At Peace Read online

  “How ‘bout you let me make that decision?” he whispered back.

  “Mike, I repeat, I’m entirely fucked up.”

  “Sweetheart, I already know that,” he grinned, “and, fuck me, but I kinda like it.”

  “Mike –”

  “It’s cute.”

  Finally, I gave him the truth. “And there’s somethin’ I need to work out with Joe and I don’t want you feelin’ on a string while I work it out.”

  His arms spasmed and that muscle leapt again in his jaw.

  “What?” he whispered.

  My hand at his cheek slid to his neck and I said, “Not that, not what you’re thinking. But we gotta get something clear and, I know Joe, that’ll take some doing.”

  “Violet.”

  “I got four days, the girls are gone, I got four days to do it. Can you give me that?”

  “No.”

  “Mike –”

  “Vi, you’re in my bed tonight.”

  “Mike, listen to –”

  His arms gave me a shut up squeeze so I did and he said, “No, Vi, you listen to me. You work it out with him. Talk. I don’t give a fuck what it’s about, don’t wanna know. You come to my house tonight and you come prepared to spend the night.”

  Yep, he was getting impatient, staking his claim.

  “Mike, I don’t think –”

  “And don’t fuckin’ bring one of his shirts. You sleep in tees, you wear one of mine.”

  “But –”

  “And you take it home too.”

  Shit and damn. Joe was home a few days and my brother was fucking dead, I’d been semi-adopted by an Italian family in Chicago, my girls were back under his spell and I was back in this unholy mess.

  “I’m not ready for that.”

  “Yeah, you are and I am and he can have your days, you need to work shit out with him, but, while the girls are gone, I have your nights.”

  “What if we –”

  “I want you safe. I wanna know you’re safe and the only way I’ll know that is you in my bed. He and Colt can keep watch durin’ the day but I’m tellin’ you, Vi, I get the nights.”

  “Mike –”

  He didn’t let me finish again, this time he kissed me. Not his straight-to-fiery kiss, this one was a stealth one, light and sweet, building the fire.

  I ended it with my arms wrapped around his neck.

  “Six o’clock, sweetheart,” he whispered, “come on in, the door’ll be open.”

  “Okay,” I whispered back, because I was a total, complete idiot.

  Then, just like Mike, he gave it to me honest.

  “You don’t get this, Vi, so I’ll tell you. I’m fallin’ for you.” I closed my eyes. Mike kissed them in turn and I opened them again. “I know you don’t need that, sweetheart, but then again, you need it all the same.”

  This didn’t make sense but it totally did.

  I gave it back to him, just as honest.

  “Mike, you deserve the best and I’m not sure that’s me.”

  He just grinned, gave me a squeeze, kissed my forehead and repeated, “Six o’clock, door’ll be open.”

  Then he let me go, turned and left.

  I stared at the door.

  Then I walked to it and armed the alarm.

  Then I went to my cold cup of coffee, nuked it and stood in my kitchen, staring out my kitchen window, watching three men now carrying out to the dumpster what seemed to be Joe’s entire freaking kitchen and while I did this I drank my coffee.

  * * * * *

  After I had a shower, I spritzed with my perfume, put on light makeup, my Lucky jeans and a blouse I always liked. The cotton looked almost tie-dyed, all in deep shades of grape, the split at the neckline was embroidered with green, lilac, lavender and blue flowers and there were braided strings hanging down from the top sides of the split, their weight holding it open. It fit loose but had an elastic waistband and elastic at the cap sleeves. It was kinda Heidi and kinda rock ‘n’ roll. I loved it, it made me feel good and I needed that in a big, honking way.

  Then I picked up my phone, scrolled down to “Joe’s cell” and hit go.

  He picked up on ring two.

  “Yo.”

  “It’s Violet. We need to talk. Come over.”

  “Buddy, I’m in the middle of something.”

  “You come over here or I come over there and we do it in front of all the boys who’re demolishing your house.”

  He was silent then he sighed and said, “Give me ten.”

  “You got ten then I’m headin’ over.”

  “All right, baby, cool it. I said I’d be over.”

  “Right,” I said into the phone then slid it shut.

  I had ten minutes and I knew what I’d do with them.

  I limped out the front door, walked across my yard, cautiously jumped the split rail fence that separated the front of Tina and my yards then walked right up to her door and pounded on it.

  She made me do this awhile then opened it, her face a smirk, she knew this was coming and she wanted it, the bitch.

  “Hey Violet.”

  I didn’t greet her, I said, “I hear you spread my business around again, we got problems.”

  She put her hand to her chest and said with totally fake innocence, “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

  “Donuts for our boys in blue, tellin’ Mike shit you have no idea what you’re talkin’ about, that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” I unnecessarily reminded her.

  The fake innocence melted away and her eyes narrowed. “Know you walked out Cal’s backdoor wearin’ his shirt. Know you’re stringin’ along a good man like Mike. Know that’s fucked.”

  “You’re standin’ there throwin’ stones when you regularly screw a married man,” I fired back, watched her sneer even as she flinched and continued. “You don’t know shit, Tina, but even if you did, it isn’t your business so keep your mouth shut.”

  “You gonna make me?” she asked, like we were eight and having a verbal tussle at recess during grade school.

  “Yeah,” I answered, not in the mood to be mature. “I got way too much fucked up crap happening in my life, I don’t need to deal with you.”

  She leaned back and sneered, “What can you do to me?”

  I decided to steal Joe’s line. “Don’t know, but you force it, I’ll get creative.”

  “Bring it on,” she snapped.

  I shrugged and replied, “You got it.”

  Then I turned and limped away to see Joe standing in my yard, feet planted, arms crossed on his chest, his eyes aimed beyond me to Tina’s house.

  “What was that?” he asked when I’d jumped the fence again and got close.

  “Nothin’,” I replied, limped passed him to my front door and I stepped through.

  Joe followed me and closed the door.

  “Vi, what was that?” he repeated.

  “You and me, we’re over,” I announced again.

  He crossed his arms on his chest, stared down at me and I forgot how scary he could look. He’d never done the arm crossing thing and that was super scary.

  “I asked twice and I’ll do it one last time, what the fuck was that with Tina?”

  I noticed he ignored my announcement so I decided to answer him so we could get to what I wanted to get straight, something that Joe wouldn’t let me do if he was stuck on Tina.

  “She saw you drive us away yesterday, she saw you leave the house this morning. She decided to bring donuts to the Station and, while spreading her sugar cheer, share all that shit with the guys, Mike bein’ one of them.”

  Joe’s face got hard and far scarier and he turned his head in the direction of Tina’s house to look at my wall.

  “Mike and I are good, we’re solid, she’s tryin’ to shake that up and I told her I’m not havin’ that,” I finished, bringing that subject to a close.

  Joe’s hard face swung back to me.

  “You and Haines are solid?” he asked.
r />   “Yes, which reminds me, you agree or not, we’re over.”

  He shook his head.

  I stared then asked, “Why are you shakin’ your head?”

  “Because we’re not over.”

  “We are.”

  “We’re not and you’re not seeing him again,” he declared.

  My mouth dropped open.

  Then I asked, “What?”

  “You need to tell him it’s done.”

  I felt my eyes get wide and I repeated, “What?”

  “Do it today, he’s a good man, you need to cut him loose.”

  I felt my body grow slowly solid but I leaned forward a bit while this was happening and asked, yet again, “What?”

  “You’re mine, the girls are mine. I’m stakin’ my claim with you right now and, you force it, I’ll do it with him too.”

  Did he…

  Did he…

  Did he just say I was his and the girls were his?

  Did he just say he was staking his claim?

  Straight out?

  “Are you crazy?” I breathed.

  “Nope.”

  That was when I lost it. It’d been building all day so it wasn’t really a surprise.

  “You have got to be fuckin’ kidding me!” I shouted.

  “Nope,” he repeated calmly.

  I took a step toward him and snapped, “You fucked someone else while you were fucking me.”

  “I lied, never fucked Nadia,” he replied, still cool as could be.

  I sucked in breath at the same time my torso swung back.

  “What?”

  “I lied, buddy.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  “Yes it does!” I shouted.

  “The whole time I was with you, I wasn’t with anyone else. Didn’t even think about it.”

  I shook my head, taking a step back then two, his words pummeling me into retreat.

  Then I stopped and rallied. “This doesn’t matter, I don’t care. We’re over. I’m not goin’ back there again.”

  “You’re already back.”

  I stopped shaking my head and glared at him. “I am not.”

  “Buddy, you are. You never fuckin’ left.”

  “How d’you figure that?” I asked sarcastically.

  “You sleep in my shirt,” he answered.

  Oh fuck. Why was I such an idiot?

  “It’s comfortable,” I snapped.

  “And Kate told me, when Mike spent the night, he did it on the couch,” Joe went on.

  “He did that because he’s being cool around the girls.”

  “I walked out of your room this morning Vi, and neither of them fuckin’ blinked.”

  I took those steps back forward again (and then some), getting right into his space and stated, “Yeah, we need to talk about that too.”

  “Don’t feed me some shit about you not wanting it. You were awake when I got up this mornin’, you didn’t give me shit, you didn’t say a fuckin’ word, so don’t try and bullshit me.”

  How did he know that? He was such a pain in the ass!

  “I didn’t want a scene in front of the girls.”

  “You wanted me to come back.”

  Yes, a total pain in the ass.

  “I did not!” I yelled.

  Then he moved fast and I retreated just as fast but hit wall and he came in close, his hands at the wall by my head, fencing me in.

  “Step back,” I hissed.

  “You’re mine, Vi.” he said and the way he said it, I focused on his face.

  Very scary. Sinister. And definitely serious.

  Joe Callahan was not a man to be fucked with, this I knew and if I didn’t his voice and his face right then would have proved it.

  “You let him touch you, it’ll piss me off,” he threatened.

  “Mike and I are together,” I whispered.

  “Don’t play that game with me or with him.”

  “Step back,” I repeated.

  “I’m warnin’ you, buddy, don’t play that game.”

  I shook my head and pleaded, “Joe, please, step back. I do not need this shit.”

  “Then don’t force it.”

  “May I remind you, my brother just died!” I cried.

  “Yeah, you lose this attitude, I can help you work that hurt out.”

  Who was this man? He held onto his tragedy for seventeen fucking years, how could he stand there and tell me he could help me work through mine?

  “Really, Joe? Like you helped me work out my grief at losing Tim?” I asked sarcastically.

  “That’s not what I was offerin’, buddy, but you want it like that I’ll give it to you.”

  “You’re unbelievable,” I snapped.

  “I’m yours.”

  That socked me in the gut too, so hard it winded me and all I could do was stare up at him.

  Taking advantage, his face dipped close and his hands curled around both sides of my head.

  “First fuckin’ time you smiled at me in my bed, that’s when it happened,” he murmured.

  “Joe –”

  “You’re under my skin.”

  “Please –”

  “I’m under yours.”

  I shook my head and his face got even closer, all I could see were his sky blue eyes, all I could feel were his lips a breath away from mine.

  “I like you there, buddy, and you like me there too. Cut Mike loose.”

  “You can’t belong to anyone. You’re Joe Callahan, a one-woman man. The only one you ever belonged to was Bonnie and she’s still got hold of you and always will no matter how fucked up, crazy sad that was.”

  His hands tightened on my head and he said, “Don’t listen to ‘burg lore. It’s shit.”

  “You held onto it for seventeen years,” I pointed out.

  “She killed my son,” he replied and my heart lurched.

  “I know,” I whispered and my hands went to his waist, wanting to touch him, needing it, after he said those words, and doing it because I was crazy insane.

  “You help me let that go, baby, I help you with Sam.”

  I shook my head but my hands clenched his tee at his sides. “I can’t go back there again with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know when you’ll turn.”

  “Buddy –”

  “You’ve done it to me twice.”

  “Vi –”

  “And you’ve done it to the girls once.”

  I watched him close his eyes, knowing I’d scored a point and not feeling the least bit happy about it. But something was happening here and for me, and my girls, I had to do right this time.

  So I pushed the knife in deeper. “Me, okay Joe, but not my girls.”

  He opened his eyes and locked them with mine.

  “You feel it, I know you do. You know it isn’t done.”

  “It has to be.”

  “It isn’t. It won’t ever be.”

  “It is, Joe.”

  He didn’t respond, just stared into my eyes.

  Then his mouth moved until it was touching mine.

  Just with that touch, not even a kiss, my body went soft, my hands quit clenching his shirt and slid around to his back and a whimper glided out of my throat.

  “Tell yourself that, baby. But, look at you,” he murmured, his voice gentle not gloating, our eyes still locked, “you’re mine.”

  Then his mouth went away but he bent his head, let mine go, kissed my neck and he walked away, out the door and I watched him through the window as he sauntered along my front walk to his house.

  I stood there, pressed to the wall for a long time. It took awhile but I realized I was breathing heavily.

  Then I slid down the wall, knees to my chest. I wrapped my arms around my calves and hugged myself tight.

  Then I pulled my phone out of my back pocket and I called my girls.

  They told me they were there, in the cabin, unpacked and Dane
and his Dad had the boat in the water. The cabin was way cool and the lake was phenomenal. They were getting ready to go out on the boat and they sounded happy and excited.

  I’d made the right decision, making them go. They had other things to think about, good things.

  Sam would be glad.

  When I was done talking, I slid my phone closed.

  That’s what I needed, exactly what I needed.

  It wouldn’t last long but it was something.

  I got up off the floor and went to go get Mooch.

  * * * * *

  I sat wearing Mike’s t-shirt in Mike’s big bed, my ass to the mattress, my shoulders to the headboard, a tub of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream melting in my hand.

  Mike was stretched out beside me, on his side, head in hand, elbow in the pillow, eyes on me, wearing pajama bottoms and nothing else (he had a nice chest, unbelievable abs, the whole show leaner than Joe’s, not as bulky, not scarred, but still amazing).

  Layla was lying flat out on her side at the end of the bed, Mooch curled in her chest. Both of them were passed out due to the fact that they’d spent the last four hours pretty much destroying Mike’s yard.

  My cell was glued to my ear and Dane Gordon was whispering to me through it.

  “She’d be mad, Miz Winters, me tellin’ you this.”

  “That’s okay, Dane, I won’t tell her you called.”

  “Will you do it? Tomorrow morning? Let them both off the hook?”

  “Yeah, Dane, I’ll call.”

  “We’ll come back Saturday, so we’ll have another day and they won’t feel they’ll be screwin’ up my vacation with my folks and Katy’ll let me stay home so I can be around… um, for her, you know…”

  Shit, but I liked this kid.

  “Tell your folks I’ll keep you fed. You want…” Damn, was I gonna do this? Yes, I was gonna do it. “You can tell them I’m lettin’ you sleep on the couch.”

  Mike made a choking noise that sounded like swallowed laughter.

  I glared at him.

  “Yeah?” Dane asked in my ear, cut up because Kate was cut up about her uncle, not wanting to be far from his girl and the couch was as close as I wanted him to get.

  “Yeah, Dane.”

  “Okay,” he said and he sounded relieved. “Gotta go, thanks Miz Winters.”

  “Yeah. Bye Dane.”

  “Later.”

  I slid my phone closed and Mike slid it out of my hand and threw it on his nightstand then he turned back to me.