Emma wasn’t entirely sure how she wound up sitting at a picnic table with a bunch of women she didn’t know while her new husband had been shuffled off to enjoy rounds of whiskey, but that was where she was. Her plate was filled with perogies and meatballs and really small sandwiches.
“Emma, I haven’t seen you since high school! How have you been? Tell me everything!”
The Hannah Emma had known was a quiet, sedate broomstick of a girl with an overbite. That girl had defined the word mousy. The woman who sat in front of her, with a trio of heart tattoos on either shoulder, was not mousy, nor shy. She had kissed Emma full on the mouth in greeting and had smiled so big that Emma couldn’t help but return it.
“Han? God, I didn’t recognize you.”
“Oh yeah, sweetie. The new and improved.” She put a hand on either hip. Emma refused to believe the woman had given birth to any children. “You look so beautiful!”
“Thanks for standing in as a bridesmaid.”
“Oh pshaw.” She waved one hand. “You’re basically my sister now. As close as you and Rudy were growing up and all. It was the least I could do. I hear you are an animal doctor now.”
“Almost, still got a little college left.”
“That’s so exciting! What’ll you do when you graduate?”
“Well, I’d have to work with another doctor for a few more years, but eventually I wanna open my own place.”
Hannah fanned herself. “Gosh, I love a lady who owns her own business. I opened up a shop right on Main Street not three years ago. I sell shoes and accessories and things. All those girly bobbles I was too afraid to wear when I was a little twig of a thing.”
“But you wear them well now.”
Hannah threw her head back and laughed. It was a wild and unrestrained sound that was infectious. Emma decided, then and there, that she liked this new and improved Hannah.
“Wow, I hope the joke is a good one,” said a new voice. Emma glanced up and wondered if a centerfold model had stepped out of a magazine.
Hannah, whose smile didn’t quite meet her eyes, motioned to her left with a set of excellently manicured nails. “This is Samantha.”
Samantha was taller by a good two inches, and the stilettos she was sporting put Emma at eye level with an impressive chest, tanned to California perfection. A corseted blouse in a deep burgundy helped it along. Though why a girl who was clearly a size zero needed to corset anything was way beyond Emma’s understanding.
“Hi, Samantha.”
Samantha’s big brown eyes rolled over Emma with aloof dissatisfaction. They stopped on her plate and Emma found herself noticing that Samantha’s had nothing but a few slices of cucumber and a single slice of turkey. Samantha’s mouth curled into a smile and she flipped her ruby red hair over one shoulder. “Wow, you have a great appetite.”
She sauntered off before Emma could respond.
“Wow,” Hannah said to the retreating back. “Samantha’s even bitchier than usual.”
“Guess she doesn’t like the food.”
“Please, that food isn’t gonna stay down.”
Emma laughed. “Oh wow. That’s mean.”
“Yeah, I’d feel bad if it weren’t true, and if she wasn’t a terrible excuse for a person. Typical biker bunny type. Now, I’m all for a girl exercising her right to say yes, but that girl abuses the right and the men she exercises with. She’s just plain mean.”
“So why is she still around?”
Emma watched as the woman in question sauntered over to a table of men. She laughed and leaned over the lap of one in order to say something that had them all laughing. Emma would have been bored by her antics, but the girl was leaning over Kellan’s lap.
“Sweetie, you are looking at why she is still around.”
“Yeah,” Emma said as the girl flipped her hair again and flashed Emma a catty smile. “I see.”
Hannah reached out a hand and put it on Emma’s shoulder. “Hey, sweetie, if it helps any, they’ve never been together, least as far as I know. I’m not saying Kellan hasn’t shown a few of the groupies a good time for a night or two, but I don’t think she’s ever been one. She’s the kind of girl who loses interest once that happens.”
“Looks like she’s interested to me.” Emma knew she sounded bitter. She couldn’t help it. The marital kiss had rocked her, and she had thought it had rocked him, too. But he hadn’t seemed to be able to get away from her quick enough, and now there was a pretty thing two inches from sitting in his lap and he wasn’t pushing her away.
“What are you going to do about that?”
“Hmm?” Emma asked, still watching the display. “What do you mean?”
“That’s your man, isn’t it?” Hannah tapped the table, the sound of painted acrylic sharp on plastic. “You gotta make that claim known.”
“I just married him. How much more known could it be?”
“Plenty. Lots of guys think it’s all right to get some on the side. You gonna be one of the old ladies who’s all right with her man sticking it somewhere else?”
“That’s crude.”
“You wanna come up with a prettier word for cheating, be my guest. But take my advice, hon, figure out how to mark your territory, or she’s gonna keep sniffing.”
Kellan looked up, and his eyes found Emma’s instantly. Her skin felt too tight, humming with a feeling she had no name for. Her lips felt full, and all she could do was think of their kiss. She hadn’t meant to kiss him back so hard, but apparently a decade of unrequited feeling could pack a more powerful punch than she was willing to admit.
On the one hand, she couldn’t blame Samantha for wanting to get Kellan naked. He was the kind of guy who turned heads and broke hearts just by existing.
“Well, I mean, I guess looking at him like you are going to eat him is one way to do it. She might not realize he’s off limits, but I’m pretty sure everyone else does.”
“Hannah, I like you.”
“Oh good, ’cause I’d hate to have to pretend we weren’t friends.”
Emma agreed. The two women chatted companionably while the sun began its trek down the afternoon sky. For the first time since her attack Emma felt relaxed and comfortable. It was strange how much a little friendship could do. The purple and orange of late evening were making their way across the horizon when they heard it.
The booming bass of rap music, and as it grew closer one could tell the lyrics were not in English. A week ago Emma would have just rolled her eyes at a person playing their music too loud, but a lot could change a person in a week.
The lightheartedness of the reception faded as everyone became aware of the music. Club members shifted their positions, hands to their guns carelessly hidden beneath shirts. Women shifted to the back of the party. Those with kids went inside. Someone left the door open a little too long and Rocco, who hadn’t wanted to be locked up in the first place, came charging out.
Emma found she was too afraid to move.
“Emma, come on.” Hannah wrapped her pretty nails around Emma’s arm and gave it a firm tug. “Let’s go inside.”
It was too late. The cars, and there were several of them, came to a halt. She could see the hoods of at least two of them, an Impala and a Lincoln if her fear-addled brain could be believed. Some artistic hand had scrawled the image of the Virgin Mary across the hood, her gleaming halo bleeding into the windshield.
From all those cars only two men stepped out. The first was dressed in a suit so dark red it looked like half-dried blood. She wondered if that was done on purpose. His tie was whip-slim and hung down a very long body. A scrap of a beard was on his chin. His smile was brilliant, more gold than white.
“Mac Ketchum!” he called, his voice barely tinged with Latin flavor. “I guess our invitation got lost.”
They came to the shortest part of the fence, but they didn’t cross it. Ten men clad in the vest of The Beasts stepped between the fence and Emma.
The second man she didn’t recognize until the scent of cheap cigarettes and cheaper liquor swarmed over her. She started to shake. His eyes, dark as a volcanic lake and twice as heated, fell on her. Even from the distance of a ten-man guard she felt sick to her stomach. There was something wrong with that gaze, something that lacked humanity.
The man, she could only guess it was Michael, ran his tongue across his teeth before blowing her a kiss. A sick shiver ran down her spine, but she didn’t look away. She could see a bruise on his brown brow and knew she had put it there. She didn’t have to look away. He blew her a kiss and she felt her lips curl into a grimace.
“You weren’t invited.”
Emma didn’t know how he did it, but her father’s voice lacked all the weariness she had come to expect to hear. When she chanced a look over her shoulder she saw him standing there. He had taken off the breathing tube that wrapped around his face and was standing up. He had drawn himself to his full height. Some trick of his presence made him look bigger and stronger than she knew he was. She wondered what it was costing him to have this show of power.
“Now, man, don’t be like that,” Gabriel—who else could it be?—said. “I thought we were family now, what with how you are selling my shit.”
Emma looked at her father. He wasn’t flinching, but there was a tightness around his eyes. A heaviness settled on the exchange. Hands went to guns. Car doors opened and she could see the long barrels of semi-automatic weapons.
“You lost your shit, fair and square.”
Gabriel let out a series of Spanish curses and then spat. “Man, you know nothing was fair about it. But, hey, that’s not why I’m here.”
“Why are you here?” Kellan demanded. Emma hadn’t seen him move; she hadn’t even realized he was behind her until he spoke. He took another step and put himself neatly in front of her.
“Just wanted to pass along our blessing to your lily-white bride, ese. My brother here, he gotta thing for smart-ass blondes and just wanted to give her a gift.”
There was something about the way he said it that had Emma’s skin crawling. Rocco must have heard it to, as the dog circled around and plunked himself in front of her. He gave a warning growl.
“Well, it’s only fair,” Emma called out. “He’s still wearing mine.”
There was a chorus of laughter from the gathered throng. Michael surged forward, spewing foreign obscenities. It was amazing how much bitch sounded like bitch no matter what language a jerk said it in. Gabriel slapped a hand in the center of his brother’s chest, and Michael stumbled back a few inches. Enough to get the message.
Kellan was smiling. “I don’t think my lady needs any gifts from you. Why don’t y’all pack it up and go home?”
“All right, all right. We get the message.” He held up his hands in apparent surrender. “Just stopping by to say hi and offer my congratulations on your fortuitous union.”
“Ain’t that word a little big for your mouth?” Mac called.
Gabriel said nothing. He bowed and led his brother away.
Emma waited until she heard engines turning over and wheels screeching. “What was that about?”
Kellan exchanged a look with Mac. “It was a show. That’s all. He knows where we are, where we live.”
Mac whistled. “Prospects.”
Joe and another man with a young face stepped forward. She thought she had heard someone call him Phantom; he was smaller than she, and so pale she wondered if it was a condition. She wasn’t sure she had ever heard him speak.
“Follow them, and be quiet about it. No bikes. He knows where my home is, we are going to know where his is.”
“Yes, sir.” Joe paused in front of Emma. “We’ll keep you safe, princess.”
Phantom said nothing, just nodded in her direction.
“Emma, why don’t you and Han go inside?” Kellan asked. “We are going to talk some shit out.”
For a moment Emma thought about arguing. It was clear they were going to be talking about her and deciding things on her behalf. But the fact was she didn’t feel like deciding anything right this moment. What she wanted was to go back a month when her life was as simple as writing papers and taking notes.
“Yeah, all right.”
She stopped by her dad and he gave her a hug. “We are going to keep you safe, Emma. I swear it.”
She nodded. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe him, Emma believed he’d try, she just didn’t know how much good it was going to do.
“Come on, hon. Let’s get you out of all that white. Your pup has gone and put some paw prints on the hemline.”
“It’s not my dog,” Emma said even as she placed a hand on the broad head of the mutt.
“Yeah, whatever you say.”
The house was surprisingly empty when she and Han went inside. Guess no one wanted to stick around after a near shoot-out.
“Why don’t you get changed? I’ve got enough nervous energy to clean a whole house, so I think I’m gonna start with yours,” Hannah offered.
“Yeah, all right, thanks.”
Boxes of her things were still stacked in Kellan’s room. She pawed through them until she found a t-shirt and jeans. Her wedding dress, which did, in fact, have Rocco’s prints along the hem, slid off with more ease than she had expected. She had imagined, from time to time, how her wedding dress would come off on her wedding night. A man’s hands had usually been involved.
She tried not to dwell on it as she changed into her own clothes.
When Emma came out into the living room Hannah had a trash bag half full of garbage.
“You need help?” Emma offered.
“You wanna rest?” Han asked.
“No,” Emma shook her head. Her smile didn’t quite meet her eyes, but she hoped it was honest. “Apparently your nervous energy is catching.”
“Oh, sweetie.” Hannah set the plastic aside and crossed the living room to wrap her maternal arms around Emma. “It’s all right, the club is gonna keep you safe. Kellan is going to keep you safe.”
Emma couldn’t quite stop herself from snorting. “Yeah, right. He had to be bullied and manipulated into getting married to me.”
“Maybe,” Hannah said, sinking down to the now clean couch. “But he did marry you, Emma. And that means something. It means more to these guys than it means to most. It’s a title. It’s a promise.”
“How barbaric.” Emma couldn’t quite keep the sneer out of her voice.
Hannah laughed. “Yeah, a little. But it works for them.”
Emma flopped down next to Hannah, pulling a recently fluffed pillow into her lap. “Goodie. I’ve got criminals protecting me from other criminals.”
“Don’t be like that. You got some of that criminal in you, too.”
“What?”
Hannah smirked. “What was it you said? You’re still wearing mine?” She started to laugh.
Emma felt a strange sense of pride. “Yeah, well…”
“What did you do to give that boy a shiner that big?”
“I may have flipped him over my shoulder.”
“Tell me.”
So Emma did, she talked about that whole night, and Hannah listened. She gasped and giggled and before Emma knew it she was feeling better. She knew Hannah had pulled it out of her on purpose.
“Thanks.”
Hannah shrugged one pretty shoulder. “You needed to feel better. Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy the story.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t friendlier to you in high school.”
Hannah blew out a breath. “Emma, I didn’t make it easy for anyone to be friendly to me in high school. My own childhood issues were stacked pretty high. You might not have been nice, but you were never mean, and I can appreciate that more in hindsight.”
“You still wanan clean?”
“I’m a mother, I’m happy to clean any place that can stay that way for more than ten seconds.”
Emma laughed and grabbed a bag for herself. As a pair they walked through the living room, picking up beer cans in various states of emptiness. They didn’t need to talk, at least not at first. Rocco attempted to help by chewing up well-placed food remains.
“You sure you’re okay?” Hannah asked once they got out the broom and dustpan out.
“I will be.”
Hannah looked her over as if the evaluate her honesty. “Yeah, looks like maybe you will.”
The backdoor slid open and the men walked in. They looked like a miniature army, grim and determined. Her father was at the forefront, still walking of his own accord. With minimal help he took a seat in his old Lay-Z-Boy.
“We’ve talked.”
Emma leaned against the dining table. “All right.”
“You ain’t gonna like it.”
Emma’s pale brow shot up. “Because the past few days have been my favorite.”
“I’m sending you to Kellan’s place.”
Emma paused. “Wait, what?”
He looked her over. “You can’t stay here. Gabriel knows where I live. Him showing up here was nothing but a song and dance to prove that he could do anything at any time he wants. You staying here these past few days has been asking for trouble already. But he doesn’t know Kellan’s place. Him staying here was only temporary anyway. He was just helping me out. He can keep watch on you there.”
“What about your chemo? What about your pills? Dad, you can’t do it all yourself. Let us stay here.”
He shook his head once. “No. I’m gonna have Joe do all that. He’s better with schedules anyway.”
“That’s true,” Kellan offered.
Emma shook her head once. The butterfly pins still affixed to her braided crown glittered with the movement. She wanted to argue, but the fight was nearly out of her. “Fine. Whatever.”
“You serious?” Kellan snapped out. “You are going with this?”
“See, your new husband here thought you were going to argue with me for the next twenty minutes. For that matter, so did I. Had this whole plan for talking you around to my way of thinking and everything.”
“I’m stubborn. Haven’t got a clue where I got that from.” She stood up and walked over so she could pat a hand on his cheek. “Before Gabriel and Michael showed up you might have had to do that. But I’m a logical girl, I like all my facts in a row, and you’ve laid them out well enough.”
“You wanna hear it anyway?” Mac asked.
“No.” She shook her head. “No, I do not. It’s late and all I wanna do is sleep.”
“Shit,” Kellan snapped. He stormed out of the room and into what had until very recently been his bedroom. The door slammed shut in his wake. A very confused mutt tried to follow, but found his way blocked.
“I’ll go wrangle up Kellan.”
She thought about it for a moment. “I’m going to assume that you have some kinda plan for talking him around?”
“I do.”
It would have been really easy to let her father do it, but it felt wrong. She was the reason Kellan’s life was going down a path he hadn’t planned.
“No,” she finally said. “I’ll do it.”
The door wasn’t locked, but she knocked anyway.
“What?” he called from inside. He did not sound happy.
It was all the invitation she was going to receive. She opened the door and Rocco sprang inside ahead of her. He crashed against Kellan, who didn’t move. His wedding clothes, which had consisted of his normal clothes in a state of cleanliness, had been tossed to the ground. He had changed into a hoodie and darker jeans. At his feet was a bag, half full of his things.
“I’ll be ready to go in a minute.”
“All right.”
She gathered up a couple of things and replaced them in the boxes that she’d barely had a chance to go through. “It won’t take me very long either.”
“You don’t need to grab it all, just what you’ll need for a few days.”
“What do you mean?”
“You won’t be staying at my place for very long.”
“Wow, you sure know how to make a girl feel welcome.”
He snorted, but said nothing else. She could very well feel his anger, but Emma didn’t understand it. Yeah, she understood wanting personal space. Five years in dorm living and two more with roommates while she went for her degree in veterinary medicine had taught her to appreciate some privacy. This went beyond that. What had she done to make him so mad? He was nearly shaking as he piled his stuff into the canvas bag.
The sound of a zipper signaled he was ready. Kellan crossed his arms over his chest and waited. It was not a patient stance. He only moved to help her when she tried to pick up three boxes on her own. He stormed out to her Buick and chucked them unceremoniously into her backseat.
“Hey!” she snapped, following in the wake of his storm. “You can be mad at this situation all you want but don’t you dare take it out on my stuff, mister.”
When he whirled on her, she saw his hazel eyes flash in the darkness. “Then don’t manipulate things so you end up in my bed.”
She felt cold fire burn in her belly. “What?”
“I didn’t stutter, did I? You heard me. I get it, you liked me in high school, and you find yourself in this shit situation, so you are going to use it to your advantage, I get it. But I don’t like it. I didn’t want this marriage, and I sure as hell didn’t want you.”
His words hurt, another woman might have whimpered and cried, but Emma Ketchum was not just any woman. She planted her hands on her hips and took a wide stance. “Maybe you are mistaking me for one of your little biker bunnies again, but I haven’t manipulated anything.”
“Sure.”
That one word was filled with so much hate that she knew he wasn’t really mad at her, she just didn’t know what he was really made about, and she didn’t know him well enough to figure it out. So, like she always did when she felt lost, she fell back on science, and in the realm of science, when you had a question you asked it.
“Okay, what’s wrong?”
“I think I—”
“No, you fed me some anger fueled impassioned bull about you thinking I’m manipulating things. Now, while you thinking I am such an evil mastermind that was so obsessed with you that I stayed away for seven years, just waiting for a random criminal to come attack me in an apartment that wasn’t even in my name, just so my dad would come up with some plan to hitch us together so I could manipulate myself into your house is pretty neat, I didn’t.”
“I never said—”
“Oh no, you didn’t. You implied it with this angsty BS by showing some disrespect to my belongings and snapping at me for reasons that were beyond my control.” She stepped up to him and poked a single finger into his chest. “I’m not flattered by that.”
“I wasn’t trying to flatter you.”
“No, my theory is that you were working from some other platform. You are judging my current actions by someone else’s in your past. That’s fine, it's unfair but that’s human, it’s psychology 101. But you cross the line when you think you can manhandle my stuff. Got it?”
He waited a beat and then said, “Your eyes get all sparkly when you are nerd-angry.”
Her look was several degrees above freezing. “Thanks.”
He held up his hands and sighed. Then leaned against the car. “I’m sorry. I don’t like when people pull fast ones with me, and your dad just pulled a pisser.”
“He did, but he meant well.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.”
“Fair enough.” She leaned against the car next to him. “I’m not great at being anyone’s emotional punching bag, Kellan.”
“I get that. Hell, I like that.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. The anger sagged out of him. “I’ve got a temper.”
“Really?” She kept her voice desert dry.
He had the grace to look abashed. “Yeah, my dad…my dad had a hell of a temper. It was worse when he was drunk.”
Emma knew that, but she’d never heard him talk about it. She kept quiet, and still.
“I got used to looking for a swing, you know? If I got home from school and there were bottles all over, or my mom was doing that little mouse walk she did when she was scared, I knew. Hell, even when that didn’t happen I could tell. There’s just a feeling you get when you are in that kind of situation.”
“It’s called hyper-awareness,” she explained when he got quiet. “A lot of abused children develop it as a way of coping. They pick up on body signals that other people overlook because it keeps them safe.”
He nodded. “Yeah, yeah, that sounds about right. Hyper-awareness. Sounds like a superpower. Like Batman or something.”
She put her head on his shoulder. He didn’t return the gesture, but he didn’t move aware either. That was something. The evening grew colder around them.
“One day, I was fifteen or something. I thought I had gotten big enough to stand up to him, you know? I was so tired of just taking the beatings. I did it on purpose, got him mad. I can’t even remember what I did, but he came crashing into my room, and I stood up. I got this great swing on him. Knocked him back a whole foot.”
“Did you win?”
“No.” He laughed humorlessly. “I did not. He nearly put me in a hospital. My mom, she was a nurse once, did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“She was, she worked with the elderly, loved her job to begin with. But, well, my dad beat that out of her. He beat a lot out of her.” He dragged one hand through his hair, and let the arm hang around her as he continued. “But she comes in when he’s finished knocking me silly, she cleans me up and keeps me whole and I just ask her…I ask he why she’s still with him. And you know what she says to me?”
“What?”
“She tells me he loves her more than anyone. She’s got bruises all over her arms from where he’s shaken her and she tells me he loves her.” He spat to one side, as if the words had left a dirty taste in his mouth.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Yeah, me too. And that ain’t even the worst of it.”
“Do you wanna tell me?”
“Probably should.” He looked down and away. “You aren’t going to like it much.”
“Okay.”
“Nearly got married once before. Nice girl, waitress. Her name was Nina. We started living together, even talked about picking out a ring or something. It was cool. Then this one night I get a call, Dad’s dead. I dunno why I was surprised, but I was. I go to the hospital and I am all set to say my goodbyes and there is my mom, crying and sobbing. And I dunno why it set me off. Here I was, finally feeling free and she’s sobbing and scared and sad and acting like the best thing that ever happened to her is gone. I…fuck, I got so mad.”
He was looking at the ground. No, Emma decided, not at it. The ground was just a place for his eyes to rest while his mind wandered down the path of his memory towards whatever was haunting him.
“She starts yelling at me for not being as upset as she was. She grabs my shirt and shakes hard enough to rip the fabric. She starts cursing at me, cussing at me…and then she spit on my face. In all the time I had known her she’d never stood up to my dad that way. That just made me angrier. I slapped her. God, it didn’t even feel like me doing it. I just…I got so mad at her for everything, for everything she’d ever done that made me mad, and I slapped her.”
Her stomach felt cold. She couldn’t deny that it made her feel sick. When she looked over he was shaking. “Nina left me. I couldn’t blame her; I was disgusted with myself. I couldn’t stand up to my dad, but I could hit my mother. It was then that I knew I could never have a woman. I was just as bad as he was.”
“I see,” she whispered.
“So, I’ll take you to my place to keep you safe. But, Emma, I can’t be your husband. I can’t get close to you like that.”
She shook her head and moved so she was standing in front of him, putting herself in the way of his distant gaze. She waited until his eyes focused on her. “You did a shitty thing when you smacked your mother. But you know that, and you didn’t keep doing it.”
He tried to look away, but she put her hand on his cheek. She ran her hand over the stubble there. It had been clean-shaven when they kissed.
“Emma—”
“You didn’t beat her down. She was assaulting you and you responded with enough force to stop her. It’s not the same thing, it’s not the same thing at all.”
He wanted to believe her, she could see it.
“It’s late,” he said. “Let’s get you to my place.” He glanced over at her. “My place is a mess.”
“I once roomed at C-Dorm. I bet you I have seen worse.”
With that she climbed into her car, and he climbed onto his bike. It was easy to follow the lone figure of a man on his bike through the otherwise quiet town of Ashland. She appreciated the time alone in her car. Emma needed to think.
She had met plenty of people who were too hard on themselves. She saw one every time she looked in the mirror, but she was at least aware of those moments when she was just asking too much of her brain or her feelings. Kellan didn’t seem to be aware of it at all.
Yeah, he shouldn’t have done what he did, but she would have thought worse of him if he hadn’t realized it was wrong. If he had stood before her and told her the story about why he had hit his mom, and why it had been the tight course of action, she would have been uncomfortable, maybe even angry, but that was not what had happened.