Wait: The Brazen Bulls Beginning

by Susan Fanetti

  “Look at me, Mo.” He let one hand go and lifted her chin. God, he was hurting her so badly, and he’d promised he never would. His own tears surged up his throat and blurred his eyes, and he forced them back down. “You say there’s nothing I can do to make you stop loving me. Is that true?”

  A fresh burst of tears as she nodded.

  His heart was in shreds.

  “Now’s the time to prove it, Irish. Marry me. Right now, before I go. Let me take that with me, to know you’re waiting. And let me take care of you while you are.”

  Wailing now, she curled over onto herself, like she was trying to disappear. Brian couldn’t think of anything else to do but curl his body over hers, as if he could protect her from this pain of his own making.

  “Please, Mo. Please marry me. Please wait for me. Please love me.”

  She twisted herself up and around him, coiling her body around his until she was in his lap and holding him desperately close. “I do,” she sobbed. “I will.”

  ~oOo~

  After they’d calmed enough to talk seriously for a few minutes and make a heartbroken plan, Brian left. Mo was shattered and wanted to be alone, and he yet faced breaking the news to his family.

  Faye and Lenny each took it about like he’d thought they would. Faye sobbed and locked herself and the baby in the master bedroom, and Lenny sat with him for an hour, trying to understand.

  They were still at the kitchen table when the doorbell rang.

  Brian went to answer it, and was somehow not surprised at all to see Dave Quinn standing there, looking like two hundred and fifty pounds of pure murder.

  “Hi, Dave,” he said.

  Mo’s uncle punched him in the face.

  The blow sent Brian sprawling, and he landed on his ass on the front hall rug.

  “Hey!” Lenny yelled as Dave stormed in to continue the beating. “Dave, stop!”

  “It’s okay, Len,” Brian said, pushing his brother-in-law’s help away as he struggled to his feet.

  “I believe we once had a wee chat about how I’d take it if you hurt my girl,” Dave growled. He grabbed Brian’s shirt and dragged him out to the front lawn. He hurled him with such force that Brian stumbled and landed on his ass again. His t-shirt ripped almost straight down the center, and his dog tags swung through the gap.

  “Get your arse up!”

  Brian got to his feet. “I’m not gonna fight you, Dave.”

  Dave punched him in the gut this time. Brian coughed out all his air and nearly his dinner as well.

  “You think I’m out here lookin’ to fight you? No, lad, I mean to beat you bloody.” Dave hit him with a combination, the jab connecting with his cheek and the uppercut catching his chin. The man knew how to fight, and would have fared well in the bare-knuckle ring. He was also about eighty pounds heavier and four or five inches taller. Brian flew backward again, landing hard on the grass—and a few rocks as well. Now the ability to breathe was a thing of the past. He lay where he was, trying and failing to draw air into his lungs. His head swam. His face was swelling already, and his mouth was full of blood.

  “You’re gonna kill him!” Lenny shouted, and there was a scuffle out of range of Brian’s dimming sight.

  Then hands were grabbing him, pulling him back to his feet. Lenny said, “Jesus, Bri. Jesus!”

  “I’m okay,” Brian gasped. He tried to blink, but his eyes were not under his control.

  “You are not!”

  A large, angry blur stalked up, and Lenny turned to put himself between it and Brian.

  “Enough!”

  “You will marry her,” Dave growled. “She wants you, and I can’t seem to make her see reason, so you will give her this one thing before you go, and if you don’t come back to her, if you leave my poor wee lass in even greater sorrow, I will go every day for the rest of my life to the place you’re buried and piss on your head.”

  ~oOo~

  There wasn’t enough time for a Catholic wedding—yet another strike against him in her family’s book—so Mo and Brian were married at the Cleveland County Courthouse two days before he was to report for duty. The day was cold and grey, threatening rain and occasionally making good on the threat.

  The bride wore a white lace dress that skimmed her knees and covered her arms, with a plain white satin ribbon holding her beautiful hair back from her face. She held a bouquet of red sweetheart roses the groom had bought at a shop on the way to pick her up.

  The groom wore his one civilian suit, and a host of healing but still vivid cuts and bruises. They were attended by only their closest family. They exchanged gold bands. The groom’s was thick and plain. The bride’s had diamond chips dotting the gold all around. The groom hadn’t bought her an engagement ring, so he wanted her wedding ring to have some class.

  When the judge pronounced them man and wife and the groom turned to kiss his bride, the new Mrs. Brian Delaney burst into tears.

  ~oOo~

  After a funereal family dinner at a local steakhouse, Brian drove Mo off to the Prairie View Cabin Lodge, the place he’d taken her for their first time. Night had brought a heavier cold and turned the rain to sleet. The road was slick, and Brian leaned forward, focused on the road.

  Mo hadn’t said much all day, and now she leaned against the side window, staring out at the dark.

  He had been selfish. He should have gone without forging this bond. He should have let her have the clean break he’d always meant her to have.

  But he needed to know she’d be waiting for him. He needed her here to come back to, a hope to hang his humanity on.

  When they got to the cabins and Brian pulled up at the office, she didn’t move.

  He set his hand on her thigh. She’d changed from her pretty dress before dinner and was now in jeans and a striped turtleneck sweater under her wool coat. “Stay here in the warm. I’ll be right back.”

  She nodded without turning from the window.

  In the office, the attendant gave his battered face a suspicious squint, but didn’t make a comment. Brian asked for the same cabin they’d had before, but it was already occupied, so he took another one that the attendant said was identical.

  Key in hand, room paid for the night—their first full night together—Brian went back to the truck, to his new bride who hadn’t moved, and drove to their cabin.

  At the door, as he put the key in the lock, he flashed back to that night a year and a half ago.

  “You’re really sure about this?”

  “First, you see the irony in the man who won’t take yes for an answer insisting what a big scary lad he is, aye? And second, ask again and get a kick in the arse. I’m sure!”

  Did she think he was scary now, with a better sense of how badly he could, and would, hurt her?

  He turned the lock and opened the door. When he held it open, Mo crossed the threshold first.

  The room was identical, but in reverse. Brian set the key on the dresser and put Mo’s little overnight case beside it. He took off his coat and set it in a fold on the other side of the long dresser.

  In the mirror on the wall, he saw her reflection shed her coat and drop it onto the small armchair beside the window.

  Then she simply stood there, her head tipped as if she found something fascinating about the damask roses in the upholstery.

  Brian went to stand behind her. It wasn’t the chair she was studying, it was her new ring.

  When he brushed her hair off her shoulders, smoothing it straight down her back, and closed his arms around her waist, she sighed.

  “Everything’s backwards.” They were the first words she’d said in more than an hour.

  “The room? I know.”

  “Not the room. Us. Everything.”

  “Are you sorry we did what we did today?”

  When she shook her head, Brian let go of a long-held breath.

  “But it’s backward. Marrying you was supposed to be the beginning, not the end.”

  He tugged gently on
her arm, wanting her to face him, but she resisted, and he didn’t force her. Instead, he wrapped her up close again and tucked his head at her shoulder.

  “It’s not the end, Mo. I’m gonna be back. I promise.”

  “Don’t make a promise like that. You know it’s empty.”

  “It’s not. I’ll be back.”

  Now she turned to face him on her own power, and lifted her sharp blue eyes. There was no sign of tears; she hadn’t cried again since he’d kissed her, standing before the judge.

  “How many friends have died there, Brian? How many died while you were there before, and since you’ve been home?”

  He didn’t answer. He could have—he knew the exact count—but the number would both frighten her and make her point. This was their wedding night, and he didn’t want to consider the odds of keeping his promise.

  “I’ll be back. You’ll be waiting, so I’ll be back.” The promise wasn’t empty; it was full of his need and love and guilt.

  But he’d already broken one promise sincerely made. The promise never to hurt her.

  Her chest rose again with another great, weary sigh. “I love you, Brian Patrick Delaney. Loving you might well break me in two, but both halves will still love you.”

  “And that love is gonna bring me home.” Before she could say more, he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.

  Mo had an amazing mouth. Beautifully shaped, full, soft lips; straight pearly teeth; and just the slightest hint of an underbite, which made her look always like she’d set her jaw for a challenge. Every time Brian kissed her, even now, after all this time together, his breath caught and his head spun. From the most chaste peck in front of her family to a wild clash in the midst of sex, every kiss between them was a thrill.

  This kiss, he took slowly. He brushed his lips over hers, just barely touching. The bruises from Dave’s beating were still a little tender, and his cuts were not fully healed, but it was her pain, not his, keeping his pace slow.

  They had a full night together, their first. It was their wedding night. She was his wife now. He wanted to ease her from her melancholy and give her a beautiful wedding night. He wanted her to feel joy.

  So he moved slowly, brushed soft kisses over her sweet lips, over her silky cheek, her challenging jaw. He sucked at her earlobe and the small gold hoop there. He nuzzled in her lush hair. Her turtleneck stopped his progress, so he worked his way back to her mouth.

  When he got there, she was waiting. She opened for him, and her arms finally twined around his waist. In his arms, her body softened, and when he pushed his tongue into her mouth, she moaned.

  “My girl,” he muttered against her lips.

  “Your wife,” she corrected in a whisper.

  “Maureen Aoife Quinn Delaney.”

  “Just Mo. Mo Delaney.”

  He kissed her, and the need to be slow sailed away on her moans. Keeping full possession of her wonderful mouth, Brian pushed her arms up, over her head, giving her wrists a squeeze to let her know he wanted her to keep them there. Then he tugged on her top, pulling it from her jeans, and pulled it up, only freeing her from his kiss when he had no choice. He tugged the turtleneck over her head, careful not to pull too hard, and cast it away as she shook her head so her hair fell like a curtain over her shoulders.

  Her hands came to his chest, and Brian watched her pretty fingers, the nails painted for the first time in his knowing, in a frosty pink, unfasten the buttons of his shirt. When it was open, he shrugged it away, and he let Mo lift his t-shirt off, catching his dog tags when they tangled in the fabric.

  She tossed the t-shirt away and then put her hand over his, where he still held the tags.

  “Take them off.”

  “Mo …” She knew he never took them off. Not since he’d first put them on, years ago. When they’d operated on him, somebody must have removed them, but they’d been around his neck again when he’d woken after.

  He let go of the tags, taking her hand with him, but she pulled free and got hold of them herself.

  “I want them off. Tonight of all nights, I don’t want them between us.” She gave them a spiteful shake. “These wee things’ve been between us every day, they’re taking you away from me, but tonight, I want them gone.” Her eyes met his, and her jaw set. “Set them aside, husband. Tonight, for once, I get every last bit of you.”

  Mo was right; the war still had part of him, and it was about to get the rest of him. Not being a fool, Brian understood that his inability to take them off, nearly two years after he’d come home, was a sign of something wrong in him.

  They identified him. Defined him.

  The thought pushed a shot of adrenaline into his blood, but he owed her this small thing. At least this. “Go ahead.”

  She released them. They jingled softly as they settled back to place on his chest. “No. You have to do it.”

  His gaze locked with hers, his jaw set like hers, Brian grasped the tags in a hand that shook, and lifted their chain over his head. They left a strange weight behind, like a pain, a burning loss, but he’d managed to get them off.

  He held them out to her on the flat of his palm. Her brow furrowed in distaste, Mo picked them up, and Brian expected her to do something violent, to hurl them across the room, or drop them to the floor and stomp them.

  But she walked away. Holding them gingerly on her open hand, she carried them to the dresser and set them there, beside the blue plastic fob of the cabin key. She set the tags on the sleek, fake-walnut finish and coiled the chain neatly around them. She stayed there, staring down at those little bits of metal. So cheap, and so costly.

  Brian followed and stood behind her. She lifted her head and faced his reflection in the mirror. Watching her watch him, he unhooked her bra and drew the straps off her shoulders.

  When he tossed the bra away, before he could touch her the way he wanted, she turned and set her hands on his bare chest, smoothing her palms over the place the tags always lay, then swooping up, following the phantom path of the chain over his chest and around his neck. He could still feel it, could feel the beads between his skin and hers even now. Then she leaned in and pressed her mouth to the center of his chest. He felt her tongue over that part of him so used to the brush of metal.

  The touch was sensual, but the forgiveness in it was positively explosive. Need cramped his body with such force he grunted and grasped her shoulders for balance.

  “God, Irish. Goddamn. I need to get you in bed.”

  She turned her beautiful face up again and met his eyes. “I want a baby, Brian.”

  The lusty fire in his blood and brain made any other thought stop short. “What?”

  “If I can, I want to get pregnant tonight. I want your baby inside me, so no matter what happens, you won’t ever be truly gone from me.”

  “Sweetheart, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I know. But you’re wrong.”

  “What about school?”

  “If I have to lay out a semester, I will.”

  “You can’t know you’ll get pregnant tonight.”

  “But maybe I will. Or if not tonight, tomorrow morning. Maybe it won’t happen, but I want every chance I can have to keep you with me.”

  He couldn’t go to war and leave her to carry and deliver his child alone. He couldn’t go when they both knew he might be leaving her to raise his child alone forever. She was too young to do this on her own.

  Pushing his hands into her thick mane, Brian set his forehead on hers. “No, Mo. When I’m back—”

  She shoved him off. “I’m not askin’, Brian. You did this terrible thing without talkin’ to me first. You’ve broken my heart, and you’re leavin’ me to fret over you in that awful place, that foul war. I’d no say in that. So when I tell you I want a baby, I am tellin’ you, not askin’.

  Anger fired her cheeks and sparked her eyes. Brian studied her for a few seconds, took in that determined heat, and understood he’d asked of her all he could.
Now, he had to give what he could.

  “Okay. I want as many kids as you want to give me. If you want to start now, we’ll start now.”

  With that, his bride bestowed on him her very first smile of their wedding day. She threw herself into his arms, and Brian stumbled back a step as their mouths crashed together.

  Now, there was no need or urge to take things slowly. With nothing but their clothes left between them, they tore at each other in a riot of need, kicking boots away, yanking zippers down, all the while trying to keep the kiss going, exchanging grunts and groans as they fumbled to nakedness.

  When they were finally bare and unimpeded, when Mo’s gorgeous body—her lush breasts, her tight ass, the perfect flare of her sleek hips, all of it wrapped in her firm, soft, pale flesh—was in his arms, his hands, wrapped around him, Brian lifted her off the floor and put her on the bed.

  He lay at her side and took a beat to feel the moment. Her beautiful body had been his for eighteen months, but never before had it been his wife he held, and for so brief a time before he’d lose her for at least a year. He wanted to carve her into his memories, to take this with him to fuel his lonely hours in the evil dark.

  He dipped down to kiss a rosy nipple and swirl his tongue around its peak in the way she loved, and she gave him the sweet moan and wriggle that told him how much she loved it. Suckling her, he turned all his focus to his senses—the taste of her skin, the music of her moans, the scent of her pleasure. Those gorgeous keen eyes, the look in them that said her love was not a charity but something he deserved. The way her leg hooked over his hip, the press of her heat against his.

  “Mo,” he whispered against her breast, and he discovered with a start that he could cry.

  He swallowed the choke of tears back and, when he was able, he lifted his head and found her gaze. She was smiling softly, her mouth formed into a sweet shape he knew well, but the look of it was new. Sadness shadowed her every expression now.