Shadow & Soul (19 page)

“Why?” She felt like she had Tucker’s frog lodged in her throat.

“Why did I hurt her? Is there a good reason? She was a woman and half my size.”

His use of the past tense didn’t escape her notice. “Was?”

“She’s dead.”

“Oh, fuck, Michael.” She wasn’t an idiot or a naïf. She’d grown up in the family of a notorious outlaw MC. She knew that most of the men in her life had killed, and more than once. Her own father had been the club’s Sergeant at Arms, and he’d been an enforcer before that, so it stood to reason that his hit list was long. Bibi had told her that Michael was also an enforcer; that meant that he’d killed more than most.

She also knew that women in and around the life didn’t always have such a great ride. But it had been different here. Hoosier’s charter had always had a good rep in its local community and in the club at large. He didn’t like innocents getting caught up in their crap, and he had a hard limit to what kind of treatment of women was acceptable. Beating an innocent woman to death was far beyond his hard limit. Michael would face club consequences for that.

But was she innocent? She hadn’t seemed like it to Faith. Not long ago, she’d been wishing Michael had killed her. Well, wish granted.

He started to speak and then stopped. When he started again, he said, “I’m gonna go to bed. I love you, but I was wrong. We can’t be right, not even now. I can’t ever be right.”

Without another word, without giving her sore, rattled head a chance to process what the hell was happening, he turned and headed toward his room.

Faith didn’t know long she’d continued to sit on the sectional in Hoosier and Bibi’s comfortable family room in their big, comfortable California ranch home. At some point, she realized she was sitting there with her mouth open; the sound of it snapping shut shook her from her mindless fugue.

No. Just no.

She got up and went to Michael’s door. Raising her hand to knock, she decided against it and just opened the door.

He was standing naked next to the bureau, a pair of dark sweatpants in his hands. He’d frozen when she’d opened the door, and before he could move or say anything, Faith said, “You didn’t answer my question.”

Pulling his pants on, he asked, “What question?”

“Why did you hurt her the first time? Did you know she was pregnant?”

“No, I didn’t. But does it matter?” He rubbed his hands over his head. He was a study in contrasts—big and muscular, his muscles flexing with the movement of his arms, but still lost and vulnerable. Faith wanted to hold him, but she stayed where she was, in the open door, her hand on the doorknob.

“Yes. To me, it does.”

After a long, slow breath, Michael answered, “Same thing. She threatened to do what she did tonight. I lost my shit the same way. I didn’t mean it. I just…couldn’t stop.”

“You mean what she said. That was true.”

He didn’t look away. “No. But yeah. She twisted the truth up in lies so it would hurt me as much as it could. What she said about when I was a kid—that was true. Saying I liked it was a lie.”

Then she hadn’t been remotely innocent. She had dug into Demon’s deepest wound, and she’d done it with glee. If she’d known Michael enough to know such a secret, then she knew the limits of his control, just like Faith did.

Faith closed the door and stepped into the room. True to form, Michael took the same number of steps backward, so she stopped.

“Quit moving away from me, Michael. Just quit it.” Her voice was quiet; sadness had sapped the volume from it. “I love you.” She took another step, and he held.

“I never want to hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid of you, Michael. You’re not a demon. You’re a man—a scarred man with a beautiful heart. I love you. We
can
be right. We already are.”

He stayed still and let her close the distance between them. When she put her hands on his chest, he closed his eyes. “I don’t know why you would give me this chance.”

“Because you deserve it. I think you’re owed a lifetime of chances.” She leaned in and kissed his chest. “I’m so sorry for what your life was.”

That was a wrong thing to say; he stiffened, but he didn’t pull away. “I don’t want that—pity.” He spat out the last word as if it had a foul taste.

“I don’t pity you. I pity the boy who went through that. And I understand the man he became a little better now.”

In Faith’s head were still questions about Tucker’s mom and how Michael had ended up with her, how someone like that had come to know his secret pain, but she didn’t let them get as far as her tongue. Her jealousy was stupid, and talking more about the woman who’d torn him up so much, and whom he’d killed for it, would only cause him more pain.

Finally, Michael touched her. He lifted his hands and cupped her face. She smiled at the familiar sense of his love in that touch. She thought he was going to kiss her, and he licked his lips as if preparing to do so. But then he said, “It wasn’t me who killed her.”

“What?” She frowned, trying to make room for that new bit of information. Then it clicked. If it wasn’t him, then it was a club call. Though she’d once watched Michael suffer at the hands of club justice, it was something Faith understood. Any reservations that might have been caught in the cracks of her mind were washed away, and she smiled. “She wasn’t an innocent, Michael. If I know that, you have to.”

He shrugged. “I do. But what I did—there’s no way she could fight back against me. I was bigger and stronger. She was an evil cunt, but it doesn’t excuse what I did.”

And with that, Faith understood. Tucker’s mother was small and, he thought, powerless to defend herself. Like he had been. Exactly what his childhood had been like, Faith didn’t know, and she didn’t know if he’d ever tell her, or if she’d ever ask. But now she knew he’d been abused when he couldn’t protect himself. It tore him up to hurt somebody smaller and weaker than he was, even somebody who was hurting him and laughing about it.

She’d always known that he would never hurt her. Even after what she’d seen tonight, most of her turmoil had been trying to reconcile that gruesome show with the gentle man she knew, grappling with the thought that the years had changed him so much. But now, in this moment, as she dropped her hands from his chest, sliding over the firm sculpts of his torso and belly and then around his waist, she regained her equilibrium. She was safe. She loved him. He loved her. Now, at this time, in this present, they made each other safe.

“I know I’m safe with you, Michael. And you’re safe with me.”

He blinked. Then, at long last, he bent his head and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The grunting was almost the worst of it. And the talking, the things the guard said. “Give it to me, oh yeah. Yeah. Pretty boy. Yeah.” Michael gripped the edge of the rickety metal desk that shook under him, and he waited for it to be over, trying not to hear, trying not to smell. Trying not to feel. As always, a wide, fat hand slapped him hard on the side of the head when it was over.

Demon bolted upright, taking in a huge swallow of air and holding the side of his head. He recognized the dream for what it was as soon as he was awake, and he started counting heartbeats, trying to come down, as he oriented himself back into his room at Hoosier and Bibi’s.

He hadn’t had that dream, or any of them, for a long time. Years. But the box in his head had been opened last night. All those torments loose and dancing.

“Michael?”

He ducked away from the sound of Faith’s voice behind him, as if it had been a touch. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not.”

“Just a dream.”

“Michael.” She touched him then, laid her hand lightly on his back. He couldn’t deal. Barely managing not to flinch away, he threw the covers back and got out of bed.

“I need the bathroom.” He turned and headed toward the door at the side of the room, catching in the corner of his eye the image of Faith, in one of his t-shirts, sitting in his bed.

What he’d wanted for years was coming true. He had Faith. She was his. Even knowing who he was, she was his. And he was leaving her alone in his bed. Moving away from her again.

He went into the bathroom and closed the door. Then he walked through, into Tucker’s room, and closed that door, too. Pulling up the big stuffed dog to use as a pillow, he lay down on the floor next to his sleeping son’s crib.

~oOo~

“What about this one?”

“MOOOO!”

“That’s right, buddy. Cows go ‘moo.’ Can you say ‘cow’?

“MOOOO!” Tucker pursed his lips and sat up straight on Demon’s lap, really getting into the word. Demon laughed and kissed the back of his head. This morning, having breakfast and playing with his boy, he felt almost normal. As long as he didn’t think about who was sleeping in his bed.

“You’re a good moo-er, Tuck.” He turned the page. “How about this one?”

“Fay!”

It was a picture of a sheep, and ‘fay’ wasn’t even close, so Demon looked at his son, preparing to correct him. But Tucker wasn’t looking at the book. Faith was in the room, leaning against the wall at the point where the family room led into the kitchen. Tucker was greeting her.

“Hey, buddy,” she said, but she didn’t move. “Where’s Bibi?”

“She went to see your mom.”

Faith nodded. She was still wearing his t-shirt, swimming in it, and she’d put her leather pants back on. When he’d first seen her last night at the clubhouse, before everything went to shit, he’d taken a moment just to look at her—still marveling at the ways she could be so different and so familiar at the same time. She’d been wearing those black leather pants, fitting like a second skin, a black lace top, and high-heeled shoes with straps covered in studs. She was gorgeous. And then he’d seen that Connor had hugged her in that full-body way he’d always hugged her, and Demon’s face had gotten hot.

He knew they’d been practically brother and sister—or, at least, he knew that was what they said. But he also knew Connor, who chased pussy like the resource was running low. It was hard not to feel hostile when he saw a horndog like that lifting Faith off the ground. Or anybody, for that matter. That was for Demon, no one else.

He met Faith’s eyes. She looked like she hadn’t gotten that much sleep, even though it was after ten in the morning.

“You want me to go? I can stay at my mom’s. I have to move in there when she comes home, anyway, and there’s stuff I need to do.”

He set his son off his lap. “Tuck, you want to play with trains?”

“Ook!” Tucker pushed the book at him. He wanted to finish the story. Demon was torn. He had to make Faith feel better. He’d been a monster last night, and then a jerk. But now, in the bright sun of a Saturday morning, things were maybe not so bleak. Maybe. But he didn’t know if he could say the things he’d need to say to help Faith understand him. He had to lock that box back up, or it would swallow him whole.

And he didn’t want to put his son off, either. In the past week, he hadn’t been paying Tucker the attention he needed. He’d been leaning on Bibi even more than usual.

“It’s okay,” Faith said, in the same lackluster tone. “I get it.”

“No, you don’t!” Tucker and Faith both frowned at Demon’s sharp tone, and he took a breath. “I don’t want you to go. Please don’t go.” Looking at the book still on his lap, he had an idea. “Let’s take Tucker out.”

Her surprise was as clear on her face as her fear had been last night. “What?”

“Let’s go out—the three of us.”

She smiled, but her forehead creased. “How? Dante doesn’t have a back seat.”

“I have a truck, too. Extended cab. I’ve been a dad a while, Faith. I don’t strap him on the back of my bike.”

That made her chuckle quietly. “Okay. I’d like that. Where?”

“I know a place. Hey, Tuck. Want to go someplace fun to play?”

Tucker clapped his hands. “Yeah! Pway!”

~oOo~

Demon parked his truck along the side of the barn. Tucker was already excited, having screamed
MOOO!
at every cow they’d passed on the road.

Faith was simply smiling at him, bemused.

Demon had enjoyed the ride tremendously. His old truck had a bench front seat, and he’d pulled Faith over to sit right at his side. He’d driven with his arm over her shoulders, like they had in the time before. Her touch made him feel quiet. He wondered whether that might have been true last night, too, whether she could have calmed him after the dream if he hadn’t run away so quickly.

He had to learn to hold. In most parts of his life, it would never occur to him to run. In club business or facing club justice, he never thought to run. He’d done time rather than run. He’d bled rather than run.

There was only one particular exception, when he’d made an already frightened little boy afraid of him.

But with Faith, running seemed always to be his first impulse. No—his second. His first impulse, to pull her to him so tightly she became part of him, was the thing that scared him almost more than anything else. It was so strong. It felt like it would hurt her if he let it loose, like his very love would hurt her. Like the beast inside him wanted her as badly as he did.

But then, when he touched her, when she touched him, she made him quiet. The paradox was fucking with his head. Obviously.

His arm still around her, Demon looked into the rearview mirror at his son. “Okay, Motor Man. You want to pet a cow?”

“MOOO!” he shouted from his car seat.

Laughing, Demon got out, put his kutte on, and helped Faith down. Then he went around and released Tucker.

As they came around the back of his Ford, Demon holding Tucker’s hand, Tucker lifted his free hand to Faith, and she took it. They walked that way toward an older, heavyset black man in dusty jeans and a Caterpillar cap.

Malachi Jerrolds, J.R.’s father, ran this cattle ranch about fifty miles east of Madrone. In addition to a large Angus herd that supported his family, he kept a small herd of Holsteins and a flock of chickens for a side business selling raw milk and free-range eggs at the farmer’s markets. He also had goats for foliage control. The place was practically heaven on earth for Tucker. Demon should have thought of it before.

Demon held out his hand. “Malachi.”

“Demon. How you doin’, son?”

“I’m good. This is my old lady, Faith.” The words ‘old lady’ gave him a thrill of happiness and pride and fear.  He could see that she liked to hear him say them.

“Good to meet ya.”

Faith shook his hand. “And you. Thanks for this.”

“You bet. And this’s gotta be Tucker, then.” Malachi squatted down to Tucker’s level and held out his hand. “Hey, there, young man.”

Tucker ducked behind Demon’s leg, so Demon squatted, too, and Tucker hid his face behind his kutte. “Buddy, Mr. Jerrolds is a friend of Pa’s. He’s gonna let you pet his cows and goats. Can you be nice and say hi?”

“Hi,” Tucker whispered, peeking out from the kutte.

Malachi reached out and patted Tucker’s back. “Good to know you, son.” He stood. “C’mon. The girls are all inside. Melissa is milking—maybe Tucker can give it a try.”

He led them into the barn. When Tucker got a load of the array of black and white cows looking over their stalls at him, he froze, his blue eyes huge and his mouth wide open.

Demon felt a prickle behind his eyes. He’d made his boy happy. Really happy. Maybe this made up a little for scaring him with his temper lately.

He looked at Faith, who was smiling down at Tucker. He’d made her happy, too, but there was something else behind her smile, something that darkened her expression a shade or two. Demon figured that was his fault, and he wanted to make it up to her.

~oOo~

“You want me to take him?”

Faith shook her head and answered him quietly. “No. I like it.” Tucker was sound asleep on her shoulder. He’d made it about halfway through his Happy Meal before he’d gotten grumpy and whiny. Demon had been surprised that Faith had picked him up and held him in her arms, but Tucker had been perfectly content with that and had fallen quickly asleep.

His little butt was still brown with dust. He had had a blast at the Jerrolds’ farm. He’d petted all the cows and the goats. He’d ‘milked’ one very patient old girl, and he’d fed the chickens. He’d helped gather eggs. And there had been a derelict old John Deere tractor rusting out behind the barn. Both Faith and Tucker had enjoyed climbing around on that.

Demon had had a blast, too. More than ever before in his life, he felt like he was with his family. Not a family that had accepted him, like Hoosier and Bibi or the club, though that was wonderful. A family that he’d made. That was
his
.

They were eating fast food on a plastic table outside a McDonalds, right in front of the truck, because on the back seat, behind the driver’s seat, was a box containing four kittens. One of Malachi’s mousers had dropped a litter. The kittens were weaned, and Malachi didn’t want so many cats overrunning his barn. So he’d said they could have the kittens if they wanted.

Tucker wanted. Faith wanted. So Demon wanted.

Hoosier was badly allergic to cats, but they weren’t taking the kittens to their house. On Faith’s word, they were taking the kittens to Margot’s house, for Sly to look after.

Demon didn’t know if that was such a great idea. Margot wasn’t his favorite person on the planet, and he didn’t trust her to be kind to anyone or anything. But he wasn’t clear to what extent Margot would even know the kittens were around. Having not seen her himself in months, he couldn’t quite conjure up an image of what she was like now. Faith, however, said it was perfect, so the kittens were going to Sly.

The discussion of what to do with their kitten windfall had brought up questions for Demon, questions he kept to himself. He might have brought them up before what happened with Kota, but now he was nervous. This second chance that he and Faith had was brand new. Only a couple of days into it, everything had slid sideways, and he felt like the floor under them still wasn’t secure yet.