A Year of You (31 page)

She sawed at the shoulder strap of the tough old seatbelt that had been through two generations of passengers. Once she was free of that, she went to work on the lap belt. “They did that on purpose,” she said aloud.

“Yeah, I figured. Was it your guy? The one who grabbed you from the nursing home?”

She passed the knife back to him and kicked the door until it opened. She slid out into the warm night. West scooted across the seat, slowly. “You’re hurt,” she said. He favored his shoulder, stretching his arm and rotating it carefully. He rolled his shoulders and his neck.

“I’m okay. Answer me. Was that your guy?”

“He’s not my guy. He’s just some psycho who thinks he can get something from me. I think…I think this was Justine.”

West stepped back. “Shit. Look at my truck. Look at my truck, Mattie.”

“I’m sorry, West.” On the verge of tears, she touched his arm. He swatted her away.

“This is your fault,” he said. He walked away, hands on his head, looking up at the sky. “This is all your fuckin’ fault.”

“West.” She didn’t know what to say. Panic swirled in her gut. He was mad, so mad. She hadn’t seen him this angry before. Even in the dark, she saw the thunder in his eyes, heard it in his voice.

He turned on her and backed her up against the bed of the truck. The engine still ticked and the radiator hissed, the only sounds in the night. “This is your fault, whether it was that psycho or Justine.” He slammed his palm into the truck, inches from her arm. She jumped and yelped and cowered backwards.

Everything in him made her think of K. Of his anger. Of his abuse. He’d hit her soon. He’d smile while he did it, too. He’d hit her and keep hitting her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

“You showed up and everything went to hell. I could have stayed in the dark about Emeline forever. It would have been fine, because I would have still had some part of her. McKendrick decided to demand his money back when you showed up. You know why? Because he’s going broke, and that’s his last chance. You show up and turn my life upside down.”

He slammed his other hand against the truck, pinning her between his arms.

Mattie’s mind started slipping into the peaceful place she’d found during the worst of K’s assaults. He could do what he wanted to her body, but he couldn’t touch her mind.

West grabbed her chin and made her look at him. It wouldn’t be long now, before he realized the only way he could make his point would be to knock her around. Mattie waited, expecting it.

“Why us?”

His hands closed around her shoulders, squeezing but not hurting her. “Why the hell did you pick us?”

He pushed her away, not hard. Surprised that he hadn’t hurt her, Mattie tripped over her own feet and hit the ground. West paced away to the edge of the road. Before she could get up, he wheeled around and dropped to the knees in front of her. He grabbed her shoulders again and gave her a little shake.

“We were fine before you showed up! Now I’ve got some psycho threatened everything I hold dear.” His hands slid up to her head. His fingers tangled in her hair as he closed them into fists.

“Ow,” she whimpered.

“Shut up,” he moaned and pressed his forehead to hers. She froze, confused. This wasn’t how this went. K was supposed to hit her. A punch to the stomach, or a few slaps across the face. He wasn’t supposed to--

She gasped and snapped out of the daze.

West wasn’t K. He wasn’t going to actually hurt her. This was him, scared and hurt and broken, but not hateful. Not vindictive. The moon came out from behind the clouds and she saw the twin tears stains on his cheeks.

She put her hands on his sides and whispered, “I’m sorry.”

He wrapped his arms around her and held her tight. “Sometimes I want to hate you,” he said into the top of her head. “Sometimes I want to just give up on you completely. I want to walk away and never look back. You’re my own personal Hell, Mattie.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Just when I think I can’t hate you anymore, I realize I can’t live without you. You’re going to be the end of me, woman!”

“No, I won’t,” she replied.

He held her for a long moment. “I could see it happening,” he said. “I could see us crashing into that tree and something horrible happening to you. I couldn’t see myself without you.”

He kissed the top of her head and let go so he could stand up. He held his hand out. She took it and he pulled her to her feet. “I’ve got to call Jose. He’ll come help us.”

After he made the call, they sat on the tailgate and waited in silence. Mattie entwined her fingers with his and held his hand. He leaned on her shoulder. “Do you want something for your head? I’ve got some ibuprofen in my purse.”

“Yeah, that’d be great.”

The door stuck, and wouldn’t open for her for anything. West struggled with it for a minute before it popped open again. He reached in. He passed her the empty purse. “Your shit’s everywh--“

Wordlessly, he leaned back and held up the plastic-wrapped, white box with the smiling baby on the front.

His face hardened, the lines made even sharper by shadows and the lone streetlight across the road, “You could have told me, Mattie.”

“West—” She touched his arm. He jerked away from her. “I’m sorry. I just--”

I swear, just when it seems like things are working out, shit happens
. This one was her fault, though. She could have easily confided her concerns to him. He’d badgered and pestered her for a solid week before she convinced him otherwise. “I was scared and I should have told you.”

He shrugged and walked away. “Just add it to that huge pile of other shit you’re not telling me.”

Chapter Twenty

“Go do it.” West slid the crumpled box containing the pregnancy test across the narrow table. He hadn’t said a word to her on the ride home. Even Jose realized something was up and stopped trying to make conversation.

“I don’t have to pee.” Mattie’s mouth went dry.


“I don’t care. Go do it.”


“You’re supposed to do them first thing in the mornings.”

“I don’t give a fuck. There’s two of them. You’re going to do one tonight and one in the morning. You lied to me, Mattie. You said there wasn’t a chance.”

Mattie resented his orders and glared at him. “Make me. You can’t force me to pee.”

He yanked her up so fast her head spun and half-pushed her into the bathroom. “You’re not leaving until you pee on the damn stick.”

Mattie shrugged and sat down on the edge of the tub, arms crossed over her chest. “Pee on it yourself.”

West cussed a blue streak then slammed his fist through the hallway wall. He danced back in pain, hissing, cussing even louder.

Startled by his outburst, Mattie yelped. “Good Lord, West. If you’d just relax!”

“Will it make you do the damn test?” He held his fist to his chest, cupped in his other hand, and glared at her.

He’s hurting.
And it wasn’t just the physical pain either. His eyes bore into hers, endlessly deep. Searching hers. Pleading with her.

Mattie rose from the edge of the tub and walked slowly to West, gazes glued together. She took his hand and smoothed hers over the abrasions. He winced, closing his eyes for a second.

When he reopened his beautiful blue and gold eyes, tears escaped and ran down his cheeks. Mattie slid her hands over his shoulders, up the back of his neck and into his hair. When she brushed her cheek against his, he grabbed her and held her tight.

“Shit, Mattie. Can we go a full week without turning my life upside down yet again?” The edge of the box dug into her back, reminding her yet again. “You make me so frickin’
mad.
One minute I think we’re going to be together forever, and the next I feel like you’re just counting the days until you can vanish.”

“I’m not for sure,” she said softly. “About...that. You know.”


“A baby.”
They were silent for a long time. Mattie listened to him breathe, matching the rhythm of her own breath to his. He shifted, turned his face closer to her ear. “

But you know what it feels like, though.”

Mattie withdrew, her heart pounding in her chest. Sweat popped out on her forehead, and her armpits felt immediately sticky. “What?”


“Pregnant. You know what it feels like.”


Fishing, she asked, “W-why would I know?”
West lifted the edge of her shirt and ran his fingertips over her soft belly. His fingers traced the nearly invisible stretch marks that tattooed her skin. “You’ve been pregnant before, Mattie. I guessed it the first time I saw you naked. These aren’t ‘fat’ stretch marks.”

“You never said anything. You never asked. Can we please go sit somewhere?”

“Pee, and we can.” He held out the crumpled, abused pregnancy test box. “I’ll even open it for you.”

The wrapper crinkled as he opened the first test. He pushed the narrow plastic stick into her hand. “Go, Mattie, baby. We need to know.”

“Are you going to watch?”

“Yeah.”


“Pervert.”

“Just go pee.”


Mattie headed for the toilet. “I can’t pee with people watching me.”


“I was in here while you peed this morning.”


“That doesn’t count. You were brushing your teeth, not watching me pee.”


West sighed heavily. “Just. Pee!”
Mattie grabbed the pregnancy test and stomped over to the toilet. Glaring at him, she managed to pee on the stick without peeing on her hand.

“Quit staring at me or you’re going to pee on yourself,” he warned, very nearly smiling.


“Oh bite me,” she growled, even though she felt like smiling herself.


“Maybe later.”
After she’d passed the test to West, she finished her business and flushed. West was waiting at thesink. He’d turned the test over so he couldn’t see the results as it developed. She scrubbed her hands with the soap West deemed too girly for him to use. “How long do we have to wait?”

“The thing says ten minutes.”


“If it’s positive it won’t take that long,” Mattie said quietly.
West took a deep breath and pinched the test between two fingers. “Want to check it now?”


Mattie wrapped her arms around herself. “What do we do if it’s positive?”


“We’ll talk about it after we find out. It might not be, right?”


“I...” She shrugged, her shoulders tight. “I feel like I did before...but I was so young. I don’t know.”


“One question. If you are, it’s mine, right?”
Mattie slugged him in the arm, hard. He yelped and dropped the test as he jumped sideways. The little rectangle of plastic clattered off the edge of the counter.

“Asshole! How dare you ask me something like that? Of course it’s yours. We made a deal.”


West dropped to his knees and grabbed the test from underneath the edge of the cabinet.

“Ready?”


“Not really. But we got to, I guess.” She knelt next to him and waited while he turned the test over.

“Shit,” they said in unison.

***

Sealed in a Ziploc baggie, the pregnancy test sat between them on the bed. “How accurate are those things?” he asked.


“Accurate enough,” Mattie replied. “I guess it could be a false positive.” He lay back on the pillows.

“What now?”

“I don’t know.” Mattie picked up the pregnancy test and stared at the two pink lines until her vision was blurry.

“Me neither.”

She dropped the test. It landed with a little crinkle of plastic. “Are you still mad at me for wrecking your truck?”

“I don’t know.”


Mattie rolled her eyes. “Do you know anything tonight?”


“I know I’m kinda horny.”


“Are you serious? Somebody runs me off the road, I destroy your truck, and we find out I’m pregnant in one night, and you want to have sex.”


“Doesn’t have to be sex. You could just go down one me. You kinda owe me.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Seriously. I can’t deal with much more right now. Let’s just fool around and go to bed and we’ll figure all this out in the morning.”

Mattie nodded and scooted closer to West. “I don’t want you to be mad at me. I was so scared tonight.”

“I know. I didn’t help anyway. It sort of scares me,” he confessed. “I can’t keep bad stuff from happening to you. How do I keep you safe? And now a baby? I’m terrified, Mattie.”

Mattie slid her hand along the hard length of him through his boxers, swirling her finger over the tip. “We’ll figure it out.” She pulled his penis out of his boxers and lowered her head to tenderly kiss the velvet-soft skin. He hissed through his teeth, his abs stiffening. She settled herself between his legs and lost herself in the musky male scent of him, in the way his shaft moved smoothly down her throat.

Just as she felt the familiar tensing, the hardening of his cock in her mouth that signaled he was about to come, he pulled out. “Inside you, baby. We don’t have to worry about the damn condoms anymore.”

She flipped on to her forearms and knees and looked back at him expectantly. This was right; this was home. He plunged inside her, gripping her hips with hands of iron. Mattie cried out and arched her bottom into his belly, urging him in deeper. The raw feeling, after too many nights of muted sensation through layers of latex, pushed her closer and closer to her own climax. Usually needing direct stimulation to have an orgasm, the experience was new, different.

He pounded into her, sweating, grunting dirty assurances. Each stroke swept over her g-spot and hit her cervix, until her body couldn’t tell the pain from the promise, and she cascaded over the edge into waves of searing pleasure that made her buck her hips and toss her head. West came right behind her, pumping his seed into the hard contractions of her orgasm.

He drooped to the side, pulling her to the bed with him. Mattie felt the pregnancy test under her hip, but she didn’t care.

“Baby’s gonna have a dent in its head,” West mumbled. He gathered her close and tugged the blanket up over them, still hard inside her. “And no, I don’t think I’m mad at you anymore.”

“Yay.”

They didn’t say anymore. Mattie remained lost in her thoughts until the itch of the plastic bag stuck to her sweaty hip got on her nerves. She shifted her body slightly and felt West’s semi-soft penis slip out of her body with a warm trickle of fluid. He grumbled something and rolled over, taking most of the blanket with him.