Chapter Seven #2
“That ain’t true either.”
“It’s…” She searches for a word.
“Say masculine and I’m putting you back in the SUV.”
Her mouth twitches. “Private.”
That one lands.
Because it’s true.
My house is private.
Bare. Guarded. Set up for one man who doesn’t invite people in because people leave marks.
Sophie steps inside behind us and begins scanning the room like she intends to make it livable by force. “We need curtains.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Nobody asked you to redecorate.”
“A child is staying here.”
“For now.”
“That still requires curtains.”
“Why?”
“So he can sleep.”
“He can close his eyes.”
Amelia coughs into her hand.
Sophie points toward the hallway. “Bedrooms?”
I drag a hand down my face. “First door on the left is parts. Second is bathroom. Last door is mine.”
“Your room is theirs,” Sophie says.
“I know.”
Amelia turns fast. “No. I told you I don’t want to take your bedroom.”
“You ain’t taking it.”
“I am if you’re not sleeping in it.”
“I’ve slept on that couch before.”
She looks at the couch.
At the tape.
At me.
“That couch looks like it fights back.”
“It does. Keeps a man humble.”
“I can sleep there.”
“No.”
Her shoulders tense.
I catch it this time before Sophie has to kick me.
I exhale through my nose. “I mean, I’d rather you and the kid take the bedroom. Door locks. Window faces the back. You’ll have privacy. Couch is in the living room, which puts me between you and the front door. Makes more sense.”
She studies me.
I can tell she wants to argue. Not because she wants the couch. Because accepting the bedroom feels like accepting care, and accepting care feels like a trap if enough people have used kindness as bait.
“It has a lock?” she asks.
“Bedroom door? Yeah.”
“Inside?”
“Yes.”
“Does it work?”
“Yes.”
She nods once.
I don’t make a thing of it.
Sophie notices that I don’t make a thing of it and looks proud, which irritates me more than criticism.
August wanders toward the hallway. “Can I see?”
Amelia starts after him, but I get there first, not to stop him, just to push open the bedroom door so nothing catches him by surprise.
My room is cleaner than the rest of the house.
That probably says more than I want it to.
The bed is made because I spent too long as a prospect getting my ass chewed for sloppy bunks.
Dark quilt. Plain sheets. A dresser. A nightstand with a lamp, a knife, and a paperback western I have been pretending to read for six months.
Boots lined along one wall. A safe in the closet.
No pictures. No extra pillows. Nothing soft except the bed, and even that looks like a place to crash, not rest.
Then I spy a pair of panties on the floor. A thong from my last overnight guest. Don’t remember her name. I rush over to kick it under the bed. Not before Amelia notices.
“I see you’ve been assaulted by panties before.”
“None as big and fearsome as yours.”
August marches in and looks around. “Where are your toys?”
“I’m grown.”
“That’s sad,” he says again.
“I’m starting to feel judged.”
Amelia steps into the doorway behind him and stops.
Her face changes.
I don’t know why.
Maybe because the room is too personal. Maybe because it’s too bare. Maybe because she is about to sleep in a bed that belongs to me, and that thought just hit her the way it hit me.
A hot, inconvenient awareness crawls up my spine.
I imagine her in that bed.
Hair loose. Bare legs. My dark quilt wrapped around her hips.
No.
Absolutely not.
Not doing that.
This woman has been in my life less than twenty-four hours. She is scared, married, possibly my president’s sister, and holding her life together with duct tape and spite. I’m not going to stand in my own room and get hard over the idea of her in my bed.
My body once again refuses the memo.
I step back. “I’ll clear the nightstand.”
Her cheeks turn pink.
So she thought it too.
Well, hell.
Sophie, because she is both an angel and a menace, chooses that moment to appear behind us. “This will work.”
I mutter, “Glad my bedroom meets your approval.”
“It needs softer sheets.”
“They’re sheets.”
“They feel like they were woven from punishment.”
“They were on sale.”
Amelia’s mouth curves. “They’re fine.”
Sophie gives her a look. “You don’t have to accept bad sheets as part of your healing journey. You need clean sheets. Not sure if Derby washed them after his last guest.”
“Of course I did.” I point at Sophie. “Out.”
She smiles. “In a minute.”
August climbs onto the bed with Blue Rex before anyone can stop him. He bounces once.
Amelia makes a small distressed sound. “Shoes off.”
He freezes, one sneaker already on my quilt.
I should care.
I don’t.
“It’s fine,” I say.
“It isn’t fine. He doesn’t climb on someone’s bed with shoes on.”
“Kid’s had a night.”
“He still has manners.”
August slides back off and sits on the floor to untie his shoes. “Sorry.”
I crouch before thinking and help with the knot because it’s tight and his fingers are small. Halfway through, I realize the room has gone quiet.
I look up.
Amelia is staring at me.
So is Sophie.
August says, “It double-knotted.”
“I see that.”
“Can you get it?”
“Kid, I can hotwire a truck and stitch a knife cut in a gas station bathroom. I can handle a shoelace.”
“What’s hotwire?”
Amelia says, “No.”
I sigh. “Forget that word.”
August looks suspicious. “I remember words.”
“Of course you do.”
I get the shoe off and set it by the bed. He kicks the other one at my knee.
“Please,” Amelia says automatically.
August repeats, “Please.”
I take the second shoe. “Thank you for remembering I ain’t staff.”
He grins at me.
That grin.
Damn it.
It’s missing one tiny tooth on the bottom, and it hits me in the chest like a thrown bottle.
I stand too fast.
Sophie is still watching me.
“Stop,” I tell her.
“I said nothing.”
“You’re glowing with opinions.”
“They are very good opinions.”
“Keep them hostage.”
Amelia steps into the room and touches August’s hair. “We’re only staying a little while.”
The way she says it’s for him.
Also for me.
Also for herself.
I nod. “Yeah.”
August looks up. “How long is little?”
Nobody answers.
Because adults are liars and children know it.
Sophie saves us by clapping her hands once. “All right. First order. We unpack only what is needed. Second, groceries. Third, phone. Fourth, we decide how public Amelia and Derby need to be before Jeremy tells half the state she was kidnapped by Satan’s motorcycle cousins.”
Amelia looks at her. “That sounds like something he would say.”
“Then we make sure nobody believes him first.”
My stomach tightens because I know where this is going.
I step into the hall. “We just got here.”
Sophie follows. “Yes.”
“She needs a minute.”
“She needs several. Unfortunately, Jeremy is already moving.”
Amelia comes out behind us, August occupied on the bed with his dinosaur.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
Sophie looks at me, then at her. “It means hiding helps him if he uses it right. He will say you are being kept somewhere. He will say you are isolated. He will say Derby manipulated you or the club took you.”
I snort. “I ain’t charming enough to manipulate anyone before noon.”
Amelia gives me a look. “You are barely charming enough after noon.”
I grin before I can stop myself.
Sophie’s eyes bounce between us and sharpen with interest.
I stop grinning.
Too late.
Sophie says, “The point is, Jeremy wants to tell a story where you are unstable, trapped, and surrounded by criminals. We need another story.”
Amelia’s shoulders pull back. “What story?”
“That you are not hiding. That you are here by choice. That you are with Derby by choice. That the Kings are not holding you hostage. That you have family here.”
The word family does something to Amelia’s face.
Hope and pain at the same time.
I look away because it feels private.
“We don’t know that yet,” she says.
“No,” Sophie agrees. “But we know enough to let people see you standing beside us instead of being dragged back by him.”
Amelia wraps her arms around herself. “People will talk.”
Sophie’s smile is sad. “People already are.”
That lands.
It lands with me too.
People in Hell and Paradise can spread gossip faster than fire through dry hay.
By now, somebody has seen Jeremy at the gate.
Somebody knows a woman and kid came in last night.
Somebody heard Mike Welles’s name. Somebody has already embroidered the story with sex, blood, ghosts, and a monster sighting for seasoning.
Amelia is already a story.
She just doesn’t control which one.
“What do you want me to do?” she asks.
Sophie glances at me.
No.
I know that look.
“Sophie,” I warn.
“The Fire Pit,” she says.
I close my eyes.
Absolutely not.
Amelia frowns. “The bar?”
“It’s Kings-owned,” Sophie says. “Public enough for gossip. Controlled enough to keep you safe.”
“No,” I say.
Sophie looks at me. “You don’t get a vote.”
“It’s my fake relationship.”
Amelia lifts a brow. “Our fake relationship.”
I point at her. “Don’t team up with her. She wins too much.”
“I’m not going to a bar today,” Amelia says.
Good. Smart woman.
Sophie nods. “Not to party. To be seen.”
“That sounds awful.”
“It will be.”
“Sophie,” I say.
She turns on me. “You know I’m right.”
“I know she just slept in a jailhouse after her husband showed up at the gate.”
“I also know her husband sent a message this morning proving he can still reach her. If Amelia disappears into your house now, Jeremy gets to say whatever he wants. If people see her with you, calm, unafraid, and not trying to leave, his story weakens.”
Amelia swallows. “I am afraid.”
Sophie’s expression softens. “I know. You don’t have to be fearless. You only have to be visible.”
The room goes quiet.
I hate that.
I hate how true it sounds.
Amelia looks toward the bedroom where August is making Blue Rex stomp over my quilt. “What about him?”
“He stays here,” I say immediately.
Her eyes snap to mine.