All That Matters (19 page)

Meg hurried over to help. The girl wouldn't even stand up. She was trembling so hard that it almost looked like she was having a seizure. “Please, don't let them kill me. Please. Please.”

What the hell had Info been telling this poor girl? “No one is going to hurt you. What's happening here is your chance to get away from him. Can you go home?”

“He'll just find me.” Peaches cleared her throat. “I won't tell if they kill him. I swear I won't. I'd have killed him myself already if I had the chance.”

Meg didn't know what the girl had endured. She wasn't sure that she wanted to know. She had to look away before she started to cry. The fight was still going on, but it wasn't really a fight. It was a beating. Info really shouldn't have thrown the cut the way he did. It was impossible not to realize that they might indeed kill the man. What did it say about her that she wasn't even disturbed by it?

“Stop!” The cry came from Cane. He'd been involved in the beating so Meg was surprised he'd stop it now. “I didn't know about the girl. I swear to Christ, I didn't know about the girl, but don't kill him. I'll take him away, away from here and away from her. He saved my life when we were in the sandbox. I owe him.”

Buster seemed to consider what he'd said. Meg realized that she was holding her breath. “Get him the fuck out of here. Go far away. I ever see him again, I'm going to slit his throat myself.”

“Yeah, Boss. I am.” Cane took off the prospect cut carefully, handed it over to Bones. “Thank you.”

Meg heard Peaches begin to sob but she got up and left Caroline to comfort her. She walked over to Train who had walked away when the beating stopped. She reached out and he grabbed her by the wrist. “You shouldn't have watched that.”

“I'm glad that I did,” Meg told him. “I'm glad that he got his ass beat. He deserved worse.”

“Yeah, he did. Fucking a kid. A kid.” The anger was back in his eyes.

“Do you want to go home?”

“No, but you probably should. You and Leo. Fuck, where's Leo?”

“Amelia took him outside. He didn't see anything.”

“Fuck, now I'm going to have to thank her,” Train grumbled. “Still, you should head home. I'll get one of the prospects... well, fuck. We're fresh out of those.”

“Amelia can take her,” Danny offered. “Or you could just take off, Train. We've got this. Buster has Caroline making arrangements to get her to see a doctor and make sure she's okay and then to get her home. She's from St. Louis.”

“The Horde is out that way,” Train said after a moment of thought. The Horde had the reputation of being ballsy and steady. Hell, they'd had a shoot out on fucking Main Street against impossible odds and come out on top because civilians picked up arms alongside them. He'd seen the movie.

“Ace is in contact with their tech guy now. They met online somehow, I guess they email or whatever.” Danny told him. “Asking that they keep an eye out in case Info does decide to head back that way. Go on, get your family home. Everything's handled here.”

“Yeah, that's a good idea. Thanks, Brother. And thank Amelia for looking out for Leo,” he added grudgingly.

“I think I might have to worry about competition from Leo,” Danny grumbled playfully. “She's in love with him already.”

“Do me a favor, let him crash at your place tonight. I need to talk to Meg,” Train said. Meg was about to protest; she didn't like Leo staying away from home. He didn't really like it either, but there was something in Train's expression that made her keep quiet. Whatever he wanted to talk to her about, it was important. There was a fleeting moment of fear that he was going to end things with her, but that little voice got shouted down immediately. He loved her.

Danny grinned. “Wouldn't want to keep the boy up all night, talking. Don't worry. We've got him, but if he ends up stealing my wife, I'm moving in with the two of you.”

<#<#<#<#

Meg watched as Train paced the length of the living room. “We don't have to talk about it, whatever it is; if you don't want to, we don't have to. What I saw tonight didn't change the way that I see you. Nothing could.”

He came and sat down on the couch next to her. “I need to tell you this. We're together, you need to know. Seeing that girl tonight, it brought me back to something I don't like to talk about or think about. If I could have, I'd have killed him.” Train fell silent for a moment. “I told you about Brenda, my sister, right? That she died when I was younger.”

“Yes,” Meg replied. He hadn't said much, but how much Brenda had meant to him was clear. She reached out, took his hands and squeezed them. She wanted to give him the comfort that he always gave her, but he didn't even seem to notice.

“When we were kids, our parents couldn't be bothered to spend time with us. We might as well not have existed. As we got older, our father started to pay more attention to her. I remember being jealous. I shouldn't have been jealous. It wasn't fun time for her. He...” Train's voice broke. He drew in a deep breath. “He raped her, almost daily, for years. I didn't know. I'd have done something if I'd known. When she was sixteen, he knocked her up. She hung herself, in a tree at the fucking park, left me a note. Told me that she couldn't bring a kid into it. Begged me not to hate her, but that there was nothing else she could do.

“Jesus.” Meg felt tears roll down her cheeks.

“Don't do that.” He reached out and wiped the tears. “Don't cry for that boy, he's long gone. But tonight, that girl made me remember. I'm sorry if anything that happened scared you. I don't want to scare you. I'd never hurt you. Never.”

“I know.” Meg wasn't content with just holding his hand. She moved forward, desperate to get closer to him. “And you didn't scare me. None of you did.” It had been a bit of a surprise. “I knew that no one was going to hurt me and that you were doing the right thing.”

“We don't always do the right thing,” he pointed out.

“I don't care. I love you. I feel like I'm saying it every ten seconds today, but it's true. It's true.” Meg met his eyes.

“You're good, I'm not tired of hearing it yet.”

“Yet?” Meg cocked an eyebrow at him. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“It means get your ass over here.” He reached out and pulled her into his lap. His hands weren't gentle, and neither was his mouth. Meg had no reason to complain about either; she loved the way that he touched her. It was almost like he couldn't get enough of her, and she really liked that.

His hands slid beneath her shirt, played over her skin. The material slid up, and Meg felt a wave of self-doubt. She always did, even though she was well aware of how much he liked her body. No, he loved her body, and he loved her. The thought made everything inside of her tingle.

“Why don't you have any ink?” he asked.

“I want to get something for the boys, but I'm not sure what. Even if I was sure, it wouldn't matter because I haven't been able to afford to go to a place that wouldn't give a free disease with every new tat,” Meg explained. “I like it, though. I like yours.” His tree fascinated her; it always had from the first time she'd seen it. He had “Nightshade” across his shoulder blades, the letters appeared to drip blood down his back. It was as beautiful as the tree.

“You've seen Caroline and Amelia's marks, haven't you?”

Meg nodded. “I've seen them. Jillian's, too.” In fact Jillian's had been the first she'd noticed, but that was because it had still been scabbed. “Hers is Ace's whole name, but the other two just have an initial.” She'd wondered about the whole branding process more than once but had never wanted to ask; it would seem presumptuous. “It shows the world who they belong to.”

“It's a little more complicated than that. It's a symbol, like a wedding ring is, of honor, commitment and loyalty. In our world, it means a lot.”

“Why don't the guys have the mark?”

“They've got their own marks,” he replied. “You'll see if you ever see any of 'em without a shirt on. I figure that you will one day. You'll see.” His hands continued to drift over her back. “Where were you going to get the ink at for the kids?”

“I don't know. I thought about my shoulder or on my leg. I never really settled on a spot.”

“I've got a guy, he's the one who did my chest and back. I'll get you in with him. You tell him what you want and he'll do it.” Train smiled up at her. “I could beat around the bush with this, but I won't. I want my mark on you, right here.” He brought his hand to the spot where her collar bone met her neck and pushed down.

“That certainly is direct.” Meg struggled to organize her thoughts. He loved her. He wanted to mark her. “What about the boys?”

“I'm not sure that I'm supposed to mark them, Meg,” he teased her with a smile. “What about them?You think I don't know that the three of you are a package deal? Because I do, and I'm more than good with that. Oh come on, don't cry. Please don't cry.”

“I'm not,” she answered, even though she could feel the sting of tears at the back of her eyes. “What would your mark be?” Meg sat up straighter when his hands left her body, but she relaxed when she realized that he was just removing a ring.

“I'd use this.” He held it out for her to take. Meg knew all of his rings; this one was her favorite. It was an initial ring, but the letter T was raised off of the surface. It was gold, the surface marred with scratches, and now that she looked closer, she saw that a corner of the top of the T was chipped off. “You don't have to answer me right now. You can think about it. You probably should, because if you agree, you're all in. We both are.”

Meg wanted to be all in with him. She wanted it enough that the idea of him holding superheated metal to her skin and branding her didn't give her pause; the outlaw life that he led with Nightshade didn't matter either. Train knew plenty of things about her. They talked about anything and everything, shared stories and secrets, but not the one that could change everything, the one she never wanted him to know. The brave thing to do would be to tell him, to face what happened next, but she couldn't. “Okay.”

“Okay?” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You care to elaborate on that, Meg?”

“I'll take your mark. I've got some questions, though.” She had to think of the boys and how best not to turn their lives any more upside down than they already were.

“Ask away.” He relaxed back against the couch with an amused expression on his face.

“Where are we going to live? Here or at your place?”

“Where do you want to live? It doesn't really matter to me either way. The boys would probably want to stay here. They could have their own rooms now, with Josh gone. You haven't heard from that fucker, have you?”

“No,” Meg answered, “I would have told you if I did. He gets no more sympathy from me, not after he had the boys holding. Fuck him.”

“Good girl, but I'd rather that you fuck me,” Train said with a smile. “Especially since we've got the entire night to ourselves. As for the rest of it, we'll figure it out, where we live and everything else.”

The warmth Meg felt wasn't just from the arousal of his body beneath her as she straddled him, it was also from the look in his eyes. He meant every word he said. She'd never thought that she'd have that, but now she did, and there was no way that she was going to let it go.

Chapter Eleven

Train looked around at the progress that they'd made on the new Nightshade building. He had to admit it had shaped up better than he'd thought it would. Most of the large dining room space would be converted into the office space for Nightshade Construction. The second floor would be where they put the dorm rooms, and the third floor would be the space where they'd meet. It was going to be a pain in the ass to get a table and chairs up there, but it would work.

He walked past Ace and Bones, ignored the argument that they were having about the security system and headed to the second floor. The rooms were all framed out, ready to be built. If he had to guess, he'd say that they would be done in four, maybe three weeks if they really hustled.