by Skye Warren
“Okay.” Tiring, despairing, I turned to leave.
“Wait,” he said. “I want you to stay there. And you…you could keep sending these. Maybe…maybe send them back with Kai.”
I stopped and glanced back. “Yeah?”
He shrugged. “Nothing fancy. Don’t work too hard.”
I firmly resisted the urge to mimic don’t work too hard back to him. He was the one who looked about ready to fall over from exhaustion. Had he even slept? That wasn’t my concern. He didn’t want it to be.
We resolved nothing, really.
Chapter Twelve
I dragged myself home. The one high point was that Colin hadn’t wanted me to leave, which had to mean there was some hope for us. Or maybe he just pitied me. Either way, I wasn’t really up to tackling a new apartment so close on the heels of the encounter with Philip, and this was a reprieve.
Linda was reading a book to a sleepy-eyed Bailey when I got home.
“She woke up just after you left,” she said apologetically.
“It’s fine. Thank you.”
She looked up at my dull tone. “That man of yours at work?”
A blush heated my face. “Yes.” At least it was true. I left out the part about him not planning on coming home.
Her eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you go on upstairs? Take a little nap or read a book or something. I’ve got her covered.”
Grateful, I trudged up the stairs. I soaked in a hot bath, letting the sweat and steam bead on my face before I pulled myself back out. After throwing on some clothes, I looked inside his closet. Beside the space he’d emptied, there was a row of shirts. Collared things that I almost never saw him wear. And underneath, slacks and jeans. In the drawers I found undershirts and socks and underwear.
I knew all this was here, of course. He’d gratefully relinquished laundry duty to me since my first days here. I only ever looked at these sections, of course, not what was on the top shelf.
It took me a minute to find a stool downstairs and then lug it back up. Shoe boxes filled with receipts and bills. They looked like they had to do with the restaurant, which fit, since any Philip-related papers were probably in his tinderbox of a mansion.
I set that back on the high shelf and rummaged through some folded blankets and sheets. At the very end, in the corner and under some winter clothes, was a file folder marked “Marge” in Colin’s square lettering.
I slid it open and found a Registered Claim and Deed granted to Colin James Murphy. Was this where he was staying? It didn’t seem likely. Based on the zip code, I guessed it to be out by Wolf Lake, about an hour’s drive from here.
I was going to find out. Maybe because I deserved answers, and Colin was too damned reserved to ever give them to me. Or maybe because I cared about him enough to push, in the same way he’d pushed me at the beginning. And plus, I was incredibly curious about the man I loved.
Even more thankful that Linda had stayed on for Bailey’s dinner, I got in my car. I passed through the neighborhood streets of Oak Park, out across Chicago’s urban jungle to the remote plains near the lake.
A faded sign marked my arrival. HUNTER’S GLEN TRAILER PARK. Rows of metallic and off-white trailers suffocated among the debris around them. Plots that were little more than dirt and a few stray weeds were marked by white, jagged rocks. If this was a glen, then I was a debutante, but I could believe people hunted in the swamps around the lake.
I hadn’t known Chicago had anything like this, so country. But then, it was barely there at all. As my car jostled over the gravel path, I noticed several trailers had their windows smashed in to darkened rooms. Only a man slumped against the side of one told me that this place hadn’t been entirely abandoned. His eyes were yellow. And his teeth, when he bared them to me. In a smile or a threat, I wasn’t sure.
At the end of the path there was a smaller sign staked into the ground. EUROPEAN FORTUNE TELLING $10.
Though a few of them seemed like they might be lived in, I was hesitant to go knocking on doors. Neither did I want to check back with the man I’d seen on the way. The fortune-teller seemed like the safest bet.
I got out of the car and wove through the path of junk. The furniture and car parts made me think the plot was used as storage. The pink metal flamingos and numerous gnomes made the area seem more deliberate, more decorous, like a poor person’s sculpture garden.
I knocked and was rewarded with a raspy, “Come in.”
When I opened the door, I was met with a beaded curtain. Not wooden beads or jewel tones like I might have expected, but hot pink plastic beads, like the kind that go on Mardi Gras necklaces. I parted the strings to walk into the smokiest room I’d ever smelled. Piles of newspapers and dishes crowded in on me.
“You want your fortune told, missy?” came from the corner, in a voice that grated like the gravel I’d just come from.
I blinked through the mist of smoke and dust, trying to see. “No, I was looking for…well, I wasn’t exactly sure, but—”
“If you don’t know what you’re looking for, sounds like you do need your fortune told, eh?” She cackled. I was pretty sure it was a she.
“I found out this place was owned by someone. Someone I know—”
“You know Colin?” she interrupted.
“Yes, he’s—”
“What you want with the boy?”
He hadn’t been a boy in some time, but the fact that she seemed to know him and thought of him that way said a lot. “Well, he’s my boyfriend. Or he was. And I guess I—”
“Girl, you’s barking up the wrong tree with that one.”
I didn’t know who this lady was, but that really wasn’t the message I wanted to hear. Thank goodness I didn’t believe in psychics, especially not her.
“I wonder if you could just tell me how you know him,” I said quickly to ward off another interruption.
She huffed. “I know everything about him. I practically raised the boy.”
Holy shit. I thought back to the papers I’d found in Philip’s study. He’d been orphaned, they’d said, so she couldn’t be his mother. Maybe a foster parent? If they’d been placing kids in this dump, they must have been in a bad way.
She leaned forward from the shadows. Her face was a map of neglect with its many wrinkled tributaries and sunken eyes. “I’m his aunt.”
I looked around the tiny trailer. I saw two doors leading off, though one might have led to a bathroom. There definitely didn’t seem to be enough room for the three siblings.
“Where did all of you stay?” I asked.
“All of us?” she barked. “I only had that one. Oh, they tried pushing the other two brats on me, but I told them, them two’s too messed up in the head after what they’d been through. Ain’t gonna spend my time on that, have them stealing from me. Colin, though, he was young enough, and they didn’t much touch him. So I took him in, like family does.”
I just stared at her, trying to find some hint of recognition, that she knew how heinous what she’d just said was, but found nothing. She’d taken Colin in, like family does, but had rejected the other two because they’d been abused? With family like that, who needed enemies?
And then I applied that story to Colin, and even Philip and Rose, and my heart broke. I couldn’t even think of Philip and Rose, whatever they had been through with their parents, and then having their aunt turn them away. And Colin, trapped here in this pit of a home, without his siblings. How lonely he must have been. How miserable.
I could understand better now why a bachelor like him had such an airy, open house even when he hadn’t needed it. And maybe I also understood what Bailey and I had offered him. Something he hadn’t really had before—a family.
“You say you were with him, huh? What, did he leave you pregnant or something?”
“No,” I ground out. “Colin’s not like that.”
She laughed. “I guess not. He wouldn’t leave you high and dry, not my boy. He’d just pay you off probably.”
A shiver took me, even though the room was burning up. That was dangerously close to what had happened. At the time I’d written it off. After all, he’d thought I had betrayed him, making his actions more a kindness than an insult.
“He’s got money, I know that,” she said. “He came here once a few years ago, saying I should leave here, he’d buy me a house. But what do I want a house for? My customers know me here, and I’m comfortable. Getting on in age and don’t want to go nowhere, least not till I meet my Maker. So he sends me money now and again. Thought that might be why you’re here, for the money, if you was pregnant.”
I scowled. “I’m not pregnant.”
“Don’t look it, sure, but you forget I’m a fortune-teller.” She thought that was hilarious.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m not pregnant, but thank you for talking to me.”
“That’ll be ten dollars,” she said.
“What?”
“Hey, I’m sure you don’t want Colin to know you was sneaking around, checking up on him. Call it a keeping-quiet fee. I could probably charge you more, and you’d pay it, but you’re lucky I have morals.”
I pulled a twenty out of my purse and slapped it on the grimy fold-out table between us. Storming out of the little trailer, I heard her say, “Got your change,” before the rickety door slammed shut. I drove out of the trailer park so fast my rear wheels spun on the gravel.
God.
I’d wanted to know more about Colin’s past. I’d wished he would tell me, but it was clear that never would have happened. Bad enough that he was naturally taciturn, but telling something like this, it was impossible. There would be no way to explain the quiet horror of that place, the matter-of-fact evil of that woman, or the brokenness of his family.
But even as I ached for the boy-Colin, I worried over the man-Colin. She’d hit a little too close to home, that woman, with all her talk of paying me off. Not just that he’d done it before, but that he seemed to be doing it now. After all, he’d said I could stay in the house, that he didn’t want me to go.
I’d hoped it was because he’d meant to come back, but he’d offered her a house too. He felt some obligation to her for raising him. That was so like him. Did he also feel an obligation to me? Is that why he wanted me to keep living there?
He would pay the bills or send me money. I would live in his house but never see him. Did he think I would sit meekly in his house, growing old and crazy?
Like hell.
I picked up the phone and dialed. “Rose? It’s Allie. I need your help.”
Chapter Thirteen
I stumbled in my too-high heels as I wove my way to the bar. The thin fabric did little to shield my body from the dancers around me. Plus, it itched. I wouldn’t have been surprised to find I’d broken out in hives from the stretchy synthetic stuff.
I’d even filled out a little, eating real meals instead of Bailey’s leftovers. I’d plumped up too, in places that attracted attention from the men I passed.
The stools were full, so I shuffled to the side to wait for my drink. Too far over and I’d get groped. On the other side the bar was crusted with black stuff I didn’t want to speculate about. It was like one of those medieval torture chambers where the person had to stand in the middle or fall on spikes.
I wouldn’t leave, of course. My purpose was too important.
Between the strobing lights and grind of bodies, I’d never find him. He would already be here. What if he didn’t come at all?
He had to.
“Hey, sweetheart,” a low voice said. My heart thumped, and I turned. It wasn’t him.
This guy wore a wifebeater and hair spiked into a Mohawk. I hadn’t even known that was in style. I was too old for this scene, though that had little to do with the pitter-patter of the calendar. I’d grown into a woman, or at least my own version of that ideal. I had a ways to go, but I had the time to do it in. And hope. I had hope now.
“I’m waiting for someone,” I said.
He smiled, flashing white teeth. “I can be your someone.”
Ugh, what did I expect at a bar?
“Sorry,” I said. And I was. There wasn’t anything wrong with him. He was the kind of guy I could date, but there wasn’t any chance of that.
He melted back into the throng of dancers.
A space opened at the bar, so I sat down. The bartender slid me my drink.
At least the alcohol was the same. Watery, the way I liked it. I never wanted to be out of control, never again.
A hand closed around my arm, and I jumped. The briefest of flashbacks assailed me, of another man grabbing me from behind at this bar, but it faded as I turned to Colin.
He’d come! His familiar face drowned out the rest of the club.
It had been a test, I saw now. Not that I’d wanted to hurt him or stick it to him, but I had to know how he felt about me. If he could let me come here to sleep with another guy, coupled with the fact that he’d moved out, I’d have to assume he really didn’t want me. And then I’d have to move out, because I couldn’t remain a squatter in his house.
Rose had done her part and told Colin that I was back on the prowl, heading to the club to pick up some random guy for rough sex. I’d played my part, but I wouldn’t have followed through. If Colin hadn’t shown up, I definitely wouldn’t have had sex with any of these guys.
But he’d come, looking angry and fierce and everything perfect.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he raged. “You’re leaving. Now!”
“Thank God,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I hopped off the stool and grabbed his hand, then beelined for the exit, practically shoving people out of my way in my haste. Once outside I put my hand against the brick wall and sucked in air, but it stank. We needed to get away from here.
“Where to?” I asked.
“Home,” he practically thundered. “You’re going home.”
I considered that. “No,” I said. “I think I told you once that I don’t bring guys home.”
“I’m not coming with you,” he ground out. “I’m putting you in the car and sending you there.”
“I’ll drive to another club,” I said.
“Then I’ll follow you there and drag you out.”
“How very stalkerish,” I said. “Do you follow girls around in clubs often?”
He stopped then and closed his mouth, probably because he had followed me at the club, according to Rose.
“Do you have a motel room we could use, perhaps?” I asked.
He glared at me. I knew he wanted to tell me to go home, but he knew it wouldn’t work. And perhaps it had dawned on him now what I was about in this game. Or maybe he’d known all along and come anyway, his baser instincts winning out over whatever strange logic had kept him away.
“I need it,” I said. Getting fucked was the least of it. I needed him.
That seemed to decide him. Even as some of the fury faded from his eyes, lust filled them. We were going to have sex tonight.
“Follow me in your car,” he said.
“I think I know the way.”
His eyes promised retribution for my mocking tone. I could only hope.
I followed him anyway, not wanting to risk it, but I’d been right. We pulled into the same motel, drove to the same building near the back, and parked in front of the same motel door.
It had to come to this. We’d both fought the good fight, but it had been over since we first saw each other. All this sex and pain and love had been inevitable, almost fated. Now I was getting sappy. Maybe I did, in fact, need a good, hard fuck.
I beat him to the door, but I didn’t have the key so I turned and watched him slowly leave the truck. Was he just now accepting the inevitability? Or would we fight one last battle inside that room?
I stepped aside to let him open the door. He let me in first, and I dropped my purse on the same fabric chair and strolled inside.
The room was different than before. Last ti
me it had been all clean and musky in the blank slate of an unused hotel room. Now it was lived in, strewn with clothes on the floor and bottles on the dresser.
Paperwork was spread across the rumpled sheets as if he’d been working there. I picked a few up and found information about leases and sales and transferals of rights.
I looked up sharply. “You aren’t selling the place?”
“A new location.”
“Really? Like a franchise?”
“I’ll still own it. Both of them.” He gave me a wry look. “I found myself with too much time on my hands.”
I smiled. “Give up a bad habit, did you?”
“And a good one,” he said, somehow closer to me.
The answer popped into my head. Oh? Well, we can fix that right now. Cheesy, but then his mouth was on mine, and I’d missed it. I’d missed its warmth, its taste, its very Colin-ness. Because it was him and he knew me and he loved me. Even if he never said it, not with words, because that wasn’t his style. He said it with his actions, taking care of me and getting angry when I did stupid shit. And he said it with his body.
With his tongue as it swiped along the seam of my lips and touched against my tongue. You’re mine, it said. If you’ve forgotten, I’ll prove it to you. The love words were only in my mind, but he’d put them there. I’d been too afraid to try, to even imagine this, but he’d insisted with his feeding me and bathing me and caring for me, and all I wanted to do right now was give some of it back.
I pulled his shirt up, to feel his abs and then around to his back. He ripped the shirt over his head and tossed it aside, then unbuckled his jeans and kicked them off. I’d thought we’d take it slow, let it build, but his urgency was hot, contagious.
I started to pull off my clothes, to catch up, but he stopped me.
“I want to,” he said.
My lips curved. “You like to do that. Undress me, wash me, feed me.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He was infinitely distracted as he circled me and slid his hands up my skirt.
“I can do those things on my own, you know,” I said on a gasp as his fingers found a spot. “All on my own.”