Legally Yours (Spitfire Book 1)

by Nicole French

  “I’m not cra—”

  My mouth was swiftly covered by his, effectively silencing any future reply by the insistent pressure of his soft lips and the force of his tongue as he sought entry. His hands had come up to cup my face gently, and I melted, opening myself up to the tender devotion I felt in his touch. After the stress of the last twenty-four hours, I was finally ready for this—just to be held, to be cared for. I pulled away and laid my head against him, basking in the solid strength of his body.

  “Please,” I whimpered into his chest. The image of Brandon hurt appeared in my mind again, and I suddenly felt broken, hollow.

  “What is it, Red?” he asked, slowly stroking my hair back from my face.

  “Just leave it alone. Promise me you’ll leave it all alone.”

  He sighed, his handsome features contorted with obvious frustration. But when he looked at me, he must have seen something that changed his mind; his frown completely disappeared, and was replaced by a look of sadness and maybe a little understanding. He exhaled a long breath out of his nose and touched his forehead to mine.

  “All right, Red,” he said quietly. “We’ll do things your way for now. But if things go wrong…”

  “You can step in,” I finished. I tipped my head up for another kiss. “That’s a promise.”

  ~

  Chapter 33

  “All set?” I said as I took the clipboard holding a set of discharge papers from Dad and handed it back to the nurse.

  She nodded. “That’s it. An attendant will be up shortly with a wheelchair.”

  Dad was already trying to swing his legs out of the bed, but the nurse stopped him with a wave of his hand.

  “If you’ll just wait, sir, the attendant will help you,” she said. “Hospital policy.”

  “Better do what she says, Danny.” Brandon hovered in the corner, nodding to the nurse as she ducked out of the room with a schmaltzy smile back. I rolled my eyes at her—several of the hospital staff—male and female—had been making excuses to come into the room since Brandon had arrived with me this morning. To his credit, he hadn’t been anything but distant and polite to any of them, but it was irritating just the same.

  Dad sat back in his bed with a resigned sigh. The nurse had helped him dress in the sweats I’d brought from the house, so at least he wasn’t stuck in a hospital gown any more. Before he could respond, a loud buzz from Brandon’s phone filtered through the small room.

  “Excuse me,” Brandon said. “I should probably take this. Hello?”

  A shrill, female voice blared unintelligibly throughout the room, and immediately Brandon’s easygoing demeanor vanished into a scowl.

  “She fucking WHAT?!” he exploded. He looked up to find Dad and I both staring at him curiously. “Hold on. I’m at the hospital with Skylar.” He covered the phone speaker with his hand and looked up at us with an uneasy expression. “I, ah, need a minute. If I’m not back by the time the attendant comes, I’ll meet you downstairs at the entrance. David is already there with the car.”

  Without waiting for a response, Brandon ducked out of the room and out of earshot. I turned to Dad, whose bemused expression was evident even beneath the layers of bruises and nose brace.

  “Got a temper, doesn’t he?”

  I darted a glance back at the door. “That’s the first I’ve seen of it. I hope everything is okay.”

  Dad nodded in agreement. We sat silently together, watching the news on the small television mounted in the ceiling corner while we waited. A few minutes later, Brandon reentered the room with his frown lines more pronounced than usual and his hair sticking up in the back. It clearly hadn’t been the best phone call.

  “Everything okay?” I asked warily.

  He ran his hand through his hair again, trying in vain to smooth it out. His efforts only made it worse. “Not really. Something’s come up. I’m so sorry, but I have to get back to Boston. M—there’s a deal that’s gone to shit. Ah, sorry, Danny.”

  My dad waved away the profanity with his good hand. “Like I ain’t said worse a million times.”

  I walked to where Brandon stood by the door. As if programmed to do so, his hands moved immediately to my waist and pulled me close.

  “When are you leaving?” I asked.

  “There’s a helicopter on standby downtown,” he murmured against my brow. He inhaled deeply, as if to breathe in as much of my scent as possible, and I relaxed a bit into his chest before pulling back to look at him while we spoke.

  “Okay. Should I call a cab?”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m getting one. David will still be there outside to take you home before he drives back to New York.” He released me with one arm and turned halfway to face my father. “Danny, I hope it’s not overstepping, but I’ve also arranged for a home aide to come to your house for next several weeks to help Skylar and your mother while you’re out of commission.”

  “Oh, you really didn’t have to—-” Dad started, but was interrupted swiftly.

  “It’s the least I can do, since I don’t get to see your daughter for a few weeks.” Brandon released me completely and stepped over to Dad to shake his good hand. “Take care, Danny.”

  Dumbfounded, Dad could do little but nod back and mumbled a few words of thanks.

  Brandon turned to me. “Walk me out?”

  “I’ll be right back,” I assured Dad, and followed Brandon to the bank of elevators at the end of the hall.

  “I’m sorry I have to leave,” he said as he pressed the button to call the elevator. He pulled me back into his arms and leaned in to touch his forehead to mine. “I really did want to be here through the week.”

  “I know you did,” I said. “But you’ve done too much already. You should get back. I’ll be back as soon as Dad’s through his next surgery and on the mend.”

  Brandon smiled ruefully. “Hopefully it won’t be too long. I’m not sure I’ll survive without you around for two weeks.”

  It was meant to be a joke, but his tone of voice made my chest constrict—the idea of being without him for more than a few days caused a massive cloud of dread to hang over my head. I was falling in love with the man. The realization my heart skipped, once, twice. Wasn’t it too soon to be thinking such things?

  “Skylar, I—”

  I looked up to find his eyes wide with the same vulnerability I currently felt. The hum of the hospital ward faded away, the lull of voices and the monotonous beeps of the machines muted as we stared at each other, lost completely in twin looks of something neither of us were ready to name yet.

  “Skylar,” he said again, softly. “I…I—”

  The loud ring of the elevator bell interrupted us. As the people filed off, Brandon leaned down and kissed me, quickly but very thoroughly, pulling me up to meet him so my toes hovered over the floor. Just as quickly, he released me, breathing heavily.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said as he stepped into the elevator.

  “Call me when you’re home,” I said with a feeble wave. Just his brief kiss had managed to knock the wind out of me.

  He gave me a sly grin in response, and my knees weakened just a little bit more. “Bye, Red. Take care of your dad.”

  The elevator doors closed. I turned around to find two of the nurses staring at me with twin expressions of pure jealousy.

  “Girl,” said one of the them. “I don’t know what you are doing there. If that was my man, I wouldn’t let him out of my sight.”

  “No doubt,” agreed the other one. “He looks like trouble. The good kind.”

  “You have no idea,” I replied with a shy smile.

  They laughed in response as I walked back down the hall to my dad’s room.

  “He’s off?” Dad asked as I slumped back down in the chair beside him.

  I nodded and looked at the TV, afraid of what my expression would betray.

  “He’s a good man, Skylar.”

  I turned to Dad curiously. He didn’t usually say much about the m
en I dated. Even when I’d dated Patrick and Robbie and had come home crying on more than one occasion, he’d left the interfering up to Bubbe. Dad was usually the quiet, watch-and-see kind of parent, content to let me make my own mistakes while he loved me no matter what.

  “I’m glad,” he said, fighting to the get the words out of his still-hoarse throat. I started to speak, but he held up his good hand in protest. “No, I am. You deserve better than an old man who’s going to ruin the family. He’ll take care of you, baby. And I’m glad to see it, especially since I can’t.”

  I swallowed and walked over to sit in the chair next to the bed. This was the moment, if ever, that I could talk some sense into him. “No one has to take care of me, Dad. I want to take care of you.”

  His mottled features spread into a wistful smile at the words, and his good hand rose up to cup my cheek gently before falling back to the bed. “Pips, you already do.”

  “Dad.” I cleared my throat before continuing. I might as well get it over with. He needed to know he didn’t have to worry. “I went to Nick’s yesterday.”

  The hand on my face stiffened, then dropped back to the mattress like a rock. “You did what?”

  “Victor was there,” I continued. “He told me what you owe. We came to an agreement about paying it off.”

  Dad’s entire body had tensed visibly, and he stared at me without blinking before shaking his head mournfully. “Oh Skylar, honey. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  “It’s not like I haven’t done it before.”

  He opened and closed his mouth a few times, but didn’t say anything. Finally, he looked away toward the window. “So what’s the agreement this time?”

  “Brandon gave him the first payment, and we’ll be able to get the rest by the end of the month. He said as long as we did that, he’d leave you alone.”

  The wrinkles on Dad’s forehead became even more pronounced as he pondered my statement. “But…where are you getting the rest of the money?”

  I sighed. “I’m not going to lie. Bubbe’ll need to refinance the house for some of it. I don’t have enough left in my trust to cover it all and pay for a rehabilitation program.”

  His head jerked around at my last words, his eyelids blinking rapidly. “What? Honey, I really don’t think I need that—”

  “It’s a non-negotiable, Dad,” I interrupted him quietly.

  I set my hand on his leg, patting his shin lightly through the worn sweatpants. He stared at it and swallowed loudly. When he looked back to me, clearly prepared to mount another weak argument, I just shook my head.

  “Non-negotiable,” I repeated.

  “Skylar—” he tried again as his legs started to move, almost as if just the thought of rehab had him ready to get out of bed. I gripped his leg, indicating he was to stay put.

  “No,” I said, this time more forcefully. “You have a problem. Your liver is busted. Your hand is completely smashed—it’s going to take months for you to even be able to start thinking about the piano again. I don’t know how many times you’ve gotten into trouble with these kinds of people—I couldn’t possibly count them all—but this is now the third time I’ve personally had to pay off your debts to some shitty loan shark, which means that I am now involved in illegal activities. This is the last time we’re doing this. Do you hear me, Dad? The last!”

  My voice was shaking by the end of my statement, even though my volume hadn’t risen a bit. He watched me carefully as I spoke, his lips clenched tightly as he fought the obvious tears welling in his eyes. He felt terrible about it—that much was obvious. But I wasn’t going to let him remain in a terrible cycle.

  “You’re going to rehab,” I said definitively. “Because if you don’t, I’m turning you in for illegal gambling, and for aiding and abetting known criminals.”

  “Now, wait a second—”

  “NO!” I finally stood up from my chair, unable to keep my cool any longer. I paced away toward the door to the small shared room, where a flurry of nurses at the station looked up as I approached. I turned on my heel and walked back to my father, who watched me, his small, brown eyes wide and sad.

  “You, you can’t keep doing this to us, Daddy!” I cried, my voice cracking on the last word.

  I hadn’t called him Daddy in years, but somehow it slipped out now. He had always been my hero, even when I knew things weren’t completely right with him. Even when I knew he was a fundamentally weak man—the kind of man who took back a woman who continued to emotionally abuse him, the kind of man who couldn’t say no to a good game of cards even when it cost him his savings and his health. He had only ever been strong in two ways: his music and his love for me. I wanted so badly for him to extend those strengths to other parts of his life—to be the man I knew he could be.

  I sat back down heavily in the chair, the metal leg screeching loudly across the tiled floor. I leaned down and laid my head on his leg. Before I could stop them, a cascade of tears poured into the thin fabric of his pants as I let out the years of pain, anguish, worry that his addiction had caused me and Bubbe. The sobs wracked through my body quickly. Once they lessened, I registered the feel of a hand stroking my head softly, combing the through the strands of my hair the way he used to when I was just a kid.

  “Shh,” Dad intoned. I turned, relishing in the feel of his soft touch, and looked up to see him gazing down at me, with several streams of tears also following down his delicate features. He sniffed as a few caught in the thin line of his mustache, but kept his good hand where it was, running its fingers through my hair.

  We stayed where we were—my head on his lap, his fingers in my hair—as our mutual tears dried up. When they were finally done, I sat up slowly. His hand drifted down my shoulder to grab mine and squeezed tightly.

  “Oh, baby,” he said softly. He looked down at his cast, the back up at me. “Your sweet face. I’m so sorry, baby girl.”

  I shook my head and wiped madly at my face, even grabbing a tissue off his small side table to dab at my eyes and nose. After I tossed it in the garbage, I took a deep breath.

  “I don’t want you to be sorry,” I said. “I just want you to get better. I want you to admit you’re sick so you can get better. Please, Dad.”

  He blinked at me for a moment while another lone tear trickled down his cheek, over the crow’s feet that lined his eyes and the larger lines around his small mouth. Finally, he nodded.

  “Okay, Pips,” he croaked. “I’ll go.”

  Before I could reply, a knock on the open door interrupted our conversation. Dad pulled his hand out of my grasp to wipe the remaining tears off his face while I turned to greet our guest.

  “Mr. Crosby?” A tall man who couldn’t have been much older than me stepped carefully into the room and hovered with his hand still on the door knob.

  “Can we help you?” I asked, turning awkwardly in my chair to look more carefully at our guest.

  Around six feet tall, his lean frame that filled the doorway in a tailored gray suit that looked more appropriate for GQ cover than a shoddy hospital room. A shock of jet black hair, cropped short, was combed neatly to the side, and a pair of dark brown eyes looked straight at me with a confidence that belied his youth. The man reached up, straightened the striped tie that matched his suit, and cleared his throat.

  “I’m Matthew Zola. I work at the Brooklyn D.A.’s office. I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time.”

  He spoke with the slightly rough edges of a local boy, although what little remained of his accent sounded more like uptown Manhattan or Queens than Brooklyn. With a name like Zola, he was probably Italian—or maybe part French—but with his browned skin and thick black hair, I guessed there was more than a little Latino parentage there too.

  I glanced back at Dad, who was cowering slightly into his pillow and clenched the edge of his blanket with his good hand. Zola looked him over frankly, openly assessing the nose brace, the bandaging over his hand, and the rainbow of bruises that flowe
red all over Dad’s face. I appraised Zola right back and raised my eyebrow.

  “What is it you need?” I asked sharply.

  “It’s probably best that it stays between me and Mr. Crosby, miss,” Zola said kindly, in that same placating tone I had listened to Kieran used every time she spoke with a client’s family member who was ignorant of the legal situation. I crossed my arms and frowned.

  “No, it’s fine,” Dad croaked behind me. “She’s my daughter. She’s also my lawyer, if I need one. She’s graduating from Harvard Law next month.”

  I traded a small grin with Dad—he couldn’t help but brag about my education, even when his face was so beaten up he could barely speak. Zola’s gaze flickered back at me with obvious, if wary, curiosity. I was the definition of inexperienced, of course, but at least he understood I could follow the conversation. Without asking, he took a seat in the second armchair facing the bed and pulled it closer to speak.

  “All right, sir,” he said, although now his appeal was clearly being directed at both of us. “I work in the Criminal Enterprise Bureau, and we’re currently preparing a case against the Messina crime family.”

  “What are the charges?” I asked.

  “Oh, they’ve got their hands in all sorts of things,” Zola eluded the question easily. “I’m sorry to bother you good folks, but when I caught wind of what had happened to you, I thought you might have something to say.”

  “And what would that be?” My response was cold—this was highly irregular. Dad had flat-out refused to give a statement to the police who had been called upon his admission to the hospital. I suspected Dr. Carraway had been involved with their appearance, but why would the D.A. connect a basic assault to the Messinas?

  “It’s your hand that made me think of it,” Zola said as if answering my unspoken question. “It’s sort of Victor Messina’s calling card when dealing out the, ah, consequences to people who don’t meet their end of a bargain. Very painful to have your hand messed up, as no doubt you know, Mr. Crosby.”