Unfinished Hero 04 Deacon (40 page)

“On a scale of one to ten, how bad was it
when you found her?”

“Seven million, six hundred thousand, and
twenty-three.”

I swallowed and knew from his face he wasn’t
joking.

Not even close.

My God.

I drew in a breath and launched in.

“Your wife that you loved and wanted to build
a life and family with had a drug problem since before you were
married, never told you about it, started using again, and didn’t
tell you that either. She had sex for money to pay for her habit
while still living with you, married to you, and supposedly trying
to make a baby with you, all while you were away from her to earn
money to buy a house for your coming family, something she agreed
with you doing. Then she left you, choosing drugs over you. Is that
right? She didn’t go missing. She left.”

“She left,” he confirmed.

“No note, not even smoke signals?” I
asked.

He shook his head. “Nothing.”

“And even with all that, you put your life on
hold to find her and fix her, this ending with you being in extreme
danger and nearly losing your life twice to do that.”

He looked back to the trees. “Not my
brightest idea.”

“That’s so beautiful, I wanna cry again,” I
declared and he cut his eyes to me. “But I won’t let myself because
my cheeks are cold and I don’t want them to freeze.”

“Cassidy—”

“And now I can’t make you cookies, which
sucks. I like cookies.” My voice was rising and Bossy lifted her
head because of it, so I reined it in.

“Cass—”

“If she was alive, I’d kill her,” I
announced.

His head jerked and he started, “Woman—”

“I’m serious, Deacon.”

“I see that, Cassidy. But you’re not gettin’
me. I lived in that world. I did things. Things that—”

“I do not give that first fuck,” I snapped
and his brows shot together as his head jerked. “You had your whole
life planned out. You met a pretty girl at a bar who made you happy
and you started it right away, because you knew what you wanted,
just like me. And she fucked it up. And you gave up everything to
get it back, give it to her, give it to yourself. What we have,
that’s beautiful war, Deacon. What you had with Jeannie was ugly
war. And in ugly war, things get ugly.”

“We’re talkin’ serious shit, Cassie.”

“You said you believe in what you do,” I
reminded him.

“I did.”

My body tensed again.

“Did?”

“I’m out.”

I blinked. “Out?”

“Out.”

I stared at him.

“Last thing I did before comin’ to you was
cut ties,” he told me.

Everything inside me, everything that
was
me, expanded so huge, it was a wonder I didn’t explode
the porch.

“You’re never leaving,” I whispered.

“No. Never,” he replied firmly. “Even if it
dawns on you the man I became and the company I kept, I’m gonna
make it so you understand, believe in me again, and never want me
to leave.”

“I already don’t ever want you to leave.”

He closed his eyes, raw washing through his
features bathed in the lights from the kitchen window.

It was a beautiful sight to see.

Then he opened them. “Did shit, baby.”

“I don’t care.”

“Wanna give that to you. Need to so you
understand the man in your bed and why that man was me.”

I leaned toward him over the arm of my chair.
“Don’t you get it, Deacon? I already understand. And I believe. The
only time I quit believing was when you didn’t give me what I
needed in order to keep doing it. I have that now. All I need. I
don’t need any more.”

“Here,” he growled, his expression changed
again.

Fierce.

Fierce with his love for me.

That was way more beautiful.

Totally.

I didn’t go there because I was relishing the
look on his face, letting it settle down deep, memorizing every
inch. Not to mention, I had his
here
back, and as annoying
as that was, I’d missed that too.

Deacon got impatient and grabbed my hand,
yanking it hard so his tug took my chair closer to his. Bossy gave
a soft bark, and in order not to drop my cocoa, I set it aside and
got out of the chair. The throw fell to the deck as I moved to him
and he moved his boots from the railing. When he had them to the
deck, I put a knee to the seat by his hip and swung the other leg
over, settling my booty in his lap.

Both his hands slid up my back, pulling me to
him as I put my hands to his shoulders.

“Was a bounty hunter,” he said when he got me
close.

“Deacon, you don’t have to—”

“Didn’t find folks who jumped bond. Found bad
guys and returned them to worse guys who could pay me in cash.”

I clamped my mouth shut.

“Got four million, five hundred seventy-five
thousand dollars, in cash, hidden in safe places across the
country.”

My mouth dropped open.

“Took three men’s lives,” he went on and my
eyes got huge. “Hunt went bad, it got to a point that it was them
or me, so I picked me.”

“I’d pick that too,” I said quietly.

It was like I didn’t speak as he kept talking
and I knew he had to get this out.

“Didn’t like that shit happened but those men
were not good men. It’s a lot of trust but you gotta believe me
when I say the world is not a poorer place without them in it.”

“I trust you.”

He stared at me a moment before he muttered,
“Jesus.”

“I do.”

His gaze was softer, as was his tone, when he
replied, “I know.”

I bent closer to him, lifting a hand, and
curling it around the side of his neck.

Deacon kept going.

“That world needs contained, Cassie. If it
isn’t contained, women like Jeannie get sucked into it. It’s a war
that has no end, a job that’ll never get done, a world that leaks
every day, millions of times a day, into good people’s lives. But I
did my bit to keep that world contained.”

“I get it, honey,” I said gently.

“Hunted once,” he went on, “that was not for
money. My man Raid, he’s got a woman, good woman. He was livin’ his
own nightmare, she guided him out. Some men hurt her and did it
bad. He lost his mind. Had to contain him, had to contain the
situation, had to help him send a message. She was off-limits.
Worked with Knight, Creed, and Sylvie, that message was sent.”

I nodded.

I understood what he was saying.

“You need to know more.”

I didn’t want more.

“Give me what you need,” I invited.

His hands moved in order to curve his arms
around me, he gave me a squeeze, and I knew just with my words I’d
already given him what he needed.

“Men who did what they did to Jeannie,
they’re no longer breathing.”

“Okay,” I whispered.

“Not me doin’ it. Wanted them to hurt, got
deep in that world to find her, found I had skills in that world.
Took to it. Got really fuckin’ good at it. That’s why I became what
I became and did it for money. But they knew who I was. Knew my
name. What they did to Jeannie and them knowin’ who I was—so that
my way in that world started and stopped with me, didn’t leak to my
folks, my sister—they had to go. So I set it up so they got in a
war, suffered during that war, and lost their lives to it.”

He was saying that wouldn’t leak to Glacier
Lily.

“I would have done the same,” I replied.

His lips quirked. “Bullshit.”

“I’m a tough broad,” I reminded him.

He shook his head, humor lighting his eyes,
but then he sobered.

“What you need to take from that is, no one
knows me as Deacon Gates. No one knows why I was in that world
except Raid. Deacon Gates died with Jeannie and the men who brought
her low. No one even knew me as Deacon, ’cept the folks I knew in
my gut I could trust. They never disappointed. They won’t. They
didn’t before because I picked the right people to trust. Now,
they’ll have an added incentive not to do it ’cause they know if
they do, it could harm you, and they’d wake up with their throats
slit.”

“Deacon,” I breathed.

“Do not mistake me.” His voice was now firm
but harsh. “That world does not touch you and I will do anything,
Cassidy, to make sure it doesn’t.”

“Okay,” I said soothingly. Then, to change
the subject, I asked, “People had to find you, know you, and call
you something, so what were you known as?”

“Ghost.”

That was kind of cool.

“Because you were hard to get a handle on?” I
asked.

“Because I was dead man walking.”

I stared.

Deacon kept going.

“I was a cold motherfucker, off the grid, no
life, no home, no ties, no emotions, everyone knew it. Until I came
back to some rundown cabins I’d been to before that were off the
beaten path. Perfect place for the minimal downtime I let myself
have. Quiet place. A place no one could find me. But when I came
back, a beautiful woman with attitude, amazing eyes, and lips I
wanted wrapped around my dick was fightin’ with her boyfriend.
Lucky me, later, I found she was stubborn, ornery, funny, strong,
spoke her mind, liked dogs, to be tied up, to come hard, take it up
the ass, and give it as good as she gets.” He lifted his head from
the chair so his face was an inch from mine. “And she resurrected
me.”

God.

God.

Deacon’s brand of sweet, this time amplified
beyond imagining.

I’d never get used to it.

Because I couldn’t hold it up anymore, I
dropped my head so my face was in his neck.

I clutched the other side of his neck,
pushing my face in, whispering, “Baby.”

“Tried to be dead again when I let you go,
Cassie. Dead doesn’t hurt. Tried fuckin’ hard to find it. But I
couldn’t find it. You lived in me.”

I closed my eyes tight, pushed closer, and
held on.

Deacon gave me a squeeze of his arms and kept
speaking.

“Thought my luck had run out. I finally
pulled my head outta my ass, made my way back to wage beautiful
war, and timed it so your girl was comin’ up the lane while I was
drivin’ down it.”

I opened my eyes, lifted my head, and looked
at him. “Really?”

“Fuckin’ Hollywood shit, she raced to me,
thought she was gonna play chicken, ram right into me or force me
off the lane. She cut the wheel at the last moment, cuttin’ me off,
rolled out of her truck, and started shouting.”

I started giggling.

And then I got Deacon’s grooves, his
crinkles, and I felt glee.

I’d missed that too.

“If I wasn’t shocked as shit she could pull
that off without damage to either vehicle, and my head wasn’t
filled with gettin’ to you, I woulda bust a gut laughing too,
woman.”

“In retrospect,” I said, still giggling.
“It’s pretty funny.”

He continued to give me the grooves and
crinkles as he agreed, “Yeah.”

He removed one arm so he could curl his hand
at my jaw, fingertips in my hair, and yes, I’d missed that too.

“She’s gone.”

His tone was back to serious so I got serious
too.

“I know, Deacon,” I told him. “But Milagros
is pretty confused, not in a good way, about—”

“I don’t mean her. Milagros, Manuel, the
kids, I’ll make that good again. Bust my ass to do it. You need it.
I need it. They’re part of you, a part of what you gave me that
made me feel clean again. But that’s not what I mean. I mean
Jeannie.”

I nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Cassidy, what I’m sayin’ is, you wanna make
cookies, you make ’em for you and for me.”

Sheesh, he could
so
read me.

He kept going.

“She does not control me, not anymore. She
sure as fuck doesn’t control you, not ever again. I let you go,
let
. I could have kept you but I
let
that shit
happen. Raid told me when a man is burned by a woman, he gets over
it and moves on. When he burns a good woman, he doesn’t. What I
didn’t get is that I got burned, and not by a good woman, by a
troubled one who I allowed to drag me down. And I had to find it in
me to let her go because of that. Not you. It took a while for it
to penetrate, but I finally figured out I would never be able to
let you go because you weren’t what I wanted for a good life, like
Jeannie. You were what I
needed
.”

Oh
God.

He had to stop.

He didn’t stop.

“But I could let her go. I had that power.
She was dead. It was me givin’ her the power to hold on. So I let
her go. Now we live our lives. We live ’em good. We live ’em happy.
She dragged me down for years.” His hand gave me a squeeze. “Now
I’m back at the surface, baby. With you. And she’s gone.”

My smile was shaky, but happy, when I gave it
to him, nodding.

He stroked my cheek with his thumb. “Your
folks pissed at me?”

My smile faded when I kept nodding.

“I’ll fix that too,” he muttered.

I believed him.

Totally.

“Can I ask you something?” I requested.

“Anything.”

Anything.

My smile came back as a small grin. Then I
took a deep breath.

“The thirty-eight women…” I said, trailing
off.

“Few before Jeannie, most of them after she
died. Lookin’ back, I was subconsciously tryin’ to find my way back
to clean. None of them did it for me. So, as you know, I quit
lookin’.”

“I get that.”

“Good,” he murmured.

“And the non-PDA?” I went on.

“What?”

“You don’t touch me much in public, Deacon.
You’re very affectionate but not when other people are around.”

“You want that?”

“Well…yeah. If it’s in you to give.”

“I’ll give it to you.”

“But did you not do it because—?”

“I didn’t do it because, my hands on you,
that tended to lead to something.”

I stared at him. “I’m pretty sure you can
control your base instincts.”