Ruthless Daddy_A Romance Collection

by Emily Bishop

  In the distance, beyond the billowing, black smoke, I heard more cries. More screams. Someone screeched Olivia’s name. Skirting around the back of the little mechanical area, I found a path without smoke, circling around the carnival to the other side. Already, sirens blared from down the road. An ambulance, a firetruck, and then another, tore up onto the pavement beside me.

  I tried to dive toward the performance area, where I’d last seen Olivia. But the stream of the crowd was too great, pushing me further and further back. I cried Olivia’s name, feeling my throat constrict with smoke. “OLIVIA! OLIVIA, WHERE ARE YOU!”

  The fire was as large as a two-story house, overtaking the Ferris wheel (which, it looked like, had been emptied), a few whirly rides, and several games. Everything smelled like burnt cotton candy. My nostrils filled with it as I attempted to rip forward, filtering past my English teacher, classmates, parents I recognized from my twelve years in Randall. They all scowled at me, muttering, “Get back, you idiot kid!”

  When I reached the performance arena, I realized I was completely surrounded by fire. It billowed around me, its heat licking at my skin, the product of my cigarette. Tears fell down my cheeks as I recognized that Olivia was nowhere to be found. The performance arena was a burnt-out ghost town, something the fire was passing over for greener pastures. Just outside, the firefighters spewed water from their hoses, flashing it up into the night.

  Working on animal instincts, I took a path from the performance arena, finding a paved road back toward the parking lot. Out there, a massive crowd awaited, gazing at the fire. Several women wept, drawing their foreheads against their husbands’ shoulders and hunching.

  “It might take the houses,” one man said, pointing. “And if it does, Jesus, it could overtake Town Hall.”

  “It ain’t far. And the wind is going that direction,” another called.

  I lurched toward a man I half-recognized from my neighborhood, someone who’d spent much of the past four hundred Sundays out trimming his plants. Placing my hand on either side of his shoulders, I whispered, “Man, have you seen Olivia? Do you know where Olivia is? The cheerleading captain?”

  The man’s face grew grey, pale, glistening in the light. With a firm finger, he pointed toward the ambulance near the front of the parking lot. From it, I could hear a low, long string of a scream, the kind from an animal beyond fight. Racing toward it, my legs stretching, I pushed myself to the front of the crowd. But mid-way through, I felt a hand pulling me back. Turning, I found myself face-to-face with Freddy. Beside him, was Olivia’s father. Anthony Thames.

  “You’re telling me he smoked the cigarette?” Anthony cried. As he spoke, his jowls shook like a dog’s. “He lit the town on fire!”

  “That’s right,” Freddy said, forcing his smile to dissipate. “Flicked it right toward the oil, not ten minutes ago. Said something about teaching this town a lesson.”

  The light flickered in Anthony Thames’s eyes as he turned this lie over in his head. In my own, I felt sure he would never see the logic. I felt trapped, an animal in this small-town cage. A product of my upbringing, never seen as anything else. I shifted, tearing my thumb toward the ambulance. Stuttering, I asked, “That isn’t… That isn’t Olivia…?”

  Anthony Thames reached for my shoulders, his nails tearing into my skin. My muscles bulked up, straining. Beside Anthony, several other men of the town turned toward me, leering. “Was is him, Thames?” one asked.

  “This is the man who started it,” Anthony said. For the first time in my life, I was called a man, rather than a boy. This was a rush of reality. “He fucking got my little girl hurt. And for what, Eric? All because you were jealous? Jesus Christ. Grow the fuck up!”

  Anger pulsed in my ears. With a mighty rush of strength, I brought my fist upward, smashing it into Anthony Thames’s skull. Anthony rushed back, holding onto his cheek and pointing a finger toward me. As blood trickled from his ears and nose, he cried out, cat-like. “GET HIM THE HELL OUT OF HERE! GET HIM THE HELL OUT!”

  Freddy smeared his hand across my shirt, tugging at me. Another middle-aged bulky man took the other side, pushing me from the crowd. Further beyond, the fire licked toward the first line of houses as the firefighters called out to one another, their eyes filled with panic. They hadn’t had a fire like this before. How could they possibly contain it?

  I ducked back, just outside the crowd. My eyes continued to flicker toward the ambulance, which was now closed and ready to drive away. Olivia. What the hell had I done to Olivia? And now, her father was brewing up a black eye, explaining to every person in the town that I was the devil. That he’d always seen it in me. All the while, Freddy crossed his arms over his chest, smirking. It looked as though he was at the top of a mountain, gazing down. Defeat grew heavy on my shoulders.

  “You heard the man,” Freddy said, snickering. “If you don’t get the hell out, we’ll kick you out. And we won’t do it kindly.”

  Minutes later, I found myself behind the wheel of my dad’s car, driving thirty miles over the speed limit toward my house. I left the keys in the ignition while I ran into my house, where I found my father asleep on the sofa. Was this the last time I would see him? I wondered, before I raced up the steps. Beneath my bed, I kept a box filled with socks. Under the socks were two hundred dollars, give or take. It was all I had. All that could get me wherever the hell I was going. It would have to be enough.

  Back outside, I loaded a few things into the car and took a final look at Olivia’s house. My heart thumped toward my throat, making me queasy. I vomited everything—fear, regret, anger, that fucking burger from Burger Shack—across the grass. I wiped my hand across my lips and I shed all thought of what I’d assumed the night would become: Olivia laughing in the crook of my arm. The soft smells of Olivia curling into my nose. Us, passing out in the back seat of the Chevrolet, before trading driving shifts. “Where do you want to go, baby?” I imagined I would ask her. “What do you want your life to be?”

  “I want to go anywhere in the world, as long as it’s with you,” she would have said back. I was so sure of it. I’d never been more sure.

  Chapter 21

  Olivia

  Eric hadn’t yet spoken since my father entered the funeral home. Instead, he pressed at Maggie, ensuring she was safe behind the coffin, away from my bumbling, drunken father. Eric’s face grew red as my father continued to strut through the center of the room, all eyes upon him. He was nothing if not a performer.

  “That day, Eric. That day you ruined my beautiful Olivia’s life. I can’t tell you how much I’ve wished, over and over again, that I could drop you into that fire and watch you burn,” my father continued. “When I came to her in that hospital room and her face was dripping with blood, all I wanted to do was kill you. But you were long gone at that point. You had the instincts of an animal. Like you knew if you stuck around, you were fresh meat.”

  Eric’s nostrils flared. Beside me, Max’s arms snuck into a cross, his hands gripping his biceps. I could almost feel his fluttering heart. “You’re going to be okay, baby,” had been the words I’d whispered to him, during those first months after he was born. I hadn’t fully realized I’d only been speaking to myself.

  “I was a kid, Anthony,” Eric finally returned to my father, his hands drawing into fists. I hadn’t seen him this angry since we were children. Yet, now, it seemed, he had the muscle to back him up. Pointing a finger toward the crowd, he found Freddy—that asshole quarterback—and tilted his head. “And besides. Freddy hasn’t told you the full story of what happened that night.”

  Freddy lashed at his gum with a tired jaw, snaking his arm across Cynthia’s shoulder. His eyes turned toward me, lazy. “It’s okay, Eric. You helped me dodge a bullet, turns out. What with Olivia being washed-up and all.”

  My father didn’t blink twice. It was almost as if he agreed with him. Instead, he continued to leer at Eric—the object of his constant disdain—almost waiting for him to attack. Eric was p
inned against his father’s coffin, the entire town before him. Trapped.

  “If I could kindly ask you to leave my father’s funeral,” Eric began.

  “You can’t kindly ask me to do anything in my town,” my father returned. “I won’t fucking listen to a single thing you have to say. You tried to destroy it once. And you ruined my beautiful Olivia. You absolutely—”

  “Can you fucking stop saying she’s ruined?” Eric cried. “She’s remarkable. She’s stunning. She’s worked hard to fight back at you for making her feel guilty for helping her when she was just a kid and pregnant. She’s raised my son into someone I am incredibly proud of, dammit. And you keep making her out to be a—”

  “That kid is poison. Everything you make in this town is poison,” my father continued.

  Max took a small step forward, his nostrils flared. I felt frozen, my hands at my side. Max was just off to the right, and further back from my father, still unnoticed by both men. I wanted to hiss at him. To tell him to fall back. That this had nothing to do with him.

  My father lifted his fists, beginning to bounce back and forth—almost playful. Yet as he pulsed his weight from side to side, he began to make small jabs toward Eric.

  “Let me know if you need backup, man,” Freddy called from the side, chuckling. His belly protruded far over his belt, sagging along his thighs. “Never been a day in my life I couldn’t take this wuss.”

  “Naw, Freddy. This fight has to be mine,” my father told him, grumbling. “It’s a man’s right to stand up for his family. To declare that enough is fucking enough. And Jesus, Eric Holzman. If you darken a door of this town one more freakin’ time…”

  My father bucked forward, shooting his fist toward Eric. With quick reflexes, Eric cast his head to the right. “Fuck off!” he cried. His face broke out, his mouth a gash. Tearing forward—working on instinct, now, he punched my father directly in the chin, making him fall off to the right. His large frame smacked into Max, who fell toward a ceremonial wooden chair. The light, freckled forehead—the one I’d kissed endlessly, each night of his life—fell onto the edge of the chair, and immediately blood flashed down his cheek, dribbling toward the floor. Max let out an animal cry. It echoed from wall to wall. The crowd around us gave a collective shriek before running headlong into gossip that swirled all around us. It had been quite a fucking show.

  Knowing nothing other than what I needed to do for my son, I dropped to my knees beside him, bringing his face upward. Blood gushed from a cut to the right of his eye, joining tears. His lips fumbled, hunting for words.

  “Oh, baby,” I whispered, drawing him into me, so that the blood dribbled on me, too. “Oh, baby.”

  He’d been brought into a horrible world. A world of resentment. Of small-town values that didn’t quite add up. My father rose up from the ground, smirking, brushing his hands across his lap. Since Eric had arrived, everything had felt like it was bubbling toward a breaking moment. And now, with Max bleeding out on the funeral home rug, and my father’s grin wide against a bruising cheek, it seemed it had occurred.

  “Look at all that blood!” Cynthia, a girl I’d once half-cared for, leered from beside Freddy. She tossed her dyed-blonde hair, her eyes narrowed in disgust.

  The town was in an uproar, bored with their own lives and centered upon the chaos of mine.

  But Eric wasn’t waiting around to see what happened next. I tore at my dress to press a bit of fabric onto Max’s bleeding face, and Eric raced around the back of the coffin. Inside the coffin, the dead form of his father waited, his skin waxen. My tongue flapped around in my mouth, unable to articulate words. What on earth could I say to Eric, with the entire town around me? What could I say to keep him here? To tell him everything wasn’t as bad as it seemed?

  Eric lifted Maggie into him. Maggie was wailing, her face stricken with panic. This wasn’t her world. This wasn’t her father. The father she knew wouldn’t lash out, wouldn’t punch. Wouldn’t cause Max to cry.

  “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy…” Maggie’s weak voice peeked over the crowd’s gossip, sounding so desperate. “Daddy, why can’t we go? Why can’t we go?”

  I looked up as Eric fled toward the back exit, his eyes upon me. My father hunkered between us, his eyes on Max’s injury. His face was lifted with glee. Eric’s lips were pressed tight, yet his eyes seemed to hold a million words—some of which I thought I might understand. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand myself here,” I imagined him saying. “This isn’t my world anymore. I’m angry here. Volatile here. I can’t control it.”

  Seconds later, he burst through the back door and disappeared, leaving me with Max, with my father, with the entire city of Randall at my back. Their view of me—that I was washed up, tired, defeated—was currency to keep me back. Maybe I’d never been anything more than a country girl from Randall. And maybe Eric had always been meant for so much more.

  I lifted Max into me, standing. My father’s tongue snaked out from between his teeth. Pointing a finger toward the back door, my father muttered, “See, Olivia? I told you. I told you he would leave you again. And now, look. I’m the only one here to catch you when you and Max fall.”

  They were words he relished. I tried to hold back tears. Stretching my fingers across Max’s back, I led him toward the far door, where I found Rachel and her son already waiting. She beckoned for me, allowing me to collapse into her. Whispering into my ear, she said, “Come on. I’ll take you guys to the hospital. It’s going to be all right.”

  Outside the funeral home, the air was fresh, as if it had just rained. I gasped into it, walking the few blocks back home, before falling into the passenger seat of my own car. Rachel drove us the rest of the way to the hospital, humming lightly and strumming her fingers into mine. She was the only person who hadn’t been involved in the chaos of the past. And for this reason, she was my safeguard, pulling me out. Even fifteen minutes after the fact, though, I still wasn’t sure if I could breathe properly. Already, I could feel Eric stirring far away from me, running from Randall, and from a future we could have had. With Max sobbing in the back seat, my heart grew dark, heavy.

  “I can’t believe he left again,” I whispered, my voice a string. “When he knows we could build something. When he could make everything all right.”

  “Nothing about that was right,” Rachel told me, steering the car into the Emergency Room parking lot. “It was an ambush, baby. Your father planned it as such. What the hell else was Eric supposed to do, if not get the hell out?”

  Chapter 22

  Eric

  Maggie scream-cried halfway to the edge of Randall in the back of the car, her cheeks bright red with panic. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tight my knuckles whitened, and my jaw was clenched tight—unable to utter words that would calm Maggie down. Thirty miles outside, maybe forty, I would find the strength to help her. To tell her it would all be all right. But Jesus, so fresh from that horror show, I didn’t have it in me.

  I’d thought the funeral was going fine. I hadn’t assumed it was all a set-up, a way for the town to see how fucked-up I still was. In truth, I hadn’t had a bar fight in all the years since Maggie was born. I hadn’t allowed myself to dive back into my past. But something about this fucking town, about that fucking man, Anthony Thames, made me sizzle with anger. All the years I’d lost with Max! And now, Max bleeding, his face sopping with blood. Just like Olivia’s had been. And it was all my fucking fault.

  I slammed my fists against the steering wheel and the car lurched out of the lane toward a tree. Realizing the trajectory, I yanked the car in the other direction, nearly tearing into a semi. Maggie’s screeches burned through my ears. But I wouldn’t stop moving forward.

  “We have to get out of here!” I cried back to her, pressing violently against the gas pedal. “We have to leave!”

  I remembered that night I’d left, after the carnival fire, like it was yesterday. My foot had been like lead against my dad’s old Chevy gas pedal, taking me west.
I’d always heard west was where your life opened up, where you found yourself. But when dawn broke, somewhere in Kentucky, I felt nothing. Saw nothing but rolling, green hills, peppered with horses. And I recognized that I would never see Olivia again. That I could never return to my past. It was too heavy, now.

  I’d made a huge mistake, coming back. Fuck, it had been a mistake to send that first letter out to Olivia, trying to rectify things. Sure, I hadn’t known about Max. I hadn’t known that Olivia’s life had tanked in the years since I’d left. She’d never been allowed that college education. Never been allowed a moment outside of her father’s jurisdiction. She’d looked at me, the past few days, so hopeful, like I was a man come to take her away from her tragedies. But in reality, I was the source of them.

  Forty minutes outside of town, Maggie fell asleep, tucking her chin against her chest. Still, no one had called me. It sat, black, looking dead, on my lap. What the hell would Olivia say, if she called? My fingers twitched, wanting to ask her about Max’s injury. Wondering if we could meet somewhere, rectify things…

  But no. It was too fucking late. I wasn’t right for her. Maggie and I had our own life, down in New Orleans, and I had to return to it. To brush off the events of the past and proceed. That asshole Conner could bury my father alone, drop him in the ground for all I cared. He had been dead and buried, in my mind, for years.

  Maggie awoke just after two in the morning. I drove the car toward a rest stop and poked my head into the back seat, looking at her little, sweet face, her cherub cheeks. She blinked up at me, seemingly without memory of what had happened back at the funeral home. Stretching a long yawn across her face, she murmured, “Daddy, where are we?”

  “We’re on our way home, pumpkin,” I told her. “We’re going to make it home.”

  “Is Max okay?” she asked. “My brother. He was bleeding.”