by Angel Payne
She indulges a sweetly sadistic smirk as I fumble into the shirt—fighting rockets of pain launched by my stitched and bandaged hand. “So how’s that feeling, Cool Hand Court?”
“Awww, come on.” I grit it while noticing the shirt is inside out. Too late. Already halfway done. “No fair buttering me up with the best of King Cool.”
“You call that butter?” She adds a sharp psssh. “Cool Hand was just Newman’s warmup for Butch Cassidy. You know that, right?”
I finally jab my head out the shirt’s neck hole. “Guess I just need a Sundance Kid.”
“He’s right outside.” She nods toward the door while swiping a finger across her smart pad. Enters some information with efficient taps. “Certainly likes to play the part, doesn’t he? Strong, silent, grouchy?”
My lips quirk. “Doyle enjoys accessing his inner outlaw.”
“Hmmph.” But the flags of color across her cheeks negate it. Oh, yeah. Another female munches dust because of my friend’s brooding sexuality. Seems the best explanation—aside from the sadistic angle—for why she makes me work for the follow-up information.
“Is there…anyone with him?”
The hmmph gets a repeat—accented by another smirk. “Well, listen to you, mister. Trying to keep it smooth with the hotshot businessman vibe while panting for your woman?”
“She’s not—”
But hell, how I savor the words.
My woman.
As if on cue, the door opens. Mishella’s worried, wonderful face appears.
My woman.
It hits me harder than before—sounding just as right. Feeling even better in my head.
Just as quickly, she retreats back by a step. “Désonnum,” she murmurs to acapella queen, before quickly translating. “I am so sorry. They told me everything was finished—”
“And it is.” I extend my left hand. “Come here, armeau.”
I need you.
I pull her close, inhaling the rich vanilla in her hair. “I…missed you.”
But you know what that really means, right?
She tilts her head up, her tiny smile confirming that she does. Smooths a hand over my chest, flattening it above my heart—which passes at least ten seconds in double time, drawn at once to the magic of her touch. “Are you all right?”
“Of course.” I dip my head, rolling my forehead along hers. “Biggest dumb fuck on the planet, but all right—thanks to you.”
She draws a few inches away—and raised rebuking eyebrows. Since the “incident” happened while she stood a few feet outside the bathroom door, I didn’t even try to pass it off as an accident to her. The expectancy in her eyes—as well as my nurse friend’s cynical glance—convey that she’s not doubling down on my hand either. Shit. That means the gig is up with Doyle too.
“As long as you’re getting fun with the status report,” the nurse turns and declares, “You can add ‘lucky cool hand’ to the list.”
Ella frowns, confused. “Huh?”
I crack the hint of a smile. Might as well now, since it won’t be easy once the anesthetic, though just a local, has worn off. “I think she’s telling me to be grateful.”
“That’s exactly what I’m telling him.” The woman nods at Mishella. “He doesn’t have a millimeter of nerve damage—a miracle given where that hand has been tonight.”
“She doesn’t know the half of it.” I lick the curve of Ella’s ear after whispering into it, savoring her body’s little tremors of reply. Her nipples pucker too. At last, a positive to the idiot move I made. There was no time for her to put on a bra—which means there definitely wasn’t a moment for underwear…
As soon as my hand dips between her delectable ass cheeks, she steps away. Clears her throat. “Do—errmm—do we need to know about any follow-up?”
Acapella turns back, offering an easy smile and a stack of papers still warm from the printer in the corner. “Dr. Yago will be in to get you set with all that. He did a great job. The stitches are tight and clean. The pharmacy has already filled the prescriptions for pain meds and antibiotics, and the instruction sheets will explain how to take everything, as well as possible side effects. Mr. Court doesn’t have any drug allergies, so it should all be pretty straightforward.”
“Mr. Court is also sitting right here.”
My grumble doesn’t daunt either of them. Ella catches my hand on its journey back to her ass, beaming a big smile of her own. “Thank you for everything, Kristine.” Of course she already knows the woman by first name. “I mean that from the bottom of my heart. I know he can be an…interesting…patient.”
Kristine’s head falls back as her laugh breaks free. “I’ve certainly had worse.”
“All right, all right,” I bark, mostly just irked that my attention has been torn from her ass by the starlight of her own laughter. “When the hell can I get out of here?”
Kristine rolls her eyes again. “Behave, Butch Cassidy.”
Unbelievably, I do. This isn’t the Hail Mary pass I want to pin the game on. As final paperwork is distributed, Yago himself comes in, already puffed-up about being the doctor attending me tonight. I focus on being friendly but formal—and letting Mishella shine instead.
And hell, how she does.
“Merderim mahaleur, Dr. Yago,” she murmurs. “In my language, it means thank you very much. You have given a true gift with your time tonight.”
Yago, who must be close to my age but looks like a hipster psych major who’s just strolled in from a night of beat poetry in the Village, parts his dark beard with a smug smile. “The gift is all mine. How fortuitous the timing. I wasn’t supposed to be here, but hopped on the chance for the extra shift after plans fell through for a night in the Village with some friends.”
Well, hell.
I don’t dare look the man’s way now, despite feeling the expectant weight of his scrutiny. More accurately, of Ella. Oh, he’s assessing, all right—watching the signs, silently determining what Ella is to me. Go ahead, Hipster. Look your fill. If he doesn’t get the clue by watching my gaze, glued solidly to her, I’ll be ecstatic to provide a more blatant demonstration.
“Well, Kristine says the stitches look wonderful.” Ella uses the voice that first hypnotized me, in the halls of Palais Arcadia, filled with such sweet sincerity. Stupidly, I’d first written off the allure to being in a story book castle and breathing Mediterranean air—but here, surrounded by plain green walls and antiseptic odor, Yago is clearly, dangerously, close to falling for the same count. “Truly, doctor, we are grateful for a professional so good at his work.”
“Work he is well compensated for, armeau.” Shockingly, I get it out without growling.
To his credit, Yago laughs softly. “Mr. Court is right.” Squares his shoulders toward me, though dips his head in deference. “It is an honor to have been of service, sir. I assure you, that hand will be back in fighting shape very soon.” He jabs a quick upper cut. “I guarantee you, John Cena’s already watching his six.”
Christ.
“John who?”
Before Yago can decide whether to be charmed or confused by Ella’s question, I roll to my feet. “Thank you, doctor. I’m sure you have other people to examine now.” Five seconds after we step out into the hall, I add in a mutter, “Other than the woman on my arm.”
Mishella stops. Huffs. Veers toward an alcove containing a drinking fountain and a wall-mounted defibrillator, her princess swiftly turning to lioness. “This is not his fault, Mr. Court.”
Mr. Court.
Shit.
Clenched jaw. Deep breath in. Back out. In again. “Fine,” I mutter. “You’re right. I’m just—”
“In pain?”
No.
Yes.
But the ice picks in my hand and arm have nothing to do with it. Ella’s fist, clutching the front of my T-shirt, betrays how thoroughly she knows it too. Her whisper, pleading my name into the inches between us, drills it in even further.
She wants
in.
A few hours ago, I even vowed that was where she’d be. The silos wouldn’t exist with her. And goddammit, I meant it.
Really, asshole? Because you’ve chosen a twisted way of showing it.
I still can’t explain, even to myself, what happened in those moments after our passion in the bedroom—only that the flood I’d expected came as a firestorm instead. It was acid rain from the corners of my psyche, turning into radioactive fury once hitting the light of my conscience.
That’s the extent of what I logically get.
What my soul declares is something else entirely. A dictate demanding action. Right now.
“They told me Doyle was out here.”
Ella answers my searching stare with a little nose wrinkle. I haven’t answered her question—and she’s had more of that than I intended tonight—but right now, logistics must supersede the chaos. Untangling it for her means setting it straight for myself. Staring at the ceiling for an hour, with my ass parked on an ER gurney, has given me insight into the best place for that—but I’m going to need a car for it.
“I’m right here.” Doyle strides up. “Figured one trip in my truck was probably enough for you tonight, so I called for Scott and the Jag to get—”
“Your truck.” The recognition jolts like good espresso. His fifteen-year-old Ford, a subtle middle finger to all the other creature comforts of being on my payroll, is usually the eyesore I put up with. Right now, it’s my answer. If it’s a slow news day and the paparazzi are looking for the Jag—sometimes I doubt the wisdom in having the fucker custom-designed—they’ll be duped.
“Shit.” Doyle reacts to my incisive stare—at the keys in his hand. “What the hell, Cas?”
I extend my hand, palm up. “Wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
“Would not ask what?” Ella’s stare goes summer sky wide, triangulating from my face to Doyle’s to the keys. “What on Earth are you—” She sputters her way out of my interrupting kiss. “Cassian Cameron Jonathan Court. You will entertain delusions about going nowhere but home right now!”
“Don’t try the puppy eyes on me.” Doyle whisks up both hands. “I’m on her side.”
I advance on him by a step. “Give me the damn keys.”
He slams the collection of metal into my left hand. “You crash it, you’re dead.”
“Too late.” Ella pushes forward so furiously, the curls fan a little off her shoulders. “I have already decided to murder him.” Wheels on me with no mercy. “What in Creator’s name are you—”
“Ella.” The snarl in my voice isn’t what softens her. It’s the choke I add to the end. “I can’t explain. Not right now.” I cup her face, hating how my bandages scrape her soft skin—and make her wince again. “Not yet.”
My emphasis on the final word beams a little hope into her eyes—before she rams them shut. When she reopens them, exhaling hard, I feel my own face tighten. The hope is still there but so is all her stress and exhaustion. I can’t remember her looking this tired, even after a week at my bedside after the shooting, or on the morning I showed up at her family’s villa on Arcadia with the contract that would irrevocably change our relationship.
And me.
Everything about this woman has changed me.
And dammit, I can’t backslide now. Can’t become that person frozen in the graveyard of my heart, so afraid of disturbing the ghosts that I’m unable to move…to live.
I just need to tell that to the ghosts.
Especially the most tenacious one.
“All right.” Ella finally pushes it out on a resigned sigh. “Do what you must.” Mutters something under her breath mentioning stars and faith and terrified saints. The little monologue becomes sexy with shocking speed, forcing me to step back before everyone in the hallway gets to take a camping trip courtesy of the tent in my jogging pants.
“I won’t be long.”
“I shall burn your feet with that.”
“Huh?” Doyle mutters.
“Hold my feet to the fire?” I circle her waist, yanking her close once more. Pain pinballs up my arm because of it, but I’m beyond caring. My woman. The more it rides over the repeat button in my mind, the more incredible it sounds—and the more I wonder if it wasn’t in there all the time, from the moment I met her.
The more right it sounds…
The faster I need to get myself right—
For her.
When our lips ease away from each other’s, I keep her close, needing to capture every facet of sapphire life from those huge eyes. Needing all the fortitude her nearness can bring, before I have to let it go for one of the shittiest mornings of my life.
*
I arrive at the cemetery a good hour before dawn. Wait in the truck, getting used to returning emails on my phone with my left thumb instead of my right, while waiting on the groundskeepers to arrive. That goes well for a while, until it’s clear that Singapore has gotten wise to the fact that I’m awake and on line, and messages start flooding in.
And the photo album on my phone beckons like fun new candy.
No. Even better—now that the folder is filled with pictures of a certain Arcadian sorceress.
The throb in my body eases.
The weight on my mind feels lighter.
The smile on my lips is huge.
Suddenly, the morning becomes a tribute to her. The sunrise streams through the trees in textures of gold and umber, like her incredible hair. Birds call to each other, pure and free, like the music of her laughter. And the brightening blue in the sky is always, always the magic of her eyes. Eyes that always give me so much. Believe so completely in me.
Giving me the guts to finally rev the Ford’s engine and follow the groundskeepers through the cemetery’s wooden gates.
It’s a small and unassuming place, though my belly would be just as tight a knot if driving into fucking Woodlawn, past Jay Gould and Joseph Pulitzer. No bullshit like any of this for me. In the “personal affairs” I’ve been ordered by an army of lawyers to have in order, I’ve dictated specific instructions about where to put my carcass when the world decides it’s done with me—and in the ground is not it. I’ve already served enough years in a dark, dirty box. It was called a New Jersey tenement.
But that’s not the piece of the past I’m here to visit.
Today, it’s all about the asshole buried in the knoll ahead.
Though his plot is marked by a simple stone plate in the ground, I’ve long since memorized its location. No surprise, since I’ve been visiting the fucking thing for nearly the last fifteen years.
The words on the plaque are simple.
Damon Matthew Marcus Court
Beloved Son – Cherished Brother
The dates beneath aren’t worth getting into. They mean nothing, since my brother’s spirit was gone long before his body.
Since he let the drugs take it.
My stomach matches my arm for pain. My throat convulses, battling the heat of the sick, the surge of the anger.
Always the goddamn anger.
“Shit.” It escapes me in a slow, burning hiss. I long to let my body drop the same way, just giving in to the weariness in my spirit, but I dig deep to keep my legs locked. You don’t get my surrender today, brother. You don’t get my tears.
“You shouldn’t have even gotten the house call, asshole. You don’t deserve it.”
The wind picks up, giving brief reprieve from the muggy slush calling itself air.
My core remains ice, congealed by pure fury.
Just before the heat ambushes the backs of my eyes.
“Goddamn you, Damon.”
I huff hard. Stab a foot into the grass, deep enough to reach the muck of mud beneath, and lob a small heap of it over. Watching the stuff ooze like shit over my brother’s name.
And instantly want to do it again.
“Mom isn’t here to stop me, dick wad.” I toe the ground, so tempted. “Nobody’s here except me now, because nobody
else gets to hear this. Kind of like all those other things I reserved just for you, man. You remember, right? The secrets we saved just for ‘the brotherhood’?” A harsh spurt gets past my lips, twisting into an unwilling smile. “Fuck. ‘The brotherhood’. The secret handshake. That stupid rules and regulations book. The all-nighter we pulled working on it. You wrote it all down so Mom wouldn’t find it on the computer’s hard drive—on the back of your goddamn algebra homework.” A laugh scorches out. “Can’t believe you didn’t think she’d see it after you racked up that F for not turning it in.” Drop my head and shake it. “But after she bawled about the whole thing, she hugged us like we were going to disappear. Did you ever understand that shit?” Short shrug. “No. Me, neither. And then she drove us out to bum-fuck for a couple of Skyscraper cones at Cliff’s…and you nearly puked on that shit, man.” A scoff echoes on the air. It has to be just the wind, but warmth rushes my chest anyway. “No, asshole,” I argue to the echoing chuckle in the air, “it was you, I’m sure of it. You ordered maple walnut, then inhaled that shit like—”
My throat clutches shut as the wind fully gusts.
I plummet to my ass in the grass.
And here I am, hurling smack at a ghost again.
“Why, Damon?” I straddle the marker. Beg for answers from it with fists clenched atop my thighs. “Goddammit, why?”
Did the crap in those needles and pills feel better than ‘the brotherhood’? Than going for ice cream at Cliff’s?
Those are the easy questions.
Meaning the hard ones are coming.
And grate from my lips as whispered chokes.
“Weren’t Mom and I good enough for you, fucker? Dammit…weren’t we worth fighting for? Living for?”
The wind sweeps across the knoll. Sighs through the grass, swishes through the trees.