by Brent, Cora
“Who the fuck?” Gray muttered grumpily and I realized it wasn’t hammering at all. It was knocking, the hollow sound of a fist striking the thin metal door of the trailer.
“All right, dammit!” Grayson planted a light kiss on my shoulder and pulled on a pair of pair of boxers, taking several long strides to the door. He paused to peer out of a small window and frowned. The sun had not even peeked over the horizon yet.
“It’s Rachel,” he told me, already opening the door.
Rachel pushed past him, her eyes wide. She wore only a sexy red nightie, her full breasts straining against the lace, her hair a riot around her face. She held her tablet and the blue light of the screen reflected eerily on her skin.
“Promise,” she said in an urgent voice, holding her tablet out. “This article is several days old.”
I took it, rubbing my eyes and struggling to focus on what she was trying to tell me. Words, phrases, jumped out at me.
Josiah Bastian. Leader of the religious sect known as the Faithful Last Disciples and Saints. Church known for isolation of its members and forced polygamous marriages. Dead at age 72.
Josiah Bastian. The sick old bastard who had forcibly wed a sixteen year old girl. At my cry, Grayson rushed to my side, reading over my shoulder. He put a comforting hand on my back as I scanned the article.
“So what the hell does it mean,” he wondered, scratching his head. “For your sister?”
I honestly wasn’t sure. “Rachel?” I asked, looking at my cousin imploringly, wanting her to help me make sense of this.
She chewed a fingernail and appeared troubled. “Apparently he’d been sick for some time. Lung cancer. They were keeping it quiet. He must have been pretty fucking far gone even when he took Jenny. As far as where she is now,” she shrugged miserably. “I couldn’t say. Her sister wives in Delta City wouldn’t want to keep her.”
“And if the union wasn’t consummated,” I ventured, thinking. “She would be returned to my father in Jericho Valley.”
“Yes,” Rachel nodded. “Probably.”
Gray pulled me to him, sensing I needed it. He was right. Feeling his broad, strong chest at my back helped cool the turmoil in my mind. These past weeks, even as I healed and fell completely in love, my heart was still broken. I’d sacrificed myself, thinking I could save her, only to discover she was already lost.
Josiah Bastian’s sick mind had finally succumbed to his sick body. Perhaps it had been too late for him to leave his mark on Jenny. My heart lightened at the thought and Gray tightened his arms around me.
Rachel was watching me. “She’s still trapped with them, Promise.” It was a simple statement of fact, and also a warning. We both knew the men who’d raised us were zealots of the most dangerous kind. Worse, they were protected by an intricate network of money and power whose reach extended far beyond the church. There was no easy answer as to how to remove my sister from that world. And even that wasn’t enough anymore. Someone had to stop it; the cycle of cruelty and oppression, before it infected the next generation.
Rachel knew my thoughts. She looked at me with pitying despair.
“Shit,” she finally said with a sigh, finally realizing the state of her undress and crossing her arms over her breasts with a frown, “Cas will wonder why the hell I’m not heating him up first thing.” She threw me a glance as I reached to hand her the tablet back. “We’ll talk later, okay girl? Watch over her, Gray. Hell, I know you always do.”
I sat quietly in Grayson’s arms for a full minute after Rachel let the door whisper to a close. He kissed the top of my head and then stepped over to the kitchen, preparing a pot of coffee.
“You okay?” he finally asked me.
I stared dully at the dark bed sheet. “I don’t know.”
He seemed startled when I jumped out of bed abruptly, shimmying into a t-shirt of his which had been casually tossed on the floor. It came down to my knees.
Grayson set two mugs of coffee on the table and sat down. I reached for one and took a sip, but was too restive, wired, to settle down. I dipped my finger into the hot contents of the coffee cup, relishing the burning sting.
“Gray,” I said. “It’s early still. Will you take me shooting?”
I knew what he meant now, about soothing in the chaos in your head by handling something more powerful than yourself. Gray was patient, allowing me to shoot as many times as I wanted. I was beginning to hit the targets more than I missed them and the fact gave me some grim pleasure.
The sun was rising higher, heating the otherworldly landscape. In a short while it would be unbearable.
“You’re angry,” Gray observed softly. He hadn’t touched me since we’d left the trailer.
“Of course I’m fucking angry,” I grumbled.
“Good,” he nodded approvingly. “It’s good to be fucking angry, Promise. Just learn when to push it back. Don’t let it overcome you.”
I’d been looking through the sight, aiming for a dented can. I lowered the rifle and stared at him. The look he gave me was a challenge. He stood there with his hands on his hips, waiting.
“What the hell do you know?” I heard the venom in my voice but I couldn’t stop it.
“Nothing,” he shrugged. “Everything.”
I stared at the rifle in my hands. Suddenly it seemed horribly heavy. Gray reached over and took it from me, unloading the bullets in silence.
“I’m sorry,” I said, putting a hand on his arm.
He was surprised. “What for?”
“I snapped at you. For no reason.”
He leaned the rifle carefully against a palo verde tree. “You think I expect you to be nothing but sweetness and light a hundred percent of the time?” He sighed and looked distantly towards the hill with the painted Q on the side. “I’m not trying to take away your right to be furious. I spent a hell of a lot of days balled up in an untouchable fury. I could have easily wasted the rest of my life that way. I saw men do it all the time.”
“And you think that’s what I’m doing?”
He was thoughtful. “No. Not yet.” He touched my cheek. “Fuck, it hurts to see you in pain. I just want to take it all away.”
“Grayson,” I said softly, taking his hand and pressing it over my heart. “You do take it away. You know that, don’t you?” I struggled, trying to find the truest words. “You’re my lover, my friend, and all that’s good in the world.”
He laughed hoarsely. “Shit, Promise, you wouldn’t say that if you knew everything about me.”
“Yes I would. I know everything that matters.”
“Promise,” he said, pressing his hand more firmly against my chest. He started to say something but changed his mind, shaking his head and looking at the ground. He breathed deeply and then looked up. “Damn, I love you,” he said with a quiet ferocity.
“I love you too,” I told him and melted into his arms.
We sat in the dirt together and watched the world brighten under the rising sun. Gray talked casually of the things he somehow knew a lot about. Geodes and coyotes, desert plants and the ancient civilizations which once occupied this ground. I listened to the sound of his voice and was grateful. I’d never felt this close to anyone. It was more than sex. It was more than friendship. It was something which had never existed before. It was us.
Gradually the edgy disquiet which had brought us out here faded. When the temperature began to soar, we packed up and headed back to town.
After we returned to his trailer, the place I now thought of as ‘home’, we undressed in front of each other, saying nothing. I knelt in front of him and took him in my mouth, tasting every inch, teasing the tip and feeling him harden between my lips until I knew he wouldn’t be able to stand it much longer.
And when that moment came I turned around, bending slightly, guiding him inside as he massaged my breasts and tried to last. I let him know when I was almost there and he drove himself deeper as I shook underneath him in a frenzy. Then he followed me.
“Quit fucking and let’s go!” he yelled. They were already supposed to be over in Blythe, finishing the job they’d started the day before.
Gray swore and jumped over to the bathroom. “Tell that hairy dick I’ll be out in a minute.”
Brandon was grumpy but he cheered up considerably when I offered him a slice of the banana bread I’d baked the day before.
“Doesn’t take much to make you happy, does it?” I laughed at him.
He brushed the crumbs out of his beard. “Nope. You might want to spread the word.”
“You telling me you can’t find a nice girl to take care of you?”
He thought about it. “I had a nice girl once. Her name was Abby.”
I was curious. “What happened to her?”
He shrugged. “How the fuck should I know? I said I only had her once.”
Grayson emerged, still pulling his clothes on. He gave me a quick kiss and accepted the last piece of bread I offered him.
“Love you, babe.”
Brandon had already tumbled out the door, muttering irritably. Grayson was about to follow him.
“Gray!”
He turned around. I lifted up my t-shirt.
“Think about me,” I said emphatically.
He grinned. “I always do.”
I could hear Brandon exclaiming on the other side of the door.
“Damn, I saw that! Jesus, now I’m all hard and shit.”
I looked out the window in time to see Gray smack him on the over the head.
As I leaned against the closed door my smile faded as I remembered Rachel’s news. It was good, I decided. Not only was Josiah Bastian gone, there was a high likelihood that in light of his frailty Jenny had not been subjected to physical assault. Still, Rachel was correct. Jenny was still under their control. A period of mourning would follow and then it was only a matter of time before my uncle forced her into another sham marriage.
I sighed heavily and got in the shower, planning to dress and head over to the bar. Perhaps Rachel would have some ideas about what to do.
The severe heat outside seemed to smother all movement. Even the usual stirrings of the lizards in the brush were quiet. In just a short walk across the dusty yard the skin on my bare legs burned from the brief exposure.
Rachel was sitting on a stool behind the bar, laconically going over some paperwork. She smiled at me when I walked in.
“I hate this crap,” she said, gesturing to the papers.
“What is it?”
“Order history. Casper had a shit fit over the state of the receipts so I told him I would try to sort it out.”
“Oh.” I sat on a stool opposite from her. “You guys fighting?”
“Nah.” Rachel’s eyes twinkled. “Well, yes. But it’s a game. We fight and then we fuck like animals.”
Once her words would have shocked me, but now I only laughed.
Rachel’s eyes grew serious. “What are you thinking?”
I knew what she meant. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
“Well I wish I knew what to tell you, hon. But I did I wouldn’t have run out of that mania ten years ago without looking back.”
I chewed my lip, thinking. She had summed it all up the first time. There was no easy way out of this.
Kira bounced in looking fresh and happy.
“I think those prenatal vitamins are making me puke more,” she said cheerfully.
It was always hard not to smile at Kira. She had an infectious exuberance about her which seemed to lighten the air in a room.
“I saw you,” she laughed at me.
I didn’t know what she was talking about. “What? I see you too, Kira.”
She leaned over conspiratorially. “No, last night. Screwing by your old trailer. Don’t worry, I kept Orion turned around. Otherwise he would have been right in front of your face soaking up the free porn.”
Somehow I wasn’t embarrassed. I thought about how odd it was. Grayson had not only roused my body since I fell for him, he had helped free my mind.
Kira nodded at me knowingly. “It’s good, huh?”
“Yeah,” I sighed, leaning into her and giggling.
“What’re you chickens cackling about?” For a big man Orion could skulk around like a cat.
“Nothing, dear,” Kira said, patting him sweetly.
He looked at her. “Yeah, I’ll fucking bet.”
“Jesus, you’re so goddamn cranky,” she complained.
His blue eyes narrowed at her. Somehow I didn’t think there was another person on earth who could get away with talking to Orion Jackson like that.
“So improve my mood,” he said, grabbing her and kissing her wildly. She leaned into him, reaching beneath his shirt to stroke his chest.
Rachel was exasperated. “You guys are going to scare away the customers.”
He jerked his head. “Office?” he asked Kira.
“Office,” she agreed, pulling him down the hall.
As he was being led along, Orion turned around and gave me a grin. “By the way, she’s totally fucking wrong. I saw you too.” Then he slammed the door to the office.
For a while I helped Rachel sort through the dastardly paperwork. Abel, one of the handful of club members who lived in town, wandered in with Casper. I didn’t know much about him, just that he operated a tiny garage out of his home about a mile down the road and his wife had run off on him some time back.
“Ladies,” he gave us a little salute and graciously accepted the beer Rachel offered. I noticed he seemed to be the slow-talking, brooding sort, merely nodding sagely at most of Casper’s boorish cracks.
The two of them didn’t stick around long; apparently Casper needed Abel to look at something on his bike. Before taking off, Casper turned to Rachel.
“You get all my garbage sorted out, cupcake?”
She gave him a winning smile. “Fuck you and fuck your garbage.”
He seemed to be enjoying this. “All right. After I’m done with my bike.”
“Fuck your bike too.”
“Aw, hell,” he wagged a finger at her. “That’s over the line, babe. I’m gonna have to make you pay for that or I’ll lose my patch cred.”
“Well I’m running short on compensation right now.”
He stepped in front of her and snapped the strap on her flimsy shirt. “You’ll just have to be creative,” he said, and abruptly lowered his head, daring a quick kiss between her breasts. She ran her fingers through his curly hair and they stared at each other for a minute before Casper took off with a smile.
I was sweeping the floor but when I looked up at Rachel she winked. “Like animals,” she reminded me.
An uncommon amount of dust always found its way in to cover the dark hardwood floors of Riverbottom. Rachel had said it was always the worst this time of year, when the summer monsoons preluded with the chaotic dust storms. I guided the small mound of desert dirt onto the cracked dustpan, thinking about Callie Lopez and her suggestion that I begin practicing midwifery out here. Gray had been urging me to move forward, but I was reluctant. Not because I didn’t want to, but because of the fearful hold Jericho Valley, and Winston, still had over me. I couldn’t risk doing anything which might lead them here.
I was aware that the door had opened but I didn’t look up right away. When I turned from where I’d been sweeping dirt into the trash can, the man who had entered the bar was watching me. He didn’t look like a usual customer, not a local. He was too citified, too polished. He smiled at me.
“Hello.”
“Hi.” Rachel had disappeared into the rest room only a moment earlier so I figured there was no harm in helping him myself, though the intent shine of his eyes made me uneasy. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Yes, thank you,” he slid into a table. “I’ll take a Tom Collins.”
I hesitated. I didn’t know what that wa
s. “Would you maybe want something else? Like a beer?”
He looked me over carefully. It wasn’t a lewd scan; he was appraising me somehow. “You’re not a bartender are you?” he inquired lightly, running a hand over his jaw. He was clean shaven, perhaps in his early thirties. The longer he looked at me the more anxious I felt.
“No,” I admitted. “I’m not a bartender.”
He nodded, grinning vaguely as if it wasn’t really much of a question in the first place. “Sure then. I’ll take a beer.” He waved a hand. “Any one will do.”
I poured him a glass from the tap, the way I’d seen Rachel do dozens of times. I could feel the man’s eyes on me the entire time. I managed to overfill the glass slightly, spilling a little on the floor.
He continued to watch me as I approached and set the glass down on the table, wiping my hands on my shorts as I backed up.
“Thank you,” he said.
“You’re welcome,” I mumbled, trying to retreat back behind the bar. I didn’t know why his presence was so unnerving.
“Have you worked here long?” The tone of his voice gave me the odd feeling he already knew the answer to his question.
Nonetheless, instinct pricked at me. “Years,” I lied.
He found my answer amusing. He leaned back into his chair, crossing his arms. “Funny,” he said. “I could swear you weren’t a day over twenty one.”
The hair rose on the back of my neck as if the room were suddenly alight with static.
“Who the fuck are you?” Orion’s growl was practically feral. He had managed to exit the office and approach the bar in complete silence.
The man appeared a little taken aback by the sight of him. I understood why. Orion was easily six foot five, heavily muscled and his bare chest was decorated with ominous tattoos. He reached the table where the man sat, resting his thick knuckles on the surface as he leaned forward.
“I asked you a fucking question.”
The man swallowed. “Just passing through. Thought I’d stop in for a drink.”
“Bullshit. We ain’t exactly visible from the Interstate and you seem like a fucker with a mission.”