Wild Man

by Kristen Ashley

  Okay, weirdly, what Brock said made me feel less freaked out at his wild, angry, unrestrained behavior.

  There was another short pause.

  Then, “Jill, you had a different dad than me. You and Laura, you had a different dad than Levi and me. And now, for years, I’ve been takin’ your back with this shit, even before he got sick. But you gotta get your head outta your ass, woman. No man, even Dad, deserves to die alone, thinking his son has abandoned him. But that’s as far as it goes and you need to get that and you need to show me while I have your back, you have mine and I’ll make this official right fuckin’ now. You have my back, you have Tess’s, and you can read what you want into that and my guess is what you read will be right. Are we clear?”

  Oh my God.

  Did he mean what I thought he meant?

  “Jesus,” Brock clipped. “Uh… yeah. Wake up, Jill. She’s met my fuckin’ boys. In seven years has one woman I’ve been with met my boys, or, for that matter, you?”

  Oh God.

  He meant what I thought he meant.

  I was feeling warm and gushy again.

  “No,” he declared firmly. “Tess will tell you it’s okay because Tess is sweet and she won’t want you to feel bad so, no. You aren’t talkin’ about this with her. You’re listenin’ to me tell you that shit you did wasn’t right. And you know”—his voice dropped—“you know, Jill, from watchin’ Austin, I gotta have this covered for a lifetime. That ghost shadows her, just like Laura. I gotta have this and I gotta know my family has it too. So this is the last we’ll speak of it but before we’re done, I gotta know. Do you have this?”

  A lifetime?

  “Right,” he said quietly. Then, “I’m sorry too. It’s done. We’re movin’ on. Tell your daughters their uncle hasn’t dropped off the face of the earth. They both got cars. They can drive them to my place. Tess will have a cupcake waitin’ for them.” Pause, then, “Right.” Another pause, then, quietly, “Jill, we’re cool. Aren’t we always cool?”

  A moment passed before I watched him tip his head back to look at the ceiling.

  I knew why he did this when he dropped his head to look at his boots and said gently, “Babe, quit cryin’.”

  Oh man.

  I pressed my lips together.

  Then Brock said, “You fucked up. I called you on it. You listened. It’s done and we’re cool, darlin’. Quit fuckin’ cryin’.”

  I was thinking for the first time in my life that I was glad I didn’t have a brother and at the same time contradictorily sadder than normal that I didn’t.

  And I was also thinking it was high time I Skyped my sister.

  Then Brock said, “Right. Me too.” Pause, then, “Fuck, right. I’ll tell her.” Another pause, then, “Me too, darlin’. Later.”

  He snapped his phone shut and looked at me.

  Then he announced, “Seein’ as I now have a woman, I have assignments for Thanksgiving dinner, something, as a guy, I avoided for seven years and something, because my mother and sisters hated my wife, they never gave her the honor. But apparently you’re in charge of dessert and when I say that I mean enough dessert that’ll feed sixteen.”

  My “Okay” came out sounding strangled because I was trying really, really hard not to laugh.

  Brock wasn’t laughing. He was dropping the phone on the coffee table. It clattered but he ignored it because while doing it, his eyes didn’t leave me.

  I would know why when he told me, “I can get pissed and when I do, I’ve learned to let fly. I bury shit, it is not good. So I let fly. But you, Tess, no matter how close you are to me when I flare or what pisses me off, you are never in any danger. I may lose it but I will never lose it in a way that I’ll hurt you. That’s a promise. No man who is a decent man would ever put his hands on a woman or child in anger. And I’m not your average kind of man but I know, even so, I’m a decent man.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “If you do, why are you shoved in a corner?” he asked.

  “Because you freaked me out,” I answered.

  He studied me. Then he sighed.

  Then, softly, he said, “In future, sweetness, I’ll do my best to check that.”

  I stared at him.

  In seven years has one woman I’ve been with met my boys, or, for that matter, you?

  I gotta have this covered for a lifetime.

  In future, sweetness, I’ll do my best to check that.

  He was going to try to change… for me.

  He introduced his sons… to me.

  He took me on knowing, if we went the distance, he’d be helping me battle ghosts for a lifetime.

  On these thoughts, I found my mouth whispering, “You like me.”

  His head jerked and he asked, “What?”

  I didn’t repeat myself. Instead, I said, “I don’t want you to change who you are for me.”

  “Tess—” he started but I shook my head, sat straighter, and interrupted him.

  “I can layer up so I don’t get cold in your truck and I can deal when you get so pissed you throw a beer bottle. I don’t want you to change for me.”

  His head dropped and he looked at his boots but not before I saw his eyes close slowly.

  “You know,” I told the top of his head. It came up and he looked at me. “You walked into my kitchen a month ago and I didn’t want to have one thing to do with you. But when you told me you threw a chair in reaction to learning what happened to me, I knew somewhere I’ve never known with another man that you would never let anything harm me. And wherever that somewhere is, it’s deep and it’s real and after nearly a decade of not feeling safe, not for a day, in that moment in my kitchen I finally did. So now”—I gestured to the couch—“here I am. So if you throw a beer bottle or two or shout the house down, I’ll deal.”

  His eyes held mine for long moments and then his long legs brought him to me in less than a second. I was plucked out of the sofa but right back in it and stretched on top of a Brock “Slim” Lucas who was kissing me harder than he ever kissed me, sweeter than he ever kissed me but unfortunately not longer.

  When he released my lips, I lifted my head, fought for breath, and watched his warm, quicksilver eyes roam my face.

  Then I asked breathily, “So, is this Thanksgiving gig traditional as in pumpkin, apple, and pecan pie or can I get creative?”

  His eyes stopped roaming, locked on mine, and he grinned.

  Then he said, “Do whatever the fuck you wanna do. They’ll eat anything.”

  “Both then,” I muttered musingly and I felt Brock’s body start rocking with laughter under mine.

  Then I felt Brock’s body rocking with laughter over mine because he rolled me to my back while rolling on top of me.

  Then my glasses were no longer on my nose but on the coffee table and I felt Brock’s laughter in my mouth because he was kissing me.

  Then I felt a lot of other things given to me from Brock but none of them had one thing to do with laughter.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Thanksgiving

  A week and a half later…

  “YOU WANNA TELL me, sweetness, how dessert for seventeen people translates into seven pies and two cakes?” Brock asked.

  I watched Rex give Joel a look as we all stood at the trunk of my car and Brock carefully handed out bags filled with cake boxes and stacked pie holders to his sons. Joel caught Rex’s look and they both visibly struggled with quelling their laughter.

  I answered Brock, “I did the calculations.”

  Brock straightened from the trunk with the last bags and slammed it shut.

  Then he looked at me, saying, “You did the calculations.”

  “Yes,” I answered, holding a bundle of flowers, a six pack of bottled Bud, and a bag filled with a tub of Cool Whip, canned whipped cream, a carton of the real stuff not yet whipped, and a gallon of gourmet vanilla bean ice cream

  Brock continued not to move and also continued to stare at me.

  So
I asked, “What?”

  “How many slices do you get out of a pie?” he asked back.

  “That isn’t the point,” I informed him.

  “What is?” he asked me.

  “Well, it’s Thanksgiving and people look forward to it and everyone has something they look forward to about it. So, say you’re looking forward to a piece of pumpkin pie and I only made one pumpkin pie. One pumpkin pie isn’t enough for seventeen people should, even though it’s unlikely but it could happen, all seventeen people want a slice of pumpkin pie. Then, say, you didn’t move fast enough so you didn’t get your piece of pumpkin pie. Think of how disappointed you would be. So I made two pumpkin pies, two pecan pies, and two apple pies, the traditional pies of Thanksgiving. That way everyone can be sure to have what they’re looking forward to.”

  Rex and Joel continued to quell their laughter, however not entirely successfully as I heard snickers.

  Brock continued to stare at me but now he was doing it like he thought I may be a little crazy.

  I kept talking.

  “Then, just in case there are those who wish to venture out of the traditional, I made a maple buttermilk pie, which isn’t traditional but it is autumnal so it fits with the occasion. And there might be those who want a little something different but a taste of traditional so I made a pumpkin cheesecake. And for those who just might be in the mood for cake, I made a crowd pleaser of chocolate with whipped cream frosting.”

  Brock continued to stare at me and now he was doing it like he didn’t have any doubts about the fact that I was crazy.

  “Jeez, Tess, how long did it take to make all this?” Joel asked and I looked to him.

  “Honey, I own a bakery. I do this for a living. Even in my kitchen at home, I whipped all that up in about three hours.”

  This wasn’t true. It took more like five.

  “Awesome,” Rex muttered. “She’s like a cake baking superhero.”

  “And a pie baking one,” Joel added.

  I smiled at the boys, looked back at Brock, and suggested, “Maybe we should go in?”

  “Yeah, and hopefully me and my boys can haul all this in without any of us getting a hernia,” Brock muttered.

  Both his sons lost their battle with their humor and burst out laughing. Eyes to his boys, Brock jerked his chin toward his mother’s house and they started marching.

  I fell in step beside Brock, following them, and heard him say under his breath, “Only I could find a woman who describes pies as ‘autumnal.’ ”

  “Well, how would you describe maple buttermilk pie?” I asked.

  “Babe, I’ve never had maple buttermilk pie but there are only three adjectives to describe any pie and those are bad, okay, and fuckin’ great.”

  “Then it’s good you work in law enforcement and not as a food critic,” I muttered.

  “Yeah, that’s good,” he muttered back and I could hear the smile in his voice.

  I watched Rex walk up his grandmother’s front walk, cautiously carrying the bag with the boxed chocolate cake well away from one side of his body and the one with the cheesecake well away from the other lest they bump into his legs and get jostled. Then my eyes moved to Joel, who had two bags, each with two carefully stacked pies in holders, and he was also cautiously holding his arms away from his body. Then I looked down at Brock’s hands to see he had one bag with three carefully packed pies and another bag with two bottles of wine and a two liter of pop.

  Then I considered the possibility that I might have gone overboard.

  “Maybe I went overboard,” I murmured as we neared the front door.

  “Baby, my calculations say, just with the pies, there are fifty-six pieces open to seventeen people. That’s more than three pieces of pie for each person. And that doesn’t even take into account the cake. I think ‘maybe’ should be deleted from that sentence even if it is Thanksgiving and we can all expect to lapse into a food coma in about three hours.”

  Seeing as neither had free hands and they were treating their baked-goods-carrying responsibilities with paramount importance, neither Joel nor Rex braved knocking on the door, so Joel started shouting, “Grandma! Open up!”

  At this, it hit me that Brock wasn’t wrong.

  Then I found my mouth whispering, “I didn’t want to mess up.”

  To which I heard Brock say softly, “Hey,” and I stopped watching Joel shout (with Rex now accompanying him) and looked up to Brock. His eyes moved over my face then captured mine before he leaned in deep, touched his mouth to mine, pulled back an inch, and murmured, “What am I gonna do with you?”

  “Eat a lot of pie so it doesn’t look ridiculous how many leftovers there are?” I murmured back and he grinned.

  “Scout’s honor, darlin’. I’ll do my best to have your back.”

  I returned his grin and whispered, “Thanks.”

  The door opened and Jill was there.

  A year and a half older than Brock, her hair had started to silver and she let it go at that. She got her mom’s eyes, both her parents’ height (like all her siblings), wasn’t pleasantly rounded like Laura but fit in a sturdy way. She’d been with her partner, Fritz, for twenty years, they’d never married, and they had two daughters named Kalie and Kellie, aged, respectively, eighteen and sixteen.

  I’d been around Jill three times because she came with Laura and/or Fern to my bakery but I had yet to meet Fritz, Kalie, or Kellie. To add to that, Austin, Laura’s husband and Levi, Brock’s brother, would be new additions to my ever-expanding Lucas social network.

  In other words, regardless of the fact that I knew some of them, I didn’t know others so I was more than a little bit nervous, thus my going overboard on dessert.

  “Hey, guys. Welcome to the madhouse,” she greeted, pushing open the storm door and holding it, whereupon Joel and Rex carefully scuttled in sideways, giving their aunt their greetings then disappeared into the house.

  Jill’s eyes went to her brother.

  Then she asked quietly, “How’d you talk the Wicked Witch of the Rockies into relinquishing her offspring for a family holiday?”

  “I didn’t. Tess provided distraction for me in the front while I penetrated the house through a basement window and the boys and I escaped out back. She still doesn’t know they’re gone.”

  Brock said this as we both slipped by her and into the house but I did it smiling because my man was funny.

  Jill closed the door and looked at me muttering, “I wish.”

  Brock finally spoke the truth. “It was my turn, Jill.”

  “The other story is better,” Jill said as she guided us toward the kitchen, and when we hit it, I noticed what a madhouse it was.

  Fern lived in a two-bedroom bungalow with a finished basement in the out, out, outskirts of Washington Park. In other words, she was in my ’hood, though I lived close to Reiver’s Bar and Grill so I was officially in the ’hood while Fern was arguably in it.

  Brock had told me he and his family didn’t grow up in this house but in a much bigger one situated in the Highlands. The house he grew up in was the house Cob had left his family in and he left his family in that house when his wife was a nurse’s aide and didn’t make a lot of money. And he left his wife, who was from Montana and all her family still lived there (to this day), and didn’t provide either financial support or very much of his time to help his wife raise their children and pay the bills and she had no kin close to help her do it.

  Cue Brock and Jill, at very young ages, growing up fast to assume heavy responsibilities as Fern took extra shifts as well as night classes to become an X-ray technician. Then they kept these responsibilities as Fern went on to take classes to become a radiology technician in order to make enough money to keep a roof over the heads and food on the table for her brood, which included two growing strong and tall boys. And always, Fern worked full-time hospital shifts, which meant Brock and Jill never lost these responsibilities but Brock, being the oldest boy, assumed more.

&nb
sp; However, once the kids were out, Brock told me Fern put their big four-bedroom house on the market “two seconds after Laura’s foot left the threshold” (Brock’s words) and downsized.

  Lucky for her, she’d been in that old house for decades. The real estate boom and regeneration in their old neighborhood meant she made a mint on it. This meant she owned outright this cozy, comfortable, easy-to-maintain bungalow that, even small, still managed to look and feel like the definition of Grandma’s House.

  And the big kitchen full of family on Thanksgiving Day screamed it when we walked in and were immediately accosted.

  And I had to say, seeing it, I liked it.

  For about ten minutes.

  Laura swept forward and, with a kiss on her brother’s cheek and a quick hug for me, she divested me of my flowers, the beer, and the bag and swept away at the same time Jill took Brock’s burdens.

  Dylan and Ellie (in another princess dress, this time with pink, sequined mary janes but she’d added a crown adorning her dark locks and I got that, seeing as Thanksgiving was a big occasion, royal headwear was an important accessory), both screeching, attacked Brock’s legs. Grady hung back and played it cool when he greeted his awesome uncle.

  I watched Brock’s big hand give Dylan’s neck a squeeze but he swung Ellie up in his arms to kiss her neck and, this time, tickle her sides so the air rang with her peals of little girl giggles.

  After he was done with that, she turned to me.

  “Are we gonna watch Tangled, Aunt Tess?” she asked.

  I got the title of “Aunt Tess” at the bakery the second time Laura brought the kids in.

  I also liked it.

  “Sure, honey, maybe after we eat.”

  “Yay!” she shrieked, arms straight up in the air, and Brock smiled down at her.