Fall

by Cora Brent

  She nodded. “Thus the unfairness. I didn’t get to see much of you last night.”

  “Well you’ve sucked on it before. You forget?”

  “Oh my god,” she muttered, reddening.

  “Let me remind you.” I unbuttoned my jeans and pulled down the zipper.

  “What are you doing?” She shouted a little too loudly and a waitress who looked like she could have been Bea’s sister looked over at us.

  I smiled, feigning innocence and liking the way the flush in her cheeks complemented her red hair. “Thought you were asking.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “No you didn’t. And anyway you don’t have the nerve.”

  “Oh yeah? Look underneath the table.”

  “No.”

  I laughed and zipped my pants back up. “Let’s go,” I said, tossing some bills on the table.

  She stood up and let me guide her to the door with my hand on the small of her back. I got a good look at her ass too, which was nicely wrapped in a pair of tight jeans and begging to be squeezed by my hands.

  “Where?” she asked.

  “I wanted to drop in on my cousin and his wife.”

  “More Gentrys?”

  “More Gentrys.”

  Jenny thought it would be nice to bring flowers so we stopped to pick some up. Then she had trouble holding onto the flowers while clutching my waist. She got annoyed when I laughed at her.

  Cordero looked worn out when he opened the door. He managed a genuine smile though when I introduced him to Jenny. Saylor was propped up on the couch, running her hands over her enormous belly.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” I said to her softly and she hugged me briefly when I kissed her cheek.

  “What happened?” I asked Cord as Jenny sat on the couch beside Saylor and the two of them started chatting.

  Cord yawned. “She was having some pain and her blood pressure is a little high. Doctors want her on modified bed rest for the rest of the pregnancy.”

  “And how long is that?”

  “Babies aren’t due until April but they can come out safely in March so that’s what we’re aiming for.”

  I patted my cousin’s shoulder. He’d sure taken life by the god almighty horns lately. Wife. Babies. Saylor and Cord had known each other as kids in Emblem but he’d done a cruel thing back then. Years later, when they reconnected, he was able to prove to her he wasn’t the same terrible boy he had been. He was fortunate to be given the chance to prove that, lucky that Saylor had seen beyond the Gentry label and allowed him to show her who he’d become. There was never a man more devoted to his lady than Cordero was to his Saylor. It opened up all kinds of soft spots in my heart.

  “You need anything, man?” I asked, not saying it just because it was expected but because I would do anything for these two.

  “We’re good,” Cord nodded, breaking into a smile as he looked over at his wife. I knew he should have been at work today and with Saylor unable to work for the foreseeable future they might be hurting for money pretty soon.

  “You collecting baby stuff yet?”

  “Why? Did you carry some diapers over here on your bike?”

  “I didn’t get you guys a wedding gift. I’d like to do it now.”

  Cord rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you did, Deck. You handed me a fat envelope of cash in Vegas.”

  “Nope, that wasn’t me. Like I said, I’d like to make up for it now. I’ll buy the babies’ cribs. Any ones your beautiful bride desires.”

  Cord looked down, slightly embarrassed. “I got it covered. You don’t have to do that.”

  “Doing it anyway. You can pay me back by naming one of the little rugrats after me.”

  My cousin managed a grin. “They’re girls. The name ‘Declan’ doesn’t have a feminine ring to it.”

  “Is that my fault? All right then. You’ll just have to take this as a big fat fucking favor up the ass.”

  His blue eyes searched me. Sometimes Cord had a wistful look about him that reminded me of his mother. I didn’t want to bring Maggie into the room though.

  “Okay, Cordero?” I prodded.

  “Okay, Deck,” he said quietly. “Okay.”

  Saylor called across the room. “What are you guys scheming about over there?”

  “We’re trading recipes. I’m baking the boys a birthday cake next week.”

  Saylor slapped a hand to her forehead. “Damn, I totally forgot you guys have a birthday coming up. What should we do?”

  “I’ll hire a clown,” I offered.

  Cord sat down beside Saylor and placed a possessive hand on her belly. They shared a private moment looking into each other’s eyes, silently marveling over what they’d made. The sight of them sitting there, so young and in love, made me feel downright fucking weepy. It wasn’t right that Cord didn’t have folks who gave a damn about the family he was building. My mother would have fainted with joy over the idea of being a grandparent. Even Chrome would have been apt to crack a smile. However, they never knew how close they came because it was over nearly as soon as it started. Telling them afterwards, in the wake of tragedy and despair, wouldn’t have done anyone any good.

  Jenny came to my side. I hadn’t realized she’d been watching me but when she circled her arms around my waist I held her tightly, breathing in the soft scent of her shampoo. It felt good to have her near. I decided not to think too hard about why I liked being with her or why she liked being with me, although it occurred to me that she might assume I’m something like that brother-in-law of hers; tough guy with a loyal heart of solid gold.

  My heart might be bludgeoned and half buried but I supposed it was still around.

  I just didn’t know what the hell it was made out of anymore.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JENNY

  I reached for Deck’s hand on the way out and he let me take it.

  “They’re nice,” I said as we left his cousin’s house.

  “They are,” he agreed.

  I’d seen the look on his face when Cord and Saylor were being all lovey dovey. Deck had, for a split second, appeared absolutely stricken. Then he blinked and the look was gone, replaced with his usual detached bemusement. But Deck wasn’t a man who liked to be pressed for information. He would only talk about his feelings on his own time. I could understand those hurdles all too well.

  I climbed on the seat behind him, feeling the same delicious thrill over being close to his body. The muscles in his back rippled against my chest while I held him as tightly as I could. Deck had said he wanted to drive to the mountains. I didn’t know which mountains or what we would do when we got there but I didn’t care.

  Deck and I were a strange match and I knew it. The curious looks we’d received from Saylor and Cord had confirmed what I’d already figured; Declan Gentry didn’t usually invest in women for much besides a quick humping. He hadn’t exactly told me I was anything special to him. Yet his attentiveness as he sat across from me in an old diner said more than any words could have.

  We were traveling east and I vaguely wondered if he was planning on heading in the direction of Emblem. I pressed my cheek against the smooth leather of his jacket, glad his powerful body blunted the impact of the wind on the open highway. When I glanced up I saw that the ghostly specter of the jagged brown mountains ringing the far eastern valley were looming ever nearer. They had a forbidding name, the Superstitions, but I’d never been this close to them before.

  After turning off the freeway we rode for several miles through the town of Apache Junction, which was packed with mid-western snowbirds this time of year. The landscape took a breathtaking turn when Deck veered down a two-lane road that stretched straight ahead for miles.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said although I couldn’t even hear my own words in the wind. We came to the entrance of a state park and Deck parked the bike in a small lot, the only bare spot at the foothills of the Superstition wilderness. I gaped at the surrounding scenery.

  “It almost doesn’t look rea
l,” I said.

  “It’s not usually this green,” he commented, squinting up into the ragged face of possibly the most hostile-looking mountain ever to peer down on humanity. The sprawling tower was a riot of peaks and crags and appeared about as welcoming as a skull-encrusted crypt. The patches of greenery were sporadic and surprising, the product of winter rains. Deck looked like he was enjoying my awe.

  “Let’s get closer,” he said and didn’t wait for me to argue. He led the way into the brush, following a dirt path. He was saying something but I didn’t hear what it was.

  “What?” I shouted and a pair of old men looked up from where they’d been crouched beside an RV at the mouth of the desert path.

  “I said watch out for jumping cholla.”

  I looked down with some anxiety. My cowboy boots seemed terribly inadequate all of a sudden. “Are they poisonous?”

  He turned his head and flashed me one of his lethal smiles. “Nah, but they do bite.” Deck explained that a jumping cholla is a particularly terrifying type of cactus that will actually lob hard balls of needles at you if you dare to get too close. Each segment was covered in about eight thousand prickly burrs that loved nothing better than to dig into soft skin.

  “Damn,” I said, glancing around in search of the offending plant, “the desert is full of too many things that sting, bite, poke and stab. Kind of makes you wonder why the hell anyone would try to live here.”

  “You just have to know what to look for and when to be cautious.”

  “Much like life.”

  Deck stopped walking. We were surrounded on all sides by tall mesquite and the wild arms of various members of the cactus family. None of them looked about to jump on me though. Deck, on the other hand, was ready. He grabbed my ass like it was his property and hauled my body against his. Once again I was stunned by the hard feel of him, especially the way he boldly pressed his dick against me. I had no doubt that he really had unsheathed it beneath the table at the diner because Deck wasn’t one to let a challenge pass by. There was no sweetness in his kiss this time; he was rough and ravenous, sucking on my neck and using the friction between our bodies to get himself even harder. And god help me, I loved it. If he’d wanted to lay me down on the desert floor right there in broad daylight I would have been disgracefully ready and eager.

  But he didn’t. Deck let me go as quickly as he had seized me. Then he started casually walking the path again as I struggled to catch my breath and take even one step since my legs weren’t working properly.

  “You like doing that,” I accused, nearly falling.

  He turned around and grinned. “What?” he teased, knowing damn well what.

  “You like getting me all worked up, just to show that you can.”

  Deck laughed. “You think that’s tough to prove, Jenny?”

  “Cocky bastard,” I muttered, my face aflame.

  “Quit daring me, baby, or I’ll show you just how cocky.”

  “Just walk. You’re blocking the path.”

  He laughed again and swung an arm around my shoulders, kissing the top of my head affectionately. This guy was a constant contradiction. There wasn’t really room for us to continue side by side so he returned to walking a step ahead. According to the path markers we’d already traveled a half a mile when we came to a pair of very wide, very flat boulders. They made quite a convenient viewing spot and I wondered if they’d been deliberately relocated here. If so, it must have been quite a task as they were enormous. Deck sat right down on one. The time was only around four but the sun had already ducked behind the mountains. In a few more hours the winter night would take over and this place would be utterly dark. I shivered briefly at the thought of being out here in this harsh place with no light and ten thousand unseen things scrabbling around in the brush. Then I sat beside Deck and felt better.

  “You know about these mountains?” he asked.

  “They look like a bitch to climb.”

  He nodded absently. “Every once in a while you hear about some poor asshole who stumbled into the Superstitions and didn’t come out. People don’t realize how extensive the wilderness is out there, how tough it is to find your way out if you don’t know what the fuck you’re doing. For over a hundred years there’s been rumors of a lost gold mine up there and folks used to venture out to look for it all the time. They usually didn’t come back out again, dead of exposure or violence.”

  “Violence?”

  “Yeah. My cousin Chase – you know Chase – told me all the stories because he’s into this shit and he remembers everything. Apparently the lost mine might not be so lost. Rumor has it there are still a few guardians up there, ready to deal with anyone who comes looking.” He looked troubled. “I’m sure there’s a lot of skulls with holes in those hills.”

  His dark tone bothered me. I wanted to get close to him but he drew one knee up, glared up at the mountains and looked like he wouldn’t tolerate being touched. If Deck’s story was true then there might be someone up there now, looking down on us. When I shifted my gaze away from the mountains he was still engrossed in the scenery and whatever private noise was in his head. He hadn’t shaved today and the new beard growth was even more plainly evident than it was yesterday. He also needed a haircut; a few black strands fell into his eyes. Deck dressed carelessly in old clothes and I knew beneath them his upper body was a riot of tattoos. Any man who saw him would have been intimidated. Any woman would have wanted him like crazy. I know I did.

  “I was married,” he told me as he stared into the shadows cast by the ominous Superstitions.

  I had to let that sink in for a moment. Deck didn’t offer to elaborate on his comment. Maybe he hadn’t meant to make it in the first place.

  “What happened?” I asked gently. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Declan was nearly ten years older than I was and he had the manner of a man who had seen and done more than he would ever tell anyone about.

  “Too young,” he said quietly. “Too stupid.”

  “So it didn’t last long?”

  “Nope.” He stood up. “It didn’t last long.”

  “I’m sorry, Deck. I imagine a divorce is difficult no matter what the circumstances.”

  “I’m not divorced.”

  That kind of knocked the wind out of me a little. “So you’re still married?”

  “No.”

  I was utterly confused. Deck was apparently finished with self-disclosure though. He hopped down off the boulder and jerked his head in the direction of the mountains. “C’mon, let’s walk a ways further before we turn back.”

  I didn’t budge. “And then what, Declan?”

  He turned around and cocked his head slightly. I silently damned him for being so impenetrable right now. Yes, I damned him for that even though I realized that was part of the reason he fascinated me.

  “What do you want, Jenny?”

  I wanted him to get me as dirty as he had already promised he would. I jumped off the rock and started walking, opting to toss out a glib comment instead of the truth. “I want you to take me someplace nice for dinner after we’re done dodging jumping cholla.”

  “I would consider it a privilege,” he said with a rare note of pure gallantry. The chivalry of the moment was was muddied a little when he smacked me lightly on the rear end.

  He let me take the lead this time and we grew closer to the base of the first mountain. We’d been climbing at a slight incline for quite some time and the terrain grew more rugged. My boots weren’t meant for hiking and the smooth soles slipped in the dirt. I was trying to navigate a series of jagged rocks that were in the way. In an effort to avoid tripping over their uneven surfaces I skirted the perimeter of the path. The climb had been gradual and the drop off beyond the path wouldn’t have been sheer. Nevertheless, it would have been a rough tumble through hard brush and rock. I kept an eye on the yawning desert wilderness below while I carefully picked my way forward. As I tried to plant my right foot I slipped, losing my balance c
ompletely. Deck was right there though. With absurdly quick reflexes he grabbed me underneath my arms and lifted me back onto the path.

  “Don’t fall,” he chuckled next to my ear, the hot feel of his breath and the smell of his leather doing all kinds of wicked things to me.

  “I won’t fall,” I insisted, continuing stubbornly upwards.

  Too late, Jennetta. Too late.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  DECK

  She kept expecting me to fuck her but I didn’t. Jenny seemed confused whenever I pulled back but she didn’t try to change my mind. If she had, then I might have nailed her anyway because I was sleeping alone with goddamn blue balls every night. Since she didn’t argue with me, I figured she was at least partly relieved. That was enough to make me glad I had found some self control. Jenny wasn’t something I could use and toss away. She was special.

  But nothing could stop me from indulging in a thousand filthy fantasies. One night we were on the roof of a parking garage beside Sky Harbor Airport, watching the planes take off, when I had her on the seat of my bike, her legs around me, our mouths locked together, my hands on her everywhere and my dick in a crazed frenzy. It was almost too goddamn much and I would have done her right there in the nastiest way a man ever fucked a woman, except all of a sudden she murmured my name softly and put her head on my shoulder. I sighed and stroked her hair, wondering once again what the hell I was doing and how this was supposed to end.

  “Want to go?” I asked her and she nodded. We stopped for a cup of coffee and then I dropped her off at her building like I always did. I’d been hanging around Tempe for the past week, returning to Emblem a few times to check on shit and deal with things, like when the asshole manager of the trailer park I partly owned tried to shake down residents because he couldn’t pay his post-holiday debts. The Gentry section of Emblem was quiet. All I’d seen of Benton was the time he stood in his doorway, staring at me suspiciously before I took off again. I’d been thinking about how I needed to relocate my cash. Even though I knew my uncle was as dumb as a cactus and didn’t have the balls to cross me in that way it was beyond stupid to leave so much money in one place, especially when I wasn’t around to look in on it every day.