The Hail You Say

by Lani Lynn Vale

  “He’s in a motorcycle club,” Ghost corrected. “And he’s a police officer. He’s been one for years now, and before that he was a Navy SEAL. Trust me when I say that you’re barking up the wrong tree. And don’t think I didn’t notice the multiple complaints you filed against him, his house, his fucking dog. I also saw you check his mail…which I might add is a federal offense.”

  That was news to me. I hadn’t realized that she was doing that.

  I wanted to beat my head against the carpeted floor underneath me.

  When would she fucking learn?

  It didn’t, however, surprise me.

  My mother viciously yanked her purse back up over her shoulder and turned around, only to turn back around and glare.

  “You better be careful, Officer Hail. I hear it's bad out there for cops right now.”

  With that she was gone, sending a glare my way as she moved.

  I could tell that she wanted me to follow, and I would…when I felt like it.

  I was thankful as hell that I’d be leaving, though.

  All of a sudden, I knew I couldn’t handle it anymore. I couldn’t handle her bat shit crazy self, and to be honest, I didn’t want to. I wanted out of this fucking farce of a family.

  My father wasn’t all bad, but with the way he blindly let my mother lead him around by the balls, it was quite depressing.

  He was going to go along with something stupid she did one day, and he’d be fucked right along with her.

  Audrey, who’d been standing silently behind Tobias, tried to move past him, but he caught her around the waist and yanked her to his side. “Don’t,” he growled. “It’s not worth it.”

  “She just threatened your life!” she cried out in indignation. “You heard that, didn’t you, Officer Tooch?”

  Tooch?

  “I can file a complaint, but that’s really all I can do. You know that.”

  “You just remember everything she said in case you ever get called on to be a witness,” Tobias said darkly to the policeman.

  Officer Tooch nodded solemnly as he turned to me. “Ma’am, can I help you up?”

  He offered me his hand, but before he could even extend it all the way out, I scrambled to my feet.

  My blonde curls bounced with the movement, and I offered Tobias an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry, y’all.”

  He smiled at me, just like he always did. He was always so forgiving.

  Dammit, my mother really sucked.

  “I know that you can’t control her…or him,” he added. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I grimaced. “I told them that I was transferred to a different post, and she flipped a freakin’ lid. She was on a tangent before she even arrived here.”

  “So that was what that was all about?” he asked.

  I sighed.

  “I told them that while I was stationed out of the country, they needed to behave. You can obviously tell how that went.”

  Tobias just shook his head.

  “Audrey, this is Krisney Shaw.” Tobias introduced his new girl. “Krisney, this is my girlfriend, Audrey.”

  I held out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

  The smile that I gave Audrey was a genuine one.

  Audrey took my hand hesitantly. “You’re Reed’s girl?”

  My face flamed. I could practically feel the heat rolling off of it. “Negative, Ghost Rider.”

  Tobias started to laugh.

  “You keep telling yourself that, girl. Let me know how it works out for you.”

  I grimaced. “See you later.”

  I walked out the door to my mother’s van and anger started to flow through my veins.

  A new determination started to seep into my bones, and I breathed a sigh of relief later that night when I packed the final thing in my bag.

  When I zipped it up and turned, it was to find my father at the door.

  “You’re happy.”

  I shrugged. “I can’t deal with this anymore. She needs help. She needs to figure out that this isn’t the way to go about dealing with all of this. I realize she’s sad. I realize she’s upset, but Dad…he was raping his sister for years. Can you really blame him?”

  My father didn’t know that my brother had done some pretty creepy things to me when I was younger. He had taken that a lot farther with what he’d done to Reed’s sister. He didn’t know that I had been abused, and I wouldn’t be telling him.

  It’d break something inside of me to know that he didn’t care anymore than my mom had cared when I’d told her.

  So, I never told him…but maybe I should have.

  Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t have left things so unfinished.

  And I wouldn’t have felt so guilty that I didn’t try to make my father see reason before I left. Because maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be getting the news of my parents’ deaths two days later when I arrived in Germany.

  I also wouldn’t be feeling like complete and utter shit and left to wonder…what if.

  Chapter 4

  I’ll bet gynecologists never have roast beef sandwiches for lunch.

  -Meme

  Krisney

  Germany

  Four months ago

  Routine. Just routine.

  Yeah, right.

  I knew this was going to be bad. I knew that I was about to do one of the stupidest things in the world.

  Yet, that didn't stop me from entering the infirmary.

  Every year we were required to see the doctor for an annual health evaluation. Mine was due two months ago, and I'd purposefully gotten out of it.

  I'd tried to get out of this one, too. However, my superior looked at me, grinned that evil grin of hers, and told me in no uncertain terms if I didn't do it, I'd be relegated to desk duty for the foreseeable future.

  She knew I hated desk duty.

  Talking to people wasn’t my forte.

  And now I was here.

  Going into the one place that I knew I shouldn't be going.

  The clinic in town was normally off limits.

  The clinic near the base had an older than dirt male doctor that I was fairly sure was a pervert who kept working because he didn't get to see pussy that young anymore.

  However, knowing that the old doc was off on the weekends, and Reed volunteered there for all the ladies that didn’t want to risk it with the pervert doc, led me to where I was today.

  Where I knew he was.

  Shit. Damn. Fuck.

  I’d gone to Germany to get away from him. He’d been assigned to the same base within a month of my arrival.

  It might’ve been a coincidence, but I knew it probably wasn’t.

  He did it on purpose. Just to watch me squirm.

  I swung open the glass door, waved at the secretary who I knew but whose name I couldn't remember, and signed in.

  "He's running about thirty minutes behind," the secretary said as she took my information. "I'll tell the ladies that you're here, though. You can go on back. The nurse will put you in a room.”

  Of course he was, because the motherfucker liked to talk.

  Fucker.

  Asshole.

  I walked back, met the nurse, and she guided me into a room.

  “Here’s the paper gown. You can go ahead and change here behind the screen.” The nurse smiled. “The part goes in the front.”

  I refrained from flipping her off.

  I knew which fucking part went in the front. I wasn’t a dumbass.

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  I waited until she was completely out of the room before I changed, making sure the screen was completely covering every square inch of my body before I stripped my shirt off.

  My pants went next, then my bra, and my underwear.

  After slipping on the stupid gown—part in front—I folded the clothes precisely in on themselves, making sure that my underwear and bra were neatly tucked into my shir
t before rolling my pants around the shirt.

  I did not want him to see my underthings.

  No sir-ree.

  He was already going to see my breasts and vagina today. I didn’t want him to see that I wore the sexy underthings for some stupid reason.

  Growling to myself, I picked up my phone and blasted off a text to my best friend.

  She was probably asleep, but she’d answer when she woke up.

  Somebody needed to be witness to this train wreck.

  Might as well be Hennessy.

  Hennessy and I had been best friends for a very long time.

  A long, long, long time.

  We knew everything about each other.

  I knew that she started her cycle every month at the beginning of the week, and she knew that I hated having tags in my underwear because they irritated my skin.

  I felt like she needed to know the hell I was about to put myself through.

  When she didn’t immediately answer back, I started to scroll through Facebook, stopping on a picture that my other friend, Laryn, had uploaded.

  I smiled at the giggling baby who had what looked like green peas smeared all over her face.

  After Reed had broken up with me, I’d had a falling out with Laryn.

  Hell, I’d had a falling out with nearly everybody.

  Everybody was gone except Hennessy. She stayed by me despite everything.

  Despite the fact that my brother had done the unthinkable. Despite the fact that my parents went out of their way to make the Hails’ lives a living hell afterward. Despite the fact that my parents actively hated me because of my support of Tobias, the man who killed my brother when he caught him raping his sister.

  They’d never let me forget that I’d ‘betrayed the family’ but I couldn’t.

  Not with everything that had happened before. And especially not with what happened after.

  My phone pinged with an incoming message from Hennessy, making me smile.

  It was a picture of a meme that said: I’ll bet gynecologists never have roast beef sandwiches for lunch.

  I burst out laughing, my eyes stinging with the hilarity of it.

  See, as much as I liked Laryn, she didn’t get me like Hennessy did.

  Never had.

  Although we’d reconnected about a year ago, it still wasn’t what Hennessy and I shared.

  Since we’d reconnected, I’d enjoyed seeing how she’d moved on with her life. While there I was living right where Reed had left me.

  In a broken pile of Krisney that probably wouldn’t ever heal again.

  Which reminded me where I was at, and what I was about to do.

  I grimaced.

  Bad. Bad. Bad.

  This was going to be so bad.

  The man that I loved, the man who had dumped me, was going to be looking at my vagina.

  This seriously couldn't get any worse, right? Wrong.

  How, you ask?

  The air conditioner kicked on.

  There I was, in nothing but a fucking paper towel suit, and the fucking air kicks on?

  Seriously?

  It had to be some sort of a cosmic joke.

  I could practically feel the hairs on my legs growing as goosebumps started to chase over my skin.

  There wasn’t an inch of my flesh that wasn’t affected by the air, which happened to be about the time that Reed came in, looking down at the chart in his hands.

  Without knocking.

  He looked tired. A little bit pissed, and a whole lot of beautiful.

  His hair was styled, but it looked like at some point he’d started to run his hand through it on the left side right next to his ear.

  He had a beautiful head full of almost black hair. And I say almost because at his temples he was starting to gray.

  Oh, God. That was so sexy.

  I hadn’t seen him except in pictures sent by Hennessy, or while stalking his Facebook, for a while now. At least two years.

  He was only thirty-two years old, so it was sort of a shock to see his hair graying, but damn did he work it.

  He had a pair of glasses perched on his nose, and I found myself smiling quickly. He’d always had trouble seeing when he was stressed and his eyes were fatigued.

  He wasn’t wearing a doctor’s coat.

  Why was I obsessed with that fact? Because had he been wearing a doctor’s coat, it would’ve hidden the way his muscular arms pulled at his Polo shirt, and the way that Polo shirt fit him to perfection in all the right ways.

  The shirt was tucked into his jeans, showing off his trim waist and the goddamn belt buckle I’d bought him for Christmas our first year together.

  The belt buckle I’d bought him.

  It’d cost me an entire year’s savings from the money my mother would give me for lunch—though Reed didn’t know that I wasn’t the spoiled rich kid that everyone always thought I was.

  At the time, Jay had gotten everything he wanted, while I, being the rebellious child who went against her parents’ wishes by dating a ‘bad boy,’ got money for lunch every day and lunch money only. That equaled to about twenty dollars a week, for eighteen weeks. Meaning that, although I’d starved during school, it’d been worth it to get him that belt buckle and see his face light up with excitement.

  I swallowed thickly and tried not to let my eyes take in the buckle, and instead focused on his face.

  The same beautiful face that still haunted almost all of my sleeping and waking moments.

  "Any STD concerns?"

  He didn't know it was me. I was going with that. Because if he did know it was me, he wouldn't have asked.

  I didn't sleep around.

  Hell, it took him six months to get me to put out when we'd dated.

  "No."

  I tried not to snap. Really, I did.

  But this man had a way of getting on my nerves. I could happily kick him in the balls and not feel an ounce of remorse.

  Reed's head snapped up, and his eyes widened the moment the word left my mouth.

  Yeah, he hadn't known it was me.

  We stared at each other like two deer caught in a spotlight.

  Then he broke the stare as easily as he’d ended our relationship and said, "Any concerns?"

  I shook my head. "No."

  He nodded his head, then looked down at the paper.

  "Last menstrual cycle?"

  I shrugged.

  "I'm on the pill. You know how that goes. I skip the week that causes you to have a period." I paused. “Maybe six weeks ago?”

  Hell, he'd been the one to suggest that I get on the pill. He’d been there with me when I'd been given the speech about them.

  I still remember the doctor telling us that birth control pills weren't as effective if you didn't take them at the same time every day, and if you were on antibiotics to use alternate means of protection.

  It'd been so embarrassing to have that doctor know that I was about to have sex with the man that was directly beside me at the time.

  Now here we were, all these years later, and Reed was the man asking the questions. Jesus.

  "Yeah,” he looked down at the paper, "I do."

  I winced at the biting tone.

  God, he really hated me.

  I knew why, but still.

  "Did Dee-Dee tell you we were performing a Pap smear?"

  No, she put me in this room, told me to get undressed, and then proceeded to leave me naked for forty-five minutes, not once coming to check on me.

  I nodded.

  She had.

  Dammit.

  "Would you feel more comfortable with a nurse in here?"

  The mocking tone almost dared me to do it. It wouldn't stop the feelings we had for each other, though.

  I shook my head no.

  The only thing that would make this situation more comfortable was if I were dead.

  "You know what to do."
r />   I did.

  Leaning back, I scooted to the bottom of the table until my ass almost hung off the edge.

  While I did that, he pulled the stirrups out and then reached for my ankle.

  The moment our skin met, I shuddered.

  Which he noticed, of course. It was also hard to hide the goose bumps that pebbled my flesh the moment our skin touched, which in no way had anything to do with the air conditioning.

  He let go of me like I'd burned him.

  Instead of him touching my other foot, I picked my own leg up and placed my heel in the stirrup.

  "It's cold in here," I murmured, lying through my teeth.

  He didn't contradict my lie, only hummed something in the back of his throat that caused me to instantly stiffen.

  He'd done that when we were younger. When we were together and he didn't want to say anything for fear of bursting out laughing.

  "Relax."

  Yeah, right.

  His hand touched my ankle again, and I had to fight the urge to jerk it away.

  And I wouldn’t even begin to mention the way that my vagina was now practically dripping with need for him. Nope, nuh-uh, no way. It was a malfunction…had to be.

  Goddammit.

  There was no way he wouldn’t notice.

  None.

  Jesus, he’d always affected me like that. Always.

  It was kind of sick, really, the way he could make me melt into a puddle of goo.

  Mortification was washing over me like a rising tide, and I could barely hold my head up above the humiliation.

  I could feel him watching me. Could feel the way he stood, so hot and strong, between my splayed thighs.

  It reminded me of the first time we’d ever had sex.

  Which then caused another wash of desire to roll through me.

  That had been something I’d never forget. Not ever.

  “I’m going to feel for abnormalities,” he said, startling me.

  I didn’t say anything back.

  His hands moved up my legs on both sides, which I knew for a fact wasn’t something that was done at the doctor’s office. Especially not with the way his hand was so slow moving.

  His palms were rough, and they felt like a fucking heater as they made their way from ankle to thigh.

  As he moved in closer to my lady bits, my heart started to pound. The anticipation of him touching me, even in a clinical way, was enough to send a rush of need through me.