Forbidden Crush

by Cole, Cassie

  He was staring off to the back-side of the sheriff’s office. In a neat row were at least 20 body bags. The dead from today.

  “Six of ours,” my dad said grimly.

  A nearby officer nodded. “They’ll be happy to have given their lives to ending Sid’s power. All of us from the surrounding counties can finally sleep at night knowing the Copperheads are done.”

  Dad went inside to talk to some of the coordinators. Hawk and I walked a block away to the bench outside the community center and sat down. Even though we were only 50 feet from the activity, it felt like we had a little bit of privacy.

  “This is sort of like our second date,” Hawk said.

  I snorted. “What?’

  “Well,” Hawk said, “I figure our first date was in the jail cell. It didn’t end with a kiss, but it ended with me putting my jacket over you while you slept, since I’m such a gentleman. That makes your first day of community service our second date.”

  “I guess it does.” I gave him a sidelong look. “Why didn’t you tell me about the community service?”

  He stared off at nothing with a thoughtful gleam in his beautiful eyes. “You would’ve been mad at me.”

  “You’re afraid of my anger, huh?”

  “Damn right I am!” he said. “You’d been trying to convince me to leave town, but there were two reasons I couldn’t. One, because of my hate for Sid.”

  “And the second?” I asked.

  He patted my knee without meeting my gaze. “The love of a beautiful woman.”

  “So let me get this straight,” I said. “You stayed near me, even though you knew it might endanger my life if Sid found out?”

  “Love can be real fucking stupid sometimes, Peaches.”

  I laughed. He was totally right. “I didn’t exactly act in my own best interest,” I admitted. “Mindy warned me to stay away from you the first time I ate in her diner. You told me not to get attached to you, too. But I couldn’t stop myself.”

  He took my hand and squeezed it. “We’re a couple of idiots.”

  “But at least we’re idiots together,” I said.

  “Idiots are better in pairs,” he agreed.

  “Speaking of idiotic things…” I said.

  Hawk looked at me, not understanding. Then his eyes softened. “The money?”

  I playfully smacked him on the arm. “Yes the money, you big freaking idiot! You really stole the money from Sid all this time?”

  “I know. I know. Let me have it.”

  “I don’t want to let you have it,” I said, with more than a little annoyance. “I want to hear you explain yourself.”

  “It goes back to the beginning,” he said softly. Like it was a story he didn’t want to tell. “I thought they were a normal biker gang. Hanging out, drinking, looking for fights. Innocent shit. Then I learned they were moving drugs. I didn’t want to be part of that. But the thing was, I had been part of it. For months I helped them while not knowing, or while I knew but didn’t want to admit it.”

  “You’ve told me all of this.”

  “The point I’m getting to,” he replied, “is that simply leaving seemed inadequate. I’d already done so much harm by being a Copperhead. I had to do something more.”

  “And stealing some cash magically balanced the karma scales?”

  “It was a weak rebellion, I know,” he admitted. “But it felt better than doing nothing. I thought it might convince the other Copperheads that Sid wasn’t invincible. That if one person could steal from him, anyone could. But then…”

  “Then they killed your sister.”

  “The guilt I felt…” He paused to swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “It’s hard to explain. Once she was dead, it was like that money had been traded for her life. I didn’t want it, but at the same time I couldn’t give it back, because it would mean her death was for nothing. So even when I thought Sid was going to harm you that day on the road, when he beat up my truck…” He shrugged, still not looking at me. “I wanted to say something to save you, but I couldn’t make my tongue work. It felt like I was betraying Theresa.”

  I took his hand and squeezed it. He closed his eyes and paused as if collecting himself. When he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. More than I’d ever seen from the toughened man.

  “I know it might not make sense. But it’s like I made a deal with the devil, and I couldn’t take it back. That money was all that was left of my sister.”

  “I understand,” I whispered, close to tears myself.

  “Do you?”

  “I understand why you feel that way, even if I don’t understand the emotion itself. I can’t imagine losing someone so close to me and having it be all my fault. The guilt would make me…”

  “Want to die?” he finished.

  I didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. I doubted there were any magic words for him. So all I said was, “I’m so sorry, Hawk.”

  He opened his eyes and looked down at me. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry. For going after Sid back there on the road. I knew if I didn’t take that chance, I would regret it for the rest of my life.”

  “It worked out in the end,” I said. “I don’t necessarily agree with it since you were risking my life too, but I get why you did it.”

  The ghost of a smile twitched on his lips. “In my defense, you had a chance to get off the bike.”

  I chuckled at that, and Hawk joined in. Soon we were laughing so hard that the unshed tears from before streamed down our eyes.

  I was wiping my eyes when the activity over at the police station kicked up. A handful of cops ran out to their cars and began driving away in a hurry.

  “We’d better see what that’s all about.”

  We met my dad as he came rushing out of the station. His eyes locked onto mine and he waved. “Honey, come quick. They found something.”

  48

  Charlotte

  We stood on the side of the road by the interstate, struggling not to laugh.

  At a glance, it was obvious what had happened. Tire marks curved around the corner and off the road, leading to where a Honda Accord was stuck in the mud. Two individual motorcycle tire marks skidded to a stop in front of the wreck. The driver door was opened, with boot prints in the mud leading over to a tree.

  A tree where Scott swung gently, upside-down, tied by his feet.

  Completely naked.

  “Will one of you please let me down!” he demanded in a voice far too arrogant for someone who was suspended 30 feet above the ground. “I demand to be released!”

  “Sir,” said the policewoman standing underneath him, “your complaints aren’t going to get you down from that tree any sooner.”

  “Then tell me what will!” Scott insisted. “Tell me what I can do to convince you to hurry!”

  The policewoman took on the tone of a bored DMV worker. “Sir, the closest cherry-picker is two counties over. It’ll be here in half an hour.”

  “That’s—that’s too long!”

  “If you’d prefer we leave you up there instead…”

  Scott’s mouth hung open. “That’s not what I’d prefer! That’s not what I’d prefer at all!”

  “You know how to pick ‘em, Peaches,” Hawk said, turning away from the sight. I followed him back to the police car.

  “In Scott’s defense, this is the first time he’s ever been strung up naked by his ankles. Usually he won’t be caught dead in anything less formal than a button-down.”

  Dad was staring up at Scott with a small smile. “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “Seems obvious to me,” Hawk said.

  But I shook my head and pointed. “I know that look, dad. You did something.”

  He gave a long, nonchalant shrug. “It’s possible, just possible, that there was a cherry-picker just one county over that could have been here in five minutes. And it’s also possible that a certain sheriff made sure to call in the farther cherry-picker because he wanted to see the
man who dumped his daughter suffer a little bit longer.”

  “Dad!”

  Hawk snickered and gave my dad a friendly pat on the shoulder. “I can see where Charlotte gets her attitude.”

  My dad’s smile slowly waned. “Is it correct that you were a member of the Copperheads?”

  Hawk’s face went serious. “Yes sir. Quit them a month ago, once I realized what was going on.”

  Dad examined him a long time. It was both the look of a sheriff interrogating a suspect, and the look of a protective father sizing up a new boyfriend. Hawk looked back calmly, unfazed. An unspoken conversation passed between them, one I couldn’t hear.

  “You’ll have to tell the police everything you know,” dad finally said. “But I think we can classify you as an outside witness, rather than an active participant like the rest of the Copperheads.”

  “I appreciate that, sir.”

  “You’ll testify against the sheriff and judge, too?” dad asked. “We need witnesses to their corruption, in case we can’t find the paper trail we need to put ‘em away.”

  Hawk grinned. “Nothin’ would make me happier.”

  We drove back to the station so Hawk could be formally questioned. Mindy had the diner kitchen working overtime to make sandwiches for all the police officers, so Momma and I stopped in to get some food and relax. I spent the next hour telling her details about Eastland that I’d omitted on the phone. The Copperheads, the violence around town, the drugs they moved across Georgia in big cement mixers.

  “There’s one thing you’re not telling me,” she said calmly. “Hawk.”

  A lump formed in my throat. “What about him?”

  Momma gave me a look that said Don’t play dumb with me. I sighed.

  “We’ve sort of been seeing each other,” I said carefully.

  “Sort of?”

  “Pretty much every day. Outside of our community service work.”

  “The work he finished weeks ago, but kept helping you with?”

  “Yeah. I know it sounds bad, and almost stalkerish…”

  Momma laughed. “Oh sweet pea. When I was growing up, I worked the cash register in our family’s general store after school. Your father came in every day to buy something: sugar, milk, eggs. Every day, one item. Well, I went to throw the trash away in the dumpster one day and found a week’s worth of spoiled groceries inside. Milk, eggs, sugar. Your father was spending a fortune on groceries he didn’t need just to have an excuse to see me!”

  “The dumpster?” I chuckled. “Why didn’t he take them home?”

  “Because your father was embarrassed and didn’t want his parents to know he had a crush on a girl.” She waved a hand. “Point is, boys have been finding excuses to be around girls they like since Adam and Eve’s day. There’s nothing bad about that.”

  I tilted my head. “And you approve of Hawk?”

  She looked out the window, and I followed her gaze. Hawk was coming out of the station. Dad was right behind him, and put his arm around Hawk while speaking softly to him.

  “Your father seems to approve,” Momma said.

  I scoffed. “Why do you say that?”

  “Well,” Momma replied, “if you were a few years younger, your father would have thrown that boy in the back of his police car and put the fear of God into him. Seeing as how he hasn’t done that, he must approve.”

  “And what about you?”

  “He’s not ideal,” she said with a straight face.

  “What does that mean?”

  Her poker face twitched, then dissolved completely. A huge grin replaced it, and Momma leaned forward on the table to whisper.

  “Okay, he may be rough around the edges but he’s absolutely delicious. I could just eat that ink right off his arms.”

  “Momma!”

  “Don’t tell your father,” she quickly added. “But I’ve always liked a man with tattoos. It shows a level of commitment. And a kind of art.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Momma always talked about me settling down with a stable man with a respectable career, like a police officer or doctor. Hearing that she was fine with Hawk, and even attracted to that kind of guy, kind of blew my mind.

  “So that means you approve? If I wanted to keep seeing him, I mean.”

  She gave me another of her looks. This one said That’s a silly question. “Sweet pea, that man carried you away from danger on a motorcycle at great personal danger to himself, then came back to do the same for me. If that’s not the modern equivalent of a knight in shining armor, then I don’t know what the heck is.”

  I met Hawk outside the diner. “They cleared me,” he said. “Thanks to your dad’s recommendation.”

  “Thanks to the testimony of half the people in Eastland,” dad corrected. “Mindy, Flop, several bikers… They all testified that you haven’t been a member of the Copperheads for a while. When all the charges come down, I’m pretty sure the District Attorney will look kindly on you for your cooperation.”

  Momma put an arm around dad. “Come get some food so we can leave these lovebirds alone. I want you to try one of these cinnamon rolls—they’re even better than your mother’s.”

  “High praise,” he said doubtfully.

  As they walked back inside, Momma glanced up at the metal artwork again. “Lord, that’s hideous.”

  Once they were gone, I gestured over at the police station. Two cops had Hawk’s backpack out and were counting the rolls of bills inside while making notes on a piece of paper. “Guess your stash is gone now. Do you… feel bad about having it taken? Because of Theresa?”

  Hawk wrapped an arm around me while watching the police count the money. “Nah. Not even a little bit. Getting Sid was worth it.” He glanced at me. “I suppose you’ll be heading home now that all of this is done?”

  “I suppose,” I said coyly. We were both dancing around the final problem in all this: what to do about us. Or if there even was an us. I wanted Hawk to profess his love to me. To tell me he’d follow me wherever I wanted to go, and that he would do anything to be with me—even if it meant getting a shitty job he hated.

  But all he said was, “Alright.”

  “I guess you’ll have to get a job,” I said, hoping to pull more out of him. I gestured at the diner sign, where one of Hawk’s metal sculptures stood. “Or you could try art for a living. Unless my Momma’s opinion has permanently damaged your pride.”

  “My pride will heal,” he said. “And I’m not sure I want to do much of anything for a while. Maybe ride my bike out of Eastland finally. Some time away will do me good.”

  “Tough to take a road trip when you’re broke,” I said with a laugh. Are you going to invite me along, or not?

  Hawk rubbed the back of his neck and gave me an embarrassed grin. The grin of someone who had a secret he was finally going to tell.

  “About that, Peaches…”

  Epilogue

  Charlotte

  As the sun went down and the police continued working, the rest of us split up. Momma went to the motel to book a room (“The boy at the front desk was so nice!”) while Hawk took me back to his place. Well, more accurately, I picked up my car from the motel and drove myself to his barn. It was strange driving right up to it without trying to hide or conceal myself. Without all the secrecy, it wasn’t quite as fun.

  But it was a lot more comforting. It kind of felt like coming home.

  “When are you going to tell me this big secret?” I asked.

  “Later,” was all he said.

  We were exhausted, but wired from the events of the day, so Hawk decided to take a shower. I gave him a generous three minutes by himself before I stripped my clothes and joined him. His nude body shimmered beautifully in the water, although marred by the brown bandage covering the gunshot wound. It only improved how courageous he looked. How he would take a bullet to protect me, if needed.

  “Occupied,” he said as I stepped into the shower.

  “You’ve had
enough time alone,” I said, wrapping my arms around his slippery body from behind. “I’m here to make sure you don’t get water on your wound.”

  “The bandage is waterproof,” he said.

  I slid my hands over his hips and along his pelvis until I found his manhood. He was already stiff and growing harder.

  “Were you having fun in here without me?” I whispered into his ear as I tightened my fingers around his shaft and began stroking.

  He twisted his head around. “The sight of a beautiful woman will do that to a man.”

  “I just got in here five seconds ago!”

  “Five seconds of you is enough to give any man a hard-on, Peaches.”

  He smashed his lips against mine in a wet, watery kiss. I stroked him harder while rubbing the tip of his manhood in between my lower lips, teasing both of us in the process. He stole my moans with his lips and rolled his tongue against mine as the scalding water ran down our bodies.

  When he couldn’t stand it anymore, he spun me around and planted a palm between my shoulder blades, bending me over. He grabbed my hips with both hands and filled me in one long thrust, my honey coating his shaft and making it easy. Like he belonged inside me.

  I looked back at him while he took me from behind, the muscles in his arms bulging as he gripped my hips, taking me as his. Making me his. The look he gave me said that I belonged only to him. That I would never have another man.

  The way he made love to me, I knew I would never want another man.

  As our cries grew louder he wrapped a hand around my waist and found my sensitive place with his fingers. He rubbed me raw while taking me, and my blood rushed through my body and pooled between my legs with fiery heat, and when we screamed our cries of pleasure echoed off the shower walls.

  We ransacked his fridge for food now that we were starving. There wasn’t much to choose from, so we shared a plain cheese sandwich, taking turns letting each other have a bite. It tasted better than any filet minion. When you were happy and in love, you didn’t need much else.

  Dad called my cell phone around 4:00am. Hawk and I had been dozing in each other’s arms, and I had to scramble to reach the buzzing phone on the bedside table. They had finally finished up booking all of the bikers, and vans had come to pick them up and take them to a nearby county that could support so many in the jail all at once. Dad was going back to the motel to get some sleep with Momma before they left in the morning.