The Beloved, page 33
As she smiled back at him, she…
Ran the hell out of things to say. Damn it, she really could have used a game plan for this. All of that Resolve2Evolve stuff, about expressing her truth (she was so glad he was okay), claiming her space (she was not going to be embarrassed for coming to see him), and being confident (she was staring at his bare, tattooed chest, and that was not the kind of confidence that seemed appropriate in this situation), did not appear to be helping her much.
What she really needed was practical advice. Like how not to say something stupid about being scared of surgery to a patient with a hole in their liver.
Or whatever was wrong with him.
God, why did she and Nalla have to fall out? Nalla always gave great advice—
“You could sit down,” L.W. said as he pointed to the comfy chair in the corner. “And keep me company. Until they come to get me. If you want. Won’t be much longer. Only about twenty minutes or so.”
Bitty started to smile. Maybe she wasn’t doing as badly as she thought she was.
“I’ll do that,” she murmured as she went over and sat down. “I’m happy to help take your mind off things.”
Those eyes grew hooded as he stared across at her. “Oh, you do that. Always.”
* * *
As Nalla stepped out of Nate’s log cabin, she glanced around at the snow-covered landscape. There was a set of tire tracks into the property and then back out again, and footprints around the entry, but other than that, nothing was disturbed, and she scented nothing.
Well, nothing that smelled like baby powder and sweaty death. She did catch a whiff of burned something or another. Not a chimney, but something else bonfire-ish. Which wasn’t dangerous.
Just the kind of thing that made her nose wrinkle.
Walking forward, she made like she had somewhere to go. And she did. Kind of.
“Fuck,” she muttered as she stopped and looked up at the sky.
There were no stars out, the sky dense with clouds. More snow? Sure, why not—
Holy hell, the center of her chest hurt, and those eggs had been a really bad idea. Putting her hand on her stomach, she wondered whether she was going to throw up now or wait until she was off his land. Spoiled for choice on that one.
Closing her eyes, she told herself to get a grip. She wasn’t getting a divorce, for fuck’s sake. She had been on two dates—not even, really—with a male she was powerfully attracted to, who had a very bad past, through no fault of his own, and who had his mind scrambled at the moment. If she couldn’t keep herself together just because they hadn’t parted with a declaration of eternal love? Then she needed counseling.
Except maybe she should have stayed? But he’d seemed so stiff and uncomfortable. And there wasn’t another room to go into, other than the bath.
She glanced over her shoulder. Should she go back and try to talk to him?
If she could just find the right words…
Crap, maybe Bitty was right, and she really did need to work on herself. What had that tagline been? Resolve2Evolve? She could use a little evolution at the moment, thank you very much.
As she pictured herself going back to Luchas House and pretending Everything Was Just Great with the staff, she really wished that she could text her best friend to meet up at their real home. After two pints of ice cream and some ancient The Office reruns together, probably she wouldn’t feel like her life was over.
She missed Bitty. A lot. And the fact that she couldn’t call the female and ask for advice about Nate really made Nalla feel like a shithead. Why had she thought she’d had all the answers? Who cared about some kind of social media program? Here Nalla herself was, standing in the snow out in the cold, while portions of a conversation she was never going to have with a male she really cared about were circling like vultures over the dead bodies of her previous sense of optimism and excitement.
Like she had any better answers for life’s problems than that guru…?
The sound of the cabin’s door opening behind her was a surprise, and as she turned around—
Nate was standing barefoot on the cabin’s stoop, and before she could say anything, he started striding toward her, through the snow.
“Oh, my God, your feet, you’ll get frostbite—”
“I’m sorry,” he said as he walked right up and put his arms around her.
There wasn’t even a hesitation on Nalla’s part. She grabbed on to his shoulders and held on tight.
“You don’t have to explain,” she said roughly. “This… is all I need right now.”
Closing her eyes, she turned her head so that her ear was over his heart. And as she listened to the steady beat, tears came, but she kept them to herself. Mostly.
Nate pulled back and cupped her face in his broad palms. “I want to see you again. Whenever you’re up for it. Nothing’s changed on my end.”
As his thumbs brushed her cheeks, she knew she was going to remember how he looked in this moment for the rest of her life, so vital, so beautiful in the darkness… a mystery she didn’t have to solve to accept. To love.
“Me, too,” she vowed. “This is a start, not an end.”
“I’m gonna be honest, I really have no idea what I’m doing.”
She laughed. “I’m in the woods, too. So we can be lost together, okay?”
“Together.”
The smile that came over his face made her feel like the sky was full of twinkling stars, and all of them were shining just for the pair of them—and that was true, on the other side of the dampening cloud cover.
Which, just like an awkward moment between two people at the start of a relationship, would pass.
And then Nate grew serious. “I’m promising you, right now, that I won’t let anything come between us. Not even myself, okay? I haven’t wanted to confront my shit, because I haven’t needed to—but my past is not going to cost us a future. Deal?”
“Deal.” She lifted her lips. “As long as we can kiss on it.”
It was a request she did not have to make twice, and when they finally came up for air, she touched the side of his face and thought about how much she really didn’t want to leave.
“You could stay a little longer,” he murmured. “Plus… oh, my God, I have cold feet—and not in a relationship way. So I really might need some help getting back inside.”
“Well, what do you know… there’s no place I’d rather be. And no one I’d rather be with.”
On that note, she tucked herself under one of his arms and hitched a hold around his waist. As they started back for the cabin, he kissed the top of her head.
“At least it’s only a couple of yards and you don’t have to carry me all the way this time.”
She glanced up at him. “But I could if I had to.”
“And I’d do the same for you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
The following evening, after the sun went down and it was safe to go outside, Nate walked Nalla to the front door of his cabin. This time, they were both wearing appropriate footwear, and they stepped out together, him letting her go first, her waiting for him on the other side. As he shut things behind them, he was sporting the kind of half smile a male did when he’d thoroughly satisfied his female.
“You sure you want me back again tonight?” she said to him.
Hell yeah, he thought.
“Never surer. And the sooner the better.”
“Then I’m going to go home and get some clothes.”
“Perfect.”
Unable to resist, Nate pulled her into him and kissed her properly. And then, before he couldn’t let her leave without getting some more time with her in his bed, he stepped back—and reminded his sex drive that she wouldn’t be gone long.
“I’ll be here.” Probably waiting for her on the porch like a dog. “And there’s no rush.”
“I’ll be back.”
“Okay, Terminator.”
He watched her close her eyes to concentrate, and just as she disappeared, he whispered, “I love you.”
When he turned away, it was a lot easier going back underground, knowing that he wasn’t going to be alone for long—and when he hit the lower level and he heard his burner phone start ringing, he imagined it was the Brotherhood calling to tell him it was okay, he could go back out into the field.
Except of course that wasn’t it. For one, they didn’t officially have that number and the phone they had given him hadn’t been charged in how long? For another, he might be making all kinds of changes personally, but damned if they knew about it.
Grabbing the burner from his jacket, he hovered his finger over the screen, and debated letting things go to voicemail. But Uncle had already left him two messages he’d ignored, and considering the organized crime shit was the only job he had now?
“Yeah,” he answered. And he already knew what it was about.
He’d promised to give the guy a body so that Mickey’s mom could have something to bury. Too bad he didn’t feel like killing anyone right now.
See? He was totally improving his self.
There was a series of beeps as the encrypted line bounced all over the world. Then a tone came across the connection that made it impossible to record the voice on the other end of the line. After the Mission Impossible crap was done cycling through, Uncle was in a characteristically cheerful and easygoing mood.
j/k.
“Where the fuck have you been,” the man said.
“Nowhere.”
“So why didn’t you answer my calls.”
“Because I’m not your fucking relative.” Nate switched to his other ear, and pinned the cell in place with his shoulder. Like he was going to need both his hands to strangle the guy. “Do you have an assignment for me. Or not.”
The silence was supposed to be threatening. But when Nate didn’t press for an answer, Uncle started talking again.
“We’re sending you pictures from Bathe’s security footage.”
“Name and address.”
“Don’t have it. He’s weird-looking, though, and my boys say they’ve seen him downtown on the streets.”
“You don’t have any kind of name at all?”
“You’ll find him—”
“Hold up. You want me to do a job and you’re giving me nothing but images to go on? What do you think Caldwell is, a small town?”
“That’s not my problem. You murdered my nephew—”
“Who was a deadweight you hated and came to kill me on my own property.”
“—in cold blood. You owe me this. You’re gonna find the bastard I send you and put him to sleep, and then we’re even. You pass this up or fail? I’m gonna settle our score the way my family takes care of things like this.”
The connection went dead.
“Well, aren’t you a fucking tough guy,” Nate muttered as he put the damn phone down on the counter.
Instead of doing the dishes from his and Nalla’s second round of eggs and bacon, he went over to his gun safe, leaned down for the retina scan, and opened up the fireproof interior. It was always a good idea to check your weapons, especially when one of Caldwell’s black market kingpins was getting his panties in a wad, and you had a guest you really, truly cared about on your property. Nate had never been paranoid-private about where he lived, and now he regretted that.
If Mickey had been able to find him, Uncle would, too.
As a tingling in his upper jaw signaled his fangs descending, a sound he’d never heard before vibrated up his chest and out of his mouth.
The growl was a reminder that bonded males were next-level unhinged, when it came to protecting their females—
Bing!
As that stupid fucking burner phone went off with a text, he would have used it for target practice, except for the fact that it was the way he was going to stay connected with Nalla when they weren’t together.
With absolutely no interest at all, he opened the message from Uncle’s encrypted number—
It was an image, a black-and-white still that, given its graininess, had indeed been taken off video footage.
“Oh… fuck.”
With another grim curse, he expanded the close-up, even though he didn’t need to.
He knew who the person was, recognized instantly the scarred face of the target Uncle wanted him to kill to make things right between them.
Zsadist… Nalla’s father.
* * *
Back at the Brotherhood’s underground residences, Nalla was hesitating at the door to her family’s quarters, her hand hovering over the latch. Even with all the tension lately, there was something unnatural about not sharing what was going on in her life. Except Nate was a complicated subject.
If the word “complicated” could be used in a bad-as-an-H-bomb kind of way.
Bracing herself, she opened things—and was stupidly shocked that there was nothing out of place in the living room. But like all their interpersonal chaos translated to couches and chairs?
After a long moment, she found herself going over to her father’s baby grand Steinway. There was a guitar on a stand in the corner behind it, as well as a violin set in a wall mount, and some harmonicas sitting on a shelf. Sheet music was stacked on a side table, but her sire never really used it. His mind, he always said, “saw” the music without the notes.
And he truly did have the voice of an angel.
As she remembered the times he had sung her to sleep as a young, her eyes flooded with tears. Of all the divides she had ever expected to come to, choosing a male over her family was not something she had anticipated.
Except if she doubted her painful choice—and she didn’t—this place here no longer felt like home. Nate’s basement did. And that was less about what was in a given space, and everything about who was with you when you were in it.
Taking a deep breath, she caught a whiff of bread baking and had to smile. Clandestine, contraband sourdough. Her mahmen had taught herself how to bake bread for no particular reason, and Bella liked to practice from time to time—but she had to be careful. Fritz felt like any cooking efforts beyond toasting an English muffin were a referendum on the job he was doing for the Brotherhood, so the female had to time her forays into the gluten when she knew that the butler would be other-wise occupied.
She also tended to bake when she was upset.
Walking over to the doorway into the kitchen, Nalla studied her mahmen, who was at the counter by the sink. Bella was uncovering a bowl and investigating the rising that was going on, so distracted that she was unaware she was not alone anymore. Her mahogany hair was pulled back, and she was wearing jeans and an Irish knit sweater that Cormia had made her the previous year. Her earrings were the long, dangly silver ones that Nalla had given her for her birthday.
Just as Nalla was going to announce herself, her mahmen scooped the dough out onto the floured cutting board. Then she dipped her hands into the Gold Medal bag, and clapped them to make sure she had the right amount of—
Clap.
Clap.
The instant the sounds were made, those the palms meeting sharply, Nalla was back with Nate, watching him struggle with what was real and what was in his mind.
And then her mahmen came into focus so sharply, Nalla’s eyes teared up.
At the same time, Bella glanced over her shoulder and jumped. “Oh! Oh. Ah, hi. You’re home—I mean, here. Hi.”
Years filtered through in a matter of moments, times when Nalla had seen her parents together, her mahmen’s worried eyes passing over her father’s face… over the black band that was tattooed around his neck. She remembered her mahmen’s hands, gently soothing, always under the table or behind his back, so there was no attention drawn. There had also been the abrupt departures from the dining table in the communal space here, that were covered up with a smile and a comment from Bella, Zsadist going first, her lingering so that it didn’t look like what it was, him having to leave because he couldn’t handle something.
Nalla recalled the times, during the day, when everything had been silent and still, and she’d seen the light on under their door and heard low, serious murmurings.
And then at her work, whether at Luchas House or when she’d first started training at Safe Place, she remembered Bella reaching out to Mary, and Mary pulling out of meetings to take a phone call from her dear friend.
Always about Nalla’s father, who suffered with dignity, and battled demons that were not of his own creation.
“Nalla? Are you okay?”
As she tried to respond, her eyes clung to her mahmen’s face, and she saw what was familiar: Concern, worry. Stress. About someone the female loved with all her heart… who she didn’t know how to help.
With a choked sob, Nalla rushed across the kitchen, disturbing the chairs tucked into the four-top table they ate at when they were just being together as a family.
The three of them. Sharing a meal.
She threw her arms around Bella and ducked her head as she’d done as a young, and there was no hesitation. She was instantly embraced in return, her hair smoothed by her mahmen’s hand.
“It’s okay,” Bella said. “Oh, sweetheart, it’s okay, whatever it is, I’m here.”
“I’m so sorry.” Nalla took a shuddering breath. “Oh, I’ve been an—”
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
Nalla pulled back. “I’m so sorry you had to watch him suffer all these years. I had no idea… what you’ve been through.”
The shock that came over those familiar features was a terrible commentary on the selfishness of a young. It was as if Bella had never expected the understanding she offered to so many to be returned.
“And I…” Nalla’s voice cracked. “I know you were there for me, too. I just had no comprehension about what it’s like to see someone you love go to a place you can’t pull them out of. A place where they were hurt when they were young. A place… that haunts them everywhere they go. I am so sorry, mahmen.”
Putting her palm over her mouth, she couldn’t believe the things she’d said to Bella at Luchas House.
