Stopping and kneeling at the pond’s edge to lace up his beaten-up, hand-me-down skates, Danny watched his dad working with his brothers on their stick handling. His hands and arms moved with muscle memory to tighten the skates, leaving him free to concentrate on his brothers. He saw little Dickie was guarding his left side, and he figured J.J. had probably already smacked him with a high stick in a scuffle—J.J. didn’t pull punches, even for their five-year-old sibling.
That exposed a lot about his oldest brother’s mood today, and identified a weakness to take advantage of in his baby brother. Throwing off his jacket and grabbing his stick off the ground, he stood and stretched hard. Danny was leaning and lunging his legs first one way, and then the other, carefully keeping his back straight and holding in his stomach muscles. Stick up and then stick down, he completed the exercises that he knew worked for him here on the pond, where there were more hazards than just the players.
Feeling a little looser, he stepped onto the ice, carefully skating around the branches and brush sticking through at the edges of the pond. Moving faster, he started his on-ice warm-up routine with footwork, beginning slowly and working up to a fast pace. He was working on a solo four corners drill, skating forwards and backwards with easy and hard crossovers on the turns at the corners of the pond, just getting his skates underneath him and getting a read on the ice.
“Danny, come on over, son,” called his dad. “Let’s do a real four corners.” Tapping J.J.’s head, he counted, “One. Dickie, you are two. Danny is three, and your old man is four.” His hands clapped together, the sound muffled by his gloves. “Let’s go, boys, start northeast.” He called the order of the players in the drill and indicated the starting corner.
Skating back and forth, slapping the puck with the wooden, taped sticks with hard, confident passes, the four of them worked the sides and edges of the pond. They were arching, cutting, and skating towards imaginary goals on the ice for several long minutes. The boys each had the reddish-brown hair and dark blue eyes of their dad. Even though there were age differences between the three, they all looked very much alike. Until a recent growth spurt, it had even been hard to tell J.J. was 2 years older than Danny.
The boys had always been fairly competitive, and they had remained reasonably close in skill set until the last year, but it would be clear to any educated onlooker that the middle son had a greater talent than the two boys who sandwiched him on the sibling ladder. Their dad tried hard not to favor Danny, but it thrilled his heart to see him handling glancing hits from his bigger brother with aplomb, and then finessing the puck around his younger, stumbling brother.
Breathing hard from the active session, Jonathan Sr. pulled himself out of the lineup. He called to the boys to start running a clean one-touch drill, where the teammates pass into a good set-up position for each other. He thought this was one of his favorite team-building routines, because the only way it really worked was for each player to care about the shot and spot that the next player had. He called out instructions and reminded them to work the drill along both sides of the pond, switching up positions with each round.
Forty-five minutes later, he called the boys over to the upside-down bucket where he was sitting and watching them. “Are we ready for practice tonight, boys?” asking them without saying anything more if they had pulled muscles or hurt themselves in the skirmishes that had developed over their time on the pond today. Looking around at his brothers, Danny answered, “Hells yeah, Dad, we’re ready! Ruperts’ Rule!”
28 -
Aftermath
Shifting his legs for what felt like the hundredth time, Mason finally gave up the thought of sleep that kept chasing across his mind. He still had his arms wrapped tightly around Mica, and she was sleeping quietly. Her head rested comfortably on his chest, one arm draped across his belly, and her leg resting heavily on top of his thigh, tantalizingly close to his cock. He was glad for this time to watch her sleeping, to hold her tenderly before she woke up. He wanted to treasure this time with her, because he knew… what had gone down this morning, what they had shared, might very well be the closing of a door instead of an opening.
He wasn’t sad or bitter; in fact, he was thrilled she had trusted him enough to reach out when she needed him. He had been totally blown away at the passion and sensuality she brought to the bedroom. She had literally taken his breath away, and he had loved her as perfectly as he could, wanting to tend to her desires ahead of his own.
Even with all the rightness, joy, and pleasure they’d experienced together, he was afraid she would have regrets, and he didn’t think their friendship could recover from this if she did. He was afraid this could be the last time he held her, either as a friend, or as a lover. That fear had him where he could hardly breathe, so he wanted to stretch these moments out as long as possible. He had wanted her for such a long time, and then over the months, that had morphed into loving her as a friend. She was an integral part of his life now, and he was terrified that things would change.
He didn’t know why Daniel had left her alone last night, but that was a decision the other man made, which Mason was not sorry about. Daniel had given him an in; it had given him a precious opportunity to be here…with her…for now. Livin’ in the fucking moment, he thought to himself, chuckling, is a damned great way to be, man.
She took in a deep breath that sounded almost like it got stuck for a minute, and then she groaned twice as she released it. Mason picked up his head to look at her, because that was not a happy noise. He watched her face carefully to see if it was a nightmare, or maybe an unconscious complaint about the temperature in the room. Her forehead creased, and her body started moving in short, sharp jerks. Her hands gradually drew up to her chin, and he realized her body was slowly shifting and winding in on itself, trying to become very small as she curled up.
Before he could decide what to do, her eyes opened wide. She was staring blindly, and her jaw clenched in tooth-breaking ferocity, choking back scream after scream in a muffled wave of noise. Her hands came up and slapped in an uncoordinated way at his arms and chest, her eyes unseeing since she was still trapped in the dream.
His hands settling on her body; he held her close to him, with one hand on her shoulder and one on her hip. As he touched her, the screams broke free from behind her closed teeth with a terror-filled sound that gradually resolved to one word over and over—NO! She wrapped her arms tightly around her head, protecting herself from something Mason could not see.
He moved quickly to kneel on the bed beside her, shaking her shoulder lightly and calling out to her, “Mica, babe, it’s Mason. Wake up, you are dreaming.” His voice seemed to break through to her, and her eyes focused in on his face, very slowly losing their wide-eyed, white-rimmed stare. The noises stopped too, and he talked to her non-stop in a calm, quiet voice. He was reassuring her with soft words that he was there and she was safe, and he began stroking her arms lightly with his hands, trying to ground her in the here and now with both sound and sensation.
He shifted back down in the bed as she calmed, pulling her head onto his shoulder again and trailing his fingers up and down the muscles along her spine. He touched her slowly, waiting until he felt a shiver of what might be arousal from her before he spoke again. “Hey, talk to me, babe. What was that about? What can I do?”
He felt her tense up alongside him and waited, steadily stroking her back. After a time, he knew she was relaxing again under his stroking fingers and said, “Talk to me, Mica. Just talk, nothing else. Tell me about the dreams.”
He laid there quietly for what felt like forever, listening to her heartbeat race and slow, and then pick back up to race and then slow again as she struggled internally over what to do.
Finally taking a deep breath, she started talking in a low voice he had to strain to hear, “The nightmares are my life, Mason. I was fourteen when my mother died. She went to bed one night, and didn’t wake up. It was a full day before we found her, because Michael, Da
ddy and I had left early for a meet. I rode our horses competitively, and trained others too, so my days revolved around horses and Playdays. When we got home and she still wasn’t up, and then we found Molly crying—well, I knew something was wrong. Daddy checked on her, and called the local justice to come pronounce her. We buried her in the hay meadow the next day…no fuss, no muss, just the four of us.”
Rolling her head to an angle so she could look up at his face, she was trying to gauge his reaction. Swallowing audibly, she continued, “He has always been heavy-handed for as long as I could remember, at least with people, but he got worse after Mamma died. With horses, he was a treat, and could get even the rankest stud to work like a charm, but never people. About a week after she died, Daddy came to my bed for the first time and raped me.” Spoken so bluntly, this confession took him by surprise, and his arms tightened around her, cradling her to his side.
“It’s okay,” she continued, and he realized with surprise that she was comforting him. “Mason, it doesn’t matter; it was so long ago.” Her fingers moved across his chest, touching and stroking, “He beat me less after that started, but then he took that part of his anger out more on Michael instead. Daddy is a harsh man, and owning a working ranch doesn’t leave a lot of time for frippery or lazy people. All I had to do was keep my head down, and it would have been better for Mikey. Earlier, I know you saw the marks and scars on my back, right?”
Mason nodded, softly kissing the top of her head and shifting slightly so he could grab her hand with his own, folding it up and trapping it against his chest. “So, you saw those. Well, it’s important that you know Michael has worse scars than mine. Some of mine are from stupidity, like the one on my hip, where I fell out of a tree and hit a limb on the way down, or the ones I have from losing concentration when fixing a fence, stretching the wire too far, and then having it break and whip back on me. Not many are like that, but some. Most of them are from Daddy, and then later, from…Michael…and others.”
She drew in a sobbing breath that broke his heart. “Everything changed when we were seventeen. Daddy raped my best friend, Emily. You remember? She was Michael’s fiancé?” He nodded silently, holding her tightly against him. “Michael had turned sweet on her that year; we were all seniors in high school, excited about college and getting out of Longview, where we all grew up. Michael caught Daddy in the act and beat him. I think that was the first time Michael raised his hands in anger.”
“Daddy had locked me in a small room in the barn, so I heard everything, but couldn’t help until Michael let me out. That’s what I dream of, most nights—being locked in that room. The helpless feeling, and unbelievable fear, because I knew…I knew what was happening, and I could not do a single blessed thing to stop it. Daddy was charged, and there was a trial. All of us were tired and angry all the time,” her breath hitched again as she spoke, “because no matter what was happening in our personal lives, the same old chores still had to be done. ‘Animals don’t take vacations from eating’—that’s something Daddy would say.
“Mikey and I were alone for a while when Daddy was in jail. We were simply trying to take care of each other, and then he took up the role of disciplinarian. He would rain down blows with Daddy’s belt whenever he felt it was warranted. I hated him so much then,” she said simply and emotionlessly. Mason felt sick at the detached tone in her voice, knowing that it was there because of a deep betrayal and pain.
“Mason, I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone this whole story,” she mused. “It feels so odd to speak of things I try to keep hidden all the time.” She sighed. “All that summer long, I took a lot of unnecessary risks; it seemed like everything that could have gone bad already had, so I think I felt there was nothing left to lose. I couldn’t stand to be around Em, knowing how badly my family had treated her.”
Shifting restlessly, she pressed her cheek into his chest as Mason struggled to stay still. He didn’t want to tense up or react in any way that would shut her down; she needed to talk, and he had to hear it. “So, I lost my Daddy, my brother, and my best friend all at once. Then I lost my baby sister, Molly. She got placed with my aunt, but that was probably the best thing that happened that summer. I spent a great deal of time at all the rodeos and Playdays in the area, entering event after event, running through horses and energy…and I took up with a boy—one of the bull riders.”
He tightened his arms around her again, giving her a gentle squeeze. He didn’t know what was coming next, but her reaction made him wary. She sighed again, chewing on the side of her thumb absently. “He…Ray…the bull rider, well, he put me in the hospital several times in the few months I knew him. An ER doc in Wichita gave me the wakeup call I needed. He pushed me to leave Ray, and told me he knew what was happening. I was so embarrassed I had wound up like that again; it made me wonder if I was a magnet for terrible people. You think so?”
Mason shook his head silently, caressing the length of her back and rolling her into him more tightly. Taking a deep breath, Mica shifted back and moved her head to look at him again, reaching up to tug his face towards hers for a quick, chaste kiss. “I left. I left the rodeo, the south, and Ray in order to come to Illinois and college. I never went back to Texas to live. Mikey got into trouble drinking, and he left home too. Neither of us could look at the other without pain, and we sure couldn’t stand being around Daddy.”
“I started paying some of our family to live there on the ranch and help Daddy work it. This was done with the understanding that my baby sister would never set foot back on that place, because I can’t see myself ever going back there to live, and I will not spend time imagining what her life would be like with him. So…that’s me in a nutshell. Messed up family, huh? I still have some really bad dreams, like I did tonight, where I relive everything like I’m in the middle of it again. I’m so glad you were here with me. Mason, do you think we ever really escape the bad things that happen to and around us? Or do we simply keep replaying those moments in our heads for the rest of our lives?”
Her alarm going off startled both of them as Phillip Phillips started singing Drive Me.
Mason held in his breath for a moment, thinking about her question. “I think we make our own way. And while we all are the sum of every one of our experiences, it is up to us to figure out which of those get the biggest real estate in our lives, the ones we build everything else around.” He snuggled her in a little tighter to his side, and his voice deepened and became rough. “I know of one experience that I want to keep front and center in my life, babe.”
Her face turned up towards his again, a sad expression crinkling her eyes. “Mason—” she started.
“Hush,” he said, “I know, babe. It’s okay. I got you no matter what, and we’re good. I promise we’re good…just…give me this.” Twisting in the bed, he slapped snooze on the alarm, and then curled back around her for a few more stolen minutes.
29 -
Something doesn’t fit
Sitting in the media room at his house in Glencoe, which was situated along the exclusive North Shore expanse of the big lake, Daniel was relaxing. Dressed in an untucked, button-down shirt and comfortable jeans, he cued up another tape of one of the Milwaukee Crashers’ games. His Mallets would be playing against the Crashers in a few days, and he was doing what he did best, analyzing the opposition to find the flaws that could be exploited by his team to win the game.
He picked up a glass from the nearby table, rattling the ice against the sides and bottom, taking a quick drink of whisky. Leaning back into the butter-soft leather of the couch, he rolled up his sleeves, and then started working the remote, fast-forwarding and rewinding, watching the gameplay on the screen. Making idle popping noises with his lips, he concentrated on the movements of the forwards for this run-through, thinking he might need some music for this set. He’d watched several hours of video today, and was starting to lose his focus.
A low tone played in the room, followed by Samuel’s voice over the
intercom, “Mr. Rupert, I apologize for the interruption. Mr. Lebuvar is here to see you, sir. Would you like me to show him down to the media room?” Pausing the playback, Daniel picked up his glass again, climbing to his bare feet to walk towards the bar at the back of the room. “That’s fine, Samuel; send him on down.”
Standing beside the bar, Daniel wondered what Steve was up to tonight; he hadn’t expected to see him until game day, when Steve usually pulled out his reporter credentials in order to get into the game for free. Hearing the scuffling of feet on the carpeted stairs right outside the room, he looked over his shoulder and asked, “Whatcha drinking, Steve?” as he poured himself another whiskey.
“Whatever you are having will be fine, Daniel, thanks.” He sat on one end of the couch, adjusting his jacket and slacks before putting his loafer-clad feet up on the table. He crossed his legs at the ankles, and reached wearily for the glass as Daniel passed it over to him. Daniel sat, picking up the remote and starting the playback again, sitting in comfortable silence with his longtime friend.
Steve sighed, lacing his fingers over his stomach and holding his glass loosely as he watched the liquid tilt with each breath he took. Over the next thirty minutes, they spoke occasionally about the players, plays, or handling they saw on the tapes. Steve winced as the Crashers’ enforcers slammed player after player into the boards. “Man, I don’t know how you do this every week, Daniel,” he said after watching a particularly difficult skirmish in the corner of the rink, where two opposing players had to leave the ice with bloody injuries. “That shit is brutal, and it’s going to catch up with you sooner or later.”
“Yes, Mother, I’ll watch out for the big boys down by the pond.” Daniel laughed and shook his head. “I do hear you, man, and believe me, it gets harder every year. I hope we make the playoffs this season, because this might be it for me.” He stretched one triceps across his chest with the opposite elbow, feeling the soreness along the back of his arm and chuckled. “Of course, I say that every year about this time. It’s that part of the season when everything just fucking hurts. You watch—come the end of summer, I’ll be rested, ready, and rearing to go again.”
Mica (Rebel Wayfarers MC) Page 14
