by Anne Malcom
For me, my own horrible, beautiful nightmare was about to strut through that door. Bex couldn’t run from her nightmares, because they were incorporeal. I could at least scamper away from the physical portion of mine.
“I’m fine,” I lied, eyes on the windows, watching the patrol cars screech in. My escape would be impossible soon. “My eyebrows bore the brunt of it,” I continued, struggling in Cade’s arms. “Nothing a spa day can’t fix. Now I’ve really got to go. I think I left my straightener on.”
My struggles were becoming more and more frantic, more and more feral, like a wild cat trying to escape the embrace of someone trying to domesticate it.
I could not be domesticated.
Which was part of the problem.
Another big part of the problem was the two different sides of the law that Luke and I called home.
“I’m a police officer. Let me the fuck in.”
Speak of the Devil’s slightly more well-behaved brother and he shall appear.
Luke’s cursing and tight, bordering-on-uncontrolled tone surprised me. He wore his professionalism like a mask, indifference for me scathing in its almost authenticity when he was around the club.
Though I couldn’t say anything else would take away the sting over the fact that whenever he was around the club, he was trying to take them down.
Despite all that, my eyes went to Luke, latching onto his baby blues even though I knew I couldn’t really do anything. Couldn’t really be anything to him.
Fury rippled off Cade as he followed my eyes toward Luke, who was stomping toward me.
He let go of me immediately to shove himself between Luke and me.
He didn’t need to create a physical barrier; the ideological one worked well enough.
“The flaming and smoking remains of the bomb that almost killed my sister are outside, Deputy,” Cade said, almost spitting the words at him, though his tone was somehow flat. “I assume that’s where you should be doing your job.”
Cade’s tone, his entire demeanor, betrayed something.
I flinched. Could he know?
No. He’s Cade just being Cade.
I couldn’t rip my eyes away from Luke’s glacial stare, every inch of hatred spearing me in the heart with its intensity.
Though it didn’t stay on Cade for long. He didn’t seem interested in a macho-man stare-off. Instead, every inch of the glacier melted, hate disappearing, leaving something much more complicated in its wake as his eyes once more focused on me.
“I’m right where I need to be, Fletcher.”
I blinked. Uncomfortable silence bathed the room as everyone watched Luke’s blatant statement of something he’d made his business to keep secret.
He didn’t even seem like he noticed or cared about what he’d exposed with those words as his eyes catalogued my entire body, zeroing in on even the smallest of scratches and my charred clothing.
“Are you okay?” he little more than whispered.
My heart began to beat all the way in my throat, making me unable to form words. The only thing I could do was nod weakly.
His soft gaze didn’t stay on me for a second longer, he finally commenced the macho-man stare-off Cade had been hanging out for. “I see the story of you going legit was a total pack of lies,” Luke hissed, unbridled anger poisoning his voice.
I didn’t know why I expected anything more, that just because he gave me a handful of words and a lingering gaze, that would repair decades of hatred. I shouldn’t have expected it. I should’ve known better. It didn’t mean it didn’t hurt any less.
“What did you do now to put your own flesh and blood in danger? That’s low, even for you.”
The air shimmered with masculine fury as my eyes brimmed with tears I would never let fall. My mask was in place.
“Careful, Deputy,” my brother murmured. “You’re getting very fuckin’ close to sayin’ somethin’ you might regret.”
Luke’s hand subconsciously went to his belt. “You threatening me?”
“Yeah,” Cade replied immediately. “If you keep talkin’ shit ’bout my family, my club, lookin’ at my sister in a way that isn’t professional, you bet your ass I am.”
I flinched. Cade had seen it.
The entire club was focused on the exchange. I wondered if there was a possibility for me to slink away while the testosterone clouded the air.
Luke’s gaze focused on me.
No such luck, then. “She’s comin’ with me.”
The response to Luke’s declaration was instantaneous. Brock and Dwayne stepped forward, blocking Luke’s path to me with a wall of muscle. Showing that the bars to my cage were not iron, but men who benched a lot of it.
“No she’s fuckin’ not,” Cade said evenly.
Luke didn’t back down. “She needs a hospital. So does Bex.”
I sucked in a breath. Luke was really going for gold today. I prayed my family was serious about the ‘legit’ thing. Then maybe they wouldn’t murder the man I loved.
It could’ve gone bad. I tasted it in the air. Luke was using his state-given authority to try and take women who the club considered their God-given women. It may have been archaic—actually, it definitely fucking was—but it was the way. The men spoke and acted for the women.
Or until they fell in love with the right ones who were attached to their voices and unafraid to use them.
“I don’t do hospitals, Captain America. They mess with my complexion,” Bex said easily, as if she wasn’t choking on male fury. “Plus, the nurses here are way hotter.” She grinned wickedly in Lucky’s direction, who, uncharacteristically, wasn’t grinning. Much of his relationship with Bex took away his easygoing nature and infectious laugh. But sometimes in the midst of the worst horror imaginable, if you came out on the other side with the right person, that horror was better than any empty happiness before it.
Luke’s eyes went everywhere at once, his professional mask returning as he understood what was—or more aptly, wasn’t—going to happen. “None of you go anywhere,” he ordered. “I’m gonna want statements from fuckin’ all of you.”
He gave me one hard glance before he turned on his heel and left, taking one of the small and few remaining pieces of my heart along with him.
I froze in place, watching his uniform retreat out the door.
Freezing didn’t do well in the face of fury. Especially my brother’s fury. He gripped my shoulders and dragged me away while conversation somehow returned to normal.
As normal as it could get after an explosion.
“What the fuck was that, Rosie?” Cade demanded in a harsh whisper.
“What was what?”
The pads of his fingers dug into my shoulders, betraying his frustration. “Playing the innocent act stopped working when you came out of the fucking womb,” he hissed. “What have you got going on with Crawford?”
I flinched. “Nothing.”
He glared at me, searching for both the truth and lie in my eyes. There was a little of both.
“He’s dangerous,” he said. “To the club. To you.”
I lifted my chin. “I’m well aware of that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “And I’m well aware that you chase danger for fuckin’ cardio.”
I yanked out of his grasp. “I’m not fifteen anymore, Cade. You can’t give me lectures and hope they stick. But yeah, I get bored, I cause a little trouble. It never touches the club. I can handle my own shit. And there’s nothing to handle with Luke. You made sure to tell me that my entire life, essentially telling me I wouldn’t have one if I considered him as anything more than the scum you do.” My gaze didn’t falter. “And that one stuck, Cade. Lectures don’t stick with me, but death threats certainly do. Especially when they come from my own brother.”
Cade flinched, like I’d struck him. “Roe—”
“No, Cade,” I hissed. “Don’t worry, you don’t have to say anything else. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not suicidal.”
A
nd then, before I could betray anything else, I turned on my heel and left.
So he didn’t think I was running, I did it farther into the club. But I knew every inch of the place where I’d grown up, especially all escape routes.
Which was exactly what I did.
Escaped.
But then again, I lived in a cage, so there was only so far I could go until someone found me.
And it was the person I wanted to find me more than anything. I also hoped he never would, because it would eventually mean he lost himself.
I didn’t go home because that would’ve been the first place they looked. I didn’t go to a bar because that would be the second.
Not that they needed to. I’d texted Cade to tell him I hadn’t been murdered or kidnapped or joined the circus. Then I’d turned my phone off, because despite that text, I knew Cade would’ve had Wire trace my phone.
This outlaw life of freedom sometimes had more bars than the cages of society boasted.
I was resigned to that when boots hit the dock I was swinging my boots off.
It was only a matter of time before someone found me. My heart stopped because I knew who the someone was. I knew it before he sat down beside me, before his profile danced at the edges of my vision and his clean smell mingled with the salty ocean air.
He was the only one who knew about this place.
Our place, as I’d come to think of it.
It was a delusion, sure. But everyone needed a delusion or two to get them through reality.
“I don’t need a lecture on rights and wrongs and evil and good right now, Luke,” I said, keeping my eyes on the ocean, even though every part of me yearned to drink him in.
There was a long pause, and the air around my hand changed as Luke rested his own on the wood of the dock, right next to mine, then coiled his pinky with mine.
One small touch, barely anything, but for us, it was more than everything.
I expected him to pull away. He didn’t. He just kept it there and I held my breath.
“I’m not here for that, Rosie,” he said finally. “I’m here for you.”
I whipped my head sideways. He was still watching the ocean. The words winded me for a split second, but then I hardened. “Here to arrest me? Question me?” I asked coldly.
That time my words made him shift his gaze. I restrained a flinch at seeing the hurt in it. I knew that wasn’t why he was there. We both knew it.
“I’m here for you, Rosie,” he repeated.
I swallowed roughly. “You can’t be, Luke,” I whispered.
His eyes hardened. “Where else can I be, Rosie? With the memories of the flaming remains of the fucking bomb that almost erased you from this earth?” he demanded. “With the fucking replay of what would’ve been if everything had been a little later, if you’d been just a little closer? I’ve done too much of that, staying away and chasing at the demons that remind me just how acquainted you are with death. I can’t fuckin’ do that anymore, Rosie. I can’t do any of it.”
I froze. “Any of what?”
My heart soared and sank at the same time.
He turned fully to face me, yanked my entire hand into his strong and dry palm. His gaze didn’t waver.
“You know what,” he murmured, so quietly the waves almost stole his words away.
But they didn’t. I snatched them out of the air and held them tight.
Inside was the only place I would let myself hold on to them, to the feelings of Luke’s hand entwined in mine. That gaze directed at me. I steeled myself, garnered my strength, then snatched my hand back and pushed myself up.
Luke did the same, frowning.
I ignored this. “And how do you think it would work?”
“What do you mean?”
I rolled my eyes. “Come on, Luke. Don’t pretend to be dense. You went to college, got that degree in criminology. I’m sure that means you can decode what a criminal says,” I spat at him, hating the words as they came out of my mouth and the ugly tone that structured them.
“Jesus, Rosie,” he snapped, rubbing his palm over his clean-shaven jaw in frustration. “Stop fuckin’ fighting it. Me.”
I put my hand on my hip. “Clue in, Luke, fighting you, fighting this, it’s the only option.”
His eyes darkened and he stepped forward. I stepped back, to the edge of the dock. If he came closer, my only retreat would be the ocean. At that moment, I’d take my chances in the water.
He didn’t move forward.
“There’s another option,” he gritted out.
I stared at him. “No there isn’t,” I said firmly.
“There is.”
“You enforce the law, I break it. That’s it, if we want to make it simple,” I snapped.
“We’re not simple, babe.”
I blinked at him. Blinked away the tears that threatened to shatter my tough-girl façade. “We have to be, Luke. There’s no other way for us.”
His face was etched into determination, like he’d decided in that moment that there was going to be an us. That despite the previous decades, nothing was going to stop him.
“I’ll make a way,” he promised.
I did it again, grasped onto those words, bathed in the moment for a heartbeat and then continued fighting. Despite what Luke said, despite his decision about the way things were going to be, the truth was it wasn’t his decision.
I stared at him, forcing myself to school my features, to clench my fists at my sides.
“You know what my worst fear is?” I asked. “It’s not spiders, being burned alive, clowns or anything else painful or horrifying that can happen to me. My worst fear is what happens to the people who make up me. My family. My worst fear is losing them. And it’s ironic then, you see, that I fall in love with the man who wants to do that. To take everything from me. The man who somehow both embodies my worst fears and my unuttered dreams at the same time. So I can’t live it out. Whatever we have. Because in that moment of selfishness that I would take, it would be the end of everything.”
“Rosie—” he choked out.
I held my hand up, disgusted to see it was shaking. “No,” I whispered. “You can’t decide that everything else doesn’t matter. It does. Including the one pivotal truth,” I said. “You have so much hate for the club, Luke.”
His brow furrowed. “My feelings about the club have nothing to do with you.”
I laughed. It was ugly and cold, and I hated the sound coming out of me. “No, that’s the thing. They have everything to do with me. Everything I am or ever will be is because of my family. They are the world to me. And they’re what I’ve built my world around. So by hating the very thing that put me together, that keeps me together, you hate me. There is no one without the other. And as long as that hate exists, there is no you and me.” I paused. “Not that there ever was.”
Then I turned on my heel and left.
He didn’t follow me.
The anchor of truth was fastened around his ankle, so I doubted it was even physically possible for him to follow me.
That didn’t mean I didn’t pray for it.
“What are you doing here, Luke?” I asked, trying my best to block his path. It only kind of worked—he stopped his purposeful stride toward the clubhouse, sunglasses directing themselves at me. His hand still rested on his gun, and he held his jaw hard.
It was just shy of a month after that day on the dock, after the explosion that blew everything between us right open.
We hadn’t spoken. Until now.
“Rosie, get out of my way,” he clipped.
I cocked my hip and narrowed my eyes. “No. Not until you tell me why you’re waltzing onto private property. You don’t have a warrant.”
He pushed his shades onto the top of his blond head, the mussed strands catching, though he didn’t notice.
I tried my best not to let the focus of those blue eyes affect me, but like always, the only thing I accomplished was to hide the way they affected me o
utwardly. Inwardly, I was knots.
Whichever asshole painted love as this amazing and wonderful thing must’ve be on acid.
A lot of it.
Love was not amazing. Or wonderful. It was painful, horrible and did its best to kill everything independent inside you so all of your feelings were dependent on one person.
One man.
The one in the uniform who was trying to destroy your family.
And the one who was so intent on destroying your family that he barely even acknowledged your existence.
At least Romeo and Juliet had the whole mutual love thing going on before they killed themselves.
“I don’t need a warrant,” he said. “Got a tip.”
I raised my brow. “A tip?” Disbelief saturated my tone.
He nodded once. “From a concerned citizen.”
I put my hand on my hip. “A concerned citizen? Give me a fucking break, Luke.” I paused, anger seeping out of me as quickly as it had inflated me. “When are you going to stop this? Can’t you just let them be? Can’t you just….” I caught myself before saying what I had been going to say. Which would’ve not only labeled me weak and pathetic, but a traitor to my family.
Can’t you just notice me? Like really notice? Take a second to realize that I’m more than Rosie, the little sister of the man you hate, and remember that I’m the Rosie you’ve shared those stolen moments with. The ones you do your best to forget as soon as they’ve happened.
Something changed in his expression, a softening at the edges, a shimmering depth in those eyes that had been so full of ice before. Giving me a glimpse of it, what my mind had asked for but what I was sure I hadn’t said out loud.
“Can’t I just what?” he said, little more than a whisper, stepping toward me so I inhaled clean linen and peppermint.
Luke scent.
He even smelled different.
But then, as moments that shouldn’t be usually are, it was broken. Exactly the way moments were broken in my life.
With a dead body.
Okay, maybe not most moments in a normal person’s life, but it had been established just how far from normal I was.
“Can’t you just—” My words were cut off when my eyes wandered, too cowardly to meet Luke’s eyes. “Oh my God,” I choked out, my voice half–broken, half of it trying to remember to keep my shit together.