A Civilian for Silo

by J. A. Hornbuckle

  Plus it had kept me engaged for hours in something besides worrying about my sister’s reaction to seeing me in Montana.

  “There!” He announced and I watched as he wrapped up his drill and stowed his tools in an old metal box. “TV’s hung. What’s next?”

  I twisted looking at the entire space as a whole, its jewel tones accents adding a touch of elegance to the black and glass. “Uhm. That’s it, I think. Although you could change your shirt.”

  He stopped mid-stride and looked at me with a scowl. “And just why the fuck should I change my shirt?”

  “Because you’ve been working and we have people coming?” Sure it was a smart-ass answer in the form of a question, but did the man have to argue over everything I asked him to do? Just requesting that he hang the TV over the fireplace instead of using the stand it came with had started an argument that had lasted a full fifteen minutes before he finally agreed. But only after telling me he’d do it just to get me to, “fucking shut it and get off my ass.”

  He tucked his nose into an armpit and breathed in. “You might have a point.”

  I followed him down the hall to the master bedroom, alternating wringing my hands and then shaking them out. “What time are they supposed to be here?”

  “Nine or so.” His voice was muffled as he tore off the offensive tee before tossing it in the new dirty clothes hamper. He quickly moved to the bathroom and I watched as he did a couple of swipes of deodorant before going to the dresser and pulling out another one in the same color. After tucking the hem behind his belt buckle, he turned to me and did a top-to-toe sweep. “You’re pale and being a bitch.”

  I glared at him. “Did it ever occur to you I might be the tiniest bit nervous?”

  “About Lulu? Fuck, Shell. If you’d talked to her in Missoula like I told you to do…” I didn’t even bother to stick around for the rest of what he was going to say, preferring instead to storm down the hall to re-start my fidget, fiddle and pace maneuvers again.

  I saw the flash of truck lights and turned to glance at the microwave clock. Nine o’clock on the dot. “Si’? They’re here!”

  He brushed by me and opened the door as I took up a place at the back of the sectional, a position I’d determined would give me a couple of seconds of seeing but not being directly seen from the front door.

  Mel was the first to enter and shared a manly hug with his Hellion brother that included a one thump to the middle of each other’s back as he offered, “thanks, Silo. Short notice, man, but I didn’t know what else to do, where else to go.”

  “It’s all good, brother,” came the deep, sincere reply.

  “Uncle Si’!” Julie’s cry entered before she did but soon she had wrapped herself around the big, bald biker in a tight hug.

  “Lil’ Taste!” Silo boomed back with a large grin as he patted her little back. But my eyes shot to the front door, my knees shaking. My mouth dry.

  “Gosh, Silo. Thank you so much for giving us a place to stay,” Lulu gushed, entering the house and moving straight into Silo’s open arms. I watched as my sister, dressed to the nines in a belled skirt with petticoats, seamed stockings and patent-leather shoes, hugged him back with closed eyes.

  My heartbeat was in the rabbit category and I could feel sweat begin to make an appearance in various places on my body.

  “Uh, hey, Shelly,” Mel greeted slowly, his eyes darting between Silo and me.

  “How’re you doing?” I said back, only the tiniest quiver present. At the sound of my voice though, Lulu yanked herself away from Silo and turned to me. Her eyes, so much like mine, went wide and she blinked a couple of times.

  “Shelly! Oh my god, Shelly!” Her heel taps were loud in the ensuing silence as she ran to me, grabbing me in a warm, loving embrace. “Oh, little sister! It’s so good to see you!”

  “Hey, Lu,” I murmured against her now blue-black dyed hair, taking comfort in her hug.

  “Isn’t that sweet? You came all this way because of what happened yesterday?” Her voice sounded so glad, so damn grateful to see me and I was loathe to burst her bubble of misconception.

  I watched Mel and Silo share a look before Mel led Julie off to inspect her new room and Silo went outside, mumbling something about seeing to their luggage.

  “I have missed you so much, honey,” Lulu stated, pulling back and staring into my eyes. “I was so worried when I didn’t hear from you last week…”

  “Yeah, Lu. About that…” I tried to cut her off at the pass, so to speak. But my effervescent sister was having none of it.

  “And then with those goons trying to break into the house and everything,” she continued as if I hadn’t even spoken. “Oh! I’m just so glad to see you!” Her next hug included a side to side swaying motion. Making me feel worse than ever about not letting her know that I had been in Montana for a while.

  “Why don’t…why don’t you have a seat, Lulu, so we can talk,” I suggested, thinking that it’d be easier to break the news somehow if she was sitting down.

  “Wow! This place is beautiful.” Her eyes took in all the new furnishings before coming back to mine. “For a biker, Silo has pretty good taste, don’t you think? Now, tell me. When did you get in? Did you fly straight from Albuquerque to Billings direct?”

  Honest to goodness, I wanted to slap my hand over her mouth because I could tell Lulu was wired for sound, so excited to see me. But all that would change when I laid it out for her. And I just needed a few moments of quiet in order to get the words straight in my head.

  Silo came back in loaded with suitcases that he took down the hall, but as he looked my way I could see his eyes were cautious, concerned even as if he finally understood my words earlier about my nervousness. I turned my head back to my sister and took a deep, fortifying breath.

  “I’ve been in Montana for a while, Shelly.” Perhaps some part of me thought it would just be better to just get it out there, lay it out baldly and then explain after she exploded. “Almost two weeks.”

  She blinked at me, confusion evident in the twist of her eyebrows. “Two weeks? But Silo was in Missoula…”

  “And I was, too.”

  As her forehead smoothed and eyebrows lowered, I knew she got it. “You mean to tell me you’ve been in Montana for two weeks and didn’t let me know!” For a girl known to own a pretty voice, Lulu’s increasing volume took away some of its appeal. “You had better start explaining, girl!”

  I looked down at the hands I had twisted in my lap and took another deep breath. “When I went back home to Albuquerque, things had…changed.”

  Chancing a glance at her face, I took in the raised eyebrows and tightly compressed lips.

  “At first, I thought it was my imagination, being so busy with making sure all of our accounts only included our annuity payments from Grandmother Palmer’s estate. And then being pulled into meeting after meeting with the FBI that only got worse when they brought in a new field agent who asked even more questions and demanded more meetings.” I swallowed thickly.

  “Go on.” Her voice was a harsh demand in the silence of the room and I idly wondered what Silo, Mel and Julie were doing and why they hadn’t rejoined us. “Keep going, Shell, because none of this matches anything you told me was happening before.”

  “Yeah, I know,” I agreed and could hear the guilt behind my words. “It wasn’t bad at first. Not in my mind anyway. Just little things, you know? Like having the Marilyn Travers cancel our standing lunch date at Andaluz. And Rae Carrow saying they’d decided to hold their annual Christmas party in Aspen that year and she knew I’d be too busy to join them.”

  “Cutting you? The Travers and Carrows decided to cut their ties with the Palmers?” Lulu’s incredulity matched my own when I’d figured it out, but it had taken me a lot longer and with more than a few broken engagements before I’d done so.

  “Then it was the corporate sponsors and even the charities themselves that started pulling away, not wanting their reputation sullied by
having me handling their events.” God, it was so hard to admit, so hard to say the words out loud. “I didn’t know what to do…how to tell you…”

  “This is because of daddy and the mess he made, isn’t it?” Man, she was pissed and didn’t mind showing it!

  “Well,” I said on a deep inhale. “No one came right out and said it, but I think so.”

  My sister placed one carefully manicured hand on top of mine that was twisting against the other in my lap. “Oh, Shelly. I’m so sorry for you.”

  I shot my eyes to her in confusion. “Don’t you mean for us?”

  She shook her head emphatically. “No, baby sister. Only you and dad cared about that stuff, about what all those stuffed shirts thought was important. I just wanted out.”

  It was true. Lulu had always gone her own way when it suited her, popular opinion be damned. And that used to earn her a lot of lectures from our father regarding ‘family duty’ and ‘not allowing the Palmer name to be blemished by scandal’.

  By my mind, dear ol’ dad should’ve taken his own advice!

  “Okay, so you were made to feel like a pariah in a town where the Palmer’s once ruled,” Lulu recapped. “Now tell me about this FBI junk.”

  I thought for a moment about where to start. “They’ve already made a case for more than twelve instances of money laundering but after bringing in Agent Moore, I think they suspect there are more.”

  “Agent Moore?”

  “Yeah. Federal Agent David Moore who I guess is some kind of hot-shot forensic accountant guy. He used to make me meet with him two or three times a week to go over the accounts.” I couldn’t help my eye-roll at the memory of his oozing voice on my voicemail, detailing that he needed to see me ‘just once more to better understand’ whatever file he’d been studying.

  “But you worked the charities, not the accounts. If he was going to question anyone, it should’ve been me!” And she was right. I really had no knowledge of the financial records Palmer Investments held.

  “It didn’t seem to matter to him.” I thought back to what Carly said about him either being interested in me or the fact that there might be ‘hidden’ accounts that the original investors were hoping he’d find. And would offer payment for the recovery of missing moneys. Since I was disclosing so much, I told Lulu about Carly’s theories.

  She sat back on the couch, her eyes going unfocused as she thought. “That makes sense, Shelly. Although, if the guy was really on the hunt, he should’ve come to me, not you.”

  “I know,” I countered with a nod, trying not to state what I thought was obvious. That I’d been trying to protect her. “I handled it.”

  Her gaze came sharply back to me. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’re in Montana and why you didn’t call me to help you! That’s why you’re here, right? Because something else happened and you needed Silo’s help? Never thinking to call me? Me, your freaking sister, Shell?”

  “I lost my cellphone with your new number on it, Lu…” I started but she wasn’t going for it.

  “After all the crap the two of us have been through, been each other’s champions, you couldn’t’ve picked up the darn phone and called?” Oh, but she was on a roll in ripping me a new one.

  “I didn’t have your number, Lulu!”

  “That’s priceless!” She yelled, throwing up her hands and slapping them on her thighs. “You had Silo’s number but not mine. Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “God, Lu! I told you and told you! I didn’t remember your new number…” but I saw a stirring at the doorway where the living room met the hall and closed my mouth with an audible clack.

  Lulu turned to see where my eyes had gone and visibly started when she recognized Julie was standing in the doorway. Skewering me with a glare that told me our conversation wasn’t over, Lulu stood.

  And I took another deep breath, only it was in the ‘let off the hook’ and in relief category.

  *.*.*.*.*

  Silo laid on his back in the middle of his massive king-sized bed and adjusted the fucking pillow a-fucking-again. But the flare of feminine voices came through anyway.

  “…and you never thought to call me? Me, your freaking sister, Shelly?”

  Fuck! They’d been at it, what? He eyed the glowing red numbers on his clock. Two hours. Two very long, very goddamn loud hours. Shit, a person would think they’d been all yammered out!

  “God, Lu! I told you and told you! I didn’t remember your new number…”

  Damn but it made him glad he’d never had a brother or sister although he’d wished for one when he was young. Had even asked Nana and Grandpa to adopt another kid in order to have someone his size in the house. But if this was how it was, then he was glad they’d just laughed and told him no.

  “Lulu?” he heard a tiny voice echo down the length of the hall, knowing it was Hardwood’s little sister, Julie. Cute as a button and so damn smart it was scary, he knew the little girl kept both the recruit and pretty Lulu on their toes. “I can’t sleep if y’all are gonna yell.”

  “Oh, pretty girl,” Lulu’s dulcet voice seemed to get closer as she’d obviously moved from the couch to where the girl stood. “We’re so sorry.”

  “Really sorry,” he heard Shelly add and knew that she meant it. “Think I’m gonna turn in.”

  Silo whipped off the sheet and blanket while automatically reaching for the sleep pants he’d placed at the end of the bed. It was one thing to sleep naked when it was just him and Shell but a whole different kettle of fish with the other family sharing their space. And from how upset his girl had sounded throughout her ‘talk’ with her sister, he aimed to get her back to good.

  The best place to do that was, in his opinion, in his bed.

  Just cracking his door enough to poke his head through, he took in the scene at the mouth of the hallway. Little Jules was standing in a fulsome nightgown covered in small skulls as Lulu knelt before her, still clad in the fluffy skirt and heels she’d arrived in. Shelly stood a couple of feet back, her eyes on the smaller figure and filled with what looked to be honest regret.

  “Let’s get you tucked back in, sweetie,” Lulu advised, rubbing the much smaller girl’s back after shooting Shelly a look as if the younger one’s awakening was solely her sister’s fault. Lulu stood and with only a sharp glance his way led Julie down the hall. Shelly’s eyes followed their trajectory before colliding with his.

  Silo opened the door fully and made a wave of his arm. With only a blink, Shelly came toward him, crashing into his body as he softly closed them inside.

  “God, Si’,” she breathed with only a small hitch in her breath. Enough to signal how her talk with her sister had affected her.

  “Come to bed, baby,” he murmured against the curls at the top of her head even as he clasped her quaking form to his.

  “I don’t have my…” she started and he moved to the dresser to snag a clean t-shirt. “Oh.”

  “Sleep with me, Shell.”

  Even in the dark of his room he felt her gaze on him.

  “Let me hold you tonight.”

  “All right, honey,” was the only response she gave, the only one he needed.

  *.*.*.*.*

  I’m unsure how he knew I needed it, but that night Silo gave me his tender side. Just the right amount of caring and sweet which took away the sting of Lulu’s words and a large measure of my guilt in not contacting her after what had happened to me. I couldn’t blame her for being angry even though I hadn’t gotten into any of the details. I wasn’t ready to face them myself yet, couldn’t even bring the memories to the surface without hyperventilating and feeling nauseatingly sick.

  But that night, Silo took all that away.

  With his soft, warm, deep, wet kisses that seemed to go on forever as he slowly peeled me out of my clothes.

  His hands that skimmed, caressed and ignited every inch of the skin he exposed in his slow ministrations. And that his tongue followed, gently licking, swirling as it move
d over my quivering flesh.

  Even in the dark of the room where I couldn’t see his face and in the quiet that was only broken by my sighs, I felt cherished, wanted and oh so cared about. I and my pleasure seemed to be his total focus.

  And pleasure me, he did.

  Even before he used his large hands to spread me open, using his thumbs to separate my folds to reveal my pearl, the euphoria and tension he’d created almost had me finding my bliss with the first stroke of his tongue. I held back though, shoving my fists into the sheets and hanging on in order to delight in the sensations of his licks, his suckling on the heated, swollen parts of me.

  I tried to stay both still and quiet as his delicious mouth continued to work its magic, but it was impossible. I writhed and moaned, thrusted and whimpered, shimmied and mewled until he used his forearms over my belly to hold me down.

  “Come for me, Shell,” he rasped against the sensitive flesh between my legs. “Fucking come on my face.”

  Which was all I needed to let go and allow the volcano he’d created to erupt inside me. And as I did, I felt one of his hands cover my mouth to prevent me from screaming my delirious joy to the heavens.

  “Sorry, baby,” he whispered as he slid his body up and to the side of me. The crinkle of foil signified his next move. “You were getting just a little too fucking loud.”

  I nodded, unable to even create a coherent sentence in my mind as my body continued to shiver with my orgasm’s aftershocks and my heart continued booming within my chest. I may not have been able to talk, but I could move and turned to my side towards where he was lying flat on his back. Hooking a leg over his thighs, I sat up, waiting until he’d rolled the condom on before scooting up.

  His hands found my legs, my butt as he guided me over his big body, my fingers aware of every ridge of muscle they encountered in my blind exploration. I went up on my knees and reached between us to hold him steady as I slowly, oh so very slowly, slid down over his covered steel, causing both a flex and a hiss as I settled.

  “Oh fuck, Shell,” came the tight whisper as I began to move, rocking back and forth, taking him in before releasing his long, hard length again and again. I leaned down until we were chest to chest and felt his skin moistened with sweat. “So fucking good.”