Fire Inside

by Kristen Ashley

  I pulled in breath and looked to Ty-Ty.

  “What frame?” I asked. It was a lie and worse, I knew Tack would know it.

  Tyra did, too.

  This wasn’t a surprise. She knew me well. We’d been friends a long time.

  Kane “Tack” Allen was tall, dark, handsome, and rough. He was also very smart, very loyal, very funny, and very in love with my best friend.

  Tyra Allen was curvy, redheaded, green-eyed, and not rough in the slightest. She was also far from dumb, very loyal, very funny, very in love with her husband, and very true to me.

  She and I had been through a lot even before we’d been kidnapped together years before because of Elliott’s problems with the Russian Mob. Although she’d been tied up and kept in a dark room while I was interrogated by the Mob, and we’d been rescued separately, when you shared something like being kidnapped, bonds formed even if the bonds already there were strong.

  Sometime later, the day I’d been shot and Elliot had been killed, Tyra had been kidnapped, tied to a chair, and stabbed repeatedly.

  Tack pulled out all the stops and paid a fortune to have a plastic surgeon erase her scars.

  Mine still marred my skin. A reminder, a strong one, never to forget.

  Tyra also came and got me from Connecticut, rescuing me from the dysfunction I’d moved to Denver to escape in the first place. She thought she was rescuing me from something else and I let her think that. I don’t know how convincing I was. I just knew Ty-Ty was letting it lie. She had me in Denver, under her watchful eye and close enough to feel her comforting hand. When that hand needed to form a velvet-gloved iron fist was anyone’s guess.

  I just knew by the look on her face it would not be now.

  Even so, Tyra had looked askance at that frame of Elliott and me tons of times. I even once caught her giving Tack eyes about it, jerking her head toward it, whereupon he shook his head. She bugged out her eyes. He rolled his to the ceiling. She crossed her arms on her chest and glared at him. As for me, I pretended I missed all this when I didn’t.

  Suffice it to say, Elliott wasn’t her favorite person. He got me kidnapped. He got her kidnapped, twice. He got me shot, repeatedly. He got her stabbed, repeatedly.

  So Elliott, even dead, was persona non grata.

  As he should be.

  For years, Ty-Ty had simply looked askance at the photo but ignored it and didn’t mention Elliott. I knew this was partially because, even though he was dead, she was pissed at him for getting me hurt, not to mention getting her hurt. This was also because her husband was loyal and he adored her and Elliott got her hurt. Even if Elliott was still breathing, it was pretty clear that Tack would make sure he wasn’t doing that for much longer. The breathing part, that was.

  As for me, I didn’t mention Elliott. Not ever. My fiancé nearly got my best friend dead. Once we found out about his dealings with the Mob, Tyra advised me strongly to break it off with him. I stuck by his side. She was right. I was wrong. But we both paid for me being wrong and I didn’t go there. I didn’t go there because all I had in me was the ability to rejoice that she didn’t turn her back on me after I nearly got her killed. I held onto that like the lifeline it was. Like I was never going to let it go and no way I was going to bring him up, my decision to stay with him, and rock that boat.

  So, obviously, it being an unspoken bone of contention, she wouldn’t miss the photo being gone.

  And equally obviously, I was not going to share that I’d thrown it against a wall, shattering the glass. I also was not going to share that I then obsessively listened to Bob Seger singing “We’ve Got Tonight” because every word in that song was true even as I wouldn’t allow myself to admit that it was. I was further not going to share that I’d had my “night”. That night was with Hop (as were the thirteen before—and I was not going to share that either) and, at the time, it hadn’t even been a day but I was already jonesing for a drug I had to get off cold turkey.

  No rehab to help me deal with losing my high.

  I had to get through it on my own.

  And I damned well would.

  So the frame and glass and the stupid picture of me and my dead fiancé had long since been taken away by the garbage man. As had all the other pictures I had in albums upstairs. As had my wedding gown that I didn’t get to wear that I kept for some ridiculous reason, that cost a mint but I didn’t even give it to Goodwill or anything.

  No one needed that bad juju.

  So the garbage man took it to where it belonged. The dump.

  At my fake-innocent question as to what frame they were referring to, Ty-Ty’s eyes slid to Tack. Mine did too.

  He was looking at his boots.

  In the years I’d known Tack Allen, I’d learned all the meanings of him looking at his boots. These were threefold.

  One, he didn’t want Ty-Ty to see he found her amusing and this was solely when she was ticked at him which she would not find amusing that he found amusing but he mostly always did.

  Two, he was ticked at one of his kids—the older two, Rush and Tabby, that he’d had with another woman—not Cutter and Rider, the boys he had with Tyra. As an older dad on his second time around, he had all the patience in the world with Cut and Rider. This was good, seeing as they were still little boys, but they were also total hooligans (and thus why they weren’t with us right then, ruining a relaxing dinner, but with Big Petey, a vintage member of the MC, likely destroying his house). Tack being ticked at Rush and Tab came rarer now, as they were older, and he looked at his boots when he was trying to stop himself from shouting or, maybe, strangling them.

  Three, he was with Tyra and me and—for whatever reason we were squabbling, gossiping or giggling—he was not going to get involved.

  Luckily, my eyes went back to Tyra before hers came to me.

  I tried to come up with an answer to anything she might say.

  Surprisingly, she didn’t say anything. Not about the frame or my lie.

  Instead, she said, “Nothing, honey,” as she walked to me, wrapped her arms around me, tighter than usual, and gave me a long hug. “Thanks for dinner,” she said in my ear.

  “Yeah, babe, good food,” Tack called to me from his place at the door, and my eyes moved over Tyra’s shoulder to him.

  I smiled.

  Tack did not.

  He tipped up his chin but his gaze stayed glued to mine, intense. Somewhat like how Hop looked at me, minus the admiration and, obviously, the sex or foreplay, but adding open contemplation I had a really bad feeling about.

  Tyra let me go and I tore my eyes from Tack to smile into hers.

  “Thanks for coming,” I said to her and I chanced looking back at her husband.

  “Don’t have to thank me for sittin’ down at a table with two beautiful women and good, bona fide, Southern cooking,” Tack replied and, finally, I smiled a genuine smile.

  One thing my mom didn’t try to leave behind in Tennessee was her cooking. She did it all the time and she taught me and Elissa how to do it like her momma did with her and Mamaw’s mom did with her and so on.

  She did this because she often tried to be a good mom. She also did this because it was tradition. But it stunk because I knew she did this mostly because Dad loved her cooking. Or, more aptly, he loved that whenever they had dinner parties, people would shower him (yes, him) with glowing compliments about how he was smart enough to marry a woman who knew how to make honest-to-goodness, down-home meals.

  Needless to say, learning to cook in the Southern tradition, I grew up in Connecticut but I didn’t know you could steam vegetables until I moved to Denver. As far as I knew, they were either fried in an iron skillet with butter or breaded or battered and dropped in hot fat.

  Luckily, I had the metabolism of a sixteen-year-old high school point guard.

  Also luckily, my cooking was good enough for Tack to mention it (again) and get everyone’s mind off the frame.

  “Anytime, anything you want, Tack. Just call and
your wish is my command,” I offered as Tyra and I walked to him at the door.

  “Don’t offer that. He does most of the cooking. He’ll be over three times a week to get a break,” Tyra told me, a smile in her voice.

  I kept my mouth shut mostly because having them come over three times a week would be fine by me, and I didn’t want them to know that. It would expose too much. But the truth was, I’d run an advertising agency and I’d rush home and fry chicken and make a pecan pie from scratch all the way down to the crust if it meant three nights of not being alone, watching TV or worse, what I’d been doing lately: listening to Bob Seger’s slow songs with candles burning and doing everything to ignore the gaping void in my belly, which meant I did nothing but think of the gaping void in my belly.

  “Next time, my turn,” Tack rumbled, bending to touch his lips to my cheek.

  His goatee tickled my skin.

  At the feel of it, the memories it invoked, that gaping void I could never stop thinking about widened, consuming vast areas of my body, making me feel empty from throat to toes.

  I hid this as his head came up and I smiled into his eyes.

  He stared into mine even as his hand came out, and his fingers curled around mine tight before, just as quickly, they disappeared.

  Tack Allen never missed anything.

  Not anything.

  Ever.

  Damn.

  I gave Tyra another hug and then stood on my front porch, lights on, another Southern tradition my mom taught me, and waved at them until they were out of sight.

  This bugged Tack. I knew it because Tyra told me he wanted me to stop doing it. He wanted me in the house, door closed and locked before they rolled away.

  That was sweet and I tried but I couldn’t do it. Years of training ingrained in me forbid it. I shared this with Tack; he roared with laughter and shut up about it.

  I went into the house, turned off the porch light, closed the door, and locked it.

  Then I went to the windows, opened the plantation shutters, and peeked out.

  Long moments elapsed before I heard the roar of his bike then I saw them slide by.

  Yes, Tack shut up about it.

  He also rounded the block and came back to check all was quiet at Lanie’s house before he and Tyra headed up the mountain.

  I watched them disappear and smiled at the street, happy I had good friends, and happy my best friend had found a good man.

  Then I slid the shutters closed and headed to the bottle of wine.

  Minutes later, glass of wine in hand, candles lit, I moved to the stereo.

  * * *

  I lay there bleeding, the phone I used to dial 911 several feet away.

  Too far to reach. I could hear the voice of the 911 operator calling from the phone but I was too weak to reach for it.

  All I could do was lie on the carpet and feel the warm, sickening rush of blood pooling around my body.

  And all I could see was Elliott, five feet in front of me, on his back, his head turned to the side, his eyes open, wide and lifeless.

  He was dead but he still looked surprised.

  I put myself in front of bullets for him.

  He didn’t put himself in front of me. I put myself in front of him.

  I knew this was not why he was surprised.

  I knew he was surprised I didn’t save him.

  * * *

  I came awake with a jerk, my torso swinging up, breaths coming in gasps, heart beating a mile a minute, the dream still having a hold of me.

  No, not a dream.

  A nightmare.

  A memory.

  I sucked in breaths. They came shallow so I forced them deep and I listened hard.

  They weren’t out there. They were never out there. It was memory coming through as a dream. Just as it often did.

  Tack had taken care of Gregori Lescheva. The Russian Mob was no longer interested in me. They had their revenge. It was lying in a grave fifteen miles away from my house.

  I was safe.

  I didn’t feel that way.

  I jerked my head around and looked at the clock.

  Twelve-oh-two. I’d been asleep about an hour.

  I pulled in one last breath then threw the covers off me. I got up and went to the walk-in closet. I flipped the switch on the outside and walked in, looking around at the rails stuffed full of clothes.

  Mom and Dad got me gift certificates for everything. If I took a breath, one would wing its way from Connecticut and land in my mailbox as a celebration.

  Guilt money. Guilt for Dad being a jerk and Mom being weak. Just like my car. They knew I left Connecticut to escape their lunacy, the heartbreak that lived and breathed and festered all around. So, in true Dad fashion, he’d bought me a car that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to wash away the feel of living amongst love gone bad.

  I accepted it. I accepted everything. It was too much hassle not to—Mom’s pouting, Dad’s disappointment.

  Elissa didn’t buy into the lie. My sister didn’t go home for Christmas. She didn’t call on Thanksgiving. She didn’t put up with their shit. She’d drawn that line years ago and lived without parents.

  “Why do I need them when I’ve got you?” she’d asked me.

  Sweet, loving, loyal. Then again, that was my Lis. All of that in spades.

  By the way, Lis hated Elliott too. She’d loved him, probably for the reasons I loved him, before he died. After he’d died and how he did, nearly taking me with him, not so much.

  I carefully selected an outfit and shoes. Grabbing them I dashed to my bed and laid them out. At the dresser, I carefully selected underwear. I had a lot to choose from. I didn’t pay attention to just how much lingerie was shoved into my drawer or to my room, with its cream walls that held a hint of pink, the tall, huge king-sized bed with its colossal, sweeping, padded headboard and matching footboard. The expensive sheets and shams. The wide, round, antique white nightstands with their curved, elegant legs. The smooth, shining, crystal-based lamps.

  All the trappings of home.

  Thinking of it, suddenly feeling suffocated, I rushed to the bathroom, bent under the vanity, and pulled out my basket of makeup. Leaning over the basin, I applied it, all of it, and there was a lot.

  On to my hair, spritzing and squirting and spraying and teasing until it was out to there. I pulled just the top back in pins an inch from my forehead then teased and sprayed the hair at my crown so it was taller.

  Sluttier.

  Out to the bedroom I went and pulled on the scanty, sexy, lacy black demi-bra and teeny-weeny panties. The short jeans skirt. The tight, nearly see-through white blouse with its wide collar, close sleeves, long cuffs with a dozen small pearl buttons each, the buttons down the front didn’t start until mid-cleavage.

  On to the jewelry box. Big hoops. A wide silver choker. Lots of silver rings.

  Spritz of perfume. Another one. More.

  High-heeled platform sandals with sassy ankle straps.

  I turned out the lights, teetered downstairs, grabbed my purse and keys, and headed to my car.

  I’d never done this before, not in my life.

  But I was alive, breathing.

  Alive.

  Hop told me so.

  Time to start living.

  I walked through the courtyard, opened the back door to the garage, hit the garage door opener, swung into my car, pulled out and headed into the night.

  * * *

  I was alive, breathing.

  Living.

  And I’d fucked everything up.

  I knew this because I was in the dark parking lot of a biker bar, lured there because I was more than a hint drunk, far more than a hint stupid, and thus an easy mark.

  The guy said he had big tires on his truck, huge, taller than me.

  That was something I had to see.

  The girl came with us. She was there to set me up. What she thought would happen to me after she backed away and disappeared into the night, I
didn’t know. I just knew she didn’t care, which made her, officially, the number one biggest bitch in history.

  Setting up a sister?

  She should be stripped of membership.

  Of course, if I made it through this alive and breathing and hopefully not violated, I would approach the Council of the Sisterhood and ask them to see to this immediately.

  Unfortunately, there wasn’t a Sisterhood Council to report bitches to.

  Alas.

  Also unfortunately—much more so—it didn’t look like I would make it through this not violated.

  The alive and breathing part was up for grabs.

  “Seriously, I want to go back inside,” I told him, pushing against his big, doughy body, smelling beer on his breath.

  He had me pinned up against the tire of his truck and, bad news, it was taller than me. So was he.

  “Baby,” he ran his hand up the outside of my hip, “don’t play this game. You were all over me.”

  “We danced,” I reminded him, trying logic first. Just in case a miracle happened, he’d see it and back off without an ugly scene. At the same time, pushing harder, wishing my purse, which he’d pulled off my arm and thrown to the ground, was closer since my phone was in it, and wondering if anyone would hear me scream. “That’s hardly all over you.”

  His head dipped and his mouth went to my neck. I felt his tongue, damp and sloppy there.

  At that, I also felt bile slide up my throat and pushed harder, definitely deciding to scream.

  “You danced close,” he muttered against my neck, pushing me further into the tire, which didn’t feel real great.

  “I did not.” And I hadn’t. We were line dancing, for goodness’ sakes!

  His hand was gliding up my side and getting close to my breast.

  Okay. Time to scream.

  And, possibly, engage my fingernails.

  I opened my mouth to do just that, heaving at the same time when, suddenly, his face was not in my neck and his body was not pressing me into the tire.

  No, I watched with some fascination, some awe, and some queasiness as his head snapped back unnaturally and his body went with it. The former did this because Hop had his fist in the guy’s hair and the latter did this because Hop had his arm around the guy’s chest.