Thornhill Road (Love Me Tender)

Chapter Sixteen

Four Days Later

I’d been assigned a new patient, and our initial appointment ran long. I was late as I turned onto Thornhill Road, but I needed ten minutes. Ed was my last stop before the end of my double, but I didn’t want him to feel like he was my last stop, so I was going to squeeze in a quick nap.

Ten minutes.

Ten minutes of sleep was going to carry me through.

It was all I needed.

Just ten minutes.

Except, when I parked my car in his driveway and leaned my head back against the seat, I closed my eyes and saw Mustang. It felt like every spare moment I had he was popping into my head. I hadn’t seen him since Sunday, and I missed him.

I considered the fury I’d seen marring his pretty eyes when I woke up Sunday morning with bruises on my neck, and I had to admit, I didn’t think it altogether bad we’d been apart long enough for the reminder of Saturday night to fade a little. I hardly had to apply any concealer while I was freshening up between the end of my last shift and the start of this one.

But it wasn’t just my longing for him that prevented me from indulging in a quick nap.

It had been a month since the first time I laid eyes on him.

Not at Steel Mustang, but in a black and white newspaper clipping in a frame beside Ed’s sickbed.

In a matter of weeks, Mustang had gone from being the subject of an old article to the man I loved, and I’d not breathed a word about him to Ed.

Ed was running out of time. I couldn’t say for sure how much longer he had, but I would guess less than a person with the same condition surrounded by loved ones—people to hold onto until the very end. I was beginning to feel truly guilty about the fact that I had access to the son he hadn’t spoken to in years; a man he kept close to his side in the only way he could; a stranger who had no intension of darkening his door.

Ed was going to die alone, with no one to hold onto, and it made me sad.

I still hadn’t finished piecing together the full picture that was Mustang and Ed. I only had one side of the story, but it was enough to know Ed wasn’t blameless. His medical history was further proof. Only, I wasn’t sure if the remaining puzzle pieces would truly fill in all the gaps. I didn’t know the version of Ed Mustang remembered. To me, Ed wasn’t an abusive alcoholic. He was a sick, frail man with the saddest eyes I’d ever seen.

I remembered what Jenna told me back at the start of all of this. Maybe the best comfort I could offer him was the knowledge that his son had turned out okay. Better than okay. And maybe it was my job to tell him before it was too late.

My phone alerted me to my ten-minute timer, and I sighed as I silenced it.

I was late.

I needed to head inside.

After gathering my things, I made my way to the front door, using the spare key to let myself in. “Ed? It’s Tess,” I called out, as I always did.

“Yup,” he grumbled from the next room.

He was propped up in bed, a sloppily made, half-eaten sandwich on a plate beside him. I set my bag down on the chair nearby and offered him a smile.

“How you feelin’ today?”

“Like shit. Not much different than yesterday.”

My smile stretched into a grin. It was the same answer he always gave me—not the least bit informative, aside from the fact that it was my clue he still had hold of his mind.

“Let’s try that again,” I suggested good-naturedly.

He let out a heavy breath and answered, “Tired.”

I eyed his abandoned sandwich. “How’s your appetite?”

I asked him a series of questions then proceeded with his physical exam. When he assured me he was finished with his sandwich, I went to the kitchen to discard it and took the liberty of making another one. When I was finished, I wrapped it and stowed it in the fridge for later. Upon my return, I sat in my usual chair with my tablet in order to work on his chart.

Like most of my visits, Ed didn’t talk while I worked, so I hummed to help keep myself awake. I knew he liked it, and I peeked over at him every once in a while to find him sitting peacefully while he listened.

Today, even that brought me guilt, knowing I could give him more.

I blacked out the screen of my tablet and laid it flat across my lap.

“Ed? I have to confess something.”

He looked at me, his brow dipped slightly. “Confess? What could you have to confess to me?”

I couldn’t tell him the whole truth. Not merely because I’d broken my number one rule when it came to the family members of my patients. This was bigger than me. My relationship with Mustang was just that. A relationship— his as much as it was mine . I didn’t think I had the right to give away pieces of Mustang that weren’t mine to give.

But there were parts of him he'd given to me, little tidbits I figured I could share with whom I liked.

“I went to that bar,” I told Ed, pointing at the picture frame. “I went looking for Mu—um, for Sully. I went looking for Sully.”

It felt weird to call him by a name that was only his on paper, but the mention of it brought a sharpness to Ed’s hazel-blue eyes I’d never seen before.

“You talk to him?”

“Yes. I—um…” I tried to choose my words carefully, wishing not to lie. “I’ve been back to the bar a few times. The article was right. Steel Mustang is very successful. Mu—uh, Sully brings in some really great musicians, and the bands draw crowds of people from as far south as Cheyenne or even places in South Dakota.”

He considered what I said for a moment, then muttered, “You don’t strike me as someone who fits in at a place like that.”

I smiled and glanced down at myself to remind me what I was wearing before I told him, “Don’t let my lavender scrubs fool you.”

He didn’t smile back at me. Not exactly. But his eyes brightened a little before he asked, “What’s he like?”

“He’s…” I started and then I stopped, unsure if I could shove Mustang into the confines of a description. Like anyone else, he was a lot of things—but unlike most, the dichotomy between the man he was on the inside and the man he was on the outside was vast.

The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that it wasn’t so much who he was on the inside or the outside; it was the parts of him that were Sully versus the parts of him that were Mustang; the parts of him nurtured and loved by Mary-Kate the elder, and the parts of him he’d carved out and rebuilt in an effort to escape Ed.

I didn’t know how to explain all that. Instead, I decided to describe the man in the photo.

“He’s a Wild Stallion, obviously. He goes by Mustang now. He’s actually one of the higher ranked members of the club. They’re his brothers, and you can tell they all mean a lot to one another,” I said, thinking of Bull—of Maverick and Rodeo, protecting him from himself. “They look out for one another.” I paused, wanting Ed to know his son wasn’t alone in the world, but also aware that in delivering that message, I was reminding him that he was. “And he’s smart. He’s business smart, and he works hard,” I finished.

“He’s been riding since he was just a teenager. I gave him his first bike, you know?”

His comment sent a pang through my belly. The way he said it—as if the act had been a kindness—robbed me of my words. For a brief moment, I thought I saw a shadow of the man Mustang once knew. A man who could take everything I’d said and somehow think he had anything to do with it.

Ed focused his gaze on the newspaper clipping and asked, “Is he happy?”

“Yeah,” I answered softly. “Yeah, he seems that way.”

He nodded but didn’t say more. He didn’t even ask about whether or not I could convince Mustang to come for a visit, as if he knew there was no chance of that.

When I felt certain we were done discussing his son, I finished charting and then left him with the promise that I’d be back in a couple of days.

All the way home I thought about our conversation, short lived as it had been. It was the first time I’d been given two sides of the same story. Only, Ed’s recollection had been brief. I knew the complete history of that bike—how it brought Mustang to the Stallions. To Bull.

I shoved aside all thoughts of Ed when I pulled into my driveway, past the familiar, blue Harley parked along the curb. I’d finally made it to my favorite part of Wednesday, and I could hardly wait to get inside.

The smell of my early dinner greeted me as soon as I walked through the door. I dropped my purse in its usual spot and made a B-line for the kitchen. Mustang was at the stove, but I didn’t hesitate to walk right up to him, pressing myself into his side as I curled my hand around the back of his neck and drew him to me for an open-mouthed kiss.

This time I was the greedy one, my lips turning down in a pout when he pulled away before I was ready.

He grinned, then reached to squeeze one of my butt cheeks as he said, “Dinner’s ‘bout done, Tess. You get me goin’ now, I won’t get to fuel you up before we get to your workout.”

I smiled, conceding to his point.

“Do I have time for a quick shower?”

“Yup.”

“'Kay. Be right back.” I pressed a kiss against the corner of his mouth then hurried upstairs for that shower.

By the time I came back downstairs, dinner was served. While we ate, Ed kept forcing his way to the front of my mind. I knew I needed to tell Mustang what I had done—what I had shared—but I wasn’t sure how he’d take it.

He told me once he didn’t hate his dad, but indifference seemed worse. Moreover, I didn’t think he’d be indifferent to the fact that I’d made him a topic of conversation at that afternoon’s visit.

During a lull in our conversation, the truth grew so loud in my head, I couldn’t focus on anything else. Without warning, I blurted, “I told Ed today that I met you. I told him I went to the bar looking for you, and that I’d been a few times since, and that I talked to you.”

Mustang stared at me, saying nothing.

Feeling nervous, I kept going.

“I didn’t tell him about us. I didn’t mention Mary-Kate. I just told him you were a Stallion, that you go by Mustang now, and that the bar is really successful. He asked if you were happy, and I told him you were.

“I just felt so guilty every time I walked into that sad, empty house knowing that while he lay dying alone each night, I was going home to the son he only had in an article clipping framed by his bed. I get the real, full-color, vibrant version of you that is better than I ever could have imagined, and it seemed so unfair of me, as his hospice nurse, to keep you all to myself when I could offer him even a tiny little bit of you. So, I told him about you.

“And I’m really sorry if that was the wrong thing to do. I’ve never been in this type of situation before, so I’ll admit, I’m not entirely sure how to handle it. Maybe I should have—”

“Baby, stop,” he interjected.

I snapped my mouth shut, only then noticing I was a little out of breath.

He paused, as if wanting to make sure I wouldn’t start up again.

“Would appreciate it if you didn’t make that a habit, but I’m not mad. You think you’re caught in the middle of somethin’. I get that. But, sugar, you’re not,” he said calmly.

I hesitated a moment before I murmured, “I know you said no before, but—”

“Tess, there’s nothin’ in that house but a dying old man I don’t know. And I’m sure it hasn’t escaped you that I live hardly more than five miles from that bastard—have for the last twenty fuckin’ years—and not once did he ever come knockin’ on my door.”

I let out a slow breath as I sat back in my chair.

Mustang was wrong. I hadn’t considered that. Not even once.

Every one of my patients had a life they lived before I entered it. In the best-case scenarios, that life had been long. But I was only ever a part of their last few months, sometimes weeks, or even days.

When I met Ed, all I got was a snapshot of his life now . It was a life filled with holes—holes punctured by sadness and regret. I understood there were significant moments, life changing mistakes that had been made shaping his now; but all the space between those decisions and moments were filled with other details and choices I’d never thought about, because I never did. Not with any of my patients.

Like he’d been doing since the night he’d thrown all those puzzle pieces at my feet, Mustang helped me fill a couple more spots in the picture I so wanted to see. He’d run away from home at sixteen years old, but he hadn’t gone far.

The puzzle was almost complete, and I knew then, I wasn’t going to ask him about Ed anymore. Ed was dying now, but their relationship had died a slow death long before me.

I couldn’t help but wonder if the name Sully had died just as slowly, or if that tie had been severed quicker.

“Is that why you don’t like to be called Sully?” I asked softly.

He sighed, reaching up to run a hand down his face. This was clearly not a conversation he anticipated; neither was it one he was enjoying, but he answered me anyway.

“First time you met me you called me Sullivan. It’s what he used to call me. Didn’t like it then. Still don’t fuckin’ like it.”

I frowned, fairly certain it had been Ed who corrected me when I had used the name mentioned in the newspaper caption. “He didn’t call you Sully?”

Mustang shook his head once. “Mom called me Sully.”

I thought about this for a moment. Then I remembered how little Mary-Kate referred to all her uncles by their given names, not their road names. But Otto had called Mustang Uncle Stang, not Uncle Sully. Rodeo didn’t even know Mustang’s real name.

“I just assumed—I mean, everyone calls you—”

“Mustang suits me. Didn’t choose it, but it fit. I liked it. So, it’s the only way I introduce myself.”

“You didn’t choose it?”

This came as a surprise to me. I’d all but memorized the mustang tattoo he had inked on his chest. The name more than suited him, it identified him.

“No one chooses their own road name, sugar.”

“Who decided you were Mustang? And why?”

“Winnie—but so far as the club knows, it was Bull’s idea. As for why, mustangs are free-roaming, feral horses. She knew from the moment she found me in her office I’d escaped my own forced captivity. And when I had a bike that could ride, nothin’ I wanted to do more than ride it. Didn’t matter where.”

Ride wild. Roam free .

That wasn’t the club’s motto—it was Mustang’s .

Winnie had been right. She had my man pegged before he even had a chance to earn his first patch. Yet, she wasn’t the first woman to name him or the first woman to love him. That honor had been reserved for Mary-Kate. She was responsible for the parts of him I was beginning to understand were Sully.

“You are Mustang,” I said, searching the depths of his eyes. “Almost like you were born to be no one else. But there are parts of you—parts of you I think are Sully, too. The way you love, the way you take care of the people who mean something to you—I think that comes from your mom, which is the part of you that can’t be identified as the man called Mustang. It can only live inside the protective shell that is that man. She never got the chance to know this complete version of you. She died loving her boy, Sully.”

He stared at me for a long time, saying nothing and everything all at once.

“Babe?” I whispered after a while.

“Sittin’ right next to you, Tess,” he replied softly, as if the moment in which we found ourselves might have been broken if either of us spoke too loudly.

My gaze still locked with his, I asked what I’d been wanting to know for weeks.

“How did she die?”

He answered me without a second’s hesitation.

“There was a spring storm blowin’ through. We’d barely finished dinner, mom and me, and the phone rang. Ed was at the bar, gettin’ shit-faced. They were shuttin’ down early. Bar owner had the house number on fuckin’ speed dial. Rang her up, told her she needed to come get her man. So, she went. Like always. Made it all the way there. Picked him up. Lost control on a patch of ice comin’ home. Car flipped. Mom died. Drunk bastard didn’t.”

“Oh, Sully…” I breathed.

I didn’t know why, but that name slipped out as my heart broke for him.

“Baby,” he began, leaning towards me. He rested his hand on my thigh, bare since I’d changed into a pair of sleep shorts. His touch was as warm and rough as the man I knew him to be. “I’m all grown up now. Don’t need anyone feeling sorry for me. Shit happens. People die. That’s life, and there’s no changin’ it. You know that better than most.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s no sense dwellin’ on the past, either—especially when the future involves you, naked, moanin’ my name while you come hard for me after not comin’ at all the last three days.”

Just like that, he had me smiling.

That was my man—hard on the outside and sweet on the inside.

The Wild Stallion Mustang cocooned around Mary-Kate’s Sully .

“Is that your way of telling me you’re ready to go upstairs?”

“Fueled you up, sugar. Time for that workout.”

He was right. It had been three days, and I’d missed him more with each one.

I stood, but he caught my hand before I could take a single step.

“One more thing,” he said, tugging me until I was close enough for him to snake his arm around my waist.

“What’s that?”

“Sturgis. It’s in a couple weeks.”

My eyes widened as a thrill raced up and then back down my spine.

I’d never been to Sturgis.

If the crooked smile pulling at Mustang’s lips was any indication, I was not hiding my desire to experience the biggest motorcycle rally in the world .

“Pretty in pink and wild like the wind, my Tess,” he muttered.

I smiled huge, leaning into him as I sank my fingers in his hair.

“The plan is to roll out the day before the rally starts, soon as I drop MK with Trix. Won’t stay but a few days. Want to be back for MK Sunday, plus we’ll get hit, too. Bein’ in the path of the rally, the garage and the bar see plenty of business those two weeks. Be stupid to shut it all down.

“Want you there with me. Can you get the time off? Real time off. None of this on-call even when you’re off bullshit.”

I fought the urge to squeal as I nodded. “Yes. I haven’t taken a vacation in forever. I can get the time off.”

“Good. Do it.”

“’Kay,” I said, bending to bring my lips to his. Before I kissed him, I added, “Can’t wait.”

We soon abandoned our dishes and went to the bedroom.

A while later, when I came—I did it hard, and I did it moaning his name.

Mustang .