8. Cody
Cody
Callan: Bro, can you pick up Tee from her parents’ place, please? Colt was supposed to do it, but he got dragged in for an emergency PR meeting after today’s headlines and Zee has an emergency call.
E mergency, my ass.
Our sister-in-law just can’t stand Pigeon Creek.
It’s part of the reason why I’m here. On Tee’s mom’s front stoop.
The other reason…
Well, hell.
I don’t appreciate being anyone’s ride home, but it’s Tee and as much as I know I should avoid her, it’s like deciding to stop breathing.
I can’t do it.
She reels me in. Hook. Line. And sinker.
Has since Colton extended his permanent invitation to make the Seven Cs her home.
Who am I trying to kid?
She has since I received her first goddamn letter.
That I’m a sucker for her, even after I vowed to steer clear for her own sake, is why I’m listening to Angela MacFarlane complain about the Rabid Wolves chapter that’s decided to darken the town’s doorstep.
In mere weeks, we’ve gone from not even knowing the MC had a presence in Pigeon Creek to them making a nightly appearance like some poltergeists who wreak havoc before daybreak then disappear off this plane of existence.
“It’s a disgrace. I have my mother to think of! Their noise is keeping her awake at night. Surely, you can do something, Marshal Korhonen?”
“Unfortunately, Mrs. MacFarlane, there’s little we can do. They’re not committing any crimes.”
“They’re a public menace.”
They’re not.
But they also are.
It’s a legality they’re skirting that tells me they’ve read the handbook and are doing their level best to make life hard for me and my new team.
“Why are they coming to town?” she demands.
“They purchased the old Riddle feed store and appear to be turning it into a bar.”
Back when I was in a hospital bed, struggling to move, unsure if I’d ever be able to stand on my own two feet again, unsure if I’d ever be able to use my right arm, I never imagined I’d be okay with Karens like Tee’s mom complaining about noise disturbances.
Funny how life turns out.
As she carries on whining, I study her and wonder where Tee came from.
I guess there’sa glimpse of her here and there. In the molten-gold skin and the heartbreaker eyes. Yet Tee is nothing like her mom.
Thank God whispers through my mind as Angela finally grumbles, “I’ll get Christy, officer.”
“Marshal, ma’am. Marshal. Different department and everything.”
“Maybe I should contact Sergeant Reilly.” Her hand tightens around the doorknob. “He’ll be able to do something about the bikes.”
Oh, yeah, Sergeant Reilly, Pigeon Creek’s savior.
Ha.
“Perhaps, but I doubt it, ma’am.”
I don’t tell her that twenty other people have complained today so I’m going to be visiting the bar once it opens.
I’m hoping after they have their inauguration event, they’ll cut down to three nights a week. Now, their forays into town are nightly and, according to one of my marshals who scoped out the territory this morning, the bar’s still being worked on, but at odd hours, making it hard to drop by.
The whole thing’s fucked up. Clearly, the MC has had their eyes on Pigeon Creek for longer than any of us realized.
When Tee shuffles her curvy ass into a spacious hall, an older lady hooked onto her arm, a bulging purse on her other shoulder, my brows lift when I see the resemblance between the two.
I’d wolf whistle if it weren’t creepy, but dayum, they’re like twins with a sixty-year age gap.
Suddenly, I’m face-to-face with what Tee’ll look like when she’s a hundred.
And no, I’m not thinking about wanting to see her hit every year in between then and now. Nope, no sirree.
I mean, Tee might put Venus to shame, but that’s definitely not where my mind went.
She might possess burnished copper eyes I’d happily be scalded by and have wavy hair that I want to tangle my fingers in, with rosy pink lips that’d be perfect for?—
No.
You. Are. Steering. Clear. Of. Christy. MacFarlane.
If only my sister-in-law and brother knew that, I wouldn’t be here.
“Mrs. Sorrento,” I murmur, brain whirring as I force myself to stop thinking about how goddamn gorgeous Tee is and recall how Mrs. Sorrento is Angela’s mom.
“Marshal,” she greets, her voice slightly croaky as her daughter and granddaughter both help her to the door.
It occurs to me then that she’s here to meet me.
If you asked me why I did it, I’d never be able to tell a soul, but I immediately click my heels together and straighten up like I’ve been called to attention.
Tee’s nonna laughs, the sound light and pure and sweet. The exact opposite of her granddaughter, whose chuckle might as well belong to a succubus. “Ohh, I like this one, Tee!”
Her granddaughter’s sweetly pert nose wrinkles. “Nonna.”
“Pleasure to meet you again, ma’am.” I’m sure I’ve seen her around town—Pigeon Creek’s small, after all—but I didn’t see her at the town hall gathering where I was officially introduced as the head of the marshals in this area last week.
Eyes Tee inherited gleam as they take me in. “If I hadn’t heard the gossip over the years, I’d never know you were a pilot. But I thought they shrunk?—”
“Nonna!” Tee chides, cheeks flushing. “Cody hasn’t shrunk.”
“Actually,” I gently correct. “I have. Curvature of the spine thanks to the machinery they hook us up to in the planes. I was on the taller side for being a pilot.” Almost wasn’t allowed into the program at all.
“You’ll still tower over Tee. I don’t take for this nonsense of a woman being taller than her man.”
“Nonna, that’s incredibly outdated.”
“That’s what happens when you were born eighty years ago, piccola ,” she says, tone amused. “Your grandfather was shorter than me, so if anyone can complain, it’s me. How, marshal, was he supposed to swing me around when I looked down at him?”
Because she appears to genuinely be waiting for a reply, I gape at her. Her daughter comes to the rescue with:
“Oh, Madre ! Leave the boy alone.”
“It’s a genuine question. How do you feel about potatoes, marshal?”
My brows lift. “Potatoes?”
Tee groans. “Roll with it.”
“I prefer pasta.”
Her eyes light up. “You come to supper next Saturday. I’ll make you my marinara sauce. I’m famous for it.”
“I appreciate the invitation but?—”
She doesn’t let me finish. “ Bene . We’ll make a feast worthy of the new marshal in town.”
Tee, who’s doing a great impression of wanting the ground to open and swallow her whole, blurts out, “Right. Nonna, Mom, I have to go.” She eyes me with sudden desperation. “You’re my ride, Cody?”
Fuck, I wish that ride had nothing to do with my truck.
Why am I steering clear of her again?
My attempt to scrub my mind clean fails when I look at her nonna and see future Tee—I don’t think I did that great a job of it.
“Callan asked me to come and collect you. Zee had a meeting.”
In a flurry of motion, she kisses her nonna’s cheeks three times, her mom once, and then after asking if they need help getting back to the kitchen, I realize Tornado Tee has made me lose my manners.
“Let me help, please.”
Tee’s nonna’s eyes light up. “That’s an offer I can’t refuse!”
Tee groans, but I ignore her and sweep in to taxi her grandmother to the kitchen. A feat she helps with by telling me which doors to ignore.
The house is enough to steal my breath.
It’s a home.
Full of knickknacks and family photos. The walls are loaded with them, so loaded, in fact, I’m surprised the drywall can sustain that number of picture frames. There are shelves too. Awards on them, trophies... I know Tee has a brother, but most of the names on the awards are hers.
When we’re finally in the kitchen, she tugs me down to the chair beside her. “Do you want some tiramisu?”
I hide a smile. “If there’s some on offer, please.”
Nonna claps her hands together in delight. “Tee, get the boy some tiramisu.”
She mutters something I can’t hear but retrieves the largest sheet tray of dessert I’ve seen outside a professional kitchen. Hell, they make smaller quantities in the RCAF mess.
“You really like tiramisu, huh?”
“I do. Please, call me Nonna.”
“Oh, I couldn’t?—”
“Yes, you can!” She nods at me, those bright as a button eyes filled with mischief as my mouth works until, eventually, I cave.
“Nonna.”
“You get a double serving for that.” She pats my cheek before accepting the spoon and the plate that her daughter places in front of her.
“He should get a double serving only if he can stop those horrible bikes from ruining our town!”
“Oh, Angela,” Nonna chides. “Give it a rest. They’re living! It’s a beautiful thing to see.”
As they bicker, I glance at Tee, who’s apparently given up on leaving because she’s slumped at the table, gaze flickering between the three of us.
Nonna, however, bores quickly of the biker topic. “So, tell me, Cody, what’s brought you back to town? That leg of yours?”
Angela, harrumphing, retreats to the dishwasher and loads it.
“My leg?”
She nods. “You had a cast when you arrived.”
“Oh. No. It was…” I never mention the issues I had with my arm. “…time to retire.”
The memory of Paulie’s plane exploding right in front of me has my throat bobbing.
I’m almost grateful when she chides, “But you’re still a boy.”
“I’m tired of war.”
A dish clatters as Angela almost drops it into the rack.
They all look at me.
Three generations of...
God.
They pack a punch.
Even her mom, who’s very annoying and not as pretty as her daughter or her mother.
“It’s fine,” I say dryly, sensing their distress and wanting to soothe it.
“No,” Nonna disagrees, “it isn’t. We do our soldiers a disservice by forgetting what they’ve seen and had to do while fighting wars that the higher-ups deem important.”
I don’t answer because she serves me a gargantuan helping of tiramisu. Barking out a laugh, I dig in.
It’s delicious.
Better than Mrs. Abelman’s.
“Wow,” I murmur after the first bite.
“You eat all of that and I’ll make you my cannoli on Saturday too,” she exclaims, patting my hand. “Good, strong boys need to be fed. Remember that, piccola .”
“Nonna,” Tee whines.
And it’s right then, right there that I realize Tornado Tee inherited her talents honestly.
Her nonna is the pro and Tee is the amateur.
Delighted by the revelation, I watch as Angela shoots Tee a pointed look. Huffing, she grabs the coffee pot and pours some into a mug for me. My mind drifts back to those early letters, where she abused my search engine algorithm with talk of brujería .
It’s why, when I accept the mug with a nod of thanks, I keep my gaze locked on hers as I take a sip.
It doesn’t matter that a family conversation’s triggered by my silence. They leave me to eat my dessert, and I absorb everything the three women have to say. Anything to feed the nascent obsession with one Christy ‘Tee’ MacFarlane.
As a result, I learn that Nonna spends most of her time at home, at The Coffee Shop where her beau, Mr. Ravenly Sr., courts her, or in the library. I also learn that Angela wants Tee to get a job and that as much as the love between this triangle of women flows strongly, mother and child will never understand one another.
Angela is salt of the earth. She’s been a stay-at-home mom her whole life. She hovers over her family like a clucking hen while her husband cares for the town’s children in his role as principal.
But Tee’s not like that. I mean, she told me that in a letter, even. But putting a face to the name and then seeing her in a safe element, that’s rammed home more than ever. She takes after her nonna, who, by the sounds of it, was a stay-at-home mom too but she resented it.
Tee’s spirit’s free, not made to be tied down to home and hearth.
If anyone would know, it’s me.
As Angela grumbles about a music teacher position opening up at the school, one that Tee would be perfect for, I study the woman in question.
She’s in her element as she keeps shooting the remaining tiramisu on my dish impatient glances.
I know from her letters how close her family is, but seeing is believing.
My brothers and I are close, but this is different.
It’s normal.
And it’s nice.
There are no hidden traumas here. No wife-beating fathers who murdered and cheated their way through life. There’s no abuse. Just love.
And as much as the dessert takes over my stomach, this fills my metaphorical cup.
An hour later, tiramisu having finally disappeared (that was how large the portion was) and Tee finally scuttling out the door after promising to bring the whipped ricotta for the cannoli, I settle behind the wheel once I’ve helped her into my truck.
And we’re alone.
For the first time.
“Sorry about that. You came to pick me up, not?—”
“I had the best serving of tiramisu I’ve ever had and enjoyed a conversation with three very kind women. There’s no need to apologize.”
I can sense her attention, but I focus on the road as I reverse out of my parking spot.
A glimpse of Marvin Grantley’s face as he peeks through a crack in the drapes of the house next door is a small reminder to check on his wife.
They’re in the process of getting a divorce, and I know Colt moved her into one of the family’s properties near the gas station when the asshole beat the shit out of her.
“You were very good to be so kind to her.”
My brow furrows as I realize who she’s talking about. “Your grandmother’s a character. It was no hardship.”
Still, this isn’t the Tee I’m used to.
She shifts in her seat. “I guess I don’t understand why you were so pleasant to them. You don’t like me, but you agreed to Saturday supper?—”
“Who says I don’t like you?” My brows furrow at her take on the situation between us. I haven’t exactly been effusive, mostly because I haven’t dared to.
At any given moment, I could say something that makes her realize I’m Butch Cassidy.
That’s the last thing I want after I cut ties between us so brutally. I know my letter wasn’t taken as I intended it. I know I hurt her. I know I broke her trust. I know I’m a piece of shit.
“You…” She sighs. “It doesn’t matter.”
I want to tell her that it does, but do I even have the right to?
She hums, soft and wispy, but the gentle notes linger in the air. My fingers tap the wheel like I have no say in it.
“I’ll figure out a way to cancel.”
“No, you won’t. Mom will hunt you down whether you like it or not. She’ll smile at you, then pointedly remind you that you have an invitation to dinner. No one disappoints Nonna.”
A smile dances on my lips. “I see where you get it from.”
“No way!” For a second, I think I insulted her, then she twists in the seat and I’m graced with the full-force of Christy ‘Tee’ MacFarlane’s attention. “That’s the best compliment I’ve ever had.”
“I doubt that. I saw all your awards...”
“Awards mean dick.” She sniffs. “You heard Mom. She wants me to be a teacher in Dad’s faculty. You did too. Everyone wants me to be a damn teacher!”
“No shame in being a teacher.”
“Of course there isn’t. Where would we be without teachers?” The ‘dumbass’ goes unspoken. “But I’m not one. I’m not made for that.”
“What are you made for?”
“To make music, but music doesn’t pay the bills.” She heaves a sigh. “Mom taught me everything I know until I hit twelve. Did you know that?”
I assume that’s rhetorical because how could I know?
“You mean musically?”
“Yes. My maternal great-grandfather was picked for this fancy orchestra that would have played for Mussolini when my grandad was a boy.”
“Jesus.”
“Don’t worry. His parents decided that was the perfect time to get away from the motherland. Music’s in my blood—on both sides—and look what it got Mom.”
“She seemed happy.”
“Bitching at you about some bikes riding through town screams fulfilled to you? I love her, but she’s two iterations away from being a Karen.” When I snort, she hums that same tune again. “You know I’m right.”
“I’m trying to be polite.”
“You don’t have to be polite with me. I don’t appreciate bullshit.” Her fingers drum on the armrest. It takes me a second to realize that she’s moving them in sync with mine on the steering wheel but adds tiny flourishes that make the dull thuds resemble a song.
The urge to touch her is an ever-present problem.
I’m not sure if it’s a sexual need or just a human one—I’ve written to this woman for years. I know her secrets. I know things she’s ashamed of and proud of.
I want to hold her and tell her everything will be okay, but I don’t have the right to.
I didn’t just end the link we have. I severed it.
No cauterization.
“Will your brother be there next Saturday?” I ask, trying not to notice the plane flying overhead.
She shifts in her seat and stares up at it. “That Colton?”
“Probably.”
Her hum drifts into a repeat of those same notes from before. “I’m surprised you didn’t ask to do the flyovers.”
“How do you know I didn’t?”
“Zee. She told me Colt offered. You said no.”
Right now, being on the road while he’s three thousand feet in the sky isn’t far enough away from the damn plane.
Not that I’m going to tell her that.
“ Will I meet your brother next Saturday?”
“When he learns it’s Nonna who’s making the red sauce, yup. No one in the family can resist that. Mom gave up on replicating her recipe years ago.”
“Can tomato sauce really be that special?”
She snickers. “Word to the wise: don’t ask that question when you’re within hearing distance of my family.”
“I appreciate the intel.”
Too soon, the ranch gates appear in the distance.
A part of me knows it’s for the best, but another part of me could carry on driving, head for Saskatoon.
My hands tighten around the steering wheel, leaving her to her one-person orchestra.
Only when I pull up outside the house does she ask, “You have room for supper after Nonna stuffed you with tiramisu?”
“I’ll make room,” I say with a smile.
“She doesn’t give just anyone her tiramisu, you know?”
“It was an honor?”
“Yup. It’s my dad’s favorite and she only makes it for him.”
“He won’t be happy with me for having to share it.”
“He’ll survive.” She purses her lips. “Honestly... thank you for this afternoon. You were kind.”
No, I was curious.
I don’t tell her that. Can’t. Instead, I nod. “See you at the dinner table.”
I leave her by the truck, knowing it’s for the best to go to my quarters to shower and change for supper.
Everything about Tee is catnip, and I already fucked things up with her before I had a chance to say ‘hello.’
It’s with a heavy heart that I step into the shower.
But as the water pummels me, my thoughts drift.
Her pout.
Her smile.
The sight of her ass when she bent down to slot the dessert tray into the refrigerator.
And though it makes me a piece of shit, I slide my hand down and deal with the erection being in her presence gives me.
A few strokes of my cock has me staggering forward and propping myself up with my free hand.
As I focus on the tip, smoothing my palm over it, I let the water fall onto my face.
It would have been so easy to run my hand over those luscious curves when I helped her out of the truck. Even easier to ask her to waggle her ass in my face—she’d love that. There’s no way she wouldn’t get a kick out of me watching her…
I hiss as reality intrudes, thoughts of her not wanting me or Butch anywhere near her, and I force myself to imagine those pouty lips of hers whispering, “I want you, Cody. I want you to make me come. I know you’re the only man who’ll ever get me off.”
God, she’s so beautiful.
A heart-shaped face, surrounded by waves of (currently) dirty blonde hair, all cheekbones until you reach that pretty mouth that I need to fuck. Her eyes are set wide and are almond-shaped—giving her an air of inquisitiveness. Like she’s watching everything and seeking answers.
I know I have it bad because I want to be the questions she can never answer so she has to come straight to the source for the intel.
“Jesus,” I moan, pumping into my fist, harder, faster, thinking about those eyes staring up at me, a wicked smile curving those lips.
“Damn straight I’m the only man who’ll get you off,” I breathe. “Only me.”
I grunt as I tighten my fingers, seeking more friction, wishing it was her cunt but?—
I haven’t earned that right.
Yet .