SIX
“Mississippi State Penitentiary. You are receiving a call from a convicted felon. Do you accept the call?”
“Yes.” Mollie thinks the guards love playing that message, as though she wouldn’t know who was calling her from “Parchman Farm.” From what she knows of them, they like to rub salt into gapping, festering wounds and treat the inmates worse than day laborers. “Daddy?”
“I’m here, Mimi. How’s my girl?”
Hearing his voice, though it is rough, gravely, is always a pleasure; it’s like she’d been holding something weighted, crushing on her shoulders until she heard “How’s my girl?” coming from the other line. Two seconds after hearing his voice, the weight wasn’t quite so heavy.
“I’m good. I miss you.”
“I miss you too, sugar. You okay?”
She wished she had the time to simply chat with him; tell him how beautiful the mountains were this time of year, how the sound of the lake running the length of the campus could still manage to ease her mind; how loudly Layla screamed when Donovan doused her as she lay sunbathing with ice water and flour; how sometimes she misses the sound of the porch swing moving in the wind at the Compound, the easy, constant drone of the chain holding the swing up singing to her like a lullaby. Most of all, she wants to tell him how she loved falling asleep to the sound of him playing his acoustic Gibson and the low, smooth melody of his tenor voice in the dark silence of her childhood home. But there isn’t time. There was never enough time, not when they spoke, not when she visited him.
Mollie leans against the back of her sofa, the thick tufts of the cushions holding a perfect outline of her body. “I got an abscess. It’s getting worse.” She immediately falls into the coded language they’d invented when they needed to discuss things that nosey guards shouldn’t hear.
“That’s what I heard.”
“You did, huh?”
He takes a breath and Mollie doesn’t like the wheeze she hears in his inhale.
“You know I’ve got my eyes on you, Mimi. Don’t ever think that your Daddy ain’t looking out for you.”
“I know, Daddy. I know it.”
“Good. Now, tell me about this abscess. Is it just yours?”
“It is, but you know the girls. You know how they like their sweets. Lately, when they’ve been coming around, they wind up with a few abscesses of their own.”
He takes another labored breath, this time releasing a cough that sounds thick. “I’m gonna see about fixing this.”
“Daddy…”
“It’s okay, baby. I can get this straightened out.”
“How are you gonna do that?” He doesn’t speak and she knows it means someone in the MC will be showing up. “You got one of your own? One that maybe makes mine worse?”
“I might have one, but now is not the time to discuss what’s ailing me. I just want you to take care of yourself and your girls. I can help. In fact, I’m sending you something.”
Mollie closes her eyes, trying hard not to get worked up. She knows that sending her something, really means someone from her father’s club will soon be making an appearance. They were kind men, fiercely protective, but when they drove into town, they brought complications with them. Last time it happened when Mollie was sixteen and her mother’s domineering, meddlesome then-boyfriend decided he could take up the mantle of telling her what to do. When she broke curfew by twenty minutes, he locked her in her closet for two days. Layla managed to sneak in, to slip Mollie a cell that she used to contact her father. Then, hell broke loose in Cavanagh. Bloody, “I don’t know where your boyfriend ran off to” hell. Mollie didn’t like to think of what had really happened to him.
“The last time I had an abscess, you sent me that puppy. It pissed and shit all over the place, remember that?”
Her father’s chuckle is deep and she hears the faint sound of a full laugh that he lets die off. “Yeah, well, that’s because your mama is allergic. To every damn thing.”
Mollie smiles, knowing that her father means that her mother doesn’t like complications. She doesn’t like anyone who doesn’t conform and she especially doesn’t like anything that reminds her of her father. Mollie is a daily, constant reminder of the life her mother pretends she never lived.
“She doesn’t like mess, but this isn’t her problem.”
“I want you to go see her.” The humor is gone from his voice and Mollie worries that things have escalated. That had to be the case, or her father wouldn’t insist that she warn her mother. He knows how little they see each other and why Mollie made the conscious choice to stay away from the woman. “I want you to stay with her. In fact, it might be a good idea to give the package to your mama.”
“Daddy, you know that’s not going to work.”
“It will if you tell her how bad that abscess is, sugar.” His voice has grown deeper, the inflection somber enough to make Mollie’s heart stammer. “She’s your mama.”
“She’s Katie’s mama.”
He sighs. “I know, baby, but I want you to try to get her to help you take care of it. I want you to try real hard. If that abscess gets infected…” He doesn’t finish his thought, but she knows what he’s trying to say. He couldn’t bear it if something happened to Mollie. He’s said that many, many times over the years.
“It won’t. I can take care of it.”
“You can, I’m sure, but I’d feel better once that package heads your way. And Mimi?”
“Yes sir?”
“Don’t try to throw it out.” That’s code for ‘don’t be a brat and get mad and kick the guy out.’ “You’re not a kid anymore and I really don’t have say so over what you do, but for me, please, you hold onto that package until I tell you. You hear me?”
He wouldn’t let this go, no matter how hard Mollie tried to reason with him. She did, after all, get her stubbornness from him. Whoever he was sending would take direction from her father, no matter how angry or frustrated she got. Mollie knew that was inevitable. They would shadow her like a stalker. They would make her daily routine difficult and she knew they’d try to limit the time she spent with her friends. That wouldn’t be fun to explain. Her father wanted her camping out at her mother’s place, supposedly secure behind the walls of the gated community. But there was no way in hell her mother would ever agree to some crusty biker defiling her pristine home.
“When are you sending it?” She needed to prepare, to try her best to soften her mother up to the idea of another biker invading their lives.
“Should be there now, actually.”
That was unexpected. Her father had never sent anyone in without a warning. That he’d already had the package delivered, told her that things were worse than she thought. Mollie moves her hair around her pinky, nervous about how disruptive her life would soon become and she was just about to tell her father that she needed time, but then three knocks beat on her door and she knows it’s already too late. But when she looks through the peep hole and sees Vaughn standing there, duffle bag held firm in his large fist, a quick lick of dread and suspicion flashes into her mind.
“What are you doing here?” she asks him, opening the door and holding a hand over the mouthpiece of her cell.
She doesn’t like how wide his smile is, how that smug smile is the only expression he carries on his face. “Tell your Dad I’m here.”
Mollie feels the thick wad of alarm bunch down her breath. “What?”
Vaughn steps across the threshold and shuts the door behind him. “Tell Malone his package has arrived.”
Mollie Malone’s temper is a fuse slowly burning before the impending explosion. Vaughn can see it in the way her eyes have narrowed so small that minute wrinkles have formed at the corners. Her temper has become a powder keg and each look he gives her only fuels the fire.
“I know I should have told you sooner,” he manages, but before he can finish his explanation, Mollie throws her cell phone at him.
“Of all the sneaky, slimy piece of shit moves, Vaughn Winchester. Ugh.”
He dodges the cell, catches it, but isn’t quick enough to miss the television remote that dings him across his jaw. “Dammit, Mollie, calm down.” When she takes a swing at him, he easily catches her fist. “Stop it.” She’s wiry, squirms against him, but she is strong, Vaughn knew that from the day out on the rugby pitch. He just manages to keep her fist from flying yet again before he turns her around, chest to her back, arms circling her. “You have every reason to be pissed off at me, but please know it was all to protect you.” She jerks against him and Vaughn closes his eyes, breathing in to distract himself from the feel of her small body rubbing against his. “I wanted to tell you. I did. But your father didn’t want me screwing with your life.” Another breath, this one moving Mollie’s thick hair onto her shoulder. “He knew how pissed you’d be.”
“And did he know you’d kissed me?” She straightens her back, trying to move out of his grip. “Because I promise you, that wouldn’t be part of what he would have wanted.” A look over her shoulder and Vaughn can tell she’s still ready to throttle him. That gaze is full of venom.
He lets her go, working his fingers through his hair before he slumps onto her sofa. “No. That wasn’t part of the plan.”
Mollie moves slowly, eyes never leaving his, venom in that expression only growing more poisonous before she sits on the sofa, nearly on top of the armrest away from him. “What was the plan? Get into my delicates to protect me?” Those last two words are animated by air quotes.
“I didn’t want in your delicates.” When she cocks an eyebrow at him, Vaughn looks away. “Not at first.” This comes under his breath and he hopes she doesn’t hear it.
“All this time, all these months. It was all an act? You giving me your hoodie? You being worried about the burglary? All of that was because of the mission? She throws a pillow at him when he continues to look away from her. “Was it?”
Vaughn doesn’t want to answer her. For some reason he can’t fully comprehend, he doesn’t want her knowing what he thought about her when they first met. But she deserves answers. “I thought you were gonna be some spoiled little brat.” Mollie’s low gasp, an instant insult, has her tossing another pillow at him, which he deflects, expecting her anger. “What the hell was I supposed to think? You lived with your mom in an exclusive area; Cavanagh is a private university.”
“Yep that screams, ‘spoiled rotten.’ That’s her money, not mine and I promise you my sister saw more of it than I did.”
“I was wrong,” he tells her, rubbing his fingers along the soft fabric of the pillow. “You surprised me.”
“Because I wasn’t a little shit?”
Vaughn laughs, remembers her attitude when he called her dad a squid. “No, you were still a little shit.” He easily repels the smack she attempts against his shoulder. “You surprised me because you weren’t anything like I expected. I didn’t think I’d like you so much.”
She doesn’t respond and Vaughn can tell that her anger at being tricked and her stubbornness was keeping a reaction off her face. But then her eyes slip toward him, reach his gaze and hold it, and Mollie softens, moves her hand toward his, holds it and Vaughn lets himself enjoy the way her hand disappears under his palm.
He wants to kiss her, just now. The urge is there, a nagging little compulsion that he finds hard to push back every time he’s around Mollie. A quick glance at her, and Vaughn wants to repeat the flux of heat, of desire she worked in him with just one, slight kiss in the ER waiting room. Mollie leans back against the sofa, moves her face to stare at him and he knows what she wants, what she needs. But then he remembers the threat that lingers, remembers that he is a disaster at relationships and he sits up, running the list of details in his mind: Someone had always watched her, Mojo Malone’s MC brothers, but Viv had told him, those brothers couldn’t keep their noses clean, another casualty in the drug trade that Mojo wanted his club out of and Vaughn had to insert himself in Mollie’s life to keep her father happy. He was the dependable replacement who needed a job, or at least, a purpose beyond getting his clients into competition shape. He wasn’t expecting the experience to be pleasant. He wasn’t expecting to like her so damn much.
Vaughn tries to relax, rests against the sofa, slips his arm out along the back of it. The job, the mission he tells himself, catching the disappointment in her frown when he takes his hand away from her.
“Listen, we’re stuck with each other. I’ve got a job to do and your dad wants you protected. I know not telling you why I was hanging around was shitty, but that really wasn’t my call.” He leans his elbow on his knees, holding his head in his hands. “But things got sticky and the more I hung around you, the more I realized you needed to know.” Vaughn glances at her, not liking how Mollie has returned to the other side of the sofa. “The time was never right and my sister has been working—”
She interrupts him with a flick of her hand, silencing him immediately before she heads for the small stereo near a bookcase to his left. With one push of a button, the walls rattle with some loud dubstep monstrosity that has Vaughn’s ears pounding. Then Mollie settles next to him on the sofa, leaning so close that he can feel the press of her breast on his bicep.
“If Autumn stopped some asshole trying to get in my place,” she whispers, “and we were gone a while at the hospital, then maybe the same asshole had time to come back here.”
She smells like vanilla again, and Vaughn has to work to push the thought of pulling her onto his lap and kissing her out of his mind. He turns his head, bringing his lips to her ear. “You think you got some bugs?”
She nods and Vaughn likes the way her soft hair feels against his face. “It wouldn’t be the first time. Normally I check, but I haven’t had time. Daddy gave me some equipment for my sixteenth birthday.” When Vaughn pulls back, looks at her like she’s a little bit crazy, Mollie shrugs. “We had a weird home life.”
Vaughn squirms on the sofa, the sweet, delicious scent of her skin, of her hair wafting in his nose. Just a job almost rumbles in his head, but he knows it’s a lie now. Vaughn can’t deny what he wants, how much he wants her, but he has a mission to carry out. They needed to get this situation handled so he gets to the day where he has no hesitation kissing her; where her on his lap, his hands all over her won’t piss anyone off. Well, except her father.
He stands, pulls her up with him. He doesn’t hang on to her hand for too long, and they retreat outside, into the lobby and out of the building to sit on the front steps.
Vaughn has to admit that Cavanagh is beautiful. The summer breeze is cool and the scent of honeysuckle hangs in the air like a floating feather. He likes this place, likes how the mountains are so much more visible here than in Maryville. He likes how the town is small, intimate; how kids ride their bikes up and down the sidewalk, how the residents stop in the middle of the park to talk to each other. No one seems to be a stranger.
Mollie flops onto the last step, hugging her legs. “Sit down and tell me what’s going on.”
He reclines next to her, but manages to put at least two feet of space between them. “I can’t tell you.” He glances at her once, but is surprised that she doesn’t seem angry. The next thought, he feels terrible that she seems indifferent, as though she could guess he would tell her that.
“I figured.” Mollie moves the hair from the back of her neck and plays with the ends. “He’s working a deal with your sister, I guess.” A glance to him and he nods, which she mimics. “It must be bad.”
“What?”
Finally, the distracted stare she’s had, vanishes and she looks at him. “Daddy hates a rat. Always has. There have been a few guys over the years who have tried infiltrating the Compound, but my dad is very careful.” A small dent in her cheek, a slight pull of the corner of her lips and Vaughn guesses Mollie is recalling something that she either finds funny or pathetic. “If he’s working a deal, it’s not against the club. Has to be the cartel.”
“Mollie, you need to be careful. I don’t know anything.” He inches toward her. “I can’t know. Viv, my sister, told me as little as she could because that’s the way these things have to work. No one can know the details.” Vaughn clears his throat, pulling Mollie’s distracted attention back to him. “No. One.”
With the stare she gives him, Vaughn knows that she’s working out his meaning. She blinks twice before her eyes widen. “I can’t tell my friends.” He shakes his head. “I can’t tell them anything?”
“Nothing. From what Viv told me, this is a huge case. That’s really all I know, except that the details have been kept very tight. Not even her assistants know. Your dad and Viv and Viv’s boss are the only ones who know what they’re working on.” Vaughn swallows, not eager to disclose all the stipulations of his job to her. He knows she won’t take it well. “Layla, Autumn, all your friends, even Declan, they can’t know I’m protecting you. I could be easily traced back to Viv.”
“If you’re here, then they’ll want to know why. Especially Declan.”
“Why? What’s this got to do with him?”
Mollie smiles, a distracted, amused gesture. “Because he doesn’t trust you.” A kid on a red bicycle weaves around a light pole, then a street sign and Mollie watches him. “Guess his instincts are better than I thought.”
“Declan is nosy. He’s got some weird hero complex and thinks it’s his responsibility to take care of you girls.” When Mollie laughs, a hearty, loud sound of amusement, Vaughn frowns, getting the distinct feeling that she’s mocking him. “What?”
“You’re not so different from him, you know. He’s not a Marine, but yeah, he thinks it’s his place to take care of us. You, on the other hand, I thought had a really solid hero complex. It’s not surprising given your history.”
“Just because I was in the Corps doesn’t mean I have a hero complex.” She doesn’t correct him, but rolls her eyes and he knows she doesn’t believe him. “I—I don’t like how Declan looks at you.”
At this, Mollie’s humor amplifies and she leans back against the step laughing hard. “Oh God, you’re dumb.”
“What?”
Composing herself, Mollie sits up, holding her stomach. “Declan and Autumn are stupid for each other. Like, ridiculously stupid for each other. My God, he proposed to her after four months.” When Vaughn’s mouth opens, surprised, Mollie’s smile only widens. He hates how much he likes it. “Declan doesn’t want anyone but Autumn. To him, she is family. To her, we are, and Declan protects his family. All of his family. It’s very important to him.” She stretches out her legs, not looking at him. She still wears an amused grin and Vaughn doesn’t know why he’s offended that she thinks he’s some sort of idiot.
“Well, he won’t have to worry about you, not while I’m here.”
At this, Mollie’s head snaps toward him. “You’re staying with me?” Vaughn nods. “Like, twenty-four-seven?” Another nod and he smiles with the dip of her mouth, amused that the temper is starting to resurface.
“Your dad thinks we should stay with your mother. We should go and see her.”
The frown that started wrinkling her face has now worsened and if Vaughn didn’t know better, he’d think there was real fear marring Mollie’s pretty features. “What?”
“I know that’s what Daddy wants, but Vaughn, it’s such a bad idea.”
“She has to know what’s going on. She has to be aware that she and your sister could be in danger.”
“How did you…” he knows she’s going to ask for details, but when he looks away from her and her shoulders lower, Mollie seems to understand. “You read a file on me, I’m guessing.”
“It’s part of the job.” Mollie moves her legs and leans her folded arms on them before she moves away from Vaughn. “As far as your mother goes…”
She shakes her head. “She’s not a nice woman and the fact that all of this will lead back to my dad will only piss her off.”
“You’re her daughter.”
Mollie doesn’t look at him when she shakes her head. Instead, she watches the kid on the bike return up the sidewalk, but he doesn’t believe she sees him. There is something running through her mind, some distant memory that he’s sure she’d never share with him.
“Don’t say that to her.”
“Why?”
“Because,” she says, moving her gaze back up to him, “my mother really wishes I wasn’t.”