Eighteen
“You didn’t have to,” Shane protested as Emmie slid his brown bag lunch across the island.
“You say that every morning,” she said. “And every morning I tell you that I have to make the rest of our lunches and wouldn’t think of leaving you out.”
His smile in these situations was always warm, kind, and tinged with awkwardness. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“You’re not.” She smiled back, hoping to convey her genuine warmth.
Walsh’s half-brother was a sweetheart in every sense of the word. Kind, careful, always apologetic and respectful. If she was honest, Emmie had a difficult time imagining that they’d actually patched him into the club. She wished he’d learn to just take his lunch and not feel guilty about it.
“Ta,” he said, palming the bag.
“What is it today?” Walsh asked, moving up silently beside her.
“That leftover roast chicken we had, on sourdough.”
“Mustard?”
“The spicy kind.”
He flicked a small, pleased smile.
“I checked on your mom,” Emmie added, “and she’s still asleep.”
He nodded. “Good.”
Bea had been struggling with arthritis pain the last few weeks, and not sleeping. Several mornings, Emmie had come downstairs at six-thirty to find the house spotless and breakfast already in the making. Which of course meant Bea’s pain was even worse. “I can’t sleep,” she’d complained, dark eyes full of tears, small frame bent nearly double. Walsh had come up with some oxy last night, and clearly it had worked.
“You guys gonna be in the shop today?” Emmie asked.
“Yeah,” they said in unison.
It was the new normal, this morning routine. Emmie woke at ten till six, showered, dressed, and headed downstairs while Walsh showered and shaved. They all checked in with each other in the kitchen, before work. The family. She wanted to pinch herself most days because she couldn’t believe the good fortune of this gorgeous house, her beloved farm, and the man who’d given her a family.
“What are…” she started, and the doorbell rang.
A single whip crack of tension moved through all of them; she felt it in her stomach, saw it in their faces.
The doorbell never rang.
“Stay here with Em,” Walsh told Shane, and headed toward the front of the house.
Emmie rolled her eyes, gave him a five second head start, then followed.
“Emmie,” Shane said, hurrying in her wake.
Walsh stood in the open front door, posture openly hostile. Emmie pulled up short, shocked to see that kind of rigidity in him, and approached at a more cautious place, tiptoeing up to peek around his shoulder.
A man stood on the front porch, dark sweatshirt under his Lean Dogs cut, thick dark hair rumpled from a helmet. He had big, beautiful blue eyes, and they were better proof than a birth certificate. This was Walsh’s brother.
Walsh had to feel her pressed up behind him, but he ignored her for the moment. “Why are you at my house?” he asked the man on the porch. His normally flat voice was sharp at the edges with a coating of ice.
“I heard you had a posh place these days,” the brother answered. “I wanted to see it for myself.”
Shane joined them, stepping up on Walsh’s other side. “Fox.”
“Oh look. Little Shaney. Still letting King fight your battles for you?” It was a jab, sure, but it was delivered with such cool, calm, Walsh-like elegance that Fox came off seeming sinister, rather than annoying.
Shane exhaled loudly, but said nothing.
Fox’s eyes slid over and settled on Emmie. “I heard you got married, too.”
The tension was the stuff of not just knives, but meat cleavers. Emmie thought it was ridiculous, so she squeezed around Walsh and extended a hand to Fox. “Emmie,” she introduced. “Nice to meet the face behind the phone call that woke me up yesterday morning.”
His hand was cool and dry; he gave her one squeeze and then let go, his eyes searching across her face in a clinical way.
Emmie shivered – in a bad way. She was struck by his similarities to her husband, but where Walsh projected competence and quiet, this brother radiated understated threat.
As she pulled back, Walsh’s hand curled around her wrist, like he wanted to draw her back against him. “We’re heading into Dartmoor now,” he said, indicating Shane with a tilt of his head. “You can come back with us.”
A staredown ensued.
Finally, Fox said, “Okay.”
Emmie kept her sigh to herself. She had no idea what sort of bad blood ran between them, but it was thick and sticky. A story for another time, maybe when she had Walsh trapped in bed in the dark, and work wasn’t an excuse to avoid his emotions.
“Awesome,” she said. “Not that this little family reunion isn’t delightful, but can we move out of the doorway please? The horses need to eat.”
They all gave her nearly identical looks of mixed amusement and scrutiny, like they were trying to see inside her head.
“Oh yeah,” she muttered, stepping into her clogs and brushing past Fox to head down the steps. “You’re brothers all right.”
~*~
Ava was worried about her man. There could never be any secrets between them, not when they knew one another so completely; were attuned to every facial twitch and every passing mood. Ava didn’t want them to be any less entangled than they’d always been, but such a connection meant she picked up on little eddies of disquiet, his frowns and sighs like screaming alarms.
Today, she knew the root source of his disturbance. And unlike the trash service failing to pick up, or an unexpected rain shower ruining a nice ride, this particular bother had the ability to damage him. Emotionally. And that was always the deepest kind of hurt, the kind that lingered in the heart and mind.
She finished buckling Remy into the front seat of the double stroller and set off across the parking lot.
It was a quiet stroller, and the boys were too consumed with the wonder of the brilliant sunny day to be fussy, but still Mercy noticed them long before they reached the open doors of the shop.
It was nippy out, so he had his long hair tied up and stuffed under a black knit stocking cap, heavy Black Watch plaid flannel under his embroidered garage shirt. Big, blue collar, and nothing you’d want to run into in a dark alley.
Ava smiled. She loved him so damn much.
“Fillette,” he greeted, voice loud and cheerful, his grin stunning as he stepped out of the bay and into the sunlight. “You brought my boys.”
“And your lunch, if you have time to sit down with us a second.”
“Absolutely.” He kissed her, and then placed a hand on both the boys’ heads, his dark, dirty hands contrasting with the unblemished clean perfection of the babies. The tenderness in his touch, the total reverence, squeezed her heart every time.
“Mes fils,” he told them quietly, then looked at Ava again, dark eyes bright with happiness. In the true spirit of the song by the same name, he was a simple man, and he didn’t need anything extravagant. An unexpected lunch date with his little family left him ecstatic. “What’s to eat?”
Ava lifted the thermal tote she’d brought. “How about red beans and rice with a whole lotta andouille in it?”
He grinned.
They set up at the picnic table beside the shop, napkins threatening to flit away in the breeze. Ava unpacked the food: the promised red beans and rice with sausage, cornbread, steamed broccoli for a little something green. She’d already fed the boys, but Remy wanted to sit in Daddy’s lap and pick things off his paper plate.
Mercy forked up a bite of rice and then sent her a level look over it. “So what’s going on?”
Busted.
She sliced a small bite of andouille and shrugged. “Nothing. I wanted us to have lunch.”
“Right.”
No secrets. Deception just wasn’t a possibility.
“Your brother’s here today,” she said.
“Half-brother.”
“Yes, well, he’s here, and he’s technically your brother, at least partway,” she added when he frowned, “and you did try to kill him the last time he was here.”
“I don’t try to kill people, baby,” he said in a perfectly normal voice. He grinned. “But sometimes pretty girls get in the way and distract me.”
“Things ended on a good note, though,” she continued, “before he left for New Orleans. So things should be okay now, right?”
He made a face.
“Merc.”
“I haven’t killed the guy yet,” he said, exasperated.
Ava mopped at her beans with a bite of bread and switched tactics. “Imagine if you united and used your combined powers for good.”
That surprised him so much that he forgot to be ticked off. “What?” he asked, grin touching the corners of his lips.
“Take the Avengers,” she continued. “They’ve all got their special skillsets. The team needs each one of them. But think about it. When heavy lifting needs to be done, it’s Captain America and Thor, every time. They’re the heavy hitters. That could be you and Colin,” she said, aiming her fork at him. “With your superhuman strength, you could be an unstoppable force for good. Good for the club, obviously. No offense but I don’t see you saving the world anytime soon, baby.”
His brows lifted. “Quite the analogy.”
“Isn’t it though?”
“So who am I? Cap or Thor?”
She pretended to consider. “Well, neither of them tortures people for a living, so…”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
“Try to get along with your brother, for you own sake,” she urged. “You’ll be happier for it.”
He nodded and returned his attention to his food, one strong hand holding Remy firmly in place.
~*~
“It’s too crowded,” Michael said, arms folded as he stared through the window toward the clubhouse. If he hadn’t been Michael, and hadn’t looked as surly and scary as ever, Holly would have said he was pouting.
It was lunchtime, and though Holly had packed him a sandwich and chips to eat at the clubhouse with the guys when he was on break, he’d come here, to her office instead, out of sorts thanks to the additional members in town.
“It’s only four extra guys,” Holly said innocently, careful to keep her face neutral.
He glanced over at her, eyes sharp and pale with disapproval. “Four guys is enough to change the…” He made a grasping gesture with one hand.
“Dynamic?” she guessed.
He nodded.
“Well, I for one am glad you came to have lunch with me,” she said, attempting to draw him from the window and his foul mood. Her poor Michael; he was even more fucked up than she was. “Come sit down,” she encouraged, laying out her own lunch of salad with leftover chicken on top.
He sat, still anxious and tense.
“Tell me about the big party,” she said. “What’s that gonna be like?”
He shrugged and unwrapped his sandwich. “Crowded. Loud.” He shot her a pointed look. “Not exactly your scene, honey.”
A quick flutter of distress in her stomach. “I figured that. Do you…do you want me to stay home?”
“No,” he said immediately, emphatically. “I mean, if you want–”
“I want to be with you. Always.”
He nodded, but his expression didn’t change.
“You don’t like when there are visitors,” she said quietly.
“I don’t like the reason they’re here.”
She shivered.
~*~
Sam was just shutting down her computer that afternoon when Aidan appeared in her office door, sparking an instant grin from her, a slow stir of heat in her belly. He had the sleeves of his white thermal pushed up over his muscular forearms, a look that drove her more than a little nuts.
“Let’s go out tonight,” he suggested, and she took his hand and let him lead her from the office.
They got a window booth at a big chain restaurant with photos of the food on the plastic menus; had chips and salsa and fatty entrees over drinks, talking about their days. Aidan filled her in on the visiting members of the club, painting colorful verbal pictures of Candyman, Jinx, Fox, and Colin.
It was when they reached the parking lot that he became almost comically reticent. His breathing changed, he looked down at his boots, and his brows crimped together.
“Uh…” he started. “I’ve been thinking.”
“About?” she prompted. Her tone was mild, but she felt an inward grab. Worry. Good relationship things rarely came from men thinking.
“Maybe we should…why don’t we…”
Oh God.
“…go back to my place tonight?” he asked, giving her a look that was almost a wince.
Sam let out a deep breath. “Okay. Sure.”
As far as apartment complexes went, Aidan’s wasn’t one of the nicer ones. In fact, it was only one step up from a total dive.
The buildings were red brick, the windows cloudy and covered from the inside with gapped blinds, half-fallen curtains, a beach towel or two. Weeds grew up through the sidewalk and parking lot pavement; she could see that even in the dark, beneath the light of flickering lampposts. The cars pulled up to the curbs were ten, fifteen-years-old, dented and faded. Following the red flare of Aidan’s taillight ahead of her, Sam glanced through her windshield and said a silent thanks for her own circumstances. Yes, she was in her thirties and living with her mother – but she wasn’t living here.
Aidan came to help her out, once they were parked, his arm going around her waist and pulling her in flush to his side. Affection, she wondered, or protection? Either way, she was happy to lean against him as they headed up the concrete stairwell to his door.
He inserted the key in the lock and then paused, turning to her. It was hard to see him in the shadows, but he radiated uncertainty. “Baby,” he said on a deep breath, “I gotta warn you that it’s not pretty in there.”
“No offense, but I’m not expecting it to be,” she said with a soft laugh. “Bachelors don’t make good housekeepers.”
“Right.” He sighed. “Here goes then.” He turned the knob, pushed the door in, and clicked the lights on as they stepped over the threshold.
The smell closed around her first. Not a terrible smell – nothing rotten, nothing rancid or dead. Just a closed-up stale mustiness; the scent of dust, of loneliness. Then her eyes tracked over it all, this place Aidan called home.
A tiny living room led through to a kitchenette, a small window letting in artificial light above an old stainless sink. Worn furniture, mashed carpet, card table and chairs in the kitchen, and an outdated fridge Goodwill probably wouldn’t accept. Laundry baskets on the floor, beer cans on a side table next to the recliner. The only thing worth salvaging was the TV.
“We’ve got two bedrooms,” Aidan said. She knew he and Tango were roomies. “One bathroom. We do laundry down the street. When we think of it.” He touched her arm. “Come on, my room’s back here.”
Down a short hall, past the bathroom, a little white-walled box of room. Single bed, haphazardly pulled-up flannel covers, lumpy pillows. More laundry baskets on the floor. Small TV on a nightstand and an Xbox hooked up to it.
Sam looked at Aidan and found him watching her, face pained, hands in his pockets and shoulders tucked in shame.
“Aidan,” she said. “Why did you bring me here?”
“It sucks, doesn’t it?”
“No. That’s not what I mean at all.” She stepped close, reached up and laid her hands on the bristled planes of his jaw. “You wanted me to see your place. Why?”
He studied her a moment, and she saw the shields lower in his eyes, the honesty shining through. “I want you to know what you’re getting into,” he said. “I’m not worth a damn, and I want you to understand that, before you throw everything away on me.”
“Oh…” Sometimes, despite being a writer, there were no words for a situation. She stood up on her toes and kissed him instead.