She’d just bet. All he’d had to do was say those magic three words, “big insurance settlement.” Her mother slid an arm around his thin shoulders, throwing him a dazzling look as her hard eyes went to Celeste.
“Don says this here is all just temporary. We’re going to move into a nice house in a few weeks. He’s just shifting some money around for the down payment. There’s a little yard in back. I had to wait so long for my dream, what with all the sacrifices I had to make for you kids, but now all that giving is finally coming around. And I have Don to thank for it. He always did take such good care of me.”
“Yeah. Do you have the box, Mom?”
Her mother straightened, her expression becoming more brittle at Celeste’s brusque response. “Why don’t you come on in here and help me get it. Don and…”
“Leland,” Leland supplied.
“…can talk.” Her mother threw Leland a dismissive look and gestured to Celeste to come inside. Don made way for her, rolling forward.
To use the stairs, she had to move away from Leland’s supportive hand. She did it, reminding herself a woman who leaned on a strong man forgot how to stand on her own two feet when that hand went away. She wondered what Leland was thinking. When she glanced at him, his shrewd gaze was shifting from her mother to Don. Though his expression was impassive, she saw the cop in his eyes. He knew he was looking at trash, through and through.
She’d called her mother white trash herself, but it wasn’t the trailer or the poor surroundings that made her that way. There’d been other families here, white, black and Hispanic, all in the same economic circumstances, but some of those families had been different. The kids had mothers who tousled their hair or hugged them. Or fussed at them in the right way.
“Clarence, this is your home, not no barn. You wipe them feet or I’ll tan your hide…”
Mrs. Jarrett’s voice was as clear in her head as if she was still standing in the door of the trailer twenty feet away, rather than speaking across twenty years. Instead of flinching when his mother came onto the porch, expecting a slap or a verbal cut-down about how stupid or ugly he was, Clarence had dutifully wiped his feet, then did it in a more exaggerated way, shaking his hips and doing an improv funky chicken while his mother rolled her eyes. “Boy, you nothin’ but a fool. Get in this house and get your dinner.” But she’d cupped his neck, given him a smacking kiss and shoved him gently in the house. She loved him. Even a child without that knew what it looked like. Maybe especially one without it.
“Celeste?”
She’d come to a stop at the top of the ramp. Don was less than three feet away, was saying something she didn’t hear, that shit-eating look on his face. His eyes were warm but wary, waiting to see what she was going to do. She gave him the barest of nods and stepped into the trailer.
Stale cigarettes and things that needed cleaning. Cold. Those were the things she remembered, the things she inhaled and felt now. Her stomach roiled and she had to fight her gag reflex. Her mother pointed to the small area she used as a pantry. A medium-sized box was pushed back against the wall on the dirty linoleum. Celeste moved to get it, but her mother put a hand on her arm.
“Don came into a shitload of insurance money because of the accident,” she whispered, her eyes gleaming. “Nearly half a million dollars. And he came back here to find me. That’s no coincidence, Celly. Him being paralyzed doesn’t bother me none. Fact, it’s a blessing to be with a man who won’t care about that. Less work for me.”
Celeste tried to move away, but her mother held on. She’d had a manicure. Little sparkles on her nails, painted slick and pink. “Don’t mess this up for me, Celly.”
A tremor went through Celeste, so hard and sudden it jerked her from her mother’s grasp. She pushed through the haze that had formed over her eyes, bent and picked up the box. It was light, and through the folded flaps she caught a glimpse of a doll, a couple notebooks, an old T-shirt. Whatever few memories Trice had wanted to keep from her childhood were in her hands.
Her mother had gone silent. She was probably trying to figure out what was going through Celeste’s mind, how to work things. How to get her to react. “Can’t believe you went for dark meat, Celly. You can do better.”
God, it sucked to be right sometimes. She thought of Clarence and Mrs. Jarrett. Mrs. Jarrett hadn’t had the time of day for Ginny, but she’d been kind to Celeste. When Ginny was away as she often was between boyfriends, Mrs. Jarrett had come over and taught Celeste how to sew so she could mend one of Patrice’s torn shirts. She remembered the woman had given her hair a brisk stroke when she’d done the stitches right. “You’re a smart girl, Celly,” the woman had said. “Smart enough to survive all this.”
She hadn’t been old enough to really understand what the woman meant, but she did now. She turned. “You say another word about Leland, and I will ruin this for you. And you sure as hell know I can do it. Got it? He’s a cop. A sergeant.”
Whatever she saw in Celeste’s face made her mother’s eyes widen. Maybe it was resolve. Maybe it was murder. She just needed out of this trailer. Now.
She heard Leland and Don talking. Don’s voice was muted to her, whereas Leland’s baritone was the lifeline she followed into the open air again. She gulped it in, but the dank smell of stale cigarettes was on the deck as well. She had a brief impression of Leland offering to take the box as she came down the ramp, but she didn’t really register it. Don said something again, but she didn’t hear that. Putting the box down beside Leland’s truck, she kept walking. Fast, faster. She managed not to break into a run until she turned the corner around an old, white trailer. She didn’t know the occupant anymore, but the road to the pond was still behind it.
She took it, running until the cramping in her stomach stopped her. Doubling over, she heaved into the tall grass on the side of the road. Her breakfast hadn’t been completely gone, but it was now. Her legs trembled. She’d never had to throw up standing, and she found it was hard to balance. She was going to stain her jeans with mud, a dull thought that crossed her mind as her knees gave out. But she didn’t, because Leland’s arm was around her waist, holding her, steadying her. His other hand touched her hair, gathered back those longer strands that might get caught in her mouth.
“Sshh. It’s okay. Just let it out. Get it done and you’ll feel better.”
She dry heaved a few more times, the smell of cigarettes and her mother’s body spray still in her nose. She wanted to strip off her clothes, burn all of them, but like most of her clothes, they were designer wear she’d picked up at consignment shops. Maintaining a professional image for half the cost, because every dollar counted. She didn’t have the money to toss her clothes because of an emotional breakdown. But it was all an image. When you are shit, you have to make up an image different from who you are, and keep at it until the past starts not to matter...
She straightened, sucking in deep breaths. He stayed behind her, letting her lean against him without making her face him. Laying her head back on his chest and shoulder, she found he was as comfortable as leaning against a broad, smooth tree. His angles and curves were right where they needed to be to support her.
“I’m really glad you’re this big.”
“It’s useful sometimes.” She glanced down at a nudge on her hand and saw he was offering her a pack of cinnamon Trident. She took a stick, unwrapped it and put it in her mouth. The cinnamon helped. His smell helped. After she chewed the gum, she turned and buried her nose in his shirt. It wasn’t enough. She unbuttoned a couple buttons with quick, jerky movements to get to his skin, inhale there. He stroked her back, her nape, giving her all the time she needed. He didn’t ask, didn’t say anything beyond murmurs of reassurance.
When she could draw a steady breath again, she stepped back, wiped at her wet eyes. If he’d asked her questions, she probably would have clammed up, but his compassionate silence reached into her and drew out the poison.
“My mom always had a string of boyfriends
,” she said. “Most of them we only saw in passing, because she preferred to go to their places, so they weren’t reminded that she had four kids. But Don came to live with us for a while when I was eleven. When my mom was at work and he got horny, he taught me to play a game. Suck on the lollipop and win a prize. Every time I did it for him, he’d make me cookies. Or buy me a toy at the dollar store. Never forced me to do it, but when I told my mom about it, because it made me uncomfortable, she said, ‘A girl’s never too young to learn how to give good head, honey.’ And then she said, ‘Don’t mess this up for me, Celly.’”
“Christ.”
She swallowed. She should stop. She really should, but she couldn’t. She’d never told anyone. Never had a friend she’d let get that close.
“She made me promise I wouldn’t mess it up for her, or for us, because Don was helping her pay the bills. Pay ‘our’ bills, she said.
“Nobody ever tied me up, hurt me. It was just what it was. It wasn't even sex. Just blow jobs. Coercion, of a sort. I guess I didn’t really think about what I thought about it. About how I stopped having friends that year, stuck more to myself. Then one day, I’m on my knees doing for him, and my six-year-old sister Patrice comes in, though I’d told her to play outside until I called. She asks what we’re doing and Don says, ‘Playing a game. Pretty soon, you’ll be old enough to play too. But maybe I can let you play just this once…’
“I don’t remember my mind telling me to do it. I had an iron heating because my mom told me I had to iron her shirts for work. She was working at this cocktail lounge that required dress shirts and black miniskirts. I turned around, picked up the iron and jammed it against his stomach. Honestly, I was aiming for his dick, but I was pumped up on adrenaline and rage, all nerves. I grabbed Trice’s hand and we ran. We hid with a friend for two days until they told us he’d picked up and left…guess he was afraid we’d be found by the cops and his secret would be out. My mom didn’t speak to me for about three months. She took every opportunity to tell me what a dumb little bitch I was. Would just come in, dump her dirty laundry on me and then be off again.”
She shook her head. “It’s crazy, but I didn’t really think about him anymore, about any of that. Maybe because then Mom met Vince. He was so nice. He took us to the zoo, places like that. He was…like a father. He wanted to spend time with us. His wife had the kids in his divorce and she’d moved to California, so he didn’t get to see them. He had a job here he couldn’t leave and still make the child support payments, though he was always sending off résumés to California. I helped him type them up.”
She took a breath. “He didn’t live with us, but we had him for about five months. Then he lost his job because the company had layoffs. My mom dumped him. She said, ‘You don’t saddle yourself with a man who has no money, Celly. He has to pay for what you give him.’”
She stared out at the pond in the distance, wondered if there was still an old raft in the high weeds. She and other kids would take it out into the middle of the pond to fish and while away warm afternoons, slapping at mosquitoes and jumping into the murky water when the bugs got too aggressive. “Losing him was harder than dealing with Don, if that makes sense. Things being hard and difficult, that I knew. Losing someone who was kind, who made me think about what it was to be loved the way a kid should be loved, and having to go back to the other, that was worse. I thought about killing myself once or twice, but instead I got angry. Really angry.”
It really was time to stop. This was like a complete childhood info dump, but she had to finish it, to make him understand about everything that kept boiling up in her. He needed to know why it would never work between them.
“I told myself I was done with it. I went wild for a bit, drinking, getting in trouble, but then one day I looked in the mirror and saw my mom looking back at me. Nothing really significant had happened that day. It was just one of those moments, and I pulled my shit back together again.”
She straightened, her chin set as she stared out at the pond as if it would disappear if she looked away. “I used the anger. I wanted to spite her. Made sure my brothers and sister got through high school, got on their way. They’re all over the country, no shock there. The farther they can be from here, the better, right? As for me, I’d already figured out life is the same no matter how far you run. You have to make yourself a better life, and that’s not geography, that’s what’s inside yourself. I did community college and got the hell out. I made one friend in high school that stuck, Valerie. She and I lived together in NOLA for a few years before she got married and moved away and I came to Baton Rouge. I’ve lived my life the way I want to live it since I left that trailer. Yet the anger never goes away.”
“Because you’ve used the anger as your weapon, darlin’,” Leland said quietly. “It helped you survive. When someone takes that anger away from you, you have to be sure he’s offering something just as strong.”
“No. I wish it was that simple, but it’s not.” She looked at him. He’d moved to stand next to her, and her shoulder was against his arm, but he didn’t touch her, as if he knew she needed to stand on her own two feet to say all this.
He was right. Quality wasn’t a skin color or a class status. It was in the heart, and his was as big as the ocean. Big as the world was cruel.
The bitch part may be skin-deep, but when I get down to your heart, I don’t see a trace of her there, Celeste.
Sadness filled her. “You’re a really good man, Leland. The best kind of man. Any woman in her right mind would look at you and see someone who will stand by her, no matter what. But there’s nothing you can do that will make me believe I can depend on you. That I can let go of the anger to accept what you’re offering in its place. I don’t know how to be with someone, love someone the way they deserve to be loved. Every time I fight you, every time we go through all this shit I have inside me, I know you don’t deserve any of that. And it tears me apart inside, because I honestly don’t know how to be anything different. I’m just better off alone. I’m sorry, but I am. I’m so sorry.”
Her voice broke. His expression changed and she knew he was going to try to touch her, hold her. So she bolted again, but this time he didn’t let her get past him. He caught her arm, held her as she rounded on him. When she tried to shove away, he turned her, put her back against him, wrapped both arms around her, her chest and waist, held her fast. She struggled, begged him to let her go, but he didn’t. Just held her. When she started to claw at his arm, started to struggle in earnest because she didn’t want to be trapped, didn’t want to be held or stopped, he changed his hold, crossing her arms over her chest and holding her wrists at the base of her throat with his strong hands as she kicked out, lost her footing. He held her off the ground until she settled again, somewhat.
“Stop. Let me go.”
“No. You’re going to settle down now, because I’ve got you. I’m not going to let you run off, I’m not going to let you be alone with this. You’re used to being able to push people away. I can’t be pushed anywhere, darlin’.” His fingers eased enough to stroke her crashing pulse, his thumb rubbing over her collarbones. “We’re going to have that nice dinner and dessert I promised you. Then I’m going to take you to Lucas and Cassandra’s place. I’ll carry your bag to your room. Once we’re there, I’m going to put you down on the bed and blister your ass with my belt because you need it. After that, I’m going to bury myself to the balls inside you, make you climax. Then I’m going to hold you until your tears run out and you sleep.”
Her body was shaking harder with every word. He shifted her wrists to one big hand so he could spread the other out on her sternum, fingers sliding into the neckline of her Van Gogh T-shirt to stroke the upper curves of her breasts, tease the edge of lace on her bra cups. She knew he wasn’t trying to arouse her. He was reminding her he was her Master. He wasn’t going to let her run. Her stomach hurt a little less at the thought, even as counting on that frightened her.
�
��After you do all that, you’ll leave me.” She made it an accusation.
“No, I won’t leave you. I’m going to curl up around you just like I did the other night, sleep with you and make sure you’re all settled down. I’ll get up early to go back to work, see what I can do to help catch this asshole who’s after you. Then I’ll be back Friday night. The marks I leave on your ass should be fading by then and you’ll need a new set.”
“I don’t want to go back to the truck. Not there.”
“I know. You don’t have to. You can wait right here. I’ll come back and get you. But I better find you here when I get back, or I’ll spank your ass wherever I happen to catch up with you, no matter how many people are looking.”
She must be hysterical, because her lips quivered in a near smile, despite his stern tone and her certainty he meant every word. “I think you might get written up for that, Sergeant Keller.”
“Most of the guys I work with know you. They’ve probably wanted to paddle your ass more than once, though if they’ve had that urge, they’d better keep it to themselves.” He sighed, kissed her temple, made a soothing noise when she let out a short sob.
“It’s all right, darlin’. It’s okay.”
“I meant what I said. You shouldn’t be with me. I shouldn’t be with you. This isn’t going to work.”
“That decision’s up to me.”
“I have no say in it?”
“Nope. Not until I say. Understand?” He slid a hand under her jaw, and her breath caught as he pulled her face up, his grip firm. “I want to hear the words you said to me at your place. Don’t you give me that weak-ass whisper this time.”
She stared into his eyes. She wanted to look away, but he wouldn’t let her. The words were like bullets burning in her chest, a pain she couldn’t release, a pain that competed with the anger and—at least this once—overrode it.
Soul Rest: A Knights of the Board Room Novel Page 28
