Upper Hand (Cedar Tree Book 5)

by Freya Barker

  Swaying from side to side with that little body curled up against my chest, I don’t hear Beth coming in until I feel her hand on my shoulder. When I turn to look, I find her smiling sweetly, her eyes a bit shiny.

  “You all done?”

  She shrugs. “As good as. Just have to grab his stuff together.” Rubbing a quick hand over Max’s tousled hair, she turns to the dresser and starts pulling out his clothes.

  “Neil’s gonna be here soon,” I point out. We’d talked a little and I’d suggested bringing all of the baby’s own furniture home too. Surprisingly, Beth didn’t object too much and after putting in a quick call to Neil, to ask him to swing by here first with his pickup, we’d started packing up stuff.

  When Beth’s got the entire contents of the little guy’s dresser stuffed in a duffel bag, including his bedding, she takes him downstairs for a ‘dwink,’ while I take apart the furniture. As I carry the pieces of his bed down the stairs, Neil is at the bottom looking up.

  “Sure that’s a good idea in your condition, old man?” The smirk on his face tells me he’s pulling my leg. Still.

  “Shut it, boy.”

  That turns the smirk into a full-on smile. Little bastard. Okay, maybe not so little, since even though he’s a few inches shorter than my six-foot-five, he’s about equally wide. He seems to have grown every time I see him.

  “Do you live at the gym?” I hand over the bed at the bottom of the stairs and Neil throws me a cocky smile.

  “Nothing better to do.”

  “You could be chasing skirts,” I point out. After all the guy is probably sneaking up on thirty and not half-bad looking, but his smile slides right off his face.

  “Gettin’ tired of that. Let me throw this in the truck and we’ll tackle the rest together. Beth says there’s a dresser?”

  Not waiting for an answer, he’s gone, leaving me to wonder why a good-looking kid in his prime would be tired of chasing skirt. Something’s off.

  Another two trips upstairs for the drawers and finally the dresser—a heavy sucker—and Neil drives off.

  “You got everything?” I yell to Beth who is banging around upstairs, slamming drawers and doors. Max is on the floor playing with some Cheerios that probably aren’t sanitary anymore. My mom used to say a little dirt would toughen the stomach. I figure it won’t hurt him.

  “Max!” From the squeal behind me, it’s clear Beth doesn’t necessarily share my mother’s southern wisdom. She picks him up and sets him on her hip.

  “Let’s get your coat on, buddy.” Two pairs of hands make relatively quick work of getting the two-year-old in his winter jacket and after slipping on our own and locking up, we’re off.

  -

  -

  “Mr. Mason? The doctor will see you now.”

  The skinny woman with the fire engine red hair behind the desk at the doctor’s office is beaming ear to ear, like she’s giving me the keys to the city or something. I struggled to look away from the clown-like do on top of her head the entire time we’ve been here, but with minimal success. It’s like watching a fucking accident happen, you just can’t turn away. Grabbing Beth’s hand I pull her with me as we follow down the hall, where we’re ushered into a small room with an examination table and one chair.

  “The doctor will be right with you.” Red throws her big smile around again with lots of teeth, reminding me a bit of a predator. The instant the door closes behind her, Beth yanks her hand from mine and sits down on the chair pretending to examine the poster on ‘Early Signs of a Stroke’ in great detail. Is she pissed?

  “You pissed?”

  Her head whips around and if I wasn’t a big, strong man, I’d shrivel up at the deadly daggers she’s shooting me. “Pissed? No Clint, I’m not pissed. Doesn’t matter to me that you and that matchstick out there are making googly eyes at each other.”

  There’s no way to hold back the laugh that bursts free, even though I know it’ll likely get her more riled, so I throw back my head and let it go. But instead of anger when I look at Beth again, I see she’s got tears in her eyes. Damn.

  “Weird looking creature, isn’t she? I was thinking clown, but matchstick works.” Surprise spreads over her face and I bend down so our noses touch. “I get your experiences with men may not have been great, but sugar, the only reason I was looking was because I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that hideous hair. Who the fuck does that?”

  Her little smirk tells me the crisis has been averted. It better be, after I’d virtually begged her to come to my bed last night, only to be told she’d feel better sleeping with Max. Didn’t sleep much, I can tell you that. For some reason the brakes she put on are still in effect, driving me up the wall, but I’d give her that one night. Tonight is another story.

  A short knock on the door and then the doctor steps in the small room, clearly not made to hold more than two adult bodies.

  “I’m just gonna wait outside, maybe give Katie a call to see how Max is,” Beth announces. Before I can get a word in, she slips out. By the time the doc is done with me, I have an appointment for a follow-up MRI, instructions to continue building up strength with PT, but I don’t mind because he also gives me the go ahead to drive and slowly start working again. Half days at first he insists, but I’ll take it.

  Walking into the waiting room, I see Beth’s missing and turn to the freaky woman behind the desk, who seems to have turned up the smile a notch. Brrrr.

  “The woman I came in with, did she leave?”

  Now I get the fluttering eyelashes and an eager nodding of her head. I swear it looks like she’s trying to dislodge something stuck in her eye. I barely manage a ‘thanks’ before I escape outside, after having to wait for her to give me a date for the MRI appointment.

  I don’t see her at first when my eyes scan in the direction of her rust bucket of a car. When I walk around the van parked beside it, I spot her, sitting on the pavement with her back propped up against the rear wheel, her hands covering her face. What the fuck?

  “Beth?”

  When she pulls away her hands and shows me her face, a hot fury gets my blood boiling. The bottom half of her face is covered in blood.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Could you tell Mr. Mason I’ll be waiting in the car when he comes out?”

  I’ve spent the last ten minutes being glared at by the red-haired bimbo behind the desk, and I’ve had enough. I don’t even wait for her response when I make my way outside, where cold fresh air instantly clears the claustrophobic feeling I got in that office. I pull out my phone as I’m walking to the car, following through on my plan to check on Max. Before I have a chance to hit the call button, I’m being yanked by my hair in between a van and my car. My phone goes flying as my hands automatically reach behind me to grab at whoever’s pulling my hair. An arm slips around my neck and I am pulled against a hard body. Panicking I struggle furiously, trying to kick with my legs and scratching at the exposed wrist on the arm that is cutting off my air supply. I try screaming but nothing comes out.

  “Keep your fucking mouth shut, bitch,” a raspy voice whispers in my ear, engulfing me in a cloud of garlic and poor oral health. My mouth snaps shut instinctively. I’m suddenly twisted around and pushed back into my car, the offensive arm now pressing against my throat from the front. The owner of the arm is the driver of the car that cut me off yesterday in Cedar Tree. Cold fear settles in the pit of my stomach as I realize that since we’re now in Durango, he was dead serious when he indicated he was ‘watching me.’

  “Where’s your son?” he hisses, blasting me with another wave of his disgusting breath and I cringe involuntarily. “Where is that bastard?”

  “I don’t know,” I manage to croak out, my hands clutched in his shirt to try and ward him off. When he sticks his face even closer to mine, I’ve had enough. In a defensive move, I pull my knee up as hard as I can but the bastard side steps so it glances off his thigh innocently. Now I’ve got him pissed off good. Removing his arm from my
throat, he now grabs my jacket collar and slams me hard into the back door of my car, knocking the air from my lungs.

  “Where? You bitch.”

  Still gasping for air, I just shake my head ‘no,’ something that obviously doesn’t make him happy. Again he pulls me from the car by my collar and slams me back.

  “I’m thinking I’ll like spending some time getting the information from you.” He starts pulling me away from the car. I really don’t want to get slammed again, so I try to twist free by ducking down and under his arm. The sudden move has his hands slip off my collar, but before I can even run two steps, I feel him grabbing my arm and swinging me around, while his other hand comes flying through the air, straight at my face. I try to avoid it, unsuccessfully. I hear the crunch of my nose before the pain of the impact hits me. Holding me up with one hand, the other comes swinging again, but the sound of an approaching car stops him. He looks at the car innocently passing by furtively, before getting back in my face.

  “Find your punk-assed son. You tell him, he needs to pay his debts or you and that brat of his will pay the price.”

  This time when the fist comes, I don’t see it until it’s too late, my eyes streaming tears. The impact I feel, but then everything goes black.

  Next thing I know, I’m sitting with my back against the back tire, feel a warm trickle down my chin, and taste blood in my mouth. I hear footsteps. I try to make myself small and cover my face with my hands to try and fend off another attack when I hear Clint’s voice.

  “Beth?”

  -

  “Your nose is broken but not displaced. You’re lucky. The swelling will go down with a few days, but you’ll probably have twin shiners. Hits on the nose tend to give you not one, but two black eyes.”

  The young emergency room doctor hands me a prescription for some painkillers and leaves me alone in the room. Alone except for Clint, who is still seething and on the phone with, I assume, Gus.

  “No. We won’t need a ride. Cops are waiting to talk to us, but Beth doesn’t want to talk to them—I don’t know, why don’t you try to talk some sense into her.”

  The phone is shoved in my hand. Clint turns his back and with agitated moves rubs his hand over his shaved head. I turn my attention to the person on the other side.

  “Hey.”

  “Girl,” Gus’s voice soothes over the line and I feel tears stinging my eyes. Aside from being furious and barking orders at whoever was near, Clint had not shown even the slightest gentleness, and I’ve been sucking back the tears and the shakes all afternoon. “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m okay,” I sniffle, not even convincing myself.

  “You’ve gotta talk to the cops, Beth. I get why you think it will hurt Dylan if you do, but the truth is in the end he’s got more to fear from the goons after him than he has from the cops. Regardless of what he’s done. Trust me on this. We’ll keep you safe, but you’ve gotta tell them everything they want to know.”

  I let the silence stretch uncomfortably, using the time to contemplate my options. Not that I had many. I come to the conclusion that Gus is right, whatever consequences Dylan has waiting for him from the law, he’s better off in their hands.

  “Okay,” I concede softly, causing Clint to swivel around and stare at me incredulously. I’d ignored his pleas for me to do the same, so I’m not really surprised to see the anger he was harboring shift to me. The moment I hang up the phone, he’s on me.

  “I’d like to fucking know what he said that convinced you so easily, since I’ve only been trying for the last few hours to get you to do what he managed in two seconds.”

  “Clint...” I try, but he won’t have it.

  “Don’t fucking ‘Clint' me. I finally get some good news from the doctor, manage to escape the clutches of that scary bitch in the office, only to come outside to find my girl bleeding on the ground in the parking lot. Fuck, Beth...” His voice goes from dark and threatening to husky and soft in the span of that one sentence.

  Instinct propels me off the bed, plastering myself against his back, which he turned to me again, slipping my arms around his waist and hanging on.

  “Scared me, Bean. Can’t remember being so scared ever before.” His whisper is wavering with emotion and I just hang on tighter.

  “I know, sweetie. I know,” I whisper back. Because I do—I do know exactly how that feels. I know how it feels like your heart is about to be ripped from your chest when you see the person you love bloodied and hurt. When all you can think about is what you could’ve done to make a difference, when there really isn’t a fucking thing. His hands come up and pry mine from around his waist before turning and sliding his back down the wall, until his ass is sitting on the ground. I don’t need to think, I drop down immediately on his lap and wrap my arms around him again.

  “I’m okay. I’ll be okay. I’ll talk to the cops, I’ll stay at your house, I’ll cooperate. I promise.”

  His face is buried against my chest.

  “Excuse me, Ms. Franklin? About that statement—“ The fierce look on my face when I turn my head to find the young officer, who was in earlier, sticking his head around the door, must’ve cut him off.

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes,” I promise him. His eyes flick between me and Clint’s head, still with his ear pressed against my chest. With a single nod, he backs out.

  “You called me ‘sweetie,’” Clint’s muffled voice vibrates against my breast. I pull back a little, put my hands on his cheeks and tilt his face.

  “I did,” I say, trying to ignore the tear tracks staining his cheeks. He’s scared and hurtin’ for me, and I’m fucked. I so love this man. “If you’re good, I might just call you that again.”

  The tease elicits a chuckle from him, and I lower my head until my lips find his. “Fuck, Beth, I—“ My mouth silences him and by the time we pull back my heart is pounding a mile a minute.

  “Me too, Clint.”

  -

  An hour later the police drop us off at a car rental place, since they’ve towed my car from the clinic’s parking lot. Apparently it is potential evidence at this point, at least as long as it takes them to check for any forensic evidence that might shed light on who this guy is.

  Given the green light, Clint insists on driving. I try to pull down the mirror from the sun visor, but he keeps slapping my hands away. “Don’t. Not until we get home.”

  Fuck, it must look bad.

  -

  -

  “Oh. My. God!”

  Right. So this is exactly what I didn’t want Beth to be faced with, coming home from the hospital. I’d prefer it if she didn’t see what that bastard did to her beautiful face, at all. But it appears the girls’ posse has landed on my doorstep with entirely different ideas. And Arlene being who she is, there are no filters.

  Beth’s hands go immediately to her face as we get out of the car, trying to shield it from Emma, Naomi, and of course the verbal Arlene.

  “I’m gonna kill that fucker. Emma, where the fuck is your husband? He needs to track that sonofabitch down so I can have my way with him.” Arlene’s voice spouts anger, but her eyes are full of tears.

  “Arlene...” I start, before she turns on me.

  “Don’t you ‘Arlene’ me. Where were you when this was happening?”

  Fucking direct hit that I feel in my gut.

  Dropping her hands, Beth marches right up to her, getting in her face. “Don’t you dare say another word to him. Leave Clint alone, he didn’t even know I’d gone outside, Arlene. I know you love me and you worry, but don’t you dare take it out on him!”

  Arlene’s mouth opens, but not a sound comes out. Then the tears suddenly flow and I raise my eyes to the clouds. Here I am, lone man surrounded by four sniffling women, and I almost wish I was in a coma again. Two arms come around me in a hug. “Sorry,” Arlene’s voice is soft—softer than I’ve ever heard it before.

  “All good, sugar.” I don’t have to bend too low with Arlene,
who’s the tallest of all the women, to mumble in her ear. “Don’t know about you, but this chill gives a whole new meaning to blue balls. Let’s get inside.”

  With Beth flanked by Emma and Naomi, and Arlene still tucked under my arm, I unlock and lead the group in.

  Emma takes charge of the kitchen, where in no time she has coffee on the go and something called, ‘Madeleines,’ in the oven. Some kind of mini cakes she’s using my old muffin pan to make, by dropping spoonfuls to cover just the bottom. Smells fucking great though.

  Naomi is looking Beth over, making sure nothing was missed in the ER. Being a former ER physician herself, having only recently set up shop locally with her own clinic, I guess she needs to make sure. Arlene is talking on her cell, giving an update to Seb, the cook and her partner in the diner, as well as her significant other. I’m sitting on a kitchen stool feeling the effects of the last hours when something occurs to me.

  “Max. Jesus!” I grab for the phone and am about to dial Katie, when Emma puts her hand on my arm.

  “He’s fine. I checked with Katie while we were waiting for you. That’s why she isn’t here. She would’ve been but she suggested it might be better to keep him with her until things settled down a bit.”

  I shift so my back is to the room before addressing Emma. “The guy didn’t only threaten Beth, he threatened Max, too,” I tell her quietly. Her eyes widen slightly at that before squinting in angry slits.

  “Cowardly bastard,” she hisses. “Caleb’s home. Katie told me he came in and already knew what’d happened. Does Gus know?”

  “Talked to him when we were in the hospital, can’t say I remember much of what I said.”

  “Gimme a sec,” Emma says, pulling her phone from her purse on the counter.

  “Hey, honey. — Yes, they just got home.— She’s... gonna be fine.” Her eyes flick over to the couch where Naomi is still hovering over Beth. “Just wanted to make sure you knew the guy apparently threaten that little cutie, as well. —You did?—Oh, okay. You wanna talk to him? —Love you, too.” She holds out the phone to me. “Gus.”