Still Standing

by Kristen Ashley

  “You knew about that?”

  I nodded.

  “Oh, honey,” she whispered.

  “Talk to me,” I urged.

  She didn’t make me wait, she got closer and shared.

  “Well, when we made our plans, after I hung up, I kind of got excited. Of course, I was totally scared, but you sounded so confident, I was also excited. And I remembered, you and me together, we always made it through. We always survived. I also started to remember some of the stuff we went through and how I knew what was happening was worse, way worse. But together, we could take care of each other.”

  She paused.

  I nodded because she was right.

  We’d always made it through.

  I wished we’d remembered that earlier.

  She kept going.

  “So something was going down and there was no one in the house. All Enrique’s guys left with him, and I thought it was a sign, telling me we had our opportunity. But I decided to get smart. I took stuff I knew was worth money and I took stuff that I knew Enrique had. I decided we didn’t just need money, we needed insurance.”

  Uh-oh.

  “What’d you take?”

  “I didn’t even know. I just knew he wouldn’t want me to have it. Files, papers, photos and flash drives. What I didn’t know was that he really didn’t want me to take it.”

  “Oh, Tia,” I whispered, stunned she would do something like that, scared for her even though it was over and admiring that she had the courage.

  “Anyway, when you didn’t show, I worried something was wrong. But I’d stolen stuff, I couldn’t go home. So I hung out in Phoenix as long as I could and laid low, hoping to connect with you. I kept going by your place, but I was worried they’d look for me there and your lights were never on and Mrs. Jimenez was never home either.”

  Staying with Raymundo because she’d been tied up.

  Darn.

  Tia kept talking.

  “Then, I saw them, and they saw me cruising your house, and I had no choice but to go. They followed me, but I thought I lost them. I decided to get set up in Seattle and find a way to contact you and you could meet me there. I needed to ditch my car though, so, in Nevada, I sold it to a used car salesman and traded it in for new wheels. What I didn’t know was that they’d been following me. They forced me off the road, and that’s when I also found out Damian was following me.”

  “Um…who is Damian?” I whispered, leaning super close.

  She smiled.

  I stared, and I stared at the way she was smiling.

  Oh my.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” she whispered back.

  “Try me,” I invited.

  She shook her head.

  “Later, when he can’t hear. He can hear everything. He’s, like, Superman or something.”

  She said this like it was a good thing. The absolute best.

  I forced my eyes to stay on hers rather than look again into the kitchen at a tall, blond, hazel-eyed Superman.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “there was a firefight. I was caught in the middle of it. Damian won the firefight. I was injured, and I have no idea what happened to the other guys, because I was sort of bleeding a lot and not paying attention. But Damian took me, the stuff I had on Enrique, and then we holed up in a house in the mountains. He stitched me up, I recuperated while he stayed with me and now, we’re back to rescue you.”

  I was staring at her again.

  “He stitched you up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You were in a firefight where you were wounded by bullets, and he stitched you up?”

  “In another life, he was a field medic.”

  I kept staring at her.

  “Honey,” I said quietly. “Field medics patch you up so they can stabilize you to be transported to surgeons who’ll stitch you up.”

  “He’s very confident. He has no problem branching out.”

  Oh my God.

  “Tia—” I started.

  “Now…you,” she demanded.

  “No, you aren’t done. Are you safe? Who is he? What happens next?”

  She smiled at me. “It’s all good. Damian gave the stuff I had to Rayne. He told me Rayne is,” she lifted her fingers and did air quotation marks, “running with it, whatever that means. We just needed to get to Phoenix, give it to him, pick you up, and then Damian is taking us to Seattle or wherever we want to go.”

  “When did you get home?”

  “About five hours ago. We got here and Rayne told Damian you were hooked up with the

  Aces High Motorcycle Club. He made some calls, found out West Hardy was at a party there, told us you were likely with him, and if we wanted to find you, we had to go to a party. But we got there, and there you were, running down the street. That was pretty surprising. Rayne said you were solid with what he called,” more air quotation marks, “the MC, but I didn’t believe that. My Clara doesn’t run with a motorcycle club.”

  Hmm.

  She smiled again. “And I was right. You were running away.”

  Hmm.

  “I was solid with them,” I admitted, and this time, she blinked.

  Then she leaned into me. “What?”

  “If Damian has Superman ears, my story is for later. A lot later.”

  Her eyebrows shot up. “Why?”

  “Because it’s private, personal, and when I tell you, I want it to be just between you and me.”

  She examined my face and I knew she read it because hers got soft again and she whispered, “Okay, honey.”

  That was my Tia.

  My Tia.

  My Tia could read me.

  And she wasn’t dead. She was sitting right next to me.

  Not dead.

  Not dead.

  I moved forward, wrapped my arms around her, gave her a tight hug, and it took a lot, a whole lot, but I managed to do this without sobbing.

  “I’ve been so worried,” I said in her ear, my voice sounding clogged.

  “I’m sorry,” she said back, her voice clogged too.

  I held on and Tia held me back, and we did this for a long time.

  Finally, she gave me a squeeze and we let go.

  I took in a shaky breath.

  Tia spoke.

  “So, tomorrow, we’ll get your stuff and we’ll head out.”

  I shook my head.

  “No stuff. We’ll just go.”

  Her brows knitted. “What?”

  “Buck has my stuff and I’m leaving it. Fresh start all around. I have a little money in the bank. We’ll just go visit Mrs. Jimenez so she can see you’re okay and we can say good-bye, and then we’ll go.”

  “You can’t leave your stuff.”

  “I can.”

  “You can’t, Clara. They took everything from you, but you held on to what you had left. You have to hold on to what you have. You always hold on to what you have. We both know that.”

  We did.

  We’d learned that early, packing our little suitcases with our meagre belongings that were prized possessions and taking it from foster home to foster home.

  Still, I was letting it go.

  “I’ll get a job making coffee and buy tie-dyed shirts and hippie jeans. I’ll be good.”

  “Clara—”

  “We’re leaving it.”

  “Honey—”

  I couldn’t do this.

  I could not do this.

  Not right now.

  Buck thought I’d been using him.

  When I’d been falling in love with him.

  I felt the tears sting my eyes, and I whispered, “Don’t. Please. Don’t.”

  She examined my face again.

  Then my sweet Tia whispered, “Okay.”

  “This is unnecessary, I can take the couch,” I told Detective Rayne Scott as I stood by his big, very comfy-looking bed in his bedroom while he opened a dresser drawer.

  I was freaking out because the arrangement was, I was sle
eping in his bed, and I was freaking out more because the arrangement included Damian and Tia sleeping together on the queen bed in his second bedroom.

  “I’m good on the couch,” he muttered, pulling something out of the drawer.

  “No, really, I can sleep anywhere.”

  “Good,” he stated, closing the drawer and turning to me, carrying a T-shirt. “Then I’ll know you won’t be tossing and turning here.”

  Oh dear.

  “Listen, I—” I started, but he made it to me, and his hand came up and curled around the top of my shoulder.

  “Clara, I’m a cop. Cops learn early to read people. On you, sweetheart, I’m readin’ heartbreak. It’s written all over your face. What you need to do is take my tee, put it on, climb into bed and go to sleep. What you do not need to do is expend the little energy you got left discussin’ somethin’ meaningless with me.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  He was right.

  And Tia was right.

  So I also suspected he was a nice guy.

  More than nice.

  So I said, “Okay.”

  He nodded and let me go. “Okay.”

  Then he handed me the T-shirt, I took it and he started to the door.

  “Rayne,” I called, he stopped and turned back to me. “Thank you,” I whispered.

  He stood there and stared at me, his eyes moved to the bed and they came back to me.

  He then tipped his chin up and walked out, closing the door behind him.

  I took off my clothes, folded them and put them on the armchair in the corner that was also comfy-looking, perfect for curling up and reading a book. I donned his tee, climbed into his bed and turned off the bedside lamp.

  What I didn’t do was sleep.

  Not for a while.

  And I had a feeling my track record for sleep was about to take a major hit.

  First, I stared into the darkness.

  After that, I stared into it some more.

  A while of that, I turned my face into Detective Rayne Scott’s pillow, and I cried.

  And cried.

  I kept doing it.

  Until I’d cried myself to sleep.

  28

  Is This Really Happening?

  Getting to sleep late after a crying jag, I woke late and found, when looking in Rayne’s mirror in his master bathroom, that I had puffy eyes.

  Fantastic.

  I made his bed, folded his T-shirt, put it on his pillow and donned my clothes.

  Then I went out and found Tia alone in the kitchen.

  She smiled at me. “Coffee?”

  “Please.”

  She got up and got me a mug.

  I sat down at the kitchen table in a bay window and looked out at the Phoenician sunshiny day.

  “Sleep okay?” Tia asked, sliding the brew on the table in front of me.

  I looked down and told the mug, “No.”

  I picked it up and took a sip as Tia perched on a bent leg on a chair across from me.

  “The boys are gone, we can talk now,” she said softly.

  “That’s good since I’d like to know why you’re sleeping with Superman Damian Field Medic in Another Life.”

  Her eyes got dreamy.

  Oh wow.

  “You like him,” I whispered my observation.

  “Yeah,” she whispered her answer.

  “Tia—”

  She didn’t let me start.

  “He makes me feel good.” She closed her eyes and did short shakes of her head before opening them again. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it, but he makes me feel good…about me. I never thought I’d like to…” she pressed her lips together and released them, leaning forward and whispering, “you know, again, not after what Enrique let those men do to me.”

  I nodded to her.

  I knew.

  I knew something else too.

  If he’d wrought this miracle, Damian was all kinds of Superman.

  “And you like to…you know…with Damian?” I queried.

  Her eyes got dreamy again.

  She liked it.

  She definitely liked it.

  Wow.

  And…

  Yippee!

  “So Superman Damian seduced a convalescing gunshot victim?” I asked on a tease.

  “Oh yeah,” she answered then giggled.

  I couldn’t help it, it had been so long since I’d heard her giggle, and I’d thought I’d never hear it again, I giggled with her.

  My heart wasn’t in it.

  But that didn’t mean I wasn’t really happy for my best friend.

  She wiped her eyes and then shared, “At first, he was very gentle.”

  “I hope so,” I replied on a grin.

  “Then, I got stronger, and, um…not so much.”

  I started laughing because I could see, plainly, she liked the not so much.

  Carefully, I asked, “Did you share about what Enrique did to you?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t have to. He knew all about it. And he doesn’t care, Clara, not even a little bit.”

  Okay, maybe Damian was Superman.

  I took a sip of coffee and continued my interrogation.

  “So I take it he’s hanging in Seattle with us?”

  The happy went out of her face and she looked out the window.

  That wasn’t good.

  “Tia?” I prompted, and she looked back at me.

  Then she shrugged.

  “I don’t know. I don’t care. His life is kind of…different. He has no roots. I don’t know if he wants to be rooted with me. If he does, then I’ll take it. I’ll snatch it up and I’ll take it. If he doesn’t, if he needs to be…out there…I’ll let him. But now, I just like feeling…” she shook her head and then finished, “me again. Or who I think I’m meant to be. And I like being with him and I’ll take from him whatever he’s willing to give me.”

  I wanted more for her, but I also knew that we two, we had to settle for as good as we could get.

  And Damian made her smile, made her giggle when she talked about him and made her feel good about herself again, and that was pretty darned good.

  So I reached out, grabbed her hand and squeezed it.

  I let her go, took another sip of coffee and sent a wish silently to the universe that rootless Damian would want to grow roots with my Tia.

  Hopefully in Phoenix.

  “Now you,” she stated. “We’re alone, so you can tell me all about this Buck guy.”

  I shook my head and it was my turn to look out the window.

  “Clara, honey—”

  I looked back at her and interrupted, “I can’t.” I shook my head again. “I will, but I can’t now. What happened, happened right before you and Damian found me. It’s too new. It hurt too much. The wound is too raw.”

  I watched her face get soft. “Oh, babe.”

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “That bad?”

  I couldn’t speak, my heart had slid into my throat, so I nodded.

  “Babe,” she whispered.

  I bit my lip and looked out the window.

  “Well!” she said suddenly, and I turned back at her. “The good news is, the boys talked this morning. Rayne knows where your stuff is, so he and Damian went to get it.”

  Oh.

  My.

  God!

  “Pardon?” I breathed.

  She smiled at me, for once not reading me.

  “Rayne knows where this Buck lives. They went up to—”

  She stopped talking because I bolted from my chair, spilling coffee on the table and the floor.

  “No!” I shouted, panicked. “Call them! Call them now! Tell them to come back.”

  She was staring up at me, her face pale.

  “I can’t, honey. I mean, I can. But they left well over an hour ago—”

  Oh God, no.

  Over an hour.

  Plenty of time to get to Buck’s house and make him
furious, furious when he sees Rayne Scott and thinks I’ve moved on to my next mark not even a day after I walked away from my last one.

  That last one being him.

  I put my coffee cup down, muttering, “This can’t be happening.”

  “Clara, babe, what on earth are you so upset about?” she asked, rising slowly from her seat.

  “I told you I was leaving my stuff!” I yelled.

  “You can’t leave your stuff!” she yelled back.

  I shook my head. “He’s going to be mad.”

  “So what? It’s your stuff.”

  “You don’t get it!” I shouted, throwing up my hands. “He’ll see Rayne and think—”

  “Good,” Tia snapped. “I see you. I see he hurt you. He sees good-looking Rayne and he deserves to think whatever he thinks!”

  I stared at her and I knew Damian was Superman. She was again Tia pre-Enrique with a hint of attitude and the protective instinct of a lioness.

  I was in trouble.

  The front door opened, and I looked into the living room to see Rayne and Damian coming through.

  I also heard the pipes.

  I knew those pipes.

  People who weren’t around motorcycles for weeks on end wouldn’t hear the difference. But all the pipes on Harleys were different, distinctive, and those were Buck’s pipes.

  Oh God.

  Rayne prowled directly to me, stopped toe to toe and bent his neck so his face was in mine.

  “You know he’s here,” he stated.

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “He was not real thrilled to open his door to me,” he went on.

  Oh God.

  “I know,” I repeated on a whisper.

  “You can stay in here and I can have him removed.”

  My body jolted involuntarily.

  “Removed?”

  There came a pounding at the door.

  Oh God!

  “I’ll call the cops, Clara,” Rayne explained.

  More pounding at the door.

  Oh God!

  “No,” I shook my head. “No cops.”

  “Clara,” both his hands came up and curled around either side of my neck, “make a smart choice here.”

  “No cops.”

  “Sweetheart, you wanted me to protect you when that shit went down with Kirk. I’m tellin’ you now, you ask, you got my protection. I’ll see that you’re safe and I’ll see that you’re taken care of. That’s a promise.”

  I had a feeling he meant more than just calling his buddies in, and I couldn’t go there.