Texas Kissing (19 page)

I walked over to her and took her hands. “Now, I don’t know how you do it in the big city,” I told her, “but out here, this means we gotta get married.”

She looked up at me, eyes huge.

“Joke,” I told her.

Her face relaxed and she sort of shook herself, like,
of course it was.
But for just an instant there, I’d thought I’d seen a flash of...
disappointment?
Shit. I’d misjudged her again. She always seemed so distant, pushing me away—I’d just been kidding around, letting her know I wasn’t some hick who’d get all clingy, and it had backfired.

“But you’re not going to do your disappearing act again, are you?” I asked.

She shook her head, but in a very doubtful way.

“
Lily,”
I grated. “Don’t run out on me again. I got a lasso and I know just how to use it.”

“I have to go,” she muttered, and pulled away.

I grabbed her by the hand and pulled her up short, then dragged her across the floor towards me, her sneakers sliding on a bed of hay.

I pulled her into my arms, lifted her up off the floor and kissed her. After a second of resistance, she opened her lips and allowed it, and then I felt her melt. I relaxed. Everything was going to be okay. I hoped.

“I’m serious,” I whispered in her ear. “You run off again and I’m going to have to teach you a lesson.”

She squirmed against me and nodded. Then she was sliding down out of my arms and hurrying out of the barn.

I stood staring at the door for a long time after she’d gone. In theory, I should be celebrating. The sex had been the best ever, just how I’d imagined it. And if she wanted to keep it casual and just show up for sex and then disappear...wasn’t that what I wanted? Wasn’t that what every guy wanted?

But something wasn’t right—about the way she’d reacted, after the sex, and on a deeper level, too. Something in her past. Something that kept scaring her away.

I was worried about her.

I couldn’t remember when I’d ever worried about a girl, before.

Lily

I stumbled downstairs to the bathroom, only just making it to the toilet before I threw up.
Isn’t morning sickness meant to only last a month?

I ran my hands over my huge, swollen belly. The last eight months had shot by. I still hadn’t told Bull.
Why hadn’t I told Bull?

My whole life was in ruins.

The sound of a car engine outside sent me waddling over to the door. Three black BMWs were pulling up. My blood turned to ice water. I recognized the type of car. The first man out was Antonio and the second was my uncle, followed by a small army of goons. They started towards me.

They’d found me. I’d been invisible for two years, but the baby had made me noticeable.

I jumped down out of the bus and tried to run away down the creek bed, but I could only manage a stumbling walk, hands holding my stomach, terrified that I’d trip. I was so worried about the baby. How was I going to protect it, if I couldn’t even protect myself?

They’d catch me and now they’d want Bull and the baby, too. I’d brought them into my life and I was going to get them all killed. How could I have been so irresponsible?

Footsteps behind me. Expensive leather shoes pounding through the dust. Hands caught my arms—

Lily

I heaved in a massive lungful of air and sat up in bed.

Everything was still and quiet. I sat there in the darkness for a few seconds, terrified the nightmare was going to come back. My hands searched my belly. No swelling.

I slumped back on the sheets, my heart rate gradually slowing. I was soaked in sweat.
Fuck!

It was the night after I’d met Bull in the barn.
Met
being a euphemism for
gone there in the middle of the morning and allowed him to fuck me.

Hard.

Bareback.

And now my slumbering brain had gone to town with the potential consequences.

Too shaken to get back to sleep, I went to get a glass of water. The dream had been so real that I actually relished each easy, unladen step to the sink.

What had I been thinking?
The few times I’d had sex, back in college, I’d never, ever not used a condom. Had my brain just shut down the moment I’d stepped inside the barn?

Yeah. Pretty much. The sight of him, the words he’d said...it had sent all the rational parts of me on vacation.

I’d started to come back to myself straight after the sex—that’s why I’d left so abruptly. And almost immediately, I’d started running through dates in my head. By the time I was back in my car, I’d already reassured myself that I was just about due to get my period, so I couldn’t possibly get pregnant. The instant I got back to the bus, I dug through my store receipts and checked the dates to see when I’d last run out for tampons. By the time I’d gone to bed, I was 99% certain that everything was just fine.

And yet I’d still had the nightmare.

I knew that it wasn’t just about getting pregnant. I’d broken all of my own rules. I’d gotten involved with someone when I said I never would. Sex had moved our relationship to a whole new level. Even without the bareback thing, this morning still would have been watershed moment—that realization that you’re connected to a person in a whole new way, that they’ve known you,
felt
you in a way few men have. It’s a big deal for any woman, but for me the shock of it came wrapped in dark, dark fear.

I was putting myself and Bull at risk: myself, because if I started getting all dewy-eyed I’d get sloppy and make a mistake; Bull, because if my uncle’s men found me, he’d try to save me. And they’d have no hesitation in shooting him.

I’d taken two big chances, in sleeping with Bull. Risking getting pregnant was the smaller of the two.

I hopped up onto the counter, sitting on the edge as I sipped my water and stewed on the problem. The loudest sound in the bus was the dripping of the faucet. Outside, I could hear the cicadas.

Was it really too much to ask, for me to have just a
little
happiness? To have one thing in my life that wasn’t related to crime?
I could be really careful.

But what about Bull? Would he be careful? Hell, I wouldn’t even be able to tell him to be careful, or he’d start asking
why.
I couldn’t get into my past with him. He’d demand I take steps I wasn’t ready to take—steps I’d
never
be ready to take, like testify against my uncle. I didn’t need to change. I was fine just as I was.

I gazed around the darkened bus.
Yeah, right.

I went back and forth on it for so long that I actually dozed off, perched on the edge of the kitchen counter, and only woke up when I leaned so far forward that I nearly fell. At that point, I headed back to bed, still undecided.

The next morning, I woke to that familiar cramping. Sure enough, by mid-morning my period had started. I slumped against the bathroom wall. I hadn’t even realized how tight my chest had been. The fact that I’d been 99% sure was irrelevant. That last 1% is everything.

One problem down. Now for the much bigger one.

***

For two days, I managed to avoid the Bull issue completely by burying myself in my work. Most of it was coming from the arms dealer, Luka. I made a whole slew of fake IDs for a small army of surly-looking Russian guys with crew cuts, and shipped them all over the country: New York, Boston, Chicago. Luka seemed to be building an empire.

One of the passports, though, wasn’t for a man. It was for a very pretty girl about my age, with long, glossy brown hair. For a second, I was worried that he’d started trafficking women, but there was only one woman and I really didn’t get that vibe from Luka—he’d always seemed honorable. And the note that arrived with the woman’s details said to take extra care with this one.

A lover?

I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I mean, not that Luka would be interested in me. Obviously not. And we’d only met five or six times. And I wouldn’t want to get mixed up with a guy like that. He’s an arms dealer, for Chrissakes. Even with those cheekbones and that super-sexy Russian accent. I absolutely wasn’t jealous. At all.
I’m sure she’s lovely and I wish them all the luck in the world.

I put Arianna
bitch
Scott’s photo down and started making her a fake French passport.
Veronique Sardou,
Luka had requested for the name. Going through all the French databases to set her up with a fake life was a welcome break, after all the Russian. French was such a romantic language. I wondered what Luka and this Arianna woman might be doing in France. Paris, maybe. A romantic vacation, walking hand-in-hand on the banks of the river Seine. Or filthy sex in some cheap hotel in Pigalle—

I caught myself.
Wait. Really? This is my life, getting jealous of a client’s lover and thinking that a French social security database is romantic? Fantasizing about what they might be doing in Paris because I’ll never go there myself?

There had been a time in my life when I’d thought about going to Europe—had actually planned it out, in fact. Before I’d woken up to what my life in New York was, I’d been just another college student, ready to take on the world, instead of isolating myself completely from it. Now...I was never going to go there.
Ever.
Not with a guy, at least. I couldn’t put someone else at risk, not after what happened to Annette.

She wasn’t the only one who’d suffered, either.

There was a guy in high school, Russell. You would have thought it would be some hormone-pumped football captain who’d dare to show an interest in the don’s daughter, but no—they were all too scared. Russell was a slender little guy, barely taller than me but good looking. He wore his hair long and had a guitar and wrote god-awful love songs that we both laughed about and...I’m not sure I even liked him in
that
way and I wasn’t sure he liked me in that way either. I was just so glad to have some male contact at last. We never actually did anything, but we hung out and I used to pretend he was my boyfriend.

Then I made the mistake of hugging him within sight of Antonio, as he picked me up from school. And Antonio immediately wanted to know
who’s the faggot?

I was the only kid at our school who hadn’t caught on to the fact Russell was gay, even if he wasn’t out yet. That’s how starved of social contact I was.

Faggots,
as my uncle called them, weren’t people he wanted me hanging out with. I was forbidden to see him again, but that wasn’t enough. He quietly applied pressure to the school board and, suddenly, Russell’s parents were told that maybe their son would be happier elsewhere. His parents had to move him and, because word got around, none of the upmarket private schools would take him. He eventually landed at a nearby public school, where his posh background meant he was targeted and beaten daily. After that, no one dared to be my friend at all except Annette.

Or there was the time, in my freshman year at college, when I came home stinking of air freshener, because I’d doused myself in it to try to get rid of the smell of weed. Just one shared joint with the cool kids in the old boiler room. I barely even got a buzz off it. I just wanted to fit in.