Chapter 12

I feel like there’s something missing in my life, and I can’t figure out what. A person? A puppy? A burrito?

-Text from Kennedy to Evander

Evander

“You’re crushing on the girl?”

I would’ve hung up on my boss had he been on the phone.

Since he wasn’t on the phone, but on the radio, I could do nothing but turn the radio off. But to turn off the radio meant that I wouldn’t hear the rest of the boys talk about me, and that wasn’t gonna happen.

I couldn’t let them get the wrong idea about Kennedy and me.

So, to change the subject, I countered Travis’ question to me and shot one right back at him.

“So…I hear that you knocked a woman up.”

There was complete silence on the airwaves—not a single one of them said a word.

Not Pack. Not Gallagher. Not Anderson.

And sure as fuck not Travis.

It was likely that even more were listening in on the conversation, but the four main players that were previously speaking were no longer full of taunts.

Now, it was the boss in the hot seat, and they weren’t willing to say a word, that or they just knew something that I didn’t.

Either was a possibility.

“Over a beer, my friend, I’ll share that story with you.”

I snorted, lifted the mic up to my mouth, and said what needed to be said.

“You mean you let that woman’s demons become your own, and you chose to let your head rule where your heart should…am I correct?”

Travis didn’t say anything.

“Anyway, I’m picking Kennedy up from the hospital now, I gotta go.”

Travis was stupid.

He’d always let his past control his future, and obviously, a pregnant woman who he deeply cared about was one of those things that he denied himself.

Which, in turn, was why he was stupid.

He’d had a bad thing happen to him once. He’d done nothing wrong.

Yet, Allegra Levaux—the person in his past whom he couldn’t seem to get away from—ruined any relationship that he tried to have.

I’d just decided that maybe an intervention was in order when I pulled into the parking lot and saw Kennedy.

She wasn’t alone.

The arresting officer with my case, my brother, was hovering over her as she sat against the building, staring at her with concern.

I pulled the truck under the portico and threw it into park before storming over to where Kennedy was on the ground with her back leaning against the black glass of the hospital’s entrance. Her arms were around her upraised knees, and her face was buried in them.

Her brown hair was up just like it was this morning, but now it was askew, hanging off to the side of her head where it covered her left ear.

The only thing I could see was her right ear, and that was stained pink.

Her shoulders were shaking, and I could tell that she was crying—mostly by the sobs that I could hear ripping painfully from her chest.

“Kennedy!” I called out the moment I could see her. “Honey, what’s wrong?”

I pushed my brother aside and dropped down to my knees beside her.

The moment she’d heard my voice, though, she’d lifted her head.

When I was in front of her, she threw herself at me and buried her face into my neck.

Tonight … tonight, I’d tell her that she shouldn’t hug me in public. Tonight, I’d tell her that I couldn’t be what she needed me to be.

But for now, now I’d hold her. Now I’d give her the comfort that she needed. Now, I’d be what she needed me to be.

“Honey, what’s wrong?”

She sniffled loudly and then moaned.

“My sister was in an accident, and she’s in the ICU,” she said through her tears.

My brows furrowed.

“How’d that happen?” I asked her.

I wasn’t aware that having chemo was dangerous enough to put someone into the hospital, and I said as much.

“S-she never made it to the hospital. Apparently, last night, she had an accident on the tractor, and it tipped over on top of her. They d-don’t expect her to l-live,” she hiccupped.

My eyes closed as I heard the pain in her voice.

Oh, God. That was terrible.

Not to mention incredibly unlucky. First, cancer. Then she falls and gets crushed by her tractor? She had to be the unluckiest woman in the world.

I didn’t say those words aloud, though. She didn’t need to hear my inner thoughts, which were morbid at times.

“It wasn’t an accident,” she whispered into my ear.

At first, I wasn’t quite sure what she was speaking about, but then understanding dawned.

“Shit.”

I looked up at my brother who was still standing there being nosy.

“Go away.”

My brother narrowed his eyes.

“As soon as I make sure she’s okay.”

I grunted something at him, then turned back to Kennedy.

“Pretty girl,” I lifted my hand and smoothed it down the length of her ponytail.

It was soft. So freakin’ soft. I wanted to do nothing more than run my fingers through it for hours.

But I couldn’t.

I couldn’t give her the wrong impression. Couldn’t allow her to get to that point with me.

I knew she had feelings. I knew that she cared about me.

But people who cared about me always left. Mostly because they were forced to.

It started with my mom. She’d been the one true constant in my life…then she’d died. My sister? She’d been my best friend. But then I’d introduced her to some boys from my graduating class, and she’d started to get into drugs. Which my brother had then resented me for. He’d been my other best friend, but me leading my sister down the path of evil, despite me not intending to do it, had driven a wedge between us.

My sister had kicked the drugs, but I knew that she resented me as well seeing as she’d been indifferent to me ever since.

My brother, at least, tried to act like he cared…well, that is until he arrested me four years ago and watched while I was put into prison for something I didn’t do.

But having this crying woman in my arms was enough to make my entire heart feel like it was exploding from the inside out.

I wanted her.

I wanted her in my arms.

I wanted her under my skin.

I wanted her in my life.

Which meant that she wasn’t the only one having feelings. Feelings that I couldn’t afford to have for her.

Not if I wanted to make sure she was safe.

The people in this town had a hard on for me, and I wouldn’t subject her to that.

No way, no how.

“Let me take you home.”

She clung to me tighter when I went to pull away, and my heart felt so fuckin’ heavy that my breathing was choppy.

“Come on,” I urged, standing up.

When she still didn’t let go, I pulled her up into my arms and then walked around the driver’s side of the truck, ignoring the way my brother continued to watch since he suddenly turned into the nosiest person on the planet.

I got the door open, and I climbed up into the truck with Kennedy still in my arms, slamming the door once we were inside.

“I need you to sit in the seat so I can drive, honey.”

She nodded against my chest but still didn’t move.

So I did the only thing I could do, I put the truck into drive, moved out of the spot I was in and ignored my brother’s glare that clearly said he didn’t approve of what I was doing.

Whether it was driving with her still in my arms or having her in my arms in the first place, I didn’t know.

And to be honest, I just didn’t care.

Not one single fucking bit.

Once parked in the back of the lot, away from prying, unapproving eyes, I held her while she cried.

Her body was so small against mine.

It felt like she was a tiny thing.

Which, I guessed, she was.

She was much smaller than my sister’s five-foot-five height.

I’d say she was probably around five-foot-two, and weighed considerably less than the weight I bench pressed on a daily basis.

My arms practically wrapped around her twice, and goddammit, did she smell good.

Like fucking fruit…apples and something else I couldn’t quite place.

What hurt the most, though, was the way the sobs wracked her tiny frame. The way she shook in my arms, and felt like she would break at any second.

“You’re killing me. You’re killing me, and I don’t think I care,” I whispered into her hair.

Peaches. The other smell was peaches. It was coming from her hair, though, and not her skin.

She sniffled and pressed her nose even deeper.

“My sister’s going to die.”

I closed my eyes as her pain washed over me.

God, I didn’t know what to do or say to make her feel better.

At this point, though, I wasn’t sure there was anything I could do.

I wasn’t God. I couldn’t bring her sister back and magically heal her. I also couldn’t take away the pain.

I literally could do nothing, and I felt helpless.

Something that I told her.

“Just take me home,” she whispered.

I squeezed her tighter.

“Are you sure you want to go home?”

She nodded against my chest.

“Yes,” she exhaled shakily. “Darren said visiting hours are almost over, and tonight he wants to have just the kids there to say goodbye.”

I couldn’t argue with that.

But I also knew, from experience, that if the patient was terminally ill or dealing with life-threatening injuries, that they would waive the regular rules of the ICU if the patient’s prognosis was grim and it was likely that they would lose their battle imminently.

“I’m sorry, Kennedy.”

I practically heard her swallow.

“I’m so tired.”

I smoothed my hand down the back of her head, then back up again, coming to a rest just underneath her ponytail.

Her hair felt like silk in my hand.

“Scooch over, Kennedy.”

She squeezed her hands tight, almost as if she wasn’t going to let go, and then did.

That was when she realized the position we were in, and blushed.

Though, that might’ve been a trick of the light against her face that was already blotchy due to all the crying.

Whatever the reason, I ignored it and flipped the console up for her to move over a little easier.

“I have to stop by my place and get Gertie,” I said. “I dropped him off at home during lunch so I could come back for you, and he wouldn’t have to sit in the hot truck.”

She nodded her head.

“Okay.”

Then she crawled off my lap, very carefully I might add, giving me an unencumbered view of her ass with those tight jeans stretched across it as she moved to the passenger’s seat.

The moment she was in her seat, I looked away before she caught me and put the truck into drive.

“Do you want something to eat?”

Her sniffle broke my heart. “No, thank you.”

I drove in silence to my place, looking over at her periodically to make sure that she was okay.

Each time I did, she would turn her face up to me, giving me her eyes, and I felt some sort of pull that was practically begging me to touch her in some way.

I managed to hold back the urge to pull her hand into mine, but only just barely.

By the time we pulled into my driveway, I was a fucking mess of pent up aggression.

Before I got out, though, she halted my movement.

“Evander?” she whispered.

I looked at her. “Yeah?”

“I don’t want to go home.”

I looked at her, really looked at her, and gave her what she wanted.

“Your chickens fed? The dog?”

She nodded. “Fed everything before I left. They should be good until at least tomorrow morning.”

I got out of the truck and walked around to her side, opening the door for her.

She slid out, then stared at my yard.

“You know,” she said, looking at all the junk. “This really pisses me off. I had no clue that all this junk wasn’t yours. Otherwise I would’ve done something about this.”

I laughed humorlessly. “Nothing you could’ve done. The town’s set on not liking me. Hell, they barely tolerate the rest of ‘Hail Raisers,’ either.”

She started up the front walk, having to swerve off of it to miss a huge anvil that someone had dumped right in the middle of my walkway, and kept walking.

I pulled my keys out of my pocket and then stepped to the side as I opened the door to allow Gertie to come out.

He walked straight to his usual spot and did his business before following us right back inside.

Kennedy watched this all with a small smile on her face, and then walked into the room.

“This is beautiful,” she whispered the moment she stepped inside.

I looked at it from her point of view.

“Amazing, really,” she continued. “The chandelier doesn’t really seem like your style, though.”

I grinned. “I like old stuff. When I was building this house, I went to a few antique stores and old barn sales to make sure that I got authentic stuff. The wood from the house came from the old barn that used to reside right at the top of my driveway. That’s this,” I said referring to the wall.

She touched the wall where the faded red paint from over a hundred years of painting came from, and hummed.

“I watch a lot of HGTV. Jo and Chip would’ve gone bonkers over this.”

I snorted.

“They might have, yes.”

I touched the saw marks from the blade that was used to cut the piece of cedar, then showed her. “This is some of the best wood that you’ll ever find,” I told her. “Do you see this?” I indicated the marks, and she nodded. “Saw blade marks. And this,” I pointed to a knot. “I fucking love little details like this.”

She wandered around the room, and I headed to the bedroom. “Make yourself at home. I’m going to go shower and change.”

She made some noncommittal sound, and I walked down the hall that led to my bedroom, then started stripping. My boots were the first thing to get kicked off, followed by the jeans, my underwear, and finally my shirt.

The moment I walked into my bathroom, I flipped on the faucets for the shower…and nothing.

Not a single drip of water.

I narrowed my eyes.

Then a stray thought occurred to me.

I’d seen the water meter guy today when I’d been repossessing his car.

He wouldn’t…would he?

I growled and walked to the wall where my towel hung, then slung it around my hips as I stalked out of my bedroom and down the hallway.

“Hey, does the water work in the sink?” I called out, stopping in the middle of the living room.

I heard something clink—the faucets being turned—and then a muttered, “No.”

I walked back to my room and bent over, fishing my phone out of my pocket.

The moment I had it in my hand, I searched through my contacts for the water company, and pressed ‘Go.’

The phone rang twice before a harried sounding woman answered it.

“Hostel Water Company,” she sang.

“My water’s off,” I said to her. “I want to know why.”

“What’s your name?” I heard her shuffling some papers on her desk.

I rattled off my name and address and waited for the clicking to start, but it never did.

“I’m sorry but since it’s so close to five, I won’t be able to do anything about your water being off until the day after tomorrow.”

I narrowed my eyes, then lifted my wrist to glance at my watch.

“It’s four thirty. I have plenty of time until five.”

She murmured something, and then held her hand over the phone, before saying something more.

It took a minute for her to get back on the line, and when she did she said, “Can I have your name again?”

I gave her my name, then waited some more for her to type my information into the computer.

“I’m showing here that there was a late payment,” she lied.

Lied through her fuckin’ teeth.

“I can pull up a copy of my receipt,” I said coolly. “But I came up there and paid to get the water turned on. Paid a deposit, and then prepaid a few months, too. Trust me when I say that my payment wasn’t late. I can even tell you who I spoke to.”

Frustration and anger were clear in my tone, and that was apparently leaching through the phone line.

She didn’t reply for long moments. “I’m showing that your check bounced.”

I growled. “Lady, I didn’t pay in check form. I paid cash.”

Some other muttering, and then shuffling of more papers before, “Oh, I see. Well, then I’m not sure why your water was switched off but, unfortunately, all technicians are out on other service calls. They can’t…”

“Let me tell you something,” I said. “If you don’t come up here right now and turn it back on, I’ll come down there and file a complaint on your ass, as well as that little fucker’s ass who thought he’d perform his own personal act of justice by turning my water off after I repossessed his car because he was late on his payments. And if I have to go that far, I might as well go ahead and file harassment charges against y’all as well.”

There was a long pause on her end before she said, “I’ll see if I can get someone out there before six pm.”

I grunted at her. “You do that.”

I hung up my phone and tossed it angrily on the bed before turning around, only to stop when I saw Kennedy there, staring.

“They turned off your water?”

I grunted. “Yeah, you hear the rest?”

She nodded.

“That happen often?” she asked.

I shrugged. “People are assholes and retaliate. Most of the time, it’s not that big of a deal. The cars I repossess are sometimes for banks, sometimes for bail bondsmen who didn’t get their money back because the guy didn’t show for his court hearing. I even helped the local bondsman repossess a house before I went to jail.”

She hummed. “That seems like a pain in the ass. Why would you ever put your house up as collateral?”

I shook my head. “This case was more complex than that. Apparently, a man bailed his sister out who’d been forging checks. But what he didn’t know was that she’d been doing it for so long that he probably shouldn’t have bothered bailing her out. Chick was headed straight to jail, and the brother didn’t even know it. So he bails her out, puts his house up as collateral, and the moment she’s out, she runs. Doesn’t show up for the court appearance. Doesn’t even say thanks to the brother. Just up and leaves and never comes back.”

She moaned. “That’s so terrible.”

I agreed.

“Do you feel bad when you do this?”

The question, though innocent, was like a sour spot in my stomach.

“I don’t enjoy doing anything of that nature,” I offered. “But someone has to do it, and it pays good. I don’t enjoy being the bad guy.”

She nodded. “Do you want to take a shower at my place?”

I was about to reply with an affirmative when someone knocked on the door.

I walked that way, not stopping until I had the door open wide.

“What?” I asked.

“I just had a call from the woman at the water company saying that you were harassing her.”

I growled. “They turned my water off. You can say that is harassment, but it’s not. I called to see why, since I paid this month and next month’s payments, not to mention a fucking whack of a deposit, in cash mind you. So no, I wasn’t harassing her. I was trying to figure out why the fuck my water is off when I’m paid up.”

He stared at me, I guessed to gauge my seriousness in the matter, and then went for the mic on his shoulder.

“Call the water company back and tell them that they have less than thirty minutes to get the water to this place back on, or this’ll become a police matter,” Walter said into the mic.

The dispatcher at the other end said something to affirm that she would and then he stared at me almost as if he were waiting for something more.

Something more that I wasn’t willing to give him.

I knew what he wanted to ask. Was I okay? Would I ever forgive him? Would he be okay with what had transpired while I was gone?

But some movement at my back had him glancing behind me, and then he muttered something short and abrasive before saying his goodbyes.

“Who was that?” Kennedy asked as my brother made his way down the driveway.

I turned to find her standing there, surrounded by my shit, in my fuckin’ house, and felt my belly get tight at the pleasure of having her there.

“My brother,” I said. “He’s hoping I’ll forgive him.”

Her brows furrowed. “What did he do that he needs to be forgiven for?”

I shrugged, but resigned myself to telling her the whole truth.

“My brother was the arresting officer on the charges that were thrown at me,” I said. “And while I was in prison, he shacked up with my ex-girlfriend and got married. Then divorced her within a year.”

Her mouth fell open.

“Your brother did that?” She pursed her lips. “He doesn’t look like you.”

I grunted. “Different moms.”

“Oh,” she looked down and her eyes widened.

I couldn’t help the way my cock was getting hard. Having her in my house was doing things to me that I hadn’t felt for another woman in a very long time.

She ignored it, though, so I did, too.

“It wasn’t that he got together with my ex. It was that he did it within a month of me being put in jail that pissed me off. He didn’t even wait for the grass to grow back where I used to park my truck in her yard before he made his move.”

She winced.

“That’s terrible,” she admitted. “I don’t even know what to say.”

I shrugged. “I don’t either.”

Then I walked to my bedroom. “To answer your question, yes, I’d love to take a shower at your place.”

And that’s what I did.

Two hours later, we were back at my place, and she was sitting on my couch with a glass of wine in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other.

“I just don’t know why she would’ve been on the tractor…”

She continued to talk, and I continued to listen, but what she was saying sounded just as suspicious to me as it did to her with the way she was describing it.

“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said. “To be honest…maybe she did it knowing that she was going to hurt herself. Maybe she didn’t want to face cancer. Maybe it genuinely was an accident. Maybe he had a part in it. I don’t think we’ll ever know unless you can get your sister to tell you and that doesn’t sound like something she can do at this point.”

She moaned and took a bite of her pizza, tearing it viciously with her teeth.

“Fuck.”

She looked up at that muttered curse that blasted from my lips and raised her brows at me in silent question.

“Nothing,” I muttered, shifting on the kitchen chair. “You want another piece?”

She picked up the last piece that was in the box and set it carefully on her plate, eyeing my hands as if I’d grab it from her.

“I’m not going to take it from you,” I muttered to her. “Done with the ranch?”

She nodded, taking another bite of her pizza.

I stood and gathered up my trash, as well as the pizza box and ranch, before putting it all where it belonged—the pizza box on the back porch, the trash in the trashcan, and the ranch in the fridge.

By the time I was done, she was already working on her last bite, but she was watching me as I moved around the kitchen.

“What?” I asked, leaning against the counter and crossing my legs to hide my discomfort down below.

Her mouth turned up slightly on the edge, and I saw that she had something green between her teeth.

“You have something in between your teeth,” I told her. “Right here.”

I gestured to the spot with my finger, and she reached forward and removed it before saying, “Well, since you were so nice, I think I might need to tell you that you have a ton of food in your beard.”

I grinned. “How long has it been there?”

I didn’t bother to lift my hand to remove it. I had Cinna Stix from Dominos that I was about to devour. It would be counterproductive to wipe my face clean at this juncture when I was about to stuff it full again.

“You’re not going to get it even after I told you?” she asked with incredulity.

I shrugged. “Why bother?”

Then I showed her why when I reached for the box of Cinna Stix, ripped open the plastic covering on the icing, and then dunked the stick into the icing, coating it three quarters of the way up with the ooey, gooey goodness.

“You have a bottomless pit for a stomach,” she pointed out as she started to lick her fingers clean.

I eyed her.

“I was in jail for four years. I was told what to eat. When to eat. How much I was allowed to eat. And that only had to do with eating. Don’t even get me started on the sleeping shit.”

Before she could reply, though, the windows started to rattle with the sound of an oncoming storm.

“Oh, no,” she said. “I hate storms.”

My brows furrowed.

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Scary, I guess.”

She was lying, but there was no reason for me to press the issue. That would only solidify the ‘I care’ feeling she was likely already getting from me, and I didn’t need that.

She didn’t need it either.