The Lucky Bullet

by H. S. Strickland

  I gained my composure as best as possible and yanked my phone out of my pocket. I found the number I needed and hit dial.

  “Michael,” he answered.

  “You are going to be a very happy man when you see what the cat dragged in,” I told him with a wicked grin.

  “And what is that exactly?” He asked in a confused tone.

  “Luke Wellington,” I said on a growl.

  “Where are you?” I heard his keys jingling in the background and I knew he was already on his way out the door.

  I told him the name of the park where Liam and I were.

  “Be there in ten,” he told me.

  I disconnected my phone and flexed my throbbing hand. It was going to be sore for a few days but it was well worth it.

  While I waited on Michael I thought about what Luke said. I wondered if it was actually true. Liam looked similar to Araylia but nothing like Luke. Luke had pale blue eyes, while Liam had deep blue eyes. That was where the similarities ended; the rest of Liam was his mom.

  I wanted to ask Araylia about the possibility of it but didn’t want to bring up what he had said yet. It would send her into a tailspin; she didn’t need this right now. Her life was just starting to get on track. She woke up this morning with such a carefree attitude and now I was going to have to ruin that for her.

  Chapter 18

  Ray

  I was turning in my two week notice when my phone rang inside my purse. I dug around in my bag until I found it.

  “Hello,” I answered.

  “Babe. Got good news.” Mace’s voice filled the end of the line.

  “You do? Well tell me,” I said with a small in my voice that I’m sure he could hear.

  “Why don’t you come home and we’ll talk about?” He suggested.

  “Hey mommy! Mace beat up a bad guy! It was so cool!” I heard Liam say with exuberance somewhere in the distance.

  “Oh really? Mason Jones, what did you do?” I asked as I moved to the elevators. A few of the nurses on call waved to me as I stepped into the elevator.

  “Talk about it when you get home, babe.” He said distractedly. It was clear he was busy with Liam so I didn’t want to keep him on the phone for long.

  “I’m on my way home now. I’ll be there in an hour.” The elevator doors dinged and opened. I walked out of the elevator and took a right to get to the exit doors.

  “Alright babe. Be safe. Love you,” he told me.

  I stopped at the exit doors when I heard his words.

  “I love you honey.” I hung up the phone and stared at it smiling for a minute before I shoved it in my pocket. I walked to the staff parking lot and got in my car feeling light.

  I cranked up the ‘Stang and peeled out of the parking lot and into traffic. As I drove the hour drive home, I thought back to Mace’s declaration of love last night, ever since he said those three words I had felt freer. I had felt like I got back a little of ‘the old Araylia’, The Araylia before Luke.

  It felt good that Mace could give that back to me. That his love could be a cure for all the bad stuff that’s happened. With Mace’s love I was becoming the new Araylia. The one that hadn’t been raped or physically and mentally abused, that was all in the past.

  I pulled into the garage and shut the car off. I walked in the front door and set my keys down on the table.

  “Mace? Liam?” I called through the house.

  “I’m coming mommy!” Liam yelled from his bedroom.

  A second later I heard Liam’s little feet pounding on the floor and then he appeared from the mouth of the hall. He came running at me full force. I went down on my knees and caught him last minute.

  “How was your day baby?” I smiled at him and smoothed his hair away from his face. I needed to cut his hair.

  “It was awesome! Daddy…I mean Mace took me to the park. He beat a guy up then Uncle Michael came and tooked him away!” He told me jumping up and down in excitement.

  My heart melted when he called Mace, daddy. He had never gotten any fatherly love and he was finally getting that in some way, even though Mace wasn’t his father. I was terrified about what Mace would say about it though. I didn’t want Mace to think that I was forcing the title on him, being a daddy was a huge responsibility and I didn’t know if he was ready for that yet.

  My brows scrunched together when he said Uncle Michael took the guy away. Why would Mace be getting into a fight? I thought.

  “Well let’s go find our Mace,” I said as I picked Liam up and placed him on my hip.

  I went into my bedroom and saw Michael and Mace talking in hushed tones. I was curious as to why Michael was here and how he got here considering his car was at the house.

  “Hey big brother,” I said clearing my throat to make my presence known to two of the men in my life.

  “Hey Ray. Mace told me you put your two week notice in at the hospital,” Michael said with a nervousness hidden somewhere in his words.

  I looked between the both of them, Michael looked nervous and Mace’s face was neutral, which wasn’t surprising.

  “Umm…yeah. I wanted something closer to the house,” I told him then asked, “Why are you here?”

  Michael looked to Mace to give me an answer.

  “L-U-K-E,” he spelled out my worst nightmare’s name, “was taken into custody about two hours ago.” My breath started getting trapped in my chest, I tried sucking in air but couldn’t take any in.

  I ran over to Mace with Liam still on my hip and crushed my body to his. I didn’t know what happened but I wanted to cry happy crocodile tears. This was the best news I could have gotten.

  I pulled away from his embrace and framed his face with my free hand.

  “Thank you,” I breathed.

  He nodded his head and cleared his throat. He was getting emotional and didn’t want to do so in front of Michael.

  I turned to my brother who was standing there awkwardly, and asked, “How good did it feel to take him in?”

  He looked astonished at my question, like he expected me to react differently. Expect the unexpected, I snickered in my head.

  “Good sis. I’m happy as fuck,” he informed me.

  “Now that that’s over, would anyone like dinner?”

  “Yes! I’m hungry mom!” Liam told me happily.

  “Sure,” Michael said after Liam.

  “Thanks babe.” Mace said as he approached me and kissed my temple.

  I leaned up to Mace’s ear and whispered, “Can you take Liam in the kitchen for a minute?”

  He bobbed his head and took Liam off my hip. Liam had no problem as he attached his little chubby hands around Mace’s neck and they walked out of the room.

  “Why aren’t you upset?” Michael launched in as soon as Mace and Liam were out of ear shot.

  “Because Luke’s in jail right now,” I said with a bright, blinding smile.

  “You get upset from hearing his name Ray. What’s going on?”

  “Last night I realized that he’s hurting me because I’m letting him. He’s not here to beat me. The names he used to call me? I’m not any of those things. Why let him have a mental hold on me? He can’t abuse me anymore; I know that, I’m stronger than that. I won’t let him ruin anything else for me. For my entire life, I’ve had bad. I don’t want bad anymore. The good is right in front of my face and if I want to keep that, I have to let go of the past.” I told Michael the realization I had come to.

  Michael’s mouth hung open and his eyes were wide with shock. Michael could never hide his expressions. He was always a bad liar because of it. When we were younger I knew I could go to him and he couldn’t lie to me about anything, I would know it right away.

  “Close your mouth before you catch a fly, bro.” I giggled when he gave me a mock glare.

  My joke seemed to snap him out of his shock and he grabbed ahold of my arm and yanked me into his arms. He rocked me back and forth for a few minutes.

  “Proud of you sis. You’re gro
wing up and getting a lot wiser than I expected.” I snorted and playfully slapped his shoulder.

  I kissed his cheek softly when we pulled apart. I walked to the door and turned around to look back at Michael and saw his head was hung low and he was shaking his head as if having the craziest of thoughts. I tapped the door with my hand and walked out of the room to the kitchen to find my man and son.

  I had my head resting on Mason’s chest, several hours later, listening to his heartbeat.

  We had just finished having amazing sex, so good I thought my toes were permanently curled and my throat was raw from crying out loudly.

  We had finally gotten some alone time so Mace took advantage of that and devoured me. Michael had stayed at the house until after dinner and Liam didn’t go to bed until two hours ago. My little man was so excited about his Uncle Michael being at the house he wanted to stay up a little bit later. After dinner I gave Liam a bath while Mace washed the dinner plates. I put Liam in his bed and kissed him on the forehead then walked out of the door, closing it softly. I had turned around to come face to face with Mace, who had been waiting on me. As soon as I had gotten over my shock, Mace had taken my face in his large hands and hungrily took my mouth in a bruising kiss then threw me over his shoulder.

  “You want to go on vacation?” Mace asked snapping me out of my naughty thoughts.

  “Vacation?” I asked.

  “Yeah, beach or mountains?”

  “Uh…mountains?” It was meant to come out as a statement but sounded more like a question.

  “You don’t sound sure,” he said.

  “No, no. I’m sure. You caught me off guard. I haven’t had a vacation in years,” I told him, looking up at him and smiling a girlish smile.

  “Glad we get to have one together,” he said as he kissed my forehead tenderly.

  “We need to wait two weeks though. I need to finish up at the hospital.”

  “That’s fine babe. I need to finish some cases at the office so we can leave for more than a day,” he said, rolling over on top of me.

  I felt his hardness at my core and moaned. He took my moan in his mouth.

  We made slow love that night. After he pulled me across his body and laid my head on his chest so he could play with my hair.

  One month later…

  The past month had been amazing. I had been into work every day. I was only supposed to work two weeks, but the hospital was short staffed and asked if I could fill in another two weeks. Mace had no problem with it considering he had some issues to tie up at the office that took longer than the original two weeks.

  I would go into work around nine a.m. and stay until six p.m. After work I would go to Nanny’s house to pick up Liam but would usually end up staying for an hour chatting with her. Liam and I would go home and start dinner and Mace would walk in the door an hour later, right as dinner was being served. Later, the three of us would watch a movie then give Liam a bath and get him in bed then Mace and I would go to our bedroom and make love.

  The only problem was Mace’s mind always seemed to be a million miles away. He didn’t talk as much as usual. It was like something was on his mind, but I knew he would talk to me about it, if there was anything. I wanted to ask him but was afraid of his reply. I thought, many times, that Liam and I were a burden and that’s what was bothering him but if that were the case he would have told us to get out. He was a very outspoken person; he wouldn’t hesitate to tell me to get out.

  Liam hadn’t slipped up and called Mace, daddy, since that day, in a way I was grateful. I told him about Liam’s slip up and his reaction was the exact opposite of what I had expected. I hadn’t expected him to jump up and down squealing with excitement, but at least a smile which I really didn’t get.

  We were lying in bed after having amazing sex and I had told Mace that Liam had accidently called him daddy the other day. As soon as the words left my mouth his whole body went rigid and grinded his teeth together. He turned his head away and seemed to be gathering his composure. When he finally gained it he looked back at me and there was an intense sadness in his eyes. He tried smiling but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. I knew something was on his mind but something in my gut told me not to ask, so I didn’t.

  Mace started playing with my hair and I knew that meant he wanted to go to sleep. I lied with my head on his chest until his breathing slowed and his hand fell away from my hair and I knew he was asleep. I rolled off him and scooted closer to the edge of the bed. I stayed up most of the night, running several scenarios through my head on why he would be so upset. I knew there was more to him than I knew. You could see that by the intense sadness I saw in his eyes. I wanted so bad to fix whatever problem we were having but I couldn’t do that without the help of Mace.

  I cleared my thoughts of that night. Other bad things, I had been sick the past week or so. I would get horrible headaches within an hour of waking up. I popped Tylenol like it was candy to try and get rid of the headaches. I called my doctor a few days ago and set up an appointment, which were a few days after we came back from vacation.

  On to good news, Michael had given me the low down on what was happening with Luke and he was going to be charged with assault with intent to kill. He’s more than likely going to get five to ten years in prison. For now he’s staying in the local jail until he stands before a judge and gets sentenced, after he’s sentenced he will go back to Chicago to serve his time and I couldn’t be more happy.

  I was shaken from my revere when I pulled in the driveway and saw Mace’s motorcycle. I was shocked that he was here. He told me last night that he wouldn’t be home until late tonight because of something at the office.

  I shut the car off and walked in the front door; I yelled for Mace but didn’t get any response. I walked through all of the rooms and still couldn’t find him so on a whim I went to the garage.

  The attic ladder was pulled down so I climbed half way up. I had a phobia of attics so there was no way I was going to climb up and see what he was doing.

  “Mace, are you up here?”

  “Yeah, be down in a minute,” he replied gruffly, with underlying emotion in his voice.

  I shrugged my shoulders, even though he couldn’t see me, and climbed down the stairs. I went into the kitchen to start dinner; Mace strolled into the kitchen as I was browning the ground beef. He didn’t say anything to me or even look at me, just walked to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge. He twisted the cap off, took a swallow, and walked out of the kitchen.

  I opened my mouth to say something, what; I didn’t know, but he beat me to it.

  “Shower,” he grunted.

  I thought I was in shock; Mace had never acted this way, so disconnected. Even when he had shit on his mind, he always kissed me when he got in from work. He was always loving and now…he wasn’t. I didn’t know how to take it so I finished making dinner.

  My eyes were brimming with tears when Mace walked in twenty minutes later. I made sure my hair was covering my face so he couldn’t see me nearing tears.

  “What’s for dinner?” He asked in a disinterested tone.

  “Meat muffins and some veggies,” I told him, hoping my voice mirrored his.

  “You okay?”

  “Yup,” I said, popping the ‘P’.

  “Okay. I’m going to go watch some T.V. then.” He said and walked off.

  I had fat tear drops raining down my face by the time I heard the T.V. come on in the living room. I leaned my hands on the counter by the stove and took in a deep breath. I wanted to know what had crawled up Mace’s ass. He was acting like a dick.

  I banged around in the kitchen while I finished cooking. My temper had flared because of his attitude. I hadn’t done anything to piss him off so he had no reason to be an ass to me.

  I strode in the living room with Mace’s plate in one hand and bottled water in the other. Mace was lounging on the couch without a care in the world.

  “Did you have a bad day at
work?” I asked while setting down his plate on the coffee table.

  “No. Why?”

  “Because you’ve been a little disconnected, you’ve barely spoken to me,” I said and straightened my spine for a fight.

  “Well excuse me if I don’t want to be up your ass all the time.” His eyes flared with his own temper as my temper deflated.

  I felt my mouth open in astonishment. I couldn’t believe what he had said. I hadn’t noticed I was up his butt. He had been so distant the past month, how could I have been up his butt?

  “Alright,” I said as my resolve not to cry crumpled. He caught sight of the first tear before I had time to turn around. He had the decency to look apologetic but still didn’t say anything.

  I trudged to the breakfast bar and sat down to eat. I was upset and hurt at what he said to me, so much so, I didn’t even have an appetite but I knew I needed to eat.

  I took the first bite of my food and felt bile rise up my throat. I slapped my hand over my mouth and ran through the house and into the master bathroom. I locked the bathroom door and fell to the floor in front of the toilet. I had enough time to lift the lid before I emptied the contents of my stomach.

  I heaved until there was nothing left to heave up. I got off the floor and got a rag to wet. I wiped my face with some toilet paper and flushed the toilet. I washed my hands and splashed some water on my face then put the wet rag on the back of my neck.

  I gazed at my reflection in the mirror, my face was pale and my eyes looked a little sunken in. I looked horrible. As that last thought left my head, the door started rattling. I blew out a pent up breath and called out, “What?”

  “Araylia, babe, let me in. I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it, I’ve got some things on my mind and they are bothering me,” he told me in a defeated tone. I heard a thump and imagined that it was his forehead hitting the door.

  I didn’t want to open the door to him. I wanted to shut him out like he had me but he sounded sincere with his apology.

  I opened the door and Mace looked tormented. He yanked my arm until I fell into his tight embrace. He put his nose in the crook of my neck and drew in a large breath. I was perplexed with his behavior, not 15 minutes earlier he was telling me to stay away from him and now he was acting as if I was going away to war.