Liam: Branded Brothers (6 page)

A quiet thud sounded through her opened window and then a
clutter of frantic steps followed. She sprang up. It seemed too loud for a deer
or other critter. She listened again, hearing what she thought were footsteps
again, but this time they were softer. She flipped the covers off and crept
through the dark bedroom into the hallway.

Charla was used to taking care of herself and tonight would
be no exception. She grabbed the baseball bat tucked in the corner of the
dining room and gripped it tight. Jack used to bang on the railing of the back
deck to keep the occasional black bear away. She scanned the shadows of the
living room before turning to the back deck. She peered through the glass door,
her adrenaline coursing through her body. She wound her fingers tighter around
the handle and listened.

Nothing.

She reached for the light switch, her index finger shaking.
She hesitated for one second longer before she flipped it and illuminated the
back deck.

“Oh!” she yelled as the beady eyes of a raccoon stared back
at her. She loosened her grip on the bat and clutched her chest. “Jesus Christ.
Just a raccoon.”

She double checked the rest of the yard, scanning down by
the lake and the steps. It was empty. So she flipped the switch, leaving the
raccoon back in the dark. She ran her fingers over the smooth wood of the bat
before turning back to her bedroom, the bat still in her hand.

“For safe measure,” she whispered as she walked into her
room. She closed the door and locked it. Then she pressed her back against the
door, trying to steady her breathing. She used to sleep with her door locked
since she could remember, but it was different here at Jack’s cottage. She
hadn’t slept one night with her door closed or locked. She had always felt safe
here. It was home.

But tonight it didn’t feel like home, and she realized it
was time to move on. She eyed the folded fleece pajamas on the dresser with
disdain before she shoved them into the garbage below and crawled back into her
bed, still clutching the bat.

***

The morning sun streamed through
Charla’s window, making her squint as she opened her eyes. It was 6:30 a.m. on
the dot. Her body was accustomed to the exact moment of Jack’s waking. He knew
no holiday or weekend. Every day was the same. He’d wake up, shuffle down the
hall, and stand in the doorway. After a few seconds, he’d ask if she was awake
to which she would reply, “You bet I am.” For the past few months, he’d ask who
she was. She always responded with, “The woman of your dreams, Jack.”

But she didn’t hear his shuffling this morning, and she
didn’t see his outline in her doorway. All she could feel were her hands still
loosely holding the baseball bat. She sighed and rolled out of bed, leaning the
bat against the wall. There was no sense in leaving the bat in the dining room
anymore. Her phone chirped, indicating she received a text message.

Liam?
Her stomach flipped with the possibility of
Liam thinking about her already this morning. She’d thought about him more than
she would have liked to admit. She looked down at the dress she was still
wearing before grabbing her phone. She slid through the screens to see the text
from her best friend, Jill.

Of course, it’s Jill.
No one else would be texting
her so early. Jill already had a personal training workout in with a client and
was gearing up for her first kettle bell class of the day. She’d sent a
reminder text to Charla for the class at 7:30. The class and short shopping
trips were about the only thing Charla felt comfortable leaving Jack for in the
last two months. Any longer and she had worried Jack would burn the cabin down.
She’d missed the last few classes, but now that Jack was gone, she didn’t have
any excuses. Jill was on her case to get back in the gym.

She texted back that she’d go to the next class. She held
her phone, knowing Jill would reply within seconds:
One last free pass. No
excuses on Friday. Lunch today?

At least Jill let her off the hook for today’s class. She
knew Jill was worried about her so she texted back:
11:30 Tigerwood Cafe.

Jill:
CU there
.

Charla tossed her phone on the bed and wandered into the
kitchen to start the coffee. She’d never been a coffee drinker, but Jack had
insisted he drink one cup every day. She started to enjoy a cup with him every
morning, most of the time on the back porch overlooking the lake during the
warm months. She smiled at the thought of Jack leaving her with habits of
coffee, Guinness, and 6:30 a.m. wake-ups. She leaned against the counter,
waiting for the Keurig when she noticed the door to the cellar was open a
crack. She didn’t remember leaving the door open. She’d only been down to the
cellar a handful of times in the last two years. There wasn’t much down there
besides a few old boxes, a dirt floor and mess of cobwebs so rampant you had to
walk down with a stick to clear a path. She’d learned her lesson the hard way
the first time she went down. It only took her one face full of webs and a
creature scurrying across her feet to hightail it back upstairs. Heading back
down to the cellar wasn’t number one on her priority list. She had planned on
getting those last boxes once she had the rest of the house cleaned up.

She walked toward the door and placed her hand on the knob.
She wasn’t in any condition to go down with her bare feet and exposed skin so
she pushed the door shut with a small click.

“Jack, you better not be back to haunt me. You know I don’t
believe in ghosts,” Charla said as she pressed her back against the door. She
waited, hoping like hell not to hear a response. “Don’t forget what I told you,
once you’re gone, you’re gone. There’s no coming back.”

The Keurig machine whirred, making her heart jump.

“God damn it,” she swore quietly to herself as she walked
back to the cabinets to grab a mug. She was edgier than she’d been in a long
time. Now that Jack was gone, the cabin was becoming a distant memory of her
safe haven. She couldn’t ignore the unrest she felt being here. She decided to
spend the morning packing as much stuff as she could and making trips to
Goodwill. She could be out in a few days. The problem was where to go next.

Most people her age could put their tails between their legs
and drag their sorry asses back to their parent’s house. She didn’t have that
option, unless she wanted to move back in with her alcoholic mother in a
cramped place she was on the verge of being kicked out of. She wouldn’t go back
there, even for a few days. She filled her mug and wrapped her hands around the
warm ceramic before taking a sip of the hot liquid. She knew Jill and Aaron
would take her in, but they were getting married in less than a month. Charla
wouldn’t allow herself to disrupt their lives like that.

Her only option was to find a quick lease on an apartment
and bank on getting a job while selling Jack’s house as soon as possible. She’d
have enough to pay a security deposit and the first month or two of rent, but
that was all. She’d spent almost all her money paying for nursing school. She
cursed herself for not taking on more student loans. She had anticipated Jack
living longer than he had.

She sighed and fished through a drawer to find a pen and pad
of paper. She scribbled a checklist on the paper:

1. Pack rest of boxes.

2. Search for an apartment.

3. Call realtor.

4. Go to Dirty Leprechaun and tell Liam about Jack.

4. Stay out of Liam’s business with Jack.

5. Don’t fall in love with Liam Murphy.

***

Charla rolled her Corolla to a stop,
idling at the Goodwill donation drop-off in Blackwell. Her car was packed to
the gills, boxes stacked and bags crammed in every corner. She had driven the
thirty minutes with a lamp on her lap. The load had only made a small dent in
the cabin, but if she’d keep the pace up, she’d have it cleared in two days.
She’d have to handle two more nights sleeping at the cabin.

She opened the trunk and handed the first box to the
donation attendant. She was reaching for the second box when a familiar voice
cut through her.

“Is that you?” asked the woman. Charla didn’t have to turn
to know her mother was standing behind her. Blackwell was really too small. Her
mother had moved here a little over a year ago for Larry or Tom or maybe it was
Travis. Charla couldn’t quite remember the name of the rotating men her mother
dated. Her mother had moved only two weeks after she’d found out Charla was
attending nursing school in Blackwell. She closed her eyes and set the box back
down. She took a deep breath before turning around to see the one-and-only
Dotti Taylor.

“Mom,” she said through her teeth before she forced a smile
to match her mom’s. Dotti was wearing a mini-skirt and low-cut tank top with
what Charla classified as stripper heels.
Classy,
she thought.
What
else would she wear on a Wednesday morning at Goodwill?

“Honey,” Dotti gushed, moving toward her until they were
only inches apart. Dotti wrapped her arms around Charla and gave a tight
squeeze. Charla stood there for a moment before lifting one of her arms to give
her a light pat on the back. This was how it always was. Dotti would shower her
with snippets of affection before Charla would see flashes of the wicked witch
she really was. Dotti released her and held her shoulders an arm’s length away.
“How have you been, honey?”

“Good,” Charla replied short and sweet, praying Dotti
wouldn’t notice the car packed with stuff.

“All of this needs to go?” The attendant asked behind her.

“Yeah.” Charla nodded her head at him and turned back to
Dotti.

“What’s all that stuff?” Dotti asked, pointing a finely
manicured nail at the trunk. She took a step forward and examined the car. She
spun her head back toward Charla. “Did he die?”

Charla groaned inwardly, wishing like hell Dotti wasn’t
standing here. “Yeah, he did.”

“Did he leave you with anything?” Dotti asked, leaning in
toward her. Charla could smell the alcohol on her breath. She wasn’t sure if it
was from last night or this morning. Either way, it didn’t matter. She was on
the bottle again.

“No, he didn’t leave me anything. Just a cottage to clean
out,” Charla replied, the anger rising in her throat.

“He leave you the place?” Dotti pressed. “You have an extra
room? That asshole landlord of mine threatened to kick me out again…”

“How’s sobriety?”

She pursed her lips together and narrowed her eyes. The
Dotti Flip had switched. “Don’t you even mutter a word to me about sobriety,
you ungrateful little thing. You have no clue what I’ve been through. Ever
since I lost Peter, I’ve never been the same. You lose your husband and then
come talk to me about it. See how you handle it.”

“It’s been ten years and that man was never a real husband
to you, unless you consider a husband to be an emotional and physical abuser
who does nothing else but suck the life out of you,” Charla snapped. “You’re
better off without him.”

“Don’t you say those things about your father,” Dotti hissed
and pointed a nail into Charla’s chest.

“He wasn’t my father,” Charla muttered. Dotti opened her
mouth about to spew more hatred but Charla cut her off. “Go back to rehab,
Dotti.”

She clamped her mouth shut and furrowed her eyebrows down. “I
don’t need some sniveling little girl who is too good for her mama to tell me
what to do.”

“I can call for you,” Charla offered. “But I’m not paying
for it again.”

Dotti clucked and raised her hand as if she were going to
strike her. Charla took a step back and turned to her trunk just as the
attendant reappeared next to her. Dotti cleared her throat and put down her
hand.

“Well, I have a ton to do.” Charla grabbed a box. She
wouldn’t stand here and waste her breath on the woman she was supposed to call
her mother. “Hope you have a nice day.”

Dotti didn’t reply. Charla could still feel her standing
behind her as she handed the box to the attendant. Then she heard the fast,
hard clicks of Dotti’s stripper heels against the sidewalk disappear behind
her.

Chapter 4

Liam parked on the opposite side of
the street and killed the dull rumble of his decade-old white cargo van. It was
his runner van, the one he used during his collections. The Audi wasn’t exactly
the type of car to blend into the places and neighborhoods where he found his
clientele. Plus, he didn’t want any of the clientele messing up his Audi. So he
bought the old GMC for five grand, stripped the inside and built a custom steel
barrier between the cargo area and front seats before he went on his first job.
The other start-up costs were his collections of guns, although Jerry argued
that he only really needed one. Liam owned six.

He double checked the address in the text from Jerry, his
bondsman. N756 Hill Street. The faded yellow house with crooked shutters across
the street had most of the same numbers. It was missing the seven, but he was
sure this was it. He’d been to this house before. He’d brought in Rich Horton almost
a year ago. Rich hadn’t gone down easily the first time around, so Liam
expected this second-go-around to be worse. But the cool grand and the thrill
of the hunt outweighed the risks. Some of the other bounty hunters Jerry
contracted relied heavily on disguises or ridiculous measures to get close to
their clientele. Liam relied on his presence and his ability to coerce.

These whacked-out nut jobs were a piece of cake compared to
his tours in Afghanistan. Terrorists and road-side bombs had that effect on
people. The Marine Corps called it desensitization to violence. He had that
whole psychology bullshit covered after participating in ground-level combat
for two days straight. Nothing can quite wipe the memory of shooting a man.