Barbed Wire Heart

by Tess Sharpe

  But now they’re transformed. He’s had thick lines tattooed up the arm, lines that curve and twist into ten perfect barbs to cover the scars.

  Barbed wire, like the bracelet he just put on my wrist, inked into his skin.

  My mouth’s dry and my heart thumps in my chest, because I know what this means.

  A declaration that goes beyond promises or rings or even vows before God.

  This is blood and ink and forever. Something inside me falls into place when I see it on his skin, like the turn of a bullet in the chamber. The rightness of it settles over me, pouring into my heart. It should make me happy, but it doesn’t. Instead, cold dread grows inside me like moss on a tree, in all the little cracks and hollows.

  Loving that boy will get him killed, Harley-girl.

  “Say something,” Will says.

  But I can’t. That’d be me being brave. And when it comes to him, I’m a coward.

  So I run. I spring up off that bed and I walk out of the cabin and off the porch, heading across the meadow to the trees, to anywhere but him.

  And he chases after me, because that’s what he does. I run. He chases.

  But if he catches me this time…

  The grass swishes against my ankles. I don’t turn around when his footsteps join mine, but I keep walking to the edge of the meadow where it fades into forest, far from both of the houses, hidden from view. He follows.

  “Harley, please.”

  He isn’t playing fair. I close my eyes, trying to breathe, trying to do anything that doesn’t involve turning and facing him.

  “You were supposed to have a life,” I say, halting, the words rusty in my throat.

  “I do have a life,” he says. “I have friends. I have school. But I don’t have you.”

  I turn around then. It’s dark outside, but the moon’s high, and I can see his face clearly. “You never had me.”

  “Bullshit,” he grinds out, his arms tensing under his shirt.

  “We haven’t ever—” I start, but then he reaches out, and I fall silent as he pulls me forward, until I’m looking up at him and he’s just inches away, and our hips are pressed together.

  He’s never even tried to kiss me. There have been moments where I’ve known exactly what he was thinking and feeling because I was feeling it too, but he’s never pushed across that invisible line in the dirt that no one drew, but exists all the same.

  “Did you think I was gonna just forget you? Start dating some girl at college?”

  “Why not?” He pulls me closer, so now there’s no space between us. With each breath, I can feel his chest against mine. It’s a strange thing to focus on, but it’s all I can think of, all I can feel.

  “You know why,” he says. “It wouldn’t be fair. I’m not doing that to you or to me or to any other girl.”

  Of course he wouldn’t. Because he’s honest and good.

  If I was good, I would walk away.

  I would let him go.

  But I am not good. And I’m so sick of wanting and never getting.

  So it’s me who crosses that line. Me who leans up and presses my lips against his.

  It is gentle and it is sweet, until it’s not. Until all those years of longing finally catch up to us. Soft like silk turns deep and reverent in the time it takes to catch a breath, and his hands are under my shirt, and mine are on his belt.

  Soon it’s all skin and glory, the meadow grass against my back, his mouth on mine, my fingers tracking down his chest, over his heart, like I need to mark the spot.

  When it happens, when it’s me and him and then suddenly it’s this long, slow, slide into us, the feeling’s almost too much. Unbearable in its closeness. Overwhelming. Wonderful and on the edge of perfect, and it’s my shuddery breath against his ear and his body pressed into mine, and I want with a fierceness I never knew I had.

  I want.

  He gives, thinking it’s the start.

  I take, knowing it’s the end.

  Thirty

  June 7, 10:20 a.m.

  I should get going,” Will says, but he doesn’t get up, and neither do I.

  We sit across from each other, our knees brushing, and it’s familiar and strange at the same time.

  He’s been gone for two years, but that first year, he called, he visited.

  Until I screwed it all up at Christmas.

  And now he’s here and I don’t want him to go, even though I need him to for his own sake.

  The buzzer on the gate goes off, saving me from having to make a decision. My head whips toward the sound and I’m up off my feet and dashing for the monitor set in the hallway before Will even reacts.

  I flip the monitor on, the black-and-white feed from the security cameras flicking on the screen.

  Cooper and Wayne are outside. I can see Wayne riding shotgun. Cooper’s out of the truck, staring directly into the camera and pressing on the Call button.

  “Shit.” I look over to Will, who’s followed me into the hall. “We’ve got to take the back way out.”

  He sighed. “Can’t we just wait for them to leave?”

  “You think Cooper’s gonna let a gate stop him?” I ask. “I don’t know if Duke ever told him about the back ways. Let’s go.”

  I whistle for Busy and grab the bag of meth on the counter, heading for the door. “I need to lock this in the shed; give me a minute.”

  I jog through the garden—which is overgrown and weedy since Will left—weaving through the raised beds Duke built Momma the first year they were married. I duck underneath the clothesline. I’d forgotten to bring the wash in, and the oversized plaid shirts that I’ve claimed as mine, but used to belong to Will, brush over my shoulder as I make my way down the well-worn dirt path. Dust covers my boots as I tramp down the yellowing hills that roll over the east end of the property, patches of scrub oaks the only green in sight.

  Daddy’s shed is set at the base of the third hill, tucked out of sight of the path and driveway. It’s a little two-room, windowless log cabin built from a kit. It has enough locks to deter even the most determined man and a generator whirring in the back to keep the room temperature regulated. Duke’s got some antique guns that cost a lot of money, on top of the arsenal that actually still works.

  We’ve hit the point in summer where it never stops getting hotter, and I’m sweating by the time I scale the third hill, my feet slippery in my hiking boots as I swish through knee-high foxtails and star thistle. I can smell the faintest smudge of smoke in the air.

  There’s a digital key pad and a padlock on the shed—Duke didn’t like taking chances. I type in the code and pull out the key. I unbolt the steel doors on the shed, pulling them open. They swing shut behind me with a bang. Inside it’s dark and quiet, like I’ve stepped into some underground shrine, untouched, as close to holy as someone like me gets.

  I close my eyes and breathe for a second, letting it sink in.

  I’m safe here. Even if it’s just for a minute.

  I flip the light on, a bare bulb swinging from the ceiling that casts a weak light across the room. Every available inch of the wall has been taken up by row after row of guns in steel, padlocked cages. Hunting rifles, sniper rifles, assault rifles, handguns, machine guns, pistols, revolvers.

  I know every model, every make. I can take each one of them apart and put them back together blindfolded if need be. This place had been my schoolroom as a kid; my math papers and science textbooks smudged with gunpowder from the ammo Daddy made himself and taught me to do in turn.

  There are crates in the corner—the guns Daddy runs up and down California through the trucking business. I have plans for those, but not now.

  I scrub my hands over my face. I need to get moving. I pick up the bag of meth and walk briskly toward the steel cage covering the back wall. I get it open, tossing the bag inside before locking it all back up again. The drugs will be safest in here. Until I need them.

  I have enough guns up at the main house. I don’t need an M-
16 to take down Buck or any of the Springfields.

  My plan’s enough. I’m enough.

  I’ve gotta be.

  Will’s already loaded his bike into the back of my truck, strapped and secure by the time I get back. He’s got Busy rolling around, baring her belly in delight as he rubs it. When she sees me, she scrambles to her feet, looking guilty.

  “Traitor,” I tell her and she trots over to me, nudging my knee with her nose.

  “She looks good,” Will says.

  I nod. Busy’s getting old, and I can see it sometimes, in the way she takes longer to get up in the morning. The vet gave me some pills to make her bones strong that I shove in her food every day, but I can’t even think about what happens when she gets too old to follow me everywhere.

  She’s the only one who’s never left me.

  “We need to go,” I say. “Is the bike secure?”

  “Yep.” He walks over to the passenger side, opening the door for Busy to hop up and getting in after her. I take one last look down the driveway—I can’t see the gate from here, it’s half a mile down the twisty road, but I know Cooper and Wayne are standing outside it, wondering what to do.

  I climb into the truck and start the engine. Busy’s got her head on Will’s knee, drooling happily between us. I roll my eyes. “You spoil my dog.”

  “She just likes me more because I used to let her lick the dinner plates when you weren’t looking,” Will says as I drive down the old access road, toward the trees that hide the back way into the homestead. In minutes, the world darkens, the trees blocking out big chunks of the sun as we follow the path deeper into the forest.

  I’m quiet, concentrating on the road, and I can feel him looking at me, wanting to say something. He’s got to know I’m beyond convincing now.

  Or at least I hope he knows. It’s too late to back out.

  “How’s school?” I ask, because it takes almost twenty minutes to get to the road from the back way and I’m not gonna sit in silence that whole time.

  “Good,” he says. “I’m taking lots of science courses. But mostly…” He hesitates.

  “But mostly?” I prompt.

  He pauses, long enough that I glance over at him. He looks nervous for the first time. “I did something,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say, looking back at the road, wondering if I should pull over. “What?”

  “I went looking.”

  My eyes widen and my foot presses down on the brake, the truck coming to a halt. I pull the emergency brake and turn to face him fully. “You mean…”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  I lick my lips, hope for him twisting like vines inside me. “How did you even start?”

  “I still had a few boxes of stuff she’d left at Gran’s. There was an address book. I just kept calling people and asking if they knew anything until I finally found someone who knew someone who knew someone.”

  “You found him?” I ask. The thought even makes me a little breathless. His mom had never given him any information about his dad—he hadn’t been on Will’s birth certificate, and Miss Lissa had never met him. When Desi died, there was no way to search for him. Not that I’m sure Miss Lissa would’ve tried even if she had the information. She and Mo were always clashing when Will and I were kids, because Mo would let him hang out with the boys in her family when they visited the Ruby. That always made Miss Lissa nervous. She was always pushing him toward white boys instead, like they were better or something, and she hated that he and Mo got along so well. The only time I’d ever seen Miss Lissa fight with Duke was the day he let Mo take Will to the annual Pit River Pow Wow in Burney.

  I could be stupid and excuse her, thinking that it was just fear of losing him that motivated her, but I’m not stupid, and I can’t excuse her. Miss Lissa raised Will to be one of the best men I’d ever known, but she’d raised him up while casually denying and trying to push down half of him. It wasn’t fair or right.

  “I found a cousin. Liana,” Will says. “She lives in Hoopa. I messaged her with what I knew, and she brought it to her grandma—well, our grandma—and she helped put the pieces together.”

  “You have another grandma,” I say, and the feeling blooming inside me is all happiness tinged with dreadful selfishness, because if he’s finally found his place, his real family, that means he can leave us behind for good.

  “My dad…his name was Allen,” Will says.

  The happiness in my chest stutters. “Was?”

  Will looks down. “He was a fisherman. He drowned.”

  “Shit.” I don’t know what else to say.

  “Yeah,” Will says, staring out the window, his jaw doing that clenching thing it does when he’s trying not to be emotional. “But I’ve got two aunts and an uncle,” he says. “And eight cousins.”

  “Wow.” I hate that they’ve been out there this entire time, everyone not knowing what they were missing. “What are they like?”

  “Great,” he says, and his eyes shine in that happy way I rarely saw when we were kids. “Liana and her brother Shane are closest in age to me. Liana graduated from Humboldt a few years ago; she’s a social worker. And the little cousins are cute; Katrina’s just learning to walk, and she’s falling all over.”

  He’d always been so good with the kids at the Ruby. A big family was exactly where he always belonged. I used to think maybe that family would be with me, but this was so much better. This was his real family. The one he deserved, the one who’d been deprived of him.

  “When I found out, I wanted to call you,” he says. “But…”

  “But I was an asshole last time,” I finish for him.

  He sighs, rubbing a hand over his mouth, looking tired. “You were,” he says.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “I know you are,” he says. “Start the truck back up. We need to get going.”

  He’s right. I turn the key and release the brake. “So you’ve been spending a lot of time in Hoopa with them?”

  He nods. “It’s beautiful in that valley. The Trinity cuts right through it. Everything’s green, and the redwoods are bigger than you’d believe.” He cuts himself off, smiling ruefully. “I love it there. I can’t believe I’m half done with school. Or maybe not. My advisor wants me to think about becoming a nurse practitioner instead of just an RN. It would mean a few more years of school, but I’d have a lot more autonomy. Be able to prescribe medication and all that. Run a clinic on my own. Liana’s been really encouraging me to go for it. She thinks it’s a good idea.”

  “You’d be amazing at running a clinic,” I say. “And, well, you’ve always liked school,” I say, aware I sound slightly mystified. It makes him smile wider.

  “You know, I’ll never forget the reason I’m there is because of what you did,” he says quietly.

  I bite my lip, focusing on the dirt road. “We’re nearly to the highway,” I say, and he has the grace to let it go, to not push.

  He made it to college all by himself. He’d filled out the applications, he’d written the essays, he’d gotten all the good grades. I just made Duke let him go. And now he’s found his family, all on his own. The pride I feel, the love and the flash of pain and worry tangle up inside me in a knot that can’t be undone.

  So I drive. And I pray that someday, I can find the freedom he’s found.

  Thirty-One

  I turn sixteen on a beautiful day. There isn’t a cloud in the sky as Uncle Jake and Miss Lissa set up the picnic tables and Duke stokes the fire in the barbecue pit, getting it ready for the pounds of meat in the fridge.

  Sixteen is important in our family, the way eighteen is important for legit folks.

  It means no more school.

  It means I’m grown.

  It means it’s time to start working for Daddy.

  I know he wants me to look forward to it like he is. The lessons that he’ll be able to pass on, the empire he’ll be able to give me.

  Maybe there was a time I wanted it. But sixteen m
eans I’m grown.

  And grown means seeing things differently. My world is bigger than six hundred acres and Daddy’s lessons now. In just two years, the Ruby will be mine legally, and while Daddy’s been preparing me for his work, Uncle Jake’s been preparing me for his, too.

  I fear the day I might have to make a choice between the two. I’m not stupid enough to think it wouldn’t happen.

  My daddy drives hard bargains. Even with me.

  Everyone comes to my party—all the cooks, everyone who works at the Tropics, the Sons of Jefferson, the waitresses from the Blackberry Diner, the Rubies, who bring three enormous sheet cakes with HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARLEY written on them in blue frosting. Even Brooke is there, though I’m sure it was quite the conversation with her mother to get her to let Brooke come.

  Kids run around the meadow, and Wayne picks at his guitar with a few of the Sons singing along, their voices floating above the crowd, joining the smoke from the barbecue. Miss Lissa’s strung balloons and streamers all along the trees that line the far side of the garden, where the tables are set up, and I watch as Will kisses her cheek, snatching a piece of cornbread off the plate she’s holding. She scowls at him, but he grins, ducking away to join the rest of the Sons, grouped around the coolers, drinking beer.

  “Good party,” Brooke comments, coming to stand next to me. She’s got flowers in her hair—courtesy of some of little girls from the Ruby. They’re making flower crowns and chains from the wildflowers.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  Brooke shakes a red cup at me. “You want some?”

  I grab the cup, sniffing it. “How much whiskey did you put in this?”

  Brooke shrugs, snatching the cup back. “A lot.”

  I shoot her a look. “What?” Brooke asks. “Your family makes me nervous.”

  “They aren’t going to start shooting,” I say, but then I pause. “Well, not until later,” I correct myself. “And just at the targets Daddy set up.”

  Brooke laughs. “C’mon, let’s get some cake.”

  Sarah, Troy’s wife, had taken charge of cutting the cake after I blew out my candles earlier. She smiles when she sees us, her hand resting on the bulging curve of her stomach. She and Troy are expecting twin boys any day now. “You girls having fun?” she asks.