Most of all, it’s not fair that my heart is so tied up with a man who can’t give me back what I so desperately desire.
I drop the note to the carpet and head back into the living room. After I grab my coffee cup, I walk to the phone, intent on calling Aunt Gayle and begging her to come get me. I’d talked to her just last night and filled her in on everything that had happened, assured her I was fine, and I know she could hear the hope in my voice that maybe I could have a good life here with Bridger.
Just as I pick the phone up, movement out the window catches my eye. For a split second, I think it might be Bridger coming back to tell me he made a terrible mistake, but then I see it’s Woolf walking up the porch steps, his black Range Rover parked in the driveway just behind him.
I walk over, open the door before he can knock, and say flatly, “He’s not here.”
Woolf surprises me by nodding. “I know. And I need to talk to you.”
“Oh,” I say with surprise as I step back from the door. He walks past me. “Want some coffee?”
“That would be great,” he says softly.
We settle down at the kitchen table after I make him a cup of java and I check one more time on Belle. She’s sleeping later than usual, but yesterday was pretty damn traumatic and she had cried so much, she was just exhausted. Of course, I cried a lot last night too after Bridger kicked me out of his room, and there’s no denying the zombie-like feeling I’ve got going on right now.
After he takes a sip of his coffee—he takes it black—Woolf sets the cup down, rests his forearms on the table, and his expression goes troubled. “Bridger went to stay with a friend for a while.”
“I know,” I cut in bitterly. “I heard him on the phone last night after… Well, last night I heard him talking to a woman named Adrienne. He said it had been a long time and he wanted to visit.”
Yeah, I let Woolf in on the fact that Bridger is two-timing me. Well, wait… can he be two-timing me if he’s not even one-timing me anymore? Are we officially over? Is that what the note was about?
So fucking confused.
So heartbroken, but I refuse to let it show.
I look at Woolf with my chin held high, and I expect his expression to turn even darker as he knows that I know about this other woman. Instead, his lips peel back and he gives a bark of laughter, followed by more laughter, and then on to dwindling chuckles.
“What’s so funny?” I demand.
Woolf looks at me and the chuckles die instantly when he hears the anger in my voice. “I’m sorry,” he says, and he does sound truly apologetic. “It’s just… Adrian’s not a woman. It’s a man. He’s an Episcopalian priest in Cheyenne that Bridger’s close to.”
My brows draw inward, knitted in confusion. “I don’t understand.”
“I didn’t mean to laugh at you, but your jealousy got to me. It also confirmed to me that you’ll fight for Bridger.”
“No, I won’t,” I proclaim firmly.
“Yes, you will,” he says just as staunchly. Before I can open my mouth to argue, he continues on, “Bridger’s fucked up in the head. No better way to say it. And while it’s not up to me to tell you the root cause of that, I can assure you that his issues run deep and stem from some horrific shit. He left so he can try to get that shit sorted.”
While I want to be heartened by this… while I want to have hope… I can’t find it within me. “He left me a note that sounded pretty much like a final goodbye.”
“Maybe it was,” Woolf says with a shrug of his shoulder. “Maybe it was just a temporary goodbye.”
“Well, he could have been a little clearer,” I snap, the frustration and heartbreak crashing down on me. “He could have told me to my face. He could have given me some indication of what he’s feeling. Instead, he fucks me, kicks me out of bed, and then skulks off in the middle of the night. Well, fuck you very much, Bridger. I don’t need that shit.”
Woolf actually winces, jerking slightly in his seat. “Maggie—”
I can’t stand the pity in his voice, so I stand from the table and move to the coffee pot to keep myself busy so I don’t shatter. I give a slight cough, clear the shakiness from my voice, and tell Woolf, “I’m going to go live with my Aunt Gayle in Coeur D’Alene. I’m hoping she’ll come pick me up, so Belle and I should be cleared out hopefully by tomorrow.”
“I think you should stay,” Woolf says, and I spin around to look at him. “Bridger wants you to stay.”
“What?” I ask in surprise.
Woolf nods. “He called me on his way out of town. Asked me to keep an eye on you and Belle. Told me to extend the invitation to stay here at his house for as long as you wanted, and for me to help get you set up with some type of job. He’s having me set up a bank account and transferring some money for you to use for living expenses and stuff until you can get your first paycheck.”
“Oh, how magnanimous of him,” I mutter as I pour another cup of coffee.
“He’s coming back, Maggie,” Woolf says confidently. “And then it will be time to figure out shit between you two.”
I snort in disbelief because I’m still ruled by anger and betrayal.
He’s coming back.
But when?
And is there even anything left between us that makes me want to try to figure shit out?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I have some decisions to make.
Chapter 25
Bridger
One week later…
I put a log on the chopping block, raise the ax over my shoulder, and swing it in a perfect arc so the blade hits true. The log splits in two, falls to the ground. I take another and do the same. I do this three more times before tossing the ax to the ground, taking a moment to wipe the sweat from my forehead by rubbing it against my right arm, hiss because I hit right over the grooved, burned flesh from the bullet that’s still healing and tender, and then immediately start picking up the firewood and stacking it up along the back wall of the rectory.
“At that rate,” Adrian says from behind me, “I’ll have enough firewood to last me through to retirement.”
“You’ll never retire,” I mutter without looking at him before picking up another log and placing it on the chopping block.
Adrian watches me silently, sitting on the back stoop and sipping a cup of tea. He’s aged a lot since I last saw him almost thirteen years ago. His dark hair that he always shaped into a tight, neat cut is liberally streaked with gray now. I know I shouldn’t be surprised as he’ll turn sixty in March, but I wasn’t prepared to see the lines of age across his face and the brown spots starting to appear on the backs of his hands. Or that he gets up a little slower from the kitchen table, or that his voice sounded a bit frailer when he gave his sermon on Sunday.
I haven’t seen Father Adrian in thirteen years, but it didn’t mean I left him behind. We talked regularly, usually by phone once a week and via email and Facebook even more often. Other than Woolf, he’s the only person in the world I trust.
Well, except maybe Maggie, but not going there.
Adrian has never held it against me that I didn’t come back to visit. He knows Cheyenne holds all of my bad memories—except the ones with Adrian—and that it’s difficult for me to be here. It’s not only the city where my stepmom robbed me of my innocence, but it’s also where I was kicked out of college when I took the fall for Woolf’s slight indiscretion of fucking the dean’s daughter in the ass in a three-way.
When I finish the last log and have the split pieces stacked, I cover them with a tarp and secure it with rope. Only then do I wipe the sweat from my face once more—left shoulder this time—and take a seat next to Adrian on the stoop. He reaches behind him, grabs a bottle of water he’d brought out for me, and shoves it my way.
“Thanks for doing all that chopping,” he says as he stares out over the small backyard of the rectory. “I would have done it myself, but…”
I laugh. “Shut up, old man. You can barely lift that tea
cup.”
Adrian snorts. “I could take you over my knee if I wanted to.”
I snort too. Because Adrian would never raise a hand to me or even dare think about spanking me. I can still remember with brutal clarity when he found me on the streets. I was barely conscious behind a dumpster after five street kids jumped me for the measly twenty bucks I’d just made sucking some fuckwad’s dick in a back alley. Even though I was big for a sixteen-year-old, could pass for eighteen for sure, five against one was not good odds. Father Adrian, who had been handing out meals to the homeless, had tears streaming down his face as he helped me to my feet.
My life was not pretty after I walked out of my stepmom’s house. I didn’t go to the police because I was too ashamed of what I let her do to me for so long, and I wasn’t about to go into foster care, or, worse yet, get sent back to my stepmom.
So I spent almost seven months on the streets, turning from fifteen to sixteen. I learned fast the only way I had to make a quick buck was to sell my body. Unfortunately, there aren’t many women—none really—who will prowl the known prostitute streets looking for a young boy. It’s all closet gays like Jared, who have unsuspecting wives at home, who are out to get their quick fix.
Mostly it was blow jobs because that could easily be done in a dude’s car, but I took some ass fuckings too. Those usually occurred in dark alleys with me bent over the hood of a car. On the lucky occasion I got a bottom, he’d be bent over the car and he’d have the well-used ass when I was done. I’d at least have the benefit of getting off then. Actual sex over blow jobs was how I made my best money, and a sore ass was a small price to pay for the ability to rent a seedy motel room for a night and have a hot meal.
I survived, no doubt. It was awful, also no doubt. But it was a far cry better than submitting to my stepmom’s cruelty and abuse. It was better because I made the choice to let a man fuck my throat or my ass rather than being forced to have sex.
But even though I survived for seven long months without getting caught by the cops once, I don’t think I would have survived it for very long. I was either going to get picked up for prostitution, or I was going to get killed when someone jumped me.
Father Adrian rescued me that night and brought me back to the rectory that sits just beside his church. He let me shower, lent me clean clothes, and fed me. Most importantly, he didn’t call the police, a concession he granted me after I threatened to bolt if he did. Instead, he put me to sleep in a guest room with soft sheets and a fluffy pillow, promised again he wouldn’t call the police, and left me to sleep better than I ever have in my life. Even to this day.
That’s not where my street story ends though. I couldn’t stay at Father Adrian’s for long because he’d be forced to turn me over to child protective services. He very reluctantly let me return to the streets as long as I promised to reach out to him if I needed help. We became friends, and I came to visit him often, every once in a while accepting his hospitality to stay the night. I was still acting like a trapped animal at times, and I was terrified of being sent back to my stepmom. Over the course of the next few months, I slowly opened up to him. This was accomplished without him pushing me to do so, but by treating me with respectful distance in a consistent pattern so that I learned to trust him. It also came from listening to his sermons. Although I wasn’t then, nor am I now, an overly religious person, Father Adrian always taught from the scripture in such a relatable way that I learned something and took it to heart. Father Adrian’s sermons helped develop me into the man I am today, albeit with a shit ton of emotional baggage to screw it all up.
Although there are a million things Father Adrian has done for me and a million ways in which he saved me, the most important thing he ever did for me was help me to get my emancipation from my stepmom. He hired an attorney—a parishioner who gave him a very good price—and a carefully orchestrated plan to convince the courts I was able to take care of myself ensued.
This also came at the price that I had to give up my stepmom. It meant I had to tell the truth of what happened to me, and the only person in the world who knew about the atrocities was Father Adrian. I told him everything one night over bowls of French onion soup he had made and served with crusty bread he’d baked. I had to choke the story out and to this day, I can’t eat French onion soup.
But that started the ball rolling. My attorney got an emergency order giving temporary physical custody to Adrian while legal custody was controlled by the state. I was interviewed by the police, and then they went to have a chat with my stepmom. Only problem was, she’d apparently vacated the house she abused me in right around the time I’d walked out, and she was nowhere to be found. I guess dear stepmom was afraid when I’d left that I’d go straight to the cops, and she hightailed it out of town.
To further the plan to get my emancipation, Adrian got me a job at a local restaurant as a bus boy, although I had to spend a certain amount of hours each day doing homeschooling with him. The one thing he remained staunch about was that I had to graduate high school. I was almost a year behind given my time on the streets, but with Adrian’s patience and the fact I was a pretty bright kid, I ended up graduating before my peers did.
Just three days before my seventeenth birthday, the judge ordered my emancipation. Just three months after that, my stepmom was found dead in Illinois from a heroin overdose. That news meant nothing to me. Still means nothing to me.
“How much longer you going to loaf around here?” Adrian asks slyly, mainly to get my goat.
“Loaf?” I ask with mock offense. “I’ve been busting my ass since the day I got here a week ago.”
Adrian laughs softly and nods. “You’re the hardest working person I know.”
It’s true. After I became emancipated and because I graduated high school just a year after starting homeschool with Adrian, I took on three jobs. The first was at the restaurant where I moved from bus boy to waiter, which was slightly better pay because of the tips. The second job I obtained was in a bakery where I worked early morning shift and helped to make bread and pastries. The third job was on the weekend, and I did odd jobs for the parishioners of St. Paul’s. By the time I turned eighteen and was ready to start college, I’d had a nice-sized nest egg to help me get there.
I met Woolf at University of Wyoming and my life changed yet again for the better. Even though I got kicked out of college when I took the fall for Woolf, I never let it affect my feelings for him. I’d do it all again in hindsight because that’s what true friends are for. Of course, Woolf sent me to the Double J where I worked range for his father until Woolf graduated, and then we worked range together while he learned how to take over the entire JennCo company. We were, and still are, the tightest of friends. Have built and opened a sex club together. Hell, he chose me to fuck Callie so she could experience a three-way. He has my absolute trust and I know I have his.
“But seriously,” Adrian pushes at me. “How long you going to hide out here?”
“You love having me here,” I say evasively, but then affectionately, I add, “It’s been thirteen fucking years so I’m figuring you’d kill to have me stay a bit with you.”
Adrian doesn’t even bother correcting my language. It’s something we fought about early on in our relationship, and I ultimately won. I remember the convo like it was yesterday because it showed me true grace and love.
“I wish you’d stop cursing,” Adrian had snapped at me one day.
“I wish you’d stop telling me not to curse,” I’d retorted, and then slammed my point home. “I think after all the things I’ve been through, I’m entitled to use foul language.”
Adrian had blinked at me in surprise, and then his eyes filled with sorrow. He’d laid a hand on my shoulder and said, “Bridger, after the all the things you’ve been through, after all the joy you’ve brought me despite all the bad things, I think you’re entitled to live the remainder of your life in peace. Curse all you want if that makes you happy.”
I
uncap the water bottle and take three huge swallows, wipe the back of my mouth on the flannel sleeve of my shirt, and tell Adrian, “I’m not ready to go back. Need more time.”
“You know my door’s always open,” Adrian says sincerely. “But don’t be static in trying to figure things out. Your problems aren’t going to go away.”
I grunt in acknowledgment. That’s true. “When are you going to nose around in my business and ask what my problems are?”
“From the moment I first saw you,” Adrian says with quiet reflection, “I knew you were a man who would get to where you’re going in your own time. My ears are open when you’re ready.”
I’ve never held a single thing back from Adrian. He’s the only person in the world who knows everything about me. Even Woolf, who I love more dearly than a brother, doesn’t know all the details of what happened to me with my stepmom. But Adrian knows everything. The good and the bad. He knows all the pornographic details of her abuse—and he always prayed for her soul before we found out she was dead—and he’s celebrated all of my accomplishments. Adrian even knows about The Silo and while he doesn’t approve, he doesn’t disapprove either. He understands with absolutely no judgment that I need The Silo and the whip in order to maintain peace with what’s happened to me in my life.
But for some reason, my tongue feels glued to the top of my mouth at the thought of sharing Maggie with him. I’m not afraid he’ll judge me for my cowardice, shame me for the hurt I put on her, or even chastise me for using her in the way I did. No, I’m terrified he’s going to push me to go back and grab hold of all of Maggie’s goodness.
God, I miss that fucking goodness.
“Her name’s Maggie,” I say quietly as I fiddle with the cap of my bottle. “And it’s entirely possible I’m in love with her.”
Adrian’s head snaps sideways and when I dare to look at him, his mouth is hanging open in stunned surprise, which lasts only seconds before his eyes light up with joy.
The Wicked Horse Boxed Set (The Wicked Horse Series) Page 115