Golden Trail (8 page)

Then she answered softly, “Yes.”

He felt his brows shoot up. “Yes?”

“Where’s Daddy going?” she asked in a
high-pitched, fake little girl voice. Then she went on to answer
her own question in her normal voice. “Out to get the bad guys,
baby. Your Daddy wears the white hat, makes the world safe for all
the mommies’ precious babies…” her hand slid up his chest, his
neck, to rest curled around his jaw, “just like you.”

Jesus. Cecilia said that to her, touched her
like that.

Jesus.

“Roc,” he whispered.

“She was proud of him.”

“Rocky.”

“She was proud of what he did.”

“Roc –”

“He goes to work, every day, sits down by
Colt, Mike, Sully, Sean…
Merry
. He sits down and puts on the
white hat and pretends he’s a good guy. Those boys, they face
danger every day. They get to wear the white hats. He doesn’t get
to do that, Layne.”

“He’ll go down,” Layne assured her. “Give
Merry and me time to regroup.”

“You’re exposed.”

“Give us time to regroup.”

“There
isn’t
time.”

“There is.”

“This
spreads
,” she told him the
truth. “One goes down, others will follow. If they don’t, a dirty
cop taints the whole team. Word gets out –”

“Let Merry and I get our bearings.”

“No.”

“Fuck, Rocky!” he exploded, pounding his
palm against the wall by her shoulder. “You have no fuckin’ clue
what you’re doin’. Merry’s already swung his ass out on this one
and you know what happened to me. We need to cool it. You’re
putting the entire operation in jeopardy.”

She again fell silent and did it apparently
forgetting she still had her hands on him.

He didn’t forget, both of them burned right
into his skin.

He didn’t say a word.

They went into stare down and he realized
he’d forgotten this. When she left him, he’d glorified every memory
of her. He’d forgotten she could be unbelievably fucking stubborn
and he’d forgotten just how incredibly
annoying
that
was.

Back in the day, he had several outs to a
stare down with Rocky. The one he used most frequently was to
tickle her. His second top runner was to kiss her. Once, he’d been
so pissed, he’d caught her up in his arms, walked to the couch,
turned her over his knee and spanked her. The first two he enjoyed
and, if he stuck with it, which he always did, she eventually did
too. The last served to piss her off to such an extreme, she
attacked him, which eventually ended with them doing something a
whole lot different than fighting, something they also both
enjoyed. It had been the best sex they’d ever had. To the point
where it gave him option four, when they were in stare down, to
break it, he’d ask if she needed a spanking. The memory cut through
the stubborn, her breath would start getting heavy just thinking
about it and
she’d
end up kissing
him.

He didn’t have any of those options open to
him now, she wasn’t backing down and he had to get her hands off
him or he’d put his on her.

“Merry’s out on a date, Roc, I think it’s
safe you use his bed,” Layne remarked, pushed away from the wall,
walked to the door and tugged it open, turning to her to see she
was still pressed against the wall where he left her. “Lock this
after me,” he ordered then he walked out, slamming the door behind
him.

Robin Hood

“Layne,” she begged.

Layne sucked her nipple sharply into his
mouth.

“Layne,” she repeated on a moan.

He lifted his head and looked toward hers.
It was pressed back into the pillows, her neck arched.

“You promised,” he murmured.

Her head came up and her eyes came to him,
unfocused. Christ, she was turned on. It was written all over her
face.

He felt his rock hard cock start aching.

Then he put his mouth to her, trailing his
lips down her belly. He stopped and kissed her right above the dark
triangle of hair between her legs.

She lifted her knees and dropped them to the
sides, offering herself to him.

Fuck, but he loved her.

He settled between her legs and slid his
finger lightly through her wetness.

Her hips bucked then her body moved with
agitation.

“Layne,” she said again.

He looked up at her and she was staring at
him, need stark on her face. Her hands were clenching the slats in
the headboard, what she’d promised. Layne got to touch, to taste,
to lick, to suck and she held onto the headboard – no matter
what.

“You promised, baby,” he reminded her again,
using his finger to retrace its path.

A low sound came from her throat and her
head fell back.

Layne grinned.

Then he looked down at her, opened her with
his fingers and used his tongue to do the same thing he’d done with
his finger.

Her hips surged up, his mouth closed over
her, he pulled deep and then growled with satisfaction against her
when he heard and felt her come.

* * * * *

Layne’s eyes opened.

He was on his stomach and his cock was hard.
Again. And aching. Again.

He rolled to his back, muttering,
“Christ.”

He stared at the ceiling. It felt like he’d
been asleep for two minutes which was about as long as he actually
had been asleep since he’d spent most of his night thinking about
Rocky, some of it arguing with her and the rest of it pissed at
her.

Even so, he still had a dream. All of them
were different, some hotter than others, but only by shades and
degrees.

This one, however, was the best so far.

He put the dream out of his head when he
heard the boys’ shower going. He turned and looked at the clock.
Six twenty-seven and they were up on their own, or at least one of
them was. A miracle.

He gave himself a minute to get his body
under control then he got up, went to the bathroom, did his thing,
went to his dresser, grabbed a tee, tugged it on and left his room.
He checked Tripp’s room first. Light on, bed unmade, clothes and
shit everywhere, Tripp not there. The shower was still on so he
walked down the hall to Jasper’s room and found it the same as
Tripp’s. Light on, room a mess, Jasper not there.

He walked down the stairs and halfway down
saw Blondie outside, panting against the glass, body swinging side
to side, tail whipping around. He walked directly to the sliding
glass door but turned to see Tripp was emptying the dishwasher.
Another miracle.

“Hey Pal,” Layne greeted.

Tripp looked at him and smiled. “Hey
Dad.”

“Is that Tripp?” Layne asked, sliding open
the door, Blondie shot in and began instantly to dance around him.
Once the dog was clear of the door, he threw the door to.

“What?” Tripp asked back as Layne walked to
the coffeepot.

“You Tripp?” Layne repeated.

“Well…” Tripp stared at him, a funny look on
his face, “yeah.”

Layne pulled the filter out of the
coffeemaker. “You sure? See, the real Tripp doesn’t unload the
dishwasher unless I’ve asked him ten times. I remember askin’ you
to do it last night but that was only once. I got nine more to
go.”

Tripp’s comically confused face split into a
smile and he muttered, “Shut up, Dad,” before he turned back to the
dishwasher.

“You feed Blondie?” Layne asked but he knew
Tripp hadn’t because Blondie was dancing between both him and his
son, unsure which one of them was going to end her enforced fast,
and if she’d been fed she’d pick one or the other to bug.

“Not yet. Just got downstairs. She’s only
been out a few minutes.” Tripp answered.

“I’ll get her after I make coffee. You get
breakfast after you finish with that.”

“Okay,” Tripp agreed and shoved some plates
into a cupboard.

Layne made the coffee and started to feed
Blondie but stopped when he was about to plop the food in the dirty
bowl. He stared at the bowl a second then cleaned it before he fed
his son’s dog. By the time he set down the bowl, Blondie was beside
herself and Layne added a trip to the Garden Center to his day’s
agenda to buy her more bowls so they could put them in the
dishwasher and she didn’t have her breakfast delayed.

Layne had a cup of coffee in his hand, his
hips against the counter by the sink and Tripp was sitting at the
island spooning up cereal when Jasper showed. He let his oldest son
get his cereal and sit by his brother before he moved to stand in
front of them at the island.

“Spoke to your Mom yesterday. She wants you
guys to stay with me next week.”

Tripp had been looking at him while he
talked and when he finished, his head dropped down to look at the
milk in his bowl. Jasper had been looking at him too but his head
didn’t drop down. Layne watched anger flash through his features
before he looked away and Layne saw a muscle tick in his cheek.

This was another reason why he knew they
were his boys. They’d pegged Stew before Layne even moved home.
They didn’t like him and they didn’t like spending time with him.
But more, they didn’t like him with their Mom.

Gabby might be a bitch to Layne but she
loved her kids and they loved her. For this reason, Layne knew they
were torn. When they spent time with her and Stew, when he got them
back, they were both tense to the point of wired and it took a
couple of days for them to settle in. Even not liking Layne, Jasper
obviously liked him more than Stew because he relaxed when he was
at Layne’s house. Then they’d go back and it’d happen all over
again.

This caused Layne concern but neither of
them had shared and he felt it important to let them deal with it
how they saw fit. They needed him, they needed to man up and ask.
Until then, it was up to them to cope.

They were torn because he knew they
preferred to be at Layne’s house because Stew wasn’t there. But
they didn’t want to be away from their Mom because Stew was there.
If Stew wasn’t there, he wondered how they’d be. Tripp probably
would take it in stride. Jasper would probably be more of an
asshole.

“That cool with you guys?” Layne asked and
they both looked at him.

“Yeah,” Tripp answered.

“Whatever,” Jasper muttered.

That was the best he was going to get from
Jas and he’d take it.

Then Jasper decided to take his anger out on
Layne and Layne knew this because Jasper stated, “Mrs. Astley is
thirty-eight years old.”

This was a bizarre statement leading into
unknown territory but considering he was referring to Raquel at
all, Layne braced.

“Yeah,” Layne confirmed. “How’d you know
that?”

“Kids know everything about Mrs. Astley,”
Jasper answered.

Layne bet they did.

“You were twenty-five when Mom had me,”
Jasper went on.

Layne studied his son and prompted, “Your
point, Jas?”

“You said you lived with her before Mom,”
Jasper replied.

Layne kept his eyes locked to his boy.

Layne had made the decision when he moved
home that he would treat his sons, mostly, like men. Neither of
them were kids anymore, not really, and both of them were smart.
They had to learn how to be men from somewhere and Stew sure as
fuck wouldn’t teach them how to be good ones, so Layne was going to
do it. Therefore, he was straight with them, at all times, at all
costs. They had to learn how to deal with whatever life threw at
them and no one could tell you how to do that. You had to learn by
experience.

Neither of them had asked about him getting
shot, not yet. He was going to let them sort what they had to sort
in their heads and then he was going to share more about who he was
and what he did. That time was getting ripe, he knew it.

Therefore, Layne nodded to Jasper. “I
did.”

Jasper got that look in his eye, the one he
got when he was going to be more of an asshole teenaged kid than
usual and Layne braced again.

“You like jailbait?”

“Jas,” Tripp muttered. He wasn’t a big fan
of his brother’s asshole teenaged kid act either.

Jasper turned to his brother and defended
himself. “She’s four years younger than Dad. They lived together
before Mom, she was, like, a teenager, dude.”

Layne held onto his patience and studied his
sons.

Then he made a decision.

“Don’t move, I’ll be back,” Layne ordered
and walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs and to his desk. He
pulled out a drawer, rifled through it and found the big manila
envelope. He opened it, his fingers sifting through the pictures,
he found the one he was looking for, pulled it out and walked back
to his sons.

He resumed his place opposite them at the
island and tossed the picture down in front of them. It skidded and
Tripp’s hand shot out to stop it. He brushed it with his finger,
twirling it so it was right side up to him and Jasper.

In it was a picture of Rocky. She was
wearing jeans shorts, a tight pink t-shirt, her hair was down and
around her shoulders and she was sitting on a high, cement wall
next to a statue of a lion. They were at Purdue, her and Dave and
Layne. She was seventeen and scouting universities, she’d later be
accepted at Purdue as well as five other schools. She wanted to go
to Purdue but she got hooked up with Layne and made the decision to
stay closer to home so she’d picked Butler. Layne felt no guilt
about this. Butler wasn’t sloppy seconds by a long shot.

Layne had always loved that picture. She’d
been smiling, it was a little smile but the dimple in her right
cheek had popped out. At seventeen, she’d made it to far beyond
pretty, her sitting there, in her tight pink t-shirt, that smile on
her face, young, the promise of a good life ahead of her, it was
captivating both in person and in the photo. That smile, that
t-shirt, her long legs exposed by her jeans shorts, ankles crossed,
the promise on her face, it all defined why he’d fallen in love
with her. He’d known her three weeks and in that instant, when he
snapped that photo, he remembered looking through the lens and he’d
lost his heart or, more to the point, gave it to her.