Prodigal Son (Lean Dogs Legacy Book 3)
Page 35
“Yeah.” His gaze flicked up, sharp and bright through his lashes. “That’s why I figured you’d be on a plane.” It dropped again.
Axelle took a sip of her drink. “This is…okay, I’ve thought about it, and there’s not a great way to say this.” Not one that didn’t make her sound pathetic. “But I feel like…like there’s something here. I know there is.”
He sat up properly, and really looked at her. “Something?”
“Between us.” She gestured for added effect, between the two of them. “I mean. I know you like me. And I like you.”
“Like.” His smile was fast, and cruel, a slice across his face. “That sounds like kids in school.”
Her face warmed. He wasn’t flowery or emotional, but this had taken a bad turn faster than expected. She scowled at him. “You kissed me.”
His eyes dropped again.
“Don’t pretend like that didn’t mean something.”
He shrugged.
“Albie.” Fuck it; might as well be honest and just go for it. “You’re really depressed, okay? I can see it. Everyone can. I walked in here, and you looked sad. And I know all this with your dad, and your secret assassin brother is really getting to you, and you’re in here with your – your furniture. And it’s not healthy. You’re spiraling.”
He lifted his head again, his glare dangerous this time. “Are you my shrink now?”
She refused to back down. “No. I’m someone who cares about you, and who wants you to be happy and healthy. I’m asking you to come with us. To come with me.” She started to shake. She’d never asked such a thing of a man, not even her own father. Had never looked at him and said, Take care of yourself for me. Be here for me, because I’m selfish, and I love you, and I don’t want to see you dead.
Albie sat back on his stool, hands braced on the counter. Expression impossible to read. “My life is here,” he said firmly.
“Your shop is here,” she countered. “And you can set one up in Knoxville. Southerners love handmade shit. North Carolina is like Handmade Furniture Heaven.”
“My family–”
“Half of them are already in Tennessee.”
“I don’t care!” It wasn’t a shout, but close enough. He shook his head hard, teeth bared. “I don’t care, okay? This is my shop. This is my home.”
She’d expected this, to a certain extent.
But there’d been a part of her – silly and self-indulgent – that had imagined falling into one another’s arms, a kiss like the last one, better, deeper, skin-on-skin and a reprieve from the endless ache of loneliness.
She swallowed. “And that’s the most important thing, right?” she said, flatly.
He swallowed, too. “Yeah.”
Axelle threw back her whiskey and stood up. “Nice meeting you, Albie. Have a nice life.”
She walked out, and she didn’t let herself look back.
Not even half a block away, when tears filled her eyes.
~*~
Albie stared at the door after she left. Whiskey forgotten. Sketch forgotten – it was uninspired anyway. Everything he’d tried to draw since that night at Pseudonym had been absolute shit anyway. She’d ducked her head at the end, just before she slipped past the window and out of sight. And reached to dab at her eyes.
Like, she’d said.
Something, she’d said.
He conjured the fantasy again, of his flat draped with Christmas lights, filled with music, dancing on the rug in the lounge, the sound of happy laughter. And of her; gold hair flashing, mouth smiling, hands gentle on his face as she leaned in for a kiss. One like before, that one time he’d dared, going deeper, and hotter, and better, and–
He swept his sketchbook off the desk, and it launched across the room, pages fluttering like wings, before it slapped down onto the floor, crumpled.
As useless as everything he’d ever done.
The clock on the wall ticked, ticked, ticked.
Thirty-Nine
Winter in Tennessee was a finicky thing. Some days bitter, throwing sleet at the windows; others mild, and sunny, frost melting, jackets coming off as everyone soaked up the heat.
Today was a warm day, and Fox’s charges were shirtless as they worked through their routine on the pavement of the back car lot at Dartmoor. Pushups, sit-ups, squats, lunges, poses, strikes.
“Good,” he said as he paced behind them. “Again.”
Each of the three of them held an old broom handle they used as a staff, and lunged forward with it, as if striking an invisible opponent.
Reese was the most talented. And the most obedient, too.
Evan was a hopeless disaster.
And Ten…they called him Tenny, or sometimes Emerald, depending on his mood of the day…was as athletic and capable as any assassin, but more and more the Devin Green shone through in him, defiant, cocky, irrepressible.
In some deep dark place he refused to acknowledge, Fox loved this little brother he’d only met a month before. Was proud of him.
And Reese would make an exceptional Lean Dog someday.
Ghost sidled up to him, two steaming mugs in his hands, one of which he passed to Fox. “How goes it?”
Fox accepted the coffee with a murmured thanks, eyes never leaving his charges. “These two” – he pointed to Reese and Tenny – “will be brilliant. This one.” Evan. “God knows.”
Ghost chuckled. “We can’t all be brilliant, Foxy. Sometimes we just do the best we can.”
Fox snorted. “Speak for yourself.”
The president climbed up onto the nearest picnic table and got comfortable. “How’s Eden settling in?”
“Laps, boys!” Fox called, and his recruits went to run it out. He joined Ghost, letting his shoulders finally sag. Acting as drill sergeant tired him in a way he’d never expected. “She’s…” And this was the part that surprised him. Maybe it shouldn’t have. “She’s happy. Likes her flat. Likes being without her mum.”
Ghost snorted.
“Got some clients already. And of course the work you’re sending her way.”
Ghost tipped his head in acknowledgement.
“She’s good.” He turned to look at his president. His president. His bottom rocker read TENNESSEE now. “Thank you, Kenny. I appreciate it.”
Ghost grinned, smug, and leaned back on one hand. “Where would any of us be without the women who make us better, you know?”
Fox shook his head, and let his gaze wander out to the boys, making a wide loop around the broke-down Chevys and Fords inside the fenced lot. But he felt the swoop and dive in his stomach. The giddiness. “Yeah. I know.”
~*~
Knoxville was quieter than Nashville. Nashville had become such a hotbed of music activity, and therefore nightlife and commercial fame…but Knoxville, while still bustling in its own way, and home of the Vols…offered something a little more subdued. Something that didn’t make Axelle nervous.
But which still offered work opportunities.
Axelle knew it was Ghost – and she had fast learned that he was the boss in these parts, him and his old lady, Maggie – who had steered them toward their first client, a woman trying to find her deadbeat ex-husband who refused to pay child support. Not a complicated job, but a profitable one.
Axelle had a place, a cozy little apartment in the attic of a Victorian house, with quiet neighbors, and a view of a field, and a tree line, and permission to decorate her windows for Christmas.
She had her GTO, and Fox had shown her a few old husks at Dartmoor, a Mustang and two Camaros in need of new engines that would clean up nice. “Projects,” he’d called them, and winked.
A tiny part of her still hated the Dogs.
But it was only tiny, because they’d helped her so much at this point, and they were…well, they were sweet. In their own way. Life was good here.
It was really good.
But.
Sometimes she thought about Albie. More than she should.
She though
t about what it would be like to have someone. At the end of the day, when the early winter evening set in, and when Eden stopped responding to texts because she was with Fox.
What would it be like to shut out the world because someone wanted her, and only her, and didn’t need any interruptions?
“Can you swing by the post office?” Eden asked one Wednesday.
Axelle groaned internally. The post office was hell this close to Christmas, the lines out the door, someone always trying to ship something that wouldn’t fit in its box. But she agreed, because this was her job, and who was she to complain?
She swung by on her way home, hitting the regrettable three o’clock hour when it would be super crowded, but unable to help it. The parking lot in front of the big, austere white building left her groaning – full. But she ducked over into the turn lane and resolved herself to wait.
That was when she saw him.
A man stood at the median, in the grass, right along the road. He carried a backpack and a suitcase, wore a hoodie under a leather jacket and had a cap pulled down low on his forehead. But she recognized his face. His blue eyes. Bright even from a distance.
Axelle threw her car in park and climbed out, heedless of the angry drivers who honked at her. She walked forward, across the turn lane, to the median.
And the man smiled.
Albie smiled.
“Hello, love,” he said, breathless, grinning ear-to-ear. “You were right. Obviously, you were.”
She stopped an arm’s length away, stupefied.
He set his bag down. Pulled off his hat. Twisted it in his hands. “Axelle. Darling. I’ve come to beg.”
Everyone in line behind her honked; a few even rolled down their windows and shouted.
But Axelle walked into his arms, and he kissed her, and that was all that mattered.
THE END
~*~
Look for more of the brood
in upcoming Dartmoor Series releases!
About the Author:
Lauren Gilley is the author of over twenty novels. She writes contemporary and historical stories with a focus on found family, and overcoming tough odds. She blogs, sometimes, at hoofprintpress.blogspot.com, and accepts emails at authorlaurengilley@gmail.com. She lives in the South; when she’s not writing, she’s mucking horse stalls, or walking her giant dog.
You can also find her on these other social media sites:
Instagram: @hppress
Twitter: @lauren_gilley
Facebook: “Lauren Gilley – Author”
Other Novels from Lauren Gilley:
Dartmoor Series/Lean Dogs Legacy Series:
Fearless
Price of Angels
Half My Blood
The Skeleton King
Secondhand Smoke
Snow in Texas
Tastes Like Candy
Loverboy
American Hellhound
Shaman
Sons of Rome Series:
“The Stalker”
White Wolf
Red Rooster
Dragon Slayer (coming soon)
Walker Series:
Keep You
Dream of You
Better Than You
Fix You
Rosewood
Standalones:
Whatever Remains
Walking Wounded
“Love Is…”
Russell Series:
Made for Breaking
God Love Her
Keeping Bad Company