Ellie
I checked the time without being too obvious about it. I wanted Mom gone before Parker got back.
She knew it, too, which was why she kept finding excuses to hang around. I could have screamed, she frustrated me so badly.
“Hey, Isabella. Why don’t we watch one of your movies?” she asked.
“Why don’t we not?” I countered. “I mean, you know how long those movies are. And besides, we’ve been watching too much television lately. I thought the three of us could take a walk.”
“What if your friend comes back while we’re gone? What will you do then?”
I glared at her. “He’ll have to wait for us, won’t he? He’s a big boy. He can handle it.”
“Mama! Let’s watch Frozen, please? Pretty please?” My daughter got on her knees, hands folded in supplication.
“Who taught you how to do that?” I asked, only half amused at the way the two of them were pushing me around.
“I don’t know. TV.” She still knelt there, begging me.
“That’s my point.” I put her on her feet. “Too much TV.”
“One more movie won’t hurt. And we can sing to all the songs the way Isabella likes. Right, honey?” Oh, great. A sing-a-long, too. I felt a headache brewing before the movie had even started, and glared at my mother for using my daughter as a pawn.
“Fine. Put it on, sweetheart.” It was lunchtime. “I’ll make sandwiches.” I stood, looking down at my mother. “I assume you’ll want one, too.”
“I did buy the food,” she murmured, returning my glare.
I turned away, cursing her under my breath. A grown woman, and my mother treated me like a child. I should have known she would hang the groceries over my head, too. Like I should do anything she wanted because she had bought some food for my daughter and me.
It’s all about Isabella, I thought, taking a few deep breaths. She was sometimes the only thought that kept me sane. It was all for her. I could eat a little crow if it meant knowing she had more than enough food to eat until I started working again.
When would that be? I couldn’t stay home forever. God, the fact that it would drive me crazy alone was enough to convince me I needed to go back. I knew Mom would help as much as she could, and I had a feeling Parker would help, too. I didn’t want to be indebted to him, as much as I liked being with him, as crazy as he drove me, in every good and bad way possible.
I heard singing going on in the living room, and I left them to it while I made tuna sandwiches and heated soup. Funny how the sound of my mother singing with Isabella didn’t soothe me the way hearing Parker joke with her had.
I thought about him as I waited for the soup to simmer. The way he smirked when he knew what he was about to say would piss me off. In the moment, all I wanted to do was make him regret his attitude—afterward, though, it made me smile to myself. He was cocky as hell, but I liked it. He kept me on my toes.
And the way he touched me…I closed my eyes, sighing deeply as I almost felt his hands on me again. So firm and strong, but so skillful. He hadn’t climbed on top of me and thrusted madly away until he came, the way Connor had. He knew what he was doing. I knew it had to be because he’d been with so many women in his time. I couldn’t bring myself to hate the thought since that experience had led him to pleasure me. I wanted to send all the women flowers, in fact, though I knew I couldn’t afford that kind of florist bill. And he wouldn’t know who they all were, anyway, I thought tartly.
When I opened my eyes, the soup was boiling away. Just like my emotions. I pulled it from the heat, pouring it into bowls. I added a few ice cubes to Isabella’s just to be safe.
“Soup’s hot,” I said, serving it on TV trays. Isabella sat between Mom and me while we ate, and insisted on singing with a full mouth. I couldn’t wait for the stupid movie to be over, though I had a feeling Mom would find another reason to stay after Anna and Elsa found their happily ever after. I cringed at the thought.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. I cringed even harder.
“It’s Parker!” Isabella cried out, kicking her feet and trying to get up to answer.
“Sit still,” I ordered. “You have your tray in front of you, and you’ll spill the soup.” At least Mom didn’t try to answer the door. I got up, my heart heavy.
When I saw not only Parker but a woman with him, my heart sank even further. “Hi,” I said, holding the door for the two of them. Both carried two bags of food, and both looked stunned to see my mother sitting with her arms crossed.
“Mom, this is Parker. I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,” I said, turning to the woman who came in with him.
“I’m Candace. It’s nice to meet you,” she said, nodding to me, then to my mother. “I knew this lug couldn’t be trusted to get decent food, so I took him to the store.”
“That was very sweet of you,” I said, smiling with genuine relief. “But this is far too much.” I looked up at Parker, doing everything in my power to stay cool. “I told you my mother was already generous enough to bring groceries with her.”
“She did?” Candace elbowed Parker. “You’re just about the dumbest. How insulting does that look? Apologize to the lady.”
I almost laughed. Parker? Apologize? To a woman, let alone one he’d never met? Still, he looked down at her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult you.”
Who was this woman, and could I adopt her? She was amazing. Mom even looked slightly mollified, like she felt impressed in spite of herself. She wanted to hate him, to hate the woman he was with. But Candace seemed like a real sweetheart. I couldn’t imagine anybody hating her.
I showed her the way to the kitchen, then let Parker hide out with us while we unpacked.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shrugging. “I thought she would have left before now.”
“She wanted to get a look at you,” Candace said, winking at Parker.
I watched her without making it look like I was watching—at least, I hoped it didn’t look as though I was. She could have passed for forty, though the laugh lines around the eyes and her lined hands told me she was closer to my mom’s age. Yet she dressed youthfully, in tight jeans with knee-high boots, a baggy tank top, arms filled with bracelets. She had a great body for a woman her age, and her hair was beautifully cut and styled. Mom was more the sweater set type, and I rarely saw her wear her hair in anything but a ponytail. It was like the two of them could have grown up together, only one took up with the bad crowd while the other stayed home and studied.
Parker grimaced, taking an apple and sinking his teeth into it. “She can get all the looks at me she wants,” he said, shrugging. “I don’t care.”
“You’d better care,” I said, my voice low. “She’s likely to stay here all night if she decides she doesn’t like you. You think this place is cramped with just the three of us?”
He rolled his eyes. “Point taken.”
“Oh, she’ll like him. What mother wouldn’t like him?” Candace even went so far as to pinch his cheeks. He reddened, more in embarrassment than anger.
“Okay, you’re gonna have to knock that shit off,” he said. “I don’t care if you’re Ryder’s old lady.”
“Oh, Ryder? The club’s president?”
“That’s right,” Candace said, beaming with pride the way most women would if their husband were a CEO or president of a Fortune 500 company. “He leads the Inferno Hunters. They’re like my boys.”
“They have a good mama,” I said. “And I appreciate you going to the store with Parker. Otherwise, I don’t know what he would have come back with—list or no list.”
“He made sure to get you lots of wine,” Candace said, pulling two large bottles out of one of the bags.
I took them, grateful but guarded. I couldn’t drink too much of them at once. I didn’t want to go down that road again—I’d worked too hard to get away from it. “Thank you,” I said, smiling at him. He looked pleased, but didn’t want me to know. I left it at that.
“Parker! I colored you a picture!”
Parker shot me a look of what I thought might be terror.
“You’ve been summoned,” I said, my voice low and ominous.
“Come with me,” he said.
“No way. You wanna be around? You have to put up with my mom. She just wants to be sure I’m not making another terrible mistake. I trusted another man once. Know what I mean?”
He nodded. “Got it.” I watched him square his shoulders before marching out to the living room.
Candace snorted. “I’ve seen that boy ride into enemy territory without looking as scared as he did just then.”
“He doesn’t have anything to be scared of,” I said, chuckling.
“So you say. That’s the funny thing about men like him and my husband. They’re tough. Tougher than other men, you know? Hard. Life made them that way. They’re not afraid to fight, to get hurt, even shot. They would do anything for their brothers, the other members of the club,” she explained. “But when it comes to things like this, they’re all thumbs. They don’t know how to relate. They don’t want to do the wrong thing. They all have good hearts—really, no matter what they’d done, they’re good men inside. They just never figured out how to show it.”
I remembered the way he’d made Isabella laugh at the dinner table when he tried to steal one of her meatballs. “Yeah, I’ve seen a little bit of that.”
“Already?” Candace grinned. “He must like you more than I thought he did.”
I blushed and turned away, very concerned with the exact placement of cans in the cabinets. She laughed outright at my reaction. “Don’t let it worry you. Don’t be scared. It’s not all bad, being a biker’s old lady. Not bad at all, really.”
“I’m not his old lady.” I turned to her. “I don’t ever want to be anybody’s old lady. Not to insult you, there’s nothing wrong with it. But it’s not for me, because I’ve already been with a man who told me what to do and how to do it. I don’t want to go through that again. That’s what kills me about him. He’s impossible, controlling. Deciding he’s going to spend the night without asking me first, telling me he’s going to protect me without even asking how I feel about it.”
“And you love it, don’t you? Admit it.” She put a hand on my arm, one full of gentle understanding. The same understanding was written all over her face. “Honey, and I’m saying this as nicely as I can, if you’re drawn to men like that, maybe there’s just part of you that likes a powerful man.”
“Yes, but what if that powerful man hurts me?” Tears welled in my eyes, which I quickly brushed away in case Isabella wandered in.
“That’s the difference. Powerful men, strong men, real men? They don’t hurt women. This first man of yours, your ex, he sounds like a piece of shit. Not,” she added, holding up a hand when I looked surprised, “that he told me anything specific. He didn’t. He left your privacy.”
“Thank you for that,” I murmured.
“But the little he told me made my blood boil. You poor thing. No wonder it’s hard for you to trust. See, the man you married only pretended to be strong. He was really weak. Parker? He’s strong all the way through. He wouldn’t treat you that way. I believe that with all my heart.”
“You know him pretty well, then, huh?” I pulled out the wine, figuring we might as well have a glass together since she knew so much about me already. I found glasses in the cabinet, while Candace uncorked.
“Sure. I’ve known him since he was a kid. I had just started going with Ryder, my husband. Parker had just joined. He didn’t have an easy life growing up.”
“Yes, he told me about that—a little, anyway,” I said.
“So you see a kid like that and you think, he could go one of two ways. Either he’s the type who’s gonna hate women for the rest of his life because of the way his mother was, or he’s gonna be a good person who wants to protect women since he saw it wasn’t her fault she turned out that way.” Candace smiled like a proud mother. “Guess which one he is?”
“You say it wasn’t her fault?”
Candace shook her head. “Honey, I’ve never done drugs myself, but I’ve seen what they can do. They’ll take a perfectly smart, normal person with a good head on their shoulders and a good future and turn them into a monster. Like a person you wouldn’t even recognize if you passed them on the street. It’s a sin. And that person can’t be held accountable for their actions. Everything they do is about their addiction. I know she must have loved him—she never hurt him, never beat him, or so he tells me.”
“It didn’t sound that way when he talked about her,” I agreed. I took a sip of the cold, crisp wine, so glad for a little break from the insanity of the day.
“She was hooked, plain and simple. Poor woman. And he sees that, you know? He never held it against her. That’s how I know he has a good heart. He wouldn’t hurt you. If anything, he thinks about his mother when he thinks about you. The way men hurt her, I mean. It’s a real shame.”
“It is,” I mused. What had happened to me was probably nothing compared to what Parker’s mother went through. Pimps and johns and drug dealers—who knew what she had seen and heard and been forced to do?
Candace made quick work of the wine, then brushed her hands together with a satisfied smile. “Well, my job here is done. You and your girl have actual food, not a bunch of macaroni and cheese and Pop Tarts.”
I laughed. “I do like mac and cheese, though.”
“We got you some. Just not the ten boxes Parker wanted.”
I laughed, walking out to the living room with Candace. Mom’s face had an expression I didn’t think I’ve ever seen before. Like she couldn’t believe the way life turned out—sitting there, watching a muscle-bound biker going through her granddaughter’s coloring book. It was surreal, to be sure, but Mom’s expression added a level of humor.
“I guess I’d better go,” Candace said, smiling down at Isabella. “I’m glad I got to meet you, little girl. Your mama loves you very much.”
“I love her, too.” Isabella beamed. “Do you wanna color with us?”
“Oh, that is tempting,” Candace said, eyeing Parker with a grin that said more than words could, “but I have to leave. I have some things to take care of. You have fun, though. Make sure Parker stays inside the lines.” I could hear her laughter as she walked down the hall, away from the apartment.
Mom surprised me by standing. “I should go, too.”
“But, Grandma, the movie’s not over yet!” Isabella pouted.
“I know, but I have things to do at home. I’ve been here a long time.” She gestured for me to meet her in the hall, but turned before she left. “I’m glad to meet you, Parker.”
“Likewise,” he said, his face hiding whatever went on beneath it.
“I mean, I’m glad you’re here.”
Parker looked a little warmer after she said it. He smiled, nodding, then went back to Isabella’s book.
I closed the door behind me when I stepped outside.
“She adores him,” Mom said, shrugging. “What else can I say?”
“She really does, doesn’t she? There’s no accounting for what a child will think,” I said, shrugging.
“Do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Adore him?”
“I wouldn’t go nearly that far, Mom.”
She shrugged again. “Okay. I’m just making sure. I want you to take care of yourself. Guard yourself. I don’t want to see you get hurt. That’s all I care about.”
“Thank you.” I gave her a hug, then watched as she left. Just before walking through the main door, she turned back.
“Something to remember,” she said. “Isabella adored Connor, too.”