Fearless

by Lauren Gilley

  Aidan felt a desperate tightening in his gut. They hadn’t even known what they were stumbling across – it had just been a hunch, something to occupy them that felt semi-helpful – and still they’d managed to fuck it up.

  “Rena,” he said, pressing his face to the gap in the door. She stood in the middle of a pitiful little living room, in a limp cotton dress, arms banded tightly around her middle. She was shaking. “I’m not going to hurt you. But whatever you know, you need to tell me. Things will be better for you if you’re honest.”

  She shook her head. “I called him. He’s coming.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  Then Aidan heard the echoing blip of a police siren, just two quick punches to catch his attention.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  He abandoned Serena – she was useless anyway – and headed out to the parking lot, afraid he’d find his best friend in handcuffs. Jace and his bike were gone. Tango stood on the sidewalk, hands on his narrow hips. And at the curb, blue lights revolving soundlessly, sat Sergeant Fielding in his cruiser.

  “It just keeps getting better,” Aidan muttered.

  Forty-Three

  Ava opened her eyes and the cottage was full of warm daylight. With awareness came the knowledge that she was too hot. She kicked the covers off and thick, humid air folded over her bare skin. She could smell the lingering spiciness of dinner, and the swamp water, and dark, green plant smells that had found their way in under the door and through the thin glass of the windows. Her internal clock told her it was the middle of the day, and she couldn’t believe she’d slept that late. A quick scan revealed that she was alone.

  She sat up, and gasped at the revelation of her soreness and stiffness. She was stretching her arms up over her head, trying to ease the ache in her shoulders, when the front door opened and Mercy entered carrying some sort of strange, cylindrical basket.

  She was self-conscious in that first moment, aware of her nakedness, the way she was arching her back. She lowered her arms. But then he turned a smile toward her – a wide, beaming, thrilled smile that warmed and soothed her. He was so happy to see her. She rested her hands on the mattress. He’d said all along that he wanted to look at her; she might as well let him look.

  “You’re up,” he said, kicking off his boots. They were muddy, and wet, leaving dark splotches on the wood where he’d walked. The bottoms of his jeans were in the same state. He was shirtless, his hair tied back.

  Ava didn’t think she’d ever seen anything more beautiful.

  “Yeah. You shouldn’t have let me sleep so late.”

  He shrugged. “You were tired.” His grin turned wicked at the corners for a second. Then he said, “And who the hell gets up early on their honeymoon?”

  “Good point.”

  He walked to their makeshift kitchen and pulled a plastic bucket from beneath the exposed piping of the sink.

  Ava slid from bed and found his t-shirt on the floor where he’d dropped it last night; she pulled it on over her head and went to his side. “What in the world is in that thing?”

  He lifted the basket toward her and she saw that its frame was metal, and that it had an inner lining of netting. And it was half-full with little red wriggling, snapping crawfish.

  “Mud bugs,” he explained cheerfully. “Our lunch.”

  Her stomach turned over at the idea, but she said, “Well that sounds…interesting.”

  He gave her a knowing look as he opened up the trap and dumped the little crustaceans into the bucket with a clattering sound. “They taste good, I promise.”

  She nodded. “Oh, I know.” She smiled. “I believe you. I just have no idea how to cook the things.”

  “You’re in luck, Mrs. L, because you’re about to learn from the master.”

  She felt her smile widen. Mrs. L. That’s who she was now. No longer just Ghost’s daughter, or Aidan’s little sister, but Mercy’s wife.

  He watched her absorb the idea, his gaze warm as she processed it all. Then he said, “Here, I’ll show you. Grab me the salt, and we’ll get them clean.”

  Cooking lessons with Mercy were nothing like cooking lessons with Maggie. It wasn’t drudgery; it was just spending time with each other, in a new capacity, talking about seasoning instead of Shakespeare.

  Mercy built up a fire in the iron stove, and Ava filled a big soup pot with water that she set to boil. Cleaning the crawfish was nasty business. She cringed to watch them writhe around as the salt and water went over them.

  Mercy decided they’d do it up like a crab boil, and he set her to halving ears of corn and new potatoes. She managed not to cut herself.

  “How’d you get to be so comfy in the kitchen?” she asked teasingly as she minced a head of garlic.

  He shrugged his wide, bare shoulders. “Growing up, Gram cooked, and Daddy cooked, and I cooked. We all pitched in.”

  “What’s your favorite thing to make?”

  “Sausage gravy,” he said without hesitation. “On fresh biscuits.”

  To the water, they added the corn, the potatoes, bay leaves, garlic, halved lemons, whole peppercorns, salt, thyme, cayenne, paprika, crushed red pepper. When the crawfish were deemed clean enough, and the dead floaters fished from the mix, Mercy poured the lot in. He splashed in half a beer and declared it ready to “do its thing.”

  Then he caught her around the waist and crushed her to him. “You didn’t even kiss me yet.”

  Ava wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her breasts to his chest as he claimed her mouth with rough, wet kisses that left her straining up on her toes.

  One of his hands went up under the hem of the shirt, found all her bare skin.

  “How long do those have to boil?” she asked, breathlessly, when he finally pulled back.

  His disappointed frown made her want to laugh. His hand on her ass made her want to drag him over to the bed. “Not long,” he said. He sighed. “After, then. Fucking crawfish.”

  Ava did laugh then, resting her head on his chest. “They were your idea.”

  “I know. Fuck me too.”

  “After,” she reminded, smiling. “I’ll do that after.”

  They poured their crawfish boil out over newspaper, as it should be done, and the smell was incredible. Ava ate a few. She ate more of the corn and potatoes, slathered with butter. There was just something about the texture that was hard to stomach. Not for her, she decided, but this was Mercy’s Cajun culture. And she wanted to support him in every way she could.

  “Can we walk over sometime and see the church?” she asked as they were rolling up the shells in the newspaper and throwing out the trash.

  Mercy snapped his fingers. “That reminds me. Damn, I can’t believe I forgot. When we get done with this, put some pants on, and I’ll show you something cool.”

  She was too curious to joke that she’d thought his after-lunch “something cool” would involve a distinct lack of pants. Instead, she pulled on jeans and boots and was handed a flashlight. He had one too, and he was sliding his Colt into his waistband.

  Ava lifted her brows. “Should I be nervous?”

  “Nope.” He waggled his brows. “Not unless you’re afraid of ghosts.”

  “I’m only afraid of one Ghost. And that’s not so much fear as a healthy understanding of his overbearing father issues.”

  Mercy laughed. “Come on, then.”

  They went out the back door of the cottage, to what had once been a small garden in the right angle where the outer walls of the main room and bathroom extension came together. It was nothing but a tangle of old vines threaded with weeds now, but Ava saw the small concrete angel, discolored and moss-covered, that still stood in the very corner.

  Mercy dropped to his knees and felt across the ground. From under the fallen leaves, he unearthed a heavy metal ring. He hooked his fingers through it and pulled. As Ava watched, the moss-covered ground lifted, and then revealed itself as a trap door, about three feet by three feet, falling
back on its hinges and revealing a dark stone stairwell that led down into the earth.

  “Oh my God,” she gasped, delighted. “It’s a secret tunnel?”

  Mercy grinned up at her. “It’s a secret tunnel.” He clicked on the flashlight and stood, aiming the beam down into the opening. “Let’s hope there’s not any water moccasins down there.”

  He went first, and Ava followed, a hand resting lightly against the middle of his bare back as she navigated the narrow stone stairs. They went down until the ceiling opened up just high enough to let Mercy pass with only a slight stooping of his shoulders. He couldn’t stand upright, and they had to walk one in front of the other between its narrow stone walls.

  “Oh, wow.” Ava passed her flashlight beam across the algae-slick stones under her boots. “The whole thing’s made of rock.”

  “It floods when the water’s up,” Mercy said in front of her, half-twisting so she could hear him better. The close walls pressed his voice around them. “So whoever dug it wanted to make sure it wouldn’t collapse. This stone’s four feet thick.” He patted the wall. “It was built during Prohibition. The Hollow belonged to smugglers then. They wanted an escape route, in case the police found them.”

  “Wow,” she breathed again.

  As they progressed along, the light touched small puddles, old forgotten glass bottles, black with age, straggling dead knots of duckweed, the bones of frogs, snakes, and mice that had been washed in with the water, and then perished alone in the dark.

  It felt like they walked forever.

  “How far does it go?”

  “The chapel. Not much farther now.”

  They reached another stone staircase, and a heavy wood door at a slant above them. Mercy pushed it open with ease, and as it opened, sunlight came streaming into the tunnel, sharp against their dark-adjusted eyes. Ava saw the leaping tendons in his arms. The thing was heavy.

  It fell back with a dull slamming sound, and they were climbing up onto a little wooden stage, the high chapel ceiling soaring above them, the collapsing pews marching in rows up ahead. They were at the pulpit. There was the lectern; behind them, the big plain cross spread its arms. Mother Nature had punched up the floorboards, and the aisles were soft with grass and vines. Ava could hear the music of birds and frogs. Sun fell in through the high narrow windows, and in the utter stillness, the air smelling of warmth and greenery, it was easy to feel the echoes of holiness in this long-forgotten church.

  “It’s beautiful,” Ava said, almost afraid to let her voice touch the quiet.

  Mercy stood at the edge of the simple wooden stage, hands at his sides, staring at the cross. “Hmm,” he murmured in agreement, but Ava could see that he was miles away. Coming in here had triggered something in him.

  She wanted to go to him, slide her arms around his waist. But that old sense of infringing held her back. She didn’t want to pry the demons out of him. She wanted him to pull them out and show them to her.

  “What?” she asked, softly.

  He shook his head a fraction. “Nothing. Just…I haven’t been inside a church in a long time.” He took a deep breath, and the light shifted across the muscles of his chest as it expanded and relaxed again.

  “Do you miss going?”

  His eyes didn’t waver from the cross. “We didn’t go that often. Gram dragged us to Mass on Christmas Eve every year. Sometimes on Easter.”

  “Mercy–”

  The sound of a boat motor cut through the tranquil afternoon.

  Mercy snapped around, eyes going to the gaping front doors of the church. The tension coiled inside him, cycling through his body, making him seem taller, visibly aggressive. “Wait here.” He made a staying motion with his hand, and stepped off the stage, going down the center aisle in a handful of long strides.

  The motor moved closer.

  He had a hand on the doorframe, gazing out across the swamp, when she saw him relax.

  “Larry and Evie,” he called to her. Then he frowned. “What part of ‘newlywed’ did they not understand, huh?”

  “I told her she didn’t need to be bothering you,” Larry grumbled as he and Evie emerged from the cypress cave. “We put truckloads of food in that house, and you don’t need her running over here with a damn meatloaf every five minutes.”

  Ava rushed to assure them that they weren’t being a bother, and thanked Evie profusely for the meatloaf. She explained that they’d just eaten. When Evie said, “That’s fine, it’ll keep,” and made no move to leave, Ava asked them to stay and visit, have a drink.

  Mercy gave her a murderous look where the O’Donnells couldn’t see, and she smiled sweetly back. She thought, maybe if they got this over with, they could spend the evening alone together.

  “Let’s let the boys talk,” Evie urged, when they were all equipped with glasses of Johnnie Walker Red. “Let’s you and me go for a stroll.”

  Ah, so this was it: the closest she’d ever get to a motherly chat on Mercy’s behalf.

  She took a hard sip of her Scotch as they began a slow walk around the edge of the meadow.

  “How were the crawfish?” Evie asked, a knowing laughter in her voice.

  “Um…they were different,” Ava said, cringing.

  “It’s not like popcorn shrimp at a restaurant, is it?”

  “That’s for sure.”

  It was a wet, dense heat that seemed to drift up from the ground. The kind of heat that made you light-headed and faintly sick, like walking through water. It was the hottest part of the day, and the alcohol wasn’t helping things. Ava took slow steps, kicking the toes of her boots through the grass. She wished there’d been room to bring along some flip-flops. Even just sneakers. Anything besides these hot boots.

  Evie’s voice became more serious, but no less direct. “I know Felix told me once, but I’ve forgotten. It’s hell to get old. But anyway, I was trying to remember – how old were you when Felix moved to Tennessee? The first time, I mean.”

  This felt like entrapment. “I was eight,” she said. Skating around the truth wasn’t her style.

  “Just a little baby thing,” Evie said.

  Ava didn’t like the sound of that. But she said, “My dad assigned him to my mom and me. Our security detail.”

  “Hm. He woulda been, what? Twenty?”

  “Twenty-one.”

  “He was scary to look at even then. I can see why a father would make that choice.” She sipped her Scotch. “What was he like then? After he’d run off from home. All alone up there in the Smoky Mountains.”

  Ava felt the first stirrings of anger and tried to tamp them down. “He was my friend. Even though I was only eight, he was my friend from the beginning. The other stuff came later.”

  Evie made a murmuring sound. “I’m not sure the poor boy ever had a single friend growing up. He was awful shy, and he was home-schooled, you know.”

  It was a little stab of pain to say, “No. I didn’t know.”

  “Uh-huh. Never went to school a day in his life. No homecoming, no prom. No football games. Just reading a buncha dusty old books with his daddy and grandmother.”

  Ava swallowed another sip of Scotch and felt it catch in her throat. She felt this intense, instant ache when she thought of the fearless man she knew growing up a quiet, shy, friendless boy. This new knowledge painted all the old memories in a new light, explained them more precisely. The young man who’d taken a true interest in her, who had talked books and movies and hokey old sitcoms with her had done so because that was a true connection between them. She’d always known that; but now she knew why. No matter how many years he spent as Mercy – ruthless MC extractor and wielder of pipe wrenches and pliers – there would always be a part of him that was Felix, lonely for some true, kindred company. He’d found that, in her.

  She wanted to go back to the cottage and put her arms around him. She wanted to tell Evie to get lost, because she sensed the judgment in the woman, and that made her furious.

  She said, “
That explains why he’s so much more well-read than any of the boys I ever went to school with.”

  Evie laughed. “Nobody ever caught your eye while he was waiting for you to grow up?”

  “No.” She hated that phrasing: waiting for her to grow up, like he’d had sick intentions while she was a little girl, and he’d managed to hold himself at bay until she was ripe.

  “Well, I guess the same’s true for him,” Evie went on, oblivious to Ava’s darkening mood. “He was in some kinda bad place several years ago, when he came back from Tennessee.”

  Not my fault, she wanted to say. That was my Dad’s misguided notion of protecting me, and Mercy being too honorable to tell him to fuck off.

  “Felix is a very good-natured boy,” Evie said. “But he doesn’t love too many people. He loves you.” Her brows lifted. “That’s an honor.”

  At this point, the Maggie Lowe DNA in her was swirling up with the old Teague blood and she was in the mood to punch this woman right in the face. To be questioned and lectured about her love for Mercy, cautioned like that. It was insulting.

  “Mrs. O’Donnell,” she said, tone polite, coming to a halt. She drew on every ounce of her mother’s grace, and her literary background. “I have had the incomparable pleasure of calling Felix Lécuyer my dear friend for almost fifteen years. I have loved him, and been loved by him, for all that time. Don’t ever think that I am less than astounded by the depth of his feeling, or that I don’t love him back with every square inch of my heart.”

  Evie blinked. Then smiled. “Oh, honey. I’m so glad you do.” She resumed her walk, and Ava followed suit. “I’m not trying to make you mad, understand.”

  Ava sighed. “Sorry. I just get defensive of him.”

  “Good.”

  They had reached the water’s edge. The ground was so soft, Ava stepped back, afraid she’d get sucked down into the channel.

  Evie said, “I brought a box with me this time. A bunch of Felix’s old stuff.”

  Ava glanced over out of rabid curiosity.