Protector

by Kate Stone

  Stunned didn’t begin to cover my reaction. Would it be like that anywhere we went? How could Tyler Kent tell me that Wade and his family were dangerous when the people of the area loved them so dearly for the service they had done for the community? A clear picture was starting to form, and I began to think maybe Watchdogs were only dangerous for the police, not everyday people like myself.

  When we finished our meal, Wade dropped fifty dollars on the table before heading to the door.

  “Hey, Wade,” the waitress called over. I thought she was going to fight the generous tip he left, but instead she said, “Can you tell James not to forget my husband? He needs his glaucoma medicine—he’s about out.”

  “Sure thing, Miss Patty,” Wade gave a wave and exited.

  “You guys deliver medicine, too?”

  “Mm, sort of,” he murmured, grabbing the helmets from a saddlebag and handed me one. “Ready?”

  Chapter Four – Wade

  The next destination on the Convince Lilly I Was a Good Guy Tour was John McClelland’s farm, where we petted horses and goats, picked cherries, and fed ducks. Lilly was glowing the entire time, soaking up every moment of the day. By the time noon rolled around, I drove down and around Deep Valley Lake, stopping by a pier to let her take in the view and sunshine, making a promise to get the family boat out there for her one day. My mind ran wild at the thought, imagining her sunbathing for hours as we sipped cold beers and fooled around.

  Next, we stopped by the local hardware store and picked out some paint she wanted for her front door. Lilly had started to pick out some plants, but I stopped her. “Let’s go out to the club house. Our supplies are there and we have a ton of options. We can borrow one of the trucks to deliver them.”

  Lilly didn’t hesitate to agree. As we drove out to the clubhouse, I had a few concerns walking her in there without warning everyone. One was the possibility of marijuana, in vast quantities, out in the open. Considering I had made the necessary deliveries the night before, I doubted it would be a problem. My top concern was the same as everyone’s when bringing a potential partner home for the first time—and that was my siblings need to embarrass me. Only it wasn’t just Cellie and James I had to worry about, but all the members, young and old.

  First things first, though. When we pulled up to the clubhouse, I took her around the back to where the nursery was. We walked up and down the seemingly endless rows of plants and let her pick out the ones she liked. Lilly had simple taste, which I admired about her. You would think the small-town girls would be the ones of simple taste, but instead, they tended to like everything flashy and over-the-top. Lilly picked out a few ferns, flowers for the window boxes she wanted, and a sapling, which I loaded into mine and James’ shared truck, along with the wood and tools to build her custom boxes. Dusting the dirt off my hands, I peered over to her, “Ready to go meet the family?”

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said. I could sense the little bit of nervous energy about her.

  Patting her shoulder, I tried to reassure her, “Don’t worry, they are the type that their bark is worse than their bite.” If you weren’t an abuser, that is.

  Stepping into the clubhouse, I was overjoyed to see it was only Cellie and a few of the dads and uncles of the group. Rico and the other guys must have been out on a job, of one variety or another. “Hey, guys,” I announced, walking Lilly over to the bar. “This is Lilly, she’s new in town.”

  “You don’t say,” Uncle Clyde called over from his table, appearing to already be a handful of drinks in at three in the afternoon. “Well, welcome to town there, Lilly.”

  “What are you doing being seen with a roughneck like Wade?” Brian chimed in.

  “Come on now, you know Wade could charm the hide off a cow,” Clyde replied, erupting thunderous laughter from his table. The comment wasn’t to be mistaken for a compliment. It was a dig about how many girlfriends I had in my past, but they were playing it subtly so they didn’t spark my wrath.

  “You just ignore them,” Cellie instructed from her usual place behind the bar. “They only make jokes because they’re sour their youthful good looks left them decades ago.”

  “Whose good looks left them?” Clyde scoffed, running a hand over his salt and pepper beard that nearly reached his chest. “You’ve gone crazy, Cellie. I could get any woman in town I wanted.”

  “Must be the keeping them that’s the hard part! What number divorce was Deidre? Three?”

  “Four.”

  The whole place roared. Once the laughter died down, I introduced Lilly to everyone, saving Cellie for last. Taking my spot at the end of the bar, I patted the stool next to me. “Lilly, this is my little sister, Celeste. Celeste, Lilly.”

  My sister extended a hand from across the bar, “You’re welcome to call me Cellie. Everyone does. So what brings you to Newshire?”

  Lilly shrugged, “I wanted to live in a small town rather than the city, so I picked a couple places at random, applied to the local CPS divisions, and decided on Newshire.”

  “CPS, huh? That’s a tough job. Tells a lot about a person when they choose that career. Very admirable of you, Lilly.”

  “Thanks,” she smiled. “How was it growing up with Wade?”

  And there it went, the question that avalanched into an entire hour of Cellie filling Lilly with stories such as the time I tried to jump a fence with my bicycle and broke my arm in two places, and how I put a tadpole in her tea one time because I was mad she broke my favorite action figure. Typically, I would have been brooding over the hammy routine Cellie seemed to always have at the ready. Yet, I found myself not minding at all, entranced by Lilly’s laughter and smile. When Cellie began to tell the story of the first time our parents caught me with a girl in my room, I pulled Lilly from the counter with the promise of a tour.

  “Your sister is funny,” Lilly beamed.

  “Yeah, when it’s my material she’s using,” I snorted, though I was only teasing. Cellie was a riot, and most of the time acted as the underappreciated backbone of the family. We went along the walls of the clubhouse where countless pictures hung along neon beer signs and old cigarette advertisements. I gave the story behind each picture. The house my grandfather, Gilligan, built and my family still lived in. The founding fathers of the Watchdogs, Gilligan, Kenneth, and Maximiliano. Max’s kids, Paolo and Angelica. I skipped over the pictures of my dad and Kenneth’s son, Dennis. They were both killed in a brawl with the local police, and I didn’t want to put a damper on such a perfect day. That story could wait a little while.

  As we started to wrap up the unimpressive tour, James and a few other members rolled into the clubhouse. My brother’s eyes immediately found Lilly and me. The entourage accompanying James beelined for the backroom. There was a tension rising in the room, and it was because of the foreign presence. It wasn’t like James put a ban on having friends over to the clubhouse, but it was clear by the look on his face that there was business he needed to attend to—which he couldn’t get into with Lilly hanging around.

  “Hey there,” James greeted, coming over and sticking out a hand. “James McIntyre.”

  “Lilly Sweeney.”

  His eyes shifted between her and me, a half smile daring to peer through his scruffy expression. If our dad was still around and he didn’t have the full weight of the club on his shoulders, James would have done the same thing as Cellie, make friends with Lilly while also trying to embarrass me. “We are about to head out, picked her out some plants I’m gonna put in for her. I’m taking the truck for the evening.”

  “I see. Well, you crazy kids have fun. Lilly, you’re welcome around any time. Enjoy your evening. Wade, be sure to be back here tomorrow by noon. We got a lawncare management meeting.”

  Meaning, we had to have a meeting about our marijuana sources.

  “You got it, boss.”

  “Charming group you have there,” Lilly commented as soon as we were alone.

>   “Don’t let them know you think that,” I chuckled. “They’ll never let you go.”

  “Doesn’t seem like such a bad group to be associated with.” I glanced over the bed of the truck at her. There was a genuine affection to her voice that made my heart skip a beat. Could there be something real between us? The romantic endeavors my family enjoyed raking me over the coals for had never ended well, and while some of them ended because of differences in personalities, the majority of my break ups had an element of the Watchdogs to it. Some couldn’t handle the heat that often came down on the club, some obviously used me for status in town, and others thought they should be considered more important than the network of men and women that had spent decades protecting the community and becoming a family. I didn’t care who I met, no one would ever come before family. Lilly didn’t give me the impression that she would ever ask that.

  The drive to her house was cloaked in a comfortable silence. I didn’t want to disrupt any thinking she may have been in the midst of about my family and me. I had such a good feeling about her, it made me feel a little manic. Never before had I clicked with someone so quickly. Sure, I had my fair share of one-night stands where the sexual chemistry was instantaneous—this was different. I wanted to drink Lilly in until my lungs filled and I drowned in a hazy nirvana.

  We got to her house and I carried the ferns inside and placed them at her direction. As Lilly grabbed her paintbrush, painting tape, and readied her station at the front door, I got right to work on the window boxes. The construction was easy enough, just nailing together a few boards and attaching some metal hooks on the back. We talked over the sound of my hammering, swapping fond stories of the great outdoors in childhood. Lilly shared the time her family went camping and her sister thought the sound of a horsefly was a bee, ran into the lake, and hopped in. I shared the story of my first day on the job landscaping. I couldn’t have been more than thirteen and lost my grip of a lawnmower at the top of a steep decline, standing in awe as it raced down the hill and flipped onto its back with the blades still going.

  By the time the flowerboxes were constructed and finished with a coat of cherrywood stain, Lilly had completed her second coat of the door and retreated inside to make us an early dinner. While the boxes dried, I dug the hole for her tree. She had told me to plant it where I thought it belonged. I decided outside of the kitchen window. Not only because I wanted to steal glimpses of her at work inside, but because I hoped she would be in town long enough to watch the tree grow as the days slid by, stealing glances while she had her morning coffee and early dinners.

  Once the boxes were dry, I poured in the soil and planted the flowers. Standing back, I admired the house. Before our crew had come just days ago, the house was showing its age and neglect. Leaves and twigs from fall had matted the yard, and the house looked without life. With Three Brothers Landscaping touch and Lilly’s flare, it was manicured and vibrant. If it weren’t for the great misfortune of having such a rotten neighbor, Lilly’s home would have been perfect.

  Stepping through the kitchen door, I kicked my boots off to the side so not to track in dirt and then headed for the kitchen sink. “Smells great in here. Whatcha have cooking?”

  “Some pork chops, spinach, and potatoes.”

  Leaning against the cabinet, I dried my hands as I took in the sight of her. Lilly had pulled her hair back into a low bun and changed into a pair of cotton shorts and tank top. She was comfortable and in her element. My eyes traced the few stray hairs that dared to escape her bun. “If I knew any better, I would say you were trying to romance me.”

  “What gives you that idea?” she questioned, her eyes never leaving the slab of meat sizzling on the cast iron skillet.

  I slinked toward her, gently brushing the stray hairs back into place. “You know what they say, the way to a man’s heart is through the stomach.”

  She tried with all her might not to smile as she looked up with defiance, “You’re right the one meal worth of groceries I had in my fridge was selected just in the hopes of cooking for you so that you’ll fall in love with me.”

  “Doesn’t seem too farfetched,” I winked.

  As I retrieved a beer from the fridge, she replied, “I just figured you deserved a nice meal after all this hard work you’ve been putting in for me. I still feel like I should give you—”

  “Keep your purse tucked away,” I interrupted. “You think I’m doing this all for free? I’m laying the groundwork, Lilly.”

  “Groundwork for what?”

  “That’s a question I don’t even know the answer to,” I chuckled. “How long until dinner is ready?”

  “About twenty minutes.”

  I clapped my hands once and rubbed them together, “All right, give me something else to do, a box to unpack or something.”

  “Just sit down and enjoy your beer,” she laughed. “You’ve done plenty.”

  “Now, now. I want to be as much of a help as I can. What’s the point in just waiting around when I can mark something off your list?”

  “I have unpacked most of the common area stuff. The only boxes left are my books for the living room, but I want them alphabetized. Which I don’t think you can do in twenty minutes.”

  “Hold onto that doubt,” I winked before dashing into the living room. Finding the only remaining boxes stacked against the wall, I pulled them out by the armful, quickly assessing the last names and lining them up on the built-in bookshelves that lined the wall behind her couch. There were more books than I anticipated, but I was determined to impress her with my speed and accuracy—in a truly manly fashion.

  I got through three-fourths of the books before she called, “Dinner is ready!”

  “Just a sec,” I murmured, knowing she couldn’t hear me. Grabbing the last of the books, I sorted them among the other books as fast as I could.

  “Did you hear me?” Lilly asked as she came around the corner, witnessing me placing the last two books in their prospective positions. “Wow, impressive,” she chimed, looping her arm through mine as she took in my job well done.

  “How’s that doubt holding up?”

  She took a moment to scan the book bindings, plucking one from the front of the line-up. “Considering Oscar Wilde doesn’t go between Fitzgerald and Hawthorne, I think it’s holding up okay.” We both chuckled and took a couple minutes to fix the books I had messed up in my haste. Once they were to her liking, Lilly leaned against the shelves in front of me. “Thank you again for all your help.”

  “Not a problem, now quit thanking me.”

  “What else am I supposed to say?” she questioned with a bashful smile. Her nervous fingers picked at the hem of my shirt.

  A new, unspoken tension was rising between us. Resting my arm against the shelves above her, I closed the distance separating us. Her eyes flickered up to mine, and while I tried to read her mind, she filled in the gaps for me. Grabbing the sides of my neck, she leaned up and planted a kiss firmly on my lips.

  I was putty. After my moment of being stuck in a blissful daze, I kissed her back. Lilly’s lips were as soft and plush as they looked. There was something so magnetic about her touch, and I think she felt it too. I felt immediate arousal, but a very unique kind I wasn’t sure I ever felt before. Normally, I got turned on and itched for relief. With Lilly, I wanted to explore every inch of her skin and praise it, admire it, caress it. There was a moment where I thought I was going crazy, but then she pulled me tight against her, sandwiching herself between me and the shelves. Oh, she felt it, too.

  Even though I only had a few sips of beer, I felt intoxicated. My hands slipped down her sides and she curved her body into mine. When her tongue slipped past my lips and grazed my tongue, my hips instinctively flicked into hers. With our pelvises pinned to the wall, I forced myself to rip my mouth from hers to look her in the eye. Lilly’s eyes were as hungry and as dilated as mine—and she only let me stare for a second. Her lips crashed back into m
ine; my hands roamed over her bottom and to the back of her thighs. With great ease, I lifted her from the ground and headed down the hallway with her. We both could sense where this was going.

  The moment I placed her down in her bedroom, there was a frenzy of removing clothes. She ripped my shirt off and I slid her tiny cotton shorts down. Soon, we were naked in front of each other and I couldn’t help but ogle her. Lilly was endless, smooth skin. Her slender frame had womanly curves to them, supple breasts with dusty rose nipples, and wide hips that begged to be held.

  Pushing her back lightly onto the bed, I hovered over her and kissed her deeply, roaming her mouth with my tongue. A shudder shot through me as I felt her velvety hand wrap around my erect shaft. “Easy now,” I purred, respectfully removing her hand. It wasn’t that I didn’t want her to touch me, it was that I wanted this to last.

  My hands groped her breasts as I licked and sucked her earlobe before traveling down the length of her neck. I covered her in kisses, sucking lightly everywhere I went. Her uneven breaths and quiet moans egged me on. My mouth practically watered as I neared my goal, yearning to taste her, to make her shout in pleasure opposed to whisper. My tongue trailed down the center of her hips, and just as I neared her pussy, she pushed me onto my back. I was wild from desire at the sight of Lilly kneeling over me, my face between her legs.

  A woman who knew what she wanted was a woman that could wreck my whole world. I didn’t waste a second longer, sucking gingerly at her clit, my fingers outlining her seam. Bringing her pelvis downward, I lapped at her with care and attentiveness, noticing when she made a little more noise or a subtle movement. Her fingers gripped at my hair as I circled her clit. When I picked up the speed and her hips began to rock against my face, my member throbbed.