by Mia Malone
Mac was about to pull Joke with him when the front door slammed open, and Jenny ran into the kitchen.
“Oh, God,” she said when she took in the clothes on the floor and the fact that the blood on them came from Lee. “Oh, honey,” she added, and her eyes filled with tears.
“Come here,” Lee said. “Hold my hand while Parks cleans it up.”
She did but kept her eyes away from the wound as Parks quickly wiped the blood off Lee’s arm.
“It looks like a graze,” he said and watched Lee twist her head around to look at the wound on her arm.
“Yeah,” she said. “Neosporin and a compress will do for now. We’ll go to the hospital when Gib comes back.”
“You should go now, Lee,” Mac prompted.
“I need to be here when Gibson comes back,” she said calmly.
Jenny suddenly started sobbing, and Parks felt his gut twist when he saw her face crumble. He hadn’t realized Jenny and Lee were tight and had never seen the tough woman look so devastated. For lack of anything better to do he handed her some paper towels.
Lee smiled at him and put an arm around Jenny.
“Please, don’t cry. I’m good.”
“Shit,” Jenny sobbed. “I’m sorry. I’ll… Jesus, Lee. He shot at you…”
“No,” Lee said, and her eyes were on Mac suddenly. “Gib was throwing the ball for Boo and I jumped to catch it. I think that startled the shooter, and I caught the bullet instead, but he wasn’t aiming at me. He was aiming at Gibson.”
“Fuck,” Mac muttered.
“Mac, man. You need to clear the deputies out of here, and fast. Gib’s gonna go gonzo on that fucker,” Joke grunted.
Everyone turned, and Parks saw his dad drag a man behind him into the yard. His face was hard, and he didn’t stop until he was right where Lee’s blood was on the ground.
“Shit,” Mac said and ran out of the room, but not to the yard. To the front of the house where two police cars had stopped.
He came back almost immediately and joined the others on the porch. Gibson didn’t even look up and just stood there, towering over the man on the ground.
“Gib,” Mac called out. “We’ll bring him in.”
“Get out of here Mac. Take Cal with you. This’ll get ugly.”
“We’ll –” Mac tried again but stopped talking when Gibson slowly turned and looked at him.
“He shot Lee, man.”
Andy stepped up next to Parker, and asked, “Lee okay?”
Parker nodded.
“Why is Dad asking Mac and Cal to leave?” Andy whispered, but Parks didn’t know, so he just shrugged.
“I’m not leaving,” Cal said, and cut his dad off before he could give the order clearly on the tip of his tongue. “Not stupid, Dad. Also not carrying my badge right now. I know what you’re gonna do, and if you don’t, I will.”
The two brothers on the porch stared at each other. They’d never heard Cal sound like that. He sounded exactly like their father.
“Staying too,” Mac said calmly, unclipped his badge and threw it into the kitchen.
“Jesus,” Parks murmured, understanding what would happen.
“Go ahead, Gib. Don’t kill him.”
Paddy gave the order, and Gibson went to work, interrogating the man on the ground.
He was not cooperative to start with, but as the blows came faster and faster, he started whimpering.
“Who set this up?” Gibson grunted.
No answer.
“Who?” Gibson roared and raise his fist, cocking his arm and leaning in close to the man. “Do not fuck me over on this. You know who I am so you know talking is the only way you survive.”
“Zhivko,” the man yelled and went on quietly but quickly, “Hates your guts. With you gone, the trial he’s got coming will go a whole lot better. He put a contract out on you. First, it was to make it seem like natural death. There’d be no investigation then, but you refused to die the simple way, so he changed it to clean kill.”
Andy made a soft sound, and to Parker’s astonishment, Lee put her good arm around him and murmured, “It’ll all be fine, baby. Gibson is handling it.”
“What terms?” Paddy asked, and Gibson growled when the man shook his head.
“Okay. Okay. Zhivko pays when it’s done.”
“No down payments?”
“No,” the man whimpered.
“No open end?”
“No.”
“Anyone else on the contract or is it just me?” Gibson asked.
The man suddenly spit out blood and turned back toward him.
“Fuck you,” he hissed. “He only wants you dead but won’t care if others go down with you. Might even like it if we take down a few extras.”
That’s when the Ward boys saw a part of their father they’d heard about most of their lives but never seen. Everyone knew Gibson Ward was a badass. A fighter. To them, he’d simply been Dad, and they’d just seen him interrogate a man, but they still hadn’t fully understood.
The man in front of them was like a killing machine, pumping blows and kicks with a speed and fury they wouldn’t have thought possible. His face was stone cold and focused in a way that made it clear that nothing except executing vengeance on the man on the ground was on his mind. Neither of them had seen anything like it.
Paddy, Joke, and Mac stood calmly in a semi-circle, arms crossed on their chests. Cal stood with them, Jenny looked on from the porch with a face that was hard with anger, and Lee seemed calm too.
What a crowd, Parks thought, and realized suddenly that his older brother fit right in. “Shit,” he murmured quietly.
“Gibson. He’s had enough.” Paddy ordered.
“Not nearly,” Gibson grunted.
“It stops now,” Paddy barked, and the men moved to pull Gibson off the man on the ground.
He fought them, but they were three, and they were strong, so he gave in and moved a few steps away. Then they backed off.
Callum moved toward his father but was held back by Mac’s strong hand on his shoulder.
“Not now, boy,” he said.
Lee suddenly walked down the steps and crossed the lawn until she was right behind Gibson.
“Calm down now, baby,” she said softly. “I’m here. I’m good.”
“Back off,” Gibson barked. He was breathing heavily and was clearly making an effort to get a hold of his temper. “Don’t touch me,” he snarled.
“Baby,” Lee said quietly.
When Gibson turned, and they saw the look on his face, all three brothers knew Paddy had been right. The absolute pain in their father’s face as he looked at the small blonde woman standing there calmly with her t-shirt cut to pieces and a make-shift bandage around her upper arm told them that he knew exactly how he felt about Lee.
“He could have fucking killed you and then what?” Gibson roared suddenly. “You’d be dead, but I love you so where would I be?” His shoulder sagged a little, and his voice was a hoarse whisper when he asked again, “Where would I be, Lee?”
“Right here with your brothers and your boys,” Lee said and put her small hands on his cheeks, tilting his head down, so he looked at her. “With Jenny and the Alvarezes and Eddie and Billy. Life is rough sometimes, Gib. You and I, we know that.” She paused and caressed his cheek. “We know. And we know how to dig in and keep walking. We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again.”
“Baby,” Gibson said and closed his eyes.
“I’m okay. I love you too, and we’re both fine. It’s all good, Gibson.”
A tightening he hadn’t known was there loosened in Callum’s chest when he saw his father slowly wrap his arms gently around the small woman he and his brothers hadn’t even known existed just a few days ago. When Lee murmured something softly, Cal turned toward the others.
“Let’s give them some space,” he said quietly and walked past the men to his younger brothers, asses
sing how they felt after seeing what they’d just seen.
Callum had always known his father had that part in him, and he knew because he had it too. They both harnessed it, and knew better than to let it loose, but that brutality and the ability to block off and focus so completely was there in them both. It had still been unsettling to see it unleashed, and he worried about his brothers.
Parker and Andy were a bit pale but held it together and when Cal tilted his head toward the kitchen door, they walked inside. Mac and Joke checked the man on the ground and after a while, Mac blew out a sigh. Then he picked his phone up and walked off. Joke grinned as he joined them in the kitchen.
“The fucker will live. Gib might have gone off the rails but he knows where to hit.”
“Yikes,” Andy muttered, but slowly a small grin spread on his face. “Guess I’ll take the trash out immediately next time Dad asks me to.”
Stunned laugher spread through the room, and the mood softened.
“You good, boys?” Paddy asked. “Not a pretty thing to watch.”
“We’re good,” Parker said immediately. “And you’re wrong. It was beautiful.”
Callum’s eyes widened in surprise. Everyone thought Andy was the softest of the three because of his easy grin and how he slid through life, but he wasn’t. That was Parker.
“That motherfucker shot Lee,” Parks barked angrily when he saw the surprise on Paddy’s face. “I had to watch her hold back tears so she could comfort everyone else. Had to cut her damned clothes and wipe off blood from all the fuck over. She’s got a fucking gunshot wound on her arm, and she’s out there calming our goddamned dad down. She could be dead right now and what Dad did was right. Because that worm fucking shot her.”
Cal got it then. Parks was gentler than his brothers, always had been, but when someone mattered to him his loyalty was endless. And Lee apparently had Parks’ loyalty.
There was a stunned silence and then Andy grinned again.
“Yikes, Parks. Think you used up your annual quota of f-bombs in one go, brother.”
Parks rounded on him, but the tips of his mouth twitched, and he slapped Andy on the head, although it was mostly because it was his brotherly duty to do it.
“Shithead,” he murmured.
“So,” Joke said calmly. “Who’s gonna tell your mothers about Lee?”
“God,” Andy muttered. “They’ll come down on Wilhelmine like a hailstorm from hell.”
“Not Calliope,” Cal stated. “I’ll call her.”
He hadn’t talked to his mother in over a year, but he would now. If he was lucky, it’d be another year before he had to do it again.
“I’ll talk to Mom,” Parks said. He didn’t look forward to it, but better him than Andy who would mess it up completely by making it into a goddamned joke which Parks knew their mother wouldn’t in any way be appreciative of. “It’ll be fine.”
“We’ll do it together,” Andy said. “They’ll both call and rip him a new one, though.”
“That they will,” Joke said and looked out at Gibson and Lee who were walking toward the porch, not even looking down as they passed the man on the ground.
They were calm, and when they caught him looking at them, they both smiled.
“What a fucking day,” Joke sighed and put an arm around his sister.
Chapter Fifteen
Charlene
I had to sleep on my belly, which pissed Gibson off because I never did. It wasn’t a big deal to me, but he was edgy and moody already before that fact registered, so I guessed it just was the last straw.
“Gibson,” I whispered, which stopped the cursing and he turned his hard face toward me. “I really need you to deal right now. I’m tired, and it hurts. Please, baby, just process it and move on. Go talk to your boys, or to Paddy. Kick something. Please.”
I suddenly couldn’t keep the tears away any longer, and they started running down my cheeks. Through the godawful evening, I’d just dug in, held it together and dealt with everything. It crashed down on me then, so I stood there, not knowing what to do and with not one ounce of strength left in me.
“God,” Gibson said hoarsely, and I was suddenly on his lap in the bed.
He was resting his back against the headboard, and I curled into him, and let the tears keep coming.
“I’m sorry, baby, that was an assholey thing to do,” he said quietly. “I’ll hold it together, Lee. Promise.”
His voice was calm and gentle, and I sobbed into his shoulder. He let me cry and kept stroking my back and hair. It felt good to let the tears wash my anger and fear away, so I cried until I had no more tears left in me.
“I was so afraid,” I sniffled when I’d calmed down again. “If I hadn’t made that stupid jump he could have killed you.” I felt his arms tighten, but I went on, “I wasn’t expecting someone like you in my life, Gibson, but there you were. And you told me you loved me just a couple of hours before. The boys were laughing in the kitchen, and he shot at you. What would we have done if I hadn’t jumped?”
“Baby,” he murmured. “You told me, remember? You would have kept walking.”
“I fucking hate him. Hate that fucking criminal asshole who put him up to it. You’re gonna have to kill the man, Gibson, and I want you to, but I fucking hate that too.”
“That’s a lot of fucking,” Gibson murmured.
“I’m with you, so that’s gonna happen,” I said, meaning the cursing but realizing immediately what it had sounded like.
When Gibson’s arms tightened a little, and I heard him breathe through his nose, I knew he was fighting back laughter, and tilted my head back to look at him.
“That came out the wrong way,” I whispered.
He was laughing quietly, but his face was gentle in a way I really liked, and then he leaned down to kiss me softly.
“It was accurate,” he murmured, and I felt a soft quiver between my legs which triggered a shiver down my spine.
He felt the shiver and pulled back an inch to look at me.
“Love you, Lee. A fuck of a lot more than I think you realize,” he said and smiled, which caused another shiver. “But you got shot tonight so we’re not gonna do what your body just told me you wanna do.”
“Gibson,” I breathed.
“No,” he said calmly. “We’re going to put you on your belly, and I’m gonna hide from you how fucking mad that makes me. I’ll hold you, and we’ll sleep.”
“Baby,” I murmured, but he ignored that and moved us off the bed to pull down the covers.
Then I was on my belly, and he curled into my good side, and we slept.
I spent the next day in a deck chair on the back porch, and if I hadn’t already known how very much like their father Gibson’s sons were, I would have gotten it then.
There were four protective and very, very angry men hovering over me. Mac came to take my statement which made it five angry, hovering men. Then Joke and Paddy arrived, and the number immediately bumped up to seven. I was ready to scream when Jenny walked out on the porch.
So I did.
“Get them away from me,” I wailed, and everyone froze.
“What?” Gibson asked.
“I will go insane.”
“Are you okay, Lee?” Jenny murmured.
“They are making me crazy,” I shared, still wailing. “If I let go of some wind, they’ll have a collective stroke, and I can’t take it. I took a painkiller and barely feel what the good doctor labeled a scratch on my arm. You have got to help me.”
Her green eyes softened, and she straightened.
“Everyone who has a dick, get off the porch,” she said in a voice which would have moved mountains if it had to. When no one moved, she added, “Don’t make me angry, boys.
Her voice was suddenly a soft whisper, but there was an undertone in it I hadn’t heard before, and it was kind of scary but also way cool.
“Okay,” Andy muttered, but I saw th
e grin on his face. “Fart as much as you like, Lee,” he said and moved inside.
Everyone left, and I got some more comments about my bowels that weren’t funny, but kind of was, so I grinned at them. Gibson was the last to go, and he kissed me, hard and with lots of tongue before he left.
“Thank you,” I said emphatically to Jenny when she sank down into the chair next to mine.
She took hold of my hand and murmured, “I agree with Andy, fart as much as you like, sweetie. I won’t have a stroke. Promise.”
I started laughing and squeezed her hand, and she laughed with me. Then we spent the rest of the afternoon talking and giggling as if nothing unusual had happened. It soothed me and calmed me down, and I thought yet again that I’d lucked out when I came to Wilhelmine. Because of Gibson, but also because of her.
When the sun was approaching the mountains stretching out in front of us, Gibson stepped out on the porch carrying two glasses of white wine. He watched me apprehensively and raised his brows in a silent question. I nodded, and he gave us the glasses.
“Can we come out now?” he asked.
“Are you going to treat me like a damned china-doll?” I asked back.
“I’ll try not to,” he said.
“Fair enough,” I grinned. “Yeah. I’m good now, and you can come out again.”
I saw the soft squeeze he gave Jenny’s shoulder, but then the men descended upon us, bringing food of various kinds and bags of chips. We spent the evening on the porch where everything could have ended the night before; reclaiming it and moving on with our lives. The criminal who’d put a contract on Gibson was still out there somewhere, but a police cruiser passed by a couple of times during the evening and I was surrounded by badassness, so I wasn’t afraid. Not one bit.
We made love that night, soft and slow. I was on top and had Gibson’s strong hands on my behind, cupping it and setting the pace. When I came, I looked into his eyes and breathed out his name. His eyes darkened as he watched me, his face tightened, and he suddenly bucked up under me, holding me still and emptying himself with a low, hoarse groan.
“Love you,” I whispered as his cock jerked inside me, and he groaned again.