can’t turn that off because you’ve finally decided to get your fucking life together. I am the man of this house, I do pay half the bills, and I do work to put food on the table. So, Mom, if you don’t want the help, all you have to do is say so.”

  He walked back to his bedroom and slammed the door like he hadn’t done since he was a teenager. It felt good to hear the pictures rattle on the wall. How dare she decide she was holier-than-thou? If keeping a job for over a year and getting a promotion meant you were an adult, then he’d been one since he was fifteen years old.

  His phone vibrated on his bed, and he picked it up.

  I hope you had a better night than I did. I couldn’t think about anything but the ink on your chest and how you felt between my thighs.

  Son of a bitch, this woman was going to be the death of him.

  *

  “Why were you and Mom arguing this morning?”

  Cash wanted to tell Remy it was because she was a bitch who hadn’t decided to be a mother for most of his life, but he watched his mouth, knowing Remy was impressionable. “We just had a disagreement. I’m over it now.”

  “I hate when the two of you have disagreements.”

  “I do too, buddy, but sometimes it happens.”

  He wanted to tell his brother not to worry, that he would always be around, but the fact of the matter was, he wasn’t sure about that. He wasn’t the type of person to make promises he couldn’t keep, given the amount of promises that had been broken on a daily basis to him as a child. He refused to lie to this kid.

  Remy grabbed his hand. “Sometimes I wish it was just us.”

  Cash had to fight back the emotion that threatened to flood his face. Remy was ten years old, but was very small for his age, and when he said things like that, it ripped Cash’s heart out.

  “I remember how she was,” he continued. “And I’m scared she’s going to go back to that. When you’re out at night, sometimes Dad comes around.”

  His stomach dropped straight to his feet. “What?”

  “Dad’s been around.”

  Cash absolutely hated Remy’s father. He’d been an abusive fuck that Cash, at twelve years old, had run out of their house with a bat. “When?”

  Remy shrank away from the tone his brother used. He hadn’t wanted to make his brother mad, but he hated his dad. Good things did not happen when he started coming around again. “A few times last month, and he’s been around once this week.”

  It wouldn’t be long before his mom was using again. She’d lose her job, they might lose their house, and then where would Remy be? The last time this had happened, Cash hadn’t been eighteen, but damnit, he was now. Janet Sawyer would have to fight him tooth and nail for Remy if it came down to that. He didn’t give a shit what he had to do. If she wanted to bring that fucker back into their home, there would be consequences this time.

  “Remington Sawyer,” the nurse called.

  “That’s us.” Cash stood up, grabbing Remy’s hand as the nurse led them back to an examination room. Now wasn’t the time for him to get distracted, but he knew as soon as this appointment was over, plans would be put into place. If there was one thing he’d learned as the kid of a drug addict, it was to make sure plans were in place at all times.

  *

  “His asthma seems to be improving,” Dr. Hudson told Cash.

  “It does; he hasn’t had an attack in two months. I’m hopeful that the medicine is still working.” He stuck his hands in his pockets, smiling at his brother.

  “Now that we know this medicine can hopefully control the symptoms, Remy, we want to start you on an exercise regimen. We need to get your lung capacity built up, as well as your strength. I’m gonna send you out to talk and meet with the physical therapist about what you can do, but I need to talk to your brother for a few minutes.”

  Remy looked back at Cash, making sure it was okay for him to leave the examination room. “You’re good, bro. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  They watched as Remy left and Cash turned to face the doctor. “What are you not telling me?”

  “I don’t want to put this on you Cash, but I also know how much you love your brother; I know how badly you want him to continue to get better.”

  He could feel another stone in his stomach drop.

  “We’re about to discharge Remy as a patient,” she told him carefully.

  “What the fuck for? You’re the on
ly doctor who’s ever made a difference in his care. Why would you do this to him?” Cash ran an agitated hand through his hair.

  “He has a bill, Cash, and the level of care we offer here, we don’t continually let patients wrack up bills without paying them.”

  Of course, it had to do with money. “I’ve been giving Mom money to send in on it. It should almost be paid off,” he told her.

  “It’s almost a thousand dollars, Cash,” she told him carefully. “Most patients we would have already been dismissed, but I have a soft spot for Remy and for you.”

  “Shit,” he breathed. “Can I do anything to prevent this? I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t have that kind of money right now.”

  The doctor smiled sadly at him. “Tell ya what. If you make a payment today and you sign a payment agreement to pay what’s owed and what Remy will owe in the future, I’ll keep working with you.”

  “Yeah, whatever he needs.” Cash dug into his wallet, counting the cash he had there. He mentally calculated how much he would need for gas and food for a few days before he could run the Trail again. “Is a hundred enough today?”

  “Absolutely.” She directed him out of the room and took him to the admission desk. There, he set up the payment arrangement signing his name as responsible for his brother’s care, and it was there he fumed.

  Shit would need to change, and it would need to change soon.

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  Chapter Eight

  Harper flinched as the front door to the apartment she shared with her aunt slammed hard. That was never good. “Cara? You okay?” she yelled as she made her way to the living room.

  There, she saw tears streaming down Cara’s face and immediately became concerned. Since her aunt had become her guardian when she was five, she’d only seen Cara cry a few times.

  “I’m fine,” she told her, wiping up the tears with her index fingers as she had a seat on their couch. “No reason for you to worry.”

  “Uh, yeah there is. What’s wrong?” Harper’s heart beat faster, wondering what this was about.

  “I saw your dad today.”

  Harper flinched again, but this time for a different reason. “Oh really?” Good ole Boyd Stillwell was a man she hadn’t seen in at least five years.

  “He left me a voice message the other day from Green River, telling me he needed to see me. It’s been years since he’s done that, so I went there this morning. He’s up for parole next month.”

  “What? I don’t understand.” Harper shook her head. “He’s still got six years left on his sentence.”

  “Time for good behavior.” Cara wiped at her nose. “Harper, I need to know where your head is here.”

  Where was her head? It was back to the day when she was five years old and her dad had left her out in the running car while he held up a convenience store. Shit had gone south, and the clerk had ended up dead, and she’d ended up living with Cara. That’s where the fuck she was. “My head is out this door; I can’t listen to this right now.” She grabbed her purse and her cell phone and left quickly.

  Cara yelled at her as she left, but Harper ignored her, taking the stairs of their apartment building two at a time. She had to get out, had to get out from underneath the feeling of the building closing and falling in on her. She breathed heavily as she breached the door and inhaled the air deeply into her lungs, feeling them expand.

  Fifteen minutes later, she couldn’t even remember getting in her car, buckling her seat belt, and starting the ignition. She had no idea where the hell she was going either; all she knew was that she wanted to get away. Far away from the stress and the memories of the day when her dad had run from the convenience store, covered in blood, screaming at her that the cops were coming. She’d cried, not sure what he meant. All she’d known was that he held a gun in his hand and she was scared. To this day, she could remember being holed up in a rat-infested motel room while the police negotiators sat outside, trying to talk her dad down. The flash-booms from the SWAT team still woke her up at night when something caused her to have a flashback. She was not ready for that crazy to be in her life again. Not now, not ever.

  Glancing at the clock on her phone, she saw the time and realized it was Saturday. She had the day off and nowhere to be. Not feeling up to hanging with Nat today, she knew exactly who she wanted to hang with. Grabbing her phone when she stopped at a red light, she fired off a text.

  I don’t know if this is allowed, but I really need someone to hang out with today. I want that someone to be you. Preferably somewhere very alone.

  *

  Cash felt his phone go off and leaned backward so that he could dig it out of his pocket. Rain was moving into the region, and it was going to put a stop to the work he was doing on his car at the shop. As he read the text that had come through, his eyes widened. Harper wanted to hang out with him, huh? If she wanted to hang out, that could definitely be arranged. Glancing at the calendar on his phone, he saw this was the Saturday his mom worked. She would be pulling at least a twelve-hour shift, and Remy was being watched by a friend since Cash had also planned to work most of the day.

  This, however, sounded like it was going to be a lot more fun. Texting her directions to the shop, he put his phone back in his pocket and stood up. With a spring in his step, he made his way over to the basins and began washing the grease off his hands, paying attention to his fingernails. He was meticulous about it. He was a mechanic by trade and by passion, but he never wanted his hands to show it.

  “You takin’ off?” Tyler asked him, as he spotted Cash cleaning his hands.

  “Yeah, I don’t want to get moisture in the line when I bleed the brakes, and with the clouds rolling in, I don’t wanna chance it,” he explained.

  “Completely understandable.”

  “Thank you for fixing the gutter at my house the other day. I didn’t get a chance to get out there and tell you and Liam thank you before you were gone.”

  Tyler shrugged, wiping his own hands off. “Not a problem. You know we take care of our own.”

  That one little sentence sent warmth down his chest and into his belly. For someone who’d belonged to no one most of his life, it never failed to make him feel special when someone claimed him as their own. That was the type of family he wanted to make for Remy.

  “Hey, I have a friend who’s meeting me here. It’s okay for her to leave her car, right? She’ll be back to pick it up later on,” he explained.

  A grin covered Tyler’s face. “A chick, huh?”

  The scrutiny of the stare the big man leveled on him caused a blush to form on Cash’s cheeks. He hadn’t blushed in a very long time. “Yeah, a chick.”

  “Must be some chick if you’re packing up work and scrubbing your hands till they’re raw.” Tyler chuckled.

  “I’m tryin’ to figure out exactly what she is, to be honest with you.” He didn’t want to admit to the guy who loved his wife more than anything in the world that Harper was probably just a hook-up. The big Native American would knock him into next Sunday, and quite frankly, Tyler scared him.

  “Well, my man, I think you better figure it out, because I’m pretty sure she just pulled up.”

  Cash glanced around to the entrance of the shop, and sure enough, Harper had parked her car in one of the parking spots and had gotten out. Son of a bitch, she wore the official attire of late summer in the South—blue jean cut-offs and a tank top and flip flops on her feet. He saw her looking around for him, and when her eyes met his, it was a detonation of chemistry. Finishing up with his hands, he grabbed a paper towel and dried them off before walking over to her.

  “Hey,” he greeted her. “I thought we could leave your car here and take mine?”

  She nodded. “Sounds good to me. I don’t care where we go; I just wanna get as far away from my apartment as I can.”

  He didn’t ask her why, because frankly he didn’t care. He needed some time away from his life too, and if that meant they needed to spend time together, then
so be it. “C’mon then.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, pulling her to his car. Like a gentleman, he opened the passenger side for her, shutting the door when she was situated, and then made his way over to the driver’s side. He took a deep breath as he opened his own door. With any luck, that was the last gentlemanly thing he would do for the rest of the day.

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  Chapter Nine

  They drove further into the county, crossing into Richardsville. Harper had never been this far out before, and while it didn’t make her nervous, she was curious as to where they were going. Neither one of them spoke as he turned onto a one-lane road and carefully drove his car back into a thicket of woods.

  “C’mon,” he told her as he got out of the driver’s side and went around to the passenger’s side to help her out of the car.

  “Where are we?” It was like they had been transported to some European forest for the day.

  “Travis Steele—I don’t know if you know who he is,” he started as he grabbed her hand and pulled her further into the thicket. “And Rooster Hancock—I don’t know if you know who he is either—but anyway, they are related, and they own this land together.”

  Members of the Heaven Hill MC, that much she knew. Again she had to wonder how he was affiliated, what exactly he knew. “How did you get permission to be on it?” she questioned, really looking forward to the answer.

  “I help Travis do a lot of the chip programming at the shop. They pay me well, but I work a lot over there, and not just on my own car. When they realized I truly have no place to go except for my house, they offered to help me get another place to go. Neither Travis nor Rooster use this land; it’s been passed down in their family, so they told me I could have a half-acre of it to do what I want. As long as I continue to help out at the shop, this is mine,” he explained as they came to a clearing.