Gifts

by Brynne Asher

  “You hungry?” I start.

  Not looking at me, she heads to her laundry room and mutters, “No.”

  I hear her banging around and I can tell she’s changing laundry again. Holy hell, how much laundry can she have? She’s been at it all night.

  When she finally comes out, she’s on a mission and doesn’t look at me. I catch her by the arm as she tries to breeze by and I demand, “Slow down.”

  She glares and tries to shrug out of my hold. “I can’t. I have things I want to get done before tomorrow.”

  I tip my head. “What could possibly need doing before tomorrow?”

  She pulls again and I let go of her arm. “I have files to go over this weekend. My underclassmen are picking courses for next year. I have to approve them. If I get them done tonight, I can spend more time with the kids this weekend.”

  I ignore all that. “Did you take something else for the pain?”

  She rubs her arm under her stitches. “I just did.”

  “Sit down and take a load off. Your files can wait ‘til tomorrow.”

  She takes a step backward. “No. If I get them done tonight, I won’t have it looming over me the rest of the weekend.”

  “Keelie—” I try, but she keeps talking.

  “I’d like to keep painting the third floor tomorrow. All I have left are the wall—”

  I’ve had enough.

  Stepping forward, I catch her off guard and pin her against the counter.

  “It’s time to stop for the day,” I demand.

  Her face hardens and she tries to push against me. “Move.”

  “No. I want to talk about what happened this afternoon.”

  “I talked to you about it in the ambulance. I sort of talked about it on the way home. Then I talked to you and the police about it for longer than I cared to, rehashing events I want to put out of my mind. I’m done talking.”

  “Okay,” I lower my voice and bring my hands up to cup her cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about today. I want to know if you’re okay.”

  “I feel a little stiff from the stitches, but I’m sure the meds will kick in soon.”

  I lean into her and whisper, “I’m not talking about your shoulder.”

  I feel her chest rise against mine—her breathing quickens and her nostrils flare. Her hands come up to my forearms, but I hold steady.

  “Dammit,” her voice shakes. “Let me go.”

  I lean in closer. “You were shot at today.”

  She rolls her lips together and her brow puckers.

  I tip my head so our lips are almost touching and add, “Emma is alive because of you.”

  I feel her labored breath on my face and her grip tightens.

  “Could have lost my daughter today.”

  She shakes her head in my hands, her voice croaks, “Stop. Please, stop talking.”

  I don’t give her what she wants. “Could’ve lost you, too, baby.”

  Her eyes well, and instead of trying to pull away from me, this time her body seeps into mine. She can barely be heard when she whispers, “My kids—they can’t go through that again.”

  I lean in, press my lips to hers, murmuring, “I know.”

  “They can’t,” she gasps, her breaths coming in short pants, her lungs desperate for air. Her movements are almost violent as she shakes her head. “They can’t lose another parent. I can’t let that happen.”

  And just in time, I bring my arms around her when she falls apart.

  Chapter 14

  Hot and Sweaty

  Keelie

  This can’t be happening.

  I don’t do this.

  I never allow myself this.

  I had a handle on everything. Just when I was able to separate it, tuck it away where I could deal with it in my brain and not my heart, he had to go and ruin it by not letting me be.

  He came at me with his words and his whispers and his touches.

  Fuck. It all came flooding back. Telling my kids they’d never see their dad again. Having to be strong for them, showing them I could handle it, proving to them I’d do anything and everything to soften that blow so their life would go on with as little change as possible. I’d give them goats, space camps, throw a ball, and renovate a house I resented because, to me, it was tied to David’s lies and addictions. But for them, they just lost their dad. He wasn’t a shit dad, just a shit husband. So, for my kids, I’d do anything.

  Having survived a barrage of bullets, scared for Emma’s life, seeing my own blood, and then, finally, what cut me to the core, walking in to my kids eating bananas and thinking how differently their day could’ve ended…

  I had to pack it all away, clean it up neat and tidy, and compartmentalize it with all the other shit I can’t seem to deal with, because if I were to face it, this would happen.

  I’d fall apart.

  Damn him.

  Just when the glue holding all of my million pieces together dissolves away into a cloud of nothingness, I feel myself going up. As my body trembles and wracks, Asa’s big arms hold me to him, one under my knees and the other up my back with his hand buried in my hair.

  “Shh,” he whispers in my ear, pressing my face into the side of his. “You don’t want to wake your kids.”

  This makes me lose it further.

  Even though I can’t see a thing through my tears, I feel Asa moving swiftly up my stairs.

  He must have kicked the door shut because it slams, echoing through the space. When I pull away, my room is darkened, blurry through my tears. He stops at my bed and before I know it, he lays me down on my good shoulder. I hear the clomp of his boots hit my wood floors before the bed moves and I’m in his arms again.

  Dipping his hand under his shirt he put on me earlier—and after this day, I’ve decided I’m not giving it back because I love it—he presses in on my back and tangles his heavy, jean-clad legs with mine.

  “You need to get it out,” his deep voice rumbles in my hair and the whiskers on his chin tickle my forehead, reminding me he’s everywhere as he wraps me in his warmth. “I’ve got you. You’re here and your kids are good. I’ll make sure you’re here for them.”

  I shake my head against his neck and keep crying. He can’t do that. No one can do that.

  “You give me some time, I’ll figure this out. Until then, know I’ll keep you safe. Believe in that.”

  I fist his shirt, and as much as I don’t want him to be the one to comfort me, he does. It feels cathartic to be held, to melt into him, and even for him to make pledges he can’t live up to, because in the end, no one can promise the gift of security or longevity. Life doesn’t work that way. It’s left up to chance, timing, or, at best, a fluke—whichever way one’s coin falls in the game of life.

  Today, my coin landing tails up was a big, fat slap in the face, reminding me these precious tokens in life can be rattled and shaken with no notice.

  “Let it out, baby.” Asa’s hand runs up and down my bare back while he strokes my hair, his words rumbling in his chest, vibrating against mine. “You’ll feel better.”

  Feeling better is a notion I’m not familiar with. I’m more of a getting through kind of gal, but he wouldn’t know this. I almost feel sorry for him if he thinks he’s the one to best that challenge.

  His hands continue their ministrations on my back, my hair, and even my ass as he whispers words that should make anyone feel better. I don’t know how long it takes, but as my breaths even, I fall deeper. The last thing I remember is his touch.

  *****

  Asa

  She finally fell asleep in my arms with my hand tucked into the elastic of her loose pants, resting on the swell of her bare ass. I knew she was holding it in, but I’ve never seen anything like what I just experienced—not even from Emma.

  I don’t know how long we lay like this, but her grip on my shirt finally loosens as I continue to stroke her back. My phone in my back pocket has been vibrating against my ass almost continually for the last
hour. When I feel like she’s in a deep enough sleep, I roll her to her back and untangle myself.

  As I make my way down her staircase without a noise, I flip lights off as I go. It’s fucking crazy to feel safer in the dark, but after working so many years in what can only be considered the depths of hell, it’s how I’ve learned to feel secure. I pull my phone out of my pocket and step out onto Keelie’s construction zone of a porch and make eye contact with Ozzie where he’s standing at his post about twenty yards away. I nod before looking back to my phone and ignore all the texts and emails I have and dial Crew. He can get me up to speed faster than me weeding through all the shit on my phone.

  When Crew answers, I hear echoed voices in the background and it’s familiar enough, I know he’s at his camp in one of the sheds.

  “You caught up on everything?” he clips.

  “No.” I scan the darkness and barely see movement through the forest toward the road on Keelie’s property line. It’s early spring, the trees are just starting to bud, otherwise it would be a wall of green. “I see them working now. They about done?”

  “They will be in an hour or two,” he confirms.

  Security is my area and even with as much as I did for my house, today proved it’s all shit when someone can drive up in front of it. But not here. Keelie’s got a barrier of forest and space between the road and other properties. Her security system was shit, basically rounded down to a few glass breakage detectors. That’s nothing when her house sits on all this land.

  Crew goes on. “I’ll let you know when it’s live. It’ll be added to your feed and if you want, Grady, Carson, and I can add it to ours until shit settles down.”

  “Do it.” The more eyes I have on her house the better, even though I plan on us being here every night for the time being. “What else?”

  “Jarvis flew in from Columbia today. I brought him up to speed and told him about our friend Raymond Wallace. He doesn’t have another assignment for a few days—he’s gonna poke around.”

  Jarvis poking around. That should be interesting.

  “Your house is boarded up and new motion detectors have been installed around the perimeter with silent alarms so we don’t scare anyone off. It’d be nice to lure them in if they come back.”

  “I still don’t know why someone targeted Levi at school,” I say. “It has to be related. The name of the kid who planted the shit in his locker is Terry Mosher. If Jarvis has time to poke around, give him that name, too. I also want to find Dooley, the guy Raymond Wallace worked for. Our contacts have come up with nothing. See what Jarvis can find there.”

  “Done,” he clips.

  “I just want information. Don’t let Jarvis go rogue on anyone,” I add.

  Crew chuckles into the phone. “Good point.”

  “Unless he finds out who almost killed my daughter and Keelie,” I amend, lowering my voice. “Then he can go rogue and dump their bodies in the Potomac.”

  “We’re on American soil. Let’s just see what he has to say first.” Crew sighs and the background noise goes quiet. “Everyone good there? Grady was on Emma-duty until you got there today and said she was far from okay.”

  “I can’t get a read on Emma on a good day and Keelie was like a fuckin’ robot until she got her kids to bed. She’s asleep now, but it was rough before that.” I run my hand down my face and let out a big breath. “Danielle freaked the fuck out. Making all kinds of demands—she wants the kids in California as soon as tomorrow. No way am I going to let that happen.”

  “Damn. She’s always been decent about the kids, maybe she’ll come around. I’ll let you know when the system is up. Ozzie will stay ‘til then. Go take care of your family,” he pauses, and then I hear a smirk in his voice, “and everyone else.”

  I shake my head and move back for the house. “I’ll check in tomorrow.”

  “Good luck.”

  I finish flipping out the lights and make sure her doors are locked before I glance at her couch where she laid out a pillow and blanket for me.

  I don’t give it a second thought and turn for her stairs. Taking them two at a time, I check on Emma to make sure she’s asleep before heading straight for Keelie’s room.

  She’s rolled and is lying on her stitched-up shoulder. I reach over my head and rip off my long sleeve tee before taking off my socks and jeans. Walking around to the other side of her bed, I pull the covers out from under her and climb in.

  When I roll her to me, her eyes blink open in the dark and she squints, taking in my bare chest.

  “Don’t worry,” I assure her. “I’m not sneaking into your bed naked, but I am sneaking in.”

  “You can’t be in here.” Her voice is husky with sleep and she tries to push up onto her elbow to reason with me. “The kids.”

  “I’ll wake up early and leave,” I promise, pulling her to me so she’s lying on her good shoulder.

  She shakes her head. “But I’m not used to sleeping with anyone.”

  I settle us in her bed with my thigh between her legs. Despite her words, her actions don’t tell me to get the fuck out. By sliding her leg up the outside of my thigh, she’s inviting me to stay.

  “I’m not either,” I mutter.

  Burrowing her face into her soft pillow next to me, she runs her hands down my chest. “But I won’t be able to sleep.”

  I dip my hand up the back of my shirt she’s wearing and feel bare skin. I tuck my hand into the top her panties again and enjoy her ass under my palm. “Then we’ll stay awake together.”

  She yawns into my neck. “You need to go to the sofa.”

  I put my lips to her forehead and whisper, “Okay.”

  She presses into me. “Okay.”

  I say nothing and long moments pass when she mumbles against my skin, “I don’t like crying.”

  I start to stroke her back again and don’t miss a beat. “I don’t like you crying, either.”

  She groans. “Stop it with the right answers. I can’t take it anymore.”

  “Maybe you should stop it with the talking and go to sleep then,” I offer.

  Her body slumps into mine, another contradiction of her words. “I can’t sleep like this. I’ll get hot and sweaty.”

  I put my lips to her ear. “If you think that, then you don’t know hot and sweaty. I’ll show it to you another night, preferably when you haven’t been shot at and just gotten stitches. I’ll give hot and sweaty a new meaning.”

  She tips her head back, looks into my eyes, and I feel my name across my own face in her breath. “Asa.”

  I lean in to kiss her before saying, “Feels fucking good to kiss you somewhere besides your pantry.”

  And for the first time since she left me at the high school this afternoon, those perfect pink lips spread into the smallest of smiles.

  It might be small, but I’ll take it.

  “Been a long day, baby. Go to sleep.”

  Without a word, she exhales and settles.

  She might not know it, but I’m not moving to the couch. It’ll be tricky with four kids around, but I’m in her bed.

  No fucking way am I leaving now.

  *****

  Keelie

  Light seeps into my eyes and it’s a foreign experience. I never wake after the sun. I roll to my side and wince, pain shooting down my arm, cutting through my muscles.

  It all comes back to me.

  I push up to an elbow, relieving some of the ache—but not by much—and my stiff body complains.

  Pushing my hair out of my face, I look to the clock on my bedside table. What the hell? It’s ten thirty-seven.

  I haven’t slept past six. I don’t even need an alarm clock anymore. My body has been trained by toddlers who aren’t toddlers anymore, but still insist on waking before the crack of dawn. If my children don’t wake me that early, Jasmine does. I wonder who got my donkey to keep her mouth shut this long?

  I flop to my back and look over at my other pillow, thoroughly mussed and concav
e from the man who slept in my bed last night.

  With almost no clothes on.

  And my last thought before falling asleep is that I was hot and sweaty. His legs were itchy on mine and my skin became clammy against his, but I didn’t care. All I could think about was his thigh between my legs and how he wanted to make me hotter and sweatier in a whole different way.

  I roll to my good shoulder and pull his pillow to my face. It smells like trees and day-old cologne and testosterone—if testosterone had a smell.

  It smells like a man.

  My bed smells like a man.

  And not just any man. A big, beautiful, rugged man who made me cry, and by doing so, made me feel better on the day his daughter and I were shot at.

  I like the smell of Asa in my bed.

  But I have no idea where he—or everyone else, for that matter—is.

  I groan as I push up, making myself let go of the magical concoction that makes up all the smells of Asa Hollingsworth. Going to my bathroom, I give my teeth a quick brush, take some more meds, and pull my hair up into a high knot.

  I’m surprised I don’t look tired. It’s a cold day in hell when I don’t wake an exhausted mess, having to glue myself together just to fake it, pretending I’m remotely close to having my shit together.

  I head down the stairs and if there was a church mouse lurking, I’d hear it. My house is eerily quiet. Come to think of it, it’s Saturday. Jimbo works every Saturday and is normally hammering as the sun rises.

  When I pass by the kitchen, the sink is piled high with dishes, pots, and pans, but my dishwasher is running. Cleaning is Saylor’s kryptonite and Knox only starts it when he’s asked. This makes me wonder if Asa does dishes.

  Just when I was picturing Asa standing at my kitchen sink doing who knows what, movement catches my eye and I look to the window. My breath catches.

  Levi and Knox are kicking the old soccer ball back and forth driving the goats crazy. They love to butt it around. Saylor and Emma are sitting on the ground with the three babies climbing all over them, and Asa is standing in the middle of the pasture holding a goat under each arm.