Beauty and the Barbarian

by Nikki Winter

  “So I wouldn’t have to go back and forth to get stuff,” he answered, further confusing her. “Since I’m going to be sleeping in here now I don’t—”

  He stopped when she propped up and stared down at him. “You're sleeping where for what now?” She looked about the room. “Who said you’d be sleeping in here?”

  His frown matched hers. “Why wouldn’t I be sleeping in here?”

  “Off top? I have a list of reasons—”

  “A list of reasons? A list?”

  “—But the first and foremost is that I don’t want Arista getting any wrong ideas,” she completed, ignoring his interruption.

  Gray eyes narrowing on her, Ashleigh asked in a deceptively calm tone, “What wrong ideas are you referring to, Mac?”

  She raised her brows and retorted, “Oh I don’t know. Perhaps something along the lines of, ‘The pretty lady and Papa Bear are going to get back together and make the babies! All the babies!’”

  “And those are wrong ideas?”

  “The worst ideas,” Mackenzie answered. “Confused, misinformed, twisted ideas. I don’t want that. I don’t want her thinking that this,”—she waved a hand between the two of them—“is some huge reconciliation, because it isn’t.”

  Ashleigh tensed beneath her. “I think that between you and our daughter, you’re the one with the confused, misinformed, twisted ideas, plums.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me,” he responded, rolling away from her and standing. Placing his hands on his narrow hips, he hovered by the bed, glaring. “What was this to you?”

  “Ashleigh—”

  “What. Was this. To you?” he queried again, slower this time, as if he were wrestling himself for patience. “I’m getting the impression that I was a good afternoon distraction, something to take your mind off of whatever made your sphincter twitch earlier.”

  She plucked at the sheet, turning her gaze downwards. “I think you’re misunderstanding me.”

  “Am I?” Ashleigh demanded. “Suddenly, paisley seems to have your undivided attention. Something that was only directed at me when I had my mouth on your clit and a finger in your ass.”

  In an instant she was wet. Mackenzie cleared her throat to rid it of any huskiness that may have shown up when she spoke. “Maybe we should shelve this conversation temporarily.”

  “No.”

  Her head lifted. “Ash—”

  “You tell me, right now, what this was, plums.” A muscle in his jaw leaped and his shoulders bunched.

  She bit the inside of her cheek. “I think that there were some repressed desires that we’ve managed to rein in for quite some time, and we had a momentary lapse in judgment because the last few days have been emotional and partially high strung. I also think that you’re so annoyed now because I’ve made a firm decision to separate our reality from those desires while you apparently believe that all is right in the world, that all is right in our world.”

  “You're saying that it’s not? You're telling me that we simply popped like a shaken bottle of Rosé and sprayed everywhere?”

  “I’m telling you,” Mackenzie ventured calmly. “The same thing that I told you four nights ago—sex was never our issue, Ashleigh.”

  “Right,” he mocked. “It wasn’t the fucking, it was me.”

  She grimaced. “I didn’t say it was you. The issue wasn't solely created by you. I was a part of it,” Mackenzie admitted, slightly annoyed by his crassness. Her mouth took over before she could really consider her next words. “Because I didn’t speak when I should have. I didn’t tell you to go fuck yourself when I should have. I didn’t yell at you when I should have. I didn’t put you out of our bedroom when I should have. I didn’t stop cooking for you, folding your clothes and lov—” she stopped herself, repeating, “Sex was never our issue.”

  “What’s our issue now?” Ashleigh gritted out. “Everything is on the table. Every-damn-thing has been spread out and exposed. So what could possibly have you sitting across from me and telling me that I have to go back down the hall and pretend like I never touched you?”

  Mackenzie answered with the first words that came to mind, shrugging as she retorted, “Common sense.”

  Thirteen

  “Papa Bear, you have a bruise on your neck.”

  Ashleigh stilled in checking to make sure that Arista’s seatbelt was secure, her soft observation catching his attention. An avalanche of words rolled but all he could manage was, “Huh?”

  His daughter’s head tilted in an unintentional parrot of his own habits. “I said you have a bruise on your neck.” She reached up and small fingers brushed around his throat, just beneath his jaw. “Right here.”

  He squinted, refocusing his eyes on her booster seat. “I got bit, baby-doll.” A few times actually. The knick had been her mother’s doing, but he couldn’t exactly tell her this, could he? He had several more on his forearms, shoulders and parts of his chest. Those couldn’t be seen because of his ink, but if there had been a lack of tattoos, he would have looked as though he’d been in a fight with fanged—possibly gay if you counted the marks on his ass—gang bangers. That was half the fun of making love to Mackenzie. He always, always, walked away with evidence of how hard she pushed him. She couldn’t hide from him, had never been able to.

  But now she was shoving him out, compartmentalizing them, because she was afraid. No matter what she attempted to feed him, Mackenzie was afraid.

  “Common sense,” she’d said. “Nothing’s been resolved, Ash. Nothing’s changed aside from the obvious. Offended that I’m not falling into line? I don’t care. As far as we’re concerned, I stepped on the rose colored glasses, baby. And I have absolutely no intention of trying to fix them. Our lives are different now. I’m different now.”

  If nothing else, she was most certainly that. Their time apart had hardened her; made her far less forgiving and far quicker to tell him how many ways she didn’t care what he wanted to happen. It should have bothered him, the dismissal of his feelings. He should have at least felt used or cheap but all that prickled him now was determination. Blinding, unrelenting, solid determination. He couldn’t swagger up to her in his chucks and spit out a few lines about her eyes and her smile anymore; couldn’t pick a few wild flowers and brush them across her jaw, murmuring about how the silken petals reminded him of her skin.

  Ashleigh wasn’t some young knucklehead in a low set ’96 Ford Bronco cruising through the country side with Noel, cracking inappropriate jokes about girls and dreaming about the field anymore. He was a man. Or at least he hoped that was what he’d proven to be over the years. A man that had his shit together. A man that loved his siblings and showered his daughter with everything she could ever need so she wouldn’t turn to the wrong sources for fulfillment. A man that wanted more than anything to put his family back together.

  What, exactly, had he done to prove that last bit though? Nothing. He’d tossed out a few challenges, tutted up his chest and stood over what he considered to be his territory, huffing and roaring. He’d rolled around with his cub and even managed to mate her mother, but what did those things gesture to aside from a possessive streak bred by an ego that had gotten him into trouble several times over?

  Lifting Arista’s hand from his bite mark, Ashleigh kissed her palm and played with her small fingers. “Have a good time today?”

  She smiled, her pretty, little brown face covered in glittered paint made to look like a butterfly’s wings spreading out from her pert nose. It was her mother’s nose. “Yeah. We played flag football.”

  He smiled now too. “Oh? And how many little boys did you make cry in anguish on the field?”

  The curve of her lips became mischievous. “I lost count after doing the tornado, but the sobbing fueled me.”

  Ashleigh snorted. The “tornado” was one of the first plays he’d learned upon joining the Miami team and he’d hurt the feelings of many running it. Just because he knew Arista got her natural inclina
tion for most sports from him, he’d taught it to her on a whim one day. Who knew she’d be able to not only use it, but cause emotional scars? He was proud.

  “Ah,” he breathed, ruffling her curls. “My barbarian princess.”

  She leaned back in her booster seat. “Does that make the pretty lady your barbarian queen?”

  He twisted his lips. “You could say that. But I don’t think the pretty lady would be pleased with being called a barbarian anything.”

  “She’s a barbarian lover,” Arista drawled, kicking her small, sneaker-clad feet. “You know,”—she shrugged—“’cause she loves you.”

  Stopping, Ashleigh swallowed and leaned against the open doorway of his rental. “Now what would make you say a thing like that?”

  Did Mackenzie have emotions regarding him? Sure. He was well aware of that. She wouldn’t have let him touch her otherwise. It wasn’t in her nature to be unfaithful. She was incapable of dishonesty; it was probably one of her best qualities. But love? He didn’t think that type of intensity had been revived as of yet. It wasn’t a thing that happened overnight and after what she’d revealed, he certainly didn’t believe that she was ready to release those feelings.

  “She said that sometimes she misses you,” his daughter answered and then made a face. “But I’m not supposed to tell anyone that.”

  Slowly, he dropped into a crouch and took Arista’s hand again. “You’re talking to Papa Bear, baby-doll. You can tell Papa Bear anything. Absolutely anything.”

  “I know.”

  He tipped her chin towards him. “You know I would never, ever use it to hurt the pretty lady, right?”

  She nodded. “Because you love her.”

  “Because I love her,” he affirmed, glad that she understood that, that she knew it without the slightest doubt. “And because I love you. The two of you are everything to me.”

  Lean slashes crossed her cheeks with her smile this time. “I know.” Angling forwards, she motioned for him to come closer. Ashleigh did so and the scent of graham crackers, crispy marshmallows and milk chocolate greeted him, letting him know that she’d been around a small, controlled campfire today. Arista cupped his face and whispered, “There’s this box in Mommy’s closet…”

  He listened intently to every word after that, a grin taking hold of his face that just wouldn’t let go.

  Twenty minutes later and he was curving into the driveway of Mackenzie’s home, his heart hammering as the door swung open on the wrap around porch and she came into view. It was such a simple thing, such an easy pleasure to see her standing there, a tentative smile on her face as she waited for Arista to charge out of the car. Ashleigh paused a moment, realizing how much he’d missed the most basic of thrills—coming home to her. He had no intention of giving that up again.

  “I would have never known.”

  Mackenzie flicked a glance over her shoulder from where she sat on the edge of Arista’s bed, gently running her fingers over the little girl’s scalp and watching the steady rise and fall of her chest. Camp had tired her out apparently. She’d chattered over dinner excitedly about all the activities they’d dove into today and then, in the blink of an eye, she suddenly couldn’t keep her own eyes open. Poor thing had started to doze before they’d even gotten to dessert. She’d drowsed her way through a bath and being helped into her pajamas, climbing onto her bed and unceremoniously dropping her head onto Mackenzie’s lap afterwards. So Mackenzie had done what she always did in these moments, she relinquished all thoughts that didn’t pertain to taking care of her daughter and lost herself in the mindless action of rubbing the base of Arista’s skull. Soon all she got were snores that were disconcerting when coming from a little girl barely weighing sixty pounds.

  How long had it taken them to get here? This comfortable place where Mackenzie understood her role in Arista’s life without the worry that she’d totally scramble her before adulthood? Years. It had taken years. Because for a long time, Arista had been all she’d allowed herself to have. It was a punishment for leaving everything she’d known at home to follow a man. Then it had become a reward for being brave enough to finally walk away when she wasn’t happy; a bittersweet pill that reminded her of why she couldn’t simply check out of life, love, anything. No matter how much she wanted to.

  Moments like this, when she realized how far they’d come, how far she’d come, Mackenzie recited a silent prayer of thanks. She may have lost Ashleigh, but she’d gained an anchor. One that kept her focused and energized, concentrating on her health and her happiness—which was linked to Arista’s. If her daughter could be okay, if she could grow up understanding that life was so much more than self-sacrifice and silent martyrdom, then she’d be fine. Mackenzie smiled slightly, remembering Arista’s animated tale of how her camp counselor had tried to explain to her why it was morally wrong to make boys cry in sports. Her disturbing and highly amusing response to that had been, “Their tears. My water.” She’d blame Ashleigh for it but something told her that it wasn’t his fault entirely. Their child was…different. Wonderfully, beautifully different. She’d be more than fine.

  “You would have never known what?” she finally asked Ashleigh, turning back to play with Arista’s curls.

  “How much you struggled with things,” he answered, his footsteps sounding softly as he walked further into the room and came to crouch by her legs. Reaching out, he traced Arista’s cheek and then pulled away. “I would have never known.” He looked up at her and she couldn’t quite gauge what was in his stare but it made her refocus her gaze on her hands. It was…intense. Too intense. “You never complained. Never even sighed. I have no idea if that means I was just too oblivious to see it or if you’re extremely good at letting me see what you want me to see.”

  Mackenzie ran her tongue over her teeth. “I think it’s a little bit of both.” She closed her eyes. “If I complained, if I sighed or bitched, would you have heard me?”

  “I don’t know,” he responded after a pause. “And that,”—he blew out a breath—“that is what bothers me more than anything. I should have been able to hear you. Even when you said nothing at all. That should have been loud enough, deafening actually.” Ashleigh stopped again. “But you were so good at covering it, so good.”

  “Had to be,” she told him. “Who was going to keep us together? Keep Arista from being raised by strangers with Swedish or British accents? Who was going to tell you that you had millions of people wanting you to win? Who was going to worry about you other than Hayden and Braxton? Who was going to take care to remember that you’d been spit on and called things that I can’t even repeat? Who was going to recall that your parents had abandoned you even before Matthew put you out?” Mackenzie opened her eyes to find him watching her. Moisture prickled her lashes when she asked hoarsely, “Who was going to love you, Ashleigh? And mean it? And understand that it had to be selfless? That it couldn’t expect what you’d never been taught?” She swallowed. “I had a family. A real family. I knew what that love felt like. Even on my worst days, the days where it felt as if I were standing on wet sand, waiting for the next wave to take and throw me, I understood how incredibly fortunate I was. I couldn’t withhold that from you.” Shaking her head, she looked up at the ceiling, trying and failing to blink away tears. They rolled in spite, mocking her. “I didn’t want to let go of your hand.”

  “So why…” His voice trailed off and she heard him clear his throat. “So what was the straw? What broke us permanently? What made you let go of my hand?”

  “Ash—”

  “Unh-unh,” he immediately argued. “I want to know. I want to know what I did. I need to know what I did.”

  “It wasn’t you,” she whispered. “It’s what I did.”

  Silence stretched for a moment. “What did you do, plums? What did you do that was so wrong you felt like you had to leave me?”

  “Nothing like what you’re thinking.”

  “Tell me what I’m thinking.”

 
; She looked at him then. “I wasn’t with anyone else. I couldn’t…I would have been sick to my stomach.”

  All at once, he seemed to deflate. “You would have had a right, you know? If you had.”

  “But I didn’t.” Mackenzie leaned forward. “No one deserves that, Ashleigh. Not even you three years ago.”

  He nodded sharply and seemed to be waiting.

  She sighed. “It was the week that you had an away game. You were going up against Dallas and this time, Ari and I couldn’t go because she had an ear infection and I thought a plane ride would only exacerbate it.” Looking down at her daughter, she traced the shell of Arista’s ear. “When you left…you gave me the most absent minded good-bye. Kissed me right here,”—she pressed a finger to her own temple—“tweaked Arista’s nose and then you were gone. The second you stepped off the porch, I wanted to beg you not to go.” Mackenzie sucked down a trembling breath.

  “It was this slam of desperation. I, who had never been desperate a day in my life, wanted to latch onto your ankle and beg you to stay, to help me because I felt like I was drowning. I felt like I was just another fixture in our home. A mattress. Something that you can walk past every single day but never really pay any attention to until it gets lumpy and uncomfortable, hard to sleep with. I wanted to tell you that I couldn’t stop crying, that I felt so miserable all the time and just when I thought it would end, I’d get hit with another wave. But I stood there and watched you go. I don’t know how long it took for me to move from that spot in the doorway but eventually my legs just…gave out. I sat on the floor, bawling. Bawling because I didn’t know what I was doing. Bawling because I was terrified something was wrong with me, with us. Bawling because I just knew you would want a new mattress at some point. And then I looked up. There I was, wailing on the floor and Arista was across the room in her playpen, hands gripping the railing while she stared at me. It was the first time I’d ever seen her that quiet. Completely silent while I was having a nervous breakdown.”