“I love you, too. That’s one.”
“That’s one.” The words barely came out; Maverick’s throat had clenched like a fist.
~oOo~
Maverick went to the living room; Darnell had Earl in his complicated wheelchair, parked in front of the television, watching Law & Order. Ironic.
He grunted when he saw Maverick, but he was calmer than he’d been before. Darnell looked up from the sofa. “I gave him something to keep him calm. Earl does not like you at all, friend. I sure as hell hope I’m right taking Kelsey’s word about you.”
“I’m her dad.” He studied Earl for a few seconds, then added, “I made him like he is.”
Darnell nodded. “I know. Jenny told me what happened.”
This guy was not just a nurse, but a man who spent forty hours a week with his family. Maverick’s fists clenched. “What’d she tell you?”
Staring at Maverick’s fists, Darnell said, “Why don’t you take it down a step, friend? I’m not the threat in this room. Just doin’ my job.”
“For how long?”
“’Bout four years. I helped her get him set up when he came home. But I got no grudge with you. I know why you did what you did. Can’t say I’d do different in your shoes.”
Earl grunted again, and his arms flailed for a second. In response, Darnell patted his patient’s shoulder and said, “Just saying truth, Earl.”
“He understands?” Maverick considered Jenny’s father; with his slack face and rolling eyes, his flailing limbs and inarticulate grunts, it didn’t look like he understood much.
“Don’t think because he doesn’t talk much and his body doesn’t work much that he doesn’t understand. It’s hard to know what he knows. The tests say he thinks like a kid not much older than Kelsey. But I think yeah—just like a kid, he knows the important stuff. He knows what happened to make him like he is. He knows his girls. He knows me and his other nurse. And he sure as shit knows you. He hasn’t been upset like he is today since he was first home. He doesn’t like having you in his house.”
“Can’t say I care. I’m here for Jenny and Kelsey. They’re my girls, not his.”
“No!” Earl barked. “No!”
Maverick had been standing at the doorway, leaning against the frame. Now he walked in and stood between Earl’s chair and the television. He crossed his arms and stared down at the man he blamed for everything. “Yeah, Earl. My girls. And when I get things worked out right, you will never see them again.”
Earl’s arms flailed wildly. “No!” he grunted. “No! Jen! Need!”
Maverick only smiled. Maybe he was a monster, but he enjoyed making this man suffer.
Darnell stood up. “Damn, friend. Making me work for my paycheck tonight.” He moved the wheelchair back, away from Maverick, and faced his patient, taking hold of his wasted, flailing arms. “Easy, Earl. Easy. How about a shake. You want a shake? I’ll put some ice cream in it. But you have to calm down first.”
Just like a kid, Earl calmed at the promise of a sweet.
When the nurse went to the kitchen, Maverick followed him. “How’s this work—you taking care of him?”
While he poured a protein drink into the blender and scooped vanilla ice cream on top, Darnell answered, “I don’t like to talk out of school, especially not about Jenny. But I’ll tell you the service I work for covers two shifts Monday through Friday and one shift on Saturday. That’s me and another nurse. We alternate Saturdays. Jenny does the rest on her own.”
“Why’s he not in a home?”
Darnell stopped and gave him a hard look. “Not my place to say.”
He took a couple of dish towels from a drawer and wrapped them around the blender; when he turned it on, the towels muffled the sound. Darnell had some experience with Jenny’s migraines, too.
He turned the blender off. “Look, I don’t mind being in charge of Kelsey at night. I take care of her pretty often in the evenings, and she’s no trouble. So if you want to go, everybody’s covered here.”
The hired help was not going to tell him to leave. Fuck that. “I’m good. I’ll stay out of Earl’s way, but I’m not leaving until Jenny says she wants me to.”
“It’s been rough for her, living this way. She’s a good woman, and she doesn’t like much in her life but her little girl. It’d be good if you didn’t make things harder.”
Maverick narrowed his eyes, trying to read this guy. “You got some kind of personal investment here?”
Darnell shrugged and turned back to his work, pouring the shake into a plastic tumbler. “Nothing more than friendly. Like I said, I’m no threat to you. But I like Jenny, and I wouldn’t like to see her hurt.”
Jesus Christ, even the help had opinions about Maverick’s worthiness to be in his own family. He wanted to make her life better, easier, not harder. He wanted to take care of them both. It was Jenny slamming on the brakes at every turn. Jenny, who for some inconceivable reason had chosen to keep her sack of rancid shit of a father home and take care of him. Jenny, who should have had enough money coming from his take to at least be able to live in a decent rental and have a normal job. Jenny, who blamed him for everything, when all he’d done was try to protect her. She was changing the fucking diapers of the guy whose fault it really was.
Maverick wanted to punch this nurse, acting like he was so close with his woman, sharing opinions he had no business having. Instead, he simply left the room.
~oOo~
It wasn’t a big house, and he didn’t really have anywhere to go, so he went to Jenny’s room. She was still asleep, so he sat at her desk and simply watched her.
She’d rolled to her side. That was a good sign; unless it was so bad that she went a little crazy and tried to run away from it, she rarely moved during an attack. So it was probably over.
All those nights in prison, he’d been afraid to think too long or hard about her, afraid to let his mind draw her portrait or remember the feel of her body in his hands. But God, she was beautiful. He’d had plenty of reminders in the past few weeks of her touch, her scent, the sound of her laugh. The glittering light of her eyes. The curve of her ass, the way his palms fit perfectly in the sweep from her waist to her hips.
All he could think of anymore, in the dark and quiet, was her. Her and Kelsey. His girls. His.
He’d thought he could deal if she wouldn’t have him. He’d thought that he could get by with only Kelsey, but he’d been wrong. He needed his family. His whole family. Dad, Mom, kids—something he couldn’t remember ever having except for that short time with Jenny, waiting for their little girl and planning their future. Something he’d always wanted.
He had to find a way to get her back. Whatever it took. He’d give her what she needed. He had to make her see that. He had to, or he was going to go crazy or die. Or both.
~oOo~
Maverick sat, watching and thinking, letting time pass unnoticed. She finally stirred and woke, then sat up abruptly with a squeaking gasp. “Fuck, Mav,” she breathed. “Fuck. How long’ve you been sitting there?”
“Don’t know. How d’you feel?”
“It’s gone. Just the soreness is left.”
He remembered—for several hours after, her head would feel, as she described it, like somebody had been playing soccer with her brain.
“What time is it?”
He checked his watch. The blue glow of the dial showed that the night had gotten quite ripe. “About ten past two.”
“In the morning? Shit. Darnell—”
“Been and gone. Your dad’s in bed. Kelsey’s asleep. Everything’s fine.”
The room was still deeply dark, but Maverick could feel her eyes on him. “You took care of her. And me. Thank you.”
“It’s my job, Jen. And it’s my life.” He stood and went to the bed. She didn’t protest when he sat on the mattress near her legs. “You feeling up to talking?”
This close, he could see the wary expression cross her features. “Depends.”
/> “I promise I’ll shut up and listen, but I need you to tell me exactly what it is that’s holding you back from me. I need to understand. I won’t try to talk you into seeing it differently, not right now. Right now, I just need to understand, before I lose my shit.”
It took her a long time to say anything. When she did speak, Maverick found his fists curled and pressing down on his thighs. “What if I don’t know?”
“I think it would be all kinds of shitty for you to say you don’t know why you’ve got me this scrambled up. Try to know. Try to explain. Please.”
Again, she was quiet, and his fists curled more tightly. His short nails dug into his palms.
“Do you love me, Jen? And don’t say it’s not that easy. I understand that it’s more complicated than that for you. Just answer that question.”
This time, she didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I love you. But I don’t want you to say love is enough and we’ll figure out the rest.”
“Then something else is keeping you back. What?”
Silence. She looked down at her lap.
He’d told her he’d shut up and listen, but she wasn’t giving him anything to listen to. “You know why I talk so much when we argue? Because you do this—you shut down. You’ll sass me all up and down when we’re trying to figure out which movie to watch or if we’re going to party at the clubhouse, but when it’s really important, forget about talking it out, you won’t even think it out. You call me a bully, but I’m just trying to figure our shit out, and you’re not helping.”
He’d pissed her off, and that loosened her tongue. “I’m afraid to tell you what I think or feel, because you’ll jump all over the parts you like and not hear the rest. That’s what you do. You take the parts you agree with and puff them all up and act like anything else I think isn’t worth your time.” She laughed sadly. “Mav, that’s why I had Kelsey. I love her so much, and she’s the best thing I ever did, the only good thing in my shitty life. I don’t regret having her at all. But I was young and scared and didn’t feel ready to be a mom. You told me you loved me and you’d take care of us. You told me we’d make a family. You pushed the scared part of me away like it didn’t matter. You never let me just be worried. I stopped saying anything about my fears that I’d suck as a mom or that something would be wrong with her or even that you’d stop wanting me when I got big—all the stuff I was afraid of, I couldn’t say, because you’d laugh and give me a long list of reasons why I was being silly or weak or paranoid.”
She took a breath, and Maverick sat there, stunned, trying to sort through that barrage. She’d really been scared? He remembered those days vividly, but he didn’t remember that. Jenny had always been inventing some silly thing or another to stress out about—like getting her tattoo—but they’d been based on nothing, and he’d shown her as much. They hadn’t been real fears. Had they?
“I’m not saying I wasn’t being all of those things,” she continued. “But I needed to be able to say what I was afraid of, and I couldn’t. And then you made all those things I was afraid of come true. I was alone with a new baby and a broken father, and I’m not good as a single mom, Mav. It’s a lot to keep afloat, and something is always sinking. She deserves a better life than she got. So yeah, I’m afraid to fall into a life with you again. I love you like I always have, but love is not enough.”
“I didn’t know you were really scared about the baby.” He was still hung up on that point.
“I know. Because you didn’t listen. I told you the things I was afraid of, and you thought they were silly and brushed them aside, so I stopped trying to tell you.”
Everything in Maverick wanted to explain to her why he’d set aside her fears. Because they had been silly, and he’d wanted to assuage them and give her some peace. He’d been trying to reassure her. He’d thought he had.
But now, here, he’d heard her—she’d needed to work through those fears, and he hadn’t let her. He’d made her feel small. Silly or not, wrong or not, she’d needed him simply to listen, maybe hold her, while she’d sorted out her feelings. Instead, he’d shut her down. He’d never thought of it that way before.
So instead of offering a defense, he said only, “I’m sorry.”
Another spell of quiet, this one dense with the tension between them.
“I think I actually believe you,” she said at last, in a whisper full of wonder.
He reached out and found her hand in the dark room. “I heard you. I understand. And I’m sorry.”
Her fingers slid between his. “I’m sorry I didn’t share Kelsey with you before now.”
He closed his hand around hers and scooted closer. “Jen—babe. Are we...can we be good again?”
Only a few inches separated them now; they were close enough that he could see the turmoil in her eyes. “I can’t jump. I can’t run. I need to walk. Slowly. I need to be sure you’re okay with the way I am now. I won’t give in like I used to, and I’ll fight when you try to make me feel dumb. I need to be sure that won’t make you mad. I need to know nothing like what happened that night at the back door will ever happen again.”
He’d never tried to make her feel dumb, but he’d begun to understand that she’d thought he had, and to understand why she’d thought so. The past few weeks had given him a pretty decent picture of the strength of her will now. It was fucking maddening, but not in the way she feared. If they were together—if they were even working toward being together—he’d keep his cool.
“Okay. Whatever you need.”
“Thank you. Right now, I need you to go.”
He’d been feeling a wash of hope all through him, and he’d begun to feel settled in—for the night, at least. “What?”
“You can’t be here when Kelsey wakes up. She’s already jabbering about how mommies and daddies live together and mommies have babies in their bellies, and if you’re here for breakfast, it’s just going to confuse her. She won’t understand why we’re not together all the time, and I’m not ready for that. So I need you not to be here when she wakes up.”
He couldn’t have argued that point if he’d wanted to. It made sense. “Fair enough. But it’s only two-forty.” He picked up her hand and pressed his lips to her fingers.
She chuckled. “Not yet, Mav. That would definitely not be taking things slow. Besides—I’m just coming off a migraine. I don’t feel too great.”
He wasn’t trying to get in her pants—not that he’d have denied her if she’d wanted it. “I just want to hold you, Jenny. I just want to have you in my arms and not feel like you’re trying to get away. I want you to want to be there with me. I love you.”
“That’s one,” she whispered and turned back the covers.
Since he’d been released, he’d hoped to hear her say those two words, more potent than the three words she was counting. Those words meant that they would be okay. He knew, right then, that he would have his family. Not tonight, but soon.
His body thrumming with emotion, Maverick toed off his boots and slid, fully clothed, into Jenny’s bed. She curled her barely-clothed body to his, resting her head on his chest. They fit together perfectly, as they always had, like she had been designed to nestle at his side. His hand settled on her ass, cupping one soft, warm globe.
He remembered the night that he’d understood that what he felt for Jenny was love—not merely desire, not infatuation, not even obsession, but truly love. It had been a revelation to him, jarring him like a lightning bolt, and the words had spilled from his mouth reflexively, before he’d had a chance to overthink them.
He’d been fucking her at the time, and she’d insisted that the words didn’t count when he was inside her. That had hurt, always, but he’d always laughed and teased and set aside her doubt.
Because on that night, he’d said words he’d never said to a woman before, because he’d felt something he’d never felt for a woman before, and where his cock was when he’d said them had made them no less powerful or true.
March
1992
“God, babe,” Maverick murmured against Jenny’s skin. “You feel so fucking good.” He continued to work his way down her spine, kissing the swell of each bone, all the way down to the cleft of her ass. Her skin had risen up in tiny beads, rough against his tongue. “You taste so fucking good.”
He laved the dimples centered above each beautiful, pert cheek, then grabbed the globes in his hands and spread them. He licked through her cleft, over her pussy and up. When his tongue touched her anus, she gasped and twisted, escaping from his grasp.
“Mav, no! Not that.”
Easing his way up the bed, keeping his body on hers, pressing kisses as he went, he finally hovered over her, face to face. “You don’t like that?”
She shook her head.
“Ever done it before?”
A hesitation, then another shake of her head.
“Then how do you know you don’t like it?” As he asked, he swept his hand down her side and over her sweet, sweet ass.
She turned again, shifting so that she was fully on her back, pinning his hand in place beneath her. “It seems like it’d be gross.”
“Jen, it’s not gross. Trust me.”
Maverick could see that he hadn’t convinced her, but she was too tentative to say no again. He could push that around if he wanted—Jenny was tentative about most things they disagreed on, and she always caved eventually. He considered that option and discarded it—he didn’t want to push her tonight.
Well, actually, yes. He did. But not that way. Not so directly. He smiled and gave her a light kiss. “Okay. Can I try something else?”
Relief lit in her eyes, and he was glad he hadn’t pushed the way he’d first considered. “What?” She smiled and bit her lip.
Maverick got up and grabbed his jeans from the bedroom floor. He pulled his belt from the loops.
Jenny sat up, folding herself tightly. “Don’t hit me. Please don’t hit me.”
Slam (The Brazen Bulls MC #3) Page 18