Blood in the Water (Kairos)

by Catherine Johnson

  He dropped to the bed, but immediately rolled to his side, not wanting to crush Ashleigh under the weight of his body. The flickering spark of hope returned as she cuddled into his side, throwing her arm across his waist, but she didn’t linger for long. It sputtered, but didn’t die, when she rose and dressed. He sat up against the headboard of the bed and watched, enjoying the opportunity to simply observe the movement of her body, the graceful actions of her limbs and the sweep of her tousled, golden hair. As she made to leave, she paused with her hand on the door handle and turned to face him.

  “I need some time.”

  “Not too long, beauty. I want you to be sure, but don’t doubt that I want you.”

  He let her walk away and hoped that she would come back.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The party had been Aunt Dolly’s idea. Any party that wasn’t about club business was usually Aunt Dolly’s idea. She’d decided that they were going to celebrate Ashleigh’s birthday, albeit a little belatedly, whether she liked it or not. Apparently a celebration was just thing everybody needed after all the trauma of the past weeks. Ashleigh wasn’t sure whether she agreed with that. She certainly didn’t agree with celebrating her birthday without Dean there. Dean had always been there and now he wasn’t and never would be again. Ashleigh wasn’t sure she wanted to celebrate anything without Dean to share it with.

  Plus, there was the whole ‘not knowing what she was going to do with her life’ thing that she had going on at the moment. The decisions she had to make were too big, it was all too big, and she had been taking the coward’s way out and ignoring it all. She had only left the apartment to go to work and buy food in that time, and visit the hospital. She’d had a scan to figure out dates and now she knew that she had become pregnant around the time of the shooting in the park. She’d wracked her brain, which had been an equally wonderful and terrible experience, and the only thing she could come up with was that the intensely pleasurable and erotic dream from that night had obviously been all too real.

  It had been almost three weeks since she’d last spoken to Paul. For the majority of that time he’d been in Texas with her father. She didn’t know the details, but evidently the carnage that had taken place at the motel the night she had been kidnapped had caused the club some sort of issue that her daddy had been trying to sort out, and he’d taken Dizzy and Paul with him.

  Paul had said that he would let her have the space to figure her own mind out. After the first couple of days she’d found a Passion Vine flower tucked under the windshield wiper on her car with a note that read ‘Not too long.’ She couldn’t be sure, but she suspected that it had come from the spot by the creek that she’d shown him. Since he’d been away she’d received a couple of text messages saying the same thing, but she hadn’t responded. She wondered if her lack of response was causing him to seek comfort while he was away, but she didn’t know how to put what she felt into a text message.

  She’d missed him. She’d missed him a lot. And she couldn’t help but factor in that the club appeared to have forgiven him. In fact, she was struggling to think of reasons why she shouldn’t give him a second chance, because she believed him. God help her, but she believed him. He’d said that he wanted to build a home and a family with her, and that’s what she had wanted, too. It’s what she still wanted for herself, and she was beginning to think that she might be able to believe that she could trust him enough to let him be a part of that.

  Her mother had been carefully noncommittal on the subject, and she hadn’t really seen her daddy to talk to about it all. Aunt Dolly was following Moira’s lead, which was to follow the club’s lead. If they disagreed with the verdict that had passed the vote, they wouldn’t say. Of course, none of them knew she was pregnant, which had definitely bought her some room to think, but may or may not have bought Paul any goodwill. Ashleigh figured if Paul came back from Texas in one piece then he hadn’t mentioned his impending fatherhood to her daddy. She hadn’t specifically told him not to, but then she hadn’t known they’d be spending the better part of a month in another state.

  So currently she was evaluating her wardrobe options, which thankfully were only limited by heat and humidity since she didn’t even have the merest hint of a bump yet. She was going to have to tell people before that happened, but she needed to figure out what the hell to say first. Her parents wouldn’t cut her out for being pregnant out of wedlock, but they’d be disappointed, more so if she decided she was doing this alone. She had maybe a snowball’s chance in hell that no one would notice that she wasn’t drinking tonight, but she was going to see how long she could get away with it. The fact that she wasn’t on any sort of kitchen duty was both a blessing and a curse. Being around food had unpredictable results at best these days; seemingly random smells made her nauseous, but she wouldn’t be able to hide in the kitchen, either.

  She decided on a black strapless dress that was saved from being too revealing for the clubhouse by the Fifties-esque full skirt that fell just below the knee and elected to pair it with leopard-print wedges. Fancy without too much effort and it had convenient pockets for her phone and keys. It had been a humid day and the clubhouse was sure to get stuffy quickly, no matter how many windows or doors were propped open. Ashleigh was vain enough that if the party was in her honor then she wanted to look good. But more than that, if Paul had been dipping his dick in Texas pussy then she’d find out tonight. If he had, then her choices just got a whole lot easier, and if they were well and truly over, then she wanted him to regret it on every level.

  Her stomach churned the whole drive to the clubhouse. She’d left it as late as she dared. The sunset was displaying its most spectacularly vivid shades as she pulled up in the clubhouse lot. She could see from the number of bikes lined up that everyone was home. Good thing, bad thing, it didn’t matter. She’d have to face him tonight, and given that she’d had a lot of time to think about things, he’d be expecting an answer or a damn good reason why she didn’t have one.

  The door was ajar, so she sucked in a deep breath, lifted her chin and straightened her spine while she was still walking over the limestone chippings, none of which was easy in heels.

  She didn’t have a chance to look around for Paul when she stepped inside because Dolly accosted her almost immediately. If Ashleigh hadn’t known better she would have suspected that Dolly had been waiting by the door; actually, she might have been.

  “So, you are alive! I was thinkin’ I’d have to come over and break the door down to get you out.”

  “Hiya, Aunt Dolly.” Ashleigh replied, resigned to her fate, and kissed the older woman on the proffered cheek.

  Dolly half dragged her over to the bar, where her mother was waiting by her father’s side. “What’ll it be? Tequila?”

  Dolly was about to shout over to the new Prospect, but Ashleigh, trying to keep the panic out of her voice, interrupted. “No! No. I need to pace myself. We’ve got all night yet. Just a beer please.”

  “You’d have a lot longer if you hadn’t taken your sweet time turnin’ up, cher.” Her mother’s arched eyebrow spoke volumes.

  “Wardrobe emergency.” Ashleigh replied vaguely. Her mother’s eyebrow didn’t lower.

  “Your mama tells me you’ve not been round to the house while we’ve been gone.” Her father’s face was all concern. She wouldn’t be lying to him for long, but that didn’t make her feel any better about hiding the truth now.

  “I’ve just been tired, Daddy. Been busy at work and had things to do around the apartment, that’s all.” Her mother’s eyebrow hadn’t dropped an inch.

  Ashleigh was thinking about trying to make an escape; where to she wasn’t sure. Normally she’d have found Dean for a game of pool, but that wasn’t an option, and knowing that made her sad. She cast about for inspiration. She couldn’t see Paul, but she did see Crash over by the pool table. She grabbed her as yet untouched bottle of beer that the prospect had placed on the bar and saluted her parents and Do
lly.

  “I’m goin’ to mingle. See you in a few.”

  She made good her escape. There were no hard questions from Crash or from Dizzy and Sinatra when they joined them for a couple of games of doubles. People kept bringing her bottles of beer, which she kept putting down in corners and ‘forgetting’ to pick up again. She saw the other patches around; Kong had gotten his party on early with Leah who was, for the moment, by his side with her hand down his jeans.

  The sound of a heavy door closing caused Ashleigh to look up. When she found the source, the Chapel door, she saw Paul and Chiz exiting the room.

  Something in her whirling mind got a little clearer. She hadn’t realized just how much she’d missed him. Her first instinct was to run across the room and jump into his arms, but the look in his eyes stopped her. She couldn’t tell if those black pools were angry, or just determined, but they were something that didn’t involve smiling. He said something to Chiz and started to head her way. She couldn’t leave without making it obvious that she was avoiding him, and she wasn’t sure that she wanted to, she just didn’t want to have the conversation in the middle of the clubhouse. She took a swallow of the beer she was holding; one swallow wouldn’t hurt, purely for medicinal purposes, to calm her racing heart. She put the bottle down on the edge of the pool table rather than drop it or throw it.

  Partway across the room, Paul’s progress was interrupted by Katie. The blonde sweetbutt was a little less than steady on her feet, but she was doing her damndest to wind herself around Paul. It looked like she intended to scramble up his body, and from the sinuous way she was rubbing up against him she obviously had no qualms about getting down and dirty right there in the middle of the room.

  Ashleigh saw green before she saw red. Not jealousy exactly, because he wasn’t reacting to the woman slithering all over him at all, but definitely possessiveness. Then the rage came. Ashleigh was suddenly incensed that another woman was pushing up on her man. Huh? Her man? Maybe she’d already made her decision; she just hadn’t admitted it to herself. Something settled into place in her heart and in her head when she saw that he wasn’t accepting the offer of easy pussy, he was looking straight at her, his gaze fierce.

  Paul had finally succeeded in pushing Katie away before Ashleigh started moving towards him. The sweetbutt was literally pouting and she wasn’t moving back; like maybe she thought she’d give it another shot. Ashleigh wasn’t going to give her the chance. She heard sound as Paul tried to say something to her when she reached the two of them, but she didn’t register words. She was concentrating too much on putting her body weight behind the right hook she was aiming at Katie’s cheek. The blow connected and the shocked sweetbutt staggered backwards, tripped over a chair and landed on her ass on the floor, cradling her bruised face.

  Her mama had always taught Ashleigh that she had to earn her place in the clubhouse and then keep it. She had to earn it by being polite, respectful and helpful, but she should keep it by standing her ground.

  Katie finally scrambled to her feet, and seeing the deep scowl on Ashleigh’s face, backed away and headed for the toilets to check the damage. The intent, almost angry fire in Paul’s eyes had been replaced, or now had the addition of, a little amusement.

  “Beauty, you jealous?”

  Ashleigh shrugged and tried to unobtrusively shake out her fingers and flex her knuckles. “Maybe a little.”

  He caught her hand and rubbed his thumb over her sore knuckles, just a little too firmly, and dropped his voice low. “You forget how to answer your phone, beauty?”

  Ashleigh stepped in close, glorying in the heat and the scent of him as she turned her face up to look at him and murmured. “Didn’t want to put my answer in a text.” It was as honest an answer as he was going to get while they had an audience.

  The next thing she knew, those massive arms were wrapped tightly around her and he was kissing her like his life depended on it; and she was returning the kiss with equal fervor. She was vaguely aware of whoops and catcalls and lewd comments bouncing around the room, but she blocked them out and concentrated on the silky soft feel of Paul’s lips and tongue and on the delicious taste of his mouth. Even when he pulled back, giving them both room to breathe, it still felt as though they were the only two people in the room.

  “I’m flattered, beauty; but you shouldn’t be goin’ round punchin’ people in your condition.” He chuckled.

  “Really and what condition is that?” Chiz leered. Ashleigh jumped a little, she’d had no idea he’d been so close. And he wasn’t lowering his voice.

  “Same one been causin’ her to leave full bottles all over the place.” Dizzy called over from the pool table.

  A hush descended over the room. Ashleigh thought that maybe if her heart didn’t start thumping again soon that she wouldn’t have to worry about everybody’s reactions to Chiz and Dizzy’s insinuations, because she’d probably just go ahead and expire right in front of all of them. She buried her face against Paul’s chest. The ground opening up and swallowing her, them, would be real good about now. Still didn’t happen.

  “You got somethin’ to tell us, cher?”

  Ashleigh looked round slowly, reluctantly. She thought her mother’s eyebrow might well climb right off her face by the end of the night. Her mother looked expectant. Her daddy just looked downright confused.

  She sucked in some fortifying air and, further strengthened by Paul’s arms squeezing tighter around her and the press of his lips on her head, she replied, “Yeah, you’re gonna be a grandma come spring.”

  Ashleigh watched with trepidation as her mother slid smoothly off the stool she’d been perched on and walked over to them. That eyebrow had finally come down a few notches, but it had lowered still further than its usually resting place and it had been joined by its twin. Her mama wasn’t outright scowling, but she wasn’t far off. Ashleigh felt Paul stand a little straighter, but he didn’t loosen his hold on her even a little bit.

  When her mother reached them she stood close and looked directly at Ashleigh. Moira lowered her voice, in tune with Ashleigh’s thinking that while it was too late to play out this scene elsewhere, they could aim for a modicum of privacy.

  “Only thing I want to know sweetheart is, are you happy?”

  Ashleigh looked up at Paul. The anger, or whatever harsh emotion had been brewing in his eyes, was gone, replaced by something softer, but no less intent. He smiled, that bright, wide, unreserved smile, and she knew unequivocally that she’d made her choice. She turned to face her mama.

  “Yes, I’m happy.”

  For a long moment, Moira’s face didn’t change at all. And then it split into a broad grin before she yelled, “I’M GONNA BE A GRANDMA!”

  Ashleigh couldn’t be certain, but she thought maybe they’d heard that shout three parishes over.

  An ecstatic pandemonium broke out around the room. Immediately Moira came in to hug her and as much as she didn’t want to let Paul go, Ashleigh did so to return her mother’s embrace. Before her mother let her go, only to be replaced by an equally delighted Dolly, they had been surrounded by just about everyone in the room. She was hugged by so many people so close together that she began to get a little lightheaded. She must have looked visibly woozy because Paul shook off the bro-hugs and back slaps to wrap his arm firmly around her and pull her into his side.

  The crowd parted a little, and her father made his way to the fore. Ashleigh felt inexplicably nervous. Her daddy seemed as happy as everyone else, and it wasn’t like he didn’t know she wasn’t a virgin. Hell, she’d been married for years, and he’d almost walked right in on her and Paul, but somehow, revealing the physical consequences of her having sex made her feel all of about ten years old. Her daddy was smiling, but his lips had an odd twist to them, and she’d have bet anything that he was imagining her in her jeans and scruffy t-shirt with her hair all wild, the way she used to look before she discovered fashion and makeup and when she was more interested in racing Dean to see w
ho could climb to the top of a tree first.

  Her daddy didn’t say anything to her, just put his palm on her back and leaned in and kissed the top of her head. But when he stood back he looked at Paul and something of the humorous light in his eyes was gone.

  “You treat her right, you hear?”

  “Yes sir.”

  Ashleigh heard the fatherly threat in her daddy’s voice. It might have been funny coming from any other father, but coming from hers it was deadly serious. She knew Paul knew that too.

  Paul spoke up, addressing the room. “In fact, if y’all don’t mind. I’m goin’ to start right now by takin’ her home to get some rest.”

  “Rest my ass!” That shout had come from Dolly and Ashleigh couldn’t help but blush; she was probably, certainly, right.