Violet Ugly: A Contemporary Romance Novel (The Granite Harbor Series Book 2)

by J. Lynn Bailey

  “Please don’t touch him. Just take me,” Mona says.

  I slowly edge my hand back to grab my gun.

  Ronan laughs as he walks through the dining room, opposite side of the table from Mona, his gun in his hand like it’s an added appendage. He looks at me. “Take your gun from your holster, unload it, and give it to me.”

  My skin begins to crawl.

  Don’t let him get to you. He wants to see you get pissed off. That’s what cowardly criminals do.

  “What do you want, Ronan?” I ask. “What is it that you want from me so badly?”

  Mona sits, chewing her thumbnail, tears still streaming down her face. She doesn’t look at either of us.

  “You don’t know?” He smirks. “You didn’t tell him?” Ronan looks at Mona again.

  “Let Mona go,” I say—not because she’s my mother, but because I’m a warden. My job is to get everyone out alive, including the bastard with the gun.

  He laughs. “So she can run to the police and have them surround the fucking house before I kill you? No fucking way, not a chance.”

  “She wouldn’t do that. You’ve kept her doped up for years. Brainwashed her. Come on. She wouldn’t betray you.”

  He mulls this over for a minute. “You know, I’ve tried over and over to figure this out. Played scenarios in my head. How the timing would have been just absolutely totally fucked up thirty-three years ago.”

  My phone rings, and it interrupts Ronan. It’s Eli. After two more rings, Ronan gets impatient.

  “Shut that fucking thing off when I’m talking to you.” Ronan grows furious and then fires a shot into the ceiling.

  My heart begins to pound as my eyes slowly meet his.

  You will not intimidate me, fucker.

  Mona begins to whimper. “Just let him go, Ronan. Please.” Her fingertips are white from her own pressure as she balls her hands into fists.

  I silence the phone.

  A text message shows up on my screen, but I don’t break eye contact with Ronan. I don’t want him to know I’ve received one. But, when Ronan’s own phone begins to ring and he looks down, I look at my phone. It’s from my lieutenant, not the chief.

  Shreeves: Do not go home. Ronan will be there, waiting for you. We are on our way.

  Too late.

  Ronan shoves his phone in his pocket. Taps the gun to his head, another intimidation ploy. “Where was I at?”

  “You started with thirty-three years ago,” I offer him.

  “Don’t contradict me.”

  I put my hands up in surrender even though I want to fucking kill this guy.

  “Mona, why don’t you tell Ryan why we’re here?” He carelessly handles the gun.

  Her face is full of pain—not just for this moment, but also for my entire life. Regret, I see it. Demons she couldn’t quiet long enough to raise a son. Demons so loud that they kept her in dark rooms with unsavory people.

  Ronan takes the gun and aims it directly at her. “Tell him, Mona. Now!”

  She whimpers more, putting her shaking hands up to defend her face, something I’m sure she’s had to do often.

  “I-I took you to Dubbs’s house. He-he was the only person I could think of.” She wipes her nose with her sleeve. “I wanted to keep you safe, Ryan. I did.”

  “Maybe, if you had kept him with the people who gave him life, we wouldn’t be in this predicament now, stupid bitch. Go on. Tell him.”

  “Dubbs isn’t your father, Ryan. Ronan is.”

  “And can you believe the dismay I felt when I found out my own flesh and blood was a game warden? A fucking law enforcement officer. Can you believe what will happen when the guys start to find out who my fucking son is? It’s over. It’s over for me. I need to pledge my commitment to my people.”

  I fucking explode. “You’re nothing but a fucking coward, Ronan. You’ve been running your entire life. Drugs. The law. It doesn’t fucking matter. Hitting, beating on women to make yourself feel like you’re some sort of god. Let’s get one thing fucking straight. Killing me? That doesn’t make you a man at all. You’re just a coward, running from the truth. Go ahead and fucking shoot me.”

  I see the anger start in Ronan’s face because he’s turning a bright shade of red. His eyes are wide, and his lips are curved in a smile. It’s an agreement he’s made with himself that he’ll always be on the other side of the law. He’ll defend himself to his guys and do what he needs to show the right image. He was probably a kid who was never accepted by his peers. Spent his formative and high school years searching for acceptance. The bullied kid.

  One thing Ronan and I have in common is, I searched for acceptance, too. But being raised with a man who beat my ass is the sole reason I’m in this position right now. I will always stand up for what is right.

  “Shoot me, Ronan,” I whisper. “Kill me.”

  A gun fires.

  Smoke dances.

  I feel my body give way.

  I see Ronan.

  I see blood.

  I see black.

  Thirty-Five

  Ryan

  Granite Harbor, Maine

  Summer 1995

  Merit, Eli, and I lie on the grass just past the harbor. It’s been two weeks since Rebecca’s passing.

  The seagulls are a mess today. I swear, they get louder during the summer, begging the tourists for more food. Tourists feed them bread or whatever leftovers they have with them. I want to tell them not to do it, that it’s bad for the birds, but I don’t.

  “Ryan?” Merit whispers.

  I look at her. “Yeah?”

  Her hands cradle her head, her blonde hair falling around her. “Who was that lady at your house today?”

  “My mom.”

  Merit turns on her side to look at me. “It was?”

  I nod.

  “Why’d she look so sad? Wh-why’d she have a black eye?”

  I shrug. “Dunno.”

  “Why’d she come back?”

  It’s quiet for a moment.

  “Said she wanted to get help, so she could be the mom I needed.”

  “What’s she gonna do?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Has it happened before?”

  “Once. I think I was five.”

  Merit rolls to her back, staring up at the same blue sky as me.

  Eli’s on the other side of me. He rolls on his side to face me and Merit. “What are you gonna do?”

  I shrug. “Wait, I guess.”

  “Should you call the police? She looked real bad, Ryan. Skinny. And beaten up.”

  The difference between Merit and Eli and me is that I’ve seen her before like that. She always seems to survive. It’s not that I don’t worry; I do. But, when I ask her about it, she tells me not to worry and that she’s okay. I want to believe her.

  “No.”

  “Maybe we should talk to Pop about it?” Eli asks.

  I shrug. “Maybe.”

  But all I want to do is let the sun soak into my face, allow its rays to warm my body. Lie in the grass like a kid without a care in the world. Not one who has to go back to the house of uncertainty and violence.

  When I go back home, I’ll smell—vanilla and cigarettes. It will waft through the house for a few days. It will make Dubbs angry. He’ll leave on the boat for a week or two. It will be quiet again. I’ll feel more at peace, knowing I don’t have a fist coming at me for a week or so. That’ll be nice. So, things are good. Things are real good for the moment.

  Maybe my mom will come back, and she’ll be wearing a blue dress, like Rebecca did on Sundays. Her face will be like a doll’s. Her nails will be clean, and the white powder under her nose and on her fingers will be nonexistent. I think that’s the stuff that makes her act the way she does.

  “Worst-case scenario,” Merit whispers, trying to take away my fear.

  “She turns up dead.”

  Merit turns to her side again and faces me. She stares at the side of my face for a long minute
. “That she’s been abducted by the circus and forced to perform as a tightrope walker. She fought tigers and elephants and bears to come find you.” A grin starts on either side of her mouth as she twists back onto her back.

  A warm feeling starts in my stomach and moves to my heart.

  Yeah, I like that, I want to say but don’t.

  “Sorry, not all worst-case scenario. I blame it on my optimism.”

  I love Merit for giving me her best, even when she doesn’t feel it on the inside.

  I wonder, too, if Merit is trying to bring back her own mom. Maybe the scenario she wants to believe is about her own mom. Because, truth be told, in my scenario, it’s my best-case scenario.

  I think it would be better if my mom was dead. It’s hard for my brain to wrap around this thought that I have as it washes over me. What boy wants his own mother dead? I see the hurt and pain in my mom’s eyes. Rebecca never had that. Not even as she was dying. Life wasn’t a burden for Rebecca. Eli and Merit weren’t her burden; they were why she fought until she couldn’t fight anymore.

  Rebecca had always tried to protect us, put an escape route on both our plates, an allowance of time and space to be kids. Even if it’s just for a moment.

  “She won’t die, Ryan,” Eli adds. “Worst-case scenario. That she comes back a few more times in a few more years, more tired. But she’ll come back to check on you to make sure you’re all right.”

  Worst-case scenario started as the three of us playing out the worst that could happen. But Eli and Merit always seem to bring in the positive in my scenarios.

  Fools.

  I smile and allow the clouds to soothe me, my two best friends on either side of me.

  We walk home in silence. Dusk meeting the streets, the trees, of Granite Harbor as the sun slowly travels to a new part of the world. Streetlights pop on, as if on a timer. The peak of the day’s heat is behind us. Somewhere between the harbor and Sand Street, the sun fades.

  Worst-case scenario: I lose Eli and Merit. That we grow apart. That, one day, all that exists of us is a faded picture of our childhood.

  “Hey, what are you kids doing out so late?” a man who doesn’t fit as a Granite Harbor resident says to us.

  He doesn’t look familiar. He must be a passerby from Portland or Augusta.

  “It’s not late,” Eli says to the man.

  His eyes are blazing red, his demeanor calm, but there’s something about the twist of his lips that I don’t like when he speaks. His hair is a dark brown and pushed to one side, like he’s covering up a bald patch. His words, the way he speaks, are as if he makes a living selling used cars at Mel’s, outside of town. Something tells me there’s nothing innocent about this guy.

  “Come on, guys. Let’s go home.”

  The three of us, Merit in the middle, walk fast, passing the man with bad hair.

  “Hey,” the man says.

  I stop and flip my head around to show him that he doesn’t scare me.

  “What do you want?” I ask.

  “I know you from somewhere.” The man smiles and rubs his whiskers on his chin.

  He eyes Merit. My blood boils.

  “Get lost, asshole.” It’s not something I intentionally want to say, but it comes out in a tone I’ve used a handful of times in my life.

  Don’t look at her like that.

  “Go back the way you came. We don’t want you in our parts.”

  I don’t ask how he knows my mother. I assume it’s one of the guys she lives with. But I’ve never seen him with her before. I’ve never seen her with any man, so it’s hard to say. I can’t prove that they’re traveling together, but when my mom comes to town, there’s always a little bit of trouble.

  Standing my ground, my fists balled at my sides, I feel Eli and Merit tugging at my arms.

  “Come on, Ryan. It’s not worth it. He looks crazy anyway. Let’s go home. Come on,” Eli says.

  Merit hooks her arm in mine, and she and Eli pull me in the opposite direction.

  Tears start to build in my eyes. He’s the one who hurts my mom. He’s the one who gives her the black eyes and the white powder I see under her nose.

  Can I prove it? No, it’s just a gut feeling.

  He’s the one who took my mom away.

  Thirty-Six

  Merit

  Monterey, California

  Present Day

  “It’s me, Bug.” Eli’s voice is broken.

  Something’s seriously wrong.

  My heart hits my feet. “Is it Pop?”

  “No.” He coughs, trying to clear away his tone. “It’s Ryan.”

  The silence on the line feels like lead. It’s heavy, dark, and thick. I’m terrified to continue the conversation. My lips become too numb to speak. My fingers barely hang on to the phone, and my insides run hollow as my heart begins to hammer against my chest, banging for a way out. I don’t ask what happened because that’s not important right now.

  From Eli’s tone, I can tell that things aren’t all right, so I ask him the most important question, “Is he all right?”

  “I don’t know. He’s been shot.” I hear the groan on the other end of the line. A groan of terror, one he’s trying to hold back but can’t.

  “Where’s Alex?”

  “On her way.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Ryan’s house.” He stops and chokes back a sob. “Merit,” he whispers, “I should have gotten here sooner.”

  “Eli, listen to me right now. You can’t protect everybody. Not everybody, all the time.” My voice is strong, not full of fear even though it’s vibrating in my bones. Even though, so badly, I wish Eli had been there earlier, too—whatever that means.

  Get control, Mer. Get control.

  “Alex just pulled up, Mer.”

  “Go to her. I’m catching a flight back home.”

  “Mer,” Eli stops. “Come home for good.”

  “I will. Where’s Ryan?”

  “Taken by ambulance.”

  “Who shot him?”

  “Ronan Fields.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t fucking know, Mer.”

  “Is Ronan still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he in police custody?”

  “The threat has been neutralized.” His voice is robotic. As if he’s repeated this statement time and time again.

  “I don’t speak game warden, Eli. What does that mean?”

  “I killed him.”

  Oh, fuck.

  It’s quite amazing what the human brain can do. It shuts out distractions when you hear your loved one is in pain. It makes you jump into action, ask the right questions, and once your loved one is taken care of, that’s when you fall apart.

  As soon as Eli and I hang up, I slide down the wall of my bedroom and fall apart.

  Get up, I tell myself. Book a flight. Pack your shit. Move forward.

  But what is different now from the other times this has happened?

  When tragedy looked me in the eyes and said, I’m sorry, but …

  The difference is, I kept moving. And here I am, once again telling myself to move when maybe I shouldn’t. I’m not sure, but I let whatever that looks like pour through my body all at once. I let it live in the dark caves, the big fractures of my body. I let it move and stretch and just be.

  I allow this to happen until there’s a calmness to me. Until there are no tears left. Until the fear is done pushing through my mind.

  Worst-case scenarios:

  Ryan’s brain dead.

  He’s paralyzed.

  He’s dead.

  I sit with this last thought. Ache fills my heart, my chest, with regrets. The things I never told him that I wish I had.

  I’m in love with you, Ryan. I always have been.

  I want to grow old with you.

  I want to share my life with you.

  I want to tell you my fears.

  These past seventeen years was me living in hurt and push
ing every goddamn person away because I didn’t want to hurt again. I thought it was easier to live like that. Thought it was the right choice.

  My mind shifts to my brother.

  How is he?

  How bad is he hurt?

  I should go to him.

  They both need me.

  He’s never killed anyone before. But Alex has. I’m glad she’s there with him.

  Alex took down Clay Mahoney. He’d messed with the wrong woman.

  A piece of me feels relief when this thought sits in my brain. A shared experience between Eli and Alex. Unity. Joint feelings. Collective trauma. It’s easier to experience it together than be in the dark, fumbling, running. Alone.

  Timing in the world can run in perfect order if we let it. Things fall into place as they should if we get out of the way.

  After the shock has worn off and the feelings that keep coming my way are felt, I pull myself from my bedroom floor and book a one-way ticket back to Granite Harbor.

  It’s Pop who picks me up from the airport.

  When I see him waiting at the Granite Harbor Welcomes You sign where he usually picks me up, I turn into a little girl. First, I walk fast and then jog. Then, I flat-out run to my dad. When my head meets his chest, I wrap my arms around him as tight as I can. I take in the same scent I did as a little girl. The scent of safety. The scent that told me everything would be all right. After my mom passed, it was Pop’s scent in the morning that put my feet into action for another day. I never told him that.

  I guess that was hope that I buried away deep for so long. Maybe it was the same hope that kept me pushing one foot in front of the other, unrealized.

  “Oh, Bug.”

  I feel his arms tighten around me and his breath in my hair. He doesn’t ask what this is about. He doesn’t need to. Sometimes, there aren’t words to explain what touch feels like. It can just be experienced, but more importantly, it is understood. We stand here, holding on to one another, holding our experiences in our hands as if a sack of treasures in tow. We bring them to the table, unwrap them, and feel through them.