Beautiful Wreck

by Kasey Lane

  Gabby agreed and couldn’t help admiring his backside as he walked away. Because no one could deny that Bowen Landry didn’t have presence. And a really fine ass. Though she would no longer have any claim to Bowen’s anything after this week. That’s what they’d agreed to. Something kept clawing at her, though. Telling her that maybe they could be more. He seemed to be pushing for it at times, and then immediately backpedaling.

  After checking in with the attendant at the information desk, she walked down the chipped linoleum hall to the lobby area where she had agreed to meet with Detective Miller following their game of phone tag Friday afternoon. The ugly plastic chairs in the waiting area reminded her of the hospital where Conner had been recently released.

  Thankfully, she didn’t have to wait around feeling awkward and uncomfortable because Detective Miller was already there waiting for her, standing in his navy polyester suit talking with a uniformed officer. He waved off the other man when he saw Gabby step forward and motioned for her to sit.

  “Ms. Alvarez, thank you for coming in.”

  “No problem,” she mumbled and sat across from him in a hard-plastic chair. It seemed her life lately could be cataloged by crappy furniture.

  “First, I want to apologize for Friday. I know your friend was concerned for your welfare. I want to assure you that your safety is important to us too.”

  “Thank you,” she said because that’s what one was supposed to say in response. Gabby wasn’t quite sure she actually felt safer or cared for. In fact, she was sure she didn’t, but she certainly didn’t feel like arguing with the detective—he was just doing his job after all—and she wasn’t much in the mood for defending Bowen either. “You mentioned you had some news.”

  He nodded. “Owen McNeil’s ex-wife called—”

  “Tammy McNeil called you?” Tammy calling the police to help them locate her ex-husband seemed about as likely as Bill Gates himself offering her a job as his personal programmer. Despite the McNeils’ tempestuous relationship, in the past they had always been extremely loyal to each other, a unified front of co-dependency. But then they were divorced now.

  “Yes, apparently, he got himself drunk, drove back to the Bay Area and was pulled over by California Highway Patrol. He called her from lockup and begged her to bail him out. But they have enough evidence to get a conviction quickly.”

  A tight band of pressure squeezed Gabby’s chest making it hard to breathe. She was overwhelmed with relief, but there was something else. This meant it really was all over. Not the thing with McNeil so much, but her and Bowen. Her bastard foster father getting locked up was pretty much a giant alarm going off. Done. Over. Time to move on.

  “So what happens now?” Gabby asked.

  The detective ran his hands through his salt-and-pepper hair and sighed. “Well, basically we wait. Santa Clara County will have to bring him up on charges for his DUI and any other outstanding warrants he might have there and then we get our shot at him.”

  “So nothing happens?” Of course not. Of all the times she’d been in this position, in the police department trying to tell the truth and doing the right thing, this was always the outcome. Nothing ever changed. Justice was never served. She was back where she started. Fucking nowhere.

  “Ms. Alvarez, I promise I’m going to do everything to stay on top of this and make sure he’s prosecuted for what he’s done to you.”

  “Yeah? It’s too late for that. What he’s done to me is not just this.”

  Gabby got up and offered her hand when the detective stood. “Detective Miller, thank you for everything you’ve done. I’m sorry if I seem ungrateful. I’m not. It’s just he always seems to get away with it. They are a horrible family and they tried to make me like them when I wouldn’t play along. Looks like they win again.”

  The detective shook her hand and then held it a little longer than necessary before he looked her in the eye and said, “Not this time. I don’t usually tell people this, but I have a daughter your age, Ms. Alvarez. She’s lucky enough to have a family that can fight for her. I do what I do for the people that don’t have that. I promise. I have your back. Okay?”

  Tears welled in Gabby’s eyes. She wasn’t sure why, but this man’s pledge to her rang true. The honesty, the weight of his words wrapped around her. Against her better judgment and a lifetime of experience that told her differently, she believed this man, this father. Unable to do more than nod politely and whisper “thank you,” she walked with short, disjointed steps to the main waiting room to wait for Bowen to finish his meeting with his parole officer.

  Done. In main lobby.

  Still in a fog, trying to understand why a quick, run-of-the-mill conversation like the one she’d just had put her off so, she didn’t see Bowen until he was standing directly in front of her calling her name.

  “Hey, Gab, ready?” She looked up trying to gauge how his meeting went, but his face was blank and his eyes distant. Completely the opposite of how he stared at her at Oaks Park. This look was devoid of the intense passion he’d directed at her. It had been like he could see through her, into her heart, and that maybe he suspected the truth. That she was falling for him despite their arrangement.

  This new emotionless expression was probably not a good sign, but he held out his hand and she placed hers in it. He wrapped his long, rough fingers around hers and—not for the first time, but sadly probably for the last—she marveled at how much smaller she was than him. And how he was the one person she really felt safe with.

  Wow. She’d finally found someone in her life who made her feel protected and now it was over. When Bowen had talked about extending their agreement she’d desperately wanted to agree. Her heart had swelled before the gut punch of reality crushed it again. This thing was becoming something more to her, but Bowen Landry was the opposite of “something more.”

  She looked up into his face and saw a flash of something, maybe regret? Maybe it was recognition that he knew time had run out, too. Her heart throbbed and the tears she had just pushed back threatened to fall again. She nodded and he tugged gently on her arm to pull her up, but instead of dropping her hand he squeezed it, holding it tighter as he turned and led her out of the station with a solemnity so thick she felt she might drown in it.

  *

  “McNeil’s in jail for a DUI,” Gabby intoned quietly from the passenger seat. “His ex-wife turned him in.”

  Bowen glanced at her, but she was facing the window where he couldn’t see her expression. “That’s great,” he said with forced enthusiasm. Granted, he was thrilled they’d finally caught the asshole, but a gaping hollowness had opened up in his chest where his heart used to be since his meeting with his parole officer. “Hopefully they’ll keep that fucker in jail.”

  The only thing that mattered was Gabby’s safety. Yet he couldn’t help feeling like he was on his way back to rehab and giving up the one thing that made him feel good again.

  “Now you don’t have to worry about me.”

  “It was your mom, Gabby,” he blurted as they pulled into the now abandoned rec hall parking lot where he’d left his bike earlier. Her head snapped back toward him.

  “What? Goddamn it. I knew it.” She dipped her head and looked back up. Her beautiful green eyes that had shone with such desire only hours earlier looked flat. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Shit, Bowen, did your PO say something? Oh my God, did my mom call him?”

  Bowen took her hand. “No, after she left the apartment she waited for the detective and told him some story about you being a felon and how you had a bunch of druggie family members.” He squeezed her hand, needing her to understand he didn’t blame her, that he didn’t blame her for anything. “It’s not your fault. You know that, right?”

  “I do have a record because of McNeil. And my mom is a druggie, Bowen. How is this not my fault? I brought all this into your life.”

  “I invited you into my life, Gabby. You were totally up-front about everything. I own this. And you
know I’m no saint.”

  God, he wished he could take the grim look from her eyes and smooth the lines from her forehead. Unfortunately, the line had been drawn and the bell had dinged. Their time was up and he didn’t think she would tolerate more than simply holding his hand.

  “But you’re really trying to turn your life around. You’re doing everything right. And then some damsel in distress who looks down on you because you’re in recovery is actually the one who fucks it all back up.”

  A lonely tear slipped from her reddening eye and slid down her check. “Sweetheart, you don’t get to do that. You’ve lived a lifetime with addicts and alcoholics. Most of them let you down over and over again. How are you to know I wouldn’t be the same?”

  She looked up, more tears glistening from her lashes. “I know, Bowen. I know. You aren’t quite what I expected.” Gabby attempted a weak smile and he met it with one of his own. “You’re definitely not just a pretty face.”

  “Neither are you, Gabby.”

  “No, I’m a much bigger mess.”

  He lifted his hand to her cheek. “Not even a little bit.” In another time, in another place he could see himself loving this queen of a woman. “You’ve brought so much—”

  Gabby’s phone rang, interrupting him. “It’s a hospital in Eugene,” she said showing him the screen. “My mom must have hit bottom…again.”

  “Gabby Alvarez speaking.”

  Other than the occasional mumbled “yes,” the silence widened in the car.

  Finally, she said, “Yes, thank you. I’m glad she’s okay.” Then she repeated her contact information and made arrangements to have her mother call when she was able before hanging up with a loud sigh. The desolation in her voice slayed him. For Gabby, the calls from the hospital or the jail or a motel room in some dirt-hole town were all too familiar. Same day, different shit.

  “Speak of the devil herself. This just shows how different our lives are, right? My mom’s going back into treatment after drinking herself into a coma. Literally. You, on the other hand, are cleaning up your life and have your priorities straight. Oh the irony.”

  Although it was clear that the call from the hospital was the last nail in the coffin of their un-relationship, he had to ask, “What happened, Gab?”

  “The same thing that’s happened two dozen times before. Alma made her way to Eugene with some random guy. Got so drunk she was carried out of a bar. Then she was left in the parking lot of the hospital unconscious. She’s sick, though, Bowen. The doctor said her liver is done. It’s life or death now.”

  “Are you going down to see her?”

  “Maybe this weekend. I can’t do anything now. Not that I ever made a difference anyway. I know my mother loves me; she just doesn’t love me enough to stop.”

  The sob that ripped from Gabby’s throat tore at his soul. He jumped from the car and ran around to her side, pulling her up and into his arms as she cried. He rubbed her back and held her as tightly as he could, and she still felt so far away.

  “I can’t…I don’t know…I…oh God. I don’t want her to die.” She cried and cried and he just held her.

  “Sweetheart, that’s not how addiction works. We can’t stop. It’s like we’re allergic to alcohol or drugs and our reaction is to continually chase the dragon to take away the pain, help us cope with our failures. But it just makes it worse. And by the time you realize it, it’s too late. You’re lost. You’re alone.” He ran his hand over her hair and kissed the top of her head. “Your mother loves you. She just doesn’t know how to stop. Maybe this is the time. Don’t lose hope. You may get her back.”

  “Hopefully before she lets it kill her first.” Gabby pulled back and wiped her nose on her sleeve laughing. “Pretty sexy now, right?”

  He laughed. “You’re always sexy, little one.” And so much more.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Each time Gabby tried to talk about Bowen’s meeting with his PO, he shut her down. He wasn’t stupid—he knew once they had that conversation it would be over between them. What did it matter what his parole officer said anyway? McNeil was caught. Gabby was moving. And her mom was in rehab. The clock had been counting down from the beginning, but he hadn’t realized how close to the end they were until he’d walked into his PO’s office and the man had pointedly asked, “Who is Alma Alvarez?”

  Fuck. His stomach had crumpled into a little ball and dropped to his feet. The jig was up. When he’d walked out of the office thirty minutes later his steps were heavier than they had been in a long time. Both his sponsor and his PO had been right. He was getting off track and jeopardizing everything he’d worked for. His recovery and paying back his sister—both emotionally and monetarily—had to take priority over everything. Even Gabby.

  The problem was that he felt more alive and less alone than ever when he was with Gabby. The bullshit half-life he’d been living was grossly obvious now that he’d had a little time with her. He was doing the work, no doubt, but he hadn’t really been engaged in his own life.

  But none of that mattered. He couldn’t give her any more of himself because there wasn’t anything else left to give if he kept to his plan of paying back his sister and staying sober. That came first. No matter what. Then the call from the hospital in Eugene had cemented everything into place. They were done. He couldn’t have anything to do with Alma Alvarez so he would cut Gabby loose and they’d be on their merry ways. Separately.

  After he picked up his bike he figured he would take her home and they would make love one last time before they put together a plan for their separate futures. McNeil was toast so he didn’t need to protect her any longer, and he certainly didn’t plan to abandon her. He would stand by her if she needed him. As a friend, a very good, very platonic friend.

  As she pulled up next to him in their apartment building parking lot and turned her car off, she hopped out and placed her slender hand into his. He started to stop her from speaking, but she took her other hand and placed it on his lips, sending firecrackers of hunger through his body…just like she did every time she touched him.

  “They caught him, Bowen. My mom is in the hospital. You’ve gone above and beyond to help me.”

  “But…”

  “But we both know it’s over.”

  It’s over.

  McNeil was no longer a threat. With her leasing a new apartment in a building across the river, there was literally no reason for her to stay with him. That’s what he wanted, right?

  He started to respond, but she brushed her index finger along his bottom lip. “Don’t. Please don’t say anything. I know it’s over. Just like we said. Let’s go inside. And then tomorrow I’ll pack my stuff up and you can help me move into my new apartment on Friday, okay?”

  No. Not okay. That’s not what I want, he yelled inside his head. But this was the way it had to be. She’d never pretended to want more. She celebrated in her independence and her loner status. It was her bone-deep belief that she was better off alone and that people, connections, only caused pain and chaos. And he…what did he believe? What did he want? He wanted what he’d always wanted…to get back to his life: recovery, work, music. He didn’t have room for anything else. And he sure as hell didn’t have room for this woman who was creeping under his skin, whom he craved more than he’d ever wanted anything…more than sex, booze, or drugs combined. And that was just too fucking dangerous for him.

  She was right. It was time to walk away before someone got hurt.

  One more night together, though, that’s what they had left. And he was determined to make it one she remembered forever. If he couldn’t keep her then he would imprint himself on her so she would think about him years from now, about the way he made her feel—safe and loved.

  Loved? Where had that come from? He didn’t love her. He couldn’t. Bowen Landry didn’t have the ability to love anyone that way. It had been beaten out of him by his alcoholic father. It had been buried with his kind and loving mother who had been taken f
rom her children way too early. And whatever he’d had left he’d drowned in alcohol.

  “Bowen?” Gabby was staring at him. He yanked her body to his, probably too roughly, but he wasn’t going to let one more second go before he kissed her, before he closed the gaping distance that was opening up between them. He slammed his mouth down on hers and found his hands grabbing the soft round flesh of her ass.

  A low moan bubbled up from the back of her throat as he kneaded her flesh, lighting his blood, his skin, his heart on fire. He lifted her against his body, wanting her to feel the hard cock through his jeans so she’d know what she did to him even if he couldn’t tell her. She wrapped her legs around his hips and arched her back, pushing her tits low on his chest.

  God he loved how his normally reserved, closed-off woman turned to flame in his hands, scalding him everywhere he touched. He couldn’t get enough. Would never get enough. But tonight would have to be it. Tonight would have to fuel a lifetime of fantasies.

  Bowen’s mouth made its way to her neck, softly nibbling the soft skin until he bit down on the tight tendon there and she whimpered, her voice laced with desire and need.

  A car honked in the distance making him aware of his surroundings. He was basically groping Gabby against her car in the middle of the parking lot, essentially illustrating exactly why he wasn’t forever material. When it came to sex, he lost his head and all rational thought drifted away. It was just as much a drug for him as alcohol or weed.

  But when he looked down at Gabby, her hair was a mess and her green eyes were glazed over. He wanted to crush his mouth to her swollen lips again, wanted to rub his beard along the sensitive underside of her jaw and hear her gasp as she struggled to get closer to him. She was so beautiful it nearly hurt his chest to look at her. The way she immediately opened up and gave him a glimpse into her complicated heart when he held her. But he didn’t deserve her honesty, nor did she want it.