Saving Lawson (Loving Lawson Book 2) (16 page)

              “What happened next?” she asked in a hollow voice.

              “I worked for him, and he took a real liking to me. In terms of the money, I found out your dad had been fired from his boilermaker job months prior. He’d been using the money to float you guys while he applied for jobs. He hoped to find one so he could pay Boss back in increments, but it never happened. Jobs got harder to come by.”

              Allie fell apart.

              She wept for a while, crying out to her dad through every breath. She wished he was here. She wished she’d known all along what had happened. She wished for so many things, and I could do nothing but watch her wish for all the things that would never come true.

              Then she finally calmed down and stared despondently at me.  “You never cared about me, did you?” she let out quietly. “It was never real.”

              I shook my head slowly. “Not from the start. But I did fall in love with you, Allie. I remember when it happened too. I’d been doing some business with Boss and I’d been out all day and night. I was tired and fucking hungry. I got back to the apartment and I found you asleep in my bed. You’d waited eight hours for me even when I told you I’d be gone for only three of them. After feeling like I was just a fucking puppet, you turned to me and you stared at me with these tender eyes, like what you saw was worth something to you. I never felt worth anything to anybody. You told me to shower while you fixed me up something to eat, and then you just wrapped your arms around me all night, stroking my hair. Things changed after that night. I don’t know why, really. It just did.”

              If she was relieved by that answer, she didn’t show it. She just continued to stare at me, searching for answers in my expressionless face.

              “Did you ever cheat on me?” she questioned.

              I nodded. “At the start.”

              “Even after you took my virginity?”

              I nodded and swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

              “Why didn’t you let me go then? Why… Why didn’t you just toss me aside when you got your answers?”

              “I don’t know.”

              “You don’t know?!” she abruptly yelled, standing up from the bed. She paced the bedroom, breathing hard as she ran both hands through her hair. “How do you not know, Ryker? How?!”

              “I was a selfish asshole,” I replied quickly. “It could have been a number of reasons!”

              “You had so many times to just leave me! You should have just left me, goddammit!”

              Yeah, she was right. I should have, but I couldn’t.

              “Why keep me around?” she went on. “I don’t understand! Why have me there at the risk of feeling something for me?”

              “I wanted to have somebody like you waiting for me,” I tried to explain, sifting through memories of why I did some things. “I liked feeling needed. I liked that you depended on me! I… I was a drugged up fuck head that wanted to save you!”

              “What did you try to feel needed for?”

“I don’t know… The fucking baby I came across once, I guess? You spent days following that story, remember? You cried hearing about it. It was me that found her, practically shoved under a fucking bed to rot!”

“You?!” She looked horrified. “You… You found that baby?”

“Ricardo wanted to fucking leave her behind!”

Her thoughts raced inside her head, and her breathing picked up as she said, “But they… they found her parents murdered, Ryker! Did you do that?”

“No, no, it wasn’t us. It was some other small time drug dealer. Not us.”

“And what does that have to do with me?”

“After that, I guess… I don’t know, I guess I needed to feel needed so I could protect somebody else! And by protecting somebody else, I felt comforted.” I was letting it all out, venting my frustrations and all the things I couldn’t tell anybody. I wasn’t sure I was making any sense. The words fell from my lips without thought. “You needed someone when you lost your father, and I guess I needed someone when I realized just how far fucked my life had become being forced to do shit I didn’t want to do. And you’d just be there… I’d come home and there you were, ready to love me. I couldn’t… I couldn’t walk away from that. And then… then I just started loving you back. And that’s when I stopped messing around. I never touched a girl after that because the only girl that got to me was you.”

              I finally looked up after all I’d said, and I found her standing frozen in the centre of the room. She was hardly breathing, though her lips were parted and her face was pale. She was stunned.

              “I couldn’t tell you the truth,” I added quietly. “You wouldn’t have wanted me then. If you knew why I chased after you in the beginning, you’d never have wanted me. I couldn’t handle that. Every day I knew I owed you an explanation. I watched your mourn your father for a completely wrong reason, and I couldn’t clear it up to you. I couldn’t tell you he never took his life away. It would have made you a target to the gang if you started saying something, and I didn’t want anything to happen to you.”

              I felt so vulnerable then. All control had left me revealing myself to her. It was scary but liberating all at once.

              Slowly, she walked toward me, and I saw her hand reach out first before I felt it running through my hair. My insides crumbled as I grabbed her around the waist and pressed my face into her stomach. I held her tight and panted against her, letting out all the trapped oxygen I’d held waiting for her reaction. I held her, wishing that things hadn’t fucked up the way they did. Wishing… Wishing like she had and knowing it was never going to come true.

              “I understand,” she whispered, choking back on a sob. “I understand, Ryker. You were never bad. The bad just found its way into you.”

              I shut my eyes at her words.

              Just words, Ryker. They aren’t true. They won’t erase six years of evil doings.

              “Thank you for telling me everything I needed to know,” she continued. “I always thought you had sought the gang out. I never knew they forced you in. I never knew that you were so innocent.”

              Innocent. I wanted to scoff.

              “I was never innocent, even before,” I muttered.

              “But you were never evil either. You never asked for any of this. You didn’t deserve any of it either. So thank you, Ryker, being sharing this with me. I understand.”

              I dropped my arms and couldn’t bring myself to watch her leave. She hesitated for a little bit, but then she resolved to go and there was no stopping her. Allie had let me go, and I’d spent three years convincing myself I was over her… only to realize that wasn’t entirely true.

              Love was like a fucking sickness. It came and went, and when it did come, it dropped you on your ass and left you waiting for signs of improvement. And when you got better, you knew that fucker was still lingering behind some corner somewhere along the way, waiting to strike again.

              It struck me when she walked out.

Fourteen
Allie

I knew where Ryker had stayed for a week now, and I’d stopped the car in front of the motel every day I returned from school. I don’t know what prompted me to get out and go to that motel room door and knock. I was pretty sure my body had had enough of this shit and wanted to get it done before my brain caught up to what it was doing.

              Ryker was… different. Not just his appearance, but his nature. He spoke to me calmly. He was rational. I sort of expected him to scream at me, but he acted like an adult even when the conversation got hard. It got hard on both of us. I wasn’t prepared for what he had to say. I’d voiced what I thought were the easy topics, purposely omitting Kayden so he didn’t fly off the handle. In hindsight, I wondered, if I’d brought Kayden up, would he have remained calm?

              Now I was sitting in the car in front of my house and trying to stop myself from crying. My father… All these years believing in a lie. It felt like my whole world had been shaken up. My father! My poor father who had done what he could to support us, even if it meant turning to a psychopath for help. It devastated me. It felt like someone had shot a hole through my heart.

              I’d mourned for him, but it was mourning under the impression he’d taken his life away. I’d been angry that he had abandoned us to fend for ourselves. I held so much resentment that he didn’t care about who he was leaving behind and hurting.

              It was a lie!

              And the emotional floodgates opened back up. I was mourning all over again, but over the right reasons this time. I wanted to turn the car around and go to Mom. I wanted to tell her everything I learned, but I was still trying to process it myself. I was shaking everywhere!

              Eventually, I realized the time and knew I couldn’t waste another minute on this right now. I’d most likely missed Kayden’s bed time by sitting here and crying.

              I got out of my sedan and walked to the front door. It was six at night, but the lights in the front room were off. The house was eerily still. I unlocked the door and opened it, stepping in and quickly wiping whatever tears were left behind on my face.

              The clock on the wall was the only noise I heard for the short moments I stood and listened. Figuring they were in the bedroom, I dropped my bag and purse on the table beside the front door and took a step forward.

              “You went to see him, didn’t you?”

              I froze. It wasn’t often he spoke these days, so hearing that deep voice made every hair stand on its end. I turned around slowly and faced the living room. I saw his silhouette on the armchair beside the fire place. I was sure he’d been waiting for me to come through the door.

              “Did you get the answers you needed?”

              I couldn’t tell what he was feeling – not that he felt much these days – and so I didn’t respond. He knew I’d gone to see Ryker. He’d been staring at me strangely these last few days, like he was waiting for me to do it.

              When the news spread that he had gotten out early, there wasn’t a soul that didn’t want to tell us. It was uncomfortable being in the same room when Matt had come through the door and glanced awkwardly between us, announcing, “Your brother’s out. He’s staying at the Porter motel. Good behaviour meant his sentence got cut. He’s still on parole, but…”

              Heath hadn’t said a word but his eyes were right on me, carefully assessing my reaction. Admittedly, I must have looked shocked because it was the last thing I expected to hear. Then the awkwardness went onto a whole new level when Heath completely withdrew from me and watched me.

              Just watched me.

              Waited and watched, like he knew already that I was thinking of seeing him.

              And I was. I was thinking of seeing Ryker that very minute. Not because I cared for him in a romantic way – my feelings were well and truly over – but because I couldn’t move on with my life without apologizing to him and wanting answers. The chapter in my life with Ryker was a part of me. He helped shape me. He gave me wonderful times, and I wasn’t going to tear him down. I was long over my anger, but I needed peace now.

              I wanted to provide forgiveness, and I wanted it back too if he was willing to extend it to me. So this afternoon had been a success in that part. I felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. And while I was doing all that, Heath had been sitting right here, waiting for me to come through the door so he could interrogate me.

              “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You look terrified I know all this.”

              “Just annoyed you had me followed again,” I replied with irritation. “I can’t have my own privacy these days, huh? You have to have one of your guys tailing me.”

              “I sort of have my own reasons, don’t I?”

              My eyes travelled to his throat. I couldn’t see the gruesome looking scar – thick and deep – that went from ear to ear. I pursed my lips and avoided answering him. I understood his reasons. He wanted me to make sure I was safe because he still hadn’t found who was responsible for ordering his hit.

              Heath and Marko hunted the two guys down several months after he’d been attacked. It wasn’t hard, he’d said. He just waved a bunch of cash in people’s faces and told them to keep an ear out, and that any solid information would mean being adequately compensated. It didn’t take long before word spread of two men that had bragged about taking care of the strongest bareknuckle fighter in Hedley literally the day after it’d happened. Of course they omitted the part where they brutally attacked Tru for her key as she lay nearly passed out at the doors of the building. That poor girl was so traumatised, she packed her shit and left town days later.

When confronted by Heath and Marko, the men had claimed to have no idea who had paid them to carry out the crime. But they were adamant he wasn’t from a gang, much less a leader of one.

              I don’t know what they did to the guys, and I had no interest in knowing either. I could only stomach so much, and seeing the rage in Heath’s face as he went on this mission to return what they did to him, I was quite aware the truth would be hard to swallow.

              “Yeah, I did see Ryker,” I said on a shrug. “He’s… changed.”

              “Changed,” he repeated, like he wanted to taste the word on his tongue. “Changed, huh?”

              “Yeah, Heath. He’s changed a lot.”

              “So you spend over an hour in his motel room and you come out to say he’s changed. I’m struggling to understand that, Allie.”

              Was it really an hour I’d been in there? It didn’t feel like that to me. I felt Heath’s eyes burning into me, studying my reaction, trying to pick apart what happened as if the story was written on my face.

              “We talked,” I said. “Nothing else happened.”

              “You talked? He answered in his towel and you… talked.”

              “Yes, Heath, we talked.”

              He was quiet.

              Slowly, he got up and made his way to me. I glanced down his body, always taken aback by how big he was getting. Surely there was a limit to it? But he just seemed to get wider and fuller and standing in front of my little frame, I felt like a goddamn prey at times.

              He stared down at me and then his hand clasped my chin. He moved my face from side to side, checking my neck like he was in search of something. He pulled at the top of my dress and proceeded to study my breasts, and I just stood there, letting him examine every part of me.

              Leaning his face down to me, he stared into my eyes and then wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me closer to him. I startled when I felt his other hand roaming beneath my dress and shoving its way into my undies.

              “Jesus, Heath, what’re you doing?” I let out, trying to move away.

              I felt his fingers at my sex and I knew exactly what he was doing then, and I bit my tongue in anger at the audacity in him! When he felt how
not wet
I was, he pulled his hand out, his face stern and unapologetic.

              “He didn’t touch you?” he demanded in a harsh voice.

              “No,” I immediately answered.

              “You didn’t touch him?”

              “No!”

              “Did either of you want to?”

              “No!”

              I was breathing erratically at this point, and he was just staring at me, calm and reserved. Heath was possessive, sure, but he had never been like this before.

              “How could you just do that?” I shakily asked in outrage.

              “Because I check what’s mine,” he answered in an unwavering tone. “When the girl who used to be with my brother decides to see him behind my back, I check that shit out. I look for damage.”

              I gritted my teeth, feeling anger like nothing before swarm my chest as I snapped, “Well, next time you check for damage, do it with your fucking hands to yourself. You touch me again like that without my permission, and I’ll have your fucking throat cut a second time.”

              He stood frozen in his place, his eyes gazing at my mouth before his own perked up just a little
– just a tiny little bit
that would have gone completely unnoticed had I not been this close.

              “Fuckin’ hell, I love you too much,” he whispered down to me, leaning his face to mine. “You can be such a fiery bitch.”

              I shut my eyes when his lips skirted mine. Chills ran down my spine.
Would my body ever stop responding to him?!
I parted my mouth for him as he lightly licked my bottom lip. I grasped the collar of his shirt to me, already lost to the light touches and strong feelings he evoked in me, and muttered, “I’m only a bitch when you’re being a cold hearted dickhead.”

              “That’s true,” he acknowledged. “I admit sometimes I’m a dick just to get a rise out of you.”

              He kissed me roughly and steered me back until I was against the wall. His hands were everywhere, grasping every part of me into his thick hands. My body tightened in anticipation. Heath was a different kind of lover than what he used to be. He fucked me like it was going to be the last time he ever would, leaving me sore and bruised just the way he liked.

              He grabbed at my thighs and picked me up, grinding my pussy with his hard erection. I moaned against his mouth, already fired up and ready. He gripped my hair hard with his other hand, keeping my face pinned in one spot as he fucked my mouth with his, biting at my lower lip until I moaned again in response.

              This was good. Too good. He hadn’t touched me since he learned his brother was out. He’d held off and I knew he was bursting for it, and frankly I was too.

              “Daddy!” Kayden suddenly hollered from his bedroom. “Daddy, come!”

              Shit!

              Heath froze against me and sighed long and slow. My heart was beating like a jackhammer. My forehead rested against his and I let out a sigh of my own. I was aching for him. God, he was such a dickhead at times, but he was mine no matter how much he’d changed. After his attack, I told myself I would have him in whatever way he was willing to give so long as he was alive.

              “Kids, huh?” he muttered. “Should have sold him for a brick of chocolate when we had the chance.”

              I grinned. “Somehow I think the seller would have realized he’d been duped.”

              He hardly cracked a smile, but it was better than the stone faced Heath I’d gotten well used to. He slowly set me back down on the ground as Kayden called out once more, “Come, Daddy! Why you not come?”

Heath walked out, disappearing down the hallway and into Kayden’s room. After my heart calmed down, I went to the bedroom and peeked in. Kayden was sitting up in his toddler bed, his dark hair in a million different directions. Heath sat next to him, and the size difference between them would have been laughable had he not almost fucked me against the wall.

In Kayden’s lap was a sound book Heath had bought him for Christmas last year. There was a different animal on each page, and he’d listen to the sounds they made in awe.

“Awooo,” he went in his little voice, howling like the wolves on the page. “I wolf.”

“Nicely done,” Heath said softly. “And you
are
a wolf when you howl like that. You’re
my
little wolf.”

Kayden pointed at Heath’s chest. “Yours?”

“Yes, champ, mine.”

Heath and Kayden had a connection I couldn’t rival. Kayden loved me, but his attachment to Heath was deeper than it was with me. I wasn’t jealous by it. I thought it was beautiful, and I knew it had given Heath a great purpose in life. A part of him was reserved specifically for Kayden. I understood their love well. I’d been the same when I was young. I was attached to the hip with my father.

My father who hadn’t taken his life like I thought he did.