by Cora Brent
“I’m going,” I said as she ended the call with Cord.
She nodded. “Me too.”
The others were very relieved about Creed but didn’t want to overwhelm him at the hospital. Brayden offered to drive Stephanie home since we’d driven over in my car but she insisted on walking back.
“Did Cord say how bad he was hurt?” I asked Saylor as I drove the short distance to the hospital.
“He said it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.” She was ecstatic. “He made it, Truly! He’ll be fine.”
The emergency room wasn’t crowded. We found Creed flanked by his brothers on one of the patient beds beyond the triage area. He was wearing only a pair of boxers and scowling as a nurse tried to shove a gown at him.
Chase was laughing. “Dignity’s out the window when you’re in the hospital, Creedence. Now behave and put the damn gown on.”
Creed grabbed the gown and grumbled as the nurse left. The right side of his face had a freshly stitched gash running across the cheek. His chest was bruised and his right leg was stretched out on the bed with an ice pack carefully placed over the knee.
Cord saw us first. He held his arms open for Saylor and then smiled at me. “Told him you’d show up.”
I was staring at Creed as his brother spoke. His head jerked up and his eyes locked on me with sudden intensity. The penetrating look he gave me reminded me of that first night at The Hole.
“Tallulah Rae Lee.”
I smiled. “Creedence Gentry.”
I went to him. My hands traveled all over his chest, his arms, his face. We kissed with a feeling deeper than passion and he lifted me up to the bed. I was aware that Saylor and the boys had quietly retreated after closing the bed curtain around us.
“You’re real,” I said, trying to convince myself that he was here. He was solid. He was whole.
“Yeah baby,” he groaned as it became apparent he wasn’t hurt badly enough to interfere with his urges. I put my hand on him and stifled his groan with my mouth.
“You’re all I thought about,” he whispered between kisses. “I just wanted to earn the right to hold you again.”
I wrapped his arms around me tightly and he buried his face in my breasts. “What happened, Creed?”
He slowly raised his head and sighed. “It’s over,” he said tersely. He pushed my hair from my face and kissed my forehead. “He’s not dead, honey.”
I shuddered. “But you would have been, wouldn’t you?”
Creed didn’t answer. He ran his hands up and down my arms. He kissed my neck. “Come closer.”
I looked at the flimsy cot, then glanced at the meager privacy afforded by the bed curtain.
“How?”
Creed picked me up in his arms and held me to his chest. He grimaced in pain when I accidentally brushed against his knee.
“Is it bad?” I asked.
“Nah. It’s a sprain or a ligament or some shit. I don’t know. They’re gonna put me in a machine to find out.” He massaged my neck and brought his lips to my forehead again. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“For what, Creed? I want to be here.”
His blue eyes were the same as his brothers’. They were the sharp, vivid color of a desert sky. They watched me with a tenderness I had never received from any other man. Words didn’t come easy to Creedence and it seemed like he was choosing them carefully.
“I’m sorry that I thought being in your bed every night told you everything important. Truly, you talk about how you feel and you tell me all the shit that matters to you. You don’t hold back and that’s not something I was able to give to you. But I swear I’m gonna try, honey.” Creed held my face in his hands. “I want to be the kind of man who deserves you.”
An ugly feeling swept over me as Creed stroked my hair and murmured words I’d waited my whole life to hear. He assumed I’d been nothing but honest with him all along, that there was nothing about me that was sordid, disreputable.
“I had a baby,” I whispered.
He kissed me. “What, honey?”
I pulled his hands off my face and looked straight at him. “I had a baby, Creedence. Four years ago. A girl, a daughter. I gave her away without even holding her once.” My hands covered my stomach, as they had a million times before. Beneath my clothes was the faded scar where she’d been ripped out of my body after the labor began to go badly. I gave him a bleak smile. “So you see I haven’t told you everything.”
Creed swallowed. “You don’t need to talk about it right now.”
“Yes, I do. I tell you a bunch of colorful childhood stories and you think you know everything about me.”
His eyes darkened with confusion. “What the hell are you talking about? I never said I knew everything about you.”
A tear rolled down my cheek. I couldn’t even make sense out of what I was saying. “But you think I’m good and pure somehow.”
Creed chuckled. “I knew you weren’t pure. I wouldn’t have come after you if you were.”
“Do you want to know who my baby’s father was?”
“No.”
I made him listen anyway. “He was my mother’s boyfriend. I let him fuck me every which way about a hundred times and I didn’t care what I was risking or who he belonged to. And that was just the beginning for me. I let men use me, Creed. Quite a few of them.”
He was getting angry. He shifted and glared at me. “Lady, you want to hear details of every female I ever fucked?”
I didn’t answer him. I looked away.
Creed took a handful of my hair and turned my head in his direction. “You want to hear about it, Truly? You want to know about the tightest pussies I ever stuck it to or all the times some bitch wrapped her mouth around my dick?”
“No,” I whispered.
He let go of me. “Then why the hell are you trying to tell me about every man you ever spread your legs for? Don’t you get it? I don’t fucking care.”
I shut my eyes and exhaled. Creed grabbed my hand. He sighed.
“Truly Lee, who the hell ever told you that no man could find you worth caring about?”
“Nobody,” I answered. It was true. It was just what I had secretly told myself.
Without warning Declan opened up the curtain and poked his head inside. “Got a lead on that shit you asked me to take care of.”
“Thanks, Deck,” Creed answered as I climbed off the bed and smoothed out my clothes.
Declan looked from one of us to the other and then smiled. “Think I’ll go knock off somewhere tonight and then head out first thing in the morning.” He took two steps to Creed’s side and slapped him on the shoulder affectionately. He turned his head and winked at me. “This is a good girl you got here.”
“I know that,” Creed said quietly. “Seriously, thanks Deck. And don’t go getting swallowed up by that desert shithole. You’ve always got a home here with us, brother.”
Declan Gentry might be one of the toughest fellows I’d ever been in the same room with, but I swore he got a little misty eyed when Creedence called him ‘brother’.
“Take care, man,” he muttered and then was gone.
The sound of his boots had barely faded when the same nurse who had tried to bundle Creed into a hospital gown irritably flung the curtains open. “It’s time for your MRI, Mr. Gentry. However, I cannot wheel you through the hospital halls dressed like that.”
Creed winced as he sat all the way up. He looked down at himself. “What the hell do you mean? I’m not dressed at all.”
I picked up the gown and began to unfold it. “I’ll make sure Mr. Gentry cooperates.” The nurse retreated and I accidentally tore the gown in two. I threw it on the floor. “And they’ll likely charge you about six hundred bucks for that piece of garbage.”
“Hey,” Creed nudged me gently, taking my hand. “It’ll be hours before they let me out of here. You gonna hang around?”
I kissed his knuckles. “I should go. Let you get all medically tended to.”
> Creed seemed disappointed in my answer. He gave me a faint smile though. “Well you damn well better come kiss me before you go.”
It was a struggle to pull away. I wanted to stay with him.
“This isn’t over,” Creed warned me and draped the paper gown around his neck. He was talking about our unfinished conversation.
I kissed his forehead one more time. “Good night, Creed.”
Half an hour later I was back in my apartment, crawling into my lonely bed. I got underneath my log cabin quilt and wondered what the hell I was doing there. For days I’d been in agony over the possibility of losing Creedence. I’d confronted my feelings for him and realized they were much stronger than I’d ever wanted them to be. So why in the hell wasn’t I at his side?
I sat up in the dark and swung my legs over the side of the bed. After carefully pulling my shirt off I touched my stomach. It never felt quite the same after the baby. It always felt loose and empty. Sometimes I would dream about the confusing months of my pregnancy and swear that tiny girl had never left my body. Maybe it was the same for every woman who ever carried a child.
I should have known Creed Gentry wouldn’t be shocked by anything I could tell him.
“I want to be the kind of man who deserves you.”
“I want to deserve you too,” I said out loud in the darkness. I swiped at my eyes, trying to get it together. There shouldn’t be anything puzzling about this. Creed was everything I’d long ago stopped hoping for. He wasn’t perfect. Neither was I. But we were far more than two bodies crashing together.
My eyes were suddenly heavy. I settled on top of the quilt and closed them, feeling more at ease than I had in a while.
I knew exactly what needed to be sorted out.
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO
CREED
Seventeen stitches. Bruised ribs. Sprained knee.
I was the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.
Cord and Chase were intent on helping me. They tried to half carry my ass through the door until I swatted them away with my crutches. The dawn was just breaking as we left the hospital and drove home. Saylor squeezed into the back row with me for the short drive.
She leaned over. “You sure you don’t want some of the pain meds?”
“No,” I said flatly. “And Say, do like I asked and get rid of that shit.”
She patted my shoulder. “You got it.”
Cord complained he was starving so he stopped at a McDonald’s drive thru. He parked the truck and the four of us sat there opening up Egg McMuffins. It was just about the best thing I’d ever eaten.
“So what now?” Cord was looking at me in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. I poked at my knee. The doctor had said nothing was torn and surgery was unlikely but I wouldn’t be running marathons anytime soon. “Guess I can kiss my security job goodbye.”
“Ah,” Chase waved a hand. “They’ll take you back when you can walk upright again.” He balled up his sandwich wrapper and stuffed it in a bag. “Can’t fucking believe you gave all that cash away.”
I swallowed a bite. “This shit needs to be over, really over. That means blood money is off limits.” I’d spent my whole life barely scraping by but I didn’t want any part of that kind of reward.
“You could have at least kept enough for the hospital bill.”
“It’ll be all right, Chase.”
My brother swiveled around to look at me. “I’m just being a dick. It was nice, what you did.”
“It was,” Saylor agreed quietly.
I hadn’t been able to get Emilio out of my head. He might not have been such a bad guy, just a man who got on the wrong side of life and couldn’t quite find his way back. I’d asked Declan to use his resources to track Emilio’s family down and give them the cash Gabe had thrown at me.
When we got home I had to beat my brothers’ helping hands away again. When I limped to the living room and sprawled on the couch Saylor actually tried to cover me with a blanket.
“Seriously?” I asked her.
“Let her do it,” Chase argued. “She’s nesting.”
Saylor made a face at him and then gave me a serious look as Cord put his arm around her. Her eyes were watery. “Creed, I’m all jacked up with hormones but I’m damn happy your ornery ass is home.”
“After all,” Cord chimed in, “we’ll be needing you to sing at the wedding.”
“I’d be honored,” I said. I meant it.
Saylor was exhausted. “You coming?” she asked Cord as she headed to their room.
“Soon,” he told her.
However his eyes were on me as Saylor closed the door to the bedroom.
I glanced pointedly over to where Chase was rooting around in the kitchen cabinets. I nodded. This couldn’t wait anymore.
“Chasyn,” Cord called. “Come on over here.”
He slammed the cabinet. “I thought we had some pretzels left.”
“I ate ‘em all. I’ll get you some more later. Just come over here and sit with us a minute.”
Chase sank slowly into the ratty armchair in the corner of the room. Cord sat on the couch beside me. Chase being Chase, twice as smart as either of us, could tell something was up. He leaned forward in the chair and watched us warily.
Cordero pulled something out of his pocket. It was a glossy brochure. “I did some asking around at the hospital. There’s an outpatient program just down the road a ways for folks trying to kick a habit.”
Chase’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t going to let us get away with being vague. “What kind of habit, Cord?”
I decided to lay it all out. “Addiction.” I watched Chase blink and then shrink into the chair. I had to force myself to continue. “You’ve got a problem. We all see it. I’d bet the last dollar in my pocket that you see it too.”
“Would you now?” My brother was using the same quiet, deadly voice I’d heard the last time I tried to confront him.
“Chase,” I tried again. “You think I don’t know how you feel? How many times have you picked me up after I fucked myself up so bad I couldn’t raise my head?”
Chase closed his eyes and hung his head. I grunted as I got my crutches and limped over to him. I wouldn’t let him be alone.
“Look,” I said, “I know what it’s like to be desperate to take the edge off. But the shitty blood in our veins doesn’t give us that luxury. The Gentry trap is always waiting.”
My brother exhaled raggedly. “I went to see her.”
“Who?” Cord asked.
Chase raised his head and looked at us with anguished blue eyes. “Mom.”
“Shit,” Cord swore. “That’s what you were doing in Emblem?”
“I didn’t plan it,” Chase said darkly. “I had Saylor’s car so I ditched class on an impulse and drove down there. You guys, sometimes I just sit around thinking about how it can’t possibly be as fucking bad as I remember. I think maybe I made some of it up or it’s been exaggerated over time.”
“You didn’t,” I said shortly. “It was every bit as bad and maybe even a hell of a lot worse.”
Chase looked miserable. “I know.”
Cord took a deep breath. “Was he around?”
“Yeah,” Chase admitted with a bitter laugh. “He answered the door. He smiled. The fucker smiled at me. He asked me to come in and have a beer.”
“Did you?”
“No. I told him to take the bullet train straight to hell and that I was there to see my mother.”
Cord glanced at me. I could see him getting edgier by the second. He hated any mention of Emblem or of our parents.
I kept my voice gentle. “Did you see her, Chase?”
He was frowning at the floor. “I saw her. She was sitting at that same old filthy table in the kitchen. Her arm was hanging at her side and it was covered in so many tracks it looked like she had smallpox. She was skinny as shit and she’s lost a lot of her hair. I tried to get her to look at me and finally she did. Fuc
k!” Chase held his head in his hands and started to sob softly. “There was nothing there you guys. Nothing at all. She was living and she was breathing. She even muttered my name once but then she just got up and wandered to her room because she’d already forgotten I was there. Then Benton laughed and told me to sit the hell down have a beer. I ran out before I could do something to land my ass behind prison wire. But you better believe I thought about it. He’s old, fat. He wouldn’t have had a chance.”
Cord crept over and put a comforting hand on Chase’s head. It was so hard to look at them. I saw them as the children they had been years ago when the three of us were all trapped together.
My boys.
“She’s long gone,” I told them sadly. “Whoever she had been; an artist, a mother, it’s all been sucked away. And even though Benton’s an evil shit, he didn’t do it all. Mostly she did it to herself. She crawled into the hole and never tried to get out.”
I leaned over and touched Chase’s back. I felt his shaky breathing as he tried to pull himself back together.
“Don’t crawl into the hole, Chasyn,” I whispered. “But even if you do we’re coming in after you.”
“Every goddamn time,” Cord said, hugging our brother. “Always.”
Chase reluctantly agreed to enroll in the program. Then he admitted where he’d been stashing his pills. Cord went to go clean them out of his room.
“Aren’t you tired?” Chase asked I lumbered back to the couch.
“I could sleep,” I admitted.
But he shook his head ruefully. “Not just today. I mean in general. Jesus, is shit ever gonna calm down?”
I set my crutches on the floor. “Fuck calm. Calm is boring.”
Chase shrugged. “You’re right.” He gave me a mischievous grin. “So will there be a double wedding ceremony?”
I tossed a cushion at him. “Shut up.”
Chase dodged the cushion. “No. I remember what you said just before the fight. And I mean to torture you with it.” He paused. “Really though, she is a top tier chick. So did you tell her?”