Games of the Heart

by Kristen Ashley

  I watched as Mike shifted so he’d have a better view. Then I watched as Mike stood, long legs planted, arms crossed on his chest, as he watched out the barn doors what I figured was Audrey getting into her car and driving away. This took a while then he turned and prowled to me.

  “You okay?” he asked when he got close.

  “Better than you,” I said softly.

  He studied me then he muttered, “Sorry about that, Angel.”

  “In the end, nothing to apologize for and it’s not for you to apologize anyway. If I gave her the minute she asked for, I could have said what I needed to say and she’d be on her way.”

  “She’s full of shit and she’s playin’ games,” Mike replied and I kept my peace.

  I didn’t know her. He did. But she genuinely, if surprisingly and somewhat pathetically, wanted help.

  “It’s over. Let’s move on,” I suggested, still talking softly.

  He studied me again.

  Then he asked, “Your shit crated?”

  I nodded.

  “We’re back. No’s at the house jammin’ on his new bass. Rees is sayin’ hi to your mother. Reesee and I are here to see if you need any help.”

  There it was. I knew my man wouldn’t hold a grudge.

  “A bass,” I whispered. “Cool gift, Dad.”

  Mike’s lips twitched.

  “I’m good, honey,” I told him. “All the grunt work’s done but I’ll probably be at my wheel a while then I have a couple of pieces to glaze and put in the kiln. It automatically ramps and I can get them out tomorrow.”

  His brows drew together. “Ramps?”

  “The pieces need to fire at different temperatures, slow start then lots of heat then cool down. It takes a while but my kiln does it automatically. I leave it. Mom checks it before she goes to bed. I come back tomorrow and voila! Pottery.”

  His lips twitched again.

  I liked that, the fact he showed to help and I thought both said a lot about him after the way we left it that morning.

  So I decided to address the big, pink elephant in the barn.

  And I did this by whispering, “I was out of line this morning.”

  Mike held my eyes but said nothing.

  I kept talking. “We’ll talk again when the ranch is rented.”

  He said something then.

  And what he said was, “All you gotta say, sweetheart. That’s done.”

  God, I loved this man.

  Sure, he got his way but I’d been thinking about it (a whole lot) all day. He had been right and I had been stubborn. He felt I’d made a sacrifice for him and he felt that deeply. This wasn’t something I didn’t know. He’d already shared it with me. He also wanted to take care of me. He didn’t close the door on the discussion. He just delayed it at the same time he was looking out for me. And he was right. I had a house I wasn’t living in that I was paying for, a business I couldn’t give my full attention to and if I was honest, I needed the help.

  And further, Mike was Mike. He didn’t hide who he was or what he was like. And part of that was he looked after the people he loved. He didn’t do it because he had to. He did it because that was who he was. And one of those people was me.

  So it was no skin off my nose.

  And that was done.

  So I moved on.

  “You have a good day with the kids?”

  “Yeah. You have a good day with your Mom?”

  “Yes, after Fin laid it out for Rhonda, which was upsetting.”

  I watched Mike’s face grow alert. “What?”

  “I asked her to help. She said she wasn’t feeling up to it. I pressed. Fin and Kirb showed while this was happening. Kirb tried to protect his Mom. Fin lost his patience. It was coming, I knew it. Outside of thinking about how things went down with you this morning, all day I’ve also been thinking about whether I should have tried to stop Fin from gutting his mother. What I’ve come up with was that she needed some tough love. The problem with that is, it didn’t work. She didn’t help and, except this morning, I haven’t seen her all day.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “That says it all,” I muttered back.

  “Way he acts, sometimes forget Fin’s just a kid,” Mike said. “He’s got too much to deal with.”

  That sure was the truth.

  “Agreed.”

  Mike studied my face and clearly read my concern.

  “It’ll make him the man he’ll become,” Mike told me gently.

  “Thinking he’s already that man, babe,” I said softly. “And that man is d…o…n…e done with Rhonda being what he calls a zombie.”

  “He called her a zombie?”

  “That and told her the way she was behaving meant that he not only lost a Dad but he lost a Mom. He also shared Darrin had no control over him leaving them but she does.”

  Mike winced to something that was definitely wince-worthy then he tipped his head to the side. “You want me to talk to him?”

  “Yes,” I answered instantly. “I want him to know he’s understood and he’s not having these feelings all by himself. But I briefed Dad about it. They came back for lunch but I only saw them go into the house. Let me talk to Dad to see where he got with Fin. Then I’ll let you know.”

  “Right,” Mike murmured, his eyes dropped to my wheel then came back to me and he grinned. “Seen Ghost?”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Sorry?”

  “The movie Ghost,” he explained and I then knew what he was talking about so I grinned back.

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” he whispered back and his grin became a smile.

  My mind was pleasantly occupied with visions of Mike and me acting out one specific scene from that movie when he got close, bent to me and touched his lips to mine.

  He pulled away an inch and said, “Come home soon’s you can.”

  I nodded.

  “Love you, Angel.”

  “You too, honey.”

  He grinned again, lifted up, kissed the top of my hair and I watched him walk away.

  There it was. That was it. A busy day with a lot of shitty parts and one lip touch from Mike and it was all better.

  I reached down, turned on my wheel and got busy so I could get home as soon as I could.

  * * * * *

  Mike kissed my earlobe, pulled out and rolled off of me and out of bed. He tugged the covers over me as I tried to regulate my heartbeat.

  Like this morning, not a double (alas) but a near simultaneous orgasm.

  Unlike this morning, I got to play with Mike.

  It was glorious.

  Yes, sex with Mike just kept getting better and better.

  I watched him walk to the bathroom then minutes later I watched him walk out with a wet cloth. He joined me and bed, his hand with the cloth between my legs as his lips brushed mine, my cheekbones, my nose, my eyes.

  He bent and kissed my throat when he finished, got out of bed and headed back to the bathroom.

  I watched again.

  Then he came back, tagging my panties and nightgown from the floor. He handed them to me and I shimmied the panties up and pulled my nightie over my head as Mike yanked up his pajama bottoms. Tying the drawstring, he went to the doors and let Layla in.

  She ran toward the bed, jumped up, came right to me and I reached out to give her head a rubdown.

  As I did, she licked my wrist.

  Then Mike joined me in bed, curled me into him and pulled me with him as he reached for the light. He turned it off as Layla sauntered down the bed, turned once, twice then she fell to her side on a dog groan.

  I closed my eyes and snuggled closer to Mike, tangling my leg with his, gliding my arm around his stomach, settling my cheek on his chest.

  Then I said softly into the dark, “Can I address something from this morning?”

  His arm got tight and he started, “Dusty –”

  I lifted my head and looked at his
shadowed face. “Please, Mike, one thing and I promise it won’t piss you off.”

  He was silent a moment then he gave in. “One thing.”

  I wet my lips, rolled them together then I dropped my cheek back to his chest and whispered, “I miss Texas.” His entire body got tight and I kept going but this time quickly. “I miss Jerra, Hunter, their kids, my place, Schub’s, my gallery, a lot of stuff.”

  “Dusty –”

  I squeezed his stomach and kept whispering, talking over him, “Please, honey, let me finish.”

  I felt his chest expand then he let out the breath he took in.

  I kept going, still whispering, “But I go to sleep beside you. I wake up the same way. And I got the honor of talking to Reesee about becoming a woman. I’m one of the first to hear No play his new bass. I sleep with a golden retriever’s head on my ankle. I eat dinner with you at night. I watch TV with you until I’m ready to hit the sack. But even if I didn’t get all the extras and I just got you, I’d be happy. You see me giving up a lot and what you said earlier made me realize you haven’t gotten over that. But you need to know I’d be happy in Siberia just as long as I went to sleep and woke up with you.”

  I stopped talking and Mike was silent. This lasted a long time.

  So long, a little freaked out, I called, “Mike?”

  “You’re right, that didn’t piss me off.”

  I blinked into the dark.

  Then I burst out laughing.

  Through my laughter, Mike ordered, “Stop laughin’, Angel, kiss me and go to sleep.”

  Still chuckling, I lifted up, pushed up and kissed him.

  His arms closed tight around me and he kissed me back.

  This lasted longer than his silence.

  A lot longer.

  Then he let me go, I snuggled back into my man, his dog scooched until her head was resting on my ankle and we went to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Fell on Black Days”

  Walking up to the farmhouse, Mike heard it so he quickened his pace.

  It was Tuesday. Rivera, Jerra and their kids were there. After they arrived on Sunday, they’d spent the day with Dusty, Mike and his kids and three dozen Hilligoss donuts. Mike ended the day with Rivera and a beer at his barbeque on the back deck. Rees and No were in the living room playing with the kids. Dusty was in the kitchen bonding with Jerra.

  Yesterday the Rivera family went into Indy to do the tourist shit, The 500, the Circle, doing this to let Dusty get out in the fields. They all went out to dinner at The Station last night.

  That day they spent with Dusty at the farm, Dusty and her Dad taking the kids for tractor rides. Tonight Della was making dinner for everybody. Mike had been working but from a text from Dusty he received fifteen minutes ago, he knew everyone was already there including Rees and No.

  He hit the door and didn’t interrupt by knocking. He just walked right through and he did this quickly.

  He didn’t want to miss another second.

  He closed the door behind him quietly, turned and saw it. Everyone was in the living room, asses covering every seat available except Rees and Fin. Rees was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Fin was sitting behind her, his long legs cocked and surrounding her, his wrists resting on his knees, hands dangling, her back was resting against his chest.

  But even his daughter’s intimate position with her boyfriend didn’t penetrate Mike’s attention to what was happening across the room from Reesee and Fin.

  His eyes took it in and his chest tightened as he saw, sitting across from each other, Dusty perched on the arm of the couch, No opposite her on the arm of an armchair, his acoustic guitar on his thigh, his hands moving but his grinning face was turned to Dusty.

  She was smiling back at him while singing.

  Mike felt electricity prickle his skin as he moved to the double doors and leaned against the jamb to listen.

  No had that guitar for years. It was the first one Mike bought for him. He got it when he was twelve, he started playing it immediately and not then or since had he had a single lesson. He just took to it. Mike didn’t understand it but the same happened the year after when Mike bought him the set of drums he’d been asking for. They set them up and No started banging immediately. Within minutes it sounded less like banging and more like music. He’d never had a lesson with those either. He just had it in him, it was his way. As with Reesee, their talent was natural.

  And the same was true with Dusty.

  He’d heard her sing, not recently but when she was younger he heard it all the time. Though he’d never heard her sing a song like she was singing now.

  K’s Choice, “Not an Addict”.

  It was an intense, seriously fucking fantastic song and Dusty’s pure voice made it sweeter.

  What it was not was a happy song.

  She always used to sing happy songs. He remembered once walking into the farmhouse decades ago and hearing her singing Katrina and The Waves, “Walking on Sunshine”, swinging her ass and singing loud as she washed the inside windows. It was a gray day, thundercloud hanging low, storms that would eventually come but at that moment were only threatening the sky outside.

  The minute he’d walked inside, Mike remembered, hearing her voice singing that song, the world brightened.

  But even though he knew the subject matter wasn’t something she had experience with, the song she was singing right then sounded like it was made for her.

  Mike watched his woman and his son having their moment, eyes locked, mouths curved and everyone had melted away. It was just them, his strumming, her voice, in their element. As the song progressed, No’s guitar became more powerful and Dusty’s voice increased in depth, volume and they were both gently swaying their torsos simultaneously to a beat they felt internally seeing as they didn’t have drums.

  All eyes in the room were glued to them. Even Rivera and Jerra’s kids were motionless and mesmerized.

  As was Mike.

  And it hit him then, something he’d known for twenty-five years about Dusty but something he only understood right at that moment about the three people most important in his life. Dusty’s voice, her pottery, her drawings, her writing. His son’s drums, guitar, keyboards. His daughter’s writing. He was surrounded by people who were extraordinarily gifted. Everything they did was beyond the pale. His life was touched all around with genius.

  And Mike knew what he was seeing and how it made him feel was burning itself on his brain forever. Because in that moment, watching and listening, he was profoundly moved that God had seen fit to gift him, an ordinary man, an Indiana boy through and through, with these people in his life.

  And he understood then what he never did. Why he called Dusty “Angel”. Because with her gifts given to her straight from God, that was precisely what she was.

  The phone rang but the only one who moved was Fin. He got up and silently walked out of the room, catching Mike’s eyes and giving him a chin lift as he went to the table in the hall that had a cordless phone in a charger.

  Mike looked from Fin back into the living room. No’s hand was a blur as he strummed the repeating chords to the end of the song then laid his hand against the strings, halting the music and he smiled huge at Mike’s woman.

  “Sing it again, Auntie Dusty!” Adriana, Jerra and Rivera’s six year old little girl shrieked, clapping her hands.

  Dusty started, Adriana’s voice reminding her there were people around and she turned her head to the little girl and smiled at her. Then her eyes tipped up, caught on Mike, he watched her face get soft and her smile got bigger.

  Yes, God had been generous to Mike Haines.

  “How about Soundgarden?” Reesee called out, “Dusty, do you know ‘Fell on Black Days’?”

  Instantly No started the opening chords of the song Rees was talking about. Dusty looked to Rees as Mike felt something intangible but foreboding coming from beside him and he looked to his left. He saw Fin moving down the hall toward the kitchen
, phone to his ear and something about Fin’s posture made Mike’s eyes narrow on his back. He couldn’t see anything particular but he could feel it.

  “I can give it a go,” Dusty answered Rees and Mike looked back into the room.

  Then she “gave it a go”. Rees’s choice was excellent. Simple, disconsolate words, No’s guitar and Dusty’s pure, sweet voice making a phenomenal song even better.

  But this time, that something he felt from Fin nagging at Mike, when they were in the second verse, Mike tore his eyes off Dusty and No and looked down the hall. He saw nothing then Fin paced across the kitchen doorway, one fist to his hip, the phone to his other ear, neck bent, eyes to the ground. He was in profile and Mike couldn’t catch his expression but he did note Fin’s jaw was hard. Then Mike watched Fin pace out of sight.

  Even without being able to see Fin’s expression, his movements, posture and hard jaw made Mike push away from the jamb and move down the hall toward the kitchen.

  He got into the room to see Fin standing at an angle to the kitchen table, his back to Mike, his head up, his eyes across the room and he heard Fin say in a low, rumbling, pissed off voice, “Dad’s dead. Ma’s practically dead. And now, you are totally dead.”

  Then he beeped off the phone, turned on his foot and spied Mike.

  Mike braced at the look of sheer fury on the boy’s face.

  “Fin –” he started low but Fin moved.

  Swiftly, Fin’s long legs took him through the kitchen, past Mike and down the hall.

  Mike followed just as swiftly. But even so, he was too late. After seeing that look on his face, Mike should have caught Fin in the kitchen. Unfortunately he didn’t and when Fin hit the living room, his fury unleashed.

  “You’ve lost your fuckin’ mind!” he roared, No stopped playing, Dusty stopped singing and all eyes went to Fin but Fin’s eyes were locked on Rhonda.

  Jesus. Shit. Fuck.

  Mike moved to Fin and started to lift a hand to lay it on his shoulder but Fin’s head jerked toward Rivera and Jerra who each had a kid in their laps.

  “Get your kids outta here,” he ordered and Rivera’s gaze cut to Mike.