Center Mass

by Lani Lynn Vale

  I walked slowly up the chain link fence, stopping slightly to the side of the bench Reese was on, and leaned my elbows against the metal bar. Grasping the chain link with both hands.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I sounded tired, even to myself.

  She smiled over her shoulder at me, her pretty, wavy hair falling over her shoulder and brushing the back of the bench.

  “She’s good with Rowen. Rowen’s a little hellion, but Katerina handles her perfectly,” Reese said

  I nodded. “Katy plays well with everyone. She’s got a vast range of kids she plays with. My friends all have kids varying in ages. How old is Rowen?”

  “Five. She started kindergarten this year,” she said, laughing at Rowen when she missed two boxes, skipping over them completely in her quest to get through the game as fast as Katy could.

  I found myself smiling, too.

  “My sister’s got a six year old boy, and a three year old little girl. A couple of my friends have five year olds. She’s a social girl,” I said, shaking my head. “I have no idea where she gets it, because I’m not.”

  She grinned at me. “I can tell. But you’ve done well raising her. She’s got impeccable manners.”

  I raised my brows. “Damn straight. I’d not tolerate anything less from her.”

  She stood and came to stand by the fence.

  Today she was in Spiderman scrubs.

  “Do you have a thing for Superheroes?” I asked.

  She placed her hands in her pockets and looked down at her shirt. “Yeah, kind of. I used to work in cardiology at Christus Health in Shreveport. They allowed us to wear what we wanted, and I generally gravitated to these because they were uplifting. That floor was a killer.”

  I’m sure it was. It didn’t sound like a fun floor to me.

  Then she did something unexpected.

  Moving fully into my vision, she stared into my eyes as she wrapped her hands around mine, as much as the chain link allowed.

  “Are you okay?” She whispered.

  I blinked, surprised at the emotion that was welling in my chest.

  Her hands warmed mine.

  I hadn’t even realized that they were cold. That I was cold.

  Her eyes were full of pain.

  For me.

  She’d heard about my day.

  “I’m okay,” I rasped.

  She gave me a wry look.

  “I’ll be okay. How’s that?” I asked.

  She looked at me, studying my face with her green eyes. She was exceptionally observant.

  She was also stunning, and in that moment, I wanted to kiss her more than I’d ever wanted anything.

  Badly.

  Which, of course, was when my daughter squirmed her way between the fence and Reese, smiling up at me with a devious scowl on her face.

  “You forgot me,” she growled.

  It took everything I had not to burst out laughing.

  “No, baby. I’d never forget about you,” I told her, even if it was a tiny white lie.

  She raised one eyebrow at me, exactly like my own mother still did on occasion, and sniffed. “You’re so full of it.”

  It would be Reese’s peel of laughter, the pure joy on her face that got me through the night. Through the nightmare of replaying that one event of the day over and over again through my mind. Seeing the man’s body jerk as the bullet tore through his chest. Seeing him fall lifelessly to the ground in a heap.

  It would be her laughter that pulled me out of the nightmare that kept repeating through my head, tearing through my thoughts like an unwelcome parasite.

  That’s when I truly knew. Knew that I wouldn’t be able to stay away from her.

  She’d be mine. Soon.

  Chapter 7

  Having a sister is like having a best friend you can't get rid of. You know whatever you do, they'll still be there.

  -Truth

  Reese

  “Yes, hoe, I got the freakin’ cake. And the decorations. What’d you get again?” I asked suspiciously.

  I heard Tru’s dark chuckle. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked, if I didn’t want to know, bitch,” I quipped as I pulled into the driveway.

  Then my eyes widened when I looked in the back seat at Rowen. Who, luckily, was sleeping.

  I tried really hard not to curse in front of my daughter, but my sister brought out the worst in me.

  Instead of answering her, I opened my parent’s garage with my opener, and pulled into my mom’s spot inside, shutting it off and closing the garage door before getting out.

  Leaving Rowen to sleep, I walked inside and found my sister talking to my dad in the kitchen.

  My dad clocked me as soon as I walked into the door.

  Tru, however, didn’t.

  My dad was used to our antics. Thirty and twenty eight, we still acted the exact same as we did twenty years ago when we were ten and eight.

  I held my finger up to my lips, and my father’s lips twitched, knowing exactly what I was going to do.

  He turned his face away to conceal his smile, and I made it all the way up to my sister before grabbing her waist and yelling as loud as I could.

  Tru screamed, whirled, and threw a punch. But I’d anticipated her move, stepping back just in time for her fist to fly past my face with more than a foot to spare.

  “You bitch!” Tru screamed, taking off after me.

  I put the island in between us to keep her from hurting me.

  “Prepare to die,” my sister exclaimed.

  I smirked at her. “Keep dreaming, Tru-Tru.”

  She flipped me off, and my dad finally broke in. “Girls.”

  That’s all it took. We both stopped circling the counter, knowing when my dad finally spoke, he meant business.

  Frank Doherty wasn’t one to take shit from anybody, even his daughters.

  Dad was a fire marshal for the Shreveport Fire Department, and had been for the last thirty five years.

  He and our mother met while my father was investigating a fire. My mother had been the patrol officer that’d responded to the scene first, and from there it was history.

  They had a love that I would forever base all of my future relationships on. My father taught us how a woman was supposed to be treated, and to expect nothing less than a forever kind of love from our husbands. My parents had a connection; a type of connection that stood the test of time, two kids, two extremely demanding jobs where they had to put their lives on the line to do, and illnesses.

  Which was why I couldn’t find anybody.

  The standard was too high.

  I’d broken that standard once when I met Rowen’s father, and I never would again.

  Lesson-fucking-learned.

  And I had the scars to prove it.

  “So…when’s Cabe bringing mom to the bar?” I asked, ready to get my mind off of things so depressing.

  “T-minus one hour and counting. Now, let’s get to cooking,” Tru instructed.

  “Clean up after yourselves,” my father ordered as he let the room.

  Tru and I both looked at each other for a good five seconds before we both burst out laughing.

  Yeah, right.

  ***

  I tried valiantly not to look.

  I really did.

  But Jesus Christ. I’d never seen him in regular clothes before, and holy shit could the man fill out a pair of jeans!

  He even had an ass.

  He had on a black Pittsburg Steelers hat pulled low over his head, and a red t-shirt that looked incredibly soft. I just wanted to walk up to him and rub my cheeks along his chest; apparently, though, that’d be creepy.

  What surprised me the most was that he was wearing tennis shoes.

  I guess I just thought he’d be a boot man, but he worked those black and gray Under Armor shoes. I wanted some just like them.

  He was leaning back against the bar with his feet crossed in front of him.

&n
bsp; His beer was hanging from two fingers, and he was talking to somebody I’d never seen before. Most likely another Dixie Warden if the vest thingy was any indication.

  This one was someone new; he’d apparently come home on leave from the Navy, and brought a few friends with him home. I’d heard through various people that he was only here for a week or so, and his name was Sterling.

  He was pretty badass looking, though.

  My sister hadn’t met him, either, in her time she’d been with her boyfriend, Grayson.

  A boyfriend who’d been giving her such hot looks throughout the night that I was squirming in my seat.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said, fanning myself when I caught Grayson’s stare at my sister. “What’s going on with him?”

  My sister smiled. “I told him I loved him on the way over here.”

  I looked at my sister in surprise. “Really? Isn’t it kind of early for that?”

  She shook her head. “No. It’s true.”

  I believed her. She’d changed a lot in the time she’d known him, and I could tell that it was the real thing.

  It was only a matter of time before he asked her to marry him.

  Looking around for Rowen, I found her at a table sitting with my mom in the restaurant portion of Halligans and Handcuffs.

  “Who’s the hottie at the bar?” I heard one of the female cops that worked with my mother ask.

  “Which one?” My mom asked, running her nose along Rowen’s head.

  It made my heart happy to see my mom having enough strength to hold Rowen.

  A lot of times in the past year that she’d been battling cancer, she’d been unable to hold Rowen. Too weak to even lift her head on some days.

  It’d about killed me to leave her to move to Kilgore a few months ago, but I’d had no other choice if I wanted to be able to live.

  My mother had been my primary caregiver for Rowen on the days that I worked.

  When she’d gotten sick, I’d had to rely on my sister a lot, and it’d gotten to the point where I was worrying myself sick and missing too much work because no one could watch her.

  After the fourth day of missed work, I decided to start looking for a job that was daytime hours only, and found the job in Kilgore.

  Most of the time, now, I was out in time to get Rowen from school, and that constant nagging feeling of worrying about who was going to pick my kid up from daycare, go pick her up from school because she was sick, or find someone to watch her during the school holidays, was gone.

  “Luke Roberts. That’s Baylee’s brother,” my mother said.

  My mother knew everybody.

  “Sebastian’s wife?” The woman asked.

  I scanned my memory for the name, finally remembering that Sebastian was the VP of the MC. Sebastian’s father was the president of the club, and a scary man.

  My sister didn’t think he was all that scary, but I sure as hell did.

  There was just something about the man that gave me the ‘back off, I’m a dangerous fucker’ vibe.

  Although, Luke emitted that vibe, too. Just a slightly altered version of it. More like a ‘back off I’m a dangerous fucker, but if you need me, I’ll be here’ kind of vibe.

  And Luke’s co-worker, Nico…not so much. I’d be more likely to run away from him rather than towards him.

  “Hey, baby. If it’s all right, I’m going to take a bathroom break,” my mother said to Rowen, who immediately declared that she ‘needed to pee something fierce.’

  Instead of walking to the table, I watched as my mother and daughter walked hand in hand to the bathroom, both of them swinging their hands like they didn’t have a care in the world.

  “That’s some look you have,” I heard from behind me.

  I shivered slightly, hoping he didn’t catch it. When I turned around, though, I knew he had.

  And his smile was cocky, saying he knew exactly what he did to me.

  “How would you know my look when my back was to you?” I asked suspiciously.

  He lifted his finger and pointed at the mirror above me, causing me to sigh. “I bet you’re one of those people that knows everything, aren’t you?”

  “My sister says I play the devil’s advocate just for shit’s and giggles,” he laughed.

  I scrunched up my nose at him. “That doesn’t shock me at all, to be truthful.”

  He winked at me.

  “I didn’t realize the connection until I saw you. But the last name makes sense now. And you coming from Shreveport. I didn’t know you were Frank Doherty’s daughter, though. He gives a lot of conferences that I attend for my continuing education for my fire certification,” he explained.

  I rolled my eyes. “My daddy’s pretty well known in the Ark-La-Tex. He used to be the fire marshal for the area way back before I was born. He’s kept the contacts, though.”

  “Do you mind telling me what you do? I’ve been told you were SWAT, but I saw you arresting that man and woman the other day, and then, you know, two days ago. Neither one of those were SWAT situations from what I heard,” I said.

  He didn’t comment on the reminder of shooting someone two days prior. And I felt like shit immediately after bringing it up.

  He didn’t flinch at answering my question, though, which was good. Maybe it wasn’t bothering him like it was the other day. One could hope, anyway.

  He sat down on the barstool nearest us and took a swig of his beer before answering.

  “Regular duties as a patrol officer. On a day to day basis, I do what any other officer you see in the cop car does. I write tickets. I respond to anything that fire responds to. However, on the rare occasion that the SWAT team’s needed, we get pulled in. Some of us are off. Some of us are working. We all respond to the station, and get dressed in our SWAT gear. From there we respond to the call,” he explained.

  “I never would’ve known,” I murmured, sitting down on the chair directly beside him.

  He shrugged, his shoulder brushing mine, and tiny sparks started to shoot down my arm.

  Then his thigh moved, running up the length, and his arm moved to the back of my chair.

  That’s about when my libido started to run rampant, and my thoughts stopped being interested, and they started to move towards need. Pure, raw need.

  Oh, man. I needed to get out of here before I did something stupid like fuck the man.

  “Well,” I said, standing abruptly. “My sister’s calling my name.”

  He caught the lie for what it was and I caught his grin when I looked over my shoulder. His expression told me he was allowing me to run. And that eventually, when he felt like it, he’d catch me. Then we’d both be screwed. Literally.

  ***

  An hour later

  “What the fuck is going on?” I yelled as soon as I came out of the bathroom. “Where is my sister?”

  I tried to follow the crowd, but two large arms threaded around my waist and pulled me back, holding me captive.

  I was confused.

  I’d been going to the bathroom with my sister, but she’d stopped, and I’d continued.

  When I’d gone back out to the bar looking for Tru, I couldn’t find her. After dropping Rowen off with my father, who’d volunteered to take her home with him, I asked Grayson if he’d seen her. Things started to happen. Everybody started to move all at once. The place practically exploded in activity, and I was left wondering what in the hell was going on.

  I’d tried to follow my mother and Grayson outside, wondering just what in the hell was going on, but those arms had stopped me.

  I knew who they belonged to.

  That didn’t help my anxiety right now, though.

  “Let me go. What’s going on?” I asked, wiggling to no avail.

  Luke had an iron tight grip on my waist, and he wasn’t letting me go.

  Which was good, because when I heard the shots going off, my legs went weak, and Luke cursed, pulling me back until I was behind him.

  His large body held d
ual purpose. He kept me shielded from whatever threat there was, and also held me up.

  I wasn’t sure if he knew he was holding me up, but he was.

  “What’s going on?” I whispered fiercely.

  My hands found their way under his shirt¸ and somehow I found myself clutching his belt, hand resting next to a gun he had at the small of his back.

  He didn’t stiffen, only leaned into me further as we watched the panicked crowd.

  One overly frantic customer ran towards the bar, trying to go out through the kitchen when Silas stepped in front of her, grabbed her by the face, and spoke to her in low tones.

  The woman instantly froze, and then went limp with relief.

  When Silas let her go, she slowly walked over to the tables where I’d seen her at some point in the night, and sat.

  However, my mind was quickly recaptured by my mother who came in looking supremely pissed.

  When I tried to go to her, Luke pushed back, effectively pinning me in place.

  “Give her some time, honey. Something is going on, and she needs to worry about whatever happened, not her kid,” Luke soothed me.

  I let my head drop against his back.

  His arm dropped down and he patted the outside of my thigh, like he would a spooked horse.

  But it did reassure me, and I closed my eyes, trying to straighten out my thoughts.

  Twenty grueling minutes later, after seeing that my sister was fine, I wanted nothing more than go home and forget everything that had happened in the last half hour.

  The psycho cop that had been obsessed with her had tried to kill her. In front of everybody, not giving a shit that the entire bar she’d come out of had been filled with cops.

  Luckily, her best friend had come to help, and had distracted him long enough for Grayson to get out there and help her.

  Thank freakin’ God I’d sent my daughter home with my father.

  That would’ve been a nightmare.

  In reality, it was one of my biggest fears, not being able to protect my daughter.

  Which should be any parent’s first concern.

  “This isn’t really how I saw my first night off in months going,” Luke rumbled.