She didn’t mind doing family on a Sunday, usually just a trim when her boys would be getting shaggy, and she would take care of it in the family’s kitchen, sheet or towel clothespinned around the neck of her victim. Just like when she and Brice were kids back in Oregon, when she’d trimmed his hair with fabric shears because their parents didn’t have the cash or inclination to make sure it got done. Her older brother liked his place on the baseball and football teams, and the coach, shared between the sports, wanted his boys clean-cut. She made sure Brice stayed that way so he could keep his happy spot playing on the fields, and not grumping because he was riding the pine. That meant this being Sunday, what could have been a terrible crap day, was just crap.
Because her brain was so fuzzy, it took her working through all that in her head before she realized she had seen something other than her phone on the nightstand. That something made her tense up, which made the sick roll through her system again until she clenched her jaw on the raw sounds bubbling up her burning throat. Swallowing bitter bile, she battered at it until it subsided, then she opened her eye a fraction, focusing on what was beside the phone.
A tall glass, half full of what looked like water. Large, square ice cubes floated in the clear liquid, and condensation was gathering on the sides of the glass. As Bexley watched, a couple of the drops collected, flowing together to form a larger drop. It then trailed a meandering line down the side of the glass which was sitting on a folded paper napkin, the edges of the square crisp, straight folds lined up with the sides of the tabletop. Next to the napkin were two small, round, white tablets, an unmistakable logo pressed into the surface. She knew the brand, and also knew she didn’t have it in the house, because the ones she used were formed into oblongs. Water. Fresh, cold, ice water. Painkillers.
She mentally scanned her body again, paying very close attention to specific areas a second time, but came up with the same answer. No. She had, thankfully, most emphatically not gotten stupid in addition to wasted. Staring at the glass, she revised that assessment. She had gotten wasted because she had apparently brought someone home with her and didn’t have any memories of that event. But, given the care evidenced by the water and aspirin, not stupid wasted because the person she’d brought home gave a crap.
She heard sounds coming from inside the house and shifted her focus to those, hating how fuzzy she felt, wanting to be sharp, on it. Wanted to be on her game and able to take care of herself, but instead she was flat on her back on her bed, not even able to pick up her own head without barfing. It wasn’t a large house. She didn’t need large, with no pets, no husband, no kids, but it had what she did need, which was a location blazingly close to her brother, Brice, and his son, Duncan.
She needed that, because they were why she was here.
After her sister-in-law, Jean, died in a stupid, senseless accident—knocked off a sidewalk by a couple in the throes of an altercation, the shouting match turning to shoving, and Jean, an innocent victim, had been thrust into the path of oncoming traffic—Bexley moved here to Fort Wayne. Picked up and moved without hesitation, because after that had happened, there was no way she was going to stay all the way across the country from the only family she claimed. The pain and sorrow running through Brice’s voice when he’d called her to tell her about Jean had scored deep. It scored deeper, finding out about him holding back half the story. Protecting her by waiting until she arrived in town to let her in on the fact that Duncan, then barely two years old, had sat alone, sleeping peacefully in a stroller on the sidewalk while everyone focused on the tangled and twisted mass of flesh that was his mother. Alone. Sleeping, but more on his own than any child should ever be, at two years old or twenty. Alone, and frighteningly vulnerable.
It had been hours before Brice got the call about Jean.
It would be hours more before anyone put two and two together who the abandoned child was. That entire time Brice had been going out of his mind at the hospital. Hours with no answers, just a growing fear that he’d lost his entire family. Minutes ticking past while he’d been on his own, alone and grieving, crazed with worry. Then at the police station, a dozen officers surrounding him with compassionate understanding but little help. It terrified her that he’d been so alone, vulnerable.
Duncan’s predicament had been reported by a store owner who’d carefully watched the stroller before wheeling it through his door and making a call. It was a savvy social worker who’d eventually realized that the boy hadn’t been abandoned, but was with the woman killed in a pedestrian versus auto accident where her shoes were halfway up the block, and her body at the intersection beyond that. Her son left behind, stroller angled away from the street by the force of her hands knocked from the handles.
Fortunately for Bex, her chosen career allowed her to pick up and go wherever, as long as she could pass the state’s registration and certification process for cosmetology. That meant she could leave the mild but wet clime of Portland where she had been living at the time and head to Fort Wayne, where her brother had settled because it was where Jean’s family lived. The state had a thing for basketball, but loved their football, too, so it had felt about half home to him already, Jean bringing that other half to his house.
So Bex’s little cottage of a house in a pleasant Fort Wayne neighborhood didn’t matter a bit to her, except that it gave her the essentials. A roof that Duncan could stay underneath as needed, parking for her car, because she seriously hated scraping ice off her windows and if anyone thought Indiana only had snow, they were nuts. It also was only two blocks from Brice’s place and gave her access to public transportation, which provided the option of bussing it to work in bad weather. The furniture pieces were all mismatched, but functional, yard sale finds and looked it, but she wasn’t house proud. No, she kept her most precious things closer, on display. School papers sporting a red A+ held with magnets to the front of the refrigerator, picture portraits framed in a cheesy collage with six empty spaces still to fill, room for Duncan’s high school career.
The sounds came nearer, and she called out, shocked at how raspy her voice sounded. Dry and painful coming out, the single word apparently had the power to stop the footsteps from coming closer. “Hello?” Silence greeted her, and she strained her ears to listen, trying hard to hear anything, wanting to be prepared when whoever came through the doorway, because she had no memories of last night. Zero retention of whatever smashing party she had gotten smashed at.
“Hello?” Her voice didn’t sound any better a second time, and she wondered what time her helper had poured her into bed, knowing there was no way she’d put herself here, because she never, as in nev-er slept naked. Not with the chance Brice would need her for something with Duncan, and both of her boys having keys which meant they didn’t have to knock when they wanted in her house.
Finally, another noise, this sounding from the wall right outside her room, as if something had leaned against it, no longer approaching, but holding in place. Then a voice. It was amazing; full of gravel and rougher than even hers was, new but sounding strangely familiar. She’d never known a voice could be gentle, but this one was, gently asking her, “How’s the head?”
“Like the time I earned a baseball bat thrown at me by my best friend in sixth grade, all because I told a boy she wanted to kiss him.” Jesus, she thought, that was stupid. I coulda just said that it hurt. I didn’t have to give part of a story long forgotten.
“Taking that to mean she connected.” Still rough and jagged, the voice held tender humor threading through it. Without knowing why, Bexley smiled.
“She was our pitcher, and we played fastball, not drop pitch.” Another answer without answering, I just get better and better.
“So, prolly had an accurate eye, and I suspect she let it fly, so a hard hit.” A definite chuckle followed that statement, and she rolled her eyes, wincing as they ached even more. That chuckle was worth working for, and she decided she wanted to see what went with the chuckle and voice, s
o she could work for another one.
“Yeap.” Bex cleared her throat. “Could you come all the way in here? I think I need to thank you. I’m probably the worst pickup in the history of pickups, if you’re the one who left me the meds.”
“You aren’t a fucking pickup.” This emphatic response was immediate and sounded snarled, and she felt a buzz of anger that swelled from the hallway to land deep in her bones. A feeling which set her stomach to shaking. Not all her boyfriends had been nice, and one of them in particular frequently gave off a vibe that made her stomach quake like this, so she knew her reaction for what it was. Fear. Aware she was alone, vulnerable and naked, her breathing grew shallow, nearly a pant.
She realized he could hear her when he spoke, his voice softly susurrant, quieting her fears without words. “Shhhhhh.” Noise, him shifting against the wall, and for a moment, she thought he would come inside. “I’d never hurt you.”
“I…” She swallowed. “I didn’t….” The fear subsided slowly, nausea rolling in its wake.
His voice came again, softer but still with a rough edge when he asked, “Think you can keep down the aspirin?”
“If I…” Bex realized her voice had fallen to a near-silent whisper. Pausing, she cleared her throat, earning her another shot of pain in her head, making her wince as she said, “If I could reach it, maybe, but the way I feel, honestly…probably not.”
“Fuck.”
She tried to push past that ball of fear in her belly, wanted him to know she wasn’t without resources. Wanted to thank him not just for taking care of her, but for taking care with her. Shhhhhh. I’d never hurt you. “If you could just come in so I can thank you, you could hand me my phone. You don’t have to stay. You’ve done enough already. Very kind. I’ll call my brother. He lives just—”
“He’s at Duncan’s game.” He interrupted her brusquely, and a second later she heard footsteps receding down the hall. The voice decreased in volume with each spoken syllable. He was leaving. “You’re talkin’. You’re good. I’m out. You’ll be fine.”
Sounds of boot soles on bare wood slapped the walls, descending the stairs. “Hello?” Back to her questioning call, she waited, then listened, shocked, as the backdoor opened then closed. Silence descended upon her house again, broken only by her disbelieving restatement of what the man had said. “He’s at Duncan’s game?”
Brute
Fuck.
He should have left when she’d eased from her unresponsive drugged state to a healthier sleep. He shouldn’t have waited. But even before that, he should not have undressed her. Should not have bathed her, washing evidence of the night from her body. Should not have watched her sleep, that sleep restless unless his hand was touching her. Should not have lain on the bed beside her, alert to every movement, gaze captured by her profile, the shifting of her eyes underneath their lids. Cataloging the tiny winces that gave away her rise to consciousness, which drove him to her kitchen, the bags on his bike, and then back to her room with items in hand to make her day more comfortable. Fuck, he should have left after he dropped the glass and pills on her table.
He should not have stayed.
But he had.
Should not have done any of those things.
But after seeing how close she came to being…destroyed, he couldn’t not.
So he did.
Brute dug a phone from his pocket, tapped on the screen a few times, got an answering buzz accompanying a text response and shoved the phone back into his pocket. As he knew they would, his brothers had his back last night, and there was a present waiting for him in the clubhouse basement.
He took a deep breath, then started the bike, idling out of the alley behind her cottage and onto the street, not opening the throttle until he was well away from her neighborhood. He wasn’t in any specific hurry. He grinned, the movement of his lips pulling the skin of his face tight in grotesque ways. This particular present wasn’t going to get up and walk away.
***
“I’m gonna want verbal affirmation that we have an understanding.” Brute lifted his gaze from the body that sagged in front of him, a dead weight pulling down against the biker holding the man in place, getting an amused snort that did not issue from the person he wanted to hear from.
With a shake of his head, Gunny released the man. “Not thinkin’ you’re gonna get shit out of him for fifteen, brother.”
“What in the…I didn’t hit him that hard.” He hadn’t either. “Pulled every punch.”
“Yeah, but we dosed him with what he hit your gal with. A big dose. So, however bad she’s feeling today, he’s got it three times worse.” Gunny leaned back, shoulders against the wall. “She make it through okay?”
Gunny had seen her, one of only a few of the men who had, the ones Brute relied on to have his back. Gunny knew what Brute had found in the girl, wanted it for him. Wanted to see it taken through to culmination. So Gunny spent time arguing, and had reasoned and debated unsuccessfully with Brute about keeping his distance.
But Gunny didn’t live behind his face; Brute did. He knew, if he had stepped foot inside that bedroom two hours ago with her awake and probably already worried about who was in her house with her, she would have lost her mind with fear. From her words, her voice, her fucking breathing—he knew she was already terrified. He couldn’t have blamed her, but it would have cut him deep, spoiling the illusion that he had one woman in this world who didn’t flinch at the sight of him. One woman who could be his. Would have ruined the memory of her lips under his in bright, illuminating light.
She was his singular dream. Spectacular in his experience, and he wanted to hold onto that for as long as he could. That moment in the store with her teasing smile promising more. Promising everything to him with a lift of her eyes to his. His for the taking. She was everything. Not a stupid skank drilled from behind in a dark room, his friends careful to take phones away, not letting any light into the space. She was Bexley. Brute’s Girl.
Last night when she’d gone out alone, he’d followed.
By the light affixed to her back wall, he could see her dress was casual: running shoes, jeans, and a tee, covered with a leather jacket. This was a break from her regular routine. She went out to party, but always with her friends, which meant clubs and club clothes. When she went out, she dressed to impress, taking the up route, not dressing down.
He didn’t like the feeling this gave him, so he watched. She walked around to the front of the house and stood for about a minute before a cab showed, her long legs and rounded curves folding into the backseat. Following closely, knowing the driver wouldn’t be watching for him, he stayed within a couple of car lengths of the vehicle, trailing it to a bar on the east side of town. A village long ago annexed by the city, they stopped in front of a building just off the main drag, not a place you would even know about unless you were from there. The kind of place populated by patrons from the neighborhood, those established regulars inhabiting their self-assigned stools, jukebox still old school, spinning actual records, selection limited to the faded paper in the flipping display on the front. His kind of place. A little dingy, a lot dark, entirely low class and comfortable holding that position.
Not her kind of place.
The cab pulled up by the front walk and a few seconds later, she exited, moving directly to the entrance as if she made this trip every night. Door open and closed, and he was left sitting on his bike in an adjacent parking lot, empty sidewalk and blank walls spread in front of him. No windows, no vantage point, no eyes on her.
Three minutes later, he had parked by the backdoor and was prowling through the kitchen, snapping, “Not if you know what’s good for you,” at the single worker who had balls enough to start to say something. The man was also smart enough to know when to shut up, and Brute parked himself just inside the swinging pass-through where he could look out a diamond-shaped glass set head-high in the door. Bevels along the edge warped his view of the room, but it was still clear e
nough he could see her.
Seated at the bar, forearms leaning in, she looked at home, as if she had perched this way every night for the past decade, having celebrated her majority here. He watched her joke with the bartender, a good-looking man about her age.
Without turning to look, Brute motioned behind his back to the kitchen, hearing the pause in movement across the entirety of the room before one set of footsteps came closer. “Tell me about the barman.”
The young voice coming from his elbow let him associate it with a face noted during his walk-through scan. The dishwasher boy had been the only one with curiosity enough to approach. Brute kept his eyes on the bartender, listening as the kid snorted quietly. “Kasmouski. Mouse.”
“He worked here long?” Brute tensed as the gal went through one shot of vodka, then another, Mouse standing close with the bottle for an amused moment, waiting to pour a third which she left sitting on the bar. Mouse placed an ice water on the counter in front of her with a smile. She dug into her pocket, pulling out a doubled-over bundle of bills, chatted with the barman for another moment before peeling off two from the middle, creasing them in half lengthwise to make them easier to pick up off the bar and slid the money across to where he stood.
Brute could read her lips when she told the man, “I’m good,” turning down his offer to get her change. Not a stranger to bars, then. Not a stranger to being a stranger in a bar, either. There were unspoken rules that made it so people who wanted to fold seamlessly into new places could create a space for themselves, even at neighborhood bars like this. Stay off tab until the bar help knows you. Demonstrate you have the cash to cover your evening and are confident enough to give a little show. Make it easy for them to scoop the money, so they look slick doing it. They appreciate each gesture, gives them a reason to ensure you stayed lubricated. Tip the bartender early and well and you would not be a patron allowed to go dry. They would learn your name and use it, handing back that feeling of belonging in exchange.
A Kiss to Keep You (Rebel Wayfarers MC Book 14) Page 2
