Shelter ~ Jay Crownover

by Crownover, Jay

  I hissed out a pained breath because I didn’t want him to tell me he loved me only because there was a very good chance he might lose me. I wanted him to love me because he wanted to keep me and never let me go. I didn’t want an emotional declaration because we were back in this place where we had both been before, having to choose between each other and the unknown, not knowing which would end up being more dangerous to our hearts.

  As if he sensed my growing agitation, he caught my face between his wide palms and stared directly into my eyes.

  “I need you for a lot of reasons, Emrys Santos. Yes, right now I need you to get my daughter back, but don’t for a single second think it isn’t more than that. I need you to keep me balanced. I need you to show me the way to something new. I need you to remind me there are parts of me that deserve forgiveness and kindness. I need you to have any kind of shot at happy down the road. I’m always going to be the kind of man who fights his way through the storm. I need you to protect me and Daye from the bad weather. I need you to be our shelter. I need you to let me be your shelter, as well. We’ll keep each other warm and dry.” His forehead touched mine for a split second, and when he pulled away his eyes were that dark green that bordered on the edge of black. “You are the thing that I want more than anything else in this world. I want to see you smile at my daughter. I want to wake up with all that fucking hair wrapped all around me. I want to lose myself in you and forget my own name. I want you to hold my hand when my entire life changes and still be there holding it when it settles into something boring and predictable, because everything with you feels exciting and new. I want you to spend time with my little girl so that she can see how much having you in our lives has helped heal her old man. You are the only woman I have ever known that with every bone in my body I will want and need until time ends. You’re it. No one else will ever be able to give me what you do.”

  I had a lot to say to that. So many things, but all I could get out was, “I want and need you, too, Sutton.” I’d been lost before him and now I finally could see where I wanted to be. Right next to him regardless of the situation. “And I need Daye, so let’s go get her and put our family back together.”

  He gave a jerky nod and dropped a brief kiss on my lips before twisting around to reach the weapons. I tried not to freak out when he put the small pistol in my hands but it was in vain. Its heavyweight made bile rise in my throat. I forced myself to swallow as I bent to push the gun into the top of my black boots. Sutton grabbed my hand and we took off for our uncertain fate, side by side.

  No Place to Park

  Sutton

  I wasn’t surprised in the least when Burke ordered me to drop the rifle as soon as I stepped foot inside the Big Horn. He had all the lights off and the place smelled like stale beer and unwashed bodies. It was clear he hadn’t had the business open for several days, which led me to wonder how long he had been lurking on our property waiting for the right moment to ambush his prey.

  The older man was standing behind the bar and there was a familiar bottle of whiskey in front of him. Now that I wasn’t drunk off my ass, I could see that the ocher liquid that was typically clear and golden was slightly cloudy and looked off. It was the bottle of booze that put me in the hospital and nearly stopped my heart. He also had a revolver in one hand that was pointed unwaveringly at the center of my chest. It didn’t take any time for my eyes, which were adjusting to the dreary interior, to notice that Daye didn’t appear to be anywhere in sight.

  I tossed the long-barreled gun onto one of the empty tables and made sure my entire body blocked Emrys where she hovered nervously behind me. I could feel the way she was vibrating, and it took a whole lot of effort not to jump out of my skin when her fingers touched my back between my shoulder blades.

  “I don’t see Daye anywhere.” Her voice was low and filled with trepidation.

  “Where is my daughter, Burke?” She was the only thing that mattered and I made sure he could tell that when I spoke. I wasn’t scared of him. I was scared for her and for the woman behind me.

  Burke didn’t respond for a drawn-out minute. When he did, he didn’t bother to answer my question. Instead, he waved the gun he held in our direction and ordered, “Strip. Both of you.”

  I felt Em stiffen behind me and her hand on my back curled into a fist. No doubt she was having flashbacks to the last time someone pointed a weapon in her direction and started shredding her clothes.

  When neither one of us jumped to do his bidding, he leveled the gun right at the center of my chest and cocked the hammer back with a lifted eyebrow. “I want you down to your skivvies, Warner. That way I know you aren’t armed. With her,” he leaned to the side so he could see Emrys and gave her a leer that made my skin crawl. “I just want to enjoy the view.”

  Since he had the upper hand and I still had no idea where my daughter was, I begrudgingly started to follow his orders. I pulled off my borrowed shirt with jerky movements and kicked off my ruined boots. The gun I’d stashed in the top of the shaft clattered to the floor, which made Burke click his tongue in mock disapproval. I moved to unbuckle my belt so I could wiggle my way out of my jeans, and I shot a look over my shoulder to see how Em was doing. I wanted to strangle Burke when I saw how white she was and how rapidly her chest was rising and falling. There was no hiding her terror as she stood behind me shaking, clad in nothing more than a lacy black bra and a pair of matching panties. Her long legs and elegant curves were on full display, and I hated that anyone but me got to see her like this.

  I also loathed the way Burke’s gaze seemed to linger on the dark marks that stood out in stark contrast against her honey-colored skin. An ugly grin twisted his mouth when he shifted his gaze back to mine.

  “Looks like someone already got ahold of your girl. You aren’t doing a very good job of keeping her out of trouble, Warner. Seems to be a pattern with you and your women. They always end up hurt.” Bitterness and blame were wrapped around every word he spat at me and hatred was evident in every line of his body as he leaned on the bar with his free hand. “Let’s have a drink and then we can talk about what I want you to do if you ever want to see your kid alive again.”

  I took a step forward and faltered. He turned, grabbed two glasses, and set them down next to the bottle of whiskey. That bottle had put me in the hospital once and it looked like he had every intention of using it to put me in the ground this time. If I died from drugs and alcohol, no one but my family would be surprised. That was the story people would buy hook, line, and sinker. If he had to explain how my body was in his bar riddled with bullet holes, it made for a much stickier situation. He was crazy, but he wasn’t stupid, and that made him scarily dangerous.

  I started to shuffle toward the bar wearing nothing more than my boxer-briefs and a pair of socks. I felt the heat of Em’s nearly naked body pressing into my back and blindly reached for her hand. When we were only a few feet away from Burke, I could see the pure, unadulterated disgust he had for me in his eyes. I had no idea how I missed it all those times I sat at this very bar trying to drink away the memory of the woman behind me.

  “How did you manage to hide your relationship with Alexa for so long, Burke? Everyone in this town knows everyone else’s business. How did you keep it quiet?” I was blatantly trying to distract him as he nudged the full rocks glass in my direction with the barrel of the gun.

  Burke stared at me without blinking. When he spoke, he was talking to Emrys, even though he was looking directly at me. “Come closer, beautiful. I don’t want you to miss anything.” He tapped the rim of the glass with the gun and barked, “Drink up!”

  Not seeing any way around the inevitable, I picked up the glass and took a hesitant sip. The burn of the whiskey barely masked the unnatural medicinal taste to whatever he’d added to the bottle. It made me gag and had my eyes burning. Almost instantaneously, I started to feel woozy and unsteady on my feet. Emrys put her hand on my arm and gave me a worried look while Burke laughed.

>   “Alexa and I go way back. I was always here with my dad when the place was his, and her mom used to drag her in when she was just a kid. Her mom would drink until my dad cut her off and kicked her out. I was the one she cried to when they didn’t have any food at home because her mom spent it all here. I was the one who gave her the first taste when she was determined to understand why the next drink was more important than her and her sister. I took her virginity in the storeroom one night when she begged me to make her forget just how shitty things were at home. I told her I would give her anything, I promised to get her away from this town. I swore to her she could be more than they already decided she was, but she didn’t want that. She wanted you.”

  He topped off the glass and tapped it with the gun again. “This time drink it all. None of that pussy sipping.” He cut a look in Emrys’s direction. “Just think, the more you drink, the less she’ll have to.”

  I balked but reached for the glass as Emrys whispered a strangled ‘no’ next to me. She put her hand over mine as I swore and lifted the glass to my lips. I shot the entire thing back, unable to stop the rising bile and the gagging that followed. The acrid taste made me bend over and dry heave as Burke laughed. Everything around me was getting foggy and slightly blurred around the edges. My skin felt too hot and there was an annoying buzz in my ears that got louder with every second that passed. Emrys’s eyes were glittering like a piece of polished amber and she was chewing a hole in her lower lip. Her hands were on my chest but I didn’t feel them. I couldn’t believe I’d been chasing this numbness not that long ago. Now it killed me that I couldn’t feel the heat of her hands so close to my heart.

  “You swept into her life and suddenly you were the only thing that mattered. When she was with a Warner, no one talked down to her or looked at her like she was following in her mother’s drunken footsteps. When she was your woman, she was no longer the town drunk. She was willing to do anything it took to keep you, including getting sober. She loved you.” He reached for the bottle and poured a hefty shot into the glass in front of Em. With a wicked grin he pushed it toward her and told her to drink. Without thinking about the consequences, I ordered my uncoordinated limbs to get to it before she did. My hands felt like they belonged to someone else and my fingers had no feeling in them. I couldn’t grab the glass, so instead, I sent it flying. The whiskey and poison went careening off the bar.

  Burke screamed in outrage and suddenly reached across the space that separated him from the dark-haired woman. One of his free hands wrapped around the back of her neck as he jerked her entire upper body into the edge of the bar. He pressed the gun into her temple and glared at me.

  “For that, you can finish the bottle. Pick it up.” When it took more than one try because my responses were dulled by the drugs, he jammed the gun even tighter into Em’s temple, making her cry out in pain as she lifted her hands to claw at the arm he had locked around her neck.

  “She loved you but you never understood what she needed. You never bothered to see that she was okay the way she was. You tried to change her and constantly told her she wasn’t good enough. She wasn’t a good enough partner and she wasn’t a good enough mother. Every time I came back to town to see my family, she called me up so she could cry to me about everything just like she did when we younger. That storeroom in the back has seen more action than my king-size bed. She liked to drink and she had a problem, so why would anyone question her hanging around here all the time? I was the only who could give her what she needed. When you finally called it quits, she told me she was going to kill herself. I moved back and told my dad I would take over the bar. I promised to be here for her; I asked her to marry me. I wanted to be a family, but she laughed in my face and told me all I was good for was a quick pick me up. She was waiting for you, even though you tossed her away. She broke my heart and when she told me I was nothing more than a convenient dick when she was lonely, I lost it. I gave up my entire life for her. I came back to this shit hole for her. I gave up everything for her and it wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t good enough.” The gun skated across Emrys’s cheek and she whimpered in response. “Drink, Sutton, or she’s going to eat a bullet.” The barrel of the weapon touched Em’s lips and moved along the line of her throat.

  It took some serious concentration to get my hands on the bottle and I had to lean all of my weight on the bar in order to stay upright and lift the bottle to my mouth. I couldn’t feel my legs and my lips were totally numb. There was more than one of Emrys’s terrified face drifting in and out of my hazy vision, but there was no missing the murderous intent in Burke’s eyes as he watched me struggle to get the bottle at an angle where I could suck more of the toxic liquor down.

  “Tell me where my daughter is, Burke.” The liquor went down much easier this time, even though I started coughing and ended up spitting a mouthful all over the place.

  The man tsked at me and used his hold on Em to pull her whole upper body across the bar. His eyes blazed retribution as one of his hands started to grope at her over the thin fabric of her bra. She let out a whimper of distress and tried to pull away, but Burke held firm as I wobbled on my feet and lurched unsteadily in her direction. Everything had narrowed to a tiny circle and I couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in my ears. I tried to get her name out but my tongue felt like it was too big for my mouth and my body refused to listen to my commands.

  “That’s not how this is going to work. No, you aren’t in charge anymore, Warner. You don’t get what you want just because you want it. Once I’m sure you aren’t moving and can’t do a damn thing to stop it, I’m going to get acquainted with your new woman. You can listen to her call for help, hear her beg for you while I cut up the rest of her pretty skin. When I’m done with her, I’ll let her decide if you get a bullet or if the little girl does. If she decides to save Daye, I’m going to spend some time with that pretty little girl, too. I’m gonna make sure she knows the reason her childhood was ruined was because of you. Your new girlfriend can only save one of you. Which one do you think she’s going to pick?”

  He gave that maniacal laugh that made my skin crawl, but I couldn’t protest or scream at him to leave my family alone. My blinks felt like they were taking too long and after each one, I was having a harder time focusing on the scene in front of me. I knew I was sweating and my breathing was coming in harsh, shallow pants. My skin was tingling and cold, and the room was spinning at an alarming rate. Whatever Burke had pumped into my system was starting to take over. I couldn’t make my body move and all my systems seemed to be stalled.

  Emrys was kicking her legs and trying to fight her way out of Burke’s punishing grip. His hands were pulling at her meager clothing and she was screaming at the top of her lungs for him to stop touching her. I wanted to help her. I needed to stop this, but just like last time, I felt powerless. I tried to grind her name out, and I shoved against the wood that was holding me up so I could stagger in her direction. When I did, the empty bottle of bourbon dropped from my loose hold and shattered on the floor. It was enough of a distraction that Burke moved the gun away from Em’s head.

  It was the tiny sliver of an opening she needed to have the element of surprise on her side. When Burke turned to look in my direction as I gave in and wilted to the floor, no longer able to stay vertical, she reached up and pulled the knife from when she’d buried it in the thick twist coiled on the top of her head. Burke didn’t have time to pull away before she drove the thin blade directly into the arm holding the gun. The blade sank in all the way to the wooden handle causing Burke to howl in outrage. He instinctively dropped the gun to clutch at the nasty wound. Every swear I’d ever heard spilled from his lips as Em immediately snatched the gun from where it had clattered onto the bar between them. Her feet hit the ground next to me as she slid off the bar, her finger on the trigger, the weapon steady in her hands as she kept it aimed at the man who had kidnapped my kid.

  She looked down at me, but all I could do was roll my head a
imlessly on the ground. I needed her to find Daye and get her out of here. I needed her to take care of my daughter. She needed to protect my baby.

  “I’m coming back for you, Sutton. Don’t give up. Don’t stop fighting.” She bit out her words furiously but I couldn’t respond. I felt like the entire universe was pinning me to the floor and keeping me from moving. I heard the sound of her bare feet against the hardwood floor as she ran and disappeared out of sight. I could only hope that Burke had hidden Daye safely somewhere inside this bar. I wanted to shout at her to check that storeroom he was so fond of, but I couldn’t make words work and I was starting to struggle to breathe.

  That struggle was amplified when suddenly there was a heavy, unforgiving weight propped squarely on the center of my chest. Burke’s arm was covered in blood and the jagged wound was gushing. Blood covered his hands and fingers, making his grip on my throat slippery as he started to squeeze. His eyes were wild and his mouth was firm. He was choking me and I was too weak to fight back.

  “Looks like she picked the little girl. Just like you did.”

  Of course, we did. We took any and every bullet meant for Daye and we always would.

  I stared up at him as everything slowed down and went still. He growled at me all the ways in which I’d helped ruin his life and told me there was already a place in hell with my name on it. Eventually, his angry voice faded and I couldn’t feel anything. I was drifting on a cloud where nothing hurt and there was no fear. I was immune to pain and the flames shooting through my veins. I was escaping into a place that was calm and quiet, a place where nothing could touch me and I was the hero both Em and Daye deserved. It was a place that wasn’t exactly happy, but it was something close. I told myself I could stay there forever, but it didn’t feel right. This wasn’t where I belonged and I started to panic.

  I tried to call out for help. I fought to get just one more breath so I could let Emrys know I needed her. I battled for air so I could scream my love for my daughter. I needed one more minute to get everything right. Burke’s face began to fade in and out as he suffocated me with his bare hands.