“It’s so quiet here,” she said, letting go of his hand and crouching to set Ken on the ground. The cat began sniffing about, and she stood, holding his leash. “Peaceful.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, walking the length of the trailer toward the rear. “Come on.”
She followed, and when he reached the back, he opened the trailer’s doors one at a time, letting them swing wide, revealing the cavernous container inside. Tossing in the blanket, he climbed up and then held his hand down to her.
She eyed it and then him for a moment before grabbing Ken and allowing Clyde to haul them both up. Their boots echoed around the trailer as Mae bent to let Ken off his leash and Clyde headed into the depths of the trailer. When he found what he was after, he returned to the front, where she stood staring out into the night.
“Wow,” she whispered.
Clyde stopped beside her and followed her gaze. He’d backed the rig right up to the edge of the pond. At one time, it had been the best fishing spot in Hue. He’d snag bluegill for hours on nightcrawlers. Looking at it now, he didn’t figure there was much fishing to be had. Lilypads and algae had taken over the pond’s surface, and weeds grew rampant along its banks. The weeping willows had grown miles since he’d been here last, and they hung over the pond’s opaque top like hunched old men, their skinny arms swaying in the breeze. Moonlight shone on the pond itself, casting the whole thing in an ethereal, mysterious glow, and lightning bugs pulsed in the gloom.
“Used to be able to swim here,” he said and remembered how she’d looked in the creek this morning in a wet, clinging T-shirt. “Couldn’t get through the weeds now.”
“It’s beautiful,” she said, a smile playing on her lips. “Like a wonderland.”
His own smile was sad as he gazed out at it. Home bitter home. “Thought you might like it.”
“I love it,” she said, bending to catch Ken before he could leap out of the trailer. “No you don’t, big man.”
“Coyotes and foxes in these parts. Best keep him close,” Clyde said and took Ken’s leash from her. He crouched, set down the jar he’d been holding, and looped the leash through a slot in the wall, then gestured for the cat. She handed the thing over, and Clyde hooked him. “There.”
Mae crossed her arms over her chest and smirked. “He’ll hate it.”
Sure enough, the cat sniffed the restraint and then promptly tried to pull away, his claws scratching the floor as he yanked at his harness. Chuckling, Mae knelt and murmured to him until he calmed down. “You’re fine,” she told him, stroking his tail. “You’re fine.”
After a few moments, the cat realized it wasn’t the end of days and relaxed, pushing his face into her palm, letting out an if you insist meow.
“Silly boy,” she said and stood, watching fondly as he started cleaning his paw.
Clyde rose, too, and gestured toward the edge of the trailer. “Sit?”
“Yeah,” she said and retrieved the blanket, snapping it out so it lay flat. Pulling off her bag, she dropped it and sat cross-legged.
He followed suit but with much less grace.
“When was the last time you bent your knees?” she asked, laughing.
“I’m a man,” he said dryly. “I have a dick. We don’t sit like this in jeans.”
Shaking her head, she grinned at him nonetheless. “I’ve seen two-by-fours with more flexibility.”
“I only care about how flexible you are,” he pointed out.
Even in the dark, he saw her face warm. She ignored him and eyed the jar in his lap. “What is that?”
With a faint smile, he held up the jar so the crystal-clear liquid inside sparkled in the moonlight. “Only the finest moonshine this side of heaven.”
She studied the jar. “So, this is what you’ve been bootlegging.”
He inclined his head and unscrewed the lid. “You’re looking at a quart of illegal corn liquor.”
Her eyebrows jumped. “Oh my.”
Laughing, he passed it to her. “Indeed.”
“Nope.” She held up her hands. “No way.”
He shrugged. “If you’re scared …”
Eying him warily, she took the jar and brought it to her nose. Reeling back, she covered her mouth as if to fend off a cough. “Holy hell.”
He laughed so hard his eyes watered. “It’ll put hair on your chest, all right. You ever drank hooch?”
She looked at him over the rim of the jar. “I was raised by hookers. What do you think?”
“Go on then,” he said, still grinning.
A spark of defiance flickered in her eyes, and she raised the jar to her lips. Pausing, she made the sign of the cross over her chest and drank.
It was a much bigger drink than he’d anticipated, and he laughed, lunging forward to take the jar from her. “Whoa,” he said. “This is some strong shit.”
Coughing and sputtering, she let him take the jar. It was a moment before she could speak, and when she did, her voice was a croak. “Poison.”
He laughed again and took a drink of his own. Roaring flames slid down his throat, lighting up his gut like Christmas morning. As far as ’shine went, it was smooth as silk and so pure it felt like drinking a ribbon of fire. Didn’t mean it tasted good, though. But folks didn’t drink it for the taste. They drank it for the thrill. And the burn. “Damn,” he said, whistling. “Gets me every time.”
Flushed, she gasped, “That ain’t the backyard brew I’m used to.”
He took one last sip and then recapped it. “Could be why it costs thirty bucks a jar.”
“I think I just got my great-great-grandkids drunk,” she said wryly.
His grin faded, and he set aside the jar. “Ain’t nothing like it.”
“You don’t like kids, do you?”
He looked at her, surprised. “I like them just fine. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged, pulling the tie from her hair and giving the still-damp strands a shake. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. Almost hesitant. “Lila Jane said you wouldn’t give me babies.”
If he’d been drinking moonshine, he would’ve choked on it. “She what?”
Mae grew visibly embarrassed. “I mean, not that I want you to give me babies or anything,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut as if wishing she could take the words back. “I don’t want that. I just—”
“When did you talk to her?” he demanded, furious that Lila Jane had felt she had the right to say anything to Mae, let alone regarding his unwillingness to reproduce.
Mae shook her head. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.”
What else had Lila Jane said to her? For that matter, what had she done to her? God only knew. If she’d touched Mae, there would be hell to pay. He caught her wrist, forcing her to look at him. “Did she do anything to you?”
“No,” Mae said, looking exasperated. “We talked. That’s all.”
He frowned. “About what?”
She debated her answer but finally admitted, “You.”
He clenched his jaw. Sure as shit, Lila Jane had run him into the ground. Or worse. Mae’s expression was unreadable, so it could be anything. “Don’t believe a damn word she said. Whatever it was, you can bet it ain’t true.”
Mae stared at him. “So, you do want kids then?”
He let go of her wrist, a sullen storm cloud forming in his chest. “No.” He raked his fingers through his hair, knocking his hat off. It landed on the blanket behind him, and he snatched it with a frustrated growl. “Why in the goddamned hell she’d mention something like that to you in the first place, I have no idea.”
Mae was quiet a moment and then stared out at the pond. “It’s none of my business, Clyde. I was just curious. That’s all.”
He suddenly wanted to stand up and punch hard surfaces. He didn’t want kids. Wasn’t going to have them. Period. It was just the way it was. And it was something he hadn’t thought about in years. The decision was as much a part of him as his blood and bones. Even when his and Lila Jane’s marriage h
ad been in its death throes because of it, he’d never wavered. He wasn’t ashamed of it. And he didn’t regret it. But hearing Mae say it aloud set his teeth on edge. He didn’t know if it was because she might think less of him, or if it was because he’d gone off his rocker and fucked her bareback yesterday. What in the hell had he been thinking? Was she on birth control? God, he hoped so. He refused to ask. Not yet. Right now, he felt about as stable as a wheel with no lug nuts. Best to let sleeping dogs lie until he had his shit under control.
He pulled his hat back on. “I ain’t having kids.”
“Okay,” she said simply.
He glanced at her. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Disdain? Judgment? Sadness? Instead, she seemed more taken aback by his reaction than the knowledge itself. The stomping bull inside him sat on its stubborn haunches and exhaled. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to go off like that.”
She looked down at her boots and toyed with one’s lace. “You don’t owe me an explanation. Really. People want what they want.”
He stared at her for a long time before glancing away with a sigh. Despite her insistence, he felt uncharacteristically compelled to explain. “Got nothing against kids.”
She stopped fiddling with the bootlace and studied him. She opened her mouth to say something and then stopped, looking away.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I shouldn’t—”
“Tell me,” he interrupted.
She sighed. “Can you … not have them? Like, physically?”
He blinked. “Yeah … I can,” he said, inexplicably unsettled by the idea of her thinking he couldn’t. “Hell, at least, I think so anyway. That ain’t it.”
Genuine curiosity shone in her eyes. “Then why?”
He clenched his jaw, looking away. The reasoning had never been easy for him to talk about. Even when he’d been with Lila Jane. Still, he found himself saying, “The day the doctors told us Rose would never walk or talk again was the day I made up my mind.” His throat felt tight, but he went on. “I couldn’t even keep my sister alive. No way in hell was I capable of doing it with a kid of my own.”
Mae was quiet for a heartbeat. “Oh, Clyde.”
He frowned, unable to look at her. She sounded … sympathetic. As if she understood. Lila Jane had called him a pussy and said he needed to be a man and move on. “I got nothing against kids,” he repeated, needing Mae to know. “I just can’t.”
“If that’s how you feel, it’s how you feel. But …” Her voice trailed off, and she looked at the pond.
“Say it.”
She sighed as if reluctant to share her thoughts. “It’s just … I don’t think you should make a decision that affects the rest of your life based on a mistake you made as a ten-year-old boy.”
He considered her. “Maybe, but ain’t nothing going to change it.” He looked away. “Ever.”
“That’s your choice.”
The finality of it hung in the air between them. He cleared his throat. “What about you?”
“Kids?” she asked and then shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it. Someday maybe.”
He nodded. “If you stay with me, it’ll never happen.”
It was blunt and probably overkill. She hadn’t given any indication that she wanted this—whatever it was—to lead to anything serious, let alone bear his child for God’s sake. But it needed to be said. He needed her to know. He’d fucked a handful of women since Lila Jane, and he’d never so much as uttered the word kid. With Mae, though, it was different somehow. Maybe because it seemed like they could be something. Something real. Something he’d never wanted but needed all the same.
She looked at him, and there was a hint of sadness in her eyes. Whether it was directed at him or the future they couldn’t have, he didn’t know. “That’s a bridge we can cross when and if we get there,” she said. “We don’t have to have it all figured out tonight.”
“Bridge was burned a long time ago,” he told her. “There won’t ever be any crossing it.”
“Life isn’t that black and white.”
“It is for me.”
“Should we go ahead and hammer out our wedding colors while we’re at it?” she asked. “Plan the menu? Make the guest list?”
“No pink.”
She laughed, the sound echoing off the trailer’s walls. “Agreed.”
Silence stretched between them, and he said, “I’m sorry.”
“No crime in being honest.”
“You might not always feel that way.”
“You might not, either,” she pointed out.
“I wouldn’t count on it.”
She laughed again and shook her head. “God, you’re the most stubborn man I’ve ever met.”
His mouth quirked. “I’ve been called worse.”
“I believe it,” she said, amusement lingering in her gaze. After a moment, it faded. “So, Lila Jane wanted kids and you didn’t?”
He sighed. “Yeah. She couldn’t accept it.”
Mae nodded. “And she left you?”
He laughed quietly. “No, she fucked my best friend. Jason,” he said, gazing out. “Found them in my bed together.”
Shock radiated off Mae. “I’m so sorry. That kind of betrayal …” Her voice trailed off. “I can’t imagine.”
“I was mad for a long time,” he admitted. “Hated the world. Hated myself. Hated her, too.”
“That’s a lot of hate.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It is.”
“I used to hate my dad,” Mae said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “For abandoning me and my ma.”
“But not anymore?”
She smiled faintly. “My ma never did. Said he gave her the best part of him. That they went their separate ways with no regrets.” Shaking her head, she added, “Whatever that means. But you can only hate someone you’ve never met for so long, you know?”
“Sounds like her expectations were below average.”
Mae laughed. “You have no idea.”
“Also sounds like she did right by you, though.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes. “Most people …” She glanced away, drying her cheeks. “Most wouldn’t agree. She raised me on a parking lot with a pack of wild whores, after all.”
The way she said it indicated that she was reciting something that had once been said to her, and the thought made him furious. “Seems to me like she must have done the best she could. And you clearly loved her, so she couldn’t have been all bad.”
“She wasn’t perfect,” Mae said, her voice watery. “She was trashy and messy and scatterbrained and hopeless, but she was also funny. And kind. She never stopped wanting more for me.”
“That’s more than I can say for mine,” he said and meant it. Dina Honeycutt had turned her back on both her kids without a second thought when they hadn’t fit her ideal. After the accident, she’d loathed Clyde for ruining Rose, and she’d loathed Rose for being ruined. Her love for them hadn’t extended past her disappointment.
Mae looked at him. “Guess a good mother all depends on perspective, huh?”
“Yeah,” he agreed, thinking she looked more beautiful now than he’d ever seen her. Open. Vulnerable. Eyes glimmering in the dark with unshed tears. “What happened to your mom?”
“AIDS. Overdose. Who knows,” Mae sighed. “Both. She went down so fast.”
He knew what it was like to watch someone you loved go from being full of life to being a pale shell of what they’d once been. “I’m sorry.”
“Me, too,” she said, glancing at him.
He held her gaze for a moment and then asked, “So, if you didn’t take part in the family business, what did you do?”
She smiled, and it dimmed the sadness in her eyes. “I was the makeup girl,” she said. “Or the cooch cleaner as Crystal would so elegantly put it.”
Clyde choked. “What?”
Mae laughed, her head falling back. “I d
idn’t actually clean any cooches. Don’t worry.”
It took him a minute to recover. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.”
She leaned back as if bathing in the moonlight, closing her eyes as she spoke. “Working the lot is a dirty job,” she said. “Between the dust and the men. I was there to touch up their makeup, fix their hair, stitch a rip in their clothes. Anything. They’d toss me a few bucks. It added up.”
“You enjoyed it.”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “When I was a kid, I think they let me do it just to occupy me, but it stuck.” She sighed. “There’s no dignity on the lot. Making them feel fresh and pretty … I don’t know, it felt like giving some back to them somehow.”
“Kind of like how you gave some back to Rose?”
Mae’s smile was sad. “Every girl deserves to feel good about herself. If I can do that with a bit of makeup and hairspray, then I will.”
He gazed at the pond, its mossy water aglow with moonlight and fireflies. “You made her day. I’ve never seen her so happy.”
“Pretty sure I was playing second fiddle to Ken,” Mae said with a quiet laugh.
Clyde looked over at the cat, who was fast asleep atop her bag against the trailer wall. “Same here.”
She laughed and stood, stretching her back. “It’s hard to compare to warm purrs and soft fur when it comes to cuteness.” Redoing her ponytail, she said, “Speaking of the little spotlight stealer, I’m going to see if he wants a drink.”
As she started past Clyde, he grabbed her wrist. “Don’t go. Not yet.”
Mae hesitated, staring down at his fingers. Her voice was quiet. “Why?”
He tugged her closer and kissed her thigh. She was warm and soft, and the frayed denim of her cutoffs brushed his jaw. He’d damn well do her right this time. “Because I said so.”
“Oh,” she whispered, grabbing his shoulders for balance.
Nipping her thigh through the denim, he murmured, “Can I have you, Mae?”
He heard her breath catch. “I … okay.”
Her shy submission went straight to his cock, and he growled his approval, kissing his way to the place he most wanted to be. She gasped as he grazed the denim with his teeth, feeling the warmth of her on his mouth, holding her to his face. She smelled like Ivory soap and summer night. What he wanted to do was fuck her. Hard. Fast. Mercilessly. He wanted to jerk down her cutoffs and get his fingers inside her. His dick, too. He wanted to lick and suck and fill her. Claim her. Make her his. But he forced himself to breathe. To slow down. Just yesterday, she’d been a virgin. Tight and tender and untouched. She’d never had a man between her legs. Probably never had anything inside her but her own fingers. And didn’t that thought make his cock throb. At least, until he remembered that he’d taken her virginity like a goddamned barbarian. Like he’d owned it. Didn’t matter that he hadn’t known what he was taking at the time. He should have seen it. Looking at her now, he couldn’t imagine how he’d been so blind. Which was why he was going to undress her, lay her down, and love her like he should.
Mother Trucker (Crownville Truckers Book 1) Page 13
