A Year of You (28 page)

Even the threat of K.

When she got scared, West was there to comfort her, even if he didn’t have the faintest clue why she was pale and shaking and needing to be held.


West came into the kitchen, hot and sweaty and dirty. Grass particles and clods of dirt fell off his jeans and his boots. He grabbed a bottle of water out of the fridge.
Suddenly realizing he’d guess something was up, Mattie shoved the calendar across the table, into the pile of bills and papers that always sat in the middle of the table.
West stepped behind her and massaged her shoulders gently. She winced when he hit a sore spot on her shoulder.
“That still hurts? That happened over two weeks ago.”


“Yeah. You did practically grind me into the hallway wall there, though.”
She laughed and shivered when he pulled the strap of her tank top aside and kissed the sore spot.

“You weren’t complaining.”


“Didn’t even think of it. I love it when you get mad at me.”
He paused, nuzzling her ear, her neck, nipping lightly as her skin. “Want to get grinded again? You don’t even have to make me mad.”


“Grinded? Is that a word? Don’t you have an entire acre of fern to cut? You actually have orders that need to be filled this week.”
He shrugged and wrapped his arms around her from behind, cupping her breasts, thumbing her nipples.

“I got an order right here to fill. Bedroom, now.”


“You’re acting like a caveman. You’re dirty and you’re sweaty and--ow!”


He bit her neck hard enough to leave a mark. “Come on, Mattie. Please? You’re making me feel like a horny teenager here.” The smell of his sweat, of sunshine and green things, was intoxicating, in its own way. She wrapped her arms around his sweaty neck and kissed him like he liked her to.

Arms around her waist, he lifted her up and spun her around she he could backwards-walk her to the bedroom. “I won’t touch you anywhere with my hands,” he murmured into her ear. “My tongue, definitely.”

Mattie forgot about the calendar, K, everything except West. He pushed her pants down and sat her on the edge of his dresser. Dropping to his knees, he pushed her knees apart and delved into her eagerly.

She leaned back against the cold mirror and laced her hands through his hair. The strokes of her tongue carried her higher and higher until she exploded, gasping, squeezing his head between her thighs. He laughed and stood up once she’d relaxed. “My turn,” he growled, shoving his pants and boxers down. He grabbed her hips and pulled her closer to the edge of the dresser.

“Hurry, West,” she murmured, reaching for him. He smirked.

“Are you telling me what to do?”

She tilted her chin defiantly. “Yes. I want you inside me, now.”

“I’ll let it slide this time.” He paused long enough to tear open a condom wrapper and slide it on. He thrust inside her. She clung to him, starving for his touch, for the way he filled her up. It was more than physical, and that was the best part. It didn’t take him long before he growled her name in her ear and clutched her tight.

***

Late in the night the phone rang, dragging her out of warm, happy dreams. West groaned and rolled over, an arm over his eyes. “I’ll get it,” Mattie grunted. “And if it’s one of your friends, I’m tearing them a new one.”

“Go for it.” He was snoring again before she even got out of bed.

Hurrying down the hall, she caught the phone on the last ring.
It’s K
. It struck her like a lightning bolt, the sure knowledge that it was him. His pure evilness oozed over the distance, out of the phone like oil.

“Hello?” she said in a whisper.

“Hi, honey. When ya coming home?” Her stomach dropped like a bowling ball when she heard his voice.

“Why’re you calling me here?”


“Where’s my money?”
Mattie took the portable phone to the couch and sat on the very edge of the cushion. “I need more time, K.”


“No, you’re running out of time. I’m not very patient, Matilyn. You are out of time.” He paused and his voice turned sinister. “Now, listen, Mattie. Time to quit playing whore and get busy getting my money!”

“I told you, K. It’s a lot more complicated than that.” Mattie kept her voice at a low hiss, one eye on the hallway. She kept her ears tuned for the sound of the bedroom door creaking open. “I don’t have a cent of it now. I have a little bit longer before the legal stuff clears up. You can’t just waltz into a family and expect them to fork over the cash!”

“That’s a load of shit, Mattie. We both know it. I’m warning you, bitch. You don’t have much time before I come down there myself. You think Logan was rough? Wait’ll I get there. It won’t be just you that suffers either. Don’t get too close to that loser you’re shacked up with. It’ll hurt too much when something nasty happens to him.”

In an effort to hold back her anger and fear, she bit her bottom lip so hard she tasted blood.

“I’m sick of waiting around, Mattie. You don’t have much longer.” The connection was severed abruptly. After a moment of silence, the off-the-hook signal blared harshly in her ear.
K really wanted the money.
He must be gambling again. The last time he’d been in such a fired-up-hurry for money was after he lost a fortune in Vegas. He’d sworn off gambling when one of the loan shark’s money broke his arms. That had been years ago, when she was barely eighteen. He hadn’t gotten the money from a con very similar to the one he had her working now, but she and Isabella had ended up in jail for nearly a year for grand theft and fraud.

The phone rang again. “What?” she hissed into the handset, knowing it was K.


“You look real sexy in that nightgown.” The call ended.
It took Mattie a second to absorb what K had said.


Nightgown.

She looked down at her short feminine nightgown. She hated the things, but West loved them. It was the only reason she wore them. He loved it when she rode him wearing ‘em, or when he could flip it up over her back and take her from behind.

K said she looked sexy in the nightgown.
He could see inside! He could see her!
Mattie flew to the window and yanked down the blinds. The sliding glass doors didn’t have anything except a queen-sized sheet jury-rigged on shower curtain rings, hanging from an expandable shower curtain pole jammed into the doorframe. It was pulled all the way across, but gusts from the window unit air conditioner made it shudder and wave.

When she was sure the few windows were securely closed, she forced herself to stand still and breathe deep. Calm down. Calm down. Chill out. If he could see her, she could see him, right?

She padded to the window and peeked out through a crack in the blinds. The single streetlight next to the trailer lit the sandy front yard but not much beyond it. Nothing moved outside, and Scruffy was sleeping on the front porch.

“He’s not out there,” Mattie whispered softly. Scruffy would be going nuts if there was someone on the property. The dog had developed some pretty intense paranoia after the attack. Jose couldn’t even walk into the immediate yard without the dog working himself into a frenzy. Forget any of the other employees trying to come to the office for anything!

K knew saying something like that would scare her. “Bastard,” she murmured. He knew she was terrified of stuff like that. He was just manipulating her.

But how did he know she’d be wearing a nightgown?

Logan! The day he’d ransacked the house, he must have seen the ones she had hung up to dry around the room.

She heard the bedroom door open and saw West’s silhouette. He scratched his head. “You coming back to bed?”

“Yeah. I’m coming.”

She turned in a circle, checking and rechecking all the windows before she headed down the hallway to the bedroom. She had to force herself not to look over her shoulder.

Damn it, K
.

Now she had something else to be afraid of.

“Who was it?” West asked through a yawn. He slipped a warm hand beneath the back of her nightgown. The contrast of his warmth against the chill of her skin made her sigh and cuddle closer for more of him.

“I don’t know. Some drunk idiot.”


When West got up the next morning, Mattie had the calendar out again, counting days.
“A little obsessive, are we?” he asked. “What is it with you and that damn thing?” He helped himself to a gulp of milk straight from the jug. “You’ve got like another month or so before the lawyers are done doing whatever the hell it is they’re doing, or so McKendrick says.”

“McKendrick’s making them go over the papers with a fine-tooth comb. He doesn’t want to give me the money. He had the papers rewritten when they declared me dead so that Emeline would get everything.”

Hmm...That made a lot of sense. Pieces began to fit together. Ruth Ellen swore Elaine was killed because she was an illegitimate child. What if it was just because McKendrick wanted his flesh and blood to get all the money promised to Ruth Ellen’s children?

What would happen to her if it ever came to light that she was indeed Karen’s biological child?

Justine was overprotective when it came to Emeline. She made it very clear that what Emeline wanted, Emeline got. Would the woman have gone as far as murder to make sure Emeline got the contents of the trust funds, rather than her measly three million?

Maybe it was time to go talk to Ruth Ellen again.

West nibbled her neck. He slid one hand around her side and patted her belly. “You sure you’re not worried about something else?”

Irritated, Mattie shoved his hand away. “No.”


“I still think we need to buy a test.”


“I’m not going to, because I know I’m not pregnant, West. It would screw everything up if that happened.”


West paused, lips pressed to her neck just below her ear. “Yeah. I guess it would. But maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing.”


Startled, Mattie turned around and stared at him. “Are you serious? You don’t want a kid right now. Especially with me.”


“Why wouldn’t I want a kid with you, Mats?” His lips were moving lower, mouthing her nipples through her thin ribbed tank top. She gasped and slid her hands into his hair. He moved to the other nipple. The air cooled the wet spot on her chest. He tongued her nipples until she was arching toward him, craving his touch. Desperate for it.

West grinned up at her, the wicked evil grin she loved so much. When he smiled like that it meant things were going to happen. True to form he grasped the waist of her shorty pajama bottoms and eased them down.

Mattie laughed at him when he cursed at her underwear.

“From now on, no panties,” he growled. When the offending garment was gone, he propped her thighs up on his shoulders, slid her ass to the edge of the chair and delved into the hot wet part of her that was his, only his.

***

“Does this usually happen?” Mattie asked West on her way back into the kitchen for more potato chips. They had a dozen people crowded in the backyard, five or six of them sawing away on guitars, threatening to chop down the very trees with sound waves. Georgia was caterwauling away into a microphone, doing an amazing rendition of The Cranberries’ “Zombie.”

“Yeah. That’s why I told you to stock up on food. In an hour or so we’ll get the grill going and somebody’ll show up with a keg, and the party’ll be on.” He goosed her, making her slosh her cup of Pepsi all over her arm and shirt. Already frazzled by the demands on her, it was a breaking point.

“Quit being a bastard, West,” she griped, shaking her arm, splattering him with brown droplets. “You could have told me. I thought it was just going to be you and the guys and Georgia.”

“I told you I was having some friends over. Why’re you so mad?”

“Because. You didn’t tell me, and I wasn’t prepared. I’m still feeling nasty, and this is just more than I want to deal with right now. And more people are coming?”

“Yeah. Mattie, it’s not a big deal. Get over it and have fun. This happens pretty often.”


“You never told me that either! I’ve been here close to three months, and it’s never happened.”

She grabbed another two-liter out of the fridge. With it in one hand and the remains of her

Pepsi in another, she whipped around to head back outside. West was in the way, so she smacked into him and ended up dousing herself in cold soda and ice. Gasping from the shock, she dropped the two- liter.

“That was your fault,” West said.


“Fuck you!”


“Why are you being such a bitch?” He grabbed a handful of paper towels and tried to swab the worst of the drink off her shirt. “Just chill out and have fun, sweetheart.”


She had a nasty retort on her lips when the front door opened, and the last person on earth she wanted to see walked in.


“There you are, Brant!” Emeline gushed. “I’ve been looking for you all over, hot stuff.”


“Hey there,” West replied, grinning and draping an arm over her scrawny shoulders. Emeline’s smug look inspired a rage so intense that it overcame Mattie so quickly she thought she was going to explode. West must have noticed something, because he turned Emeline around and propelled her toward the sliding glass doors. “Right behind you, Em.”

Emeline rolled her eyes and walked a couple steps away. She watched them, arms crossed over her skinny chest, waiting. All but tapping her toes.

West pushed Mattie down the hall until he got her to the bedroom. He slammed the door. “What the hell is your problem tonight?”

“I don’t have a problem. You have a problem. You got that nauseating look on your face already. What is she doing here?”

“What look? Ruth Ellen asked me to watch out for her, too, Mattie. She’s worried that the things happening to you might happen to her.”

“So you’re her protector now? You’re still not over her. You’ve got some nerve, West. You spout all that crap about, ‘Oh let’s give us a try’ but the second you see her, you’re all hers.”

Mattie yanked off her T-shirt. A million different emotions bubbled up in her, all vying for release. She settled for bursting into tears, burying her face in her hands.

Tenderly, West pulled her into his arms. His hands were warm against the bare skin of her back. “Come on, what’s your problem, Mattie? Talk to me.”

“You’re gonna spend the whole night with her and leave me alone and everybody’s going to talk about me and Georgia’s going to want to kick your ass or something—”