Find A Way Or Make One

by Kelley, E. C.

  Ken had been quiet until this point, but now he just shook his head with a purely evil smile forming on his lips. “No Crow, don’t call the fucktard. Let me take care of tonight. I will make Wyatt fucking Masters remember that payback is a bitch, and it will be my privilege to collect!”

  We all turned to look at Ken. He walked to his bag and pulled out his phone and started pacing as he spoke to someone in a low voice. When he got off the phone and came back to the ring, the look on his face would make most grown men piss their pants. “You guys know how we had that little surprise planned for Kye tonight? Well I just tweaked it a bit.” He briefly filled us in on the changes to this evening’s festivities. Man, I had to give Ken his due, it was epic. Ken was going to bring that ass to his knees. We all laughed and bumped fists in agreement. Wyatt would get his, of that there was no doubt.

  5

  “Who are you when I’m not looking?”

  Blake Shelton, Who are you when I’m not looking?

  Wyatt

  Fucking Hell! How did Kylee get more beautiful in the seven years since I had seen her? Not only had the years been more than good too her, her inner beauty had not diminished one iota.

  Of course, she doesn’t want ANYTHING to do with me. She had made that beyond obvious. But that won’t stop me now that I have seen her again. I’ll find a way to get her alone. Then I will explain everything. I know that she would understand. She has to, because I can’t think of the alternative. After all, she obviously had an idea about the secrecy and clandestine nature of my former line of work. How in the hell had she gotten herself mixed up in all this anyway? Evidently Chip had a crush on Kye because it really didn’t seem that she could possibly have done all the things he said she did. Take down a meth operation in Ohio, bringing a Mexican drug cartel to its knees? Hell, people were in the DEA or any other special ops unit for twenty years and still never accomplish half of what he had said she had. How can I reconcile the sweet, easy to please girl that I had known and had stolen my heart, with the tough badass Chip had described? As my mind raced through the memories of her that filled my head, for some reason I started remembering the morning after we had first made love.

  I had been up for a while. When I first woke up to the feel of an unfamiliar weight lying upon my shoulder, I had experienced a moment of all and out panic. But, when I looked down and saw Kylee’s dark head and began to understand the soft warm air on my chest was her breathing, I had felt no panic: only a sense of rightness and peace. As I began to rub small circles on her back, I felt her flinch and jerk her eyes up to meet mine. I softly chuckled, smiled tenderly, “It’s ok pretty girl, it is just me. I am not going to hurt you.”

  In a voice full of sleep and confusion, Kylee uttered, “How long have I been out?”

  “Well it is about 7:00 in the morning now, but I think we both finally closed our eyes in about 1:30 or quarter till 2:00-So five to six hours?”

  A look of anxious concern crossed Kylee’s face. She suddenly looked frightened. “I hope I didn’t hog the bed too much? I am not used to sharing my covers.”

  “No darling’ Princess, you were fine. Slept like an angel. And I think I could handle being pushed to the edge of the bed if you were snuggled up to me.”

  Laughing softly, Kylee had rolled to the edge of the bed and was moving to get up. “Hey where do you think you are going, Princess? Are you just gonna use me like a common stud then leave?” I hadn’t pouted since I was ten, but I could feel my lips begin to pull down in a definitive pout. What the hell?

  “Well, I figured you might not want me to hang around like I was never going to leave,” Kylee had stated softly.

  “Hell Princess, waking up with you will be the highlight of my day…unless I get to fall asleep with you again tonight?”

  Kylee had laughed softly as she snuggled closer to me, “We might be able to arrange that cowboy.”

  That morning she had definitely woken up on alert. Come to think of it she had always woken up tense and ready for whatever came her way, which had usually been me looking for some morning loving. She had always asked to make sure that she hadn’t hogged the bed. Why had she always been concerned about that? I didn’t have any answers, but it was obvious there was a whole side of Kylee that I didn’t know. Why? Why had she kept so much of who she was and is to herself? Just as I was working up to getting royally pissed I remember that I hadn’t been all truthful and forthcoming either.

  That shit didn’t matter. After I got her to listen to me and hopefully accept my apology tonight I might ask about her secrets, but that wasn’t a top priority right now. I set at my desk planning how to get the girl of my dreams back, when the cloying smell of too much Channel #5 hit me. Actually, it caused me to have to subdue his gag reflexes. As I turned to the door, Sable’s ample and obviously put on display breasts all but slapped me in the face.

  “What the hell? Do you NOT know how to respect someone’s personal space? Get the fuck away from me!”

  Looking down at the floor as she bit her lip, Sable quivered out her reply. “But Wyatt, I just want you so much! I haven’t felt this way in so long. Not since Europe. Please don’t turn me away.”

  With a grunt of frustration, I laid it all out to Sable. I did not want her to have even the smallest chance to say I led her on. “Look, the only reason you have this job is because your mother is a friend of my mom’s and pleaded with her for me to give you a job. And frankly, you suck at it. When we get back to the States, you are out of here. I am sorry, but you are just way more trouble and hassle than you are worth.”

  “But Wy…”

  “No! That is it, I’m done. I have to get ready; I am meeting my friends later tonight for some drinks.”

  Sable’s head snapped up and a predatory gleam came to her eyes. “Where?”

  “Shit, don’t you get it? I don’t want you and I am not going to ever want you.”

  As Sable stomped to the door to jerk it open, a sense of dread filled me. A crazy ass bitch had gotten in between me and Kylee before, but I won’t let one keep her from me now.

  A thought suddenly entered my mind. Crow had explained that since he had won the sparring match that Kylee had to dress pretty provocatively tonight, and I didn’t know how I would take it, seeing other men ogling her. This was evidently a long standing bet, and I sure as hell didn’t want to think about all the times she might have lost in the past, and all the men that had seen her dressed like a common street walker. That led to me thinking about the possible men that she could have been with, and really pissed me off. Kylee wasn’t a whore, but seven years was seven years and I have to be realistic. I can’t expect her to have not looked for someone to share her life during that time. Even though I always knew that Kylee was it for me, so I had never tried to replace her and the few times I had tried to have a random hookup had ended rather badly. In fact, I finally gave up even trying.

  I just hoped I wouldn’t have to hear or see Kylee’s past. I know deep down that I deserve to feel all kinds of hell for what I put her through, but I hoped that God in all his mercy wouldn’t punish me in that way. But questions still rolled in my head; where has Kylee been, what has she been doing, who was she now and the most important one; do I still have a place in her heart?

  6

  “My dear, I don’t give a damn”

  Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

  Kye

  “Damn, this is gonna suck! And when I say suck, I mean majorly suck.” As I turned around in front of the antique full length mirror in my bedroom, I took a silent inventory of what I saw. The deep purple dress that I am wearing certainly left little to the imagination. Actually, the “dress” was really the blouse to a purple chiffon blouse and skirt combo that I wore when Toby and I attended formal functions for the DEA. The deep V of the collar exposed an indecent amount of cleavage, and in the past I had pinned it together to make sure that less of me was exposed. But not tonight, no tonight
I have to purposely put my goods on display. I went a little overboard on my makeup too. I really didn’t mean to, but I got lost in repeating my rules to live by litany and before I knew it, I looked in the mirror to see my face completely transformed into someone I didn’t know. Deep gray eye shadow covered my eye lids, and my eyes were expertly lined with eye liner, and my eyelashes were coated in mascara and looked about two miles long.

  I let out an exaggerated sigh, pulled back my shoulders and walked in the club’s front door. Hey maybe tonight’s festivities will help me keep my mind off Wy…him. Besides, I owed the guys. A bet was a bet, and they had always kept their end of the deal, so it was now my turn to keep mine. But if Crow thought for one minute that this was ever going to happen again, he was so crazy that even a padded room wouldn’t help him.

  As I walked to the bar where all the guys were, all the leers and once overs started to get to me. By the time I got to where the guys were sitting at the bar, all the laughter that had been bubbling between them when they had first seen me was long gone. Now they all just looked pissed, even Chip the newbie to the team seemed about to explode. I had only been around once or twice but he had always seemed unfazed by life. Well, he didn’t look so unfazed now; now he looked like he wanted to rearrange someone’s face.

  At first I thought they were all pissed at me, but as I scanned their faces I realized that they were looking at the people, mostly men, around me. “Hey! What gives, I thought we were going to have a good time tonight? Really guys, relax!”

  “Yeah, well I was in a real good mood until you walked in and the wolves descended!” Sunny said belligerently. Even as Sunny is talking, he is getting up and bringing he jacked that had been on his chair over and trying to wrap it around my shoulders. I try to side step him but he has no problem keeping up with me and wrapping the jacket around me.

  I shrug of the jacket and hand it back to him. “Wolves? What are you talking about?”

  “Kye, look around you. Just about every man in the place is circling around you like sharks on Shark Week! And the ones that aren’t are either gay or just too damn ugly to think they have a chance!” Cale said as he came to stand beside me and put a proprietary hand on the small of my back and lead me to an empty chair.

  “Yeah couldn’t you have dressed a little more conservatively? I mean really, are you trying to start a fight tonight?” asked Cale as he stared at a guy that I saw coming over to us in the corner of my eye. After seeing Cale’s face the guy quickly turned around and found someplace else to be.

  “Uh, hello? I lost the bet. I had to dress this way, remember?” Now I was starting to get pissed.

  “Shit Kye. We’re sorry. I don’t know about the rest of the guys, but I completely forgot that you lost today. I mean you never lose!” Cale looked contrite, but I was still a little miffed and a tad embarrassed. He is right. I never lose. Dammit! That makes me think of why I lost and I have to start saying my personal litany in my head again. When it’s over it’s over. No take backs and NO SECOND CHANCES! When it’s over it’s over. No take backs and NO SECOND CHANCES…!”

  Ken cleared his throat to get my attention. “Uhmm, Kye? I think you look great tonight. You will knock EVERYONE straight on their ass!” As Ken said this, he was taking the time to stare first Cale, Sunny, Crow and Chip in the eye. There was some type of message he was relaying, some little bit of information he was sharing with everyone; Just not me.

  Each of them gave me a cursory once over, like they would a bomb about to blow. Cale gave a sharp nod of his head and put his arm around me. “You know Ken, I think you are right. Damn, this is going to be one hell of a night!”

  “Yeah Cale, Ken is right. Don’t mean I have to like this shit though. All these guys are looking at her like she is an oasis in a desert.” Crow said as he chugged his beer down in one quick gulp.

  Sunny shook his head as he got up from the bar stool he was sitting on. “Little girl it is time for your surprise. Let’s go up to the stage, the band is getting ready to play, and something tells me that you might like them.”

  “Well, hell guys. Why didn’t you say so? You know that I love music.” We were laughing about some of the guys we were training as we made our way to the stage. I let out an overly girly laugh as I saw who was on the Stage. “Ethan! Mitch! Chris! Tucker! I haven’t seen you guys in forever. Why didn’t you tell me you would be in Morocco?”

  “Well Lovey, we didn’t really know exactly where on the tour we would be, but the last time I Face-Timed with Seamus, he said that you all would be spending about a month in Morocco, I called Cale to get the dates down, and Voila! Here we are!”

  God, it was so good to see them! I still remembered all the late nights they spent with all of us at the pub down from the townhouse my brothers and I lived in during our days at Oxford. The place had always been filled with our friends, and the members of Jagged Pill had definitely been that. Rashid and Murad aren’t technically my brothers, but they have been my brothers in heart since I was two years old.

  When I was two years old, my mother and I had been in D.C. while my…sperm donor had been doing, well whatever it was he did when we were out of town. Mom’s uncle that lived in D.C. had brain cancer, and wasn’t expected to live very long, so she wanted to see him one more time before he passed.

  I was only two, so of course I don’t remember any of it, but Mom said it was pretty rough seeing him like that. After we had seen him one day, Mom took me to the Washington Mall so I could run and play outdoors. While we were there, I noticed two boys, twins, a year or two older than me. As I started to approach them to ask if they wanted to play tag, two big burly men wearing robes came rushing over to stop me from talking to them. Being the stubborn individual that I have always been, I refused.

  Stomping my foot I started screaming, “I wanna pay wif ‘em. I wanna pay wif’em.” While, Mom was trying to make the men understand that I meant no harm, a big dark skinned man came over and hunched down, smiled at me and asked me if I wanted to play with his sons. When I nodded, he got up and said something to the two men and went to talk to my mother.

  I was later told that the man, Sameer, offered my mother $1,000,000 to let him take me home and raise me as his own. He had no daughters; and had decided that I would make a great one. Mom turned him down but continued to bring me to the Mall every day at the same time so that I could play with Rashid and Murad. When Mom and I had to return to Hiawassee, Mom gave him our contact information so that I could possibly keep in touch with the boys. We never heard from them, so Mom figured that was that, but come to find out the story didn’t end there.

  When Mom divorced three years later, she was rummaging through some papers and found that three or four letters from Sameer that the donor had never given her. Mom wrote back to him and explained the situation and Sameer sent tickets to come visit him and his family. Throughout my childhood I spent a month each summer in Yemen, and would go to see Sameer and his sons in D. C. if they were there.

  Sameer was a Bani Ark sheikh in Yemen. His first wife had died leaving him with six sons but no daughters. While I came to consider each of Sameer’s sons my brothers, I am closest to Rashid and Murad. When it all went to hell with Travis, the boy I dated in high school, it was Rashid and Murad that came to get me and took me and my mom back to Yemen. A year later, Mom married Daddy Samee and Rashid, Murad and I went to study at Oxford.

  While we were in school, we formed a tight bond with about ten other students. Since we all were all from prestigious backgrounds (or in my case been adopted by those with prestigious backgrounds), and were known to do some crazy things, we became known as the RRP, or Royal Rat Pack. We had a lot of fun, and Ethan, Mitch, Chris, and Tucker were there through it all. Hell, they were even with us when we decided to get RRP tattoos. Since Daddy Samee had called me princess for as long as I could remember, I was the princess of the pack so I got a dainty little princess tiara on my lower left back. Getting a tattoo th
ere covered the scar that I had gotten when my ex Travis decided to sale me to Zandoville in order to cover the debt that he had accrued. Being able to get that scar covered had meant a lot to me.

  Yeah, the guys from Jagged Pill had been there for a lot of good times, so you could definitely say that I was happy to see them. Ethan looked at me and grinned. “So Lovey, are you going to sing a few with us tonight? You know it’s been ages since you jammed with us.”

  I laughed and hugged him again, “Ok, sure. Just let me listen a bit first ok? It has been a while since I have played out in public.”

  Ethan shook his head then kissed my forehead. “I will hold you to it Lovey.”

  I looked at Cale, Crow, Sunny, Chip, and Ken. “You guys are the best,” I screamed as I rushed to them for a group hug.

  “We keep telling you that, but you don’t believe us.” Crow said as he hugged me and then he and the others went off to find some entertainment of the female variety for the evening. When we went out, the guys and I had an understanding; they do them and I do me. That way they could pursue whatever woman caught their eye without feeling guilty, and I didn’t feel like I was keeping them from anything. Sometimes it can be tricky being friends with guys, but for the most part I think we have worked it out.

  I make my way to the front of the stage and start to lose myself in the music. Making my mind up, I turn to walk to the steps and I run in to an over six feet tall solid mass of muscle. Instinctively I recognize Wyatt. I would recognize him anywhere.

  Taking a deep breath to steel myself to the impact of being near him again, I slowly raise my eyes. The piercing silver ones that stare back at me cause my breath to quicken and my heart to flutter. Damn, I can’t let this happen again. It almost killed me last time, and I have others that depend on me now.

  After staring at me for a moment that seemed to stretch on for days, Wyatt finally spoke. “You always did love music. I remember the first concert we ever went to. Well, the concert really is a blur, but what happened after has been seared into my brain.”