A Year of You (34 page)

The gentle lyrics of love lost brought tears to her eyes. Was he singing about Emeline?

Of course. He wouldn’t be singing that way about her. She stifled a cynical snort. She was an intruder in his life, a disturbance, a nuisance. The songs he sang about her were bound to be speed-metal bashes that people would forever dedicate to the ex that ruined their lives. A musical ‘shove it.’

Fragments of her dream whispered to her between the music, in the spaces of silence when West frowned down at his guitar and reworked his fingering.
“I’m all you got, babe.”
The memory of K’s voice and his cold sneer sent chills up her spine.

K was right. He was all she had. He abused her, used her, made sure she took the fall, but he was all she had. The Thompsons wouldn’t let her near Mattie, just like they’d promised the last time they found out K contacted her. Starting over again anywhere would be impossible; K would find her. He always did, and he always made her regret trying to escape him.

She felt her shoulders dropping, her guard coming up, the hard shell forming around her heart once more. The ‘K attitude’, the sweet woman who’d tried to save her as a teenager called it.
“You’re so different when you’re away from him.”
Mrs. Thompson pointed it out over and over again, before she knew the perverted things he made Mattie do and did to her. Even after Molly was born and Mattie sought refuge in the Thompsons’ peaceful home, K’s influence dragged her further and further from anything resembling happiness.

West’s song ended and he strummed the guitar softly, making beautiful music as he hummed Breaking Benjamin’s “Rain.” After he finished the song, he put the guitar aside. “You should get some rest,” he said.

“I had a bad dream.”


“I know. I heard you.”


You didn’t come to me like you usually do
. Mattie crossed her arms over her ribs. “You don’t really want anything to do with me, do you?”


“Mattie, I’ve never said anything like that.”


“Then why did you tell me what you did this afternoon? About you not letting me leave? And then you took it back.”


“Things were hot between us right then. I don’t know why I said all that.”


“None of it’s true?”


West sighed and closed his eyes. His fingers moved silently across the frets of the guitar.

“Sometimes. Sometimes you’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a woman. Sometimes the thought of you leaving rips me apart. Other times, God, I can’t wait for the day. A year of you is either going to be more than I can take or not nearly long enough. I swear I just don’t know. You’re so intense—this is so intense.”

That hit her hard, like a physical blow. She sucked in a deep breath through her teeth and squashed the hurt, wrapping it into a tiny little ball and adding it to the rest of the garbage in her soul. “I’m sorry.”

He shrugged. “It’s just who you are, I guess.”


Ouch. “I’m not a good person.”


“Nobody said that, Mattie.”


“Nobody has to. I know me better than anybody.”


“The pity party routine is annoying, by the way.”


“What pity party? Bite me, asshole. I’m not sitting here trying to manipulate you into being nice to me. I’m not your precious Emeline. I know I suck as a human being. It’s nothing new to me.” She brushed one hand over her belly. “And this...this is a mistake.” A painful lump materialized in her throat. “As much as I want it, I know I’d be screwing it up. I just came out here to find out if you want it--with me--or if I should...God, I hate to say it, but I need to know if I should—” Her voice closed off, and she had to swallow hard to speak again. “If I should get rid of it.”

West pressed his lips together and stared down at the honey-brown finish of his guitar. “Are you one hundred percent sure you’re pregnant?”

She nodded. “I never miss a period. And I don’t get sick.”

“What do you want, Mattie?”

She leaned back against the wall and imagined a different place, a different time. West singing, playing his guitar, while she rocked a baby to sleep. “A chance,” she whispered.

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter. Whatever we had…I guess I screwed it up.”

He didn’t deny it. His fingers moved across the guitar strings, moving them just enough to draw out soft notes.

“Why didn’t you tell me you thought you might be pregnant, Mattie?”


“I didn’t even think about it until yesterday, really. I didn’t want to hurt you. I know you’ve got plans for after I leave, and I don’t want anything to mess those up.”

“What about you, Mattie?”


“What about me?”


“What are you going to do?”

She shrugged. “Depends on what we decide about this.” She touched her belly, lightly. Softly, she added. “It’s our baby, West.” The damn lump in her throat swelled up again, and her voice clicked dryly when she tried to say more.

The fighting light went out of his eyes and crushed her against his chest. “Yeah. Our baby.” He breathed into her hair. Mattie loved the way it felt. His arms were home, his shoulders her refuge. “I swear I can’t even think straight. Everything’s so complicated. Part of me wants to think about the what-if’s of you leaving, and the rest of me won’t let you go.”

Mattie struggled to keep from crying as she watched him change into one of his soft, worn T-shirts. She loved the way those shirts felt on him, warmed by his body heat, scented by his light night sweats and their mingled sex. No matter how many times she washed and bleached them, the shirts he slept in always had a certain, faint fragrance to them.

He got into bed next to her. “Our baby, huh?”


“Our baby.”


“How far along do you think you are?”


She shrugged. “If it happened the first time we had sex, it’d be what, like eight weeks? If it was the night I got wasted at Joe’s, then it’s like, what, six weeks? Those are the only times we didn’t use protection.”


“Yeah, eight weeks if it was the first time.”


Her eyes drifted shut. She was aware of him shifting around, pulling her close. His hand hesitated at her hip before settling firmly over her belly.
“Might not be such a bad thing,” he whispered in her ear. “Sleep tight, baby. No more nightmares tonight. I’m here.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

West gestured for Jose to turn the wench on. With a shriek of gears, the steel cable snapped tight. Torturously slow, West’s faithful old truck began to inch out of the scrub. Traffic on the highway slowed so drivers could rubberneck.

When the truck was out of the woods, Jose shook his head. “Man, you’re going to need a tow truck. The front end’s messed up too bad for us to try it.”

“Damn it. Figured, though.”

He headed for the cab of the truck while he dialed the towing company’s phone number into his cell. All their personal crap had to be retrieved from the glove compartment and from behind the seat. After a quick conversation with the company’s receptionist to arrange for it to be towed to the scrap yard, he clapped the flip-phone closed and slipped it into his pocket.

Something small and black clattered out of the truck when he opened the driver’s side door. Frowning, he plucked it out of the grass, dusting dewy hitchhikers and bits of grass off.

Mattie’s cell phone.

This was how that asshole she was running from contacted her. West turned the phone on and hit the call button. A list of recently dialed numbers came up. It was the same incoming number. It wasn’t a local number.

Making sure Jose was busy by his own truck, West hit ‘send’ and held the phone to his ear.
It rang twice before a man answered, barking, “Dammit, Mattie, you got it yet?”
West hung up. A second later the phone rang. The same number flashed on the screen. He pushed the answer button, then the ‘end’ button. When the phone rang again, he answered it. The guy on the other end said firmly, “Matilyn.”


“She’s not here,” West replied.
“Who the hell’s this?”

“Who is this?”

The line was silent for a long moment. Jose stood a few feet away, watching him with a slight frown.

“I know who you are,” the man said. “You’re the guy she’s hooked up with. You’re a fool, you know that?”

West stayed silent. From the nearby trees a mockingbird went on a multi-tune tangent, desperate for any sort of response.

“Matilyn’s mine. She’s been mine since she was kid. She’ll always be mine. If you get in the way of what she’s doing for me, you will suffer. I promise you that. Ask her about the others that got in the way.”

“Leave her the fuck alone,” West said, low and steady. “She’s done.” “

That’s not the way it works.”

“It is now. Leave her alone. You want money? How much? I’ll make sure you get it, but Mattie is left out of this from now on.”


“It don’t work like that. I’m not repeating that again. Matilyn’s mine.”


“Not anymore. Mattie stays with me.”


“You know how many men have said that? You’re not the first one to decide she’s his queen.”

West sucked in a breath of warm muggy air. “I don’t care. I’m the one saying it right now.”


The guy on the other end laughed, a nasty sound that chilled West’s blood. “Yeah. All right. You’ll see, my friend. I’m warning you one last time. Matilyn will always be mine. I am her past and her future. You’re nothing but a little fling. You make sure you let her know I keep my promises.”

West flung his arm back, ready to heave the phone into the woods, then thought better of it. He turned it off and shoved it into his pocket.

“What was that, man?” Jose asked as they paced back to his truck.


Tight-lipped, West shook his head. “Nothing.”
West got in the passenger seat and stared out the window at his demolished truck. He wasn’t really seeing it. Agitated by the phone in his pocket, a million questions cycled through his mind.


***

Mattie greeted him with a hug and a kiss when he came in the door, tired and dirty and depressed from a day of fighting with himself and a bunch of malfunctioning irrigation systems. The cell phone he’d retrieved from the truck weighed him down like a boulder. Rebel clapped him on the shoulder and headed out the door. The twins were taking turns staying home with Mattie while he worked.

Seeing how wan and tired Mattie looked, he didn’t have the heart to question her about it yet. It must have been another long day of vomiting.

“You all right?” he asked, plopping down in his battered old recliner.


“Peachy.”


“Good. We gotta talk.”


She threw her head back dramatically and groaned. “Come on, West. I’m sick of the talks. I’m sick of getting all depressed and hating myself.”


“Not tonight. Tonight we’re just going to chill.”


She cut her eyes at him. “Oh, that makes it better. Now I’m going to be all nervous.”


“Do you have something to hide? Why are you nervous about something?”


“No.” She crossed her arms under her breasts and frowned at him. After a moment she sat down on the couch. “I’m so tired of the drama. I just want it to be me and you like it was.”


West snorted. Mattie kicked the side of the recliner. “What’s that mean?”
“

Nothing’s going to be like it used to be. We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do about thebaby.”


“We’ve got to figure out what we’re going to do with each other, first,” Mattie replied. She clambered into the recliner, straddling his body. Her crotch was so hot against the fly of his jeans. Despite his exhaustion, he felt his body reacting to the heat, to her closeness. She felt it, too, because she ground against him. He reached up and gave her much-fuller breasts a squeeze. Sighing, he pulled her into a hug.

The thought startled him. He shifted around until they were both in the chair, facing one another. With the chair all the way reclined, he propped his head up on his hand and gazed at her face.

“You look so pale.” Lightly, he stroked her cheek and let his hand rest on her shoulder.
She smiled and nestled her face against his throat.

“This is what I want. Forever.”


West only sighed and played with a tendril of hair. “Will this last forever? If you stayed, I mean.”

“We’ve all but killed each other so far.”

“I love your violence, West.”

“Aren’t you scared I might hurt you one day?”

She propped her head up and shook it slightly. “Not for a second.” She leaned forward and nipped his lower lip, flicking her tongue against the tiny bit of flesh in the instant it was between her teeth. “You can hurt me all you want. You should be scared I’ll hurt you.”

He kissed her. “I am, trust me. You terrify me.”

Thrilled and empowered, West moved quickly and pinned her to the chair with his weight. She flushed with excitement and squirmed beneath him. “You can hurt me all you want, West.”

He captured her wrists and held her hands captive against the headrest of the recliner. “There’s so much about you that I don’t know.” His other hand moved along her body, into the stretchy waistband of her sweatpants. She thrust her pubis against his hand, seeking his fingers. He stroked her hot center and was rewarded with her soft sigh.

“I’ll tell you—” she gasped against his neck. “When it’s all over with, I’ll tell you everything.” Faster than he expected, she came, crying out his name.

He waited until her body relaxed before he asked, “What do you mean?”


She kissed his throat. “I want to tell you everything. I hate when there’s being stuff between us.”
West pushed her hair behind her ear, the thin strands clinging to his sticky fingers. “Why can’t you tell me now?”


“It’s safer. West, I might...I might have to leave for a little while. But if you want me to, I’ll come back. Do you want me to?” She pulled his face to hers and peppered his lips and cheeks and jawline with hot, damp little kisses.

“Babe, we shouldn’t have this conversation now.”


“Why not?”


“Cuz we both say things we don’t mean when we’re all worked up.”


“You mean you say things you don’t mean. I mean everything I say.” She poked him lightly in the chest.
West sat up, straddling her hips. Both of them in the chair was a tight squeeze, but being close to her was worth it. The ancient chair creaked beneath them.