Raid

by Kristen Ashley

  The last six weeks, Raid was out of town on jobs for three.

  This didn’t stink as much as I thought it would (though it still stunk) because he did what he said he would do.

  He touched base with me. Frequently.

  This included him calling during the day at random times. It also included him calling every night right before he went to sleep.

  The first time he’d woken me when he did this, which was the third time he called me at night.

  He’d been upset he’d woken me and murmured, “I’ll call earlier next time.”

  “No,” I’d replied sleepily. “I want to know you made it through the day and you’re going to sleep so you’ll wake to face another day. Don’t worry about waking me.”

  He’d hesitated and his deep voice was warm and sweet when he agreed, “All right, honey.”

  Then he did as I asked, calling every night before he went to sleep.

  But when I said he touched base, I meant we talked as in talked.

  Surprisingly, even though we’d been through a lot, but still were relatively new thus didn’t know each other all that well and he was a man, he was also a man who could have conversations on the phone. It helped we knew a lot of the same people and he cared about what was happening.

  He asked me about my day, my business, what was going on in Willow, what I had planned for the next day and he shared about his. Where he was. What he ate. When he thought he’d be home. Nothing deep about his work but he didn’t keep things from me, including if he was frustrated, leads had dried up, informants were jacking him around or things were taking longer than he thought.

  Weirdly, these conversations were getting-to-know-you conversations that, if we were normal, we would have had during dates. He learned about the vacation I took last winter. He learned I loved snowboarding. I learned he hated onions and thought Jerry Seinfeld’s standup routines were funny. And we planned to go to Crested Butte when the snow started falling and to find a beach when winter turned bitter and we needed to escape to the sun.

  Needless to say, learning about Raiden and planning getaways and vacations was awesome.

  When he was home, life fell into a rhythm. I knitted. I did my thing with Grams. We all went to church and ate breakfast together at the Pancake House. I saw to my business. Raiden saw to his in Denver and in the back room of Rachelle’s Café, where I learned he met with his “crew”, who I did not, however, meet… yet. This last was Raiden’s word when he told me he would introduce me to them when “shit slowed down”. He was also a good neighbor, and at his sister or mother’s request, would go off to do things like the yard work for Grams.

  This meant between jobs he wasn’t idle. It also meant we had our own things to do, but ended our days together like we would if we were normal.

  That was awesome too.

  In fact, everything was awesome and had settled in a good way without anything rocking my world.

  Except one thing.

  Deep into the night one night at my house, the bed moved with such force I woke, sensed Raiden awake and I pressed my hand resting on his chest into his skin.

  He shifted swiftly, taking me to my back and reared back a fist like he was going to strike me.

  I gasped and tried to scuttle out from under him but got nowhere. Then his arms closed around me and he tucked me under his big body.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “What’s happening?” I asked anxiously, my entire body tense, but I felt the tension in his and it wasn’t like mine.

  I was freaked out.

  He was strung tight.

  “Fuck,” he repeated.

  “Raid—”

  He let me go, rolled to his back, lifted both hands to his face and rubbed.

  I got up on an elbow and watched.

  Then I urged, “Talk to me. What just happened?”

  I half-expected him to evade my question, but he didn’t.

  He dropped his hands.

  I felt his eyes on me in the dark and he shared, “I dream.”

  Oh boy.

  “Dream?” I pressed gently.

  “Snippets of memories. Sometimes shit is warped and not what happened at all. But I dream.”

  “About—?” I didn’t get it out, but he knew what I was asking.

  “Yeah.”

  He dreamed about what happened with his unit.

  God.

  Worry suffusing me, or, it should be said, more worry, I placed my hand light on his chest and asked carefully, “Does this happen often?”

  “Not anymore. Not since you. But it happens.”

  That felt good, but it was also bad.

  “Have you talked to anyone about it?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Just now. You.”

  I was his “reward”. I gave him whatever it was he needed to feel like he might begin to battle the burn.

  I loved that. I loved it a lot.

  But I was no miracle worker.

  “I was thinking more like one of your buddies,” I suggested.

  “That’s not gonna fuckin’ happen.”

  I went silent.

  Macho man, too strong to share, to release, to let go.

  Darn.

  “I’ll get a handle on it,” he told me.

  I stayed silent.

  He lifted up, his arms closed around me and he moved us to our sides, face to face.

  “With you, it’s goin’ away,” he assured me.

  “Okay,” I replied.

  “Give it time, they’ll be gone.”

  “Okay, honey.”

  His lips found mine in the dark for a touch before he rolled to his back taking me with him so I was tucked to his side. Then he lifted a hand and sifted it through my hair again and again, and as he did this, I felt the tension ebb from his body. So I lay there with him, cuddled close, holding him tight.

  Eventually, his hand stopped sifting through my hair and his arm wrapped around me. Minutes later, it went slack and I knew he was asleep.

  I didn’t sleep.

  I prayed Raiden Miller found it in himself to get a handle on his dreams.

  Because if he hadn’t come to after he reared back to strike me it would absolutely not be good.

  It was a useful reminder to me that hellfires burned all the time.

  Even in sleep.

  And I was no miracle worker, but if Raid didn’t get a handle on these dreams I was going to have to find a way to learn to be.

  For him and for me.

  * * * * *

  In the last six weeks I also had time to check in with KC and fill her in. I didn’t go for the gusto, but I did share that things were good in a way they’d be that way for what could be ever.

  She was beside herself with glee.

  But I waited until Raid was away on a job before I went to her house for dinner and laid it out.

  KC had been at her stove, stirring while I sat at her kitchen table with her baby girl, Samantha. Samantha’s feet were planted in my thighs, her chubby fingers gripping mine and her plump legs were bouncing when I shared what I could. That was to say, not much of anything, including Raid’s dreams, but I shared my concerns about Raiden being scary bossy, and adding getting physical to that scary.

  This got me a weird response.

  KC burst out laughing.

  I turned to look at my friend with her shining, to-the-shoulder light brown hair, her bright, wide hazel eyes and seven months pregnant belly and I said quietly but with meaning, “KC, seriously. It freaks me.”

  She trained those hazel eyes on me, still smiling. “Okay, babe. But get over that.”

  “Sorry?” I asked.

  “Uh… with your, mine and the female half of Willow’s citizenry avid contemplation, I don’t think it’s lost on any of us that Raiden Ulysses Miller has got a big dick.”

  He did, this was true. I had seen the physical evidence up close (and felt it, sucked it, stroked it, etc.), but I was hoping the female half of Willow’s citizenry
had not.

  “You might want to explain that,” I suggested as Sam lunged forward and giggled, so I wrapped my arms around her and took over the bouncing.

  KC’s eyes moved to her daughter then took in her daughter with me and her face got soft.

  Then she spoke.

  “Right. The dudes you picked in the past,” she shook her head, “not all that. Except Pete was okay, but he was no Raiden Miller.”

  “You’re telling me something I know already,” I pointed out.

  She put the spoon in a spoon holder, turned down the burner on the stove and her attention to me.

  “What I’m saying is, you don’t have experience of men who are men. I know you have issues with Mark, and I love you more than I already loved you that you’ve kept those to yourself. I hope it’s because you understand I’m not an idiot and I wouldn’t put up with his shit if it wasn’t worth putting up with. And he gives me shit, Hanna. He’s arrogant, and that can sometimes, not often, lean toward him being a jackass. But he loves me. He loves Sam. He finds ways to show us that every day. No, that isn’t right. He doesn’t find them. He just does it, no effort. He gives it naturally. And I know he’d die before he let anything harm either of us,” she put a hand to her protruding belly, “any of us.”

  That was huge.

  And beautiful.

  And something I never knew because I never brought it up.

  “Holy Moses, KC,” was all I could think to reply.

  “So,” she went on brightly, grinning at me, “when he’s an arrogant ass, tells me what to do or whatever, acting totally like we’d been hurtled back to the 1500’s and I was his chattel, I smile, nod and do whatever I want.”

  I thought about doing this with Raiden and it didn’t give me the warm fuzzies.

  KC read my face, wagged a finger at me and kept talking.

  “This is what you have to learn. Don’t backtalk. Don’t explain. Don’t protest. Don’t fight it out. Just say, ‘All right, honey,’ and do whatever the hell you want. For example, just this morning, Mark said, ‘Make tacos tonight, babe,’ before he kissed me good-bye. No ‘please’. No, ‘are you feeling like tacos?’ Just ‘make them.’” She tipped her head to the side. “Now, are we having tacos?” She shook her head. “Hell no. We had tacos two days ago. I get he loves my tacos, but eff that. My friend is coming over and I just had tacos. Furthermore, I have to make the damn things. So we’re having a roast. You serve company a good roast. Not freaking tacos.”

  She moved to the fridge while I asked, “Isn’t he going to be ticked?”

  She yanked something out of the fridge as Sam slurped at my neck and I cuddled her closer.

  KC turned to me and closed the fridge. “Do I care? If he wants tacos, he can come home and make them.”

  “So he doesn’t get ticked?” I pushed.

  “If he does, he keeps it to himself. Usually he just shakes his head and grins at me then gets a beer. I’ve decided to take that as him accepting the woman whose ring he slid his finger on. If he’s storing this shit up to list it out in the divorce papers, so be it. His loss.”

  If Mark was doing that, it would be his loss.

  Absolutely.

  But I was getting the feeling Mark would never do that.

  KC moved back to the stove as I asked cautiously, “But does he get physical?”

  She poured something in a pan and turned to me. “No. That said, when he says something like he’s going to change locks to keep me safe, I don’t argue with him. That’s his job. I give him the freedom to do that.”

  “So you think it’s okay that Raiden did what he did?” I pushed.

  “I think he didn’t hurt you and I think he could, easily. I think what that said was, you were standing in the way of him doing something he thought was important, that something was looking out for you, so it actually was important and he did what he said he was doing. He got you to shut up and pay attention. It isn’t me, babe, who can say if that’s right or wrong. I wasn’t there. You gave me what you gave me, so I only have that to go on, and this is my opinion. It doesn’t have to be yours. But if he doesn’t hurt you, hit you, smack you, shake you but simply moves to make a point that you need to shut up and listen to him because he’s relaying something important, honestly, Hanna, I cannot think that’s wrong.”

  “He backs me into walls,” I blurted.

  She blinked before she whispered, “What?”

  “Well, we’ve had some kind of… intense conversations,” I thought it safe to share. “One, well, I mistook his intentions about me and accused him of using me…” Her eyes got big and I held onto Sam with one arm but waved my other hand in front of my face. “Long story, and not for now, but he kind of lost it when I wouldn’t listen to him. He backed me into a wall, caging me in, got in my face and explained he is most definitely into me.”

  When I was done speaking, her lips were parted and her eyes were glazed.

  “KC?” I called when she didn’t say anything.

  “Shh,” she shushed me. “I’m having an orgasm.”

  It was my turn to blink.

  “What?” I asked.

  KC came back into the room and focused on me.

  “Honey, in the bedroom department, Mark rocks my world, every time. Every time. He does not mess around and has made it clear from the very beginning he has two priorities when we hit the sheets, and the first one is me. No joke. And my man is hot. Yum… mee. Four years of marriage, a kid and one on the way and I still get a shiver just hearing his car pull up the drive. And still, the thought of Raiden Ulysses Miller backing me into the wall and telling me he’s into me. Instant orgasm.”

  “But… it scares me,” I told her.

  “Then start paying more attention to him and less to whatever it is mucking up your head,” she returned. “Honestly, Hanna, with how cute, pretty, funny and sweet you are, plus those legs, which I would murder for, I do not get and never have, and I’ve told you that a million times, why you’re so damned shy and don’t know down to your bones you deserve a guy like Raiden Miller. But that’s you and I love you, so…” she shrugged, “whatever. I’m assuming that he again didn’t hurt you. He just wanted your attention, and babe, he’s got a fine way of doing that, which a lot of women would pay him to do with them.”

  “Maybe I should explain more around how that came about and you’d understand,” I suggested.

  “No,” she shook her head. “Maybe you should stop trying so damned hard to find fault in him or yourself or how you both are together and just accept him for who he is and how he is as he’s obviously doing with you. I get you wouldn’t quite believe, after years of crushing on that guy, that this can be real and it’s all going to go up in a puff of smoke, but girl, the time is nigh to believe.”

  My breath caught at what she said, all it meant and just how true it was.

  KC wasn’t done.

  “Hanna, babe, I haven’t seen it, but word on the street is that you’ve got that man caught so tight in your snare he’s never going to get loose. But the thing is, he has no intention of trying. The whole town knows this. The only one who doesn’t is you.”

  Oh my God.

  She was right about that, too!

  KC kept on talking.

  “Now, what you have to get is that he is who he is and he does what he does, and none of it, girl, with the way he is, is a surprise. This would be a different conversation if he took his hands to you, caused you pain, said shit that made you feel like dirt, but what you’ve said, he does the opposite. I’m not saying you need to be a timid little mouse and let him walk all over you. Get in his face. Make him back you in a corner. But then see it for what it is. Babe, if he cares about you and what you two are talking about so much he cages you in and gets in your face, that says volumes. Intense discussions, hell, even fights mean there’s feeling. It means that what you two are building is worth it to him. If he didn’t give a shit, if he thought you were a pain in the ass, he knows he can get
it good elsewhere, so he wouldn’t put any effort into it and he’d just walk away.”

  This totally made sense.

  “I so should have talked to you weeks ago,” I told her.

  KC smiled huge and twirled her hand in her hair.

  “This is me. I got an alpha who pisses me off at the same time he rocks my world. Four years, five and a half with all that dating and engagement malarkey, I’m an expert.” She again wagged her finger at me as she invited, “Now, seeing as I have years on you, you now should feel free to come and share with Auntie KC all there is to Raiden Ulysses Miller. Everything. I’ll give you insights, girl, set you up to go forth and keep your badass hot guy happy.”

  I smiled back. “I’ll do that, honey.”

  And I would. Well, I mostly would.

  She kept smiling at me as she came toward me, stopped, bent and kissed the top of Sam’s head loudly. That pretty baby head shot back. Sam let me go and smacked KC’s face, giggling.

  KC giggled back and moved to the stove.

  I thanked the Lord I had a good friend right before Sam turned her attention and I got a baby fist to the face.

  This was when I started giggling.

  Sam and KC giggled with me.

  * * * * *

  Thus, KC making me feel better about just about everything, when Raiden told me he was off on a job, and, “Babe, this one is gonna last awhile,” I’d felt safe to do what I wanted to do.

  I wasted no time in doing it.

  Therefore, Raiden had been gone for over a week and now he was back. I was pedaling to his den, excited to unveil what I had to unveil, hoping like all heck he liked it so much that maybe he’d back me against a wall to share that with me.

  And I was looking forward to him doing it.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bounty Hunter Language

  I pedaled up the lane to Raiden’s den and saw him, arms and ankles crossed, leaning against the side of his Jeep.

  At the sight, my thrill went wild.

  I smiled huge and came to a stop behind his Jeep. He grinned back at me, his shades moving over me, Spot and my bike before he started to shake his head and pushed away from the car.

  I shoved down the kickstand and hopped off. I started skipping to him, but stopped, dashed back and wagged my finger an inch from Spot’s kitty nose.