Better (Stark Ink Book 2) (7 page)

The cold hit him hard, but he barely felt it. Angry as he was, though, he held onto Zoey’s arm as she made her way back to the car. He couldn’t have her slipping and falling on the slush under their feet. He did slam the passenger door, though, once he’d gotten her in. He wasn’t a saint, after all. The car rocked a little on its frame from the force of it. Once Dalton was inside he turned the ignition and started the heater, mostly in deference to Zoey. He was far too angry to drive at this point and he found he actually preferred the cold. It seemed to balance him in some odd way.

“He kicked you.”

Zoey paused as she warmed her hands at the vents, not responding.

“
He. Kicked. You.
”

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t know what you’d do.”

“Lies.”

Zoey stayed silent in the face of the truth. She hadn’t told him how bad it was because she knew exactly what he’d do. They wouldn’t be here now if she’d spoken up. He’d be sitting in a jail cell somewhere. Who knew where she would be?

“Dalton-”

“Not right now,” he snapped. He didn’t mean to be so harsh with her, but his hands were shaking a little and his mind felt like it had been set ablaze.

He worked through every scenario that came into his mind. Confronting Grant, kicking his ass, letting him live or maybe driving him out to the Badlands to finish the job. They all seemed plausible and they all ended with Dalton wearing cuffs.

“I need you,” she whispered.

He put the truck in drive and pulled away from the curb. “I know.”

They drove for a while in silence, past houses decorated with thousands of lights. He remembered she liked to do that sometimes and slowed down for the nice ones. A year ago while Zoey had been looking at Christmas decorations, Dalton had been looking at the houses themselves: one-story Ranches, two-story Victorians, and the split-levels that were so common in the area. A basement for himself, a home office for Zoey, attic storage space. Not here, he’d decided one night, but out past the city limits, with space and a view of the hills. As he drove now, he looked toward the edge of town, smaller lights shimmered way off in the distance. It seemed like another world entirely. Somewhere out there was the life he and Zoey should’ve had. Somewhere out there his hand was just fine, their house was warmed by the fireplace he’d built, their baby— his baby— was filling her belly.

If she didn’t have it with Dalton, why didn’t she have it with somebody else?

“Why’d you marry him? I mean, him of all people?”

Zoey traced the drops of mist on the window with her finger. “My parents liked him.”

“Liked his money, you mean.”

Dalton had never met Grant, never heard of him, knew virtually nothing about the man, but he didn’t need to. If Elaine and Lyle liked him, that meant he had money, and for the Connors that was all that was important. It wasn’t so much that they didn’t value other traits, for surely they did. Dalton had at least spent enough time with them to know that while their rigid ideas about class were both wrong and annoying, they weren’t
necessarily
bad
people. They simply thought that money gave you manners, that money somehow made you a
better
person instead just a richer person. But Dalton understood at least one thing that Zoey’s parents didn’t: if money couldn’t buy happiness, it sure as hell couldn’t buy a conscience either. Patrick Grant clearly didn’t have one and the Connors, who
did
— even if it was often misguided— didn’t know what to do about that or even how to accept it.

Zoey understood, though. She’d looked at Dalton and, in the beginning at least, had seen a good man if not one flush with cash. Zoey didn’t care about money and certainly didn’t place as much importance on it as her parents did. Dalton knew that once Grant had tried to hurt the baby, that was it for her. No amount of money could make
that
okay.

“Fucking rich people,” he said shaking his head slowly. “I mean, I’m sorry Zoey. I know they’re your parents, but Jesus. What the fuck?” He turned to look at her fully. “How did you ever manage to escape being like them?” he wondered aloud.

“I had you.”

Neither of them was ready to discuss that further, so they both turned away from each other at the same moment.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” she told him quietly. “I heard she was sick and I thought about calling you, but then she was gone so fast… Was it horrible? Did she… was she in a lot of pain?”

Dalton stared at the road, trying to think about how to answer. Adam had cared for her, for the most part, and, while his older brother never talked about it, Dalton suspected that Mom had suffered quite a bit in the end.

“She didn’t linger,” he finally replied, not putting too fine a point on it. Mom had died relatively quickly, he supposed, but then again, Dalton’s three days in the white-walled detox room had been both agonizing and seemingly endless. He was pretty sure that was only a fraction of what Mom had gone through in the end.

Adam had spared all of them from seeing the worst of it, it was the least Dalton could do now to spare Zoey from hearing about it.

“It was quick,” he lied.

She smiled sadly. “Well, thank God for that.”

“Yeah.”

Dalton didn’t say that he wasn’t sure how much God had to do with it. If He did, He was taking Saints and Sinners alike these days. Worse, actually, since He’d spared Dalton for some reason but not Mom.

“Still,” Zoey said. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to the funeral.”

“It’s okay,” he told her. “I’m not sure I would have remembered it if you had.”

“I’m tired,” she said.

He nodded. “Me, too.”

He finally headed home and pulled into his driveway. He didn’t have any Christmas lights up, he realized. He was pretty busy these days and there was no one around to care. He frowned at his bare front porch as he walked Zoey inside.

He fixed her another cup of tea and even remembered the sugar this time. She headed off to bed and he made his way, somberly, to his. Tired as he was though, he couldn’t fall asleep. He lay sprawled on his bed, staring at the ceiling. Zoey wasn’t thinking clearly and that’s all there was to it. She was halfway there, at least. After all, she’d decided to stay with him instead of anywhere else, stay where he could protect her. But she needed this man out of her life entirely and she refused to pull the trigger on it, for whatever reason. Maybe she was afraid of angering him further, or maybe some of Dalton— the old Dalton— had rubbed off on her and she was just ignoring it, hoping it would go away on its own. Dalton wasn’t willing to wait it out, though.

Late in the night, after he felt certain she’d fallen asleep, Dalton crept down the hall. He pushed lightly on the spare bedroom door and stepped inside the darkened room. Zoey lay sleeping with her head on the pillow. Her long brown hair was spread out around her shoulders. Though her belly was large, the rest of her seemed so small. It probably was an inaccurate assumption. He was probably remembering her vitality, which had now been sapped from her. But he still couldn’t help but feel that Patrick Grant had made Zoey
less, smaller, more fragile.
Again Dalton’s hatred for the man flared.

Zoey had kept the small table light on. Whether it was because she was in an unfamiliar house or because she felt more secure with the light on, he didn’t know. He chose to believe the latter, however irrational. It was another thing to hate Grant for. He’d taken Zoey’s sense of peace away at a time when she was vulnerable and needed it the most. You could say a lot of things about Dalton, that he was selfish and self-pitying, a fucker and a fool, but no one could ever say he was a monster.

Silently, he slid his phone back out of his pocket. He raised it, adjusted the frame, and pressed the shutter.

Almost anything out of the ordinary had the power to change Dalton’s world, and not for the better. He woke up early on Sunday morning and slipped quietly into the shower. He called Ava to come over and then left the apartment while Zoey was still sleeping. Jonah didn’t need to be here every day and Dalton would be just a few blocks away this time instead of all the way across town. He hopped into his truck and headed down the street to the church.

Service was just finishing up at this time and he took a space at the far end of the lot, successfully avoiding running into Elaine and Lyle as the parishioners filed out and hurried to their cars to get out of the cold. He searched the lot, not really expecting to see Grant, though if he wanted to find Zoey, church might be a good place to look this morning. Dalton saw no one approach the Connors or look otherwise shifty-eyed. If Grant really wanted to talk to Zoey, he apparently didn’t want to brave the cold and stand around outside waiting for the chance. He could be inside, but somehow Dalton doubted it.

Dalton made it to every meeting with a vague sense that he only narrowly avoided being struck down by lightning each time he entered the building. Who knew what would happen to Grant? Human BBQ, Dalton suspected. That, and Grant would have to come face-to-face with Zoey’s parents with no way of knowing how much she’d told them. Dalton waited for the crowd to die down and then headed inside, once again choosing the side door over the front and descending the basement steps.

Jig was already there setting up. He turned at the sound of Dalton’s boots on the linoleum. He looked surprised to see him. “Did you catch the service?” Jig asked.

Dalton shook his head. “No. Overslept.”

Partly true, he hadn’t woken up early enough to attend, but was that a whiff of ozone Dalton caught as he breathed in? Best not to say too much.

Dalton wasn’t ready to talk about Zoey. There was nothing to say at this point, anyway. He was just helping out an old friend. He helped Jig set up the chairs and tried not to think about it too much, which of course meant it was the only thing on his mind. There was no telling how long Zoey would stay, a few days maybe, a week? Much of it depended on her parents and how long it would take them to come around.

For better or worse, Elaine and Lyle would eventually realize that the longer they refused to get on board with Zoey leaving her husband, the more time she’d be spending at Dalton’s place. They wouldn’t want that, obviously, and so he expected them to call her and change their tune any day now. He really couldn’t sort through how he felt about that. It was good for Zoey. Her mom obviously would know better what she needed with the baby. It was probably good for him, too, if she left. Too much change too fast could up-end everything he’d worked for so far. He still didn’t
want
her leave though, even if it was what both of them needed.

“Is that the coffee?” Jig asked. “Or do I smell burning rubber.”

Dalton paused and actually looked up at the ceiling without thinking. “What?”

Jig laughed. “You man. I think your brain is grinding its gears.”

“Oh.”

“What’s going on, Dalton?”

Jig knew him fairly well by now, Dalton supposed, though anyone could put two and two together and figure out that Dalton only came to meetings once a week and this was his second in as many days. It wasn’t a stretch to know something was off.

“Nothing,” Dalton said quickly. “Ran into an old friend.”

Jig’s lips pursed. “Drinking buddy?”

“Nah. Not like that. An… old girlfriend.”

“Ah,” Jig replied knowingly. “This would be Zoey?”

Dalton nodded.

“And? You know you’ve got to be careful. You may think it’s all open road from here, but there’s still a few blind curves. Get a plant, Dalton. If it’s meant to be, it’ll keep.”

Jig looked worried, which made Dalton feel shitty. Here was a man who’d taken it upon himself to watch out for him for no other reason than they’d once been on the same road. Jig had gotten off of it and now spent his free time helping others find their own exit. Dalton still wasn’t sure about plants, or Zoey, or anything much beyond getting up every morning, going to work, and then going back home. But Jig was worried and maybe he had a right to be.

Dalton nodded slowly. “Might get a plant. Are orchids nice?”

“Nah. They don’t bloom this time of year, remember?” Jig gestured to the stairs. “Could just get a poinsettia. They’re selling them as a fundraiser upstairs. Cheap, easy to take care of, looks good this time of year. If you take care of it, it’ll bloom again next Christmas.”

Dalton looked at the stairs and then back at Jig. “Okay,” he decided, still feeling a bit uneasy.

Jig beamed, though. “Well, alright!” he said and clapped Dalton on the arm.

Dalton sat in the back next to the older man during the actual meeting. At the podium was a younger guy who’d popped his Pop’s pain pills back when he was boozing, too. Made the whiskey last longer, he said. Dalton was glad he’d never cottoned on to that knowledge himself. Apparently the guy’s girlfriend was a junkie too and he’d once put her in the hospital when he’d come home and found she’d overdosed. He hadn’t actually called an ambulance or drove her there himself. He hadn’t been concerned with saving her at all. He’d come home to find the empty bottle in her hand, she was delirious by that point, and he’d beaten her the rest of the way unconscious for taking all the pills and not saving any for him. It was the neighbors that had finally called the police.

Listening to him talk, Dalton could understand it. Booze and pills weren’t an excuse to hit your woman, but they were a reason, at least. What reason did Grant have? None that Dalton could see. Grant was just an asshole.

Halfway through the meeting, Dalton’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He’d put it on silent so as not to disturb anyone. He gave Jig an apologetic look before he glanced down at the screen. It was a text from Ava.

“Zoey’s awake and she wants to know where you are. What do I tell her?”

Dalton sighed and turned to Jig. “It’s Ava,” he whispered. “I should go.”

Jig nodded. “Oh, yeah. Go. Hope everything’s okay with your old man.”

Dalton felt bad about letting Jig think it was Pop, but he didn’t want to get into it right now in the middle of a meeting. He simply nodded back and got up as quietly as he could. He took the stairs two at a time, but when he got to the top he turned left instead of right and walked to the front lobby. There was a large table set up with rows of potted Poinsettias: bright, red, and festive. He pulled out his wallet and stuffed a ten into the donation box before scooping one up.

He cradled it on his way out to the truck, blocking it from the harsh wind that was whipping up. He belted it into the passenger seat and headed back to the apartment. He could get it home, but he wondered at his ability to keep it alive. He was good at making things— furniture— that required little in the way of upkeep. A waxing every few months was all it took. Caring for it daily didn’t seem all that complicated, though. Water, sunlight, maybe plant food. And why not? He wasn’t doing much else these days. Plus, he’d have it for as long as Zoey was staying with him. She would like it.