Enforcer: (Boneyard Brotherhood MC Romance Book 2)

by Amber Burns

My one downstairs bathroom had a large bath, a very old Victorian Porcelain tub, and we stumbled giggling down the passage toward that bathroom to go and clean off. Lying in the tub with her back to my chest was blissful, and I reached for a bottle to pour shampoo into my hands. I sat there, lathering it into her hair, and massaging her scalp. We soaked until the water got cold, and then dressed in some of my T-shirts and track pants.

  “I want you to meet my dad this week, would you like to come over to dinner at my place?” She asked me later as we sat on the couch with fresh mugs of coffee cradled in our hands.

  I nodded, “Just tell me which night and what to bring and I’ll be there.”

  She snuggled back into me, and just then a storm started rumbling in the distance.

  “We can do Tuesday evening if that suits you?” She said softly, “Maybe six o’ clock?”

  I happily agreed. We were both startled when we got pounced on with the sound of the next thunderclap and Armand landed right on Anna’s head.

  “Hey kitty, easy there!”

  He was meowing frantically and soaking wet.

  “I didn’t realize it was raining,” she said, picking up a loose throw to rub him dry with. “It’s not, smell him, it’s bathwater. He must have fallen in the bath, we never emptied it.”

  We laughed at the little thing and cuddled him with us, opening the curtains to watch the lightning out over the sea. The tourist season was coming to a close and the stormy weather would be picking up again now.

  “Anna, is this what normal feels like? I mean, happiness?” I asked, my arm around her and the kitten purring on her lap.

  She glanced at me, and then looked back out through the window.

  “Haven’t you ever just felt content with something like this?”

  I didn’t know how to answer her.

  “I don’t know how I have felt in the past, but I’ve never had something like this.”

  “Michel, will you tell me everything about your past please? Not now, but when you are ready, because I want to know what makes you not know what happiness is,” she murmured as she lay there against my shoulder.

  It started to get very late, and though I was wide awake, I heard her deep and even breathing against me, so I gently picked her up in my arms. Armand was still sleeping soundly on her belly and carried them both to bed. She mumbled something and turned her head into my shoulder as I walked down the passage, and the kitten started purring on her. I couldn’t help but smile. This was exactly what happiness was to me, this is probably what I have wanted my entire life without knowing it, and at that point this was exactly what I wanted for the rest of my life.

  Meeting Annabelle’s father was a pleasant surprise, he was a white-haired man in his sixties, and very cheerful. We sat around the dinner table after she had introduced me when I arrived, and chatted amiably as she set a roast chicken and bowl of mashed potatoes, peas and carrots and fresh bread rolls on the table.

  “So Michel, what do you do for a living?” He asked, dishing up a hearty plate of food.

  “Well, Roy, at this stage I haven’t quite figured that out. My inheritance sustains me and I have fixed up the house I got with that, so now I need to find what makes me happy. I have my boat, but she needs some tender loving care, and then I might do a couple of fishing tours, or trips around the lagoon. I am happy on the water.”

  I chewed on a piece of the juicy chicken. His eyes lit up at the mention of the boat, and Annabelle chuckled.

  “Oh now you have your hands full, my dad loves fishing.”

  After a momentary hesitation and glance between us two, she added.

  “Quite possibly more than he loves me.”

  Roy shook his head.

  “Never Annabelle, but if you need help on that there boat of yours Michel, I’d love to give you a hand. I used to have one until I had to sell it to help pay for the treatments for my wife’s sickness…”

  He trailed off, looked down at his food and ate the rest of the meal in an odd melancholy mood. While I ate, I realized what I wanted to do with the bag of money in my cupboard, and this one I wasn’t going to discuss with Anna, it was my decision and she would probably try and stop me.

  “Why don’t we take the Mary Jane out for a bit of fishing over the weekend Roy? Would you come and join me?” I asked.

  The older man’s face lit up and he looked ten years younger in an instant.

  “Annabelle, would you manage the store? Maybe Sunday?”

  He looked to her. She shook her head.

  “Of course I will, Michel, you’re creating a monster…” She winked at me.

  While Roy and I had coffee after the amazing dinner, she cleared the table and I heard her moving about in the kitchen and dining room.

  “Shouldn’t I go and help her Roy?” I asked.

  He smiled, and said, “No, her mother did this too. It’s a Smith woman thing, believe it or not, she enjoys clearing up and will join us just as soon as she’s done. So, tell me about your time in Afghan, I served time in France, during World War two. I am amazed I made it home some days.”

  We talked a while, and when Annabelle came through with her own coffee, changed the subject to more pleasant things, preparing houses for storm season.

  “Are you putting up big shutters?” He asked me.

  Now, I had no idea how intense things got out here, so exposed, and I told him. He made his recommendations and I suggested we perhaps shop together to save some money.

  “I have spare shutters for you Michel, just come pick them up,” he said.

  He stood, and excused himself.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to be getting myself home, this body’s tired.”

  He kissed Anna goodbye and strolled across her yard through the small gate to his own house just next door. Annabelle hugged me tightly as we stood on her porch.

  “I hate to do this, but I kind of need an early night too, I am tutoring at the University tomorrow.”

  She kissed me, her arms around my neck, and then I went to fetch my jacket, and took a walk along the beach home.

  “I’ll let you sleep this time,” I called over my shoulder.

  With the weather turning, there were storms on an almost nightly basis now, and I watched the sheet lightning in the clouds overhead now. I was looking forward to spending time with Roy, he seemed nice. It would be good to have another person to talk to. I walked up the steps, and as I opened the door, Armand flew up my jeans and draped himself over my shoulder.

  “Hey kitty, what have you been up to?”

  I walked through to my pantry cupboard to fetch the bag of cash and took it to my bedroom. I needed to count it and sort it neatly. Also, it needed to be better presented than in a duffel bag, this just looked dodgy.

  10

  Roy took to being on the Mary Jane like a fish to water, and I fired up the motors, taking her just outside the lagoon. I was weary of the weather, and not keen to stray too far from safety. We anchored and cracked open a couple of cold beers once our lines were in the water.

  “So Michel, what are your plans with my only daughter?” He said, leaning back against the rail.

  Well that was unexpected.

  “Funny thing Roy, that discussion is exactly the reason I brought you out here today.”

  “Roy, I know Annabelle and I haven’t known each other for a very long time, but I fell in love with that girl even before I first spoke to her.”

  When he frowned I continued.

  “She walks along the beach every evening, and I used to watch her, I didn’t even know who she was. I called her mermaid. She always looks so sad staring out at the water. Anyway, the point to my bringing up the subject is, I want to marry her Roy, and my Uncle brought me up to have good manners, I want your blessing first. May I marry your daughter?”

  There, I’d said it. The man’s eyes widened.

  “You are aware of the situation with her ex?” He asked softly.

  I nodded, “S
he did tell me a bit of it yes.” I knew it was going to be hard for him to trust someone with her again after that, probably as hard as it would be for her to trust a man again too. “Roy, I have no intention of hurting her, ever.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me.

  “You’re telling the truth, I can tell. But I can also tell you have a past, and I don’t want your past screw-ups to come back and bite my little girl in the rear okay?”

  I felt like I was being scolded by a school teacher, he was serious about this, and I got it. I would be too if I had a daughter like Annabelle. Roy smiled at me then.

  “I have her mother’s wedding and engagement rings still, and I know it would mean a lot to Anna to have them. I know you young people all want everything new, so this is not a demand, but if you would like it… I know it would mean so much to her if you gave them to her…” He trailed off and wiped at his face.

  I smiled at him, “I would like to do that, very much.”

  We started making our way slowly back to shore with nothing to show for our fishing efforts, but the most important discussion a man could ever have in his life was now out of my way. I walked Roy back to his house, and that very same day he handed me the small velvet ring box that contained Anna’s mother’s rings. Roy saw me to the door and just before I left he looked up at the sky.

  “Hurricane season’s close,” he murmured and then waved me off and turned to go back inside.

  His reminder about hurricane season put the fear of God in me, and I spent the next week readying my house to take a pounding. Armand followed me everywhere meowing loudly and rubbing against my ankles every time I stopped moving for long enough. My shutters were soon up, stairs onto the beach re-enforced, and the garage roof, which had been leaking, repaired. I stocked up with bottled water and enough food should anything serious happen, and made sure I had stuff for the little fur-body too.

  I helped Annabelle with her house, and also got Roy’s shutters up. The physical work was good, and I soon lost the little paunch I had gained, my muscles growing strong again. Throughout this, Anna watched from the porch as I worked, thinking I did not catch her furtive glances. I fell in love with her cooking, and also showed her I had skills in the kitchen. She tutored her art classes, and also painted at home, her work getting sunnier and brighter as the days passed.

  I had the perfect way to proposal planned out, and I was merely waiting for the right moment to do it, which arrived a few weeks later once all the holiday makers had once again left Crystal Beach. Peace was restored, and my plan formed as I stood on her porch after doing a few basic repairs one day. On this same day I had also happened to notice how close her house was to the beach, much more so than mine. The fact niggled at me with the storm season here, and the threat of hurricanes hanging over us, but I put those thoughts aside, thinking of happier things.

  ***

  Annabelle brushed the hair from her face and stood from where she had been curled up on the bed reading. She placed her book on the bed and stretched like a cat, as she was about to go and run a bath there was a knock on the door. She was not expecting anyone, and pulled a soft woolen jersey from the cupboard before heading down the stairs to cover up the thin vest she wore.

  Annabelle was surprised to find Michel standing outside her door, a bunch of stargazer lilies in his hands. He was standing side-on to the door, and she took the opportunity to admire his build. He had gotten strong from manual work around the house, and she had watched him help with her father’s home as well as her own. She turned the doorknob and he jumped, nervously facing her.

  “Hi,” Michel said, running a hand through his hair, which he had cut a bit shorter.

  Annabelle narrowed her eyes at him, he was up to something.

  “Hi yourself handsome,” she stretched up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “What’s up? We didn’t have plans tonight did we?”

  He shook his head.

  “No, but I was wondering if you’d come for a walk with me? Oh, and I’ve brought these for you, I thought you’d like them.”

  “Sure, that would be really nice actually, I’ve been inside most of the afternoon.”

  She took the flowers from him and placed them in a vase before deeply inhaling the intoxicating scent of the lilies.

  “They are truly one of the loveliest flowers, are they not?” she whispered into the bunch.

  When that was done, they left the house, and Annabelle turned her face to the sky as she took Michel’s hand when she stepped off the porch. The clouds lay in a thick bank to the South, almost touching the horizon, and black as night at this early hour.

  “I think we are in for a mean storm,” Annabelle commented.

  “I will keep you safe mermaid,” he chuckled next to her as they strolled along the hard sand at the water’s edge.

  She breathed deeply the scent of the ocean as it mingled with the smell of his cologne where her head touched his shoulder. They were nearing his house when she caught sight of a bonfire on the sand.

  “Michel, somebody made a fire near your house, look.”

  She pointed to the flames. He lifted her hand to his lips to kiss her fingers.

  “I built it before I came to get you, I put out some wine for us too,” he said, his mouth still against her hand.

  When they got closer Annabelle saw the basket and champagne glasses, and two cushions on a blanket. She watched Michel turned to face her, reached into his pocket and brought out a small velvet-covered box and got down on one knee. She clapped her hands over her mouth when she recognized her mother’s ring box and shook her head.

  “I don’t believe this is happening. Are you?”

  She didn’t get to finish as he started speaking.

  “Annabelle Smith, would you fulfill the cliché and make me the happiest man alive by agreeing to marry me? I promise to never leave you, where I go I’ll take you, or where you need to be I will follow. I’ll care for both you and your father, and I will do so in happy times or in sad.”

  He said these things while looking her dead in the eye, and as her father did, she knew he was telling the truth. Annabelle nodded.

  “I will, yes.”

  Michel jumped to his feet and grabbed her in his arms, swinging her in a circle around him, and as his lips met hers the first clap of thunder sounded in the distance and the entire beach was lit by blue-white lightning from end to end. Annabelle jumped in his arms and then giggled, and they parted so that Michel could reach into the ring box and take out the solitaire diamond that sat there on a yellow gold band.

  “We can get a different one if you want, but your father thought this would have sentimental value to you.”

  Tears had filled her eyes when she’d noticed it was really her mother’s ring, and she shook her head as these tears now ran down her cheeks in rivulets.

  “This is perfect, I don’t want anything else.”

  The first big raindrops started falling, and they were torn from their dreamy state. They both scattered to gather the cushions, blanket and basket, running for the porch of his house as the heavens opened. When they stood breathless under cover of the roof, with the goods on the ground around them, Michel pulled Annabelle into his arms.

  “Kiss me fiancé.”

  She did, she kissed him with an abandon she had not yet allowed herself to feel with him, and it felt good. Annabelle looked out at the beach when he released her, and uttered a sigh.

  “I’m stranded here, this is not weather that’s going to let up anytime soon.”

  They took the blanket and pillows inside, and Michel poured champagne that they took with them, and they sat out under the canopy of fairy lights to enjoy it while the weather raged.

  11

  I was woken from peaceful and deep sleep by the sound of the wind howling around the sides of the house, and when I sat up on the side of my bed after shifting Anna from my arms, I felt the house shake under my feet. She stirred in her sleep, and I moved off the bed to look out thro
ugh the window, at which point a clap of thunder shook the house again, and Anna leapt up.

  “Michel? Where are you?” She called in a panicky voice.

  I reached for her in the dark and touched her hand.

  “I’m right here Anna, stay where you are, I am going to close the storm shutters before this wind breaks the windows.”

  I grabbed a pair of shoes and shoved my feet into them, and ran for the front door. The door nearly threw me off my feet when I unlatched it, and the rain lashed down sideways against me as I moved from window to window securing the steel shutters over them.