[Tulsa Thunderbirds 01.0] Bury the Hatchet

by Catherine Gayle

  When I reached Hunter, the stench of fresh vomit slammed into me like a semi. I covered my mouth and nose as I took in everything in front of me. Hunter’s brother was lying in a puddle of fluids, passed out cold even as his body convulsed.

  I blinked a couple more times, forcing myself to stay calm. I didn’t even know his brother’s name. The realization hit me as hard as the smell.

  Hunter’s agent was on his cell phone with the 9-1-1 operator. Another man who looked a lot like him was trying to sort out the brother on the floor by dragging him away from the mess and into a clearing. That was probably best, for when the paramedics arrived. Hunter and his father sat on either side of his mother, supporting her as she started to come around. They both seemed to be completely oblivious to what was going on with the brother.

  He started to vomit again, but the man trying to move him was still dragging him by the feet and didn’t notice. Hunter’s brother was still on his back. He might drown in it if no one noticed. But someone had noticed. Me. I needed to somehow get him rolled over on his side. I remembered that much from sorority parties when some of the girls had had a bit too much to drink.

  I sank to the floor and fought against his bulk to turn him, until the man who’d been moving him figured out what I was doing and dropped his legs so he could help me. After a couple of hard tugs with the other man pushing from behind, he finally rolled. I lost my balance and fell back on my butt, landing just inches away from a putrid puddle that gave me the heebie-jeebies because I knew exactly what it was.

  I pressed my eyes closed and groaned inwardly. Somewhere off in the distance, I could hear Lance and Mama having a scandalized shouting contest about my ridiculous behavior and how I was bound to ruin my dress and all because of some drunkard relative of Hunter’s crashing the wedding. Daddy’s calming voice joined in the mix—probably trying to calm them both down so they didn’t turn it into a bigger scene than it already was. But it was the quieter, deep tone of Hunter’s voice that really got through to me.

  “Kade isn’t worth the trouble, Tallie.”

  He stood above me, holding down a hand to help me up from the heap I’d become on the floor.

  I blinked again, those damn tears not giving up their efforts to pour down my cheeks and ruin my makeup. It’d fit with the way the day was suddenly going, so maybe I should just give in. For now, though, I pushed them down with every blessed ounce of gumption I could muster.

  “But he’s your brother,” I said disbelievingly. I’d never had a sibling but I’d always wanted one. Mama went on and on about how she’d tried to get pregnant again and never could, so I was just going to have to be enough, even though Daddy told me that Mama had been on the pill the entire time they’d been married since not long after I was born. He said she’d refused to have another baby because the stretch marks I’d caused had been more than enough for one lifetime, thank you very much. Their stories conflicted, but I knew which one was easier to believe, whether it was the absolute truth or not.

  He took the hand I lifted and helped me to my feet. I winced at the tightness in my biceps from where Lance had grabbed me, and I might have hissed as well, because Hunter narrowed his eyes and looked down at my bare arm. “Who did this?” he asked, his voice low and menacing.

  I glanced down at the tender spot on my arm, shocked to find deep red marks from Lance’s fingers, and shook my head, trying to brush it off because there were more important things going on than Lance being Lance. Even as I did that, the paramedics rushed in with a gurney and started working on Kade.

  Hunter eased me away from them so they could do their work, guiding me toward an alcove in the church, well away from all the onlookers who were busy gawking at the goings-on. “Don’t brush me off on this,” he grumbled. “Lance did it, didn’t he?” he added when I didn’t respond.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Don’t tell me it doesn’t matter. The bastard calls me a fucking Neanderthal, and then he goes and bruises your arm the second I take my eyes off you?”

  “It’s not as bad as—”

  “Isn’t it?” His green eyes, as piercing as any I’d ever seen up close, were pinprick sharp. “Explain to me how that asswipe leaving bruises on your skin isn’t as bad as I think it is, because I’m leaning toward it being worse.”

  “I meant it isn’t as bad as what’s going on with your brother,” I shouted at him. Actually, it wasn’t quite a shout. It was definitely louder than I should have been talking, though, because at least a dozen people spun around to gawk at us, including one of the camera guys. I probably should have kept my voice down and acted like a lady, like Mama was always telling me, but this was getting so far out of hand it was ridiculous, and I had lost all sense of self-control after everything Lance had put me through today. I was over it. Done. I’d had enough, and Hunter was just going to have to accept that I had no intention of being a meek little miss, sitting around and waiting for someone to give me permission to speak. I planted my hands on my hips and narrowed my eyes on him. “Now I don’t know how your mama raised you, but something tells me you know family is the most important thing you’ll ever have in your life, so you’d just better get it in your head right now that—”

  He took my hand and tugged until I followed him, stumbling, out the closest exit. “You’d better get it in your head that we’re not doing this in public with all of those cameras on us. And that you don’t know everything there is to know about me and my family, let alone my asshole brother who’s already made his choices in life and proven he isn’t ever going to change. He doesn’t want anyone’s help, and even if he did, he doesn’t deserve it. Not yours, at least.”

  He didn’t stop, despite the fact that I was practically running in my heavy, clunky, bedazzled high heels in order to keep up with his long stride, until we’d nearly reached the church’s nursery. He threw open the door, flipped on the light, checked to be sure we were alone, and shut it behind us.

  His big body was too close to me, leaving me lightheaded with awareness, so I backed up a few steps. Then I bumped into the wall. Hunter followed me, bracing his arms on either side of me and leaning in so close I could feel the heat of his anger. But that heat mixed with something else between us, and it bounced around like hot, yearning, burning need. I couldn’t take a breath without my breasts brushing against the fine wool of his tux, couldn’t hold on to a thought because he was looking at me like he wanted to eat me alive, and Lord Jesus help me but I wanted to let him. I wanted to do more than let him devour me. I wanted to tear him apart a piece at a time and let him melt on my tongue, savoring every single tasty bite I could get. I wanted it so much I thought I might burst from the wanting if something didn’t happen to break this crazy, animalistic tension between us, and soon.

  My breaths were ragged, falling off with each exhalation. At least he seemed to have it just as bad as me, his chest dusting mine at an increasing pace. But somehow his eyes were even more intense than before. With the tip of one finger, he teased the line of my collarbone until I was a shuddering, goose-bump-riddled mess.

  One of his eyes twitched a couple of times. “And you’re not going to tell me it’s unimportant that that bastard laid his hands on you,” he added.

  “It won’t happen again,” I said. I would have said more than that, but my voice failed me even worse than my lungs had. Hunter was too sexy, too male, too potent. Way too close. He was just all-around too much.

  His fingertip trailed down to the valley between my breasts, his eyes following along the path he traced.

  I gave up any attempt to remember how to breathe.

  “No,” he said softly. “It won’t happen again. Because if it does, I’m going to be having a conversation with him instead of with you, and it will involve my fists instead of words.”

  I shook my head, ready to implore him not to do anything drastic, but he cut me off with a scorching kiss. Briefly, I realized this was the first time—the only time—he’d kisse
d me without witnesses. No one to care what we were doing or why. No one filming it or photographing it. No one to report it to all the gossip sites. I couldn’t wonder about it for long, though, because his tongue slid along the seam of my lips just a moment before his kiss turned harder, more demanding. I opened for him without hesitation, welcoming him in and seeking more.

  This wasn’t a good idea. This wasn’t part of the bargain.

  There was no convincing my body of the wrongness of what we were doing, though. My head knew it was wrong, but my body swore it was so very, very right. All I could do was go along for the ride and hold on for all I had in me. So I stretched up on my toes, and I put both my arms around his neck, drawing him down closer to me, and I surrendered absolutely.

  It didn’t take long to realize that Hunter had good hands. Big palms. Strong arms. Deft fingers. He knew how to use them, and he made quick use of his knowledge. I melted into him, holding on for dear life as those hands played my body like an antique, hand-me-down fiddle. But for as strong as he was, he never came close to hurting me. Not like Lance had done. He brushed and caressed, teased and tickled, but it was all done with a gentle reverence that made my girlie parts quiver with anticipation.

  I was lost in a fog of sensation. It took everything I had just to remain upright. There wasn’t anything left over for me to fortify my resolve or guard my heart.

  The blaring siren from the ambulance finally cut through my fog long enough for me to shove Hunter’s shoulders and force him back from me.

  He looked as lost as I felt. “I’m sorry,” he grumbled. “I shouldn’t have—”

  “It’s not that,” I interrupted him. I stepped free from those delicious arms, trying to get enough distance between us that maybe my brain would start to cooperate sometime in the next century. I pointed out the nursery window, where the ambulance was heading out of the parking lot, lights flashing. “It’s your brother. We should go to the hospital.”

  “I’m not going to the fucking hospital. Not for him. I’ve sat by his side at the hospital too many times already. I’m not doing it again.”

  I couldn’t even come close to understanding what had happened between those two for Hunter to feel that way, but that would have to wait for another day. I crossed my arms in front of me, wishing that would be enough to quell all the jumping jacks going on in my veins. “Well, if we aren’t going to the hospital, I guess we’d better go to the reception so we can explain why we aren’t there. I don’t think people will understand, and I know Lance has a bunch of things planned…”

  Two minutes later, we were in Hunter’s car and heading for the hospital, still wearing our wedding attire.

  ONE OF THE very few reasons, as far as I could tell, to have an older brother was supposedly to have someone to look up to. He was supposed to be the guy who taught you about life, and maybe he would make a few mistakes along the way, but then he’d show you how to avoid those same pitfalls.

  Kade had made more than his fair share of mistakes along the way, and you can bet your ass I’d learned from them…but there wasn’t a chance in hell that I could look up to him. How could I do that when most of the times I saw him, it was when he was in the hospital having his stomach pumped because of some overdose or another, or maybe from mixing up a combination of drugs that should never be mixed? How could I respect him when he was doing everything he could to tear our family apart? How could I want to follow his example when he had a kid, but the courts wouldn’t even allow him near her? How could I look at what he was putting our mother through, time and again, and forgive him for it?

  It had been close to two decades now that he’d been ripping Mom’s heart out with his addictions and all the bullshit that came along with them, and at this point, there was at least a tiny part of me that hoped he would take it past the point of no return. That he would overdose and no one would be able to save him.

  That he would die.

  Maybe I was a callous son of a bitch to think along those lines, but that was the truth of it. Around the time I got drafted, I’d realized that Kade was too far gone with the addiction. They say that people have to hit rock bottom before they’re ready and willing to make changes. Well, he’d already hit what would have been any normal person’s rock bottom at least a few times by then, and he hadn’t changed a damn thing for the better. He’d had countless drug busts. He’d been to prison. He’d been forced into drug rehab and counseling. None of it had taken root for him because he wasn’t ready to move on. He didn’t want to give any part of his lifestyle up. He was so deep in it that he couldn’t imagine a life without getting a fix when he needed or wanted one, so he didn’t try beyond what he was forced to do when he was in treatment.

  Even in those rare moments when he was clean and sober, he never recognized the strain he put on the rest of his family. He didn’t care that he was ripping Mom’s heart out repeatedly. He didn’t see that he had pushed our parents into depleting their savings in order to get him the help he needed. He didn’t give a rat’s ass that he’d destroyed his relationship with me when he’d dragged Chantel, Carrie’s twin sister, into his hellhole of addiction along with him. That had happened when I left home to play college hockey. It might have been the thing that had driven me and Carrie apart, actually. Before that had happened, our mothers might have had their way. Hell, it didn’t even bother him that he’d destroyed Chantel’s life and caused the same sorts of strain for their family, or that they’d taken Kaylee away from him and he would never get her back.

  No, in Kade’s world, the only thing that mattered was Kade.

  Which was why it pissed me off to no end that Tallie and I were sitting in the waiting room at the hospital while, once again, they were probably pumping his stomach to save his sorry life. I doubted he wanted to be saved at this point. It would be even harder for Mom to take if he died right in front of her, though, so I supposed it would be best if he came out of it. Maybe next time he OD’d, he’d be all alone somewhere, and by the time someone found him, it would be too late. A morbid thought, yes, but that was how much things had deteriorated between us. It would probably be easier for Mom to mourn him than it would be for her to keep hoping he would straighten up, because he wasn’t ready for that. It was sure to be easier for Kaylee if she grew up without either parent alive instead of wondering why they loved their drugs more than they loved her.

  I wasn’t fully convinced that any addict could ever move past his addictions—something that made me question the Storm’s decision to keep Nicky Ericsson as their goalie instead of me—but even those who made strides in that direction tended to have setbacks. Kade didn’t just have setbacks. He had brief moments during which he was forced to keep his act together, but in the end he kept following the same broken path he’d been on for years. I wished there was a way Mom could harden herself to him like Dad and I had done, but I’d come to learn it just wasn’t in her makeup.

  I took my phone out of my pocket and opened Twitter, out of curiosity. It was like the Internet had exploded. Our wedding was both a hashtag and a trending topic in North America, and all because of Kade overdosing. It was exactly the wrong sort of publicity. Now there were more questions to be answered, more negative publicity to counter. I doubted the team would be happy about any of this, and I knew for a fact that the Roths were going to regret the decision of bringing me into Tallie’s life.

  She shivered beside me, drawing me out of my bad mood. I glanced over at her. The red marks on her arm hadn’t faded even the tiniest bit, and they were starting to turn a bluish-purple. The bastard had grabbed her hard enough to leave bruises. I might murder him the next time I saw him, so he’d better keep his ass well away from me.

  But beyond the bruises, she was cold. For as hot as it was outside, it was like ice inside. That dress couldn’t possibly be enough to combat the hospital’s air conditioning, which must be set to arctic. I took off the tuxedo jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

  “Thank you,�
� she murmured.

  “We don’t have to stay. There’s nothing we can do here.”

  “But we’re staying for your parents, if not for your brother. You should be here for your mama, at least.”

  I grunted in response. I didn’t understand how she could be so insistent upon looking after my mom when her own mother was the Wicked Witch of the West incarnate. Mrs. Roth couldn’t be anything less, since she had hired a son of a bitch like Lance to be around her daughter. Tallie had brushed off the way he’d hurt her so readily that I had to wonder if he’d ever hurt her before. Was it just what she did when that happened? It seemed almost rote.

  “You seem awfully quiet,” Tallie said after a minute passed.

  “What’s that old saying about if you don’t have anything nice to say?”

  She made a soft sound and fell silent again, tugging on the lapels of my jacket to keep them tight around her.

  John and Darren had followed us to the hospital and hung around for an hour or two, but I’d sent them back to the hotel a while ago. There wasn’t anything they could do here, and there was no point in them hanging around twiddling their thumbs. The Roths and Lance had handled thanking everyone for coming to the reception and sent them on their way since Tallie and I weren’t going to be showing up there. Mom and Dad were in the room with Kade, but only two family members were allowed in at a time, and I had no intention of going in there, anyway. We were still here, though, and a fucking cameraman was seated across the waiting room from us, his video camera pointed straight at us. I had no clue what the hell kind of footage he thought he was going to get from this, but I didn’t have the energy to fight it. Not right now. I just wanted today to be over.

  “So he overdosed?” Tallie asked after a while. “Kade did?”

  “Probably mixed suboxone with something he shouldn’t have used it with.” Methodone wouldn’t surprise me, or OxyContin. The only thing I didn’t know was if he’d managed to get it here with him on the flight or if he’d had someone hook him up after he’d arrived. “Maybe used too much of one or both.” Any amount was too much if you asked me. Once I’d seen the way drugs fucked with my older brother, I’d done everything in my power to stay the hell away from all of them. When I had injuries, I just bit my tongue and fought through the pain instead of taking a pill to combat it. I didn’t want anything to do with drugs of any sort. I didn’t even want to take a fucking aspirin. I hated the fact that they put me under anesthesia if I had to have surgery. Even that was more than I wanted. The only thing I allowed myself was coffee and the occasional beer, and even with those, I was careful not to go too far.