by Malcom, Anne
It wasn’t a question as to whether he was going to enter town limits, have a family reunion. Even thinking about it had him tempted to empty the contents of his stomach onto his boots.
No, that wasn’t even an option.
He was doing this for one reason and one reason only.
Caroline.
“I’m in Texas,” he said. “Close to the state line in Louisiana.”
There was nothing but dead air on the other side of the phone. Hansen’s accusation didn’t need words. But he spoke them anyway. “Caroline’s with you?” he deduced.
“I’m not runnin’,” he said. “Nor am I letting her go. Her sister had a baby. Caught her outside the compound last night. She was intent on going no matter what we did. Short of tying her to the fuckin’ bed. I didn’t have a choice.” He ran his hand through his hair, paced the parking lot, ignored the woman sitting outside their room, chain-smoking and checking him and his cut out. “She knows that it’s twenty-four hours and then we’re back.”
“Jesus,” Hansen muttered. “I knew when you found yourself a woman, it’d be fucked up. With Sarah, it wasn’t it, because it was too fuckin’ simple. So of course it’s this.” He sighed. “I’m not sayin’ I’m happy about this. I’m pissed the fuck off at you. But I know why you’re doin’ it. If you’re not back here by Sunday, it’s your fuckin’ patch.”
He hung up.
It went better than Jagger expected it to go.
Then again, Hansen was a good friend. He’d been through it with Macy. He knew this shit.
Jagger sucked on his smoke. He was avoiding going up to that room. No, he was fuckin’ desperate to go up to that room. But he couldn’t because the more he fucked her, the more he felt like the kid he was. And if he was going back to the place that he swore he’d never set foot in again, he couldn’t go within even an inch of that kid still inside him. He needed to be Jagger so he could survive that twenty-four hours. So he could leave.
So he stayed there, chain-smoking, watching the window of the motel room until the early hours of the morning when the lights turned off.
* * *
Caroline
The smell of coffee woke me.
Then the smell of reality on the sheets. Of Liam.
We’d barely spoken since he’d put me on the back of his bike and driven almost ten hours straight until he forced me into a Walmart to get the essentials, had a silent dinner at a shitty roadside diner and got us a room here.
No, we spoke with him laying down the law in a Walmart parking lot, in the middle of nowhere, Texas.
“I’m betraying my club by doing this,” he said, shoving the plastic bags in his saddlebags.
I watched, not looking at him. I couldn’t. Because I knew what he was doing. What I was making him do. Abandon his family in their time of need.
A spiteful part of me was happy about that, because he’d done that already, to his real family. I wanted him to feel the pain of doing that again.
But the rest of me, who’d played poker with Claw, who’d watched movies with Macy, drank tequila with Scarlett, that part felt sickened by what I knew he was doing.
“I didn’t ask you to do this,” I said, still staring at his bike. It was a good bike.
Harley. Of course.
Matte black.
Also not surprising.
Guns in the saddlebags.
Along with a pair of cotton, unsexy Walmart panties, sweats, toothbrush and toothpaste, and face wash. I hadn’t exactly been able to travel with any of them when I was climbing out a window.
And fresh bandages for my arm.
Liam had noticed it on the first stop.
He’d been horrified at the blood at the open flesh, which was surprising, considering his chosen lifestyle. His grip was bruising on my wrist and he looked up at me. “Why the fuck do you keep bleeding around me?”
My stomach dropped. “You tell me.”
He didn’t.
He went inside to the gas station, got what was an impressive first aid kit for a place in the middle of nowhere and tended to my cut.
The outside one, at least.
He’d checked on it before he spoke.
“You didn’t ask me to do this,” he repeated quietly. “You didn’t give me a fuckin’ choice!” he yelled.
“I gave you a choice,” I said voice even.
He looked from my arm to me. “You getting hurt at the hands of my club is not a fucking choice.” He paused. “Get on the fuckin’ bike.”
I glared at him. Then got on the fucking bike.
When we got to the motel, he’d paid, cash of course, carried my bags up and then left saying he had calls to make.
He didn’t come back for four hours.
At that point, I’d been unable to battle my heavy eyes. You’d think that I would’ve been kept awake by the reality of it all, of going back to Castle Springs, where there was a grave for the man whose bike I was sitting on the back of. The man I was fucking. The man I was falling in love with all over again.
But it was the reality of it all that had me chasing oblivion. Or had oblivion chasing me.
By the smell of sheets—cigarettes and Liam—he’d slept some. I remembered a dream of being warm, of hands on me, feeling safe, but I couldn’t trust it. Because nothing with Liam was a dream. And nothing was safe.
“Coffee.” A tattooed hand placed a takeaway cup on the table beside me. The rich scent beckoned me. I sat up, wincing at my sore muscles as I did so.
Liam had moved himself all the way across the room in the space of time it took me to sit up. Then again, it was a slow process.
He watched my movements. “Ridin’ long haul on a bike isn’t exactly good for the body. You’ll get used to it.”
“No, I won’t,” I shot with venom.
His voice was scratchy. Smoky. He was dressed. Showered. In a fresh black tee he’d gotten yesterday.
People had stared at him in Walmart. At first, I thought it was because of the tattoos, the cut, we were in rural Texas, after all. But the more I watched them, I realized it was his face. They stared at his scar obviously as if he were some kind of attraction. It angered me the second I figured it out. It sickened me. People were fascinated by things that they deemed morbid. And an otherwise beautiful man with a jagged scar cutting through his face was morbid for them. Was cause to stare.
And it was the adults.
The children barely gave him a second glance. Children, who didn’t know any better didn’t have the hunger for the morbid.
But adults who should’ve known fucking better.
Liam didn’t seem to notice. I guess his thoughts had been elsewhere. Maybe back in New Mexico, with the family he’d left behind in their time of need. Or ahead in Castle Springs, with the family who visited his grave every Sunday after church.
I was thinking all about that, sure. But I couldn’t let the stares of these people wash over me. So I stared back. I glared back.
Wasn’t it polite to look away when someone had evidence of pain they couldn’t hide? All these people had secret pain that they got to hide away from prying eyes and I bet they wouldn’t like me gazing at it in the middle of a Walmart.
I really considered throat punching one woman who actually stopped, whispered to her fricking kid and made him stare too.
“Does it bother you?” I asked, moving to sip my coffee with an aching arm.
He leaned against the table beside the TV. “That you’re in pain because you refuse to ride easy, and now we have no choice but to ride hard because we’ve got a deadline to get back to the club?” he asked. “Yeah, it fucking bothers me.”
I sucked down my too hot coffee, relishing the sugar scalding my throat because that was better to focus on than the comfortable warmth I felt with Liam’s words. His gaze.
“Not once in fourteen years has my ride been easy,” I replied. “I’m used to hard, more comfortable with it.” I swallowed and my unintended innuendo and the flare in
Liam’s eyes. “I’m used to deadlines too.” I paused. “I mean, yesterday, in Walmart, the people...” I trailed off.
He laughed. “Staring at the monster?” he finished for me. “No, babe, it doesn’t bother me. Not just because I’ve had years of practice going out in public. Didn’t exactly plan on entering any beauty pageants anyway.” He shrugged.
On screaming limbs that didn’t belong to me, I moved from the bed, put my coffee down and walked over to where Liam was leaning.
He watched my approach. From head to toe.
I was wearing an oversized shirt I’d gotten at Walmart, it went down to the middle of my thighs, but I felt naked.
Liam made me feel naked.
In every way.
His body tightened as I moved inches from his body, lifting my hand to trail my fingers across his face.
It was the first time I’d done it. The skin was ribbons of tissue, evidence of something almost tearing his fucking head off.
I swallowed bile.
He lifted his hand,
He touched his face. “This wasn’t as pretty as it is now, people shied away from me, as they should’ve. I didn’t want to be around people. It’s how I found myself at the club. Men in the club don’t shy away from monsters, from ugly.” He stared at me. Into me. “I didn’t want to come back to you a monster.”
The brokenness of his tone got to me. It really fucking did.
But I couldn’t let it get to me all the way.
“You could never have come back to me a monster,” I said. “No matter your demons, your scars, inside and out.” I paused, tracing the jagged and ruined skin of his face. “The fact you didn’t come back at all, that’s what made you a monster in my eyes.”
He didn’t speak. Just stared at me.
“We’re going back home, you’re going to have to face it.”
His body turned to stone. His eyes shuttered. “No, you’re going home,” he corrected. “I’m going to a shitty small town in Alabama that used to be something to someone I used to be. Someone you buried.”
“You need to stop this,” I hissed. “The people out there, they would feel nothing but joy to have you back.”
He shook his head. “At first, sure. That joy would trump whatever anger has been fueling you. It would trump whatever disgust they had seeing the scars, the ink, everything that’s changed about me.” He gestured to his body violently. “But that joy is temporary. It washes off. Eventually their eyes will clear, and they’ll realize the man they’ve been mourning is gone.” His eyes emptied. Hardened. “Like you have. And then they’ll find themselves wishing I had died, because that would’ve been easier. And because my family are good people, they’ll torture themselves for that ugly but human wish. I’ll torture them with that.”
He picked up his coffee. “I’ve already tortured you with it. And I’ll live with that because I’ve got no other choice. But I won’t do it to them. Nothing you say, no accusations you sling will change that. Because even you can’t hate me more than I hate myself.”
I opened my mouth, to say what, I didn’t know. To tell him I didn’t hate him. But I wasn’t sure that was true.
“Get showered,” he ordered, voice dead. “We’ve got a long drive.”
He turned and left me standing in the hotel room.
A single tear trailed down my cheek.
Then I showered.
Or I tried to.
Because it wasn’t until I was under the spray that I realized this conversation with Liam had distracted me so much that I forgot.
I forgot a fear, a phobia, a trauma, whatever it was, that had followed me for years. Something I’d thought was impossible to forget because of how much it had altered me. Damaged me.
But Liam damaged me more.
So it was not until I was naked, vulnerable and alone that I realized where I was.
Chapter Sixteen
Jagger
He was halfway through his second smoke when he realized what the fuck he’d done.
He dropped his coffee on the concrete and sprinted to the room, bursting through the door.
The shower was on. The door to the bathroom was closed.
He strode over there, hand pausing at the door. He didn’t know what the fuck to do. In his time in the army, after patching into the Sons of Templar, he had always known what to do, because most of the right decisions usually involved violence and death.
But with Caroline, he didn’t want to treat her with anything but care. He’d forgotten how to do that.
“Peaches?” he called through the door.
Nothing.
He gripped the handle. “Babe, I’m comin’ in.”
Still nothing.
He was punched in the gut by what he saw.
“Fuck,” he hissed, striding over to the shower, reaching in to turn the water off. He flinched away from the water he expected to be hot.
It was freezing.
Caroline was sitting on the floor, knees pressed to her chest, shivering, lips blue.
“Peaches,” he whispered, gathering her in his arms. She was cold to the touch, fucking freezing. He pressed her to his body, wishing he could give her whatever warmth was left inside him, which was precious little.
He took them into the bedroom, sat in the sheets that smelled of them both. Her sweet and his bitter, stale smoky scent.
Caroline was still silent.
And she was still fucking freezing. She hadn’t been in there long enough to endanger herself, physically at least.
But mentally...he’d done that.
He’d put her in danger.
He fucking knew it too. He’d just been too angry to remember. To keep his woman safe.
Jagger kissed her head again. Her face was blank. So pale her freckles—the ones that she hadn’t had before—were stark against the translucent skin.
“Fuck, baby,” he murmured, maneuvering her so he could yank off his cut and tee and press his bare skin to hers. He didn’t know if it would help. But he needed it.
It was killing him that he couldn’t help. That there was nothing he could do but hold her, keep her warm and leave her to get herself out of this.
It took thirty minutes.
He knew the second she came back. Because she felt warm. Not her skin. From somewhere different. Her eyes cleared. She moved slightly, but not out of his arms.
“I need to be cold,” she explained, her voice raw. “I need to be cold when I’m in there, it usually helps it not to get bad.”
Fuck.
That wasn’t bad.
Fuck.
He squeezed her in his arms and used everything he had not to break the fuck down. He had to be strong here. Hold Caroline together. He’d been strong for years, never even entertained the idea of breaking down. But he’d already done it once in front of her, after sharing a joint with Swiss in search of numbness. Instead, he couldn’t hide from his feelings. His fear. He broke down in front of her then, and she had every right to shut the door in his face, tell him he deserved every inch of his pain.
But she didn’t.
She was strong for him.
And fuck if he wouldn’t be strong for her now.
“When it happened, I felt so hot, like I was on fire,” she continued. “And when I get like that, it feels like my skin is burning.” She rubbed her bare arms with a vulnerability that was agonizing and beautiful to witness. He wanted that vulnerability. He wanted to be the one she felt safe enough around to reveal that to. She wasn’t revealing it now because she felt safe, but because she had no other fucking choice.
“I need to be cold,” she continued, meeting his eyes.
He kissed her head. Inhaled her scent. She was lax in his arms. She wasn’t fighting to get out, even after everything. She hadn’t tried to escape, not since the beginning. No matter what she’d had to go through, watching men die, watching men come back to life, watching men be tortured, have her life threatened, she stayed through it all. She didn’t
fight to get out.
Until now.
And it wasn’t even for fucking her.
It was for her sister.
Kate and Caroline had been close, even though they’d been totally different. Liam didn’t like girls like Kate, but he liked Kate. Because she pretended to be vapid and shallow to fit into the life she wanted. But she wasn’t. Because she was raised by parents who made sure she was more than she appeared.
He knew Caroline was more than she appeared since the first second he’d laid eyes on her. But he thought he’d discovered all of her depths.
Oh how naïve he was.
She was fucking infinite.
Caroline
I liked the bike.
No, I loved it.
Not just because I got to be pressed up against Liam, as close as I could and I didn’t have any choice in the matter.
Not just because the road stretched out in front of us and we sped past towns, landscapes, everything. The world was outside, off the bike. It was simpler on the road. You’d think the time spent driving would invite dangerous contemplation, but it did the opposite, it did the thing I’d been trying to figure out how to do for the past decade and a half. I got it.
A little bit of it at least.
But mostly I was loving it because Liam and I couldn’t speak. You’d think, by now, with us finally alone, with us driving toward a home he couldn’t escape from, it’d be time to talk. To ask a fuck of a lot of questions. To tell him what he’d done to me. In detail. Swear at him.
But I didn’t want to do that.
Not after he’d held me in his arms, pressed me to his body, cradled me like I was a baby, kissed my head and whispered nothing and everything in my ear for the half hour it took me to regain myself.
He didn’t look at me like I was weak when I finally found it in me to talk. He blamed himself. He tortured himself, I saw that. Not just for leaving me in the motel room, but for leaving me at all. Because he likely blamed himself for the fact I even had this trauma in the first place. I wanted to blame him at the start too. I wanted him to blame himself.