Текст книги "Burn It Up"

Автор книги: Cara McKenna

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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 24 страниц)

Chapter 3

The old farmhouse was chilly, winter finding Abilene’s feet through the broad floorboards and her socks. She shuffled out of the guest bedroom around seven with Mercy strapped to her chest in the baby sling. She may have failed at breastfeeding, but the scoldy-mother brigade couldn’t fault her efforts on the wearing-your-infant front. What the benefits were meant to be, she couldn’t remember. It felt like there were a dozen differing ways to be a good mom, and a million ways to mess it up.

“A woman’s highest calling is to be a good wife and mother,” her father’s cool voice echoed. She shivered. He’d be horrified to see her now, but no matter—she had no wish to see him ever again.

Am I a good mother? I couldn’t breastfeed. But what was that shortcoming, really, compared to getting involved with Mercy’s father to begin with? I was a different person when we met. She’d grown up a lot since finding out she was pregnant. She might not have everything figured out—not remotely—but she had her priorities in order, at least.

And she was a good mother, besides. Maybe she was unmarried, maybe she had no clue what she was doing half the time, but she loved her daughter, and she showed that love. It was more than her father could claim to have done for her. And I’m protecting her. Abilene’s mama had never protected her—not from her father’s judgment and suffocating beliefs, and not from the perils and temptations of the larger world, after she’d run away from home.

The guest bathroom was cold, the lightbulb seeming grumpy as it flickered to life. She brushed her teeth, eyeing herself in the mirror. Eyeing Mercy, and only half comprehending how it was she was here.

Same as how everything happens to me—I screwed up.

At least this time, there was a gem to be found in the rubble of the fallout. She smoothed her baby’s soft hair and watched her tiny lashes flutter. It seemed unreal that someone as messed up as Abilene could have created something so perfect.

It hadn’t even been Abilene who’d told her ex about Mercy—it had been Casey’s older brother, Vince. Vince had done time with James, a year before Abilene had moved to Nevada.

Well, not moved to. Not exactly. Abilene tended more often to simply find herself in new places, more a matter of mishap than intention.

That was the story of her life, right there, she thought as she headed downstairs. Flight following mistake, following flight, following mistake, again and again and again. She’d screwed up, getting involved with her ex, and been swept here to the Churches’ ranch for her own safety. She entered the empty kitchen, finding coffee warming in the pot and a plate of muffins on the oversized trestle table. She helped herself to both, settling on the long wooden bench.

She wanted better for her daughter than all that aimless wandering. She wanted her to have dreams and to make plans, and to move through the world with intentional steps that led her toward her goals. To carry herself to the destinations she chose. She didn’t want her to be a brittle, helpless leaf, blown from place to place, propelled only by a need to escape, and never by desire.

Freedom—that was what she wanted for her daughter. Freedom of choice, and freedom from the guilt and shame and repression Abilene had grown up shackled by, and from the oppressive environment that had driven her to such extremes in the name of rebellion.

She glanced down and found muffin crumbs on Mercy’s head. Catching footsteps creaking from the direction of the den, she brushed them away.

“Casey?” She’d left him sleeping upright on the couch and found him in the exact same position when she’d crept through the den this morning.

He strolled in, rubbing his face. “Morning. Again. When did you two ditch me?”

“A few minutes before four, I think. You passed out. So did Mercy.”

“And you?” Casey asked, pulling a bowl from a cabinet. “You get any more sleep?”

“An hour or so.”

“I don’t know how you do it, man. I get less than six and I might as well be drunk.”

Abilene checked him out while he was distracted, fixing himself a bowl of cornflakes. Her libido had begun to return, if tentatively, and she was starting to take note of certain things for the first time in months.

Case in point, she was discovering all over again how much she loved Casey’s arms . . . and probably because that was the most of his skin she ever got to see. He wore button-ups and T-shirts, and while they fit nicely, they didn’t give much away. A fine pair of normal-guy biceps—lean and muscular, but not beefy like his brother’s or her ex’s. His forearms were just as nice, with blond hair and about half as many freckles as he’d had back in the summer. The hair on his head was a bit darker than when they’d met, more strawberry than blond now, but his beard had stayed the same—a brazen shade of red. Where he got that from, she couldn’t guess, nor those bright blue eyes. He looked nothing like his black-haired, hazel-eyed tower of an older brother. And that suited Abilene just fine.

Casey was a nice, normal-sized man, with better things to do, she imagined, than spend his spare time lifting weights.

What those things might be, however, she couldn’t guess. He was awfully cagey about what he’d done for a living before he’d returned to his hometown last August. But she could handle that. She had plenty of secrets of her own she didn’t plan on sharing.

Heck, Casey didn’t even know her real name.

There was something about him, though . . . something that set him apart from all her exes. It was in the way he stood and the way he talked. It was in the easy way he held himself, and in the old Chuck Taylors he wore when he wasn’t in motorcycle boots. He’d be thirty-four on April fifth, more than a decade her senior . . . though he believed she was a couple years older than she was.

He had more than ten years on her, yet in some ways Casey seemed like a teenager. Normally that wasn’t a plus for a woman, but Abilene’s own teenage years had been forfeited. She’d never experienced young love as she should have, never been with a guy and had it be about fun, about exploring like dumb, eager kids. She was always the student, with men. An innocent in need of teaching, or saving, or corrupting. She’d fantasized a thousand times about how sex with Casey would be, and not even in a horny way—not since her hormones had banished her sex drive, at least.

He’d be eager, she bet. Silly, and energetic, and shameless. Up for anything, and every emotion he felt would be right there on his face. She loved his voice, too—not deep like his brother’s, but soft, and sexy when he spoke low, late at night. What would he say, in bed? She swallowed, unable to guess but knowing it’d be brash. His ears and throat and cheeks would be bright pink, like they got when he was embarrassed. No guile, just proof that he wanted her. Lust bloomed at the thought, chased by a different heat—shame. The two were as married inside her as bees and their stingers, a product of the strict breed of Christianity she’d been raised in and formed by. The lust, she knew now, was wholly natural, a force from deep in her body. The shame was all in her head. Though knowing that didn’t keep her from feeling it.

Where Casey was concerned, though, fantasies were all she got. Good as he’d been to her, as both a boss and a friend, she knew it shouldn’t ever be more than that. She knew he’d been to prison, but for what crime, she wasn’t sure and frankly didn’t want to know. For her, it was enough to know that he’d done time. Enough to tell her that letting this crush grow any deeper would just be history repeating itself yet again. For her daughter’s sake, she had to pick with her head the next time she fell hard for somebody.

And though she and Casey weren’t meant to be, she welcomed the what-if daydreams. She’d missed being sexual these past months, and feeling the surge of power that came with it.

She might not be the most obvious sex object, but the whole petite-girl-with-big-eyes thing worked on some guys, and she’d always gotten a rush from seeing that glint in a man’s eye. The power she felt, feeling wanted like that . . .

Sure, she’d been led astray, but never all that unwillingly, she could admit.

“Refill?” Casey asked, tipping the coffeepot to his own mug.

“No, thanks. One’s probably plenty. Hoping I might steal a nap, if Mercy goes down at ten like she has been.”

“Good thinking.” He took a seat across from her, eyeing the baby. “You spill anything on her?”

“Not yet,” she fibbed, spreading butter on the second half of her muffin. You didn’t spill crumbs, she reasoned. You dropped them. No one told you crap like that about motherhood—how you’d accidentally drip oatmeal on your poor baby’s head, or sneeze on her, or otherwise undermine your dignity on an hourly basis.

“What are you up to today?” she asked.

“Meeting my brother and Duncan, before Benji’s opens,” Casey said. Duncan was his co-owner at the bar, her other boss. “To finalize plans.”

She knew what he meant—plans to do with what might happen once her ex was released tomorrow morning. After her shift tonight, Abilene would be hanging up her bar towel until further notice, and Vince would probably be arranging to meet with James, to take the temperature of the situation. She was afraid of the details. As long as Casey or Miah was nearby, she felt safe.

Though what am I really afraid of? she had to wonder. James’s anger, or everyone finding out the truth about me?

False names aside, she’d been two very different girls in her short life. One sweet and lost, one thoroughly ugly. Neither quite what they seemed to be.

If the truth came out, everything was at risk.

Duncan might want to fire her. The Churches might not be so keen to have Abilene staying under their roof. Casey might quit seeing her as a scared young mother in need of protection, and people could start wondering if maybe she shouldn’t be trusted with Mercy.

Because Abilene wasn’t what she appeared to be. She wasn’t even Abilene, technically. She wasn’t twenty-four, and while she might be in danger, she wasn’t a complete victim in any of this.

She wasn’t anywhere near as innocent as she seemed.

•   •   •

Casey got to Benji’s at eleven and let himself in through the front door.

He and Duncan were having a kitchen installed, its space cannibalized from the former stockroom and an adjoining corner of the bar. It was going to be a boon to the business, and hopefully keep the drinkers from vanishing each night at dinnertime, keep the place relevant once the Eclipse—the massive and controversial resort casino just resuming construction in the foothills—arrived, along with its attendant competition. Casey had waged an epic battle with his new partner over the future menu, and won—they’d be specializing in roadside-style barbecue. Nice and simple, tough to fuck up. Duncan probably wished they could serve kale and quinoa and artisanal mulch or whatever he’d eat if given his snooty druthers, but Casey had stood firm. Ribs, chops, steak. That was the recipe for success, fitting their existing clientele and the vibe of the joint.

“I want to choose the sides, then,” Duncan had insisted, cowing to the greater logic. “You can cook more than just meat on a grill. Even bikers and ranch hands eat vegetables, surely.”

“Course. Corn on the cob and, um . . . Are baked beans a vegetable?”

“I’m not rebranding this place ‘Benji’s Coronary Artery Disease Depot.’”

“We can argue about this later, darling.” And no doubt they would. They were mismatched, as partners—and indeed friends—went, but it worked, somehow. Casey and commitments were mismatched as well, but this place meant a lot to him. It was his own first watering hole, and a business that embodied the soul of Fortuity in every floorboard, every beam. If nobody stepped in, invested their money and time and energy in keeping it viable, it’d go the way of the local mining industry in no time, a quaint footnote in a struggling town’s bleak history.

Kitchen construction had kicked off a little more than a week ago, with a three-man crew working daily before the bar opened, six a.m. to two. The project was due to wrap in early March, just a few weeks away.

To judge by the racket, the contractors were busy sanding something this morning. As if to confirm, Duncan strode out from behind the temporary partition covered in dust. He spotted Casey and raised a hand.

Casey waited until Duncan took his ear protectors off, then called out, “No doubt you’ll be changing before you open this afternoon.”

“No doubt at all.” Duncan moved his safety goggles to the top of his head and glanced down at his beige-dusted clothes—jeans and a T-shirt, not his typical style. He looked naked in anything less than a suit. He was a British expat, a disillusioned former lawyer for the casino’s development company, and pretty much nothing about him made any sense whatsoever in Fortuity. Casey supposed love did that to people. Changed their priorities, changed their assumptions about who they were and what they wanted.

“You look like a normal person, man. What’re you doing back there anyhow, aside from getting in the way?”

“Micromanaging. It’s been my experience that people work quicker and do a better job with some annoying prick hovering over their every move. When’s your brother due?”

“Any minute. We should probably talk upstairs, away from the noise. Raina home?”

“Yes, but she’s with a client.” Duncan was dating the bar’s former owner, and Casey’s good friend, Raina. Her dad had been Benji Harper, the bar’s namesake. She made no more sense paired with Duncan than Fortuity itself did, but the sex had to be off the fucking wall, because the two of them seemed to be as tangled up as ever, five months in. They lived together in the apartment above the bar, where Raina also did tattooing.

Out front, the rumble of Vince’s arrival cut through the contractors’ din, then died as he killed his bike’s engine. Casey met him at the door.

Vince gave him a half hug around the neck with his beefy arm. “What’s up, motherfucker?”

“Nothing good,” Casey said, and locked up behind him.

Vince had inherited their dad’s enviable height and build along with his black hair, while Casey was five-eleven, much leaner, with their mom’s fair skin and hair. The latter was overdue for a trim. Any stranger seeing Casey standing beside Vince, with his clean shave and military-style haircut, would be surprised to learn that Casey and he were brothers. Hell, even Casey had his doubts about whether or not they shared a father. Unlike Vince, he didn’t look a thing like the shit who’d run out on them when they were little, and if that doubt ever got corroborated, he’d throw himself a fucking party. He didn’t want that deadbeat’s blood in his veins, didn’t want a thing to do with him. The feeling had been mutual, after all.

“Upstairs,” he said, nodding to the rear of the bar, where Duncan was waiting.

Vince nodded at Duncan. “Welch.”

“Grossier.”

The two were perfectly civil, maybe even secretly fond of each other, but aside from being tall and owning old BMW motorcycles, they had nothing in common. Duncan was fair, fussy, and high-strung and appreciated opera, while Vince was more into tattoos and fistfights. The three of them headed through the back and up the stairwell, into Raina and Duncan’s kitchen. A buzzing was coming from the adjoining room, telling them Raina was hard at work.

“So when’d you talk to him?” Casey asked his brother.

“Just this morning.”

“And?”

Vince pulled out a chair and sat, planting his forearms on the dining table. “And he’s a man of few words. And none of them were very encouraging.”

Casey swore and sat.

Duncan filled a teakettle, looking grave. “What precisely did he say?”

“He said that nothing I could say was going to stop him from seeing his kid. I mean, I doubt he’d hurt the baby. But his ex . . . ? I dunno. I’ve only ever known the guy in the company of men, and he was no teddy bear.”

“Violent?” Duncan asked.

“Fights, yeah. Which is just what you do on the inside, but he enjoyed ’em, same as me.”

“You’d never hurt Kim, though,” Casey said, meaning Vince’s girlfriend. “Or any woman. Or a kid.”

“Course not. And maybe Ware wouldn’t, either—prison’s not exactly the best place to get a handle on a guy. But we’re not taking any chances. Can’t discount female intuition, and the girl’s fucking terrified.”

“Did you tell him where Abilene’s staying?”

Vince shook his head. “But I had to say how I knew her—that she came to me after he’d given her my name, and that I’d helped her get a job here at the bar.”

“You tell him she doesn’t work here anymore? Last thing I need is him showing up and getting pushy.”

“I did, but I have no doubt he’ll come by, demanding to know where she’s at.”

“And what’s our answer to that question?” Duncan asked.

“None of his fucking business,” Casey said.

Vince shook his head. “We tell him she’s someplace safe, that the baby’s fine, and they’ve got support. But we don’t say where. Not until he proves he’s willing to approach the situation calmly. And Case, you’ve got to convince her to talk to him.”

“Personally I don’t want him anywhere near her. But I see what you mean.”

“Keeping her in hiding’s not exactly sustainable,” Duncan agreed. “Plus the longer we put off brokering some sort of meeting, the more upset he could get. We don’t need a frustrated ex-convict roughing up the customers.”

“Unless it’s me,” Vince said, smirking. He got excited about fights like a kid gunning for a trip to the waterpark.

Casey knew they were both right—Abilene had to face the guy sometime. “I’ll talk to her, but don’t hold your breath.” She’d been putting up a brave front as her ex’s release loomed closer, but he could sense the fear behind it.

“Has to happen. Even assholes deserve to meet their children,” Vince said, “until they prove otherwise.”

Casey felt his insides sour, thinking of their own dad. It burned him something nasty to know Mercy might have that kind of disappointment in store for her—a deadbeat, or maybe even worse, if Ware was the hothead Vince and Abilene had both made him out to be.

Duncan’s striped cat came strolling through, bashing itself bodily into Casey’s shins. He nudged it away. “Back off. I’m allergic to you.”

“Talk to her,” Duncan said, pouring steaming water into a cup and bobbing a tea bag. “It would be helpful for us to be able to tell this man that she’s willing to talk, in time, if that’s true.”

“Yeah, fine.”

“And I’ll make it a point to be a regular downstairs until he shows up,” Vince said.

Duncan nodded. “That sounds wise. I can’t imagine anyone would take me seriously as a bouncer.” He turned to Casey. “Is Abilene on tonight?”

“Yeah, her last shift. I told her I could handle it by myself, but she’s desperate for the money.”

Vince rubbed his chin like he wasn’t happy about this plan, but held his tongue.

“You can try to talk her out of it, but I don’t recommend it,” Casey said. “Plus the poor girl’s basically in witness protection as of tomorrow morning. Three C’s roomy but it’d still feel like a prison if you weren’t allowed to leave.”

“Make sure Miah talks to all his ranch hands again—they’re in the bar often enough, and we don’t need one of them running into Ware and spilling the beans.”

Casey nodded.

“Right,” Vince said, standing. “I’m supposed to be at Petroch for a half day. See you fuckers later.”

Duncan inclined his head and Casey said, “Bye.” As Vince thumped down the steps, he asked Duncan, “What are you up to now?”

“I’m trying to have a late lunch with Raina before I open, so I thought I might get the delights of sweeping and mopping and toilet scrubbing out of the way now.”

“Glamorous. Guess I’ll be on my way, then.”

They headed downstairs together and Casey snagged Raina’s motorcycle helmet off the coatrack. “Tell your better half I’m stealing this. Just for the night.”

“I doubt she’ll notice. She’s got two more appointments after lunch. I daresay no joyriding will be happening today.”

Not for you, Casey thought. But he intended to give Abilene everything she had coming to her, on her final night of freedom.