Hard Love (Guns & Ink Book 2)

by Shana Vanterpool

  “For what?” she asked, forcing me to give her the truth.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you from the start. I’m sorry I risked us, when you’re the only thing I live for. I’m sorry I put you in danger. And I’m sorry I put myself in danger, because for some reason you love me. And I know that hurt you, Catherine, something I never want to do again.”

  She sighed heavily and shook her head, pulling her hand free once more. “I don’t believe you.”

  I sat back, trying to gauge her emotions from her eyes. “You did.”

  “That was before your lies got me shot.” She sniffed, her face cringing in pain, as she tried to get comfortable. “You got what you wanted. Your family’s murderers are gone. You don’t have to pretend anymore. Your job’s done. You can leave.” The pain on her face was so strong it nauseated me. I did that. I hid behind her love and took advantage of her emotions. She met my eyes, burning me with her anger. “Leave.”

  That’s what she wanted, what she probably always did. To run and push away. How could we ever earn our smiles if we didn’t stick out the hard stuff? “Like hell I’m leaving. You’re upset. You’re hurting. Work through your anger, Cat. I’ll be here the entire time. And when you’re ready to forgive me, we’ll get started on what you wanted in that hotel room. Love. A chance. A family. I want those things too.” I kissed the back of her hand, holding her tortured gaze. She wanted to forgive me, but forgiving me was harder when the crimes had already been committed.

  “Now you do. Now that you got your revenge.”

  I understood, and even accepted, her anger. She could be mad, but she couldn’t fool me into thinking she didn’t want those things anymore. She did. I did. And we’d have them, as soon as she forgave me.

  “I always wanted them. But I also knew I wouldn’t have them.” I figured honesty at that point was the only saving grace I had. “I never planned on living my life, Catherine. I didn’t even know I wanted a life until I met you.”

  “I can’t stand looking at your stupid handsome face right now.”

  I kissed up the back of her hand, nipping at her wrist. “Why don’t you push your hospital gown to the side. Give Daddy a peek.”

  She glared murderously down at me. “Did I crack jokes when you were in here?”

  “No, but out of the two of us, I’m much funnier.” I turned her hand over and found her pulse, kissing where it thrummed the hardest.

  She stared carefully at me. “Are you on something?”

  I chuckled against her pulse. “No, baby. I’m happy.”

  She continued to stare, either unconvinced, or uncaring. “You’re not forgiven, Brando Hawkins. Not by a long shot. So stop looking at me like that.” She snatched her wrist away.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I bet I could do something that would make you forgive me.” I got down on one knee before I could stop myself, and dug into my pocket.

  She froze. “Get up.”

  “Give me your hand.” I produced my mother’s ring I’d kept in the safe all these years. “When you’re better, and the IV’S out of your other hand, we’ll switch it.” I grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand back. “I want what you want. To start over.” I slipped the ring, a modest gold band with a single diamond—my parents were never rich—over her finger. I didn’t give her the chance to say yes or no. She’d said all she needed to for months. I was the one who needed to start talking. “We deserve this.”

  She stared down at the ring, eyes shining with tears. “Is this …?”

  “Mom never took it off.”

  She hiccupped, covering her mouth with her hand. “This isn’t fair. I’m supposed to be livid right now.”

  “Be livid. You can get as mad as you want. But you will marry me. And you will know magic.”

  Her eyes shone as they met mine. “Long engagement.”

  “Whatever you want,” I assured her softly. I rose, putting our faces closer together. “I am so sorry, Catherine. We’ll take the time we need. But we will get there. I promise.”

  Her forehead fell against mine. “You’re taking advantage of my mental state right now. Who says I even want to marry you?”

  I kissed her, groaning in need the moment our lips touched. When I pulled away, her eyes were closed, and everything I ever needed to know was in her expression. “You did.”

  Her eyes fawned open, revealing a glimmer of ruefulness. She sagged back to her bed and breathed, her energy fading so fast, I could see the light dim in her eyes. “You’re not off the hook yet, Detective,” she mumbled tiredly, her lips barely moving. “Fix this,” she begged, before cascading into unconsciousness.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Catherine

  The damaging thing about pasts wasn’t what they broke, but how deeply those broken roots grew. Everything we ran from grew beneath our fears, as we chased better things, things that didn’t hurt as badly as what we ran from.

  We didn’t realize our mistakes until we couldn’t run any longer. Until we stopped and looked around and saw how many broken trees had materialized from the roots of our pain. Tangling like jungle gyms and tripping us up.

  Trapping us in the parts we thought were long since buried.

  I buried my old life. I stomped out the roots. But now there were trees all around me, ripe with the fruits of my pain.

  I’d woken up a few hours ago. My heart and eyes immediately sought Brando out. Before I even took a breath. Before I even moved. Though my heart and I were angry with him, we didn’t blame him. How could we blame that broken teenage boy for wanting to end his suffering? Maybe my heart and I didn’t have realistic expectations anymore. To want forever was nice. Getting there was the hard part.

  Even in sleep I saw the bags under his eyes, the tension in his jaw. His stubble had grown a five o’clock shadow and his hair was thick and messy, his obsidian strands falling in his eyes. That stupid jerk was beautiful. He was hard in all the places I was soft. I hated how badly I wanted to take his hand and skip into the sunset, because one, I didn’t skip, and two, I’d rather dance in the moonlight.

  Forgiveness wasn’t my style. Run, fight—that made sense. I thought it was time to stay put for a while. To put down roots I didn’t mind tripping over.

  It was time to start living. So much time had been spent surviving, I forgot—maybe I’d never known—what it felt like to actually live.

  My eyes moved from Brando to my right hand where his mother’s ring now sat on my finger. My heart filled with warmth at the sight of it. He’d kept that ring safe all those years, and now he’d given it to me. I found myself lost in the glimmer of the diamond when the door to my room opened and my past walked in.

  The last time I saw my father he was blaming me for things I hadn’t done. I’d been okay leaving that life. I hadn’t known how hard the new one would be. He looked the same. Cold, clinical; my father never hugged me. I knew little of his past and he knew little of my present. That’s the tradeoff of running.

  You sacrifice a lot.

  Our eyes locked, and in an instant, I was fourteen again. Lost and yearning. Damn tangled roots.

  “You’ve aged,” I spoke up.

  He stood at the end of my bed and drug his gaze over every inch of me he could get to.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He walked around and settled in the free chair on my left, stretching out his long legs in his black suit. “You were shot.”

  “Not the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.” I sniffed, struggling to sit up. I hurt all over and in so many places I couldn’t pick one, so I didn’t. I let all the hurt compile. It was so sudden, the burst of depression that hit me. So much hurt. I wanted to let it all go, but the decrepit hands of my pain wouldn’t let my fingers go.

  And they blamed Brando the most. Which broke my heart. Because I loved him the most, too.

  “You were shot, Catherine,” my father snapped. “Stop with your incessant tough-girl act.”

  “Act?�
�� I snorted. “This isn’t an act, Dad. This is a badge of honor.”

  “You. Were. Shot. Is this what you wanted? A life so different than the one I gave you? That you ended up here? Wounded?” His eyes shot to Brando. “With him.”

  My hackles rose. “What’s wrong with him?” I demanded.

  He simply stared at me. “The holes in your back say a lot.”

  It was one thing for me to blame Brando. He was mine. I could feel how I wanted to feel. My father had no right. Not a damn single one. “Those holes aren’t his fault. The knife you stuck in mine hurts a lot more.”

  He looked down, running a hand through his graying black hair. “Catherine,” he began, a heaviness to his voice. I thought he’d apologize after all these years, but he straightened his spine and swallowed what he’d been about to say. If he’d been about to say anything at all. “It’s not the knives in our backs that determine our state of mind. It’s how you have to keep reaching behind you to pull them out. Walk facing the other way, Catherine. It’ll save you so much trouble.”

  My dear old dad. “Stop it, Dad. You’re melting my cold heart.”

  “Things between us have always been strained. I wanted you to be like me. And you weren’t. You weren’t even like your momma. You were your own person. I supposed I should have encouraged that.”

  Yeah, but you didn’t. It was too late for that. “Where’s Mom?”

  “We divorced ten years back. I don’t know where she is. I do know that she took most of my money when she left, and I’ve spent the last decade making ten times more to spite her.”

  That’s all his life had been, money. In a way, I guessed we weren’t incredibly different. Although chasing magic was much more elusive, I never stopped looking for it either.

  An awkward silence settled between us. I shifted uncomfortably and willed Brando to wake up. Instead, he snored, his head dropping to his chest. Sighing, I shot a glance at my father who was shooting glances at me. There was so much resentment for him and all that he hadn’t done, that it was hard to sit in a room with him. I’d been through hell to escape him, and now there he was, showing up right as I was ready to stop running.

  I wanted to fight him, demand he leave, but I was too tired of pushing everyone away. And maybe deep down, I didn’t want him to leave.

  “I’ll be staying here while you convalesce. I have a suite in a nice hotel. You’ll heal up there.” He didn’t tell me. He ordered me, as if I still followed his rules.

  I laughed incredulously. “You’re out of your mind. I’m not staying with you.”

  “Where will you stay? In that shitty hotel where it happened? You can’t fly or drive to Portland like this. You’ll stay with me. And that’s final,” he sneered, showing his first spark of real emotion. “Not to mention you’re broke. You have no other option but me.” He smiled smugly.

  “I always have other options.” He knew that, and so did I.

  Brando coughed and sat up, looking around in confusion. When he saw me up, his eyes softened. “Oh, I forgot to tell you, your dad’s here.”

  He was so different. I had a feeling that difference had a lot to do with the fact that the people who killed his family were now where they belonged. There was a lightness to his heaviness, and on the edge of his dark green eyes was a shimmer of light I hadn’t seen before. It was so beautiful. I wanted to watch it grow, I wanted it to take over his eyes.

  “Thanks for the heads up,” I grumbled.

  He nodded seriously, even though I hadn’t been, and pushed to his feet. He put his lips close. I could only imagine how horrible I looked and smelled. But he kissed me anyway, right in front of my father, while his hand touched the finger that wore his mother’s ring.

  “Do you need anything? Coffee, food? Nurses said you can eat solids when you’re ready.” He was so close, we breathed the other in.

  “Toothbrush and toothpaste. And a coffee sounds good. Thank you,” I whispered, falling completely and irrevocably head over heels in love with him. I was excited. The lightness in his eyes was consuming me in seconds. I wanted that light.

  Needed that light.

  He nuzzled my lips with his nose before placing a tender warm kiss to them. “I’ll be back.”

  “I can call for those things. They’ll be here—” Father spoke up.

  Brando held up his hand to stop him. “I can take care of her myself.”

  Father sat back, pressing his lips together. “Looks like you’re doing a fine job. A back full of wounds and a man with the same. Is this life so much better than the one I gave you?” he demanded of me desperately.

  Brando looked away, but not before I saw the light drain from his eyes. I was sure he felt guilty. But a part of me had to wonder if he should. The pain he’d endured warped his expectations. His dreams turned into nightmares. He hadn’t wanted to hurt me, he’d only wanted to stop his pain.

  “Yes,” I said softly, and I meant every single word.

  It was impossible to shake my father. He had something to prove when Brando was in the room. He could be a good man. I wasn’t sure I’d ever believe that, not after spending most of my adult life without him, but the little girl in me, who’d worn pretty dresses and ran through the halls of the manor she grew up in, was finally getting the attention she always wanted. I pushed that little girl away, thought she was stupid and naïve, but maybe she wasn’t. Maybe that little girl was just lonely.

  A few days later, I was allowed to leave. Brando helped me get dressed in clothes he’d bought. Skinny jeans were my daily costume, but the pain of my wounds had led to a lot of swelling and tenderness, and I sighed in relief when he helped me into my sweats. They were so me. Black sweats with a dandelion on the leg. The white puffy petals floated down my leg and ended in a word curled in yellow chunky letters. Wish.

  I leaned against him as I put my shirt on, a plain black V-neck sans bra.

  He grabbed my hairbrush. “Turn around.” I did, giving him my back so he could brush my hair. “You haven’t switched the ring,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to my shoulder.

  “Braid my hair,” I ordered, having grown used to—and maybe even greedy—him following my demands.

  “Braid your hair? What do I look like? Danny Tanner?”

  I frowned. “Who the fuck is Danny Tanner?”

  He chuckled behind me. “The dad on Full House.”

  I turned around and stared at him. “Do not ever quote Full House to me again. Do you hear me?”

  He smiled warmly. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Hmm.” I turned back. “Ponytail then.”

  “Yes, Catherine. Although I’m getting kind of tired of you bossing me around. When you’re better, I’ll remind you who’s boss.” His arms snaked carefully around my waist to hold me. His hands slid up and cupped my breasts through my shirt. In an instant, my nipples hardened, so hungry for his touch.

  “You were never the boss,” I gasped, arching into his hold. Delicious tingles hummed in my nipples.

  He clucked under his tongue. “Lying to yourself now won’t help either of us.”

  I smiled, letting my eyes slide shut as his hands dipped below my shirt to cup my breasts in his palms. “I love you,” I confessed, moaning the moment he pinched my tender buds.

  “Put your ring on the right finger and I’ll take care of you.”

  Right now, or forever? I ached to ask. I turned around, moving free of his hold, and grabbed his face between my hands. “When you think of forever, what do you see?”

  He held my gaze, his own entrapping mine. “I see you.”

  “That all?”

  “I see us,” he said, his warm breath thick of peppermint fanning over me. “I see sand. I see little footprints in it. I see you with a tan. I see your face before I sleep. I see myself letting my family go. I see us finally taking control of our happiness. I see passion. I see love. I see something I’ve yearned for since I was thirteen. So, no, that’s not all. You and I are just the beginning.”
/>   “You see all that?” I wasn’t a woman who melted. I was too hard for that. But I nearly did, all over that hospital floor.

  “I need all that.” He pulled the ring off my right hand and put it on my left. “We’ll marry when you’re ready. But we’re going to start living now. We’re going to start living our magic because that’s what you deserve.”

  His forehead met mine, and that close, the light in his eyes eclipsed my soul.

  Epilogue

  Brando

  “Where does this go?”

  I followed the question to one of the locals Cat hired to help with the shop’s set up. He struggled to carry the sign, putting the weight of it on his knee. “Front window. I’ll put it up later.”

  He nodded, moving the sign to the front window overlooking the beach. I continued working, setting up four tattooing stations before the sun started to dip below the horizon. Sweat dripped down my face and back and I could use the break. I was moving on to the mirrors when Cat came in, hands full of takeout bags, hair in a messy bun, and her beautiful face flushed from the heat.

  She paused when she saw the sign I’d spent an hour putting up in the front window. Her eyes widened and then she smiled, so huge and beautiful, my soul took a deep breath at the sight of it.

  Catherine and I had been together for a few years now. And it took that long to get here. We were opening our own tattoo shop in Hawaii, plunging ourselves in the thicket of magic. Where we found it, where we would keep it. We moved here as soon as she healed up, throwing caution to the wind, broke, and desperate. We worked in tattoo shops in town, working with tourists and the locals, and saving our money until we could open our own shop.

  “Why yellow?” a familiar voice asked, coming up behind Cat.

  She rolled her eyes. “Dad, we talked about this. You don’t have a clue when it comes to design, so stop with the pointers.”