Still Standing

by Kristen Ashley

  What? My brain screamed.

  “What?” I whispered, but I’d lost his attention.

  He’d turned his head and was scowling out of the plethora of windows that, by day, showed a magnificent landscape, and by night, showed moonlight-shrouded pine trees which was no less magnificent.

  They also showed the headlights of a car coming up the lane.

  “Fuck, what now?” he muttered, putting his sandwich on the counter and grabbing his beer. “Stay there,” he ordered as he walked away while taking a pull on his beer.

  I didn’t have any choice but to stay there.

  Sitting on the counter didn’t feel great on my hip but nothing felt great on my hip.

  The rest of me felt okay, muted pain in my ribs and face, but this was because I wasn’t moving much.

  I didn’t want to face the consequences if I tried to jump down.

  Buck exited the front door and closed it behind him.

  I sat on the counter, ate my sandwich, sipped at my Coke and resisted the urge to get a plate to put his sandwich on.

  I needed to live more and not worry about stupid stuff like sandwiches on counters. My life was such that I knew, in enumerable ways (of which that day I was reminded of a few), that a plate for a sandwich was not the least bit important.

  I told myself this, but I still found it hard not to find a plate.

  I was finished with my sandwich by the time Buck returned and I felt my belly get tight when I saw the man who walked in with him.

  Detective Rayne Scott.

  Darn.

  What was he doing here?

  I didn’t really want to know.

  I just wished he wasn’t here.

  I’d never forget him. Tall, dark-haired, interesting light-brown eyes, athletic build and incredibly good-looking.

  He was also the detective who’d worked with the FBI locally in investigating and eventually arresting my ex-husband.

  And me (without the arresting part).

  I gazed at him remembering that I never wanted to see him again.

  Never.

  He wasn’t mean to me.

  He was professional, all business, but not mean. Even the three times he was in the room with the men who interrogated me.

  That said, although he was only doing what he was paid to do, he’d rocked my world so immensely, it came crumbling out from under my feet.

  He had a job to do, I understood this logically, and I was just caught in the fallout.

  It was Rogan who did the deed. I understood this logically too.

  But that didn’t change the fact that Detective Rayne Scott was a major player in the events that ruined my life and led me to the dire predicament I currently found myself in.

  Now he was there, looking no less handsome, wearing a chambray shirt and jeans, and I was sitting on a counter in a faded black T-shirt with a busted lip, a swollen face, and I didn’t even want to think of what my hair looked like.

  Hells bells.

  I continued to gaze at him, immobile.

  He returned my look, something working behind those interesting brown eyes, something deep and meaningful and maybe even painful, before he clipped, “Jesus.”

  “You’ll give us a minute,” Buck stated.

  This wasn’t a request, it was statement, and it was clear he was displeased.

  Rayne Scott didn’t take his eyes off me as he nodded.

  Buck came at me, put the beer bottle down by my hip then lifted me carefully off the counter to set me equally carefully on my feet. He took my hand and guided me out of the kitchen, up to the landing and into the bedroom. He flipped on the overhead light and closed the door.

  Then he turned to me and dropped my hand but only so his hands could come to rest on my waist.

  “That man is a cop,” he told me.

  “I know, he was one of the team that arrested Rogan,” I told him.

  This news did not make Buck happy. I knew this because his eyes flashed, and his mouth got tight as he studied me.

  Then he went on, “No fuckin’ clue how, but he heard about what Esposito did to you.”

  Fabulous.

  I looked away.

  “Toots, eyes to me,” Buck ordered gently.

  I looked back at him.

  “He wants Esposito. He knows Esposito caught you in his net and he’s here to convince you to press charges about what happened today. What he’s not sayin’ is he’s also here to convince you to inform on Esposito and his crew.”

  Oh no.

  I couldn’t do this.

  With all that had happened, neither Tia nor I had ever considered going to the police. We’d lived the kind of lives that you knew you never, but never, snitched.

  Never.

  “I’ll never snitch,” I whispered and saw Buck’s eyes flash again, this time not with irritation but something else, something that looked an awful lot like approval.

  “Then don’t.”

  I felt my eyebrows go up. “You don’t think I should talk to the police?”

  He slid his hands at my waist around to the small of my back and pressed in so my body was almost touching his and my head had to go back farther so I could look up at him.

  “Bikers, babe, we take care of our own business,” he said quietly but firmly, and I felt a thrill race up my back at vague thoughts of whatever other “business” they might have. “You’ve had it shit and you’ve had it shit for a while, today worse than others. But you got another decision to make. You can walk out there and trust Scott or you can stand right here and tell me you trust me.”

  I didn’t speak, and he pulled me closer so our bodies were brushing and his hand came up to thread into my hair as he dipped his head closer to mine.

  “To help you with that, I’ll tell you I got your back. And when I say I got your back, that means I got your back and all the boys in my MC got your back. You don’t do us wrong, we will never do you wrong. Never, Toots.”

  I kept staring up at him as I thought of Ink teasing me that morning. Buck coming after me. Driver waiting for me and taking me to Lefty. Dr. Lefkowitz caring for me. Lorie making soup and throwing a blanket over me. Ink buttering crackers for me. And Buck sending a message to Esposito and looking for Tia and definitely looking out for me.

  People wouldn’t believe it of Rogan, considering what he did, but he took care of me.

  If I was sick, he practically babied me. He often bought me flowers, just because. I’d come home from work and he’d be there, having come home early to make a special meal for me. He made me feel loved, he made me feel precious.

  I’d had decent foster carers. It was what it was, and it wasn’t great, but it wasn’t a nightmare.

  It also wasn’t loving kindness, which Rogan showed to me, something I missed even though I hated him, what he’d done to the people he’d stolen from and what he’d done to me.

  Tia and I looked out for each other as best we could, and Mrs. Jimenez did everything she could with the little she had.

  But I’d never known the kind of protection and kindness Buck and his people had shown me in less than a day.

  “I trust you,” I whispered, his eyes flashed again, and his head dipped even further so he could brush his lips against mine.

  He lifted away and whispered back, “Then let’s take care of this shit so I can make some calls about your girl.”

  There it was again, and I couldn’t help it. I closed my eyes and pressed carefully into him, the uninjured side of my face to his chest, my arms going around him to give him a hug. He gave me a gentle squeeze and stepped back.

  “Do you have any sweats I can borrow?” I asked when he took my hand and headed to the door.

  He turned and looked down at me, “This is your place, Toots, your space. He doesn’t get to make you feel uncomfortable in it.”

  I was reeling from this pronouncement. So much, I didn’t resist when he tugged me to and through the door.

  We made it to the bottom of the st
eps to the landing and Buck dropped my hand but slid his arm around my shoulders and carefully turned me so my front was pressed into his side.

  Scott watched this and I could tell he didn’t like it before he wiped his expression blank and focused on me.

  “Mrs. Kirk—” he started.

  “Delaney,” Buck growled, and Scott’s eyes sliced to him. “She divorced his ass. Her name is Delaney,” Buck continued.

  Scott stared at Buck a beat then his attention came back to me.

  “Sorry. Ms. Delaney,” he murmured. “We need to talk about what happened to you today.”

  “No,” I said softly, “I don’t think we do.”

  I saw his jaw clench and he took a step forward. Buck curled me closer and Scott’s eyes went to Buck’s arm, his jaw clenched tighter and he stopped.

  Then he looked back at me.

  “I’m thinkin’ you know Enrique Esposito is not a good guy,” Scott noted.

  “Yes, I know that,” I stated the obvious.

  “So, I’m here to tell you that what happened to you happens to others, sometimes it’s worse. I think you know that too,” Scott continued.

  I knew that too.

  Boy, did I know that.

  I didn’t answer.

  I just held his gaze.

  He carried on.

  “That means, what happened to you, what you and your friend Tia Esposito know, what your friend’s husband has done to her, you can help us make certain that what the both of you have been through won’t happen to anyone else.”

  “You know she grew up in foster care,” Buck remarked suddenly, and I felt my body go still as I looked up at his profile.

  Why did he say that?

  “I know,” Scott replied, his voice tight and my eyes went to him.

  “Figure you investigated her just as deep as you investigated her ex,” Buck carried on, and Scott didn’t speak, but he also didn’t take his eyes from Buck. “You think of offerin’ her this kinda deal two years ago before you turned her life to shit?”

  Oh God.

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  “That wasn’t a possibility,” Scott ground out.

  “Yeah?” Buck asked. “Why? You investigated her. You knew she wasn’t involved in his mess. You knew you took him down, she’d also pay. You think, maybe you explained that shit to her, she woulda helped you out and that woulda helped her out instead of gettin’ her face on the front of every newspaper in the country as the dupe?”

  Scott looked at me when he answered.

  “You know we were surveilling you. You and Kirk were tight. We didn’t know the extent of your knowledge. We couldn’t approach you in case you knew what he was doing and disregarded it, or you could have told him we were onto him. It was discussed, but in the end, what he was doing had to be stopped and we couldn’t endanger that by showing our hand to you.”

  “Just so you know,” I said quietly, holding his eyes, “I wouldn’t have helped you.”

  Scott’s lips thinned.

  I kept talking.

  “But I would have left him. If you told me what he was doing, just knowing he was stealing from those people, I would have left him. It wasn’t about him cheating on me. That just made it worse. But I would have left him, and if you’d told me, it would have saved me from what happened after. And I would never have told him about you.”

  “We couldn’t know that,” he replied, just as quietly.

  “Now you do,” Buck put in.

  Scott didn’t tear his focus from me when he said, “You got a chance to turn that around. To do good for people. To change your reputation. And you’re sayin’ you’re not gonna take that chance?”

  I felt Buck’s body get tighter and tighter as Scott spoke, and when Scott was done, Buck growled, “You’re fuckin’ shittin’ me.”

  “Man, she does,” Scott clipped at him.

  “Yes, you’re right, I do.” I butted in. “And I choose me. One thing I learned from all this is to keep my eyes open and put myself first.”

  Scott looked at me, clearly incredulous. “And you got your eyes open, hookin’ your star to the Aces High MC?”

  “No one else was there to pick me up and take me to the doctor when Esposito’s boys tossed me, bleeding and beaten, from a moving vehicle,” I replied.

  I saw immediately that he took my point.

  Then I said what I felt, for some reason, I had to say.

  “I know you were just doing your job and I know your job is a good one, what you do is important. But you should know that I loved him. You may think it makes me a fool, but he treated me great. He acted like I was precious. When he was with me, I felt like I was the most important person in the world. And I’d never felt that before. If you investigated me, you know why. So maybe I was blind and maybe that made me stupid, but when someone loves you like that, why on earth would you question it?”

  He closed his eyes.

  But I kept speaking, so he opened them again and focused on me.

  “He had to pay for what he did to those people, but what I want to know is, why did I have to pay such a harsh punishment when I didn’t do a darn thing wrong? It’s not your job to look out for people like me, but that doesn’t change the fact that you left me to the wolves. You exposed him, which meant you turned me out, and they chewed me up. And you all knew, you knew what that was doing to me, and not one of you made even the remotest effort.”

  I’d been talking a lot, and I stopped to take in a breath.

  Scott didn’t fill the silence.

  So I did.

  “There are a lot of different kinds of victims to crime and I was one of them. You serve and protect, but no one was there to protect me. Now you want me to do something for you that puts me out there again. But you have not shown even an ounce of compassion for me. So yes, I’m hooking my star to the Aces High MC because, quite frankly, from experience, Detective Scott, I don’t trust you to look out for me.”

  “Clara, if you had—” he started.

  “What?” I cut him off. “Asked?”

  “Yes,” he gritted out.

  “Did Nora Finnegan ask you for the escort to the courthouse? I remember, Detective Scott, struggling through the reporters closing in and shouting questions at me. I remember seeing you personally pushing your way through them, helping her get inside. She got paid to sleep with my husband. She also got paid to give all those interviews and write that book afterward. Did she ask for your protection? Is that why she got it?”

  Scott didn’t answer.

  “I didn’t think so,” I whispered.

  “We arrived at the same time,” he told me.

  “Obviously, so did I,” I returned.

  He stared into my eyes then he said quietly, “I lost sleep over you.”

  “I did too.”

  “I’m still losin’ sleep over you,” he went on.

  “I am too.”

  His eyes didn’t leave mine, but he leaned forward a bit when he stated, “You don’t get me, Clara, you are not makin’ the right choices.”

  Buck’s tight body got tighter.

  I spoke.

  “Another thing I’ve learned, Detective Scott, is that if I make a mistake, I’ll pay for it. I’ve also learned, even if I don’t or I’m not the one who made the mistake, there’s a good chance I’ll pay for that too.”

  Scott flinched.

  “I think we’re done,” Buck put in.

  Scott leaned back, his attention cutting to Buck.

  “You had a busy afternoon,” he noted, clearly not agreeing with Buck that we were done.

  “Yeah,” Buck agreed.

  “You know who pulls Esposito’s strings,” Scott continued, and that was when my body got tight and it didn’t feel all that good.

  Was Buck wrong that there would be no blowback?

  “I know,” Buck stated.

  “Then you know that not only you, but now Clara is on his radar.”

  “I’m thinkin’,
Scott, that Clara made clear where she stands on this so maybe you can let me worry about that,” Buck clipped.

  Wait.

  There was something to worry about?

  Scott looked at me then back at Buck. “Look at her, Hardy, she doesn’t know it all. How can she be clear where she stands if she doesn’t know it all?”

  “You look at her, Scott, she’s had a bad fuckin’ day,” Buck returned. “And another thing, you showin’ here after doin’ what you did, knowin’ what her day brought, knowin’ what seein’ your ass again would make her feel, that takes balls, brother. And not the good kind.”

  They glowered at each other with such intensity, I could feel the heat from their glares.

  Luckily, Scott broke the angry-hot-guy scowling contest and moved to the door.

  He stopped with his hand on the handle, turned and his eyes hit me.

  “Cops don’t fraternize with people involved in investigations, not during. It’s not frowned on, it’s somethin’ that could lose me my badge. But I could have helped you after. I could have helped you get through those reporters. I didn’t because if I did, I knew I’d want to help you more for reasons that go beyond protecting and serving. I didn’t need that shit, but more importantly, you didn’t need it either. So I kept my distance. Nora Finnegan is a piece of trash whore, she latched on to me. What you saw was not what you think.”

  I stared at him in shock and Buck’s body coiled so tight, if it exploded, it wouldn’t surprise me.

  But the detective wasn’t done.

  “I lost sleep because I know precisely what I did to you, Clara, and still lose it because I’ve kept my eye on you and I know that I’m responsible for where you are and how you look right now. And I’m here because I finally have an excuse to do something about it.” He paused then concluded, “You change your mind, I’ll always be here.”

  With that, he opened the door and walked out of it.

  Buck gave my shoulders a squeeze and went back to his sandwich and beer.

  I stayed at the counter and stared at the door until I saw Detective Scott’s car start down the lane.

  Then I turned my head to Buck. “What was that?”

  Buck swallowed a bite of sandwich and chased it with a tug on his beer.

  He slid his eyes to me and replied, “Wants a piece of your ass, babe.”