by JL Long
Aria cocks her head to the side.
“Why did you bring them here?”
I don’t know what to say to this.
Benny steps back in.
“Law needed help unpacking some things.”
She takes a few steps back to the door of her car and shakes her head once.
“You tricked me,” she mutters, barely loud enough for any of us to hear.
“No—” I start, but pause when she takes another step backward. I instinctively take a step forward, ready to run after her if I have to.
Ben takes the same step, and she grips the car door.
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“Move in! Move in!” Benny yells to his guys surrounding the place. But there is no way they are quick enough to get to her before she climbs into the car. She’s in and slamming the door shut before I can even reach the hood of the car. Benny’s men get there seconds before I do, and it still was not fast enough.
The locks click, and we are fucked. I think to break the window, but she’s already shifting into gear.
“Fuck!” I roar as she skids forward, then whips around, back down the dirt driveway.
“I fucking knew this was a bad idea!” I shout. “We fuckin’ had her, and instead of moving in the moment she stepped out of the car, you wanted me to bait her with that sick as fuck bullshit.”
“Law, fuck, we couldn’t have just rushed her. The same thing would have happened.”
“You got fucking guns, don’t you?”
Benny tilts his head to the side.
Goddamn it.
He couldn’t have shot her.
No one could have.
It would have been us plastered to the fucking wall, not her.
“Let’s just hope she doesn’t do something drastic now that she’s spooked,” I growl and move toward Ben’s truck. “I need to get home to my wife.”
Benny doesn’t delay in seeing to that.
He’s inches behind me and barreling out of the drive and onto the road in seconds.
When he pulls into the gas station to drop me at my truck, he voices his disdain of the evening.
“This isn’t how I wanted this night to go. We were supposed to get her tonight. We've had a lock on her for a few days now, but wanted to make sure we could move in and not have this exact fucking thing happen. Fuck!" he shouts, then dips his head down. "I let the ball drop. This is what I did for fucking years, and I dropped the ball."
Goddamn it.
I look at him, the anger visible. “I know. I don’t blame you. I would have done the same thing.”
“But that’s what’s fucked. I know better, Lawson. I know what happens when shit goes wrong.”
“Ben, don’t beat yourself up. We’ll get her. Now, I gotta get to Lena.”
He nods, and I hop out of the truck, leaving Benny to wrap his head around the events of tonight alone.
The minute I pull onto our lane, I see the front porch light go on. There goes my fleeting chance of her being in bed. I don’t know why I would have thought she would come home and be able to go to sleep. I’m surprised she even went back home and didn’t keep following Benny and me.
Putting myself in her shoes, I would have done the same thing. I can’t fault her there.
Shifting the truck into park, I climb out and head for the porch.
Once I reach the last step, I stop, turn back around, and sit my ass down. A few seconds go by before Lena does the same.
“I don’t know what happened tonight, but I trust you,” she says after a moment. “I want you to talk to me and feel like you can tell me whatever is going on. I do, however, understand the possible reasons for not wanting to tell me. If you need me, I’m here.” She makes to stand, but I stop her with a hand on her thigh.
I don’t look at her. I keep my attention focused out on the drive. “We had her,” I say.
“Had her?”
“Aria. Ben tracked her. That’s what I was doing tonight.”
“So, it’s over?” she asks.
I shake my head and let out a frustrated sigh. “No. She fucking slipped through our fingers.” I rub my hands up and down the thigh of my jeans to keep myself from leaning over and vomiting. Just uttering those words has that effect on me.
She doesn’t lead in with the question I thought she would.
“Do we have to worry even more now?”
“Keep your guard up.”
I see her nod out the corner of my eye.
“I need to know you are safe,” she whispers, as if she didn’t mean to say it out loud.
“And I need to know you are safe.”
She sighs.
I turn toward hers. “You and London are my entire life, Selena. I will do anything, and I fucking mean anything, to make sure my girls are protected. Shit didn’t go as planned tonight, but rest assured, baby, this shit will end.”
She levels her eyes on me. “What if you can’t?”
I suck in a breath, but she shakes her head before I can respond.
“No. I don’t mean that like we,” she swings her arms back and forth between us, “can’t beat this. I mean, what if it’s not supposed to be you who does it. Maybe it’s me who is supposed to defeat Aria.”
I give no thought to this. There is no goddamn chance I would ever allow my wife to step foot in front of danger to protect me. That shit will always, until the end of goddamn time, be my fucking job.
I shake my head. “Absolutely not,” I declare.
Frustrated with my declaration, she rolls her eyes. “Dammit, Lawson, I can’t just sit back and watch all of this unfold.”
“Why the fuck not? Do you remember the vows we said to each other almost seven years ago?”
She nods. “But—”
I give a curt shake of my head, stopping her. “I vowed I’d never leave you in the dark alone. I’d never leave you weak. I’d never leave you without a voice. I am your protector. I don’t care how goddamn medieval that sounds, it’s true. I will fight your fight. I will slay your demons. Because that is why I was put on this earth. You are my forever, and nothing will stop me from having that.”
“What about me?” she asks.
“What about you?”
“My duty as your wife is to protect you as well. How can I do that if you don’t tell me what’s going on?”
“That’s not your job,” I tell her. I probably should have chosen my words better, but fuck.
She tilts her head to the side, her lips pursed as she narrows her eyes. “Excuse me?”
“It’s not your job to protect me.”
Her eyes now widen. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Lena, baby, this isn’t the goddamn point. The point is so long as I’m still walking this earth, I will do everything in my power to beat back anything that tries to tarnish you in any way.”
“I get that. But what I am trying to say is I have your back. We are equals in this marriage. When you fight, I fight. You can’t take on everything on your own.”
I raise an eyebrow and counter, “Wanna bet?”
That gets me an eye roll. “Can you just listen to me for a minute?” Her voice rises as she slaps her legs, her show of her anger seeping out of control. “This is our mess. This is our gosh darn fight. Why can’t I have your back?”
“You do.”
“Yeah, but not in the way a wife should have her husband’s back. I had no idea what was happening tonight. I didn’t know where you were and then you’re angry with me because I followed you. What would you have done if that was me?” She doesn’t give me time to answer. “You would have done the same thing I did.” I go to cut her off, but she holds up a finger. “I’m talking. You and me, right? So why don’t I know half the shit that has happened? Why have I been blindsided by every situation in this goddamn mess Aria threw us in? That’s not a team, that’s not a partnership, Lawson. That’s just you.”
I’m losing my hold on my temper.
“Lena…”<
br />
“No, I don’t want to hear some macho man bull crap. I want to know what’s going on. I know I just said I respect your reasons for not telling me, but fuck that. This crazy woman wants to end my life, I want to know what she’s doing, what she has planned. I deserve to know that.”
Fuck.
I stand from the porch and walk out a few paces.
“I deserve to know, Lawson,” Lena murmurs.
I swing back around, my control gone. "You want to know what happened? You want to know why I haven't told you what was placed on this very porch a night ago? She made a fucking scrapbook album of her, me, and London. She took pictures of us and cropped herself into some. Others she left just London and me. That's the sick kind of shit she's doing. That's the fucking shit I am shielding you from." Her head dips down, but my temper is too far gone to have sympathy now. "She's been holing up in a shitty little shack about six miles north of town. The place has nothing in it except a bed and one fucking chair. There's no record of this woman after she sent a man to our home," I throw my hand out, pointing to our house, "to attack you. But in three days, we got a lock on her. We fucking found her. The goddamn sheriff hasn't even gotten close to any information like that, so yeah, Selena, I've kept shit from you because it's my goddamn duty to protect you. I'm not going to have you lay your head down at night with images of a fucking book running through your head." I take a step toward her, and her attention comes back to me. The hurt that washes over her face gives me pause, depleting my anger. "I don't want you living the rest of your life with these images burned in your brain. I will take that shit on, because I am your husband, but more than that, I love you, and this is my way of protecting you."
She takes a deep breath in, holds it for a moment, and then lets it come back out with a whoosh. “I don’t want to fight,” she whispers.
"Get that, baby, because I'm right there with you. I don't want to keep having these same arguments. I just need you to understand if I am keeping something from you it's not because I'm hiding it. It's because I don't want that shit on you."
She closes her eyes, opens her mouth to speak, and then her eyes follow, and she looks back to me. “Okay, I can handle that. But in those moments, can you please just tell me that? Don’t try to evade the topic.”
I nod my head. “I can do that.”
Lena stands, and I close the distance between us. Hooking my hand with hers, I lead her up the steps and into our house.
“You hungry?” she asks. The hurt washes away from her face as she steps back into the role of dutiful wife.
“It’s late, babe, just want to hit the sack and get some sleep.”
She nods and moves toward the living room, by my guess, to shut down the house. I turn back to the door, close and lock it. Then I turn to enable the security system. We meet each other at the stairwell.
We aren’t perfect, and we never will be, but right now, I’m glad I’ve got my Lena back. The one who will stand up to me and give me what she's thinking. Whether we do that pissed at each other or not, it's better than her keeping this shit locked up inside. We got it off our chests, and now we can go to bed knowing we are one step closer to this shit not rattling as badly.
Because everything is temporary.
With each step she takes, my heart pounds in my chest. Seeing her in a beautiful satin gown takes me back to a time when she was walking down the aisle to me seven years ago tomorrow. The only difference now is the gown is a royal blue instead of white, and she's holding the hand of our perfectly gorgeous little girl.
London is wearing the same color dress, but she has little frills and flowers on her gown.
A smile stretches across my face, and my heart warms in my chest as they make their way down the stairs.
“Daddy!” London yells from two feet away.
“London!” I shout back just as excitedly.
“We look gaaawwwwgeous,” she over exaggerates, and the smile already on my face gets bigger. This is the life any man would dream of, and if he doesn’t, he’s stupid for not wanting this.
“The most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen,” I reply.
When she is steps away from me, she shakes her head. "I am a woman, Daddy," she declares, then flips her hair with her hand like only a little girl with major attitude would do.
God bless the man who marries her one day.
“All right, you are the most beautiful women I have ever seen,” I amend.
She beams up at me, and I move my eyes from London, who immediately darts to the kitchen, to Lena. She is taking in our exchange with a playful smile on her face. I cock an eyebrow. "She's a woman, didn't you know?"
Lena tries to keep back the laughter bubbling up, but fails. “Only every five minutes while I was doing her hair.”
“Come here,” I tell her.
It’s her turn to cock an eyebrow. “Don’t you even dare.”
“What?” I ask playfully.
"You'll mess up my makeup, and then we’ll be late.”
“You can’t expect me to wait all night to give you a kiss.”
“I can, and I do.”
“Come here,” I say a little sterner.
She purses her lips. “Nope, don’t think I will.”
Fucking stubborn.
“Selena…”
“A kiss, Lawson. One.” She holds one finger up, indicating just how serious she is.
I nod, giving her my approval, though she never said what kind of kiss, now did she?
She takes one step closer to me, and before she can move further, I reach out for her hand and pull her the rest of the way to me. My hand grasping hers lets go and slides around to her back just above her ass. My other hand moves to the nape of her neck. My lips are a breath away from hers. “So fucking beautiful.”
“Don’t tell me lies just to get in my pants, Mr. Brennan,” she jokes.
My hand lowers and squeezes her ass. “But I am gettin’ in your pants, right?”
She smacks my shoulder. “Don’t you always?”
I give her a devilish grin.
“Are you going to kiss me or wh—” I don’t let her finish before my lips are on hers. I don’t take the kiss I want, I give it to her tender and slow—a sensual kiss that doesn’t last nearly as long as I’d like it too. But like she said, I would ruin her makeup, and she'd spend the next hour in the bathroom fixing it.
I don’t want to delay getting my wife back home and in our bed any longer.
Truth be told I wanted to skip this year's anniversary bash. The unpredictability of Aria and then just having people in and out of the shop is way too unsecured for my liking.
I pull back, breaking our connection. “Better get going, yeah?”
She nods and then steps back.
“Lonnie, baby, you ready?” I ask as I make my way into the kitchen. I roll my eyes the minute I see what she is doing. She has a piece of cheese hanging from her mouth and another piece dangling from her fingers. “Don’t feed that to the dog,” I tell her.
“Why not?” she mumbles through a mouthful.
"Honey," Lena interjects. "We talked about this. The dog can't have our kind of food. It'll make him sick. Mom doesn't want to clean up dog barf when I get home."
London huffs but concedes.
"Then I'm ready," she says as she shoves the other piece of cheese into her mouth. The girls head for the door, and I get Ollie rounded up and put him in his kennel.
Ten minutes later, we are pulling into the parking lot at Skin Deep. Lena had spent the day prior and this morning arranging everything. From tables to decorations. She does this every single year, and every single year, I tell her she should just hire someone. However, I know she gets a kick out of doing it herself. The moment we walk into the shop, I take in the smile that spreads across her face. She created something magical in her eyes. Was able to walk outside the normal every day mundane, put on an elegant gown on, do her hair up, and become something different—the princess in her own f
airytale. Who am I to deny that?
I’m not.
I might be a shit husband, but giving her something like this is priceless to me. This is what it’s all about. Seeing that smile on her face.
I pull her to my side and take in the building. The tables are set up on the outer walls, creating a path in the middle for gathering. There are fancy ass paper lights that look like big globs she handmade the first year we put this party on, and has used every year since, decorating the tables and hanging from the ceiling. The overhead lights are on, but only the front and back ceiling ones, so it gives it that “romantic feel”—her words, not mine. Lowering my head to her ear, I whisper, “You did good, baby.” Her body, already softening into me, does so even further.
“Thank you,” she says just as low.
“Mommy!” London yells from the snack table positioned in the back of the room. “Can I eat this stuff?”
I chuckle. I swear all that little girl does is eat.
“No, baby, you can’t eat those yet. Those are for the guests.”
London rolls her eyes, but concedes. She skips off to the playroom Lena setup in the breakroom of the shop.
“It amazes me every year that you can pull this off.” Her body sags further into me.
“It wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for you and Benny helping me move all the chairs out.”
“Hard work always pays off, baby.” I look down at her just in time to see a small smile splay across her mouth.
“Can you guys go an hour without being so gross with your lovey shit?” Carolina mutters as she walks through the front door.
“No, we can’t,” I say as I lean in and kiss the top of Lena’s head. I release her and move to the improvised bar.
“Jesus Christ, that woman is a goddamn mess,” Benny declares as he comes to stand next to me. I give him a shit-eating grinning, knowing all too well how much of a mess Carolina is right now. Leaning over the bar, I open the cooler where I know the hired bartender has placed the cold beer. I grab one, hand it to Ben, and reach back in to grab another for myself.
“She’s a good woman, just gotta sort her shit out.”
