Forgiveness

by Wilder, Chiah

  “We understand each other perfectly, honeycakes.” Chet’s low snarl made the small hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end. “By all means, enjoy the rest of your night. But don’t think for one damn minute you and I are finished. Next time, we can have another chat somewhere more private.” He moved back a little.

  That was all Maggie needed, and she shoved past him and hurried over to the truck. Once she was in the driver’s seat with the engine purring, she inhaled several sharp breaths before gripping the steering wheel. The high beams illuminated the shifty SOB, and without hesitation, she hauled ass out of the parking lot.

  “Oh God,” she said out loud. Her eyes blinked several times, but that didn’t stop the streaming tears. “It’s okay. You’re okay. It’s okay.”

  A wash of numbness prickled across her body, and despite the mumbled mantra, she couldn’t think straight. Maggie probably shouldn’t have been on the road for any longer, as the shaking racked her body from the ends of her toes to the tips of her fingers. Shock was a delayed and strange thing. With a quick wrench of the wheel she bucked off the main road and came to a stop on the shoulder. Right now, getting ahold of herself was a top priority. There was no point in freaking out all the way home and putting other people at risk while she drove recklessly. Maggie put her forehead to the steering wheel and let the waterfall of pent-up terror flow over and out of her.

  She surrendered to the bone-shuddering sobs that seized her shoulders as all her repressed emotions from the past several months of Chet’s stalking came to the forefront. Damn, she could only be strong for so long, and now all of his bullshit had finally worn her down. “I don’t need this!” She pounded her fist on the dashboard. Maggie was so close to the chance of competing in the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, and she couldn’t let Chet throw her off her game. He was nothing but a big, chauvinistic bully, and she’d be damned if she’d let him take her down.

  Maggie grabbed a few tissues and dabbed her face before blowing her nose. The idea of going back to her room alone made her stomach cramp into knots. There was no way she could bear to be by herself yet. Not with that psycho possibly following her and fully aware of where her room was at the motel complex.

  There was only one other place she could think to go at that moment. Tossing the tissues in a plastic bag, she checked the rearview mirror then pulled back onto the dark road.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Flux

  The more Flux stared at the bottles strewn across the kitchen countertop, the less he understood where he was going with his life. He could still taste Maggie on his lips and feel her delicately writhing beneath him. Nothing kept his concentration. He ran his hands through his hair and let out a long, slow breath. Maybe it was supposed to bring him back to his senses, but closing his eyes merely slapped a 3D montage of their make-out session across the backs of his eyelids.

  He growled with the need to go back to the stables and possess every inch of that woman. Fuck! The whole thing had thrown him so out of whack, he didn’t know up from down anymore. There had only been one time in his life when he’d felt so torn up about a woman and that was when he’d met his wife, Alicia.

  Flux cradled his head in his hands. There wasn’t a single fucking second that he didn’t think about her … about them, unless he was so damn high or drunk to feel anything. High and drunk—sounds good to me, he thought, especially with his memories threatening to open up wide and swallow him whole again. Fuck! He grimaced. He wanted to be with Maggie in the worst way. Duchess was different than all the other women he’d taken to his bed—from that revolving door of his sex life. She was—

  “Don’t say it, don’t you dare fuckin’ say it, asshole,” Flux said, looking deadass serious in the mirror. “She’s not special. She’s a piece of tail, just like any of the others, and if you’re smart, you’ll stay the fuck away from her for good and find someone who is more your goddamn speed. Some sweet piece who has more tits and ass than brains.” Flux clenched and unclenched his jaw. “Fuckin’ hell, get it together.” He leaned against the counter and found himself on the floor, knees to his chest and head in his hands. His fingers tightened around his skull until everything ached.

  The idea of getting close to someone again drove him nearly out of his mind with fear. Only one other person knew him on that level, and she’d been dead and gone since he’d turned nomad after the funeral. Alicia would be his one and only, because he sure as fuck didn’t deserve anyone else. That’s why he only chose women for fucking and getting his basic needs met, not for dating or getting to know them. That was bullshit, and after what he’d done, he didn’t have the right to be happy and in a relationship.

  Then there was Maggie, and damn, if she wasn’t different. She was quality, and that was why the best course of action was either to fuck Duchess’s brains out of his system or to ignore her completely and hope she took the hint. Fuck. Nothing’s ever easy. He brooded without touching his stash, all the while aware that the longer he remained sober, the quicker his demons would come out—and they never played nice.

  But the way he felt after he’d had Duchess in his arms, with her hard nipples pressed against his chest and her soft moans that’d driven him crazy, it was fitting that the demons should torment him. Letting his guard down with Maggie was stupid as hell, so it was only right to be reminded of the stark reality that he’d brought the people in his life nothing but pain and death … That he was a selfish, narcissistic asshole at the end of the day, who didn’t deserve a second chance at any kind of life outside of being a walking skeleton. Flux needed to do penance for kissing Duchess and allowing his brain to think, for even a single second, that he was entitled to something for himself that made him happy.

  How could he live with himself if he disgraced Alicia’s memory? The memory of their daughter—

  Flux balled his fists and slammed his left hand down into the badly chipped bathroom floor tiles. Again. Again. And again. A burning ache washed up his arm from the ricochet working up his muscles. But nothing mattered, none of it mattered anymore.

  There was nothing left for him aside from misery and pain.

  Skank perfume still lingered all over his cut and jeans, soaking into the seat of his bike no matter how much driving wind ripped through his body. Flux had been gone on a charity poker run with the club. Alicia hadn’t wanted him to leave, but they’d been spitting insults at each other for a few weeks and he was fucking ready to break the cycle.

  Now, he regretted spending the night three towns over with his brothers watching a bunch of strippers grind and wiggle all over a pole while his wife was home alone with their daughter. The least he could’ve done was come home after the run had finished that day, but he was still pissed at Alicia, and he needed to unwind after a long three days to throw back shots and shoot the shit with his friends. He should’ve ridden home, admitted he was being a bag of fucking dicks, and taken one on the chin so they could’ve made up and things would’ve gone back to normal around their house.

  The way Banger had made it sound over the phone, Flux didn’t know if he would have the opportunity to make it right.

  Banger had said it was bad. Really fucking bad. Hadn’t offered much more info than that though—just told Flux to ride like the devil was chasing him until he was home.

  Goddamn, he couldn’t make it home fast enough. Early fall weather wreaked havoc with his brain and he’d ducked, dodged, and weaved around every slow asshole on the road to get to where he’d needed to be with one singular thought in his head.

  Whatever had happened to them, it had to be okay. They would be okay.

  When he’d pulled up outside his small house with the grinning pumpkins and plastic slide in the front yard, police cruisers were parked out front, lights flashing blue and red. The whole nine yards. A pit of fear dropped hollow and nagging into his stomach. Flux had barely stopped the bike and put it in park before he jumped off and dashed halfway across the front lawn.

  Peop
le had tried to stop him. A bunch of them. All suits or badges.

  It didn’t fucking matter to him. He’d blown through all of them, their words were like gnats in his ears as he’d forced the front door open and pushed past the yellow crime-scene tape.

  The smell. That was what had hit him first before anything else.

  Like unwashed pennies and something deeper, earthier, like rot in his nose. He was a member of an outlaw MC and knew that smell intimately. The reaper had come to his home to collect—and Flux hadn’t been there to stop the sonofabitch.

  A jolt of shock had kept him locked in place. Disbelief. Denial.

  The fucking badge’s words from outside the house came flooding back to him: “killed … sorry … don’t go in there … things you don’t want to see … death.”

  Death. Death. Death.

  The last one had pinged between his ears as a high-pitched ringing rocked through his skull like he’d been at a concert for too long.

  Flux had walked like a zombie into the kitchen, following his nose.

  Alicia was sprawled out on the hardwood floor, clothes ripped off her body, and so much fucking blood. Multiple stab wounds: chest, hip, back, hands. A disconnect had ripped through him while he tried to piece together what he was actually seeing in his family’s home.

  With the image of his wife still fresh in his mind, he’d vaulted through the rest of the house.

  Emily. He had to find his baby girl.

  There was a sharp knock on the door. A loud enough noise that Flux jolted back from his memory into the present while the panic, guilt, and loss still ate him alive from the inside out. He scrubbed his hands down his face. If he ignored it, they would probably just go away. He tried to keep quiet while the ache in his veins blossomed until he was rocking back and forth, sitting on the bathroom floor.

  But the pounding on the door didn’t stop. It got worse.

  Then, he wondered if maybe it was only his imagination, his own headache and guilt creating shit that didn’t exist. The banging grew louder and more insistent, and it was like a damn freight train running through the middle of his head. He weaved up onto his feet and braced himself against the doorjamb.

  More knocking—it just wouldn’t stop.

  “Fuckin’ shut it, I’m coming!” he yelled, slowly making his way to the door like an old man.

  When Flux opened it, he took a quick step backward and nearly knocked himself over by tripping on his own feet. While the memory of his wife and child was still murky within his subconscious, Maggie stood in front of him with her arms crossed and her head down.

  “Yeah?” he asked gruffly, unable to change his demeanor, given the circumstances. Flux didn’t remember how to interact with humans, let alone talk like one with the shock still fresh in his brain.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have … I just, uh … didn’t know where to go …” she trailed off with a small sniffle, which alerted a protective part of his lizard brain that something was going on there. “I can go. It’s no problem.”

  She made to leave and turned around before he grabbed her wrist. Maggie spun around as if he’d hit her, and he dropped her arm immediately, hands up at his sides. Her wary eyes studied his face, shifting up and down every area of his expression. At that moment, he was pretty fucking sure he was rocking the zombie look.

  Flux grunted and moved to the side. A silent signal for her to get the hell inside or leave—her choice. When Maggie looked up at him and took a few steps into the room, he noted the red rings around her eyes as if she’d been crying. Fuck.

  He shut the door, barely able to keep it to a loud slam.

  “What happened? Tell me.”

  Flux’s demand wasn’t met with a cold shoulder or an abrasive look from her. Instead, his words seemed to deflate Maggie where she stood, as her shoulders folded inward and her hands covered her face. Damn, he was going about it all wrong. Flux was tongue tied and gruff, ripping through what was happening like an asshole with no sense of compassion. It was his demons that still ate at him.

  They were both at a vulnerable place and, maybe, this was his chance to make whatever problem she was going through right now better, if she would just talk to him.

  “You must’ve come here for a reason, Duchess. Tell me what’s going on and I’ll help if I can.” The words sounded foreign coming from Flux as he cleared this throat and took a seat at the edge of the bed. “Let me … be there for you.”

  Flux patted the spot next to him, inviting Maggie to join him on the rumpled queen bed. There was enough space between them that they weren’t sitting on top of each other. He was thankful for the small favor. Fuck knows, he couldn’t handle it if they touched too much right now. Not when everything inside him was raw, and they were both live wires begging for a grounding connection.

  “Chet has been fucking with me for months.” Her voice came out in a low, enraged accusation. “Tonight topped it all. He’s been following me and downright stalking me.”

  “Whoa, wait a fuckin’ second! He’s been what?” Flux nearly jumped out of his skin as protectiveness reared deep within him.

  “I should probably go back to the start of this story …” Maggie licked her lips and continued to hug herself. “We’d dated for a little bit. Nothing serious. It was only a couple months, clearly not enough time for me to have noticed the extent of his level of crazy. But he’d seemed like a decent enough guy …”

  Flux scoffed and ran his palms down his jeans, focusing on her numbed-out expression while she looked straight ahead and told her story. Yeah, Chet was an entitled asshole. No doubt about it, but taking it to this level? Fuck. With all the scum he’d seen in his lifetime, this shouldn’t have shocked him, but the idea that Chet would fuck with Maggie still threw him. It enraged him down to a part of himself he never knew he could access.

  “Go on,” he gritted, gripping his knee caps so he didn’t punch something and scare the ever-loving shit out of the woman who was opening up to him.

  “And then I started to hear the rumors.” Maggie covered her face again with her hands, and when she removed them, her expression was filled with a mixture of rage, pain, and regret. “He was a womanizing dick-bag who was terrible in bed and had a tab with the local brothel. He’d left a wake of women who hated him strewn all over town, and I was his next victim. I’d been stupid enough to fall for the ‘good ol’ boy’ routine. I’m sure he peddles that crap to anyone who’ll listen. Then I’d started noticing the girls who worked behind the scenes at the rodeo … and how they wouldn’t go near me when I was with him. Women whom I’d made friends with, who’d said hello to me on a regular basis, were treating me like I wasn’t even there anymore.”

  “Not a great fuckin’ sign,” Flux breathed out, his words were meant to help not hinder her story.

  “It gets worse. One of the women, Darlene, had cornered me after a race a few months ago and demanded to see my phone. When I handed it over, she’d asked me to unlock it. I was wary, but we’d had conversations before and I figured Darlene was pretty trustworthy, so I did what she asked me. She’d found an app on my phone … a tracking one … Chet had put it there.”

  Maggie took a long breath and closed her eyes before breathing out again.

  “Of course I’d confronted him about it, and when he denied it, I’d broken it off. But it seemed like he wasn’t even hearing me anymore. He kept placating me—trying to touch me, soothe me, kiss me—until I’d pushed him off me, ran out of his room, and never looked back again.”

  “That must’ve been rough for you.” Flux tried to be sympathetic while every fiber of his being yelled at him to get the hell up and pound the shit out of Chet so he could never ride anything again—a bull or a woman. “And he bothered you again, tonight?”

  “He’s just continuing the harassment—it never really stopped. Oh, there’ve been small periods where it’s not as bad, but they’re few and far between. He acts like he’s this good man with all these decent values, and
he’s nothing but a hypocrite. The crazy part is that he’s convinced himself that he’s that guy. Anyway, he follows me around on the rodeo circuit. If he’s not competing in one of the rodeos, he’s still there in the stands watching me. It’s creepy as hell.”

  Flux saw her shudder and he wanted to draw her close to him and wrap his arms around her, but he didn’t budge.

  “At the bar tonight, before you came in, I confronted him after I’d overhead him talking smack about women—barrel racers in general. I should’ve kept my big mouth shut and ignored him, but I didn’t. I guess he didn’t like the talking to in front of his friends because after you left, he—” She cut off and swallowed, closing her eyes again.

  This time Flux only hesitated for a fraction of an instant before he took her hand and squeezed gently, a silent signal that he was there. She squeezed him back and that small touch jerked through his system, spreading a soothing warmth he wasn’t expecting to feel ever again.

  “You’ve got this, Duchess. What happened when I left the stable?”

  “He confronted me. Accused me of trying to make him jealous with you so that he’d come back to me. He said I started the rumors that are going around about him. And he, he …”

  “Did he fuckin’ lay a hand on you?”

  “No. It was close, but I got away from him.”

  Flux let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and squeezed her hand again. He was willing to do whatever it took to get her mind off of what had happened tonight with the added bonus of making himself feel less helpless than he had in months, maybe even years. She had come to him, not her girlfriends, not her coach, not Charlie—him. That was something he couldn’t take lightly—and something he never would’ve anticipated from another woman again. That type of raw trust. Even now, her small, calloused hand squeezed back on his own, still slightly trembling as she turned to face him for the first time.