Chapter 16
She finished with the horse she was grooming and put him back into a stall. The aisle was tidy. The barn looked good again. Not quite like when it was Kay’s, but things were no longer leaking and broken. Without a daily maintenance crisis, she was able to do a better job keeping things tidy.
She longed for Evan to come rolling in and save her. But she hadn’t been so drunk the night before that she couldn’t remember doing everything in her power to let him know she wouldn’t accept his help. She wanted to hate him, but the quake in her heart wasn’t anger. It was love. She saw the look in his eyes that meant he knew. He was there, he was willing and able. And she’d chased him away to hide in terror by herself. She feared and expected that he would break her heart. And here she was, breaking it all on her own.
Despite the train wreck that was her personal life, she panned over the barn with pride. She now had four boarders, two trail horses of her own, and a new one coming in for training in two weeks. She didn’t have a ton of money, but her lights were on, and she could make a living with her clothes on. She didn’t have to drink herself into a stupor to forget about it either. Instead, she’d felt as proud as a mom watching Miranda and Rocket win at the rodeo.
She took a deep breath. And when she turned around, it all fell apart in an instant.
Trent stood in the doorway at the end of the barn, and he was furious. He didn’t wait but stalked down the aisle toward her. How had he gotten in? She felt sure she’d locked the gate, so he must have hopped it. Her only hope was that someone would see his car in the road and come to help her. She glanced around quickly. There was no sign of Bill. She didn’t hear the angry roar of Evan’s motorcycle storming in to save her this time.
“People are asking for you,” he said. “What are you doing in this shit hole when you could be making a thousand dollars a night?”
Her mouth felt like it was full of cobwebs and her stomach full of ice. All he had to do was advance on her and the bottom dropped out of her world. But it all seemed so clear to her in a second. She’d made her break! The farm was afloat. She’d sat in this very hallway and listened to Bill tell her she deserved a good life here. She was no longer desperate enough to fall back into Trent’s clutches.
“I’d rather fucking starve than go back to the club,” she said with anger that surprised even her. “You should leave,” she added.
The ice in her belly was spreading. She knew better than to talk to Trent like that. She was bluffing. Like she did when she didn’t want a horse to think it had intimidated her. Except no horse had ever scared her the way Trent scared her.
“What did you say?” His tone was murderous.
“You heard me.” She prayed for Bill to decide to come to the barn.
Trent grabbed her arm hard enough to make her yelp and shook her. She needed to make eye contact with him, stare him down, try to be something other than what she’d always been. But when push literally came to shove, she was exactly what she’d always been. She was fourteen years old the first time he had imposed his will on her. And it was as if she rewound time and became that girl now. She stared at the dirt floor, trying not to cry.
“We need you back at the club. Your mother needs you. And the cops are sniffing around. Asking questions. I know I can count on you to keep that pretty mouth shut, right, Kayla?”
“No,” she said immediately. What she’d meant was that she wouldn’t come back to the club. But as soon as she said it, she realized how it had sounded. No, she wouldn’t promise to keep her mouth shut to the police. And would she anyway? If she had a chance to bury Trent…maybe she should! Whatever she’d meant when she blurted it out, it was the absolute wrong thing to say to him.
“No?” He released her so suddenly, she stumbled and had to grab the wall not to fall on her head. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
“I heard your boyfriend is in the news. You want to be in the news, Kayla? That would be great exposure for the club, actually. Does he know what you do at night? Bet he doesn’t want that splashed all over the gossip sites.”
She stared at his boots, tried not to vomit on them. That would definitely make things worse than they already were.
“Want to see the video again?” he asked, scrolling through his phone.
“No,” she said. He clicked on it anyway, holding it up. “No!” she screamed, hitting the phone out of his hand. His response was instantaneous. He backhanded her across the face, hard enough that she was stunned. Her ears rang and stars flashed before her eyes. She stumbled backward against the doorway of the nearest stall, and he stalked up to her, grabbing her by the hair.
“This is what’s going to happen, Kiki,” he said in her face. Her stage name hit like an angry fish flopping in her stomach, slashing its tail and threatening to send the vomit up. She had no more nerve to try to fight him. It hadn’t gotten her anywhere anyway.
“You’re gonna come back and do your show. You’re gonna come back so I can keep an eye on you. I’d hate to have to beat the hell out of an old man.”
“You leave Bill out of this. He’s got nothing to do with it.”
“He sure acted like he had something to do with it. You might want to tell him to mind his own fucking business. And just remember, if you want to go talking to the cops, I’ve got this video waiting for them. I’ve got all the videos that the cops or the gossip sites could ever hope to have. So you decide, Kiki. Do you want this old man to go down for you? You want your new boyfriend to go down for you? Or are you gonna come back home where you belong?”
She sagged forward, clutching herself. The tears were coming. She couldn’t stop them. He’d just found a way to threaten everybody she loved, every good thing she’d built for herself. He was capable of all of it, she knew. He was capable of putting Canyon Bill in the hospital out of spite. She couldn’t let that happen.
He left her there in a heap on her barn floor, crying into her knees. After a while, she managed to drag herself up to get a bottle she’d stashed in her tack room. Through bleary eyes, she saw another figure in the barn hallway and cringed behind a tack trunk until she realized it was Bill. She followed his gaze to the bottle still in her hand. It was almost empty, and she was absolutely sauced.
“Saw the light on. It’s late. You all right?” Bill asked.
She raised the bottle. “Never better.”
“Why don’t you call it a night, Kayla.” It wasn’t really a suggestion.
“Why? Being drunk never stopped you from doing anything.”
He grimaced a little but didn’t retort. He came closer. “You know, if you’re in a hole, the best thing to do is stop digging,” he said, holding out his hand to her. She stood up indignantly without his help, but as soon as she did, the barn tilted violently sideways, and she spun through space. When he caught her, it doused her anger. He draped her arm over his shoulder and held it there with a firm grip on her hand.
He half dragged her back up the driveway to her house. He helped her collapse into her bed, and she felt him pulling off her boots.
“You gonna fuck me too?” she slurred, barely able to hold her eyes open. He stood very still, staring at her.
“I don’t ever want to hear you talk like that again, Kayla. You sound like your good-for-nothin’ momma. You’re better than her, and don’t you forget it!” The menace in his voice was real, and it gave her pause. He yanked off her other boot, tossed it on the floor.
“You listen here,” he said, pointing a finger at her. “You’re shit-faced, and you probably don’t know what the hell you’re saying anyway. When you sober up, come talk to me. You ain’t gotta go out like this.”
The fog of booze overtook her. He loomed over her and shook her slightly.
“Listen to me, girl. Just because this is what everybody taught you to do don’t mean you gotta live like this. You hear me?” She nodded. He turned and left before she began to cry again.
The pain was so familiar, it was almost comfortable. It was a heavy squeeze in her chest so she could barely breathe. It perfectly accompanied the headache and the bruise on her cheek. It was a darkness on her shoulder, speaking in her ear, reminding her that she would lose everything she cared about, one way or the other.
The next morning, she texted Ashley from the club and got the scoop. Apparently, Trent was under investigation for underage dancers and a few worse accusations. Most of the girls had been contacted by the police, and Trent had to assume they would find Kayla next. She hadn’t worked there in the previous few months, but they might find out about her nonetheless. What she said or didn’t say could potentially change everything.
Her phone was blowing up like a firestorm. It was a good thing she didn’t have any extra horses for training this week, because she couldn’t concentrate anyway. Between a horrific hangover and drama pouring in via text from all angles, she was toast.
When she finally made it to her kitchen, there was a hardcover book on her counter with a note written on a receipt tucked into the front cover. The title read, Alcoholics Anonymous. The note was from Bill.
You don’t have to live like this anymore. Let me take you to a meeting.
Un-fucking-real.
Now she really had to stay away from Evan, and it hurt her heart. There were only a few possible outcomes, and none of them were good. Trent could show him the video, and he’d know what she really was. He was just about to finally get his life back and be vindicated. The last thing he would want would be to get caught up in another police investigation. It was clear what he thought of that sleazy lifestyle too. Either he’d find out what kind of a girl he’d been hanging around with and run, or he’d wind up being associated with another criminal investigation when he had just truly cleared his name. Or both. She couldn’t allow either to play out.
She thought of the way he hugged her, the way he made love to her. Like he needed her. She needed him. But she just couldn’t have him, and it was as simple as that. This was a brutal reality she’d known since she was young. Wanting and needing people so badly, and watching them slip away.
Now she was desperately hungover and still in the same predicament she’d been in the night before. She heard Bill’s motorcycle come up the driveway and idle by her porch. In a rush, she brushed her teeth and threw on a clean shirt, then went onto the porch.
Bill looked up at her from the old bike, waiting. She saw him notice the bruise that had formed on her face overnight.
“Meeting starts in forty minutes,” was all he said.
Shouldshe go to the meeting with him? Her alternative was to keep drinking and crawl back to Trent like a whipped cur. She lifted her chin a bit in defiance to the thought. She didn’t know how to avoid her mother’s and Trent’s clutches. She didn’t know how to protect Bill from Trent’s threats.
She had only that moment, where Bill didn’t judge her. He didn’t mention her antics from the night before. He just waited for her to get on the back of his bike. It was the unconditional acceptance and support that she’d had so little of in her life. It hit her like a sip of cool water in a parched desert. She wanted more, so badly that she was willing to get on his bike and go wherever he intended to take her.
There was a circled-triangle on the door and a crowd of people talking, smoking, and drinking coffee. They laughed heartily, and a few genuine, if sympathetic smiles were sent her way. She glanced up at Bill, feeling like a fish out of water. He held the door and jerked his head for her to go in.
“Men stick with the men. Women stick with the women,” he told her. That would be a first in her life.
She was hyperaware that everyone seemed to notice her coming in with Bill. He steered her toward a group of women as she tried to take it in and gauge where she was. There were bikers, people in business clothes, a few others looking strung out as if they’d just walked in off a bender. She felt immediately self-conscious, wondering if she looked as strung out and hungover as she felt. Was she being judged?
A man in an expensive suit turned, saw Bill, and smiled broadly. What followed was a genuine hug between two men from completely different walks of life who, in any other life situation, would probably never even acknowledge each other. Kayla just gaped at them. The businessman smiled at Kayla and said, “Welcome” before turning away to talk to someone else.
Men weren’t eyeing her, although there were enough bikers in attendance and she’d walked in with Bill, so she doubted they would. Still, this felt different from anywhere she’d ever been in her life.
“You need to get a sponsor,” Bill said matter-of-factly.
“What’s a sponsor?” she asked, feeling awfully small and totally baffled.
“Someone who’s been sober awhile who can help you,” he replied as they arrived at the group of women. There was a tall, darkly tanned woman standing in the middle.
“Annie, this is my granddaughter, Kayla.”
Annie smiled warmly at her. Kayla’s heart pinched. He’d called her his granddaughter. No man had ever called her that in her life. She was always just the half-orphan child of a junkie mother.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Annie replied easily.
“Why?” Kayla blurted, with all the tact of someone who had been raised in a barn. Well, at least she really had been.
Annie laughed, but it wasn’t spiteful, and it was followed by a genuine smile. “I know it isn’t easy to walk through those doors. So I’m glad you made it here.”
Kayla wanted to bristle and run. She had no idea what was going on. People weren’t kind to strangers without an ulterior motive. Women were never kind to other women. The girls in Fort Myers were vicious to one another—they were unwanted competition.
The cold knowledge that Trent was after her even now was a deadweight around her neck, strangling her even in the presence of all these people.
“She needs some phone numbers,” Bill said, then returned to the group of men, leaving her with Annie.
Kayla stared at the women, doe-eyed. One of them picked up a paper schedule of meetings from the table and wrote on it, passing it to the next until it came to Kayla with a half dozen phone numbers on it.
“Why don’t you sit with us? The meeting is going to start in a few minutes,” Annie said.
Kayla nodded stiffly, looking around for Bill. He stood with the bikers on the other side of the meeting hall. She felt extraordinarily out of place here with these nicely dressed ladies. She wanted to go hang with Bill and the rest of the bikers, but he’d told her to stay with the women. Bill threw back his head in a hearty guffaw and clapped another man on the back.
The meeting was a bit of a blur. People talked from the podium at the front of the room, some nervously, some with animation and jokes that made everyone laugh. Out of the corner of her eye, Kayla couldn’t stop looking at Annie. She was tall, thin, and elegant. She wore a simple sun dress. Kayla couldn’t tell if she came from money or not, but she sat with her back straight and her legs crossed gracefully. She reminded Kayla of her Gram Kay in more ways than one. Annie glanced over at her and smiled, patting her hand softly. Like everything else, her smile was genuine. Kayla felt like she was in the twilight zone. People in her world never acted so nice.
At the end of the hour-long meeting, people spilled out onto the sidewalk, firing up cigarettes. Annie didn’t smoke, but Kayla felt the sudden urge to, so she ducked away. Annie and another woman reappeared, flanking her on the sidewalk.
“Keep coming, Kayla,” Annie said. “Call me anytime.”
“For not being able to drink, you people seem pretty fuckin’ happy,” Kayla said cynically. The other two women laughed.
“Why would you help me?” Kayla asked, not buying the whole scene. Maybe this was some kind of cult.
“Because when I was new, someone helped me,” Annie said. “And maybe one day, you can help someone else. That’s how it works.”
It made sense, and Kayla’s danger meter stopped firing off. She was in a strong, caring, feminine presence that she’d only ever felt from her Gram before now. She glanced around, realizing they weren’t even that far from Trent’s club. How ironic. She had only to walk away from these ladies and she could be back in his clutches in record time. An apt metaphor, she thought.
When Bill finally collected her, she swung onto his motorcycle. She took one last look at the group of people smoking and chatting on the sidewalk. She heard someone say, “If you want what we have, do what we do.”
She did want it. She wanted a new life, desperately. But wanting it didn’t make it so. Trent would come for her again, and she couldn’t live in his world sober. Hell, she wasn’t too sure she could live in any world sober.
Sure enough, that night, after about four more angry texts from Trent, she cracked and drank herself into oblivion. Those nice women couldn’t help her. She was beyond saving.