Jagger: A Caldwell Brothers Novel (16 page)

I didn’t realize how much the fighting really bothered me until Jagger was there with Cobra, who was not fighting back. Watching Jagger hit him while Cobra took it…just took it.

I know Cobra did bad things. He told me himself. People can change, though, right?

I want to believe in the good. Jagger gave me that. Cobra was nice to me. He may have made mistakes with his ex, and that obviously cost him, but he paid his price.

Did he really change, though? Was I part of some game for him with Jagger? The way he came at him after Jagger was giving him the title was a far cry from the taunting man taking the beating in the opening round. It’s all so confusing.

Being there made me understand I can’t do it. I can’t watch him pound away at someone for sport.

Is this a mistake, wanting him to quit? Should I have said anything?

Will he feel the rage and need to take it out on me?

Statistics show that women who come from abusive backgrounds seek that out in their mates. Have I done that and not realized it?

I have a family now for the first time ever, yet fear grips me. What if things go bad? I would lose Jagger, Hailey, and Livi. I would lose everyone I have grown to care about.

I wiggle my toes, the soft fabric of the slippers reminding me I can walk freely around in our home in my treasures. I don’t have to hide from Jagger.

He comes in from opening the gym, and I tense.

“Totty?” he questions, knowing I usually give him a greeting.

My shoulders tighten, and my eyes grow wide in panic as he steps over to me. Squatting where I sit on the now slip-covered couch, he watches me, and I push my back into the couch, wanting space.

“Talk to me.”

I shake my head, trying to get a handle on myself.

“Totty, we’ve gotta communicate. Something has you upset.” He reaches out to touch my face, but I pull back.

“I’m scared,” I whisper.

He jumps back as if I assaulted him. “Of me?” He pushes his thumb into his chest as he stands up and backs against the wall.

I nod.

“Are you fuckin’ kidding me? What the hell happened from me leaving our bed this morning, with you soft and moaning for me to stay, to now?”

I don’t speak while tears well up in my eyes.

“Have I ever given you anything but good touch?”

I shake my head.

“Have I given you any reason to doubt the man I am, the man I was raised to be?”

I shake my head again, tears streaming down my face.

“Don’t cry,” he whispers. “Do not cry when I feel like I can’t touch you.”

“You fight people,” I choke out the words.

“I
fought
people,” he states. “Past tense. I don’t anymore.”

“What if…?” I drop my head in my hands. “What if you, like, need it?”

He comes over and drops to his knees in front of me. “Totty,” he says softly. “Look at me please.”

Like a child, I spread my fingers apart and peek out at him.

Tenderly, he takes my wrists and pulls my hands from my face. “You are all I need.
You,
Tatiana. Fighting gave me an escape when I was a kid, an escape from an old man who took out his every frustration on my momma. I couldn’t do shit back then, so I did what I could. I trained. I trained, and I fought so that, one day, I wouldn’t have to watch helplessly like I did when I was little while a man took out his aggression on a woman.”

Reaching out, I run my thumb along his chiseled jaw. “Good.”

“Always good to you, Totty. Don’t fear me. Don’t fear being with me.”

I sigh and wiggle my toes against the slippers that have given me comfort for so long. “I’m sorry. I was overthinking and got carried away.”

“It’s not gonna be easy coming from where we both came from. We can break the cycle, though. Together, we can become better than the past. Believe in me and believe in us.”

Cupping his face in my hands, I pull him to me and kiss him softly.

“Don’t fear me. Never me,” he pleads.

“Everything good,” I whisper against his lips and kiss him deeply.

Firm arms wrap around me, and he takes me to our room, where he shows me just how much he treasures me. With every slow movement, he gives me good.

Two weeks later, I stand back and admire the gray and green kitchen. Hailey and Livi helped me pick the colors while the guys stripped the wallpaper down and prepped the walls for paint. Hailey has spent every spare minute here helping me while Marisa was at preschool. Livi has done what she could without being around the paint fumes. Patiently, Jagger then painted the chevron pattern I picked out. Looking at it now, I am amazed.

Livi smiles and giggles.

“Why green? Just curious,” Hailey asks as she looks at the ribbon on my wrist.

“The first ribbon Jagger gave me was green.” I toy with the fabric. “I use it as shoelaces. Looped them together into a belt once. I wear it in my hair, on my wrist, on my ankle, always somewhere. Every day from the moment he gave it to me, it’s been with me.”

“Jagger never told me his favorite color is green,” Livi says.

“Momma Caldwell.” I simply state, and they look to me. “HPV awareness. He gave me a piece of his mom.” I smile proudly.

Tears fill Livi’s eyes. “Oh, the hormones.” She snorts and rubs her very big belly.

Hailey looks to me and then her. “I’m thinking a green nursery might be nice.”

Livi claps her hands together excitedly. “That is perfect. We all can have a green room in our houses for Momma Caldwell.”

I smile at them both, and looking to the ceiling, I whisper, “Legacy.”

Female excitement is running in the air as the guys come in to see the finished room.

Hendrix takes one look at Livi and laughs. “Crazy-ass hormones,” he says, wrapping his arms around his wife.

“You know it.” She smiles, and the love consumes me.

Hailey looks to Morrison as he walks over.

“What’s going on behind those eyes?” he asks her.

“We need a green room,” she blurts out.

“Little momma, I’ll make a movie with you anytime, but we don’t need a greenroom for that.” She smacks his chest playfully and points to the green on my walls. “Oh, hell, do you know how long my brother spent taping those lines? Every time it wasn’t level, he had to peel it back and start again.”

“Green, Morrison, I want the shade of green.”

Livi turns to Hendrix. “I picked the nursery color finally.”

The Caldwell brothers look at me, all shaking their heads. Jagger stands beside his brothers.

“Tatiana, why green?” Hendrix asks.

I lift my wrist proudly with the ribbon, and Jagger sweeps me off my feet to lift me to the countertop as he kisses me deeply, not caring who is in the room. When he pulls away, I bite my bottom lip as he stands between my legs.

“Legacy,” I whisper, our foreheads resting on one another’s.

In our moment, the Caldwell women share with their men the story of the ribbon and the meaning in the green.

“Damn, baby Caldwell. Outdoing us all, little bro,” Morrison says, kissing Hailey’s temple.

“Nope, not outdoing, just doing. We made a promise to Momma, but I think Momma watched over us. She gave us what we needed to keep her with us, even though she’s gone. Each of our women are a little bit of Momma.”

Tears fill my eyes as Hailey wipes her own.

“Hormones!” Livi wails before sobbing against Hendrix.

“Fuck,” Hendrix groans. “Killing me with the tears.”

“You did good, baby Caldwell. Gonna take my woman home and do her good now,” Morrison slaps Jagger on the back as Hailey gasps.

They head out with Hendrix and Livi following.

I’m alone with my man in our home, a place that, little bit by little bit, is becoming more and more a real home every day.

I wiggle my toes in my slippers as Jagger sets me down from the counter.

“You happy, little one?”

I nod.

“How much DIY stuff did you search today?” he jokes. I may have gotten a little carried away with my time on the computer lately, but it was all with our home in mind.

“Well…” I bite my bottom lip.

“Totty, we agreed to save your money. You could go to school with that if you want. Plus, we gave Old Lady Simmons the money to get her paperwork and update her apartment. The gym does well, but I gotta split that with Kid, and I’m not fighting anymore.”

Panic hits me. “Do you regret it?” My mind wonders if I will be enough to replace what he’s giving up.

“Not fighting anymore?”

I nod.

“Fuck no. I love having all my time with you and being able to make something more out of the gym. I don’t need that escape anymore. I don’t need to block out my life. With you, I want to be here, living every moment, not trying to run from it.”

“But the money?”

“We’re set. Well, unless you have some crazy new project I don’t know about, we are fine.”

I suck in air. There is a project. How does he just seem to read me?

“Tatiana, what did you do?” He eyes me curiously.

“It didn’t cost that much.”

He looks around the house, and I know he sees nothing out of place.

We have redone the master so it doesn’t remind him of Shaw at every turn. It is a perfect blend of Jagger’s hardness and my femininity. His masculinity is present in the dark wood flooring and gray walls, but the bedding is all the new me in vibrant red against our black furniture.

Taking him by the hand, I lead him to the guest bedroom. I told him we would do it last when, really, I wanted to surprise him.

The walls are now painted Egyptian blue. The queen bed that was in here has been moved to our bedroom and replaced with a quaint daybed. The wrought iron stands out nicely against the blue walls. The pillow on the bed is my first completed sewing project; I stuffed his shorts from the final fight. It isn’t the softest thing, but as Livi says, it’s a conversation piece.

Jagger steps in behind me and stills as he looks to the wall over the dresser. “Momma and Shaw.”

I have framed a picture of his mother and her boys on one side of his champion belt and on the other is a picture of Shaw with him when he first started training. The belt was a little tricky to get back, but Kid helped me out. Using a website, I ordered stickers for the wall to say
My Champion
in script. I put those above the pictures with the statement
Always the Good
below. Beside the dresser, I placed a quilt rack and draped Shaw’s old quilt on it. Jagger told me of Shaw’s wife making this for them so many years ago. It was a gift to him on their forty-fifth wedding anniversary before she passed away. It is a true treasure. I can only hope we have that and many more years together.

As he steps inside the room and looks to the wall beside the door, he finds framed pictures of each of his brothers with their families: Hendrix with his arm around Livi, who is looking down happily at Floyd, their dog; Morrison and Hailey holding Marisa between them; Kid and Jagger together at the gym; and a candid shot Livi took of the two of us when we started the remodel and were both pulling down the first piece of wallpaper.

“What is this?” he asks, looking around the room before landing his gaze on me.

“You give me good, Jagger. More than that, you give to others. You have been there for your brothers, your mother, Shaw, Kid, and me. You are the good, Jagger. You are her legacy and so much more. I wanted you to see and never forget.”

He doesn’t speak. He turns and kisses me, and my heart swells.

He is always giving me more good than I ever imagined possible.

I pull into the bar, where Totty isn’t expecting me yet. I like it like that. I like to surprise my prey once in a while.

She and the girls have gotten close, and she likes to help out on Fridays, preparing for the dinner crowd. With the best prime rib in town, the place always ends up wall to wall.

I walk in, seeing her laughing and talking to Jared. She’s wearing a Caldwell’s T-shirt and jeans. Her hair is pulled back with my green ribbon—yes, all mine. She smiles at Jared, fucker is beaming, and I know he isn’t fucked up yet. It’s only four o’clock.

I slide in the seat next to him.

She smiles and licks her lips. “Hi, there.” She leans forward, and I give her a kiss.

“A man should marry a woman he thinks he can kiss like that in—”

I kick him under the bar.

“What the hell?”

I scowl at him, then look back at Totty. “You think you can give me a minute?”

“Of course. Be right back, gotta get one of the girls to cover—”

“Your sisters, Totty,” I interrupt.

She beams—fucking beams—and nods. “Be right back.”

Jared looks at me, setting down his draft. “I’m available.”

I stand up and pat him on the back. “You’re not my type.”

“Smartass,” I hear him say as I walk over to the door that leads to the bar. “You know what I mean.”

Totty walks out from behind the bar, and I take her hand. Then I lead her up the stairs and back to the only room that remains from the old apartment we were raised in.

I sit down in Momma’s old rocker and pat my lap. “Come here, Totty.”

She looks at me with a little confusion in her eyes as she sits down.

“This was the apartment I was raised in,” I explain to her. “Hendrix tore it up when he kicked my old man to the curb, yet kept this back corner room. This is where she would tuck us away when the old man came home drunk.”

“I’m so sorry,” she says, hugging me.

“Shit happens, Tatiana. Happiness should be a birthright, but it isn’t always. Some of us are dealt blow after blow and manage to stay off the ground. Both of our mothers—yours and mine—gave us life and protected us the best they could. After seeing those pictures of you as a baby being held by a woman who smiled while holding you, I have no doubt you were the only light in her life, just like me and my brothers were Momma’s.”

“You think so?”

“No doubt in my mind.”

“I love you.”

I kiss the side of her head. “And I love hearing you say that. More than that, I love saying it to you. I love you so damn much, little one. It’s been over seven months since I saw you in a corner, bracing for the next blow. For seven months, there has been a need to protect you. It just took me a little time to realize it was more than that. I not only want to protect you, I also want to be a better man for you, an honest man, your man.”

“You are. You are so good, Jagger, so, so good.” Her arms tighten around me. “I know, with you in my life, I will never be that girl cowering in the corner again. I know now my life is worth fighting for.”

“You bet your ass it is.” I tilt her chin up and kiss her, my tongue slowly stroking hers, caressing every part of it, savoring her taste. I could easily get lost in this, take more, give her more, but right now, I want to give her everything, not just more.

I pull back before I am too far over the edge. With her, it’s often too hard to pull back.

“You and me, we weren’t gifted the right to be happy from birth. We both had to fight. Your fight was to stay alive, tucked away in the corner. My fight was coming out of the corner, releasing the rage that was inside of me in order to survive. Two different fights, two separate corners. The outcome is the same, though, Totty.

“My Totty, you and I are in this together. We aren’t alone anymore. I am in your corner, and you are in mine. Separately, we have struggled for our happiness, but little one, our struggles are over.”

I dig in my pocket to find the little ribbon and pull it out, keeping it fisted in my hand. “I’m better because of you. I will continue to do and want better because of you. I promise you that you will never be tucked in a corner alone, struggling to survive. I will be in your corner for the rest of your life if you will be in mine.”

“You know I will.” She looks down, her hand going to the ribbon in her hair.

I gently tug her hair back so we are eye to eye. “Promise me, then?”

“Of course.”

I hold up the ribbon. It’s from the same place as the first one I gave her all those months ago.

“I wanna give you this.” I let the ribbon dangle out of my still-closed hand.

She smiles like I’m giving her the fucking moon. “Thank you.” She tugs on it, and I let go.

“Oh my goodness.”

“For the rest of our lives?”

“Are you…are you…?”

I take the diamond ring and nod. “Tatiana Rand, will you give me the honor and the privilege of being in your corner to protect and love you forever?”

Her hand covers her mouth, tears begin to spill, and she nods her head.

“Will you, my beautiful little one, marry me?”

“Today?”

I laugh. “If that’s what you want.”

“It can’t be soon enough. Oh, Jagger, yes!” She kisses me. “Yes, yes, yes!”

I laugh as I push the ring onto her little finger and then kiss it.

She laughs, too, and jumps up. She gasps and covers her mouth. Then the damn tears fall again while she starts laughing again.

“I’m gonna be a Caldwell?”

I can’t help laughing at that, too.

“Yeah, Totty, you are.”

She hugs me and looks up. “I am going to love you so hard when we get home.”

“I know you will,” I groan out, bending down to my fiancée’s lips.

She pulls back. “But first, I need to tell them. I need to tell my sisters that I am going to really be part of this family.”

She is beaming, smiling, and so anxious to tell them, she is nearly jumping out of her skin. She’s itching to run down those stairs. I feel a slight tinge of jealousy…Hey, nobody’s fucking perfect.

“You go tell them,” I say.

“We.” She grabs my hand. “We do it together.”

“Perfect.” I smirk before becoming more serious. “Then we get out of here so I can fuck you hard at home.”

“Good touch.”

“Really fucking good touch, little one.”

She moans and smiles. “I would go through all that hell again, all those times in the corner alone and afraid, if I knew I would end up with you.”

“Nobody will ever force you into a fucking corner again. You are not alone.”

For the next two weeks, I hardly see her unless I’m inside her. The four of them—Livi Caldwell, Hailey Caldwell, Marisa Caldwell, and Tatiana Rand…soon-to-be Caldwell—spend every day on that damn computer, scouring the Internet for DIY projects as they—yes,
they
—plan for the day I will call her mine legally, not just mine in my heart.