Sunshine Bleeds A Black Edge (The Wild Things (standalone) Book 3)

by A. Wilding Wells

  My face heats when I remove my hand. “What stopped him?”

  “Dunno,” he answers.

  “So, out of nowhere, he gets a sex change?”

  “Wasn’t that simple. Not even close.” He scratches his jaw then grips the back of his neck. “It’s not like he had money lying around with that crap teacher salary he was making. It was that weird June you left, when all that shit went down.”

  I work to avoid his gaze, focusing instead on his hair-dusted knuckles. He pauses for long seconds as I study him. And, when he clears his throat, I catch him smiling the tiniest bit. Maybe I was a little obvious when I was checking him out.

  “After Kent and Kyle died, Mr. Kline invited me and Etta to the bank for a meeting. Since I’m Mr. K.’s godson and the twins were my dad’s godsons, Mr. K. assigned their trusts to me. It was a lot of dough. Enough for me to buy the hardware store and the farm and pay for Dad to have his operation.”

  And reason number what-ever-the-fuck that I can never tell him what they did to me. My heart skips five beats then races. Thankfully, a nurse calls out my name so I don’t have to address my sudden state of freak-out. I can never ever tell him one stitch. It would ruin him and his family. Perpetual guilt. Yeah, I know what that’s like.

  Why would Mr. Kline give Rebel so much cash? Why not keep it? Something about this whole mystery just got a little crazier.

  As I rise, Rebel taps my arm. “You want company?”

  “Look at you getting all warm and fuzzy. You want to hold my hand while they fix my broken parts?” I chuckle. Though I’m blown away that he offered.

  “Just trying to be civil. You want me back there for distraction in case it hurts when they set it?” Our eyes meet and we both smile. It’s kind of sweet and a little old-fashioned too. Maybe we’re not as disconnected as I thought. Maybe the wall he keeps putting up is a temporary façade. Protection. Sort of like modeling was for me. Like staying away was for me.

  “I’m good,” I tell him. “Go back to work. They need you more than I do.”

  Rebel stands, making a lazy line down my cheek with one finger. Simple. Endearing. “Liar.” His honeyed voice and his wink catch me off guard. “I’ll be right here, sassy thing. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Oh, the feels when his eyebrows dip as if he’s worried about me going back there for this silly broken arm. What would he do if he knew what I went through?

  An hour later, with my broken wrist in a short cast that allows my fingers total freedom, I stroll out to the waiting room and find Rebel asleep in his chair. After ogling him for an obscene length of time, I lean in toward his ear.

  “Hey, Wishbone.”

  He mumbles something filthy about wanting his mouth between my legs. Waking him suddenly seems foolish.

  “Come on my face, baby,” he says.

  I glance around the waiting room, pleased to see no one else is enjoying the view and the one-way conversation.

  “Ruby…I need you.”

  I giggle, taking immense pleasure in his arousal as the outline of his cock comes to life in his jeans. I want to stroke it. Dare I touch him? I take another gander around the room. Empty. Gotta love small-town hospitals. Why not cop a harmless feel?

  I kneel between his spread legs and place my hand without the cast on him. Maybe there is a God? I am touching Rebel Field’s hard-on. I press down then stroke his length, my hand finding its way by rote as butterflies flit through my insides.

  “Fuck, Ruby. Put me in your mouth... Do it for me.” His hands land on mine and his hips tilt as he presses himself to me.

  I bite back a laugh, my pulse skyrocketing, my desire ratcheting up. Rebel slides a hand in his pants and starts stroking. And, now, I believe in Santa Claus. Santa and God are in cahoots. It’s about time. Rebel would be horrified if one of his customers walked in or Hazel saw us. Hell, he’d probably kill me if he knew I was enjoying the show as much as I am.

  “Wishbone, hey.” I tickle his neck. “Wake up, naughty boy.”

  He opens his eyes. “Why are you kneeling between my legs?”

  “I was watching… That’s all.” My sneer breaks into a grin when he realizes he has a hand down his pants. “I was listening too.” I waggle my eyebrows.

  He shakes his head, yanks his hand from his jeans, and runs it through his messy hair. Sleepy, sexy Rebel. “What’d I say?”

  “Plenty.”

  He scoots back in his chair, that wall coming between us again. “Don’t believe any of it.”

  “Not even that part where you said you hated me so much you wished I’d never come home?” I bite back a smile.

  “Believe that.” He glances around the room then pins his gaze on me.

  “What about when you said you’d never ask me out on a date?”

  “Believe that too.”

  Liar. Your sparkling, smiling eyes are giving me a whole other story, tough man.

  “Okay.” I giggle. “Should I keep going?”

  “No. Believe everything I said. It was all true.”

  “Good to know you want me to suck you off and come on your face.”

  “Liar.”

  I fish my phone out of my bag. “I recorded it. You want to see?” I work hard not to laugh at my lie.

  “You shittin’ me?” He swipes at my hand as I wave my phone around, teasing him.

  “Nope.”

  Rebel slides one hand behind my neck, grips my hair, and pulls me forward. “Give me your phone. Right fuckin’ now, Ruby.”

  “Not a chance.” I scoot backward. “I’m using this.”

  “Using? What are you planning on doing with that?”

  “Bribing you.” I snicker and squirm around. Oh, Rebel, you are so adorable when you get pissed.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  I stall for a few seconds while making a mental wish list. What do I want? Oh hell, there is so much.

  “Take me out on a date and I’ll delete it. Just a friend date. Nothing more. I need to know we can at least be friends,” I say. “Don’t and it’ll be on my Facebook page this week.”

  How can he think I’m telling the truth?

  “Bitch.” He laughs. “You little fucking bitch, Ruby Mae.”

  Oh, how that makes me smile. “Per your sleep-talking, you wish I could be your bitch and then some.”

  One side of his mouth slides into a smile. “Fine. One date. A friend date. My choice of place and time.”

  “Deal.” Now, this is progress.

  So maybe it was coercion, but still. A date’s a date. We should at least be friends. But could we be more? How would that ever work with my crazy life? And what if we became us again? Worse yet, what if nothing happens between us on this date? No friendship, no anything.

  Rebel rubs his chin, shaking his head as he grumbles under his breath. Standing, we bash chests, and a box falls out of a paper bag he’s holding. We reach for it at the same time, but I beat him to it.

  Once I’ve flipped the box over, I laugh. “Edible candy underwear?”

  He snatches the box out of my hand. There isn’t one ounce of embarrassment on him. Just an all-out ballsy look that says he has something I don’t.

  “For my girlfriend,” he says.

  Chapter 9

  Rebel

  Did I really say that shit in my sleep? That sassy little cuss. Apparently so, and there’s proof on her phone? Blackmail. God, I love her. Nice play, Ruby Mae. And the candy underwear I bought for her. Shit! How the hell am I going to take her out to dinner as friends and not kiss her? Touch her? I can barely keep my hands off her now. This whole hate thing is a tough one for me now that she’s home. She is not making this easy.

  Ruby’s hair whips around her face as she stares out the truck window. We’re halfway to her mom’s house when she says, “What’s your girlfriend’s name?” She doesn’t look at me, though her voice holds a certain heaviness when she speaks.

  “You don’t know her.”

  “Did she grow up h
ere?” she asks.

  I glance at her thumbnail, which is making deep tracks down the skin on her thigh. “No.”

  “Do you love her?”

  I wish she’d look at me. “Like crazy.”

  My answer is for her; doesn’t she know this? Even though we’re both messing around in this getting-to-know-you-again game, doesn’t she know she’s it for me? Only my perfect Ruby.

  But you took everything when you left. My heart, my dreams, my favorite person in the world. Are you here with all those things? Did you bring her back for me?

  “She’s the one, huh?” Her voice drops deeper, and it’s wrapped in the saddest tone.

  “Yup.” You are the one.

  “You think she’ll be jealous? If we go on a date? Even as friends?”

  “Definitely. It’s going to take some explaining.” I nod and wait for her to call me out on it. Wait for her to crack some joke. Some silly Ruby goofball thing that breaks through all the seriousness. Or punch me in the arm.

  Nothing comes but awkward silence. And, just as I’m about to out myself that I have no girlfriend, she clears her throat.

  “I don’t want to ruin anything for you.” She digs in her purse, messes with her phone for a few seconds, and then dumps it in her bag. “Sounds like you found the one. You’re lucky. Most people never do.”

  It makes my heart ache that I might have said something to hurt her. Christ, I’m all over the place with my thoughts. Now, I’m worried I messed up. I’m never going to be able to do this fighting thing.

  I turn the air on high. But there isn’t enough air in the whole world right now. I draw in a long, reassuring breath. Then I remind myself I have a duty. Get her to tell me the truth. Even if it hurts.

  And she has a duty too. To give it. Come clean, Ruby Mae, tell me what happened.

  She clears her throat. Then, through a cracked voice, she says, “Hey, Rebel?”

  Her hand lands on the seat, half an inch from mine. I shift my fingers a bit, until our pinkies touch. It’s simple. Sexy. And so tempting to pull my truck over and get down and dirty about everything. Every last thing. How did I not know she’d have a stronger effect on me now?

  “Mmmm-hmm.”

  “There was no video, I was just messing with you.” She slides her hand under her thigh, and it crushes me. “Don’t worry about the friend date. I don’t want to ruin a good thing between you and your girl.”

  I chuckle, but it’s caustic. “Not this time, huh?”

  Chapter 10

  Ruby

  Maybe I waited too long to come back. Running away made the most sense. Far away. So far that I wouldn’t have a chance to bump into anyone I knew. Sometimes there’s safety and the opportunity to evolve more freely in anonymity. I thought, if I escaped this town, I’d escape the pain.

  It partly worked, though I had no idea pain could travel miles and years. I didn’t know pain could embed itself in your bones. God, I was naïve. But dealing with pain and healing isn’t something you learn about until it springs its ugly self on you then lives inside you. It’s a one-on-one thing when you’re living with it. Especially when sharing what you went through would hurt your family and your true love and cause them more angst than they were already dealing with.

  In my heart, I hoped I’d heal and come home to find Rebel waiting for me like he’d said he would. Such a selfish thought. Don’t wait for me. But, in my silly head, all I wanted was for him to wait for me.

  Sort of like when Rebel and I would have a fight and I’d tell him that I didn’t want to talk about it. Well, of course I wanted to talk about it. I just wanted to be handled with kid gloves and make him do all the work. I was too immature to understand that relationships take more than that. I was such a confused girl. My insides were a mess. My guilt nearly suffocated me. And everything became my fault.

  When someone violates you on that level—taking things that aren’t theirs—life turns into something else. Something you never imagined. It takes years and years of coaxing your mind to open and let someone touch you. Then those touches flip-flop and collide in a mix of emotions that chase each other. Then they evolve into something you climb to help you heal.

  Or so you think. I guess it’s different for everyone.

  I was dealing with that hell and missing Rebel. My saving grace was my career. If I hadn’t become an overnight success, I might have wallowed so deep in my cement-shoe sorrow that a stick of dynamite wouldn’t have set me free. Then, a year ago, I popped my head up and realized my friends were getting married and having kids. They’d fallen in love and formed unions while I had my blinders on, keeping the pain of what I had gone through—the nightmare—so far out of my peripheral vision I might not have noticed that the rest of the world kept moving along.

  Then there was Teddy. I waffled so much about his marriage proposals. But why? Why didn’t I marry him if I really did like the idea of settling down? It would be so much easier since he lives in Paris where my life is for the most part. But I don’t want him. Then that box from an anonymous person arrived and blew my mind. In it were the promise ring from Rebel along with the broken necklace and the crosses the Kline boys made me wear the night they raped me. Their crosses on my heart had clinked against my ring while they did what they did to me.

  Rebel can never know that that’s why I can’t wear the ring. Those boys are dead, but that Pandora’s Box that came in the mail created a new mystery. Someone knows something, because someone sent me a message I need to decode.

  “Thanks for the ride.” I offer a smile to Rebel as we arrive at Mom’s house. “Sorry if I ruined your day.” I linger for a second, insecure and a little hopeful that Rebel might fess up about the girlfriend bullshit and ask me out. He can’t think I believe that crap, can he? My mom would have known if he had a girlfriend. She would have said something. You can’t hide a needle in this town.

  “Sorry ’bout your wrist.” He looks genuinely regretful.

  So, I dip my toe in a little deeper. “I’ll be fine. Bones can heal faster than—”

  “Goodnight, Ruby.” He unfastens my seat belt then hops out of the truck. When he opens the door, and helps me down, there’s no warmth radiating from him, only a niggling, nasty feeling in my belly.

  Hearts… I meant both of ours.

  A bolt of electricity shoots up my throat when he leaves me standing on the sidewalk. Alone. No hug. No walk to the front door. Ouch. That hurt more than the broken wrist.

  “G’night, Rebel.”

  Okay, then. That would be the steel toe of his boot kicking me. He hasn’t hardened; he’s become tamperproof. And that’s my doing.

  After dropping my stuff in the kitchen, I grab a beer from the fridge then hunt for Mom and Echo. The house is mostly packed up. Thank God, considering my wrist. It’ll be nice for the two of them to get out of this dilapidated hellhole.

  For years, I offered to buy Mom a house after Dad passed away from a heart attack just a week after I’d left town. I had a realtor dragging her, Echo, and Lake around to see everything for sale. Nothing. Not one beautiful home piqued her interest. She liked living on her one acre on the river, where she and Echo could float around on rafts while Lake swam nearby.

  Then a small ranch on the lake, with an orchard in the backyard and rose gardens bordering a picket fence, came on the market. I bought it after Mom had agreed that it was time. Who knows why it suddenly made sense. But I jumped at the opportunity. I’ll admit, it gave me the perfect excuse to come to my senses and return home for the first time since I’d left. Not to mention the nudge from box.

  I slump onto the couch then guzzle half of my beer, seeking a small buzz to lighten my mental load.

  “I made tapioca,” Mom says. She shuffles through the room, sets a tray with multiple bowls on it on a box, and edges it toward me while examining my arm.

  I place my beer on the tray and stare at Mom’s wig, trying to decide if she knows there’s a necklace of Barbie shoes—surely of Echo’s
doing—wound around her black Amy Winehouse-esque bouffant. “Thanks, Ma.”

  “You’re welcome. Made some for Opal too.” She raises a bowl and smiles at the ceiling. “Nice that you girls can share dessert together again.”

  It shouldn’t feel normal that Mom talks to the deads, but it’s beginning to. So normal that I scooch over a little, making room for Opal, when Mom gestures.

  “What about Dad?” I ask.

  Mom clucks her tongue. “If you recall, he was repulsed by tapioca.”

  “I don’t remember that.” I pat a spot on the couch for Mom to sit.

  She slides her bunny slippers off and nestles next to me, quickly hiding the hole in her panty hose under a pillow. “Called it ‘pearl necklace in a bowl.’ Said it belonged on a woman’s chest.” She fingers the fat strand of pearls dangling around her neck.

  I cough a laugh out. “That’s a riot. Thank God one of you had their mind in the gutter.”

  Mom lifts Opal’s spoon then dips it into her tapioca. “I’m not following.” She scrunches her nose.

  “Do you know what a pearl necklace is?”

  “Ought to. I have three in my jewelry box besides this one.” After sliding a spoonful of tapioca into her mouth, she taps her pearls with her index finger. “You don’t mind sharing, do you, Opal?”

  “Ma, he meant when a guy blows his wad all over your tits. That’s a pearl necklace.”

  “You’re disgusting, Lenny.” She frowns and tilts her head toward the ceiling. “Fine. I’ll tell her you said that.”

  “What?” I take a swig of beer, eager to hear what Dad told her. Jesus, I’m losing it right along with her.

  “Can’t repeat it.” She purses her lips and shakes a finger.

  “You told him you’d tell me. Come on. Spill it!” I lightly elbow her in the side.

  She laughs, licks her spoon, then hangs it on the end of her nose. I breathe on my spoon then do the same. Some things never change with family no matter how much time has passed or how weird people become.

  “The deads don’t care about lies,” she says.

  The thing about Mom is that she says this stuff like it’s the gospel truth. I’m starting to believe that her conversations with Dad and Opal are the real deal.