“Sherlock, please! Please! It hurts!” She started to cry, and he finally let her go. She grabbed the arm he’d hurt and then backed herself into a corner—the worst place for her to be if he were truly a threat to her, but he wasn’t. The fight had died in him, and he sat hard in the nearest chair.
After a moment, from her corner, she said, “What the fuck that is is a sealed box with a morning-after pill. I haven’t taken it. I bought it because we did something crazy last night, and we need to talk about it, and I wanted to have it in case we decided it was too crazy. Now I know it was.”
Sherlock took the box out of its bag. Yes, it was unopened. Fuck. “I’m sorry.”
She didn’t respond, so he looked up and saw her wedged into the corner, rubbing her arm. He could see the bright red mark of his hand on her fair skin. He closed his eyes and ground his fingers into his forehead, as if he could erase that image from his brain.
He stood, and she crammed herself even farther back. “God, Sadie. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking tired. My brain can’t think anymore. I’m not gonna hurt you. I…I overreacted.”
She huffed a sneering laugh. “No shit. Why?”
He couldn’t face a conversation about Taryn, not now. “It’s complicated. I told you—I’m tired. It’s just been day after day after day of shit, and I’m at my limit, but there’s more to come.”
She took a halting step forward. “I should take that pill.”
“No!” He snatched the box back, even though she wasn’t close enough to take it from him. He didn’t mean to be so forceful, and he hated the way she jumped. Before he spoke again, he took a breath and calmed himself. “I know we should talk more about it, but sweetheart, I do want it. I love you. You love me. Make a family with me. We need each other.” He dropped the box onto the chair behind him and took a step toward her. When she didn’t shrink back, he tried a smile. “I love you, little outlaw. I want to make a life with you.”
He saw her warm to him again, understood what it meant when her body lost its staunch rigidity. “Sherlock…”
His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he flinched. Sadie cast a raised eyebrow at his pocket. “That’s your personal. It’s been going crazy since you got back. It never makes this much fuss.”
Didn’t he know it. Before Sadie, the only people who ever used that number were his mother and brother. And Taryn.
With a heavy, disgusted sigh, he pulled the damn thing out into the open. The screen was crammed full of texts: Miss you; Don’t be like this, baby; The kids have been asking about you; Dylan got a new game; Tim, come on. You know it’ll be okay if you just give in; and so on. For days, that had been going on. The text that had just come in was a photograph: Taryn naked, on hand and knees, holding the phone up behind her back and smiling over her shoulder at the camera.
Fucking Christ.
He swiped all that away and finally returned a text: We’re done. Move the fuck on. Then he threw his phone onto the sofa. If it buzzed his thigh one more time, he might well lose his mind.
Sadie was staring at him. “What’s all that about?”
He shook his head. “Family shit.” Closing the last of the space between them, he picked up her hands and pressed them to his chest. “My family is shit. Your family is shit. I’m not overreacting when I say I want to make a life and a family with you. I’ve lived long enough to recognize what I want when I have it, and it’s you. Please don’t take that pill.”
For a long, long, painfully long time, she simply stood there, staring at his hands around hers. Sherlock stood quietly and let her think, or feel, or whatever she needed to do. He willed the right decision at her; he almost felt like his mind physically pushed it toward her.
Finally, she raised her eyes to his. They were big and round and violet, and he saw that he still had her trust, even though he knew that, if he looked, he’d see his fingers drawn in red on her bicep.
She nodded, and he pulled her close, held her tight—and gently.
~oOo~
Three days later, they buried Gerald “Jerry” Klepp with all the honor of a brother, in a kutte bearing a patch they’d never given him the chance to wear in life.
Sadie was with Sherlock most of the day, except when they’d bidden Jerry farewell in the way of the club. More than simply staying at his side, though, she had been a part of the day. She’d been one of the old ladies, taking care of the people who’d come to say goodbye.
It wasn’t a large group; Jerry really had had no one else but the Horde. Friends of the Horde came, though, too—representatives from nearby clubs, some of the people who had businesses near the clubhouse. Still, Sherlock felt another layer of wrongness for Jerry, to have had his life ended in the way that it had been, and then to have so few care enough to mark the occasion. Again, Sherlock felt the pull to make his life matter. Who did he have beyond the Horde to care about him, to mourn him when that day came? His mother. His brother, maybe.
Sadie. He had Sadie. And maybe already somebody more than that. From his seat on one of the worn leather sofas, he watched her replenish a chafing dish of some kind of casserole. She wore her Audrey Hepburn dress, sans pearls today. He loved how she could look right in any manner of clothing—classy, like today, or punk, like the day he’d met her; casual, in jeans and a t-shirt, which was how he mostly knew her, or sweet, in her little pajamas and her always-matching underwear. She was just Sadie, no matter what. She wore her clothes, not the other way around.
She’d forgiven him for the brutish way he’d behaved the other day, and she hadn’t brought up that pill again. The time for its effectiveness had passed, and they hadn’t been celibate in the meantime. They were doing this, and it remained a decision he didn’t regret. He thought—hoped—that was true for Sadie, too, that she hadn’t simply conceded to his desire.
He understood that he’d done everything out of order; he’d asked her to have his baby before he’d asked her to take his ink. They hadn’t talked about changing their living arrangements, though she hadn’t slept at her own place since he’d been back in town, and now his house was always tidy. She hadn’t met his mother or Thomas; he hadn’t met her father. There were so many things to talk about, and neither of them seemed willing to be the one to start. They’d moved at supersonic speed to this point and then had stopped and stood still.
Sherlock knew why he hadn’t started the dialogue. Taryn had backed off a little since his text, but only in quantity. Instead, a few times a day, she’d been sending longer texts, getting into detail about the ways they were good together, giving him updates about Chelsea and Dylan. He had yet to reply to her new tactic, but he knew he was going to have to do something that would get her attention. He was busily trying to make Sadie pregnant; he could not have Taryn hanging over their heads.
But his head was still full. He’d set Jerry’s funeral as the final date that he could put off an unpleasant confrontation with Taryn and his past, and then have a hopefully much more pleasant conversation with Sadie and his future.
~oOo~
They were home that night, after the memorial and the burial, in the bedroom. Sadie sat in the middle of the made bed—he hadn’t even known he had pillow shams that matched his comforter, but apparently they’d been on the floor of his linen closet—with her big gaming computer before her. Sherlock sat at his desk a few feet away. They were online together, in game, leveling their baby toons. One of his favorite things about them was this: that they could enjoy this together, that Sadie understood him in this way. There was a language and a culture around gaming, particularly online gaming, and it meant a lot to him that he had found a woman who was part of it.
They were running a dungeon together when the doorbell rang. Then rang again. And again.
Sherlock opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a Smith & Wesson 9mm. He stood and turned to Sadie, whose eyes were wide with concern. “Stay here. Stay quiet.” Then he left the room, closing the door behind him.
By the time h
e stepped into the hallway, the doorbell had been abandoned for pounding on the door itself. By the time he stepped into the living room, Taryn had begun shouting on the other side of his door.
“Tim! Tim! I know you’re home! Open the goddamn door!”
Staring at the gun in his hand, Sherlock had a moment when he seriously considered using it. The sound of his birth name being shrieked at him sent a hot pulse of rage into his left eye. The damage that bitch could do right now, if Sadie…
“Sherlock?”
Fuck. She’d come out of the bedroom. Ignoring Taryn’s escalating histrionics, Sherlock turned around. “Go back to the bedroom, sweetheart. Please.”
“No. Who is that?”
He sighed and set the S&W on a nearby shelf. “It’s Taryn. My ex. I told you about her. Go back to the bedroom. I’ll handle her and be right back.”
“No. Let her in.”
“Sadie.”
“Fuck that tone of voice, I swear to God. She’s been calling and texting all this time, hasn’t she? That’s the ‘family shit’ you blew me off about when I asked, right?” She crossed her arms. Standing in the hallway in her little pajama shorts and top, her scarred thighs and pretty feet bare, she managed to look both fragile and fierce. Her heart was pounding so hard and fast that he could see her pulse fluttering in her throat. Strangely, that made her seem stronger, not weaker. Maybe because she was standing still despite that hummingbird’s beat.
“I was trying to ignore her until she went away.”
“I think I see the flaw in your plan.”
He chuckled; she didn’t. His jealous girl. Sweet fuck, this was bad.
“Let her in, Sherlock.”
Taryn was still going nuts outside; now it sounded like she’d found something to ram the door with. This was new territory; Taryn Wilkes could certainly be a bitch, but she’d never been psycho before. Of course, he’d never ignored her before, either.
He really didn’t have any other choice but to let her in. “Okay. Just…give me some space, okay?”
Sadie didn’t answer. Sherlock gave up and went to the door. He disarmed the alarm but left the security chain in place and turned the knob.
Taryn was winded from her hysterics, and her red hair flew around her face. She was wearing a baggy t-shirt and yoga pants, the kind of thing she wore around the house.
“What the fuck do you want, you crazy twat?”
He could see her trying to reassemble her expression and orient her approach more toward reconciliation than threat. “I just want to talk. I can’t get you to answer my calls or texts, so this was all I could do.”
“I answered. I told you what was what.”
“That’s crazy, Tim. We had a bad patch. We always have bad patches, and we always come back together. For six years. We just need to talk. I miss you, baby. Chelsea and Dylan miss you like crazy. Chelsea’s been drawing you pictures.”
He closed the door and released the chain. When he opened the door again, he could see that Taryn thought she’d won. A whole different woman stood on his porch. Calm and smiling.
Taryn was several inches taller than Sadie. As she stepped victoriously over the threshold, she rose up onto her tiptoes, grabbed Sherlock’s head, pulled it to her, and kissed him, all in a rush, shoving her tongue deep into his surprised mouth.
Feeling nauseated, he stood tall and shoved her away from him as fast as he could.
And then heard the unmistakable, heavy click of a gun being cocked behind him. Taryn didn’t hear it, and she made to move deeper into the house. Sherlock grabbed her and kept her shielded with his body.
He wasn’t protecting Taryn, not really. He knew that behind him, Sadie had picked up the S&W and had cocked it. He figured she was aiming it right at them. What he couldn’t guess was whether she’d just shoot the second she had the shot. He didn’t want her to carry that on her conscience.
Meanwhile, Taryn thought he’d grabbed her to hold her with affection, and she was wrapping herself around him. With a view like that, Sherlock thought there was chance Sadie, his jealous, fragile girl, might go for them both.
“Sadie,” he said, calmly but clearly. “Sweetheart, that’s a bad idea.”
Taryn looked up at him. “Who’s Sadie?”
He ignored her and turned his head, not enough to see behind him, but enough to be sure she could hear him. “Sadie. Come on, little outlaw. That’s not how this is going to go down. She’s not a threat to you, sweetheart. I love you. I never loved her.”
“And yet you’ve been lying to me for days. Maybe forever. Who are Chelsea and Dylan?”
Fuck—she thought they were his. “They’re her kids. Not mine. I swear. Taryn here aborted my kid—and that was for the best, because now I have you. There’s nothing here but a sad, desperate woman who needs to make other people feel like shit so she can feel good about herself. You’re going to put the gun down, and I’m going to turn around. No shooting tonight, okay?”
She didn’t answer, but he had to take the risk. He wanted Taryn off of him—that wasn’t helping anything, and she’d heard every word he’d just said and was getting feisty again. So he pushed her away and turned to his girl.
Who was still aimed at the door. At him. He put up his hands. “Come on, Sadie. It’s okay.”
He thought that he finally understood what she meant when she said she was ‘fizzy.’ There was something going on in her eyes that would have fit that description. “I thought you were honest. I thought I could trust you. I maybe let you make me pregnant, and you’ve been lying and lying and lying.”
With terrible timing and a surprising lack of survival instinct, Taryn, now behind him, laughed. “Is that what this is? You’re still pissed that I wouldn’t have your baby, so you ran off and knocked up the first bitch you could?”
And then Sadie pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Sherlock barely twitched as the explosive report of the gun filled the room, but the woman screamed and dropped to the floor. Sadie couldn’t make sense. She could see a new hole in the wall by the door. Had she hit her mark? She’d been aiming for the bitch’s red head, but this gun was a lot bigger than the one he’d given her at the range.
She’d been aiming at the woman’s head.
Holy fuck. Had she just shot a person?
No—that hole. But the woman was on the floor.
Through and through. Like her arm.
But wouldn’t there be blood?
Holy fuck. Had she just shot a person?
She stared at the gun in her hands, not totally sure how it had gotten there. All the thoughts in her head careened back and forth, and none of them slowed down enough to really be thought.
“Sadie. Easy, sweetheart. It’s okay.”
Sherlock walked straight toward her, straight toward the gun she couldn’t seem to lower. When he got there, he put his hands over hers. They were warm and strong. Their rough texture always made her feel safe, for some reason.
“Sadie. It’s okay. You can let go.”
“I…” She stopped; there hadn’t been any more words in her head.
“I know. Everything’s gonna be okay. Just let go.”
She did, letting her hands fall slack, and he pulled the gun from her, did something to it, and then tucked it at the small of his back.
Then he pulled her into his arms and held her, kissing the top of her head. “I’m so sorry. So sorry.”
In the familiar shelter of his body, Sadie just felt tired. Her brain turned completely off, and she could have fallen asleep right there, in that moment.
Then, from the floor near the front door, came, “Are you kidding me? The stupid little skank shoots at me, and you’re comforting her? What the fuck, Tim?”
Sadie wondered absently who ‘Tim’ was. Sherlock tensed, though, and set her back. “I need to take care of this. I’ll be right back.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. His beard tickled her nose.
Then he turned and went b
ack to the door. Sadie watched with dispassionate interest as he held out his hand to the woman on the floor.
“Are you hurt?”
She took his hand and stood, and Sherlock roughly checked her over. Pushing him away, she said, “Of course I’m hurt. Some stupid bitch just shot at me!”
“Watch your mouth. And she missed. You’re fine. Now you need to listen. We are done, Taryn. Forever. I have what I want, and it’s not you.”
The woman looked past Sherlock and locked eyes with Sadie. Sadie felt a thrill of something dark twist up her spine.
“Christ almighty, Tim. She’s a child. What are you doing?”
Sherlock opened the door and grabbed the woman’s arm. “My life is not your business, Tare. Get out and stay away. If you say a word to anybody, ever, about what went down here, I’ll see to it that you pay.”
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