Starr stood at the sidewalk leading up to their front door.
He joined her. “I don't belong here.” He really, really didn't.
“You're just nervous.”
“Maybe.”
“Nathan, let me spell it out for you. My father wasted so much time, and part of it was my fault. I've also been thinking. I know why Dad did what he did, why he left us.”
He stilled. Even he knew this was going to be important.
“It was to save us from him. He was ... angry and, well, you know what? I told Phee and Luna what I did when I was seventeen. They forgave me. So, today, it’s time you ask for the same. And, here's the final thing.” She squared herself to him. “Don't be my father.”
It was that exact moment, on the word “father” that the front door opened. A gangly young girl stepped out, a cell phone to her ear. For a long minute, he just stared and watched her smile and talk in that way young girls do—their whole face helping to form words, their arms and hands gesturing as if signing all the enthusiasm they had for the world.
“That's her, isn't it?” Starr smiled at him.
Was it? “I don't know.” He held the small picture, crinkled and cracked. Madeline had been a year and a half in that picture—the one and only one Dawn had sent before she stopped writing to him at all and served divorce paper instead.
The girl peered at them. Cocked her head. Suspicion crossed her face, and she frowned. The cell phone lowered in her hand, but she didn't show signs of running back into the house.
“Oh, that's her all right.” Starr hooked her arm in his, lowered her voice to a whisper. “Look at those eyes. Same warm brown.”
“Well, whoever she is, she doesn't trust us.” Good girl. Don't talk to strangers. “This isn't a good idea. Let's wait until I can talk to Dawn.”
“Half the battle is stepping out on to the stage. Once the lights hit and the music starts, you've got no other choice than to move. Let's move.” She stepped forward, and he had no choice but to follow.
This was going to go down one of two ways. He’d be ordered off the premises, or he’d finally get to meet his daughter. The girl fingered her phone but still didn't turn away as they grew closer. When he was four feet away from the girl, he stopped. No need to scare her. “Uh, hi, you don't know me, but—”
“You're my father, aren't you?”
Whoa. “Yes. How did you know?”
“I have a picture of you. From Grandma.”
Grandma? His mother? Fuck, his eyes pricked. That was another person he hadn’t talked to much over the years.
“Mom said you were coming today.” She stepped closer. “You don't look like a hardened criminal.”
He swiped under his nose. “Oh, yeah?”
“No.” She inclined her head toward Starr who stood back by the curb. “And, you’re pretty.” She looked back at him. “Is she your girlfriend?”
“She is.”
Starr stepped up to them and held out her hand. “Hi, I'm Catarina. I go by Starr, professionally.”
“Are you in the movies?” Madeline's interest in them kicked up a hundred notches.
Starr laughed lightly. “Not yet. Dancer.”
“Where do you dance?” Madeline only had eyes for Starr. He was instantly an interloper in this odd conversation.
“In a club. More cabaret than ballet. Think Chicago, you know, the musical?”
“Uh, yeah. Of course.” This girl sounded more like twenty than ten.
“You have a good turn-out.” She glanced down at the girl's legs.
“Thanks. I'm going to go on pointe soon. Or so, Madame Tremont tells me.”
“Good for you for waiting. You don't want to ruin your feet by starting too early.”
He stood stunned by the casual way Starr and Madeline had dropped into a conversation.
Madeline looked up at him and scrunched her eyes. “Do you dance?”
He burst out laughing. “I'm afraid I've got two left feet, Madeline.”
Her face dropped. What did he say? He scrubbed his hair, words dying in his throat.
“I'd always wondered what it would sound like to hear you say my name.”
It was impossible for him to talk because his throat clamped shut like a vault.
Starr sidled closer to him and took his hand, looking towards Madeline. “Is your mom home?”
“She's inside. Come on. She knew you were coming.” She cocked her head and trudged up the steps.
He was shocked that Dawn hadn't barreled out the door holding a frying pan, or a Glock, given the times, to beat him backward.
“Oh.” Madeline stopped at the doorway. “Don't worry about her. Mom's nice. She basically said you and she were handed a fistful of tough luck.”
His limbs froze for a second in shock. The ability to be forgiving wasn't something he remembered about Dawn. But then he could barely remember anything about their time together. They hadn't had the best marriage, a quick ceremony in the heat of some romantic notion due to her sudden pregnancy. After he'd gone to prison, well, he supposed it was a good thing for them, for him to be permanently out of their way.
This strange, self-possessed young girl, ushering him inside, reminded him he also didn't know shit.
Starr hadn't let go of his hand. She didn't let go when he stepped over the threshold straight into an entryway that led to a small living room. God bless her, she still didn't let go when he stood before Dawn for the first time in ten years. She looked a little older, with more lines on her face, but she was still the round-faced girl he remembered. She didn't smile, but she didn't frown, either. She stared at him as if she couldn't quite recall who he was.
A gentle tug on his hand by Starr urged him to step deeper into the small living room.
He swallowed hard. “Dawn.”
“Nathan. You've met Madeline.” She circled her arm around her daughter's shoulder.
“Mom, Starr's a dancer.” His daughter smiled at Starr in a slightly reverential way. He understood that look. He was sure he looked like that often in Starr's presence.
That’s when it hit him. Madeline did have his eyes.
“Uh, this is Starr, my girlfriend.”
Starr dropped his hand and held it out to shake Dawn's. “Hi. It's nice to meet you. Thank you for seeing us so out of the blue.”
Dawn merely nodded.
Madeline slipped out of her mother's hold and jogged to the fireplace mantle. She grasped a photograph and brought it to him. “Grandma sent this a long time ago.”
“Your mother.” Dawn let out an amused puff of air. “She thought it was a good idea for Madeline to have some sense of her father. I got used to it sitting there.”
He cleared his throat as he stared down at the picture. It was of him and Dawn with woods in the background. A barbeque, perhaps? Who knew? He had his arm around her shoulder, a red cup dangling from his fingers. Dawn was looking up at him, smiling, happy. He looked directly into the camera, a lazy smile playing on his lips. His forehead held no lines. His eyes held no fear. Of course they didn't.
“Have you seen her? Your mother?”
“Not yet,” Starr filled in.
Not yet? So his girl had more reunion ideas in her head.
“We can go together.” Madeline's energy practically poured into the room. “She has a pool.”
“We'll see, Maddy.” Dawn gave her a certain look he’d recalled from his own mother. “Do you mind getting us some iced tea?”
Madeline rolled her eyes.
“I'll help,” Starr moved toward Madeline.
“Don't say anything important while we're gone,” She gestured with her hands before turning the corner to go into what he surmised was the kitchen.
Dawn's face schooled to something neutral, unreadable. “Starr seems nice.”
“She is. Madeline is ...”
“Amazing? Yeah, she is.”
He didn’t remember Dawn being so … cool. Of course, he hadn’t known her that well, ha
d he? He scrubbed his hair. “Listen, I'm not good at this, but would you be willing to ... talk?”
Dawn cracked a smile for the first time. “That's the first time I've ever heard you say you wanted to talk.”
“I've changed.”
She cocked her head. “I believe you have.” She gazed at the hallway where the girls had disappeared. “Starr responsible for some of that?”
“Probably all.”
Dawn gestured to the couch. “Then don't let her go.”
Like he would ever think of such a thing. “Thank you for letting me come and see Madeline. I’d like to get to know her. I mean, if that’s all right.”
She sat back. “Then we do have a lot to talk about.”
For the first time in over a decade, the urge to talk, to explain, to learn, crowded his head and made him jittery. He had to learn everything he could about his daughter. He even wanted to know how Dawn had fared.
“Know any good places to buy an engagement ring?” Because why not?
Dawn's face cracked into a large smile. “Take Madeline. She'd love it.”
He got the curious sensation that his life was changing as he sat there. He stared at the photo in his hands. A ton of dead weight dissolved into the ether at the thought. He was no longer just the ex-con. He was an ex-husband, father, a son, an employee, a friend, and with any luck—Starr’s husband.
Starr rounded the corner carrying a tray of glasses with Madeline behind her holding a large pitcher of iced tea. Glass clinked against glass.
“Mom, Starr has two sisters. They're triplets. Isn't that cool?”
Starr looked at him and winked. His heart about stopped for the millionth time since he'd laid eyes on her—and he hoped it would for a million more. Hope wasn't a strategy, but he was okay with that. He was okay with everything.
Oh, except Starr needed his ring on her fourth finger. Then life would be perfect.
Epilogue
Declan stood on the loading dock at the far end of the storeroom gazing out over the Patapsco River. His jacket and pants legs ruffled in the wind. In the bright sunshine, the passage of time showed in the lines etched on the side of his face and the salt and pepper dusting of his temples.
Nathan sidled up to the man. “Heard you wanted to talk to me.”
Declan glanced his way and then trained his gaze once more on the river, the surface barely rippling in the wind. “Heard you and Starr finally got engaged.”
He scrubbed his hair. Fuck, he should have told Declan. Sure, it’d been less than twenty-four hours, but the man deserved to be one of the first. “Hey, sorry, man. I should have told you by now.” He glanced backward. He’d left Starr at the front part of the storeroom to sift through some props. They both should have been here to deliver the news.
Declan raised his hand. “Not at all.” He squared himself to Nathan. “Congratulations. Really, you and Starr deserve every happiness.”
He was beginning to believe it. “She certainly does. I’m not about to get a fatherly talk, am I?”
The guy laughed. “No, I believe you have things under control there. I hope not much else changes, though.”
Oh. “We’re not going anywhere, in case that’s what you’re wondering.” If he’d learned anything in recent times, it was how important it was to stick together. The whole “stronger together” shit worked. Nearby, her laugher rang out. It was comforting to know she wasn’t far away.
“Good.” Declan turned to face the river once more. “I have something to tell you, and I wanted you to hear it from me directly.”
Worry twisted his gut. “Okay.”
“You know the MacKenna’s and I have a long history.”
Yeah, he knew. What was the man getting at? “Right.”
Declan hesitated for a second, placed both hands on his cane and pushed down as if trying to drill a hole in the concrete. “What you don’t know is that history goes to the very beginning. My mother’s maiden name was Kate Louisa MacKenna.”
Cold tingled up his spine and across his scalp. “Wait. You’re related to the MacKennas.”
“Tomas MacKenna was my mother’s brother. That makes—”
“Daniel, Ruark, and Carragh, your cousins.”
“Yes.” He sighed heavily. “It was a recent discovery—”
“How recent?”
Declan scratched his neck with one hand. “You want to hear this story or not?”
The man couldn’t expect much patience from him. That family had screwed him over royally—hell screwed Declan over royally. “Go on,” he said.
“My mother was estranged. Married someone no one in the family approved of, got pregnant with me, and was disinherited—the usual MacKenna heavy-handedness to prove a point. She didn’t care. She’d wanted out of her family, her whole life. Later, after she died, let’s just say they came looking for me. They don’t like loose ends.”
“How were you a loose end?”
“Family means everything to Tomas. When he learned one of his family members was out doing his own thing, uncontrolled, well …”
“I see where Ruark gets his sociopathy from.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
Did he want to know more? He had to know now, didn’t he? “They’re never going to stop, are they?”
“We have a truce at the moment. Carragh seems more reasonable.”
Nathan let out a disbelieving huff. “He’s considered reasonable?”
“Well, the bar is quite low in that family.”
Didn’t he know it.
“I told you because we need to prepare for another round. Ruark will get out sometime, and knowing them, sooner than we want. Given he will be released after you …well, let’s say they consider that a loss of face.”
“Of what? Pride?” Why did he even have to ask these questions? Nothing that family did made any sense. They believed they could craft their own world with rules and goals most normal people would never consider.
Declan sighed, thumped his cane once on the ground. “The thing is, they don’t want any more bloodshed.”
“No, they want slavery.”
Declan’s chin nodded a few times. “That’s one way of putting it.”
“I’ve got news for them. I don’t care what the fuck your MacKenna relatives think …”
A gasp sounded from behind them. They both turned at the same time. Starr and Phoenix stood there, each holding up a costume to their bodies – Starr with a flapper dress and Phoenix with a Cleopatra get-up.
Starr’s mouth had dropped to an “O” as if she’d been struck. He moved to her, and she stepped forward into his arms.
Phoenix, however, stood frozen, her blue eyes growing colder, brighter, as the red blossomed on her cheeks. “You son of a bitch.” She threw the garment down to the concrete and sped back into the storeroom.
Declan sighed heavily. “Fuck.”
Nathan didn’t often hear the man curse, but if anytime called for it, it would be now.
Declan peered at Starr, who slowly shook her head. “We heard wrong, didn’t we?” she asked.
The man gazed toward the ground. “I’m afraid not.” He turned back to face the water, the veins in his neck growing more pronounced, as if he was holding back strong emotion.
Starr eased herself from Nathan’s hold. He let her go. She stepped tentatively up to Declan, touched his arm. “I don’t know what’s going on, but whatever it is, please tell me—”
“What?” His head swung her way sharply. “That I’m not tied to the family who put you in danger and Nathan in prison? I can’t.”
It never quit, did it? They just couldn’t catch a break for long.
“Are we in danger?” she asked.
At those words, Nathan stepped back to her and banded her against his chest. “Never again, North Star.” He placed a kiss on the top of her forehead and glared at Declan over her head.
He glanced up at him, then back to Starr.
“I know wha
t to do, and it does not involve danger to anyone.”
Good, and Nathan was going to be all ears once the dust settled. Starr had started to tremble, and he couldn’t allow that.
She swallowed. “Then don’t give up on her. We trust you.”
“Good.” He stared back out at the water “I’d have to be dead before I’d give up on Phoenix.”
Nathan held Starr tighter. “That’s the problem. Dead is Ruark’s specialty.”
If you loved Tough Luck, you’ll love Tough Break, the next Shakedown series story. >>> Get Tough Break here!
Declan Phillips, Shakedown’s owner, doesn’t pine for women. They come to him. Throw themselves at him. No one understands his obsession with cold, angry Phoenix Rising, a dancer in his club. But how could they know what she did for him so long ago? He owes her, and he won’t stop until every trace of the hurt and betrayal he sees in her eyes is gone.
Also by Elizabeth SaFleur
Elite
Holiday Ties
Untouchable
Perfect
Riptide
Lucky
Fearless
Invincible
The White House Gets A Spanking
Spanking the Senator
Tough Road
Tough Luck
Tough Break
Tough Love
About the Author
Elizabeth SaFleur writes romance that dares to “go there” from 28 wildlife-filled acres, dances in her spare time and is a certifiable tea snob.
Find out more about Elizabeth on her web site at www.ElizabethSaFleur, like her Facebook page or join her private Facebook group, Elizabeth’s Playroom. Follow her on Twitter (@ElizaLoveStory) and Instagram (@ElizabethLoveStory), too!
Tough Luck (The Shakedown Series Book 1) Page 22
