Unfinished Hero 02 Creed (37 page)

I found Charlene, guided her away from the kids and held a low-voiced conversation with her in the living room.

“Right, you go out but Creed is not leaving and, Charlene, I love you, he loves me, he cares about you and those kids, so he’s not gonna leave you alone with Dan in order that he can be close to see to you. You listen to what Dan has to say but, warning, if Creed doesn’t like his bullshit, it’s done.”

“But he’s back and –” she started and God, God,
God
she needed to clue in!

I grabbed her by either side of her neck and gave her a gentle shake. “Trust me. Trust Creed. Dan says his head was screwed up and maybe he’s not lying. If that’s the case and he’s got his shit sorted, Creed will get that and roll with it. If it’s not, Creed will sniff it out and Dan will be on his way.”

She held my eyes.

I held hers back.

She said nothing.

I didn’t either until this lasted awhile so I whispered, “Babe, trust us.”

She licked her lips before she nodded.

I squeezed her neck and let her go.

She was walking away when I called her name and she turned back.

“Uh… FYI, Dan thinks Creed’s your new boyfriend, he’s mine too and we do three-ways.”

Her mouth dropped open as her eyes went huge.

I grinned at her then went to find the kids.

* * * * *

Adam, Theo and Leslie were strapped into their car seats in Creed’s truck and I was making goofy faces at them through the windows. Once I got big smiles, I stopped doing that, rounded the hood and went to Creed’s open window.

“You got them?” I asked quietly.

“I got them, you get her,” he answered quietly.

I nodded before saying, “Love you, babe.”

“Back at ‘cha,” Creed replied, I smiled at him, slapped the side of his truck with my hand and stepped away.

Creed pulled away.

I moved to Charlene’s house.

I found her in her bedroom, the drapes pulled, the room dark. She was face down on the bed and she’d already been through a half a box of Kleenex, the tissues rumpled and strewn all over the bed and the floor.

Suffice it to say, Douchebag Dan had not got his head screwed on straight. Even Charlene cottoned onto the fact that Dan was home because Dan had underestimated what it would cost to set up a new life without the ball and chain of home, spouse and family. He’d run out of money and had nowhere else to go. This being the case, Creed didn’t send him packing. Charlene did.

When I arrived in her room, I climbed right into bed with her, shifting until my front was flush with her back and I wrapped my arm tight around her waist, holding her close.

“We’ll get you through this,” I whispered.

“He’s a dick,” she whispered back, her voice trembling.

“Yep,” I agreed. “He’s also gone. You feel this for a while then you move on.”

Her body bucked against mine with her sobs but I just held on.

We lay together silently for long minutes before she asked softly, “What if he’s my Creed?”

Seriously?

I loved her but she had to
clue in.

“He isn’t your Creed and I know this because the true Creeds of this world are out doing things like my Creed is doing, taking your kids for lunch and ice cream and to a park so you have time to get yourself sorted. They do not take off, shirk their responsibilities, come home after over two months and not even ask to see their kids. He isn’t your Creed, babe. Maybe there’s one out there for you. It just isn’t Dan.”

I heard her stuttering breath before her head moved on the pillow indicating she was nodding.

“I’ll stay until your shit’s –” I started but stopped when she turned in my arm and wrapped hers around me.

“You won’t. When you’re ready to go, you’ll go. I’ll be okay. You be happy.”

“Helping you out makes me happy,” I informed her.

“Not as much as being with Creed.”

That was the truth.

“Charlene, girl –”

She shook my body with her arm. “You aren’t going tomorrow, right?”

I grinned at her through the dark and confirmed, “Right.”

“When my eyes don’t feel puffy and my stomach doesn’t feel funny and my heart doesn’t hurt so damned much, we’ll talk. We’ll plan. We’ll figure it out. I’ll find my way and I know you’ll help me. It doesn’t feel fine now but it will be. It always is.”

“Yeah,” I agreed softly. “It always is.”

“I hope my fine doesn’t take sixteen years, though,” she told me and I grinned again.

“I hope so, too.”

She nodded and didn’t grin back. She dipped her chin and stared at my chest.

I lifted a hand and pulled her hair away from her face and neck. Then I wrapped my arm around her again and held tight.

Once I did that, I said quietly, “Love you to bits, Charlene.”

“I know, Sylvie,” she replied quietly back without looking at me. “Love you, too.”

I held her close and listened to her take another staggering breath.

And I held her close until she fell asleep in my arms.

And I held her close for a while after.

Then I got up, left her sleeping, closed her door and, as quietly as I could, I cleaned her house.

* * * * *

“Got a firm on retainer. I’ll call them. They have a divorce lawyer who’s a fuckin’ piranha. This asshole left her with three kids, one Down’s, that guy’ll nail his balls to the wall.”

I was sitting on Knight’s couch in Knight’s office with my cowboy booted feet up on his coffee table.

Knight was standing at his window, looking down at his heaving club.

It was late. Charlene’s kids were home, fed, pajama’d and put to bed. Creed was outside in his truck waiting for me to chat with Knight. I was upstairs doing that, having asked him if he could help Charlene out in some way and also telling him that I would soon be moving to Phoenix to be with Creed.

As suspected, Knight stepped up for Charlene. It wasn’t just hookers he looked after. He wasn’t big on any woman getting screwed over in any way that could happen.

I smiled at him. “You rock.”

Knight didn’t smile at me. I guessed this was because he really didn’t like it when women got screwed. He was pissed Charlene was going through this, even though he’d met her only a couple of times so he barely knew her at all.

When Knight didn’t say anything, I offered, “If I have free time from Hawk’s job, I’ll work for you the next month for free if you set that guy on Dan.”

“Did you miss the part about them being on retainer?” he asked.

“No,” I answered.

“It’s covered, Sylvie.”

Yeah. Knight totally rocked.

I smiled at him again but this time it was bigger.

Knight turned his head away and looked out the window.

Weird.

He could be intense…

No, strike that, he was pretty much always intense but he wasn’t broody. He spoke his mind and didn’t hesitate to do it when he had something to say. He wasn’t a man of few words. He had words and he used them.

So, as I noted, this was weird.

“I’ll take on Creed.”

This came from Knight, directed toward the window but meant for me.

“What?” I asked.

He turned to me. “I’ll take on Creed. Make it worth his while. If he’s got to take extra time to go down to Phoenix and see his kids, he’ll have it. I always need good men, men I can trust. He’s a man like that.”

I stared at him, my breath failing me.

He didn’t want me to leave.

He was trying to make it so I’d stay.

Holy shit!

I didn’t know what to do with this.

“I…” I started, swallowed, sucked in breath then told him quietly, “He doesn’t agree with what you do.”

Knight tipped his head to the side. “He doesn’t agree?”

I shook my head. “He believes you do what you do with integrity but he doesn’t agree with what it is you do. He won’t work for you and even if he would, it wouldn’t be fair to ask him to leave his kids. He loves them. For me, I believe he’d do that but it would tear him apart, so I won’t make him.”

Knight held my eyes a second then looked back out the window.

I took in another breath as I pulled my boots from his table, put them to the floor then leaned my elbows into my knees.

“I’ll come back, visit you and Anya and Kat,” I told him.

“Got a lot to be thankful for,” he told his window, his words confusing me. “A good woman, beautiful daughter, work I believe in, money, men around me I trust.” He turned back to me. “Still, you left, that hole will not be filled. Not ever.”

Holy fucking shit!

I felt my throat start to close and forced through it, “Knight,” but that was all I could think to say.

Knight held my eyes and I was so undone, I let him and I did it silently.

Finally, he spoke.

“We’ll visit you, too, but, warning Sylvie, we’re not comin’ down there in the summer. I’ve been down there in the summer. It’s torture. Maybe Thanksgiving. Anya gets off on holidays. She’ll like that.”

“Creed has a big table,” I said quietly.

“You cook?” he asked.

“When forced,” I answered and finally got a lip twitch from Knight.

“Creed cook?” he went on.

“Absolutely.”

“Then it’s a plan.”

I stood, and was going to move to him but I found my feet failing me. All I could do was stand there, staring at one of only two men in my entire life who really, truly loved me.

So I decided it was time to give that back.

“You know, I love you, Knight.”

“You could have been one of my girls.”

Again, that wasn’t the response I was expecting.

“Say again?” I asked.

“You came to Denver, after that shit went down with you, if that had broken you, you could have found me for another reason. You didn’t. You didn’t let that shit break you. You didn’t bow to it. You fought it. You didn’t become one of my girls. You became the woman who protected them. That says a lot about you, Sylvie. I respect that. I respect you. I respect that you’re professional, I can trust you but you still got a personality, a sense of humor. After that shit happened to you, you kept that, you kept you. I respect that. I respect that we had an attraction and, not like a lot of women, when we found we didn’t suit, you didn’t let that shit turn catty or destructive. You let it go, you kept us solid and it means somethin’ to me you shared your shit with me. You trusted me with it. You trusted that me knowin’ it wouldn’t alter our relationship. That was an honor, Sylvie. I know you haven’t given that to anyone but me and Charlene, and, babe, it was an honor you chose me.”

Told you Knight could talk.

And that was nice and all,
really
nice, but I was a little put out he didn’t say it straight. He always said it straight.

Then he said it straight.

“We been through a lot and you earned a piece of my heart, babe. It’s all yours and always will be.”

I pressed my lips together.

“You cry, I’m tellin’ the boys,” he warned.

I unpressed my lips and glared at him.

He smiled at me.

“Come here,” he ordered.

I went there and when I got close, Knight Sebring’s arms folded around me.

Mine folded right back.

We’d hugged only once in the time we’d known each other and that had been when we were drunk and I told him all about Creed.

It felt better not being drunk and after I got Creed back, even if that meant I was semi-losing Knight.

“I’ll miss you, Sylvie,” he whispered into the top of my hair.

“I’m not leaving tomorrow,” I told him.

“Then I’ll enjoy you bein’ a pain in the ass for as long as it lasts.”

I sighed but it was fake and both of us knew it.

Knight gave me a squeeze then he let go and I stepped back.

“Gotta get to my man,” I said.

“Go,” Knight replied.

I nodded, lifted a hand, squeezed his bicep then moved to the door.

I stopped at it and turned back. “You know, I agree.” I shook my head. “That’s not true. I don’t agree, exactly. I believe. I believe in what you do, Knight.”

“I know,” he told me.

“The Serenas though, before they begin –”

Knight cut me off. “Know that, too, Sylvie.”

I studied him and I knew. He felt what happened to Serena. He felt it deep. He knew she had no business in the business.

“We’re instituting better screens,” Knight explained and I knew what that meant. A girl came to him, she wouldn’t work unless she understood the life and could take it.

“Right,” I muttered before, “You got work to throw my way, I can take it on and do Hawk’s job, I’ll take it and be a pain in the ass while doing it.”

“Would expect nothing less,” Knight returned.

“You’d be right,” I replied.

He shook his head and jerked his chin to the door.

I shot him a grin and walked out of it.

I was down the steps, through the club and out the backdoor before I let it hit me and when it did, it nearly brought me to my knees.

I loved the life I had in Denver and the people I shared it with. I was only moving a state away but that didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a mother knowing I had to let it go.

I saw Creed standing outside his truck, leaning back against it, having a smoke, probably doing this because he was worried about me.

He studied me as I walked through the streetlamps toward him and he flicked his cigarette into the alley when I was three feet away. He saw it on my face, I knew, and that was why he pulled me straight into his arms and held me tight.

“He’s gonna help Charlene,” I shared, snaking my arms around him.

“Not surprised.”

My arms tightened around him.

“That sucked,” I said into his chest.

“I bet.”

“I’m not gonna cry,” I stated.

“All right.”

I sucked in breath.

Creed whispered, “I love you, Sylvie. Thank you for doin’ this for me, baby. I know you know but I’ll say it clear, it means the world to me. Just like you. All I can promise is, a day won’t go by where you won’t know you got that from me.”

At that, I started crying silently.

I did this while Creed held me and I kept doing it for a good long while.