And there she was, on the arm of Roy Coker.
The asshole who'd almost gotten me killed.
Trigg was in the corner, saying something to me. He spoke, but I didn't hear him. All I could think about was her.
I hated her back then, after she’d left.
I could feel the anger pumping through my veins. I was already ramped up after what Coker had done to Abel, but seeing her standing there with Coker was the damn icing on the cake.
I couldn’t stop staring at her. Seven years ago, she had been my good luck charm at the state championship wrestling tournament that had gotten me on the radar of the coach at Oklahoma State, the match that wound up getting me the full ride. Until I got kicked out of college.
"Saint," Trigg said, slapping my face. "Come on. Get your shit in the game."
"I'm fucking ready," I said. Hearing my name called out, I stepped away from Trigg and acknowledged the referee. When my eyes met Coker’s, I couldn’t help but grin; he’d have been expecting some second-rate substitute fighter, not me. Even in the haze of adrenaline and the chaos of the moment, I could tell he was livid.
When the bell rang, Rush charged forward, coming at me with a barrage of strikes that I dodged, focused only on wearing him out. Someone should have taught him about not gassing yourself in the first thirty seconds of a fight. I stepped in, delivering a series of low kicks that landed on the inside of his thigh, then as he staggered forward, to the side and back of one of his legs. One of them landed just above his knee, and he shouted as he fell backwards onto the mat.
“End it, Silas,” I heard Trigg scream from the corner.
So I did. The rest of the fight was a blur as I finished Rush. I was dazed, my vision clouded, blurred by adrenaline and the haze of rage. I’m not sure I would have stopped if someone hadn’t pulled me off him after the fight had been called.
When I stood, I made eye contact with Coker again.
Fuck him. I knew he had to have bet on his guy; he would have figured some two-bit fighter would have come in to replace Abel tonight.
I hoped he had lost big.
I hoped more than that happened to him. He deserved to have more than that happen to him.
The referee held my fist up in a victory pose, and I stood there, still, watching Tempest.
She remembered me - I could see it in her eyes. I didn't know whether to be pleased or pissed off about that.
Beside her, Coker yelled something and stormed off, his face scarlet. And then Tempest started to walk away.
She paused for a moment, looking over her shoulder, and gave me the briefest of smiles.
Damn it.
I went after her. Shrugging off the people who surrounded me, trying to congratulate me on my victory, I pushed through the crowd, looking for her, but she was already gone.
When I turned around, Trigg was there, his hand on my shoulder, clapping me hard. I was still scanning, looking for Tempest in the crowd, half-convinced she was just a figment of my imagination or some remnant of the head injury I'd incurred months ago.
"Where are you going?” Trigg asked. “Shit, man. That was an awesome fight. You did it. You beat Rush's ass. And Coker looks fucking pissed off, too."
"Yeah," I said, distracted. "Did you see that girl?”
“What girl?” Trigg asked. “Hell, this fight is it, Saint. It’s your comeback. Take a look around. All of these girls are going to be throwing themselves at you. You’re going to be flooded with so much pussy you won’t be able to see straight.”
“The woman with Coker,” I said, still looking behind him. “Did you see her?”
"I have no idea who she was, if that’s what you’re asking," he said. "One of his new girls, maybe? She was hot shit, though. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed. Why? You have the hots for her? You want me to ask around?”
One of his new girls. Why the hell did the thought of that make me want to beat the ever living shit out of something?
“Yeah,” I said. “Ask around. Find out who she is.”
“You got it.”
“Have you heard anything from Abel?" I asked.
"I got a text from his wife during the fight," he said. "It's all good, man. Well, as good as can be expected after what happened. She said his insurance from the plant will cover them. He's got a couple of broken ribs, and the doctor says it looks promising for his leg."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "Shit. That's good."
"It's fucking great, I'd say. You got that purse, too. And against Coker’s guy."
"Yeah." I looked around, scanning the crowd for Coker. "You know that's going to be trouble."
Trigg grinned. "Well, you're not the only person in this town he's pissed off."
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Is something going down?"
"I don't mean anything," Trigg said. "Just that karma has a way of coming back on someone. You do that shit, playing dirty like that, it'll find you eventually."
"Yeah," I said. "Of course, it never hurts to give karma a little push, either."
Trigg looked at me. "What do you have planned?"
Before I could answer, I heard Coker’s voice behind me, and I spun around.
“You cost me good money, you piece of shit,” he snarled, rushing toward me.
I lunged at him, getting in one good swing that connected with his face, sending him skidding to the floor, but a couple of his guys stepped in and threatened to drag me outside. When Trigg blocked them, the owner of the gym got between us.
“Not here, Saint,” Trigg said, standing between me and Coker. “There are too many witnesses.”
Coker wiped his mouth, blood on the corner of his lip. “You’re dead, Saint.”
“You tried to kill me once, if I recall correctly, Coker,” I said. “You did a shit job of it.”
He grinned, his front teeth stained with blood, giving him a crazed look. “Next time I’ll do better.”
“Good luck,” I said. Trigg pushed me through the small crowd that had gathered around us, guiding me to the back room.
“Watch yourself, Saint,” Trigg said. “That guy, he has a lot of reach. We both know that.”
“Coker is a piece of shit.” I spit at the ground. “Trigg, do me a favor. Find out why that girl was with him.”
Trigg shook his head and smiled. “Only you’d be thinking about pussy right now.”
“I’m not,” I said. That was only partly true. “I just want to know what the hell Coker is up to.”
"All right," Trigg said. "I'll ask around. One of the guys will know. If I leave you alone, will you calm your shit down in here? Don't break anything."
"Fuck you," I said. "Look at this shithole room. There's nothing in here to break." I sat down in a chair.
Trigg was right. I needed to calm the hell down. I sat down, breathing and willing my heart rate back to normal. But when I closed my eyes, all I could see was Tempest.
***
Tempest tucked her hair behind her ear, and looked up at me, her eyes wide. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around her legs, and curled up in a little ball, sitting on the flat rock that bordered the clearing in the woods.
I thought my heart was going to explode, looking at her. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.
"There are supposed to be scouts at the tournament tomorrow," I said.
"You're going to do amazing," she said. "I know you will."
"Shit." Beside her, I picked at a piece of the rock. "I have to get a scholarship, Tempest. I need to get out of here. We need to get out of here. We can make something of ourselves outside of here…”
She nodded, biting the middle of her lower lip. "You're going to, Silas. I know you will. You're that good."
I turned toward her, pulled her onto my lap, her long legs straddling me, and she wrapped them around my waist. Her hair spilled down over me, the honey blonde strands falling around my face as she pressed her forehead against mine, closing her eyes. "Wherever I go, you're
coming with me," I said. "You could stay in one place, for once."
She looked at me, her eyes bright. "When I turn eighteen," she said. "I'll be able to finally stop moving."
Tempest leaned in close and kissed me, her lips soft. A small moan escaped her lips, and her tongue found mine. I pulled her tight against me.
For the next three days, at the state championship tournament, she was right there, cheering me on from the side. My parents weren't present, and neither were hers, but she and Elias were there, and that's what mattered to me. I was seventeen, and Tempest and Elias were the closest people in my world.
When I won, Tempest ran for me, jumping into my arms and clinging to my neck as she wrapped her legs around my waist. She buried her head in the side of my neck and kissed me. "I knew you would win."
"It's because of you," I told her. "You're my lucky charm. Now you have to come to all of my matches."
"I'll be at every one of them," she promised.
***
Two weeks later, Tempest was gone. It was only after she left that I found out what her parents had done. They were con artists who'd run a Ponzi scheme on a couple of the wealthy families in town. It was all rumor, of course - none of the families were admitting to having been conned. I guess it didn't look that great when you were a business person who was involved in some kind of dubious get-rich-quick scheme and lost your money.
But people talked. I didn't know what the hell the term Ponzi scheme even meant at the time. It wasn't until a few years ago, when I heard mention of that kind of thing in the news, that I realized the magnitude of what happened in West Bend. That Tempest's parents were actual, real life con artists. And Tempest was a part of it.
Tempest had gone without leaving so much as a note. Her grandmother, supposedly the reason for Tempest and her parents' visit to West Bend, had a black mark on her reputation, the kind my family had on ours when I was growing up. From what I’d heard, she moved outside of town, and I wasn't sure what happened to her, or if she even lived there anymore.
Hell, I wasn't even sure that she was Tempest's grandmother to begin with. She could have been part of the scam. But she just faded away.
The same way Tempest had done.
Except that Tempest hadn’t really faded away, not from my memory at least. I couldn't quite erase her from my past, no matter how hard I tried. I spent every spare minute of my senior year in high school wrestling, angry at her. Angry at the damn world. And the time I didn't spend wrestling, I was at my coach's place. He knew my father was working as a janitor at our high school, drunk off his ass most of the time. So my coach took me under his wing.
He was the one who got me started doing wood-working stuff in his garage. He spent his spare time building furniture and carving stuff out of aspen. He showed me how to use the lathe, and how to judge a good piece of wood. When the arthritis in his hands started making it too painful for him to continue, he'd told me the space was mine.
Tempest had blown into West Bend, and stirred up everything. She had breathed life into me. And then breezed out of town, taking everything that was good in my life with her. I was convinced that she was my good luck charm, and that she'd taken that away with her when she left.
But my coach had set me on the right track, told me there was no such thing as luck. You make your own way in life, he said.
Even so, it still took a long time for me to realize that luck was something for suckers.
Kind of like love.
***
CHAPTER FOUR
TEMPEST
I tucked my bare feet up underneath me in the oversized arm chair, turning the medal over and over in my fingers, the repetition of the movement combined with the sensation of the cool metal against my skin soothing.
Iver handed me a flute filled with champagne, and I took it, despite the fact that it was at odds with where we were at in the con.
“Champagne?" I asked. "It doesn’t seem like we have anything to celebrate. Am I wrong?”
“There’s always reason for champagne, darling." Iver sipped from his glass. "You and that coin. Are you going to ever tell me what - or who - it's from?"
"It's not a coin," I said, distracted by my thoughts. "It's just for luck." Embarrassingly, my thoughts weren't even focused on the grift, the way they should have been. Instead, all I could think about was the unexpected appearance of Silas in my life.
I looked down at the medal in my hands. The sight brought back the painful memory of the day I'd left West Bend.
***
"I'm not leaving!" I protested. But I continued to throw my clothes into the suitcase, preparing for the inevitable.
Of course I was leaving. I couldn't possibly stay.
"What?" My mother stood in front of me, her hands on her hips, shaking her head. "You think you'd last a minute in this town after we left? Your father and I are running a con. The bottom is about to fall out on that. Do you really think you think you could stay here and escape the aftermath?"
"I'm eighteen next year," I pleaded. "Can't we stay somewhere for one year?"
My mother gestured toward my father. "Talk some sense into her," she said, disgusted. "Is this about that Saint boy you've been mooning over for months? Do you really want to give up everything in your life for him?"
"Everything in my life?" My voice sounded high-pitched, as if it belonged to someone else. "Yeah, all of this is everything I could ever want, isn't it? Moving constantly, from place to place, with no more than a minute's notice, lying to everyone about everything? It's like living in paradise. No one even knows my name. This time I'm Mariah. What's my new identity going to be?"
No one knows my name except Silas, I thought. I'd told him that my name was Tempest. He thought it was just a nickname between us.
I wanted him to know the truth. It was important to me that someone knew who I was, even if he didn't know that Tempest was anything more than a nickname. I wanted to give someone that part of me that I couldn't give anyone else - some semblance of the truth, even if it was just a sliver. If I couldn’t give him anything else, at least I could give him my name.
"You're coming with us," my father said. "Be reasonable. Do you know what will happen if you stay? When it comes out that we've run a game on a group of families in town, you'll be arrested."
"I'm a kid," I said. "No one's going to arrest a child."
"A child who's very close to turning eighteen," my father said. "Remember that. Do you think the authorities will believe you had no actual part in this?"
I stood there, silently protesting my fate, even though I knew in my heart that leaving was the only option.
"You're stealing from good people," I said. "Decent people. It's not right."
I don't think there was a more hateful thing I could have said to my father, even if I'd have told him I wanted him dead.
He looked at me, shock etched on his features, before turning to my mother and then back to me again. "Have I taught you nothing?" he asked. "Anyone who allows themselves be conned deserves to be conned. These people - these good people - they have plenty more where that came from."
"It's not right," I said. "What about Letty? What's she going to do here after we leave? I could stay with her."
"Your grandmother is not fit to take care of you," my mother said. "She's struggling as it is. She doesn't have enough money to worry about another mouth to feed."
I swallowed my pride, stepped forward, and hugged my father. "Obviously I'm coming with you,” I lied. “But I won't be thrilled about it."
"I'm glad to see that you're being sensible," he said.
"Yes," I said. "Sensible. I just need to get some air and think about things."
Then I walked outside and headed straight for the car, holding the keys I'd slipped from my father's pocket.
I was going to see Silas. I wasn't leaving.
~ ~ ~
Silas' mother answered the door, her bathrobe clutched tightly around her, a fresh bruise under
her eye. She looked shaken, and I asked if she was okay. It was the first time I'd ever met her.
"Silas isn't here," she said, her voice unsteady. "He went off somewhere."
She backed into the living room of the small house, leaving the door open. I took it as an invitation to come inside.
The house was tiny, the interior dark and the curtains drawn, the only light inside coming from the inch wide gap between two panels of cheap fabric tacked to the frame of one of the windows. I stood there for a minute, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. I'd never been to Silas' house before. I'd asked him once if he wanted to bring me home, but he just shook his head, saying he didn't want his parents' poison to rub off on me. I knew that Silas' father treated Silas' mother as his personal punching bag.
Silas hated him.
Being here in person and seeing where Silas lived was somehow more horrible than I had anticipated. I felt my breath come in short gasps, almost like I was hyperventilating, even after I told myself to calm down.
When we were traveling two summers before, this old gypsy woman had talked to me about my aura. I laughed when she told me my aura was purple. She said it meant that I was intuitive and sensitive. She was a scam artist - I should know. But standing here right now, all I could think was that this place, even Silas' mother, was surrounded by a dark cloud. If there were such a thing as auras, everything here would be black.
"Where is Silas?" I asked. "Is he okay?"
She sat hunched over on the sofa, her face in her hands. "He's out, gone somewhere. He goes sometimes. I don't know where. He just goes."
I felt a surge of anger at her for not knowing where Silas was. How could she have no idea where her child was? And how could she display such little concern for him?
The feeling was followed immediately by pity for this broken woman. "Are you okay?" I asked, my voice soft. "Do you need some ice?"
Silas' mother shook her head. "His room is down there if you want to wait. Don't know how long he'll be. I just need to lie down here for a minute. The headaches..." Her voice trailed off, and she stretched out on the tattered sofa. I wondered if she was drunk or if I should call a doctor.
Luke: A West Bend Saints Romance Page 39