The Rogue

by Jennifer Bernard

  “Serena, it’s me.” He kept his voice low. “Are you okay?”

  “Griffin. Oh my God. You’re here. Are you really here? How did you find me?”

  She seemed dazed and disoriented—understandable given the state of her face.

  “Someone saw a Camry headed south, I took a guess. Come on, let’s get you out of here. Can you move?” Barely able to look at the bruises on her face, he gently touched her cheek.

  “It’s your coach,” she said hoarsely. “He kept hitting me. Then he knocked me out. He’s in the cabin.”

  “Coach Nelson?” He was too horrified to keep his voice down.

  “He wants me to tell the media you did it, so no one will believe what you said about him. If I do that, he’ll tell me what happened to my father.” She gave a heartbroken sob. “That’s all I ever wanted. Just to know what happened.”

  “Shhh,” he soothed her through his growing dread. Was he about to get smeared all over the media? The press would devour a story like this. But if that was what it took for Serena to get answers…

  “It’s okay, Serena. I get it. Don’t worry about me.”

  Eyes blazing, she lifted her head and swatted him on the arm, hard. “I told him no, idiot! I’m not going to lie for him. Not even for information about Daddy. I love you, you moron.”

  Despite the urgency of the situation, he broke into a big grin. He’d take ‘moron’ if it came with ‘I love you.’ “Is that right? You love me?”

  “Yes. I love you. I love you! Now do you think we could get on with the rescue because the coach is coming back and I don’t want him to hurt you.”

  His heart wanted to burst into a million pieces, but she was right. They needed to get out of the damn car. He’d deal with lying, smearing, violent Coach Nelson later.

  “Ok, sweetheart. Can you walk? There’s a truck waiting for us if we can just get there.”

  “I think so. I’m just shaky. Everything feels weird. I mean, I should be used to weird but I guess there was more weirdness out there.”

  He smiled, happy to see that she hadn’t lost her spirit despite her injuries. “Come on, then. Kai’s snowballs won’t work forever.”

  But Serena’s eyes had gone wide. “Shit. He’s coming back.”

  Glancing up at the house, he saw that the front door was starting to open. “I’m not going to leave you with him.” A plan formed quickly in his mind. He closed the driver’s side door and quickly dove into the back seat. “Close your eyes, pretend you’re still unconscious. Maybe we can surprise him.”

  He dove between the seats and crammed his body onto the floorboards behind the passenger seat.

  It was a damn good thing that motocross required flexibility.

  “The knife! The one you gave me. It’s in my suitcase. Right on top.”

  He unzipped it and felt around for the knife.

  “Hurry! He’s coming.” She went back to her head-drooping, unconscious-appearing position.

  Griffin managed to slide the knife out just before coach yanked open the passenger side door and jumped into the car.

  “I didn’t hit you that fucking hard,” he said. That familiar, rough-edged, smoker’s voice put all of Griffin’s nerves on edge. “Wake up already. I don’t have time for this shit.” He lifted his open palm to slap her awake, but Griffin reached out and stopped him with an iron hand around the coach’s wrist.

  He used the coach’s moment of shock to haul himself out of his scrunched position before he could react. As soon as he had enough space, he wrapped his arm around his neck, using the head rest as leverage, and pressed the flat of Serena’s knife against the coach’s cheek.

  “Go, Serena. Kai and Gracie are waiting out on the street. Hurry.”

  “No,” she said. “You’re the one he hates. I can’t let him hurt you.”

  “Does he look like he’s going to hurt me?” The coach was clawing at his arm, trying to pry him away from his throat so he could breathe. Not happening. “Tell Kai to call the police. Go!”

  Finally, Serena nodded and reached for the door handle. “I meant what I said before, Griffin. Be careful.”

  Griffin smiled grimly. “Never thought I’d say this in front of fucking Coach Nelson, but I love you too. Now go.”

  “You aren’t just saying that because you’re about to get into a deathmatch, are you?” Her laugh held an edge of panic.

  “Nope. I’m saying it because it’s true. Has been for a long time.”

  The coach tried to say something, but Griffin tightened his grip, and he wheezed out a pathetic grunt instead.

  Serena slid out of the car.

  “Don’t go too rogue on him, Griffin. Promise?”

  “I’m not going to do anything stupid. I’m just keeping him busy until the police show up.”

  Serena opened the car door and stepped outside. She swayed a little, which made Griffin so viciously angry that he tightened his grip again.

  “Hitting your players wasn’t enough? You had to go for an innocent bystander too? You’re going to pay for every drop of blood and moment of pain and fear you caused her and everyone else, you fucker.”

  “You’re the one who’s gonna pay,” he growled back. “I already warned you.”

  “About my sister? What was that? What were you talking about?”

  The coach just laughed, and all of Griffin’s rage boiled over. He’d never been able to do anything about what happened to Jiggy. For years it had haunted him. He couldn’t talk about it, couldn’t report it, couldn’t do anything. All those years the coach had kept hurting people. All those young players, and now Serena …

  But now Coach Nelson and his windpipe were at Griffin’s mercy. One more flex of his arm and he could crush it like a peanut shell. And it would feel so good because the coach had hit Serena and he’d terrorized her and carjacked her and he deserved every bit of retribution and—

  The passenger door swung open. Kai took one glance at the situation and yanked the coach away from Griffin, out of the car. Griffin didn’t fight it. He let the man out of his grip.

  “You alright?” asked Kai in a low voice. From his expression, he had a good idea of how far Griffin had nearly gone. And he understood.

  Even though Griffin still wished he had his hands around the coach’s throat, it was a damn good thing Kai had stepped in, like the big brother he was.

  “Yeah,” he answered after a moment. “Thank you.”

  Kai nodded, and turned to watch the scene playing out in the snowy yard.

  Coach Nelson was bent over, coughing as he stumbled away. Two sheriff’s deputies went after him and grabbed him by the arms.

  The coach jerked his head toward the car. “Dan, Rodrigo, thank God you’re here. Griffin Rockwell tried to strangle me. I didn’t touch him, and he nearly killed me. He’s got a knife. He’s the one who’s been spreading lies about me. Made us drop two games. He’s ruining football around here. Look at what he did to his girlfriend. Arrest him.”

  In the back seat of the Camry, Griffin gripped the seat to keep from jumping the guy all over again. That wouldn’t help a thing. The coach obviously knew the officers well. What if they believed him? Here he was with Serena’s hunting knife and a motive and no witnesses except Serena…

  He opened the door and stepped out to stand next to Kai. His brother’s presence gave him a sense of strength. The officers looked over at him, and he saw from their expressions that they weren’t sure what to believe. Would “Rogue” Rockwell go after a coach with a knife?

  Why not?

  Serena, who’d been hanging out at the edge of the scene, limped forward. Gracie supported her with an arm wrapped tightly around her waist.

  Griffin tried to catch her eye, to make sure she was okay, but she ignored him.

  His stomach dropped like a block of concrete.

  Had she changed her mind and decided to say what Artie Nelson wanted her to? After all, Serena hadn’t come here looking for love, she’d come looking for answe
rs.

  And she deserved them.

  And he loved her and wanted her to get what she needed.

  “Officer, Coach Nelson is lying,” Serena said, loud and clear.

  The tension rushed out of his body. Of course Serena wasn’t going to lie for the coach. Of course Serena had his back.

  “He carjacked me at knifepoint and assaulted me with several blows to the head, as you can see.” She gestured at her head, which despite everything, she held high in the air, like the queen she was.

  “He also stalked her,” said Gracie. “I have a photo of him hiding in the bushes with that exact same hat.”

  “Also, I think he did something bad to someone else. You should make him tell you,” Serena said. “He said it was too late for him to change, but he wouldn’t say any more.”

  “Okay, Coach Nelson.” The two troopers urged the coach toward the state trooper vehicle, whose lights still flashed red and blue. “We’ll sort it out at the station. Are you going to come willingly or do we have to arrest you?”

  “She’s lying! She’s lying for her boyfriend. He’s a liar too.” The coach yelled as if he were on the field running drills. “Look in the cabin. There’s more evidence in there. You’ll see.”

  Serena and Griffin exchanged a look of alarm. “He must have planted something!” she told the officers. But it didn’t seem to matter, because they were ignoring the coach’s rantings anyway.

  “Arrest it is.” One of the troopers snapped handcuffs on the coach. “You have the right to remain silent…”

  But he wasn’t silent. He kept shouting and spitting until they shoved him into the backseat of their rig.

  One trooper got in with him, while the other came over to Griffin. “I’ll need to take a statement, Rockwell.”

  Griffin recognized him from high school—hadn’t he played for the football team? He’d been a senior when Griffin was a freshman. That could be bad. He could be another Coach Nelson loyalist who refused to hear anything bad about his methods. Since he was white, maybe he’d never seen the coach’s dark side. “Of course. Just tell me when and where.”

  The trooper—Dan, the coach had called him—glanced over at the coach locked in the back seat of the trooper’s vehicle. “How about right here, right now. Looks like we’ll have our hands full at the station.” He pulled out a notepad from his belt and clicked a ballpoint pen into action. “Before we start, I gotta say, it’s kind of an honor.”

  “Forget about Rogue and all that,” Griffin muttered. “None of that matters now.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Griffin caught sight of Serena hovering anxiously nearby. She was still leaning on Gracie, while Kai applied a butterfly bandage to her forehead. Why weren’t they in the Tacoma? Why were they making her stand out here in the cold?

  And then he realized that it was her doing—she’d probably refused to leave without him.

  He shot her a smile full of love and gratitude, and for a moment he got so lost in their silent communication, the flow of emotion between them, that he didn’t hear what Dan the trooper was saying.

  “Sorry, could you say that again?” he asked.

  “I said, it’s an honor because you’re the only one with the guts to take down the coach. It’s about fucking time.”

  He stared at the officer. “I thought the whole town hated me for that.”

  “Eh, they’ll get over it. Once the stories come out, and they will, you’ll be a hero around here. That’s a guarantee.”

  Dan offered him a quick fist bump, then went back to his professional demeanor. “Can you please state your full name for the record.”

  “Griffin Mark Rockwell.” He wanted to add “not a hero” in the middle somewhere. But for the first time, he didn’t completely hate that description. Serena was safe, the coach was under arrest, and he’d shared his most painful secret with his family.

  Something still nagged at him—a loose thread—but for now, he’d take it.

  32

  Serena refused any further medical attention, since that would have meant another long drive. After that experience, the last thing she wanted was to get into another car.

  Since the coach had gone into the cabin and possibly planted evidence, the police declared it a potential crime scene. So after she and Griffin had both given their statements, they walked to the Last Chance, which was closed on Sundays. They didn’t say a word, but she found she needed to be as close to him as possible, their arms brushing, hands interlaced, his warmth and strength the best antidote for her rattled nerves. He found the key that Jake hid under the vintage neon Last Chance sign and ushered her into the deserted bar.

  “What first?” he asked her. “Drink? Do you want to clean up in the bathroom? Talk?”

  She started shaking. Wild, uncontrollable tremors convulsed her body. “I…I…I don’t…”

  Instantly he swept her into his arms and anchored her against his chest. “I left out crying. Go ahead. Let it out.”

  And she did. All the terror and uncertainty and pain of the past hour or so—and probably the past few months—poured out of her. Great racking sobs sent tears flooding onto his jacket. She couldn’t make it stop even though she was mortified that she was losing it like this. This wasn’t her style, not strong, independent, prickly Alison Serena Riggs. Who was this person, this trembling, crying, vulnerable wimp?

  Griffin held her tightly the entire time, stroking her back with soothing circles. He didn’t say anything, but that didn’t surprise her. Griffin wasn’t one for meaningless words. When he spoke, it mattered.

  Which meant…

  He’d said “I love you.” Well, so had she. She’d said it, and she’d definitely meant it. And he’d heard it, and said the same thing back to her, and now he was holding her as if she was the most precious thing in the world to him, and oh God…her brain was misfiring because none of this was making sense.

  Finally she pushed out of his arms and grabbed a bar towel from a pile next to the dishwasher. “I choose ‘drink,’” she said firmly. “Let’s go.”

  He laughed slightly, but followed her out of the kitchen into the darkened bar area. She lit one of the lanterns so they could see what they were doing, while Griffin stepped behind the bar and found her favorite bottle of Courvoisier.

  He poured her a healthy shot. She took the glass gratefully. He splashed some in another glass, then came around the bar to sit next to her.

  “You don’t drink,” she pointed out as she took her first burning sip.

  “Special occasion. I’m thinking you need company.”

  She let out a long, shaky breath. “Yeah. I guess I do. Which is pretty weird for someone like me.” She took another sip. “All of this is weird. You. Me. That psycho.”

  Griffin, thankfully, didn’t follow up on the “you, me” part of her comment. “I’m really sorry he went after you. It should have been me, I’m his real target.”

  She gave a jagged laugh, the tension inside her releasing in a bright burst. “A man who hits his students doesn’t have much of a conscience. Besides, this is a first for me. Usually I’m the one who causes all the trouble. This time it was you.”

  He spun her stool so she faced him and put a hand on each of her thighs, just above the knee. The warmth of his hands steadied her. “Everything’s going to be okay, Serena.”

  “You don’t know that. The senator still hates me. I still don’t know about my father. I probably never will now.”

  “If Coach Nelson actually knows, which I’m not a hundred percent sure about, someone else does too. Guaranteed. We’ll find it.”

  ”There’s that ‘we’ again.” She took a shaky sip from her Courvoisier.

  “Yeah. Aren’t we a ‘we’? Didn’t we establish that?”

  “Yes. Of course. I just—” She touched her forehead, where pain lurked under the butterfly bandage Kai had applied. “I’m just—everything still feels weird. I had this moment in the car with the coach when
I was like, what the hell am I doing here? I’m supposed to be in San Francisco painting bigwigs and going to gallery openings and fighting with my agent. Why am I here? Why did I drop my entire life like last year’s suit with the big shoulder pads? I’ve always fended for myself, and when I was in that car with a knife at my neck, all I could think about was you coming to rescue me. That’s not me, Griffin. I’m not a rescuee. This feels all wrong, like I stepped into the wrong timeline and all I want is to get back to what I’m used to.”

  He nodded once, then again, his expression slowly shutting down, all the warmth and concern dissipating until he looked almost like a stranger. “I get it.” He downed his shot of Courvoisier and set the glass on the bar. “Well, I’m sure it won’t be too difficult to get back to your old life, if that’s what you want.”

  “Griffin—”

  He put up a hand to stop her. “It’s okay. I’d feel the same way. Fuck, sometimes I do. I didn’t want to leave motocross. I had to. But it’s not the same for you. You were forced out by the senator and those trolls. No wonder you want your old life back.” He stood up from the stool and collected both their glasses. “Not tonight, though. Jake would kill me if I let you drive right now. I have the key to the upstairs, you can stay there tonight.”

  “Griffin—” She couldn’t bear his stiffness and the distance suddenly growing between them. Say something. Quick.

  But now his phone was ringing. He took the shot glasses to the dirty dishes bin as he answered.

  “What?” The glasses clinked noisily as he dropped them into the bin. The jarring sound crashed through the quiet bar. Along with Griffin’s suddenly rigid posture and white knuckled grip on his phone, it sounded like a five alarm emergency. “I’ll be right there. Which hospital? Okay. Thanks. Hey, is it okay if Serena crashes at your place tonight? She shouldn’t be driving, and her car was impounded for evidence, so she won’t have wheels until later. Thanks, bro.”

  He hung up the phone and swung around to face her. She sucked in a breath at the expression on his face. He looked as if his worst nightmare had just come true. “I have to go. Are you going to be okay?” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a key. “This is to Jake’s place. He says stay as long as you want. I’ll check in with you later.”