by Josie Kerr
“This has been the best birthday that I can remember. Thank you so much.” Colin pulled Bailey closer and kissed her forehead. “Thank you.”
“What were birthdays like when you were growing up?”
Colin chuffed a laugh. “Before or after Duke?”
“Both, if you feel comfortable talking about it.”
Colin was quiet for a moment. He took a deep breath, and then let it out. “Before Duke, there was nothing really. Mick tried to make it special. He usually got me a cookie or something, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re 13. After Duke? Now, that was a whole different ball game. Not anything crazy extravagant, but definitely a birthday party, cake, presents.”
“But you liked Mick’s birthdays better, didn’t you? Because he was there.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled softly. “Yeah, exactly.” He kissed her again. “Thank you again. Thank you for understanding.”
They lay quietly for a long moment, side by side.
“What about you, Bailey? You’ve got a birthday coming up: the big 3-0.”
Colin could almost hear her roll her eyes in the dark. “I know, but I don’t know how I feel about turning 30. How did you feel when you turned 30?”
“I felt great. I wasn’t working in something I hated anymore. I was doing what I loved. I felt like I was doing something good, ironically, by fighting.” Colin chuckled again and Bailey snuggled closer into his side. “Babydoll, turning thirty isn’t the end of the world at all. You’ve got Maude, you’ve got a great job...”
“And I’ve got you, Colin?”
“Yeah, you’ve got me, babydoll. You have definitely got me.”
Chapter Forty
August
Bailey pretended not to hear Colin come in the house but her whole body tingled in anticipation. When he finally stepped up behind her and moved her hair from her neck so he could place the softest of kisses behind her ear, she almost had an orgasm right there at the stove as she stirred the sweet potato puree.
Colin’s hands drifted down her sides and to her hips. “Have a good day, babydoll?” he asked with another kiss, this one to her jaw.
Bailey tried to play it cool but her shiver gave her away. Colin’s chuckle rumbled deep in his chest and he kissed her yet again.
“Colin, if you don’t stop that, you won’t get any dinner.”
“Oh, I’ll get some dinner.” He ran his teeth over her ear and she turned her head to see him grinning and wiggling his eyebrows.
Bailey swatted him with a dishtowel. “You’re being naughty tonight,” she said with a grin. “I kind of like it.”
Colin chuckled again and leaned against the counter with as big of a grin that he could manage. Bailey shook her head at the metal she could see wiring his jaw shut.
“Remind me how much longer we’re gonna have to put up with all that metal in your mouth? It’s like making out in eighth grade again.”
“You made out in eighth grade?”
Bailey shrugged. “Yeah, a little bit. You didn’t?”
Colin snorted and winced. “I gotta remember not to do that. No, I didn’t.”
“A big, handsome guy like you? I find that hard to believe.”
“I was a little...raw through most of high school. Hell, if I’m honest, through most of college, too. I didn’t do much except train and wrestle and do school work.”
Bailey cocked her head at him. “You didn’t have many friends.”
Colin shook his head. “Nope. I talked to Duke about everything. I mean, he was still very much my dad and he didn’t hesitate to lay down the law if he thought I was screwing around, but we did talk about everything.”
Bailey continued to look at him thoughtfully as she scooped the potatoes into a bowl. “Is Junior basically your first real friend beside your dad?”
“Yeah, he is.”
“And you met him what? Ten years ago?”
Colin thought about it. “Yeah, about that. Maybe a little bit less?”
“Were you lonely growing up?”
“Not really. I mean, I missed Mickey an awful lot for a long time, but after six or seven years, that dulled to a low-grade, constant ache that I didn’t think about most of the time.”
Bailey fidgeted with the edge of the towel. “I’m sorry that you had to go through that.”
Colin just nodded.
“So you ready to have your delicious dinner?” Bailey asked.
Colin groaned. “Those potatoes look so good. Three more weeks and I’m gonna be all up on that mushy food.”
Bailey laughed. “You and Maude can share.”
“Just as long as you don’t try to feed me any of those canned sausages, I’ll be fine. They look like little, stumpy fingers.” Colin shuddered but grinned again.
Bailey handed him his shake and got a serving of potatoes for herself and they ate, standing, in the kitchen, talking about everything and nothing.
Ignoring Bailey’s protests that she didn’t really cook, Colin cleaned up the kitchen while Bailey puttered around house, doing all the small domestic chores that needed to be done. It had been only been a few months and they were back to a nice, comfortable rhythm.
Bailey was bent over the laundry hamper when Colin came into the laundry nook. He spent a few minutes admiring her backside until she swiveled her head around, still leaning over, and said, “See something you like?” and wiggled her hips from side to side. Colin crossed the room in four strides and took her in his arms.
“I definitely see something I like,” he said quietly.
Bailey touched his face and smiled a small smile. “I see something I like, too.”
Colin’s face grew serious. “I’m glad, Bailey. I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.” He placed the softest of kisses on her mouth.
Bailey opened her eyes after the kiss to find Colin gazing at her intensely. She grinned at him, dropped the socks she had in her hand, and pulled him into the bedroom.
“Are you bossin’ me, Bailey?”
“Mm-hmm.” She pushed him back on the bed. Colin’s mouth twitched as she crawled up and over him.
“I can’t do all the things that I want to do,” he said.
Bailey shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I can do all the stuff I want to do to you. Do you want me to do stuff?”
“Yes, please.”
Bailey grinned. “Always so polite.” She leaned down and kissed him.
Colin cupped her bottom with his hands and squeezed.
Bailey sat, straddled over his hips, and started unbuttoning her shirt. Colin watched her intently. When she pulled the shirt off her shoulder, he sucked in a breath.
“That’s my favorite. Are you wearing the panties, too?”
Bailey quirked an eyebrow at him, but raised up on her knees and began to untie the drawstring at her waist. Colin tried to help her but she swatted his hand away and wagged her finger at him. Colin thought he was going to lose his mind before he got a peek at what was underneath those flannel pants. She peeled one side of her trousers down, exposing her panty-encased hip.
“Oh, you are. I love these,” he breathed. Colin stroked the sheer material with one finger. He moved along the waistband to the small satin bow that hovered just above her belly button. “I like part maybe the best.”
Bailey grinned as she pulled the other side of her pants down over her hips, but not completely down to her thighs. “Really? That’s your favorite part?”
“Well, aside from what’s underneath them, yeah, I think so.” Colin wrapped his big hands around her hips. “You gonna show me what’s underneath?”
“Sure am, but maybe later.”
Colin’s eyes got big. “Later?”
“Yes, later. After I have my way with you.” And she bent down and kissed him.
Bailey lay across Colin’s chest with her head on his shoulder, stroking his close-cropped hair. He felt her smile against his chest.
“Yep, I am, too. Though I think I’ll continue to keep a shorter beard this time around; will you mind?” Bailey shook her head and sighed contentedly as Colin stroked lazy fingers over her bare back.
“I didn’t just miss this, you know,” he said. “I missed all of it – the eating together as a family, the talking, the waking up; all of it.”
Bailey sighed and she hitched herself higher to wrap her arms around Colin’s shoulders and nestle her face in the crook of his neck. “You missed the felonious ex who wears enough cologne to stock the perfume department at Nordstrom?”
Colin scoffed. “Okay, I didn’t miss that, you’re right. But that’s the only part of our break that I missed.”
“‘Our break’? Really? That’s what you’re calling it?” Bailey propped herself up on her elbows and stared hard at Colin.
One side of Colin’s mouth quirked up in a half-grin. “Is calling it ‘my stupidity’ better?”
Bailey snuggled back into his chest. “That’s much better.”
Colin stroked a big hand down her back to rest on her bottom. He cupped his hand around one plump cheek and gave it a small squeeze.
“I don’t know what I was thinking, Bailey. I am so sorry. I should have never put you through that.”
Bailey exhaled. “You know, I don’t think it was a bad thing, Colin. There will definitely be no ‘what-ifs’ when it comes to Tripp now.” She was quiet for a moment as she drew a circle around one of his nipples.
Colin gave Bailey another squeeze and pressed his mouth to her hair. She felt so good, so right, there in his arms.
“Do you think we’re attracted to people that are like our parents?”
Colin was immediately jerked out of his satisfied, meditative state by Bailey’s question. He scoffed a laugh. “Bailey, babydoll, you are about as far from my mother as you could possibly get. Jesus Christ. What a fuckin’ question.” When she didn’t say anything, Colin pulled her tighter in his arms and tipped up her chin to kiss her lips. “What’s bringing this on, sweetheart?”
“Baylor was a gambler. A big gambler.”
“That’s your dad? Baylor?”
“Oh, that’s a whole other long story that I don’t want to get into tonight, but yes, for all intents and purposes, he’s my father. He was a really bad poker player, and he liked to bet on local fights.”
“Underground stuff?”
Bailey nodded, and a light bulb went off in Colin’s head.
“That’s why you don’t like gyms or fighters.”
Bailey sighed and rolled off of Colin. He didn’t want to let her go, though, so he rolled his body beside hers and propped his head on his arm so he could look in her eyes. “Tell me about ‘baby girl’. Please.”
Bailey closed her eyes and exhaled. She knew she needed to tell him about her family of origin; she knew she should have done it a long time ago, but she didn’t have any contact with them and they were so horrible….
“Bailey, babydoll. Look at me, sweetheart.” Bailey looked in Colin’s eyes. “It’ll be better if you share the burden; you know it will.”
She blew out another breath. “Baylor always called me ‘baby girl.’ ‘Baby girl, I know you have money ‘cuz today is payday.’ ‘Baby girl, you owe me for putting up with your whore of a mother all these years.’ The phrase makes my stomach turn, and when it comes out of Tripp’s mouth, I just…can’t even.”
“Jesus, Bailey. No wonder you hate it.” Colin shook his head. “All I can say is, Baylor’s lucky he’s in fucking west Texas.”
“I can count cards. Really well.” Bailey snuggled closer to Colin, inhaling deeply to submerge herself in his calming scent. “On my 18th birthday, Baylor took me to his poker game. I guess the guy that ran it just assumed that I was as bad of a player as Baylor. But I’m not, and I won. A lot. People got mad, accused me of cheating. Which I guess I was because I was counting cards.” Bailey cleared her throat. “Anyway, it came time to cash out, and the guy that ran the games, pulled me aside, and said that Baylor said that I was good for the entire debt since I put the stake money up.”
“Hold on just a second, Bailey.” Colin’s face was creased in a frown. “Your father made you put the stake money up for a poker game that he took you to on your birthday?”
Bailey nodded and chuckled sadly. “Yep. That’s classic Baylor.”
“Man, he’s a shithead.”
“Oh, you don’t even know, Colin. You don’t even know.”
“So finish telling me, Bailey.”
“So…as much as I had won that night, he owed more. I had been working two jobs for a couple of years and had been stashing away as much money as I could so I could get the hell out of Seagraves, and maybe, you know, move to Midland and go to junior college or something. But even if I had given him every cent I had, it still wouldn’t have been enough. So Ralph proposed an…alternate method of payment.”
Colin stilled as Bailey sucked in a shuddering breath. “That motherfucker,” he whispered. “And Baylor agreed, didn’t he?”
“Afterwards, he told me that he just saved me from losing it in the bed of a rusty pickup, and when I called him a piece of shit, he beat me so hard my ears rang for a week.”
Colin pulled Bailey close to his chest and held her tight. “Oh, Bailey…”
Bailey kissed his chest. “Colin, remember what I told you all those months ago? Remember?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to remember. His eyes flew open. “You were a virgin until Tripp.”
Bailey nodded against his chest. “The man that…won…is named Hale Jenkins. He’s my biological father. He pretended like…you know…but really, he told me to get my stuff together and he’d come and get me.”
“And he did?”
Bailey nodded again. “I locked myself in the bedroom when I got home, got a duffel bag and put everything in it that I wanted to keep, which wasn’t much, and Hale came by about three o’clock in the morning and I crawled out the window.”
“And you haven’t seen your…Baylor…since?”
“Nope. I haven’t seen Hale either. He gave me more money, and that car that is in the driveway, and told me to get as far away as I could. So I did. I came out here, worked a while until I could get residency, and then got my administrative assistant certificate.”
“Babydoll, I don’t know what to say…”
Bailey shrugged. “There’s nothing to say, Colin. Baylor was mean, drunk, gambling jerk. I’m sure he still is. But he’s not in my life anymore and I refuse to spend one more moment thinking about him.”
“What about your mother? And what about this brother that you mentioned once?”
Bailey sucked in a breath. “Mama’ll be fine. She’s came from a bad enough situation where Baylor was an improvement. She’s a survivor. And I don’t know where Buddy is.”
“Buddy is your brother?”
“Yep. Baylor Junior, but everybody called him Buddy. He’s kind of like Rory—instant friends with everybody, never met a stranger.” She chuckled sadly.
“Baylor made him fight. I remember them arguing one night and Baylor telling him he was gonna put him out of the house if he didn’t fight. Cost him his place on the wrestling team. Hell, most likely it cost him a college scholarship, which is probably exactly what Baylor wanted. Baylor needed to be in control of everything, and he couldn’t control much. He wasn’t smart enough or dedicated enough to work at it, so he controlled what he could through intimidation and violence.”
“Is Buddy younger or older?”
“Older by four years. He got out when I was 14, right after the whole wrestling team fiasco.”
“You look for him?”
“I’ve started to. I didn’t for a long time, but when Em found you, I thought, if she found Colin after more than thirty years, she can find Buddy after less than half of that.”
“Good. I’m glad she’s looking.” Colin inhaled a shaky breath and shook his head in disbelief. “You are the strongest person I have ever met in my life. You’re amazing.”
“I don’t feel strong sometimes. Sometimes I feel like it’s all going to crumble, like the fake life I’ve built is going to be exposed.”
“Bailey, look at me.”
When she wouldn’t, Colin tilted her chin up with a finger. “Bailey, this is as real as it gets. I’m not going to let anybody hurt you or Maude, Bailey.”
Tears brimmed in Bailey’s eyes and she took a deep breath. Colin hated that she had obviously been hurt this way before. “Sweetheart, I would slay dragons for you.”
“Oh!”
“I would slay dragons for you, okay? Whether that dragon is a drunk bastard of a supposed father or that dragon happens to be a prissy, over-grown frat boy who wears too much cologne.”
Bailey laughed at his description of Tripp even as tears ran down her face. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Colin.”
“I know exactly what you would do, Bailey. You’d survive. You’d thrive, and live the best life that you could. But know this, Bailey: I’m here, and I’ll always be here, and I love you, Bailey. Know that. Believe that.”
“I know. I do believe. And I love you, too.”
“Good to know,” Colin said with a chuckle.
Bailey grinned at him and gave him a hard kiss.
“Ouch!”
“What are you up to today, C-C?” Man, I love it when she calls me that.
“Oh, I have a few errands to run for the Fight Club, then I am gonna watch a demo class with Junior.”
Bailey giggled at the look on Colin’s face. “What class? Is it going to be that awful?”
He shook his head. “I think the guys might be in for a surprise. It’s a women’s self-defense class, but it’s advanced self-defense. Some of these women, with some training, could be on our roster.”
“And Junior’s going to demo?”
“No, Junior’s going to be sparring with them. Paddy’s just instructing.”
“Oh, man. I would pay cash money to see that.”