Give Me Strength

by Kate McCarthy

  Travis sighed, and it was weighted with so many unsaid words that I knew he didn’t know where to start. “You know why I’m here.”

  Of course I knew.

  “Don’t stand so close,” I said firmly but he must have heard something else coming out of my mouth because he didn’t move.

  “Quinn,” he breathed, and the depth of emotion in that single word tugged at my heart. “I can’t let you do this.”

  Travis held my eyes, but I couldn’t reply because suddenly his lips were on mine. My mouth opened underneath the onslaught, moaning at the taste of him. He lifted me off the chair, and I hung on as he spun me around and pushed me up against the desk.

  “Stop,” I choked out when his mouth left mine to nibble on my ear.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.” I moaned as his teeth bit into my skin. “No.”

  God help me, but I couldn’t push him away. I wasn’t strong enough and he was relentless. His hands were all over me, pushing under clothes and grabbing at bare skin. I slid my own underneath his shirt, tugging on the waistband of his jeans to drag him closer. His mouth returned to mine and my hand came around his neck, holding him there so he wouldn’t take it away.

  “Oh that shit is not cool. So not cool.” Mac’s voice registered through the fog, and I pulled back, rubbing my lips together.

  Travis took a step back, his hair mussed, and cleared his throat. “We were just ah…sorting the security detail for the Melbourne trip.”

  I sat up, straightening my shirt, my entire body heating with embarrassment when I saw Jared smirking at both of us from over Mac’s shoulder.

  “That’s Jared’s department, yet here you are, all over it like a rash. I’m not fooled. I can bet by the way you had Quinn spread out all over that desk she isn’t fooled either.”

  Jared folded his arms and raised a brow. “Nice one, Trav.”

  Mac spun around with wide eyes and pointed in his face. “One word, Jared. Bedroom. Not the pantry, not the couch, not the shower. Bedroom.”

  He held up his hands. “No idea what you’re talking about,” he muttered and disappeared.

  “Hurry up and finish your fumigating because I’m tired of you and your shitty food in my house!” she yelled after him.

  “It’s Sunday,” she growled and slammed the coffee in her hand on the desk as she sat down, “but you’re here so let’s get this shit done, and then you both can get down to other business.” She pursed her lips but I could see the curve in them as though satisfied that whatever happened last night was now over.

  I swallowed and looked at Travis. Soon it would be.

  He took a seat in the spare chair by the desk, and I faced the computer, discreetly shutting down the maps on the internet tab. I called up the detailed outline of the Melbourne trip and did what I could to focus on the words.

  “Mac,” I said, reviewing the accommodation. “Why is my name on here?”

  “Because you’re coming, asshead,” she replied as she tapped at the computer opposite me.

  “I can’t,” I blurted out.

  My deadline was two weeks. I needed to be gone by then. The Melbourne trip was the perfect opportunity for me to quietly slip away to the countryside without any interference.

  Mac stopped tapping and I felt all eyes on me. “Quinn, this is what you were hired to do. Why can’t you?”

  “Well,” I drawled. I scratched at my head. “Rufus,” I said and paused. “I can’t leave him here alone.”

  The excuse was utter rubbish. Rufus would quite happily visit with Lucy for a couple of days.

  “Rubbish,” Mac said, verifying my own thoughts. “Lucy can take him. You’re already booked in so I don’t want to hear any more about it.”

  My fingers gripped the edge of the desk with both hands to hide the tremors. Travis frowned, his eyes moving from my hands to my eyes. I turned my back and called up the map of the festival area and clicked print while Mac distracted Travis with talk about the accommodation and travel detail.

  I passed Travis the sheet and start collating the contact information of all involved. “Mac, I can’t locate the contact info for the roadies driving the truck down to Melbourne.”

  “Hang on,” she muttered and with a few taps, the contact zinged into my email. My fingers tapped efficiently, my mind working hard to block everything else out as I pulled the entire contact and run sheet together for Travis.

  When the Jamieson line rang, Mac picked it up for me.

  “Jamieson. Mac speaking.”

  The printer whirred in the background, blocking out Mac’s words. My chair spun and I collected the printed sheets from the tray.

  “Quinn, it’s your ahh…mother on the phone for you.”

  The colour drained from my face as I spun back around. “I’m not here,” I hissed.

  In a panic I stood, yanking papers off our joined desks. The frantic movement tipped over Mac’s coffee mug. My hands made a grab for it, but I missed. “Shit,” I muttered, not even registering the mug was empty.

  I took a step back to flee.

  “Quinn.” Breathless, I focused on Travis. “Maybe you should talk to her?”

  That was not something I’d been planning to do for the rest of my natural life.

  “David owes us money…that now makes his debt yours…”

  The words came back to haunt me. Maybe talking to her might give me some answers about what was going on.

  “Wait!” I called to Mac when she opened her mouth to speak. My chin lifted as my hand reached out for the phone. “I’ll talk to her.”

  She handed it over wordlessly.

  “Beth,” I answered.

  “Quinn.” Her voice sounded tired, nothing like how I remembered. “We need to talk.”

  “Yes, because we do that so well.” I heard her sigh as though already fed up with the conversation before we’d even started. “How did you find me?”

  “You were in the paper. Something to do with that rock band you appear to be working with.”

  My knuckles whitened as my hand held tight to the phone. “I was?”

  Ten minutes later and I was in the passenger seat while Travis drove us to my childhood home. Dread coiled within me as Travis peppered me with questions the entire way there.

  “How long since you saw or spoke to your mother last?”

  “Almost four years,” I answered automatically.

  “I imagine you had good reason for that.”

  I stared out the window. “Yes.”

  I felt him glance at me while he drove. “Tell me?”

  “Why?”

  Hadn’t he heard enough?

  “Because it’s part of who you are.”

  “I wish it wasn’t, Travis.”

  I felt him glance at me as he drove. “Me too, Quinn, but I care about you. All of you. I can’t pick and choose which pieces of you to care for and which pieces not to. That’s not how it works.”

  “I have a lot of crappy pieces,” I informed him.

  “Some people do, but the pieces you try to hide aren’t pieces you asked for. They were given to you without a choice. Does that mean you deserve less than the next person?”

  “Some of those choices I made myself,” I pointed out.

  “Choices you were too young to make don’t count.”

  “Just like that?”

  He nodded. “Just like that.”

  “Huh.”

  “What?”

  I waved a hand in frustration. “You seem to have an answer for everything.”

  His eyes remained on the road, but I caught his grin. “That’s because I’m a know-it-all.”

  “Are you saying you’re not as perfect as everyone thinks you to be?”

  The smile slid quickly from his face and brows drawn, he offered me a pained glance. “No. I’m not. Don’t ever think that of me, Quinn.”

  Something uncomfortable rolled in my belly, and I didn’t like it because I’d never had that feeling with Trav
is before. His tone sounded a little off.

  “Um…okay.”

  Travis accelerated as I directed him where to turn.

  “The good memories of Beth aren’t good, and the bad ones are worse,” I began. “They don’t stem from what she did either, but what she didn’t do.”

  Travis gripped the steering wheel as he turned left, taking us closer to where I didn’t want to be. “What didn’t she do?”

  “She didn’t tell me about my real dad. She didn’t put my hair in piggytails with pretty ribbon for school like all the other girls had. She didn’t read me bedtime stories like I wanted her to. She didn’t take me to the park or the beach or shopping.” My breath started coming a little faster, and I paused to swallow the hurt. “She didn’t scare away the monsters in the dark. She…she didn’t do anything when David got angry and hit me. When I got home at two in the morning from a party, she didn’t even know I’d been gone.” Travis met my eyes and I whispered, “She didn’t love me and when you’re shown every day you’re not worth being loved, you tend to believe it.”

  My eyes followed Travis as he got out of the car. The passenger door was yanked open and then I was in his arms. “Stop believing it, sweetheart.” He pulled back, his green eyes bright and unwavering on mine.

  “How?”

  The corners of his lips tipped up a little in a rueful smile. “Okay, so maybe I don’t have all the answers, but I know how to start.”

  “Yeah?”

  He stepped back and to the side, revealing the house in front of me and it felt like a punch to the gut. “Stop running.”

  I glanced sideways at him. Maybe I would have, but it wasn’t just about me anymore.

  “Wait here,” I ordered, straightening my shoulders.

  I strode briskly towards the front door, jerking backwards when my arm was gripped. I spun around and smacked into a hard chest. “Travis!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  My hands came up and pushed at his chest. “I’m perfectly safe in there.”

  “How about I come in with you, make sure it’s safe, then I wait out front?”

  As I was already being muscled towards the front door, I figured his words were more a statement than a question. He rapped hard on the door and as if Beth had been waiting, it opened immediately.

  I cleared my throat, meeting tired eyes the same brown as mine. “Beth.” Her eyes shifted nervously to Travis. “This is Travis.”

  Travis gave a slight nod, and my mind imagined how it would look to someone meeting him for the first time. His blond hair was tied back, arms were folded with biceps bulging, green eyes were hard, and his stance was busy telling the world, and Beth, that he had no patience for bullshit.

  Beth took a slight step back, obviously believing everything he was telling her.

  I stood a little straighter, taking care to look her in the eye. “You wanted to talk?”

  She swung the door wide and indicated with a nod to come in. Travis stepped in front of me, walking in first, eyeing every part of the interior. Despite the place not being clean, it wasn’t shabby. The living room and kitchen had undergone drastic renovations and nothing was familiar. My breathing came a little easier at not being slammed in the face with painful memories.

  Beth grabbed a glass and started pouring a vodka without apology. “Drink?”

  “No thanks,” Travis answered and then leaned in close to my ear, so that his lips brushed the skin softly, and whispered, “I’ll be right outside the front door. Yell if you need me, okay?”

  I nodded.

  With that acknowledgement, he tipped his chin at Beth without another word and closed the front door quietly behind him.

  “I can’t stay long,” I prompted her when she shuffled over with her drink.

  “Always thought you were too good for us, didn’t you?”

  I folded my arms, glaring as she sat her glass down on the table and faced me. “You worked hard at making sure I never felt that way, so let’s cut through the niceties, shall we?”

  “Alright. I know I’ve never been a great mother…” I rolled my eyes “…but there are people after David. I know he told them about you because they paid me a visit this morning. I wanted to give you some advice.”

  For the first time in my life, Beth was attempting to impart some sort of motherly wisdom? I snorted.

  She ignored me and said, “Pay them the money. I don’t have it. I see you are in a situation where maybe you could get it. These people won’t hesitate to hurt you. They won’t hesitate to hurt everyone you know.”

  “What the fuck do you care about me being hurt?” I hissed angrily. “All of a sudden you decide it’s not okay to sit back and watch me get pounded on? Fuck you.”

  Her hand reached out swiftly and slapped me hard. My neck snapped and I cried out. “I’m still your mother. Don’t you talk to me like that.”

  My eyes narrowed. “Fuck. You,” I ground out.

  Her hand came up again and I grabbed it, my fingers digging tight into her wrist. A hard wall was suddenly pressed against my back, and Beth’s eyes rose up behind my shoulder.

  “Touch her again and I’ll make your life a living hell.” The words were like a whiplash, and I had absolutely no doubt Travis meant every word. Beth obviously didn’t either because she tugged her arm away and took a step back.

  “Let’s go, sweetheart.”

  He took my hand and I followed him to the door.

  “Quinn?” Her voice was pitched high and cracked on my name. I let go of Travis and walked towards her.

  She leaned in and spoke so softly I had to strain my ears. “These people will do more than just hurt you. They won’t hesitate in making sure you never see daylight again.”

  I didn’t remember what we talked about on the drive home. All I remember was listening to Travis and the way he laughed and teased me, distracting me from what had just gone down. I reflected back on how it felt riding with him on the motorcycle; spluttering through the waves at the beach while he laughed at me; the warmth of his hand holding mine; his eyes heated as he moved inside of me, and my heart hurt.

  ***

  The next week passed by like a ticking time bomb. I was vaguely aware of going about my day. People talked to me, but it was like existing underwater. I baked biscuits to occupy my mind, entire battalions of them—enough that I was sure no one would eat another for as long as they lived, yet they kept disappearing. Jared and Evie moved back into the house at Bondi, yet somehow a container found its way to their house because Evie rang with a shaky voice to say she caught Jared eating one. Travis stopped by on and off during the week to check on me, so another container found its way to the Jamieson and Valentine Consulting office because Tim rang, his voice muffled as he yelled at me down the phone around a mouthful about taking me shopping again. Then it sounded like he called me the badass biscuit bitch, but I couldn’t be sure. Then Evie had rung back, sounding pissed about something to do with being in the badass club, saying she had to get shot at and almost die and she still hadn’t qualified, yet I could do it with some flour and an egg. Then she asked for the recipe and hung up.

  Standing in the kitchen scrubbing baking trays, my phone rang. I wiped my hands on the hand towel next to me and picked it up.

  “Hey, sweetheart,” Travis said when I answered.

  I fought against the flush of pleasure. “Travis,” I murmured. “I uh…”

  “How’s your day been?”

  “Well, it’s Monday, so my day off.”

  “And you baked again?”

  I tucked the phone into my shoulder as I poured myself a glass of tap water. “Yes, but I think I’m over it.” I turned around and leaned against the kitchen bench as I took a sip. “I think if I bake another biscuit, I’ll turn into one.”

  Henry, Mac, and Cooper turned from various seated positions in the living room to gift me with matching looks of horror. I frowned and waved a hand at them to turn back around.

  Mac smir
ked. “Is that Travis?”

  “Yes,” I mouthed at her.

  “Is he coming over tonight to talk security with you?” Cooper asked with an exaggerated wink.

  I rolled my eyes at them, noting that little gem had obviously done the rounds. The three of them laughed before turning their attention back to the movie playing out on the screen.

  “Anyway, umm how was work?” I asked.

  Mac tittered in the background at my attempt to make conversation.

  “It was okay,” he muttered as I made my way upstairs to my bedroom for some privacy. “Leaving soon. Thought I’d stop over and see you.”

  “You are?” I scratched at the back of my head, clearing my throat as I sank down to a huddle on the edge of my bed. “Travis, I’m not sure—”

  “Thought I could get a start on teaching you those self-defence moves.”

  “Oh.” I paused. “Okay. Thank you. That would be…great.”

  After promising to see me soon, he hung up.

  I wasn’t sure how long I sat there banging the phone against my head.

  Leaving, Quinn. You’re supposed to be leaving. Not getting giddy over Travis coming to see you.

  “Quinn!” Henry yelled up the stairs. “Dinner!”

  I sighed and tossed my phone across the bed. Henry’s turn cooking usually meant frozen pizza.

  Half an hour later, nominated by Mac as tonight’s “dish bitch,” I was rinsing plates in the sink. My mind was wandering when a soft kiss pressed against my neck, and I shrieked with alarm. The plate I was holding fell into the sink with a loud clatter. The scent of Travis surrounded me, and I breathed deeply.

  “It’s just me,” he said in my ear.

  Spinning around, I had a second to hear his breath catch before his lips were on mine. I wrapped my sudsy arms around his neck, stretching upwards on my toes. He picked me up, my feet leaving the floor to wrap around his hips. Travis murmured something as his hands gripped my thighs. He turned and pressed my back into the fridge.

  I vaguely heard Mac say snidely to Jake, “Get your feet off the coffee table,” but Travis held my attention as his tongue rubbed against mine and his fingers dug into my legs.