It wasn’t just Angelica he had hurt. It was Landon, too, who had moved so far away from him Pisces felt as if an ocean separated them.
“Well, it seems you haven’t changed, brother. Still hurting those who love you, huh?” V said, leaning against the front door.
Pisces rounded on his brother. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up.”
Grinning, V replied, “I’m not the one in trouble here, bro, but I will stick around to see how you get yourself out of this mess. Too bad I don’t have that bookie on speed dial. I’m sure he would love to see this.”
“V,” Pisces growled.
“It was all a lie, wasn’t it?” Angelica muttered, moving closer to him. “You weren’t the fighter. Your brother was. You were the one who gambled his earnings away. You are the one who has the bookie looking for him. You ruined your brother’s life, and now you’ve ruined mine.”
“She’s a smart one, bro,” V commented. “I like her. I think she’s a keeper. Too bad you fucked up and got caught again.”
“Angelica, please, I can explain everything,” Pisces said.
“No. No you can’t,” she said as tears rolled down her face. “I came here to arrest a known criminal because you said you had information to his whereabouts. You lied to me, to Landon, and to the FBI. You lead us on, just so you could get what you wanted. Was it all worth it, Pisces? Was I not a good enough fuck?”
“Angelica,” Pisces growled, hating the way she was talking about herself.
“Stop. My name is Agent Emerson to you, and don’t you ever come near me again.”
Pisces didn’t move as Angelica turned and left the room. The slamming of a bedroom door told him she would not be receiving anyone anytime soon. Landon stood and silently followed, but turned at the last minute and said, “You know something, Pisces. I was willing to give up everything for you. Hell, I quit my job for you all because you were the first man I ever loved and wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Relationships are supposed to be based on love and trust. Too bad you don’t know the meaning of either.”
Watching both Landon and Angelica leave broke his heart. He hurt the two people he loved more than himself, and there were no words, no actions to fix what he had just broke. He knew that, and he was going to have to live with his mistake for the rest of his life. Turning, he strode out the back patio door. Walking down the steps of his back deck, Pisces didn’t feel the wet dew on the grass beneath his feet or the cold nip on the mountain air. Standing in the middle of his backyard, he looked to the stars above and screamed, until he couldn’t scream anymore. Falling to his knees, he let the aftermath of his ruse consume him until he felt nothing.
Chapter Fifteen
One month later
Landon was sitting next to Braxton as he bounced his son Joc on his knee. Landon had to admit the cute little bugger was adorable. With his chubby cheeks and curly black hair, he looked more like his father every day. Landon liked kids, and wanted some of his own one day, but after staying with Braxton for the last few weeks, he was seriously considering a vasectomy. Braxton’s kid hardly ever slept. Nope, the only time there was quiet in the house was if someone was holding the little noisemaker, or if he was out of the house.
“What’s on your mind, Landon?” Braxton asked, as he continued to bounce his son.
“Nothing good,” Landon sighed. “I heard from Apollo this morning. He kinda of spilled the beans and told me that Pisces has gone destructive.”
“Really?” Braxton asked, curious. “Hard to imagine the naked sheriff causing trouble. Well, unless he decided to wear clothes. Now that would cause an uproar.”
“I’m serious, Braxton. According to Apollo, he’s been drinking like a sailor on a weekend pass. To top it all off, Apollo said that his brother V has decided to stick around, and when Pisces isn’t drunk, he’s at Hercules gym, and the two of them are busy beating the shit out of each other.”
“So, do something about it.”
“What?” Landon asked. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”
“Jordan!” Braxton yelled, and his partner and husband walked into the living room from the kitchen. “Take Joc for a few, would you please?”
“Only if you promise to knock some sense into Landon. I can’t take his mopey look one more second.”
“Deal,” Braxton said, smiling as Jordan leaned down and kissed his lips. When Jordan left with their son, Braxton turned to Landon and slapped him upside the head. “You are so fucking stupid, you know that?”
“What the hell!”
“You are never going to find another man more suited to your needs than Pisces. Now, I don’t understand his whole naked obsession, but that man loves you. He’s hurting, and you’re too busy sleeping on my couch boo-hooing about what he did and how wrong he was. So he fucked up. Who hasn’t? Get the fuck over it and go fix it.”
“He lied, Braxton, not only to me but to Ace.”
“So what? Did you ever ask him why, or did you just fucking leave?”
When Landon didn’t reply, Braxton continued. “You never walk away from love…ever. You stay and fight for it. You fix what is broken, and you move on. In addition, a little punishment never hurt anyone. I am sure you can come up with something to fit his crime. But seriously, Landon, get the fuck over yourself and go get your man.”
Landon didn’t say anything as Braxton got up and left the room. He didn’t have to. Landon knew his friend was right. He wasn’t getting any younger, and the love of his life was a town over. Instead of figuring out why Pisces did what he did, Landon had left, and didn’t look back. He needed answers, and the only way he was going to get them was to go see Pisces. Landon stood, getting up from the couch, he grabbed his keys and was almost out the door, when Braxton yelled, “Don’t forget your bags, because if I know you, you won’t be coming back, and I don’t deliver.”
Sighing, Landon picked up the bag he had been living out of for the last few weeks, slung it over his shoulder, and left.
An hour or so later, he parked in front of the cabin and turned off the engine. The lights were on, and he could see someone moving around. Getting out of the vehicle, he walked up the steps and knocked on the door. He didn’t know what to expect, but decided just to go with the flow until all of his questions were answered.
However, when the door opened, Landon forgot about everything as his eyes looked upon Pisces’s dejected face. His eye was black and blue, and his lip was swollen. Every protective instinct in him rose to the surface as he grabbed the man he loved and hugged him hard. At that moment, Landon knew Braxton had been right. It didn’t matter how big or how small someone screwed up. It was the love that made everything worth fighting for. It wasn’t going to be easy loving Pisces, but Landon figured that if anyone had the stamina to deal with his love’s shenanigans, it was going to be him.
Pulling back, Landon grabbed Pisces’s face and wiped the tears that fell from his lover’s face. “We need to talk.” When Pisces nodded, Landon stepped into the cabin and waited for Pisces to shut the door. What he needed to say wasn’t going to be easy, but he needed to lay everything out on front of Pisces so his lover knew exactly how hurt he had been and how angry he still was.
As Pisces quietly motioned him toward the living room, Landon got a good look at the man. He had lost several pounds, and from the dark rings under his eyes, he hadn’t been sleeping well. Landon could commiserate, because he, too, was suffering from the same affliction. As Pisces sat, Landon did, too. The silence in the cabin was a bitch, but with determined resolve, Landon started and asked one simple question. “Why?”
Landon sat for the next two hours and listened as Pisces spilled his guts. It wasn’t pretty by any means, and from Landon heard, Pisces was at one time a real piece of work. So much so, that one step down the wrong path, and Landon would have been talking to him behind bars. Landon knew it wasn’t easy for someone to admit their sins to someone they loved, but the more Pisces talked, the more Landon understood why Pisc
es was the way he was.
Pisces’s carefree, ostentatious attitude was a deflection, a complete reversal from the life he once lived. Landon learned that Pisces was once driven by greed and the lust for money, that nothing was too good for him, from clothes to cars, to girls, to drugs. When he couldn’t get enough, he started looking for bigger and better thrills, and that was when he turned to betting against his brother’s fights when he ran out of money. At first Pisces made quite a bit of money, and Virgo never knew, until Pisces used his connection with his brother to rig a fight. Virgo found out and ordered him to stop, but Pisces was in debt to a loan shark and feared that if his brother didn’t throw the fight, not only was Pisces going to be in trouble, but that his bad decision would affect Virgo, and Pisces refused to allow anything to happen to his brother. That’s when it all became too much, and Pisces began to fear for his life. He did the only thing he could… He ran. He vowed to never live that life again. Landon listened as Pisces told him not only did it cost him the brother he always loved, but also the mother he adored, thanks to his mother mortgaging her house to pay off all of his debts.
When all was said and done, Pisces was penniless and alone. He had no brother and no mother. Left with nothing, he returned to Celestial to start fresh, and that was where Miz Raven and Apollo gave him the means and property he needed to find a new path in life.
Landon felt for him, he really did, but nothing Pisces said helped him to understand why he did what he did. When Landon asked why again, Pisces red-rimmed eyes looked into his as he said, “Because I knew no other way. I know that doesn’t make up for what I did, and if I had a chance to do it all over I would, but I couldn’t take the chance, Landon. I love you and Angelica so much. I feared if I didn’t do something I would be left with nothing. I can’t tell you how sorry I am for lying the way I did, but I’d do it again just to have those few precious days with you and her.”
Sighing, Landon rubbed the back of his neck. “Pisces, don’t you see? You didn’t have to lie to me. I loved you already. I resigned for you. I was going to stay with you, no matter if Ace came around or not. You didn’t have to lie to me, too.”
“I wanted both of you,” Pisces whispered.
“And now you have nothing,” Landon muttered, then said, “Look, I can get past the lying and shit. And over time, I can forgive you, but man…you lost my trust. You know how hard that’s going to be to get back.”
Pisces was kneeling before him before Landon could say another word. God, Landon wanted so much to smack the jerk. He really fucked up big time, but he couldn’t hate him. He loved him too much for that.
“I’ll do anything, baby, I swear. Please tell me I haven’t screwed up again. I’ll do better next time, I promise. Please tell me I still have a chance,” Pisces pleaded.
Landon sighed, touching Pisces’s cheek. “You always had me, Pisces. I never stopped loving you.”
* * * *
The next day, Pisces, Landon, and V pulled into the driveway of a swanky old home in a highly exclusive area of Denver. Landon cut the engine and just stared at the huge house before them.
“Are you sure this is the right address, V?” Pisces asked, looking at the two-story Victorian house. He was scared shitless, but he was determined to see it through. He had made many mistakes in his life. The only way he was going to make everything right was to atone for every single one of them, and the first stop was always the hardest.
“I’m sure,” V sighed. “Seriously, get over yourself. I am so fucking tired of listening to your fucking whining. How I ever survived the womb with you next to me is beyond my imagination, but if you don’t stop sulking, I swear, bro, I am going to give you another black eye.”
“Touch him again, V, and I’ll break your fucking hands,” Landon muttered.
Pisces grinned as he touched his left eye. He thanked the heavens the swelling had gone down, but he was still sporting a nice shiner. His brother was right. He had to get over himself and fix what he broke. If he wanted any semblance of normalcy in his life again, he had to make amends. Getting out of the vehicle, Pisces made his way up to the front door and knocked, waiting for her to open the door.
He had done her wrong in so many ways, and thanks to V, she was going to be the first apology of many. Looking over his shoulder, he frowned when his brother rolled his eyes and flipped him the bird. Pisces still didn’t understand why V stayed after his world fell apart, considering all the man did was rag his ass every chance he got, but looking back over the last month, Pisces was glad he had his brother.
When Angelica and Landon left, Pisces found himself at the bottom over every bottle of liquor he had. And when he ran out, he went and drank all of Apollo’s stock until the annoying blond God, kicked his ass to the curb. His downfall didn’t end there, but thanks to his brother, V managed to keep him out of the hospital, or worse, jail. It wasn’t until Miz Raven stopped by and gave him a severe tongue-lashing that Pisces started to see the light. With her and his brother’s help, Pisces started to get his life back on track.
The front door opened, and there before him stood a stunning woman in her late fifties with graying hair at her temples. “Pisces?”
“Hi, Mom.”
* * * *
The sun was just beginning to set as Angelica zipped the last of her bags. Picking up her purse, she grabbed her two bags and headed for the front door. She was leaving Denver. There was nothing left for her here, and she needed a fresh start. Coming back to the Bureau after the Celestial fiasco was not all fun and games. It didn’t take long for word to get out that she had been duped by a naked man, and to top it all off, the rumors were flying about her sleeping around with her former partner. She had managed to stick it out for a few weeks, but by the third week, she couldn’t handle it anymore, and she handed Director Avery her resignation, which he immediately accepted and wished her luck.
It didn’t take her long to sublet her apartment. Hell, all that took was a sign on the Bureau’s corkboard in the coffee room. It took a whole five minutes before another agent swept into her office saying he would take the place.
Taking one last look around, she couldn’t believe the turn her life had taken. Gone was the life she had always wanted, or thought she wanted. Yet, now that the dust had settled, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. For so long she had prided herself on not being one of those weeping women who bawled over spilt milk. However, at night when she laid all alone in bed, he would come to her, and like so many of the women before her, she cried. She cried for what she was never going to have, for the loss of a love, for the hurt she wished would go away but still hadn’t, but mostly she cried for him. She knew that Landon had returned to Treasure Cove, and she didn’t blame him. At least he had friends to run to.
She had no one. Landon had kept in touch with her over the last mouth, and on several occasions begged her to move to Treasure Cove, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t bear to be that close to Pisces and not see him. It wasn’t that she was afraid of him. She was afraid of what she would do. As much as she wanted to believe she was strong enough to walk away from him, she knew she wouldn’t be able to again.
God, just thinking of Pisces made her heart ache. She still couldn’t believe that in three short days she had fallen so deeply in love him, with both of them. Her partner became her best friend, lover, her morning smile after the storm. However, it was Pisces, who started out as her biggest pain in the ass, that proved to her that just because they were different didn’t mean that whatever they had couldn’t work. His idiosyncrasies, all of his horrible habits vanished when he kissed her, or when he let his guard down and showed her that he could care about someone else besides himself. It didn’t matter that he lied to her and Landon. She got why he did what he did. She researched that when she returned to Denver, and what the Internet didn’t tell her, Apollo, Fairy, and Miz Raven filled in. Yet, with all the facts before her, she still couldn’t forgive him for lying.
She was so
tired of fighting her own nature. She didn’t have the energy left to figure out Pisces. She couldn’t fight anymore. She was tired…so tired of everything. Placing her bags by the front door, she reached for the door when she heard someone behind her, and she froze, wishing she still had her service weapon.
“You’re leaving?”
She gasped when she recognized the husky voice.
Not turning around, she slowly stood facing the door, her hand on the knob. She didn’t have to say anything. All she had to do was pick up her bags and walk out. Within an hour, she would be thirty thousand feet in the air, and she could start a new life in a new state. Yet the sorrow in his voice compelled her to respond. Sighing, she whispered, “Yes.”
“I still have one last guess.”
Angelica closed her eyes and prayed for strength she didn’t have anymore. She was tired of playing games. She hated them, and part of her hated him for insisting they finish this farce, but deep down she knew he would never guess her favorite song, no matter how much she really wanted him to. “It’s over, Pisces. Please drop it. Besides, how did you get in here?”
“My lover has skills.”
Sighing, Angelica replied, “I’m happy for you and Landon. I wish you both luck.”
“What about you?” he asked.
“What about me?” she replied.
“One last guess.”
Clothing the Naked Sheriff [Celestial Nights 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 15