“You’re not anymore.”
That felt nice too. Nicer than my birthdays. Nicer even than Christmas!
I nodded.
His hand gave mine a squeeze. “Go in. Be careful.”
I nodded again.
“Happens again, Sylvie, my room is on the right side, first window at the back. Just knock on the window. I’ll hear you.”
I nodded again.
“Don’t let them see you,” he whispered.
And I nodded again.
His hand gave mine a squeeze before he let me go.
He opened the door of the gate and he did it super slow, being careful and I was thankful.
I started through, Bootsie at my side, and looked back at him.
I smiled.
He smiled back.
Wow.
It was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.
Then I slipped through the door, Tucker closed it slow and careful behind me and I did what I would do normally but also what Tucker told me.
I got in and to my bed and didn’t let them see me.
Chapter Five
Winner Takes All
Present day…
I opened my front door and smelled garlic.
Fuck.
Seriously?
I turned, tossed my keys on the table beside the front door, pulled my gun and holster out of my belt at the back, set it on the table and moved to the left into my living room.
A huge, tan leather duffle was sitting, gapping open on my couch.
Fuck.
Fuck!
Seriously?
My eyes moved around the room and I saw the ashtrays had been cleaned, the beer bottles and dirty dishes cleared away and even the throws on the couches folded. My eyes moved up and I noted the wonky, hot pink, star-shaped fairy lights I had wrapped around my mantelpiece in disarray had been straightened and artfully draped.
They looked awesome.
Shit.
I stalked the other way, through my dining room, which still had the mess of magazines, newspapers and mail that had accumulated for the last month (maybe two) on the top of my dining room table. I stalked through the room even though, over the opened bar that delineated it from the kitchen, I saw Creed at my stove, his back to me.
“Uh, partner, I’m thinking I missed a memo,” I stated.
He twisted at the waist to look at me.
“You feed your cat once a day?” he asked and I stopped opposite the bar and planted my hands on my hips.
“Yeah,” I answered.
“She says two,” Creed informed me.
Shit. He spoke cat. This was not good. Gun knew all my secrets.
“Don’t let her bullshit you,” I ordered. “Though, if she’s been good, when I get home she gets five cat treats.”
“What constitutes bein’ good?”
“She’s breathing.”
He threw back his head and burst out laughing, the heady gorgeous sound of it filling the space, bouncing off the walls, slamming into me so hard, it made my legs get weak.
Therefore, I stalked to the fridge to get a beer.
“You like ziti?” Creed asked as I yanked open the fridge door.
“Yeah, I like ziti,” I answered, closed the door coming out with a beer in my hand and went on. “What I don’t like is your bag on my couch. What’s the deal?”
He continued to stir sauce as his eyes came to me. “The deal is, we got a job to do and to do it we gotta get close with zero time to find that. So we gotta find the time to find that.”
“How ‘bout I eat your ziti and we put together a puzzle and find it before you leave and find a hotel room?”
“Too late,” he replied. “Went over to meet Charlene and the kids, tell them I’m here, gonna be here awhile, I know about her situation and I’m on call if she needs anything. She seemed excited and not just ‘cause she needs the help. Apparently, she’s worried about your way of life and thinks you’re gonna die lonely. Also, her bathroom faucet is dripping. Something’s rattling in her car. And that motherfucker who left her didn’t switch the storm windows out to screens before he hauled ass, it’s hot and she can’t afford to run the air conditioning. So tomorrow, I’m gonna be busy.”
I stood completely still, staring at him and waiting while I made the superhuman effort to keep my head from exploding.
This took a while and Creed kept stirring the sauce even though his eyes didn’t leave me.
Once I ascertained my head wasn’t going to explode or, more aptly, I wasn’t going to attack and indulge in an attempt to break his neck, I whispered, “That was not cool.”
“I work and I don’t fuck around when I do. There is no cool and uncool in a job. You do what you gotta do,” he returned.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I shot back but did it still whispering.
“I disagree,” he replied.
“Explain, exactly, how that was okay.”
“This was Arizona, you’d be deep in my life. You know the shit I care about, the people that mean something to me, you’d do what you can to make certain I didn’t get taken away from any of it. That’s how it’s okay. You had a partner, his wife and kids are still a part of your life. You get me,” he told me.
“I have your back. You have my word on that so you don’t need that shit.”
“Now I have your back for more than the fact I don’t wanna see anything happen to you but it’s deeper. Way fuckin’ deeper and you know exactly how. They’d suffer and they’d suffer huge if you weren’t there in the morning. So, shit goes down, no matter what it is, I’ll bust my ass to make sure you’re there in the morning.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
He made sense. It was Asshole Invasive Sense (yes, meriting capital letters) but it was still sense.
Jesus.
I put the bottle cap edge to the counter, slammed the butt of my palm on it and the cap went flying. I ignored it and threw back a hefty pull.
When I dropped my hand, I knew he knew he’d won because he asked, “Anything on Nick?”
I gave in by answering, “Nothing except I’m shocked to find Nick Sebring is boring.” I rounded the bar, putting needed space between Creed and me. “His brother could be sitting and writing a letter and he’d be fascinating to watch. Nick. No. He’s got a desk job, works it, went home, made dinner, put on the game. That’s it.”
“So I take it tomorrow you’re switchin’ to Nair,” he surmised.
“Fuck yeah,” I confirmed, my eyes to a pile of folders on the edge of the counter that I not only didn’t put there, I had no idea what they were.
He saw what I was looking at and I knew this when he invited, “That’s everything I got on Nick, Nair and this investigation. Take it, read it, I’ll cook. When I’m done, I’ll bring you your food, we’ll eat and while we do, I’ll answer any questions you have.”
I looked up at him and said quietly, “You’re not staying here.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said quietly back.
We locked eyes.
I tried again. “There’s no reason for you to stay here.”
“Way you tell it,” he fired back instantly, “no reason for me to go either.”
Fuck.
Fuck!
I had to get back on my game. He was screwing me at every turn.
I broke eye contact, sucked back more beer, grabbed the folders and stalked through the kitchen to the back.
My house was shit. The bathroom suite was pink, put in during what I was guessing was the ‘50’s and the tub and basin had rust stains. The carpet was shag. There was wood paneling from the ‘70’s in every room and my kitchen appliances were all avocado.
I didn’t care. I made decent money but in my job, early retirement was necessary. You couldn’t carry on doing what I did for eternity. You had a brain in your head, you quit doing it before the age of fifty hit your life’s horizon. So I lived small but still content and socked back everything I could. The hou
se was sturdy. It had personality that was mostly my mess, my cat and me, I spent very little time there and thus it worked.
It was the back room that sold me on the place.
It wasn’t a walled in patio. It also wasn’t not one. It had big windows so it seemed outside even though it was inside. Narrow, it had concrete floors I’d strewn with thick, bright, braided rugs. There was an old, slouchy, comfortable as all fuck couch that had tons of big, slouchy pillows on it. Two wicker chairs angled across from it, more slouchy pillows on those. A big upright chest at the wall to the side of the door from the kitchen that had everything you needed in it, corkscrew, bottle opener, lighters, cigs, extra ashtrays, condoms, the shelves covered with green, trailing, brightly potted plants that even I couldn’t manage to kill and I forgot to water them frequently.
I loved it back there. If I was home, I was back there. I even had two space heaters back there so when it was winter, I could still be there.
So I went back there, grabbed a pack of smoky treats, a lighter, ashtray and camped out on the couch with my beer and the folders.
What seemed minutes later but I knew by how much I’d read wasn’t, Creed came out with a plate of food that smelled divine in one hand and another cold one in the other.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” he muttered, handing me the plate and setting my beer on the table in front of me.
“You shouldn’t either,” I threw out my guess and his eyes caught mine.
“That’s why I know you shouldn’t do it,” he replied, confirming my guess and moving back into the house.
I looked at the ziti. It was baked. There was tons of cheese, some of it baked brown. It reeked of garlic and I knew at a glance it would be delicious.
I set the plate aside, put the file that was open on my lap on the low, rectangular table in front of me, grabbed the plate again, nabbed the fork stuck in the food, sat back and commenced eating. Upon my first bite it was confirmed. It was delicious.
Creed joined me, sitting in the wicker chair furthest from the door, putting his booted feet up to the edge of the table and his eyes to me.
He shoved a big fork full of ziti in his mouth and asked through it, “Questions?”
I didn’t have any. He was thorough. He didn’t miss a trick. This was added proof he was skilled, talented and experienced.
“You did a shit ton of work and got a month of nothing,” I told him something he already knew.
“This is why I know the ride’s gonna get bumpy,” he replied then shoved more ziti in his mouth.
I shoved more in mine, chewed and swallowed.
“So, no questions about the file, let’s get this closeness crap outta the way,” I suggested and he grinned while still chewing.
Then he invited, “Shoot.”
“Arizona?” I asked.
“Phoenix,” he answered.
I shoved more ziti in my mouth, buying time to find it so I could ask it.
Then I found it and asked it, “Married?”
“Divorced. Six years.”
Six years, divorced. His oldest child was twelve. I wondered how long he was married before the divorce. In other words, his first child was born four years after he left me so I wondered how long it took for him to replace me.
I didn’t ask this. It was clear we had to talk about our pasts, get to know each other. There was no avoiding it. But there were places we weren’t going to go.
I nodded then continued, “You work out of state often?”
“If the job feels good and the pay is right, yeah.”
“How long you been in state?”
His eyes held mine even as he shoved more ziti in his mouth, chewed and swallowed.
He was preparing me.
He didn’t have to. I was already braced.
Then he gave it to me. “Left Kentucky, went to Michigan. Moved from Michigan to South Carolina. Met Chelle there. Her parents moved to Arizona, she got pregnant, wanted to be close, we moved there.”
“Chelle?”
“Ex.”
“Right,” I muttered, leaned forward, grabbed my beer, sat back and took a swig before I looked back at him. “See your kids often?”
“Often as I can.”
“Close?”
His eyes grew sharper on my face before he answered but when he answered, with the words he said, this warning would be lost on me.
“Yeah, with both. Kara’s gettin’ to a stage, doesn’t get along with her Mom so I try to be around and if I can’t, I’m a phone call away. Something she takes advantage of so it’s good for me since I connect with her often though it sucks why she feels the need to do it. Brand’s all me, top to toe to heart to mind, all my boy.”
His casual, yet careful, words pierced through me like spears and I froze in an effort to contain the pain.
Then the pain engulfed me and I couldn’t contain it anymore.
As it swallowed me into its dark, fiery pit, I tossed my plate of ziti on the table. It went skidding across the files and flew over the other side as I drew my other arm back and brought it forward in a sidearm slice, releasing my beer so it sailed past him and shattered against the low wall under the windows at his back, foaming beer spraying in wide spatter all around.
His feet came off the table and I knew by his eyes, he knew.
He knew.
He didn’t forget.
That motherfucker knew.
“Sylvie, let me –” he started.
“You named her kids my names,” I whispered, my breaths coming heavy.
“Sylvie –”
Shit, fuck, shit.
I couldn’t take it.
We’d talked about it. We’d talked. Frequently. Talked. Dreamed. Planned. Frequently.
I told him, we had a girl, she’d be named Kara. We had a boy, we’d name him after his Dad.
Those were my names.
My fucking names!
“You named her kids my names!” I screamed then attacked.
Launching myself over the table, I hit him in the chest. His chair slammed back, taking us and his plate with it, ziti smushed between us but I did not give one, single, solitary fuck.
He named another woman’s children my names!
That fucking motherfucker!
I shot up to straddling him, my knees in the back of the chair, my arm coming back in preparation to land a blow and he shot up with me, arms coming around me, effectively taking away my target. He pulled me to him, rolled the both of us free of the chair then kicked it and I heard it slide and crash against something that stopped it.
I’d learned early and quick that my size was a major detriment to pretty much anything, especially if it was physical. I was in shape, no doubt about it, but I was small, thin and a woman so I had to aim true, be willing not to fight fair and be smart, fast, ballsy and sly.
I was so pissed, I lost sight of all that and Creed immediately gained the advantage. If I didn’t pull my shit together, his weight, height and power would have me defenseless in seconds.
But there was no way in fuck he was winning this.
No way.
No fucking way.
Therefore, I lifted my head and sank my teeth in his neck so hard, I tasted blood.
“Fuck!” he ground out, reared back and I went with him, using his momentum to take him to his back. I shot up, straddling him again and didn’t delay in pulling back an arm and landing a fisted blow to his cheekbone.
He grunted and his head shot to the side.
I didn’t get a second one in. He got his hand around my wrist and rolled me to my back, him on top of me.
I got my boot planted in the floor and rolled him so I was on top. I grabbed both sides of his head and lifted it in preparation for a head butt when he came totally up, knifing at the waist. I automatically held on, my hands fisting in his hair.
“Calm the fuck down and let me explain,” he growled.
“Fuck you!” I shouted, let go with one hand, brought it low, shoved it
up the back of his shirt and scored my nails through his flesh.
“Jesus,” he hissed, shifted to his knees and immediately fell forward so my back slammed into the edge of the coffee table before it went skidding. Then my back hit floor and Creed’s body pinned me.
Not good. I had his weight on me and his hips between my legs so I couldn’t get a knee to his crotch. He reached back and pulled my arm from around him, his other hand going to my other wrist and yanking my hand out of his hair. He pulled them around and between us, locking them there.
We grappled, pushed, pulled, shoved, both of us growling, grunting and hissing, me rocking my hips and planting my feet, arching my back, nearly rolling him but not succeeding.
Fuck, he was going to win.
Fuck, I had to fight dirty.
I lifted my head, he reared back to avoid my teeth but couldn’t get back fast enough. I got my mouth on him and didn’t use my teeth. I used my tongue.
The element of surprise worked.
He stilled instantly.
It was a tactical error.
Not on his part, on mine.
He smelled good. He tasted good and fuck me, he felt good.
The pain of his further betrayal, one even more unforgivable than the last, still consumed me and it had to go. It had to go and I knew only two ways to stop it. Two ways I’d blindly turned to over the years. Two ways that didn’t work for long but they worked for a while.
Without thinking, to dull the pain, I needed one of those ways.
So I went for it and licked up his neck to below his ear and God, God, the scent of him, the feel of him on my tongue, the taste of him…
God.
Suddenly and instantly, something altogether different consumed me.
I bucked my hips, put my weight into my foot on the floor and rolled him so I was on top. I went right in, my teeth to the collar of his tee, my fingers curling into it, I used both until I got the tear then my mouth went away and I ripped it all the way down.
His hands curled in at my waist. “Sylvie –” he murmured but I bent. My mouth to the sleek, muscled skin of his chest, I liked the feel of him against my lips so much my tongue snaked out.
Oh yeah. So good. Fucking beautiful.
I took more, across his collarbone, down, to his nipple I sucked deep and his hands slid from my waist to become arms wrapped tight around me.