I never got to sleep.
And when the sun was high enough in the sky, I got up, went to the bathroom and did my bathroom business.
That done, I pulled up the courage to lift my arms, and I stared at them in the mirror.
Four, livid purple bruises had formed on my inner biceps.
On each arm.
Four imprints of the pads of an angry man’s fingers.
Slowly, I turned and looked over my shoulder.
A deep purple bruise had risen in stark relief against the white of my skin on my shoulder blade.
I closed my eyes.
He’d marked me.
Buck.
My protector.
He’d marked me.
I forced the bruises from my mind, put my robe on over my nightgown and went to the kitchen.
I made coffee and avoided the Pop-Tarts.
I wasn’t certain Buck would be in the mood to cook breakfast, but first, if he was, I wasn’t fired up to upset him in any way, and second, I was far from hungry.
When the coffee was brewed, I poured myself a cup, and was standing at the window, looking out and considering putting on socks and a pair of sweatpants and going out there. We were in the foothills and it was late September. The heat was still on in the Valley. Up here, the days were warm, the nights and mornings chill.
Even so, if any time was deck time, that time was deck time.
Since I was staring out the window, I saw the sleek, shiny, British racing green Jaguar gliding up the drive.
Two questions sprang immediately to mind.
Who on earth?
And…
What now?
The house was silent, and the clock over the microwave (one of only two in the house, the other one on the DVD player, both had been flashing twelve until I set them a week ago), said it was going seven thirty. I figured the house would be quiet for a while and I figured its inhabitants needed their rest.
So my coffee cup and I went to the door.
I pulled it open and stood in it, watching a man of average height, built like a golfer, wearing a long-sleeved polo neck shirt and chinos, with black hair shot with silver, stomping to the door.
Oh dear.
I stood with a shoulder against the doorframe, pulling the door to closing me on the inside, but I could see him.
And he could see me.
“Can I help you?” I asked when he got close.
“This West Hardy’s place?” he asked back, coming to a halt outside the door, eyes narrowed, the entire line of his body communicating fury.
“May I ask who you are?”
“I’m the man who’s going to be pressing charges in about ten minutes when the sheriff gets here.”
Oh dear.
“Sorry?” I asked, buying time.
“If West Hardy and that hoodlum he calls a son are in there, you better wake their asses up. They’ll probably want to be dressed when they’re cuffed and taken to the station.”
My back went straight, and it did this because he’d called Gear a hoodlum.
Gear was not a hoodlum.
“Sorry?” I whispered, but it was so I wouldn’t shout and wake anyone.
“I’m telling you, you better get their asses up,” he advised, leaning in, nasty sliding in to keep the angry company on his face.
“Why would the police arrest West and Locke?”
“Interesting,” he muttered, crossing his arms and leaning back. “He doesn’t come home and brag to his bitch when he goes out and beats the shit out of a bunch of kids.”
Oh no.
He did not just call me a bitch.
This man, who was clearly the parent of a goddamned monster, did not just call Gear a hoodlum and me a bitch.
“Did you just call me a bitch?” I was still whispering.
“Isn’t that your lingo?” he asked sarcastically.
I pulled in breath.
Then I wrapped one hand tight around the edge of the door in an effort to force some of my anger into my fingers rather than releasing it by tossing my hot coffee in his face.
Once I’d done that, I spoke.
“I advise you to call the sheriff and tell him you were mistaken,” I said quietly.
He stared at me.
That was, he did before he grinned an unattractive grin.
“And why would I do that?”
“Because the bunch of kids you’re fired up to protect attempted to rape my sixteen-year-old girl. She came home with a swollen cheek, a fat lip, a bloody nose, her clothes and hair filled with dirt. And no underwear.”
I watched his face pale.
“Yes,” I whispered. “She did. I still have the clothes. I also have pictures. But I remember exactly what she looked like. I remember exactly how she felt when she was weeping in my arms on the bathroom floor. So now I see something interesting. I see your bunch of kids didn’t share that, did they?”
“I—” he started.
He’d said enough.
So I didn’t let him say any more.
I kept going.
“She said they’re at ASU. If they’re at ASU, then they’re hoping for a bright future. That future won’t be so bright, the sheriff gets here, finds out they tried to rape her. Three boys, three, beat her up and tried to rape her. The sheriff finds out about that, he sees the pictures I took, takes one look at her face, sees how small she is…dainty…I give him my girl’s clothes, that future gets a lot dimmer.”
He was now not pale.
He was ashen.
“So, you have a choice,” I informed him. “You can call the sheriff, call him off and accept the painful but swift and quiet punishment that West and Locke dealt last night. Or you can push this, and your boys will be behind bars right alongside West and Locke, but attempted rape with assault is worse than just assault. Especially when there’s no purpose behind it, no motivation a jury would understand, like a father seeing his daughter bleeding and dirty on a bathroom floor. And then their punishment will be far more painful, but it won’t be quiet, it won’t be swift.” I leaned in. “It’ll be very public, and it’ll be very, very long. Because, you see, after they get out once they serve their time, for the rest of their lives, they won’t only have a record, they’ll also be on a certain registry. And they will not ever escape that.”
He stared at me and didn’t move or speak.
When this lasted awhile, I offered, “Do you not know the number for the sheriff? I’m happy to get the Yellow Pages.”
His eyes flashed behind me, he paled even further, and then suddenly the door was no longer in my grip because it was being pulled wider.
I turned my head and saw Buck’s bloody t-shirt. Then they moved up, and I saw Buck’s angry face.
“You got a choice, Conley,” Buck growled. “And three seconds to make it. What’s it gonna be?”
The man, clearly called Conley, opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again.
“You can’t run around beating up kids,” he stated with more face-saving bravado than courage.
Buck stepped back, pulling me with him with his arm around my waist, and he slammed the door.
I stared at the door but couldn’t do that for very long because Buck curled me into him.
I tipped my head back, and my eyes caught his. He had one arm around me, and the other hand came up so he could run the backs of his raw, bloody knuckles along my jaw.
“Thanks, baby,” he whispered.
“Take your hands off me,” I whispered back, and his head twitched.
“Come again?”
“I said,” I pushed away from his arm and it fell, as did his hand, “take your hands off me.”
His eyes narrowed. “What the—?”
He didn’t finish because I shifted around him and marched to the steps to the landing.
I then marched to his bedroom.
I closed the door and kept marching to his bathroom. I closed that door too.
There, I slammed my coffee cup down on the vanity, bent over, opened the door under the sink and grabbed the cosmetics case I’d stowed down there.
The door flew open, Buck stormed in and stopped, scowling at me.
“What the fuck’s the matter with you?”
I didn’t pause in what I was doing. I had one of the vanity drawers open, the one with my makeup in it, such as it was. It was mostly dregs I was eking the last bits out of since I hadn’t been able to afford makeup in months, and I was shoving it into the bag.
“I’m leaving,” I announced, because I was.
I just didn’t know where I was going or how I’d get there.
“What?” he said softly, and my head jerked back so I could glare at him.
“Leaving,” I spat.
He shook his head and crossed his arms on his chest. “Clara, maybe it didn’t fuckin’ sink in, but I had a bad night, Gear had a bad night, and Tatie had a really fuckin’ bad night. I don’t need your shit right now.”
My…
Shit?
“My shit?” I whispered.
“Your shit,” he returned.
I dropped the makeup and case into the drawer and straightened.
“This isn’t shit, West.”
“Nope, it’s bullshit, Clara.”
“I don’t believe you,” I hissed.
“That makes two of us, babe, seein’ as I don’t believe you’re havin’ a fuckin’ tantrum for reasons fuckin’ unknown the morning after my daughter nearly got raped.”
So, Tatie had shared it hadn’t gone from calamitous to disastrous.
I was glad she’d felt free to share with her father.
But me?
“This isn’t a tantrum,” I whispered.
“That’s bullshit too.”
“You hurt me,” I reminded him.
His eyebrows went up. “What?”
“You…” I pointed at him then pointed at my chest, “hurt me.”
“Clara, for fuck’s—”
I whipped the tie on my robe open then I turned as I yanked it down my shoulders.
I twisted my neck to look at him and saw his eyes riveted to my bruise.
What I did not do was allow the anguished expression on his face to penetrate.
“You did that,” I stated, pulled my robe back up, turned to face him and tied the tie smartly, managing to do this with shaking hands. “You marked me,” I went on. “You did that. That isn’t the only bruise you gave me last night. One move, one second, nine bruises.”
As I spoke, his eyes were still where my shoulder used to be.
When I was done, they moved to mine.
Then he dropped his arms, but his hand came up as he got in my space, muttering, “Baby.”
He nearly touched my face, but I yanked it away and took a quick step back.
“Don’t touch me,” I hissed.
His hand dropped, and his gaze locked with mine.
“Clara, honey, come here,” he said softly.
“No, I’m packing and I’m leaving,” I replied.
“Toots, baby, come here,” he repeated.
“No. I’d like you to leave. I’d like to be gone before the kids wake up.”
That wasn’t true.
I wanted to see Tatie was all right and the same with Gear.
But I thought, for them…clean break.
They had their dad; they didn’t need me.
“You got a step to take, I’m tellin’ you to take it before I take it,” he told me.
I leaned forward and snapped, “I said no!”
Before I knew what he was about, he took that step and my head was between his big hands, tipped up to look at him.
He bent so his face was in mine. “They hurt my girl.”
Yes, they did.
And I hated that for all of them.
Then he hurt me.
I tried to yank my head from his hands, his fingers tightened, so I stopped trying, but my hands came up and my fingers curled around his wrists.
“I understand that and I’m sorry. I’m sorry for you and Locke and Tatiana. That doesn’t forgive what you did.”
“I wasn’t thinkin’ straight.”
“No, I agree. You probably weren’t. That doesn’t forgive what you did.”
“No one hurts my girl.”
“Unfortunately, last night, that wasn’t true. And, again, I’m sorry. Truly, truly I am. For you. For Locke. And especially for Tatie.” I tried again to pull at his hands, though I failed, I kept trying. “But you marked me, and I wasn’t the one who hurt her.”
“You were standin’ in my way.”
“Take your hands off me.”
His face got closer. “Baby, I woke up when I heard she got home, felt you get out of bed, decided to let you have a shot with her before I got in there because I was still angry at the way she took off. Heard you two in the bathroom, and you weren’t leaving it. So I had to take a beat because I thought she’d come home drunk again, but this time she’d been driving drunk and I needed that beat because I was getting angrier. Then I got a look at my little girl, and I was beyond pissed. And you were standin’ in my way.”
“West. Take…your hands…off me.”
“When I get like that, which, I promise you, darlin’, isn’t often, but it happens, you cannot stand in my way.”
“Thanks for the advice, but I won’t be around the next time you get like that. Now, I asked you to take your hands off me.”
He didn’t take his hands off me.
In fact, he put them on me more.
He did this by stepping fully into my space, one of his arms locking around my upper back, the other hand sliding in my hair, fisting and tugging gently. The whole time, his face stayed a breath away from mine.
“This is not better,” I informed him.
“You aren’t leaving,” he informed me.
“Sorry, but I am.”
His arm around my back got tighter, his hand in my hair tilted my head, and he bent his head so his face was in my neck.
Against my skin, he murmured, “I’m sorry I hurt you, baby.”
And he sounded sorry.
So, so sorry.
I closed my eyes as my heart squeezed, that despair in my belly shifted, cutting through me, reminding me how much I loved it when he was sweet and gentle, just as much as I hated it right in this moment. I forced my hands into the minimal space between us to push against his abs, but he didn’t budge.
“I wasn’t thinkin’, I was just feelin’,” he went on.
“West, let me go,” I whispered.
“I’m not lettin’ you go.”
“West, let me go.” I finished my words with a shove on his abs.
His middle rocked back then surged right where it was before.
He lifted his head and looked down at me. “Clara, baby, I’m not lettin’ you go. We’ll get past this. You just gotta learn not to stand in my way.”
Against my will, I felt my eyes get wet.
“Why?” I whispered. “Why won’t you just let me go?”
“You stake a claim, you stake it because you want what you’re claimin’. Then you keep hold, no matter what you gotta do to keep it. I claimed you and I’m keeping hold.”
“I’m not a piece of land, West,” I told him, lifting a hand to swipe angrily at the weak, stupid tears sliding down my face. “I’m a person. You can’t do that with a person.”
“Babe, you stood in that room out there and made a decision. You gave me you when you did. I accepted. I staked my claim. You can’t take that away.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
Okay, so maybe I was wrong about the whole “what your man says goes” rule in the Biker Babe Rulebook.
A book that seemed to have a lot more written in it than the biker one did.
“I’m mine to give or take as I please.”
“Maybe somewhere, in some other place, a place you’ve never lived, and you know it. A place where I don’t want to live.” His face got closer. “Not in here, not where we live.”
“I don’t want to live here anymore.”
And he was not wrong.
Neither was I.
I didn’t want to live where I was shunted from place to place, person to person, man to man with no will of my own.
“Like I said yesterday, Toots, you made that decision. You. No one forced you. And once you make the decision, with me, there’s no going back.”
“That’s crazy,” I whispered.
“That’s the choice you made.”
“I didn’t have all the information!” My voice was rising, and unfortunately, it was rising somewhat hysterically.
“Too late,” he replied.
“That’s crazy too!”
“Baby, keep your voice down. Tatie’s sleepin’,” he said softly.
“That’s crazy too,” I repeated on a whisper.
He grinned. “Yeah, it’s crazy. It’s fuckin’ nuts to a lotta people out there. But you, you get it. You get it was bad. And you get how you found good.”
Yes, I did get that.
But like he said, I also got the bad.
And in that moment, that was my focus.
So I shook my head. “Oh no, I don’t.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I didn’t think you did either. I thought it’d take you a while before we broke you in. But, darlin’, I heard what you said to Conley. I saw you open the door and position yourself in it, protecting your territory and puttin’ yourself between him and your people. I heard every fuckin’ word you said. And I knew when I listened, you got it. So now I know, you’re hurt and pissed I marked you. What you don’t know is, I’m pissed at myself for doin’ it. If I could take it back, I would. Bust my balls, break my back to erase those marks from you, but more, how you got ’em. It sucks, and huge, that I can’t. It also sucks, and huge, that someone touched my girl with the intent to do her even worse harm. And Clara, baby, you know that in my world, that means payback, instant, swift, painful. And you were standin’ in my way. Next time, you’ll know not to stand in my way.”
“So that’s it?” I asked.
He grinned and gave me a squeeze, his hand leaving my hair so he could wrap his arm around my waist. “Yep, that’s it.”
“So when you get angry about something else, I don’t stand in your way but somehow get in your way, do you get to put your hands on me?”
His grin died and his eyes narrowed.
“Babe,” he warned low.
“I’d like to know and think I’m entitled to that knowledge.”
“Shit isn’t jacked, like it was last night, you got nothin’ to fear from me.”
“You’re sure?”
His arms gave me a different kind of squeeze.
“That isn’t cool, Clara.”
That isn’t cool?
“I’m entitled to know, West.”
His face dipped close to mine and his eyes were suddenly angry.
“What you get when you get me is what Tatie got last night. And I’ll remind you, you’ve already had it. Someone hurt you, Clara, and I hunted his ass down and I beat the shit out of him. I beat him until he was down and I kept beating him until he was no longer moving. Anyone hurts you or tries to hurt you, that’s what they get. When you get me, you get my protection. I’m tellin’ you, and I said it so many goddamned times, it’s got to be in your fuckin’ brain by now, I wasn’t thinkin’ last night and you were standin’ in the way of me exacting retribution for my…fuckin’…daughter. I apologized, and I explained, and you need to let it sink in, babe, and you need to do that fast. You’ve seen me mad and you’ve made me mad, and you know, Toots, you fuckin’ know you got nothin’ to fear from me. Now don’t play this game. Not now. Not this mornin’. You aren’t good at games, babe, and doin’ it now, you’re only pissin’ me off.”
I pulled in my lower lip and bit it.
What I didn’t do was say anything more.
“You done bein’ a pain in the ass?” he asked.
I didn’t think I was being a pain in the ass.
I thought my reactions and my questions were perfectly justified.
Obviously, I needed to make a phone call to Minnie and ask her how I should have reacted.
I didn’t share this with Buck.
Instead I shared I was not done being a pain in the ass.
I did this by stating, “West, you beat up some kids.”
“Right, and how would you want that to go?” he bit out.
“We should have called the police,” I pointed out the obvious.
“One, Clara, they are not kids. They’re adults. Legally and otherwise. They’re old enough to know better, and just sayin’, even if they were goddamn twelve, anyone with a dick should be old enough to know better than to hurt a girl like that.”
Oh boy.
Now he was getting in there.
Because he was so, so right.
And he wasn’t done.
“Two, babe, I know how that would go down. You know how that would go down. You got her clothes and you got those pictures, but some asshole like Armitage gets her on the stand, he talks about her short skirt and how she was seen shitfaced drunk with her face made up too much just weeks ago, and suddenly, no matter what she says, a jury not of her peers thinks in their fucked-up heads she was askin’ for it. So jacked, somehow, they forget she should be able to wear what she wants and cake so much makeup on her face, it’s draggin’ on her skin, and it’s her choice and it don’t say dick. And it sure as fuck doesn’t say, ‘come and rape me.’”
Yes, he was getting in there.
Because he was so, so right.
“Three, woman, I don’t want my daughter to go through that. My estimation, she’d been through enough. She didn’t need to go to the hospital and have them swabbing for DNA and taking photos and cops askin’ her shit. And then the long haul after, bringin’ it up day in and day out, until, by a miracle, seein’ as she’s the daughter of a biker, and those boys got pedigree, she might find justice, but they tear her to shreds before she gets that. So she not only has to find a way to live with what they did to her, she’s gotta live with the memory of a justice system that doles that out to an innocent girl who was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time with the way wrong assholes.”
He shook his head and kept going.
“No, I did not want that for her. So I got justice for her. And I got no clue how a man like that might behave, considering how they’ve already done it. But I can hope the beatdown me and Gear delivered will make them think twice before they ever,” he put his face in mine, “ever do that to another girl.”
“Okay, Buck,” I whispered.
He pulled back a smidge, and was in such a state, one I had to admit he was absolutely entitled to, he carried on.
“Just so you got the full picture, Clara, it is my thought that if you let loose the fathers and brothers and husbands, and equal opportunity and all that shit, mothers and sisters and whoever of girls and women who face what my little girl did last night. Let them loose on the assholes who do it. I bet it’d happen a fuckuva lot less. So, if you asked me, what me and Gear did last night should happen to every fuckin’ one of them.”
If pressed, sometime before last night, and before what Esposito did to Tia, I might be able to come up with a suitable argument to that statement.
But only if pressed.
Buck kept going.
“So last night, what Tatie got was a good woman who looked after her and a father and brother who went out and took care of business. My baby girl faced what she faced last night and came home to safety. That’s what she got. All she got. And now we keep takin’ care of her and she gets to move on.”
“Okay, Buck,” I repeated in a whisper.
He studied me closely and did this awhile before his face relaxed and his arms gave me another squeeze, this one the good kind. At the same time, the tension ebbed out of his body.
Then he muttered, “Good.” He dipped his head, his mouth brushing mine and then he lifted it again and ordered, “Now get some socks on, we’re sittin’ on the deck, havin’ coffee and waitin’ ’til the kids get up for breakfast.”
And I said the only thing I could say at that juncture.
“Okay, Buck.”