by Nicole Snow
His hand lingers on the banister, rough grip sapping his strength. He hangs his head and sighs. When his eyes return to mine, they're conflicted, then understanding. “I can't keep you here. Please, babe, just don't do anything illegal or dangerous. If it's him...damn it, just stay safe. Get out of here before Jackson comes sniffing. He hasn't been thinking clearly since the day he almost knocked you down.”
“Dad?” I'm in disbelief. I drop everything and squeeze him until his glasses come loose. “I'll never forget this. Thank you.”
“Yeah, now run along. Looks like your taxi's here. I'll tell your mom everything tomorrow over brunch. We'll manage, one way or another, just like we always do.”
I give him one more hug and then grab my things. It's hard to believe I've gotten so lucky.
Now, I just have to decide whether the next time I lay eyes on Marshal, I smother him with kisses or slap his face into a tailspin.
“Here, ma'am? You're sure?” The middle aged cab driver looks back in the mirror, doing a double take at the dirty place I've asked him to drop me off.
I search for signs of Marshal. It's several seconds before I catch faint movement, a reflection inside one of the few windshields still intact in the parking lot.
A signal. It has to be.
“I am, and thank you,” I mutter, shoving a ball of cash at the cabbie. An ultra-generous tip should keep him from asking any questions.
I wait until he starts pulling away before I move. Then I'm speed walking through the opening in the rusted chain link fence, careful not to trip over the debris. I hear a car door open.
Suddenly, he's running toward me. It's less than a minute before his massive arms crash around me, and the lips I've needed for weeks forge tears.
Our kiss is a collision. I put my hands around his neck and sink my nails in his skin.
We come together like a storm.
Angry. Blistering. Melancholy. Raw.
Every last feeling on passion's atlas, plus some uncharted. I try to suck the life out of him, but he does it better, drinking my pain and love and confusion. And I taste his, sweet sustenance, even in its dark and ugly parts.
I see the sun when his grip finally lessens, and I'm able to gaze into those blue eyes I've missed like priceless pearls.
“Never letting you out of my sight again, woman,” he growls, his fingers pressed against my back through my coat. He's going to shear it off my body, I swear, leaving nothing but his warmth for protection.
I think I'm okay with that.
“Idiot, you'd better not. Because I can't believe I'm standing here, bags packed, considering...I don't even know what.”
“Say you'll still be my wife. Run away with me. Leave all the crap in this town behind. It's not too late to find our way, the one we were always meant for.”
There's so much happening between the words I don't even know. This gorgeous, rough man in front of me can't even give me any hard answers.
But it's his eyes that win me over.
They always do.
Scorching blue as morning sky. Intense, alive, and always hopeful.
That, I can work with. I can take his hand and fight. We'll sift through this drama, somehow, someway. And maybe after a while, we can let go of everything that's been holding us apart, dragging us down.
“Darling, say it,” he growls, pressing his forehead to mine. “Let me hear those words coming from your lips.”
“Yes, yes, yes. Of course I will, Marshal. I love you, and today that's enough.” It really is.
Truth is never more powerful than when it's spoken out loud. Everything else becomes a flimsy apparition. All our troubles, our doubts, our woes are destined to melt in the daylight of my heartbeat for him. They always were.
“Love the fuck out of you,” he rumbles, sweet baritone roughness vibrating through his chest. His thick hand cups my cheek and he digs his fingers in just slightly, holding me for his eyes. “I thought I'd lost you.”
“Not quite.” I smile. “Not ever. There's things we'll need to discuss, questions I really need an answer to –“
“Red, say no more. I'll break my ribs and hand you my still-beating heart if it gets us good again. No more secrets. I promise.”
“Promise, what'd you promise, daddy?” A little singsong voice stands behind him, tentatively clinging to a busted tractor tire.
We let go. Marshal takes my hand like it's the first day of the rest of our life. Then we both walk over to greet Mia together, him hoisting her up, and we race to find out who smothers the little cherub in kisses first.
“Your daddy just promised to make me the happiest woman on earth, honeybee,” I say. “And I know he will. There's a good man in there – even if he struggles to find his way out, sometimes.”
Marshal holds his little girl closer, ruffling her dark brown hair. “He needs the right woman. Lucky him, that shouldn't be a problem anymore.”
Mia's tiny face wrinkles. “Does...does this mean mama's coming to Alaska, too?”
Mama. My heart goes to pieces for probably the thousandth time today.
Marshal just looks at me and grins. “Yeah, honeybee. I think it does, assuming she doesn't give us a warmer option. I hear Arizona's nice this time of year. Even knew a guy in Phoenix from my army days, Knox or whatever. He's doing well there, I hear.”
I wipe my brow, just imagining the furious summer heat. “Alaska it is. Sorry, I need my seasons, even if they're short.”
Mia laughs and it sets off a chain reaction. For the briefest moment, we're lost in a winter sunbeam. The clouds have lifted, the sun is shining, and everything is rosy.
Then there's a sound that doesn't fully compute in my brain.
A car door slamming. Footprints crunching weirdly close to us in the snow. A voice.
“Well, well, if it isn't the happy family. Jesus Christ, sis. I knew you came out here to talk to him, but you're running away with this psycho?” Jackson stops, only several feet away, his hand shoved awkwardly inside his coat.
Marshal turns. He presses one hand against the small of my back, holding Mia closer with the other arm. “My daughter is here. Whatever you want, it'll have to wait.”
“Oh, no, motherfucker. We're not playing that game again. I would've had you by now if I hadn't let you run, hiding behind the kid. Nearly broke my damn back skidding on the ice. I took my sweet time coming after you because I didn't want to scare her. Not gonna make that mistake again.”
“Jackson, no! She's just a little girl. Let me, please.” I'm pulling on Marshal's arms, trying to get her. He reluctantly lets go, passing her to me. “Come here, baby,” I whisper, doing my very best to cover her ears.
My brother snorts. I look up, raw hatred lighting fires in my veins. What he's become makes me sick.
“Go home. We're not out to hurt anyone. We just want to be left alone.” I don't know why I try to reason with him.
Marshal knows it won't work. He steps in front of us, spreading his arms protectively. “Let them go. At least to my truck. Then we can talk, man-to-man.”
Jackson looks me over. I guess there's a faint thread of humanity left inside him because he nods, motions to Marshal's vehicle, and finds his most condescending tone. “You get in the truck with her and stay, sis. Do not fucking move unless I say.”
I want to do so many other things. Defy him, tell him to go to hell, pull Marshal into the driver's seat and take off, leaving this madness forever. But that can't happen.
Nothing is ever easy while there's a dangerous, self-righteous demon controlling my brother.
“Let's sit, honeybee. This'll all be over soon.” It's hard to make my legs work, but I do.
Less than a minute later, she's in my lap. I press her weary face to my chest, hiding the gut-wrenching scene unfolding through the windshield no more than twenty, maybe thirty feet away.
My brother finally takes his hand out of his jacket.
He points a gun at the love of my life.
Marshal
raises his hands, says something I can't hear, and rips open his jacket.
He's bearing his heart for his executioner.
I don't even look away because the tears blurring the world are too much.
They leak. They burn. They remind me how helpless I am.
I'm waiting for the gunshot to rip through the silence, but it never comes.
Instead, I see Jackson lay his gun on the ground. His heavy winter coat falls off, and he's coming toward Marshal, whose fists are bowed viciously at his sides.
I don't know what's worse once the first blow lands on my love's face: watching them kill each other in slow motion, or knowing there's nothing I can do.
He told me to keep Mia safe. He meant it. So, I do, trying to drown out the agony unfolding behind the glass.
This has to play out. I doubt my brother called the police, or they'd be here by now, breaking up this sick gladiator match.
Mia stirs in my arms. “Mama?”
“Shhhhhh. Sleep, baby. I'll tell you when to wake. This will all be over soon.” It's amazing how I'm able to sound so calm, carefully mouthing each word, watching two of the men I care about most hit the ground.
They're tearing into each other like animals.
This will all be over soon. I try to believe it, closing my eyes, dynamite threatening to blow my temples apart while I muster every last ounce of strength not to cry.
I count numbers slowly in my head, one by one, for what seems like forever.
It's eerily quiet. My eyes snap open after God knows how long and I look around. There's no sign of them. Just furious, angry chaos left in uneven snow. Plus the uneven footprints that may be stained with blood or rust.
I can't tell.
I really don't want to.
Oh, but the movement in the rear view mirror brings new questions. They're behind the truck now, next to the building, moving inside. Both men are still fighting. Still trying to kill each other.
Panting, my brother staggers backwards, disappearing through the broken doorway. Marshal follows, his face bloodied, a thousand curses engraved on his busted lips.
Then they're gone. I can't see anything.
A terrible memory from high school science class snatches at my brain. Remember the experiment with the cat in the box that might be living or dead, but not until it's opened and seen?
I'm living it right now. Just like I'm living every soft breath of the tiny little girl in my arms, every slow beat of my heart, and every prayer.
Please don't let him die. Not when he just came back. Not when we were going to make this right.
This isn't fair. There are so many things I haven't had a chance to say.
I haven't even mentioned the secret growing inside me! Marshal deserves a chance to be a father again, this time with a family, like he always wanted. My eyes open, drifting toward the quiet sky.
Please.
We deserve a second chance.
Hell, we deserve a first.
We've fought too hard to be whole just to see it all burn down in front of me.
Please don't let it do this. Please just let him come back to me.
Please!
14
Common Ground (Marshal)
I'm battered, exhausted, pushed to my limit. I haven't been physically torn up this bad since the day the fuckwit hunched on the ground in front of me killed my boys.
Emotionally, I've never been this alive. Adam, Erik, Zane, their ghosts give me strength. They breathe a fury in my fists and a will to murder in my blood, guiding every blow to this asshole's body whenever I have the chance.
If I weren't distracted by something else, I think he'd be dead by now. This should be my moment of triumph, watching him with his broken ribs, backed into a corner, ready to mount his last desperate defense before I end him.
But there's nothing. No endorphin rush. No triumph. No satisfaction.
No desire to do anything except walk the fuck away, climb in my truck, and drive my family far, far away from here.
“You...you had a clear shot to grab my gun, you fuck,” Jackson growls, speech slurred on his swollen tongue. “Why didn't you? You want to fucking torture me?”
I stop in front of him, a couple feet between us, narrowing my eyes. “Why didn't you? You had a clean shot at my chest. Hell, I offered. You fucked yourself.”
“Don't you get it?! I'm not like you, Castoff. Not a fucking coward. I couldn't shoot an unarmed man. Don't have to prey on little girls who ought to know better not to get mixed up with psychos.” I take a step forward and he jumps, almost falling over. “Go ahead and finish it, asshole. I couldn't protect her. Couldn't talk Sadie out of it.”
He's leaving me no choice. Why does it even matter?
Finish this, idiot.
I reach deep inside myself, find my inner killer again. Then I rush him, grab his wrist, twist it to near breaking. It's the last shock his body needs. Knowing he's disabled, I power slam him into the old brick wall, snarling in his face, listening as something hard and metal scuffs the floor.
He barely fights as I reach down, searching, wrapping my fingers around lethal weight. It's heavy. Solid. A handle broke off a tool they used for rail work in the old days, probably.
It's more than enough to split his skull open, if I choose.
“Don't make me do this, prick. Sadie's the only reason I'm not finishing what I started with your brakes. Hell, what really started that day you got my men killed.”
“That's what this is about? Vigilante justice? Fuck, you're pathetic.” He stops talking and shakes. Something warm and slippery hits my face.
The asshole just spat on me.
Enough.
I bring the steel rod down like a hammer on his shoulder. It's worse than I intended, knocking him to the floor, nearly out cold. He's on his hands and knees, looking up like the demon he is, his eyes small black pools of hate begging me to send him home to hell.
“Last chance, you piece of shit. End it. Do it now. I couldn't turn you in. Couldn't keep you away from her. Couldn't stop you from telling everybody the awful fucking truth.”
“Truth? What truth?” Every syllable hurts. I'm sure a few of my bones are splintered. Wiping his spit from my face, I stare into the eyes of the man I have to murder.
“Doesn't matter. Just put me out of my fucking misery. They'll be off my mind. Send me to Father Karma, God's judgment, I don't fucking care. Just get this blood off my hands.”
I stare, trying to understand. He winces in pain, his head tipping down at the ground, before he looks up again.
New frustration clouds his eyes. “What the fuck are you waiting for? I said, do it. It's what I deserve after I killed them, isn't it?”
For five hellish years, I would have answered yes. No hesitation.
Today, that steel rod perched against his head, screaming for justice, slips from my hand. It hits the cement floor so hard the echo rattles my teeth. I take a step back, giving him breathing space.
“What...what are you doing?” he whispers. The surprise in his eyes isn't the only thing we have in common.
All these fucking years, I thought he was a monster. Believed I'd never have peace unless I killed him.
I look at the blood on my hands. There's no honor here. No right. No fucking peace.
“Howard, what the hell?!” He's trying to scream and it's still a desperate whisper. He can't manage more.
“Shut up. Listen to what's happening if you want to walk out of here alive.”
I wait for that to sink in, watch for him to blink, steeling my eyes. Then I crouch to his level, grabbing his face, holding it in a death-grip I'm sure will leave another bruise on his battered jaw.
“I'd be a damn fool if I let you walk away easy – especially when we're so much alike. I hate it, but it's true. So much common fucking ground I could slap myself for not seeing it sooner.”
“You're out of your mind, asshole. There's nothing!” He yells another lie, but the fear creeping int
o his eyes confirms the truth, clear and bright and blinding.
He knows, just like I do.
“Wrong. Let's be real: in less than a year, you'll be a father. A sick joke if I ever heard one. I kill you today, I leave your widow, your son or daughter, without a man to pay their rent or put them through college? I tear a hole through Sadie's heart she'll never get over, even if she knows it's self-defense.” I pause. He jerks his head, and I tighten my grip, until the bastard whimpers. “Worse, I kill you here and now, I lose my soul. And you do, too. I'll give you what you've wanted this whole fucking time, what I've been too stupid to see.”
“Psycho,” he snarls in my face again. “I'll turn you in, I swear! You better just kill me now or I will put you in jail, Howard.”
“Nah. Here's what you'll do instead: crawl back in your truck and drive home. Tell the cops you were wrong about the brakes, and I did a real nice job patching them up. Maybe I even saved your life. Then you'll pack your shit and leave this town forever. I'll give you three days to tie up loose ends.”
“Leave, you maniac? Leave what? This is home!”
He's such a defiant little shit. I tighten my grip, shake his head like a rabid dog's, waiting for him to shut the hell up, and listen.
“You've got money. You've got a pretty young wife. You've got yourself a kid on the way. You'll manage a few states over. I'll let you know when it's safe to come home for a visit. It'll be awhile after what you'll write for the local press.”
He shakes his head. Poor baby. So much confusion. “Write? What? What the hell do you mean?”
“You'll clear my name. Make a full confession. Tell the whole county you fucked up years ago, got good men killed, and I had every right to turn my back that day at the parade. Uncle Sam's investigators found you innocent, yeah, but the court of public opinion won't be so forgiving. Trust me, I know. I'm saving you plenty of grief, asking you to start over elsewhere.”
His face starts twitching in my hands. But he isn't fighting anymore. He's broken, bawling like a child who's finally been held accountable for the very first time. “You can't...can't just fuckin' do this. I –“