He’d had his bike at the fights, and he’d known he wouldn’t go far with the kid hanging off his arm. So he’d dragged him to a phone booth and called for some help.
“Max.”
“Hey—we’re getting somewhere. I’m Maverick. Shawna here’s being nice enough to let you use up all her first aid supplies and sleep on her sofa tonight so you can get your feet under you a little bit. You have a car out at the fights? Or a bike?”
“Car.”
“Good. She’ll get you back to it tomorrow. If you’re not ready to drive, I’ll come back up and get you home.”
“Why?” He bent his head over the Tupperware bowl Shawna had put on the table and spat out a wad of thickening blood, into a deepening pool of the same. Behind them, Shawna made a grunt of disgust.
“Seems like you need a friend.”
“Fuck off.”
Maverick had grown up in foster care from the time he was four, all of that time in the boys’ home. He had intimate knowledge of all the different suits of armor boys in pain wore. So he only chuckled.
“Okay, Max. We got you as cleaned up as we’re going to, I think. And Shawna’s got her sofa made up all comfy for you. You need help getting over there?”
He shook his head.
Maverick stood. “It feels like hell, I know. I’ve been there, too. But it’s never as bad as it feels. If you can keep your head down and get through, just lean in and put your shoulder to each day, you’ll come up on a day that’s not so bad. Then one that’s pretty good. If you keep going, keep fighting, maybe you’ll get to have a great day. But you gotta fight to win, Max.”
“Fuck off,” the kid said again.
He wasn’t a kid—he’d been fighting bare-chested, as most of them did, and he had a fair amount of ink, far more than Maverick. Sitting here tending to his many wounds, Maverick had had opportunity to study some of the work. Most of it was shitty quality, but a few were well done. One of the better pieces was military—some kind of Army insignia, with a battalion number and the words Operation Desert Shield/Operation Desert Storm under it. Desert Storm had gone down earlier that year—Max wasn’t long out of the service, and he’d seen action, so he was no kid.
It had been a short war, with few American casualties, but they’d done some significant damage to their enemies. Maybe that was this poor guy’s pain. Maybe he had blood on his hands. That was no easy burden, even when there wasn’t much blame.
“I’ll see you, Max. Get some sleep.”
Shawna followed him to the door, and he caught her hand and pulled her close for a kiss. “Thanks, sweetheart. I know this is a lot to ask.”
She smiled and pushed firmly up against him. “I don’t mind, Mav. It’s sweet you thought of me for help.”
He kissed her again, lingering this time, to show her he appreciated the help. Then he set her back. “Call the clubhouse if you need anything. I’ll crash there tonight and check in in the morning, if I haven’t heard from you.”
“That’s fine. Mav—can I ask you somethin’?”
“Sure. Shoot.”
“It don’t seem like you know this guy.”
“I don’t—but I think you’re safe. He’s in no shape to do you any wrong.”
“I know—I ain’t worried about that. Poor guy’s a mess. But...why’re you doin’ all this for him? You don’t know him, and it don’t seem like he’s grateful.”
Why was he doing all this? He hadn’t taken the time yet to think about it. Maybe it was guilt for Ben Brodsky, ending that young life and all its potential. Maybe it was seeing the kid’s crazy death wish and remembering the boys like that he’d grown up with. Maybe it was like when he was a kid and he’d find a stray dog in the neighborhood—he’d go door to door all over the place, sometimes miles from the home, looking for where it belonged.
Yeah, it was that, all of it. He was a sucker for lost things. He’d been one himself.
He looked back at the broken man slumped at Shawna’s table. “Just trying to do some good where I can, sweetheart.”
CHAPTER SIX
Hours after she’d picked Kelsey up from school, Jenny was still shaking. Every time she thought of Maverick at the fence, talking to Kelsey, her heart squeezed.
She’d caused a scene in the classroom, when Betsy had explained what had happened. They hadn’t called her. They’d been worried enough to call the cops, but no one had bothered to call Kelsey’s mother. Just hey, good to see you, and by the way, there was a strange man talking to your daughter at the fence today.
Not a stranger. Maverick. Doing things his way, as usual. She’d been reasonable and far more flexible than he deserved, and goddammit! She’d told him to wait, that she needed time. Three days later, he was stalking Kelsey at school. Talking to her.
She sat on the closed lid of the toilet and watched her little girl playing in the tub, singing nonsense to herself and piling pink bubbles on her head.
“Hey, pixie?”
“Yeah, Mommy?”
“I want to talk to you about what happened at school today.”
Kelsey frowned. “You did mean talk at Miss Betsy.”
“I know. I told her I was sorry.”
“Your sorry was mean talk, too.”
That was true; she’d barely managed to get the words out of her infuriated head. All she’d been thinking through the whole scene was YOU STUPID BITCH YOU STUPID BITCH. In fact, she liked Betsy and Connie and everybody who worked there, and overall, they did a good job of teaching and caring for the kids. But today, they’d dropped the ball, and that ball had been her daughter.
So yeah, she hadn’t been kind, even in apologizing.
“That’s not what I want to talk about, Kelse. I want to talk about what Miss Betsy told me.”
“I talked to a sad man and that was bad.”
“It wasn’t bad, pix. It was unsafe. Do you know why?”
“Stra-nger Da-nger.” She nodded seriously, dipping her head low, and the bubbles slid off her head and over her face. Sputtering, she pushed them away.
This was dicey territory. Maverick was her father. If Jenny did decide to let him into their lives—a much less likely scenario now—then she didn’t want Kelsey to be afraid of him when she was properly introduced. If she’d never seen him, that wouldn’t have been a problem, but now she had, and if Jenny made her think of the ‘sad man’ she’d met—Jenny’s heart had cramped a little at that—as dangerous, things could get complicated when she found out that man was her father.
Fuck you, Mav. Just fuck you for having to get your way every goddamn time.
“Right. You have to be careful when you meet somebody new, and you should always be with somebody you trust when you do. Right?”
“Uh-huh. A good grownup. But he was a good grownup, Mommy. He was nice, and he said to not talk to strangers, just like you say.”
“Why did you talk to him, then, Kelse?”
She shrugged and pushed a boat through the disintegrating bubbles. The water was probably getting cold by now. “I don’t think he’s a stranger, Mommy.”
Jenny’s breath stilled. There was something lurking in her daughter’s statement. Something profound. “Why not?”
Kelsey’s only answer was another shrug. Her attention had returned to her bath toys, and Jenny knew that the conversation was over, whether there had been a resolution or not—and there definitely had not.
~oOo~
Once the house was quiet and she was in bed, her room dark and still, Jenny’s mind went haywire. She didn’t know what to do, and all her brain could offer was a constant barrage of questions and images and fears.
If only he had just waited. Just given her the time she’d told him she needed. Just for once, done what she’d said she needed and not what he thought was right.
Sleep was impossible, but she didn’t want to ramble around the creaky old house in the middle of the night, either, so she lay on her back in the center of her bed, perfectly still, staring up at t
he shadows. The back yard backed onto a rain culvert that was lined with trees, so they had a lot of privacy in that direction. She never closed her bedroom curtains; she didn’t like the closed-in feeling of four solid walls.
The moon was bright, and the trees and leaves, the utility poles and wires, and the skeleton of the old swing set made an elaborate pattern on the ceiling. Some of the shadows moved; others simply shifted with the moon.
She wasn’t sure how long she’d stared without noticing, but one shadow was wrong. It was too thick and heavy to be leaves or wires, and moving too much to be a tree or a pole. As she focused on it, she decided that it was a human being. Somebody was in her back yard.
Rather than go to the window to see—if there was somebody out here, she didn’t want to give up the element of surprise—she eased from her bed and into her closet, leaving all the lights off. By feel, she found the gun box and turned the combination. With her .38 in both her hands and her finger safely across the trigger guard, she left the room, worked her way around all the creaks in the floor, and moved to the back door.
Please let it be Mav. Please let it be Mav. Maverick, she could deal with. She might shoot him anyway, just on principle, but at least she’d know what he was about. A stranger with some other purpose would scare the fuck out of her, and she didn’t know if she’d be able to do what she needed to do.
Taking a big breath and blowing it out, she opened the door and stepped out onto the back porch. It was screened, but the moonlight was almost as bright as sunlight, and she could see the yard clearly. She could see that the dark figure sitting on top of Kelsey’s Little Tikes picnic table with his head in his hands was Maverick.
She went through the screen door and stepped into the yard, keeping her gun aimed. He looked up as the door shut behind her, and then he stood.
Kelsey’s father. The sad man she’d met that afternoon.
The gun shook in her hands, but she steadied her grip and walked toward him, still aiming.
“Are you stupid? What the fuck are you doing out here, Maverick? And after the shit you pulled at school!”
“I taught you how to shoot that thing.”
“And you did a good job, so answer my fucking question before I show you how much I remember.” She cocked the hammer.
“Don’t cock a gun you don’t mean to use, babe.”
Jenny cocked her head, too, challenging him.
He laughed. “Maybe you should. Maybe that’s what needs to happen. Just aim true and get it done. ‘Cuz I can’t fucking deal out here. Not without my family. I got nothing under my feet, Jen. This is freefall.”
“Don’t put this on me, Maverick. Don’t you dare tell me that I’m standing between you and a bullet.”
His mouth quirked up and dropped, a spasm of humor. “Actually, you’re behind the bullet right now.”
She decocked the gun and dropped her aim. “You know what I mean.”
His eyes rested on the lowered gun. “Talk to me, Jen. We can work this out if we can just talk.”
Because he could talk circles around her, and he knew it. She’d get emotional, he’d stay ‘reasonable,’ and she’d start thinking she was being silly. The only thing she’d ever been able to hold him back on—until that final, fateful day—had been her father. And that was because she’d been terrified of what he’d do if she gave in.
And rightly so.
“I told you I needed time.”
“I don’t have time. I’ve been on ice for four years, and now that I’m out, I’m rotting away.”
“Why did you go to her school today?”
If the change in direction threw him, he didn’t show it. “I had to see her. I didn’t mean to talk to her—I just wanted to see her. I needed her to be more than a picture. When she came up to me, I didn’t know what to do.”
“You made everything more complicated. Now you’re a stranger that she’s supposed to be afraid of. I don’t know how to undo that.”
Maverick smiled suddenly and stepped closer. Surprised, Jenny realized that she’d just told him, with other words, that she was willing to try.
Also, she was fucking talking to him. Dammit.
“You need to go, Mav. Go home. I’ll call.”
She turned, meaning to get her ass back inside, but he grabbed her hand, and the touch, its familiarity, set off a chain reaction inside her, like switches going off, up her arm and into her chest.
“Jenny, please. I’m begging. I will kneel if you want me to.”
It was much harder to think while he touched her. He took another step closer, and Friday night at the bar was going to happen all over again. From the day they’d met, her body had craved his. Her heart had craved his. How could she stand up for herself when everything inside her clamored to be consumed by this man?
She took a step back. “Porch. You can’t come inside. We can talk on the porch.”
When she tried to pull her hand free, he tightened his hold and drew her closer. “Thank you.”
He was going to kiss her, and she wasn’t strong enough to resist. “Mav, n—”
His mouth came down on hers, and her whole body wanted to form itself to his and let him have his way.
But her brain held back. She was strong enough, after all. Instead of cleaving to him, her hands went to his chest and shoved, hard, so that he took a step back.
“Dammit, Maverick! If you want a chance to know your daughter, you have got to listen to me. I know you think if we talk you can spin your webs and get me trapped into thinking your way. But here’s how it’s gonna go. I am going to talk. You’re going to shut the hell up and listen—really listen—for once. You start talking over me, and I’m done. Do you understand?”
She didn’t like his grin—well, truthfully, she’d always loved that smirk, but now she understood the patronizing bullshit behind it.
“Do. You. Understand.”
“Oh—you mean I can answer? You told me not to talk.”
“Fuck you and your fucking games.” She turned. He could stay a stranger to Kelsey for all she cared.
“Jenny, Jenny. Sorry. I’m sorry. I understand. I’ll listen.”
She kept walking, but when she got to the porch, she held the screen door open for him.
They sat on the ancient metal glider. She’d freshened the paint and changed the cushions a couple of years ago, but the glider itself had been on this porch longer than Jenny had been on this earth.
Right behind them was her father’s bedroom window. She liked that. He usually slept a heavy sleep aided by medication, but his machines showed that sometimes he was awake in the night. She liked the thought that he might hear them talk. It was unlikely he remembered Maverick’s voice, or who Maverick was, but if he did, he’d hate it.
That was the kind of woman she’d become—petty enough to wish her brain-damaged father a little extra dose of unhappiness. It was probably a good thing that Kelsey had other role models in her life.
Would the man sitting beside her become one of them?
“You still thinking about using that thing?”
“Hmm?”
Maverick nodded at her lap, where her pistol was still in her hand. “Oh.” She set it on the weather-beaten table at her side.
“What do you need me to hear, Jen?”
How to say it all? She hadn’t figured anything out yet; she’d never been able to think clearly about everything, not in four years, and certainly not in these past few days. What did she need to say? What did she want?
Suddenly, she realized that she did know what to say. She had been living it for all of these years, and what she needed and wanted had become clear. Her anger had a source and a purpose.
“Do you know why I cut you out?”
A frown winced across his face. “Yeah. You told me. But I was protecting you.”
She threw her hand up. “Shut up with that. And no, that’s not it—or yeah, it is, but it’s not all of it. It’s bigger than just that day.”
/> When she paused, he kept his mouth shut. A good sign—normally, he’d leap on the slightest opportunity to take over the talk.
“It’s because what you did that day is who you are. In everything. You always have to have your way. You have to win every fight. The way you see things is the only way that matters, and everybody else is wrong. Your truth is the only one you know. That’s how he was, too.” She tipped her head toward her father’s window.
Maverick’s eyes went wide, and his mouth opened, but he didn’t speak. Good boy.
“I’m not saying you’re just like him. But in that way, you are. I was trained to it, I didn’t know any better, and I let you have your way in almost everything. The one thing I held fast on was how to handle him, and it drove you completely batshit.”
“He abused you, Jen. The way you wanted to handle him was to be his victim.”
Her hands clenched together in her lap. “Shut. Your. Mouth. Last warning.” When he slammed his mouth closed, his lips now sealed in an angry line, she continued, “That doesn’t matter. I think you’re right. I was afraid of him, love and fear and hate and all kinds of crap was all tangled up in me, and I was slow to break away. But I had to do it on my terms. It took me a while to figure that out, and now I need you to see it, too. It had to come from me, when I was ready. If I’d let you do what you wanted, I’d just have been hiding behind you. Moving from the shadow of one man to the next. I needed to get out into the light. I cut you out because you wanted to keep me in your shadow, and you would have done the same thing to Kelsey. I couldn’t have that for my little girl.”
“Our little girl.” The words came out through his still-clenched mouth, barely moving his lips.
She let it slide. “Our little girl.”
With every word she said, Jenny dug more deeply into her own understanding of not only Maverick but herself. She was putting thoughts she’d barely allowed herself to think, ever in her whole life, into words for the first time. Expressing herself in the most real and crucial way. She had to do it right, but what was right? What words, dug from the deepest part of her psyche, would make him understand, when he never had before?
Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3) Page 9