Wild War

by Laurelin Paige

  I was shaking. This decision had been so much easier to get behind when I didn’t have to face him. He was supposed to give up when I didn’t show up. He wasn’t supposed to come for me, but now that he had, I couldn’t believe I’d been so stupid. So unprepared. Of course, he’d come for me, and when he was standing in front of me, I got confused. Possibilities blurred.

  He saw my hesitation and took advantage. “Listen, baby. Listen.” He put his hands on my hips and leaned down so we were eye to eye. “The truck is in good shape. I stole a mattress from the cabin, and the shell on the back means we can sleep in it even if it’s raining, and we can be someplace warm by winter.”

  He meant to be reassuring, but it only brought my focus back to reality. “We have nothing to live on. How are we supposed to survive?”

  “We have money!” he announced suddenly. “There was more in the safe than you thought.”

  Hope fluttered through me despite myself. “How much?”

  “Almost fifteen hundred.”

  My heart sunk. “It’s not enough.”

  “It’s enough if we have each other, Jol.”

  God, I still believed that on some level. He’d planted that idealism somewhere deep inside me, and I longed to let it bloom.

  But I didn’t have room anymore to make space for that hope. Reality was a voracious weed, and it choked every other chance for growth. Love did not save the day. Love did not put food on a table. Even sleeping in the truck, how long could fifteen hundred buy us? A month? Two at most. Then what? We’d have to use our IDs to get jobs and give references, both of which would make it possible for my father to track us down.

  Which he would.

  He would, and none of what I had to offer was fair to Cade.

  My future had been set, and I loved him too much to chain him in it with me. “You have to go. You have to go.”

  He stepped toward me, and I stepped back. “We belong together. I love you, Jolie. You love me.”

  I did love him. So much that I would let him go.

  My throat hurt too much to say it. I just shook my head, over and over and over until…

  “Go back to the house, Julianna.” My father’s voice was steady and low and menacing.

  The ground dropped beneath me, quicksand pulling me down, down, down, but somehow I was still standing upright.

  Cade jumped back from me automatically. Then more boldly, as though he’d recovered some strength in his weeks away from this awful house, he stepped out in front of me, shielding me. “I’m not leaving without her.”

  Calmly, my father looked over his shoulder at me. “I’d say that’s up to Julianna.”

  In another life, I would have taken Cade’s hand, would have stood defiantly up to the man who’d raised me, who’d tormented me and loved me and fucked me up. In another life, I would have chosen with my heart.

  But this was this life.

  And this choice came from my heart too.

  I walked around Cade, turning back one last time. My knees felt like they were going to buckle. My back hurt all the way down my spine. My throat ached. My chest felt split in two. “You should have let me go,” I whispered. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “Go back to the house, Julianna,” my father said again, and I did. I put one foot in front of the other, over and over and over until I reached the back door. I didn’t look back. I couldn’t. I could only move forward.

  As soon as I was inside, I sank to the floor, brought my knees up to my chest, and buried my face in my dress. If I were a stronger person, I would have forced myself to watch from the window. I deserved to see what happened. I deserved to feel whatever pain my father put Cade through.

  But I wasn’t that strong.

  I’d already used every bit of my strength to walk away. I was already in the worst pain. It wasn’t possible for me to hurt more than I already did.

  So I didn’t watch. I hugged myself and rocked back and forth and didn’t let myself think about the time that was passing or that it had been too long or that my father might not keep his word.

  The material was soaked by the time he finally pushed the door open and found me on the floor. He looked down at me with as much disgust as I deserved. “Get up. Go to bed.”

  He was sweating, and his right hand had blood on it, blood that wasn’t his.

  Grief rolled through me. Regret. Anger. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him. You promised, if I stayed.”

  He let out a laugh—a mean, gruff, calloused laugh. “I said I’d let him walk away. I didn’t say he wouldn’t be bleeding when he did.”

  My whole life with the man, and I still never quite learned that his terms were devil terms. The bargain made was never quite the bargain you got.

  But as long as Cade walked away, I reminded myself, it was worth it.

  And now he was in my past. I had to look forward.

  Twenty-Three

  Cade

  Present

  * * *

  After our late night exploring and the activities that followed in the bedroom, we ended up sleeping away the morning. The bedside clock said almost noon when I opened my eyes. I stared at it, letting my vision focus, taking advantage of the particular stillness that occurs after waking to think about organizing my emotions.

  I was half on my stomach, facing away from her, but very aware of Jolie. Sharing a full bed, we were close to each other whether we wanted to be or not, but she was pressed up tight against my backside, an obvious choice. And it was…

  Right.

  It felt right, which didn’t mean it didn’t also feel complicated and temporary, because it was all of the above and more. But right was an easy place to start, and so I breathed into that, and tried to let it be.

  She was awake too. The stroke of her finger up and down my back gave her away. Her touch took a deliberate pathway, and though I didn’t spend much time looking at that side of my body, I had a feeling she was tracing the faint scar left from Stark’s cane.

  Of course, that was the mark that remained. The one I was most ashamed of. The one that I couldn’t ever quite reckon with.

  “What do you tell women when they ask where this is from?” Her voice was morning-hoarse and sexy, and if she hadn’t been bringing up such an unsexy topic, I would have rolled over and made my way between her legs.

  Too bad for the mood killer since it would be awfully nice to have a subject-changer. This wasn’t a conversation I was keen to get into, now or ever. There was shit from the past that still needed closure, but this was not one of them.

  I closed my eyes, even though she wasn’t facing me, hoping maybe she’d think I was still asleep.

  “I know you’re awake.”

  So much for that idea.

  “I try very hard not to talk to women in my bed,” I said, not moving.

  A beat passed. The caress of her hand didn’t stop. “Then I should feel special.”

  It was too ridiculous to let slide. I lifted my head and looked over my shoulder, giving her my best “duh” look. Seriously? She didn’t feel special? She’d shattered my heart and still somehow roped me into helping her with the most outrageous of favors. It seemed pretty fucking obvious she was pretty fucking special.

  Her hand stopped moving, but she kept it against my back, warm and firm. “I wish you wouldn’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what?” I was curious how she’d interpreted it.

  “Like you don’t know what to do with me.”

  I rolled over the rest of the way onto my back and let my head sink into the pillow with a sort of huff. Because I didn’t know what to do with her. I didn’t know what to think of her or how to feel about her, and I sure as fuck didn’t know how to be with her.

  “I know, I know.” She propped herself up on her elbow. “I ask too much, and then I ask too much again.”

  Her in a nutshell. At least she was self-aware.

  Staring at the ceiling, I made an attempt to be equally mindful. “I
wish I wanted you to stop.”

  It surprised her.

  It surprised me, but it was the truth. Maybe it was all the shit Stark put us through. Maybe he’d turned me into a masochist, because as terrible and selfish as this particular ask was, it didn’t scratch the surface of what I’d do for her. I’d hate it and be miserable the whole time, but I’d fucking do it. I guessed I had no sense left when it came to her.

  And now I’d just outed myself. It was my weakness, and instead of keeping it hidden, here I was, showing it off. Use me, Jolie. Trample me to the ground. Treat me like shit, I’m here for it. Every goddamn time.

  Honestly, she probably already knew. Still, I wanted the admission to mean something to her—wanted my loyalty to matter—but I couldn’t bring myself to look at her to see her reaction. I just kept staring at the popcorn ceiling above me, breathing in. Breathing out.

  The bed shifted, and in my periphery it seemed she’d taken the same pose. The silence between us was taut, a thick rope pulled so hard it was beginning to fray in the middle, and I wondered when it broke where I’d land. If I’d be standing or left in the mud.

  “I’m going to ask too much right now,” she said finally, and I was already feeling that cocktail of resentment and excitement that she stirred up in me. “When this stuff with my father is over, I don’t want this to end with you.”

  The breath she let out was shaky, audible even over the sudden pounding of my heart in my ears. It was validating to know this was hard for her too, and maybe that should have been enough. Maybe it was enough, but fuck. Really?

  Really?

  Of everything she could ask…

  “No, no, no. No.” I shoved the covers off and got out of bed. I found my pants and shoved a leg inside, not bothering with underwear. “No.”

  “You feel pretty strongly about that.”

  I might feel strongly about it if it was real, but this wasn’t real. “You’re being nostalgic, Jol.”

  “I’m not.”

  “It’s being here. In this house.”

  “It was before here.”

  I glanced at her and immediately regretted it. That downturn of her lip, that blinking of her eyelids like she might cry...

  No. Wasn’t doing that.

  I turned my attention to finding my sweater, then putting it on, trying my best to ignore the part of my mind that wanted to play the fantasy out, see where it could lead. Consider it.

  That was a stupid part of my mind. Incredibly stupid. And I intended on overruling it with the rational part of me, which was maybe only a very small part, but a very vocal part, and it knew where to draw the line. Apparently, I did still have some sense, and sense said this was too much. This was the one thing that went too far. If I trusted her that much—if I gave her whatever fragments of my heart that remained—and she fucked me over again, which she would undoubtedly do, then that was it. There’d be nothing left. I’d be destroyed.

  I wasn’t doing that again. I wasn’t crawling away from her again.

  “I know,” she said solemnly. “I have no right to ask.”

  I spun back toward her. “You’re goddamned right you don’t.”

  “Not even a little bit.”

  She acted like she understood what she’d put me through, but she couldn’t possibly. She couldn’t, or she wouldn’t have dared ask this. She wouldn’t have dared come back into my life at all.

  Did she not realize how much I’d fucking loved her? “Fuck, Jol. You don’t even know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  I shook my head. At myself as much as at her because the stupid asshole in this scenario was me. Me. Me who obviously still loved her or I wouldn’t care so much about her bullshit, wouldn’t wonder whether it really was bullshit, wouldn’t hope that…

  “This isn’t fucking fair, Jolie.” I shoved my foot inside a boot.

  “It’s not.”

  I found the other boot and put it on. I’d been dressing so I could run, and now that I was done, I wasn’t ready to leave.

  I paced the length of the room. Went to the window. Turned back to her. “This is because we fucked. I told you that you’d make it more than it is.”

  “Am I really making it more?” She asked so earnestly, and I wanted to shut her down with a definitive yes, but the word stuck in my throat, a lie too big to get out.

  I ran a hand over my beard, trying to break the lie into something smaller. “You owe me too many explanations. You have too many things you won’t share.” As long as she withheld pieces of herself, this was only sex. It could only be sex. “You aren’t relationship material.”

  The last one visibly wounded her, but I refused to regret it.

  And she took it. Pulling the sheet up around herself, she sat up and nodded. “You’re right. I could be, though, I think. If I told you everything.”

  “That would be a nice fucking place to start.” I’d spoken before I really thought about it, and once I gave myself a second to do so, something warm stretched across my chest. A tiny ball of hope. Would she really give me answers? Would it really change anything?

  My gut said that it would probably change everything.

  There was something admittedly frightening about that. Just learning my mother had helped her escape had done a number on me. I wasn’t sure I could take more truth.

  She bit her lip, seeming to be worried as well.

  I had a feeling her worries were centered elsewhere. “You’re afraid to tell me because you think I’ll walk out on this. That doesn’t say much in your defense.”

  “I don’t know how it will go, honestly. I think you’ll understand me better, but I can’t begin to know how you’ll feel, so yes. You might decide you’re done with me and leave me to do this alone, and that would be fair. I know I don’t deserve—”

  I couldn’t take any more of this line, and I cut her off. “Stop, okay? Stop with the ‘I don’t deserve and I’m to blame for everything’ bullshit. Your father was to blame. Okay? For everything. All of it. It was his fault, and no one else’s.”

  Now she was the one who looked hopeful. “Do you really mean that?”

  Shit. Did I?

  “I don’t know.” I’d been blaming her so long, it was hard to let that go. And yet… “I want to.”

  There I was again, showing her all my weak spots.

  For some reason, I didn’t feel that scared. Like when I’d woken up, it felt right.

  I was going to need some time to process that. And to process whatever she had to tell me, but in order to do that, she had to actually tell me, and she wasn’t going to do that without reassurances.

  “Look.” I took a step toward her, crouching down so I was on her level, close enough that I could touch her, but I didn’t. “I’m in this. I’m not backing out. He needs to pay for his crimes, and if our plan backfires, I’m committed to finding another plan because it’s way past time he goes down. Nothing you say to me is going to change that.”

  Before she could respond, my phone vibrated on the nightstand with an incoming call. I glanced over, intending to ignore whoever it was.

  “Donovan,” she said, apparently having looked too. “You should take it.”

  I didn’t want to take it. I wanted to throw my cell out the window and finish this conversation. I wouldn’t even bother to open it first.

  “We’ll talk later,” she promised. “Take the call.”

  With a sigh that felt more like a groan, I picked up my cell. “What?”

  “Hello to you too, sunshine.” His voice was obnoxiously smug. “I’d expected a check-in last night and heard nothing. Forgive me for being concerned.”

  Fuck. I’d forgotten to let him know what was going on. I was going to need a smoke for this. “Yeah, we sort of had a change of plans.” I put on my coat, made sure the cigarettes were in the pocket, then gestured to Jolie that I was headed outside. “Turns out Stark’s at his cabin until tomorrow,” I said to Donovan. “So Carla invited us to stay the nig
ht.”

  Jolie stopped me before I left with a tug on my sleeve. For a minute, I thought she was going to kiss me, but she was only handing me the keys we needed to copy. “You should probably take care of this soon too,” she whispered.

  “Right.” Then I kissed her because it really needed to be done. “What were you saying?” I resumed the call as I left the room, shutting the door behind me.

  “I said that has to be interesting,” Donovan repeated, only mildly annoyed.

  “That’s one word for it. Turned out to be for the best since it took some time to find what we needed. Hey, hold on a second, D.” When I reached the bottom of the stairs, my mother was heading toward me with an expression that said she wanted to say something. “Morning, Mom. What’s up?”

  “Afternoon now, actually.” There was an obvious opinion about my waking time in her tone. “There’s cereal in the pantry if you’re interested in that. There’s also eggs and deli meat in the fridge. Everything’s pretty much where it’s always been.”

  “Thanks. I think I’ll hold off on food for a bit.” I was about to go back to Donovan when she held up a cell phone.

  “Julianna left this down here last night. She’s missed a couple of calls. Should I take it up or…?”

  “Maybe hold off. She’s not dressed yet.” It was liberating to flaunt our relationship, whatever it was, not just because it made my mother give a judgmental frown but because we’d never in our lives been able to be open.

  I was smiling about it when I put the phone back to my ear. “I’m here.”

  “You still have space on your lower back, right? This tattoo would make a great tramp stamp.”

  Fucking Donovan. He’d bet that I’d be in bed with Jolie before the end of the week, and if I lost, he got to choose my next tattoo. “Yeah, yeah. Fuck you.” And no way was it going somewhere people could see it. Whatever he picked was likely to be embarrassing as hell.

  “Anyway.” I opened the door to go outside and propped the phone between my chin and shoulder so I could pack the cigarettes.

  “Oh, Cade,” Carla interrupted again. “If you’re going outside…” She waited until I gave her my attention. “I have groceries being delivered. Could you let the guy in when he gets here?”