Man of Honor (Battle Scars) (6 page)

I
fumble through my brain, trying to come up with the logistics behind what’s happening right now. Mea is lying against me, her arm slung across my chest while her legs are all tangled up with mine. She’s bare. Her skin shines in the now-bright light of day, its toasted caramel color in direct contrast to the nearly black of her wild, wild curls splayed out on the pillow.

She’s gorgeous.

The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The time three years ago we spent together definitely marked me, more so after she left without a word and treated me with cool indifference ever since. But this Mea? This Mea that I know intimately, that I’ve spent time with outside the bedroom, that I’ve seen vulnerable and tender?

This Mea blows my fucking mind. She changes every game that’s ever been played. She can end me. And I welcome it.

I rub my hand against her bare arm, gently drawing a path from shoulder to wrist. The sunlight filtering in through the window tells me it’s late morning. Which means the time we spent together in the early morning was about six hours ago.

Her skin under my rough, calloused hands is like satin. I didn’t know it was possible for skin to be this fucking soft. It melts more than just my hands. Something inside my chest is turning soft, too.

She stirs. Either I woke her up with my constant need to touch her, or the bright light streaming in is the culprit. Either way, she turns her head and bats thick black lashes at me. Her eyes are actually sparkling in the light, and it seems like the deepness inside them goes on for miles.

“Hi.” My voice is sandpaper.

Her smile is crooked and tiny. “Well, this is a first.”

I quirk an eyebrow.
Is she talking about waking up in my bed? Because she’s done that before.

She’s completely unfazed by all of the things that freak girls out when they wake up for the first time next to a guy. She isn’t covering her mouth, not that I care about morning breath when she’s this sexy lying beside me. She doesn’t reach up to check her hair, or try to leap out of bed and apply makeup before I see her face. No, not Mea. She’s not shy. Never has been.

“My first time waking up in bed with a man.” Her voice is nonchalant, but her eyes tell a deeper story. There’s nothing shallow about this girl. No matter how light and carefree she makes herself seem, there’s always miles of depth beneath the surface.

Miles, miles, miles.

It could take a lifetime to get to the bottom of it all.

“So how does it feel?” I ask. My voice is cautious, because the answer might not be what I want to hear.

She smiles and stretches. That’s when I notice the tiny dimple that dents the top of her left cheek. It’s adorable.

“It feels…different.” A shadow crosses her expression, and as she finishes stretching the sheet falls away from her naked breasts. She doesn’t bother to cover herself back up. I like that.

“Is it something you want to repeat?” I don’t realize I’m holding my breath waiting for her answer until my lungs start to burn. I can’t believe I care this much. Mea has put me through the wringer since we met. But something deep inside tells me I can handle more. When it comes to her, I can always handle more.

She meets my gaze with a steady one of her own. “It might be, Sullivan. But I’m not going to be like other girls; I don’t do clingy. I have a lot of my own shit to worry about. Like saving money so I can open the space I plan to rent on the Upper End as my own yoga studio. It’s all…it’s all I have.”

Her voice drops to a whisper at the last, and my chest constricts. I cup the side of her face. “I can handle that. I don’t do clingy, either. And I also have my own shit to worry about.”
To drown in.

She nods as she sits up, taking the sheet with her. Her tiny movement somehow seems big in my bedroom, her curls whirling around her like an unseen wind is tossing them around. Wild.

Again, I’m reminded of a tornado. She could suck me in if she really wanted to. But where will I end up when she spits me back out again?

“Cool.” She bends down to grab her clothes and begins to dress. “Then we keep this casual. And our friends don’t need to know anything. I don’t want to steal any attention away from Berkeley while she’s in the home stretch for the wedding.”

I nod, stretching my arms above my head. They reach the headboard. “Sounds good to me.”

She pulls on her black combat boots, stamping each foot before tying up the laces. “Okay then. Can you take me home?”

I rise from the bed, taking note when her eyes roam hungrily over my naked body. I’m pretty sure that whenever she’s in the room, my cock will jump to action, and now is no different. My soldier stands at attention, and her eyes stray to my very blatant erection.

I watch her with amusement on my face. Damn, I could get used to her staring at me like she wants to eat me for breakfast.

Because that’s exactly how I stare at her.

“I teach…” She trails off as I bend over to grab my jeans.

“Yeah?”

She clears her throat. “I teach yoga at the gym at noon. I have to get going.”

I dress quickly, smirking at her. “Then let’s get you to work on time.”

I haul ass straight to the garage after dropping Mea off at the grill to get her car, then following her to her place. It was the first time I’d seen where she’d been living ever since Greta, her old roomie, moved into her fiancé’s house. Mea couldn’t swing the rent at her old place without Greta, so she’d moved into a tiny studio that was really just the upstairs in someone’s cottage. She had her own walk-up entrance, though, so it wasn’t too bad on privacy. But when I stood at the door and glanced in, something tweaked me. Her place is tiny. Too tiny. And sparse. She doesn’t have much, and I know that every spare penny she makes is going toward opening her own business. But
damn.
She needs more.

It’s still bouncing around in my mind when I walk into the shop. On the back wall, my own name in big, red block letters greets me. The sight usually makes me smile, but I’m too bogged down in my thoughts to see it today.
DRAKE’S AUTOMOTIVE
. My pride and joy.

Will saunters over to me, a shit-eating grin on his face. “Well, shit, boss. I can’t remember the last time you let me open the shop and gave yourself a morning off.”

My scowl doesn’t deter him or wipe the smirk off his lips. “Had things to do.”

It shouldn’t be possible, but Will’s smile grows even wider. “Yeah? Like what?”

My frown deepens, and when I aim it at him he takes a step back, raising his hands in surrender. “All right, boss. Don’t lose your shit. I get it. It’s
private.
” Giggling like a little girl, he walks back toward the Corolla he’s rotating.

Marching back toward my office, I run into Hoover. I jerk my chin in his direction, reaching out a hand so he can clasp it. “Stone.”

Hoover nods back and pulls me in for a one-armed hug. “Good to see you, boss. You good?”

Nodding, I lean against the wall, propping my foot up behind me and folding my arms across my broad chest. “Yeah. Lemme ask you something. You ever let a woman get in your head?”

Hoover, ever thoughtful, rubs his hand across his gnarled beard and mimics my position on the wall across from me. “Can’t say I have.”

Hoover Stone is my most recent addition to the team at D.A. He’s nasty with a wrench under a hood, and he knows cars like Santa knows toys. He’s a little rough around the edges, but what man who’s been to war isn’t? He’s as tall as I am, but not quite as bulky, and his long dirty-blond hair is gathered in a ponytail at the back of his neck. The fullness of his beard is something to brag about, and he’s always casual in a pair of boots and jeans. Today, his coveralls are situated at his waist.

“Never had time for women. There was the army, and then training to rise up in the ranks. Chicks were for entertainment and getting my needs met, you know? Never got one stuck in my head. Guess it’s just as well.”

His thick Alabama drawl makes his words come out slow, but I never let that fool me. The man’s sharp, and I value his quiet opinion.

I push off the wall. “Sucks when it happens.”

A smile appears behind his beard. “Roger that.”

We go our separate ways, me into my office and Hoover toward the garage.

Pulling up today’s appointment schedule on the computer, it’s clear that the boys can handle what’s rolling in today. I pull out my phone to text Dare. Maybe we can get some work done on my baby today, see about bringing her classic ass back to life. I think an afternoon filled with chrome and oil is exactly what I need.

A few hours later finds Dare and me doing just that. I’m sitting on a wheeled auto stool with a wrench in my hand while Dare crouches beside the rear fender. We’ve been working in silent camaraderie for a solid half hour before Dare speaks.

“You dealing with something, Drake?” He keeps his eyes on his work.

Dare knows me well, probably better than anyone. We were in the field together as Rangers, and when I retired we kept in touch. When he cut the army loose, he came to Lone Sands to start a life. He even stayed at my house for a while until he got on his feet. He’s closer to me than any brother would be.

I grunt in an affirmative.

He glances up with a frown. “Oh yeah? So drinking your weight in whiskey at See Food every night is dealing?”

With a roll of my eyes, I blow out a breath. I scrub my fingers across my forehead, probably dragging greasy black streaks there in the process. “You keeping tabs on me now?”

Dare shakes his head, lets out a chuckle. “Don’t have to. This tiny town you brought me to knows how to talk. I know Mea poured you into her car one night and brought you home. How’d
that
go?”

Since he’s been here, Dare has observed the dance Mea and I do at every meeting. It’s been different lately, though. She clearly doesn’t hate me like I thought, but I still don’t know what I originally did to send her running.

“It went all right.” I figure with an answer that vague my best friend won’t be able to read too much into it.

I thought wrong.

“Yeah? Drake…tell me you didn’t fuck her. Berkeley says Mea seems off, and she can’t figure out why. If you screw her up even more, I’m gonna get my ass handed to me by my fiancée.”

I level my gaze at Dare. My expression is dead serious, because I don’t want there to be any mistaking my next words. “You can tell Berkeley not to worry. Mea is safe with me. And as for fucking her, I don’t think that’s anybody’s goddamn business.”

Dare whistles low and long. “Defensive, are we?” He studies me closely, too close. I glance away and begin twisting my wrench on the bolt that’s holding the front fender on the bike.

After a minute, I can feel Dare’s eyes leave me, and I can breathe again. He goes back to work, and so do I. There’s no more said about it. But that doesn’t mean thoughts of Mea aren’t swirling around in my head like mist. She’s not quite solid; I don’t think I can catch hold of her yet. But at some point, she’s going to be standing right in front of me, open and ready. At least that’s what I hope will happen. And when it does, will I be ready to lay it all out there? For her? Or will my own demons be dragging me under, to a place I can’t come back from?

I
glance at the speedometer. As usual, Mikah drives way too fast through the back roads that lead to the western side of Brunswick County.

We’re headed to our aunt and uncle’s house. We aren’t close, but we keep in touch because Aunt Tay and Uncle Wes took us in when we had to leave our home in Kentucky as teenagers.

“Slow down, Mikah,” I admonish him from the passenger seat. “I want to get there as a whole person, not in pieces.”

Mikah glances over at me. The rap music blaring from his radio should drown him out, but his voice resonates with me like no one else’s, and I hear every word.

“You’re barely a whole person as it is, little sis.”

Glaring at him, I clench my fist and wave it in front of his face. “You little brat! I’ve taken you down enough times for you to
know
size doesn’t matter. Call me ‘little sis’ again and I’m gonna pound your face.”

Mikah chuckles. At six feet tall, my little brother isn’t so little anymore. He’s the one person I would do anything for, and I proved it when I was fourteen and we moved to another state to stay with our aunt and uncle. We might fight every time we’re together, but I’d do anything for him, and him for me.

“So what does Tay want to talk to us about?” Mikah drums one hand against the steering wheel as he drives. His short black curls, darker than mine but still so very similar, bounce as he does. We look so much alike. His complexion matches mine, and he has the same wide, full mouth. But Mikah’s eyes are the darkest, deepest green. I’ve always envied him those eyes, and they gain him no shortage of female attention. Skipping the college route, he became a longshoreman in Wilmington after he graduated high school a couple of years ago. But the girls on UNCW’s campus still found ways to get his attention whenever he attended their parties.

“No clue.” I rest my head back against the cloth headrest. “But it must be important. We usually only go there on holidays.”

He nods, or his head is bopping to the beat. I’m not sure which. We talk easily for the remainder of the twenty-five-minute ride, and when we pull into the long gravel driveway at the farmhouse where I spent my teenage years and Mikah lived since he was twelve, I let out a sigh.

I always have mixed feelings returning here. My time at the farm was pleasant, because my aunt and uncle are kind. But the memories are always tinged with shadows and fear. While living here, I underwent several years of intensive therapy because of what my father put me through. And my aunt looks so much like my mom, I had a hard time dealing at first. I threw myself into school, becoming a member of the cheer squad and became best friends with Berkeley, but I had to watch my brother struggle to find his place.

We’re both fighters, but Mikah’s more of the scrappy kind. And it showed with every suspension from school he received. My aunt and uncle tried their best, but they weren’t our parents. And we all knew it.

My aunt comes onto the white, wooden wraparound porch. Her smile is tight, but even with the addition of some gray strands in her curly hair and extra lines on her face, the resemblance to my mama is striking. The only difference is the fact that my Aunt Tay can smile freely. That was something her sister forgot how to do long before she died. Seeing her feels like someone dumped a bucket of ice water on my head, and while Mikah bounces up the steps to greet her, it takes me a little longer to drag myself closer.

“It’s good to see you both.” Aunt Tay’s greeting is warm and genuine, and she ushers us inside the refurbished farmhouse to sit in the great room.

The house is beautiful, with accents of both old and new. I remember thinking when we first moved in that it seemed like someone else’s fairy tale. After what I’d gone through, I never felt like I deserved any of this. I was dirty, stained.

Used, used, used.

The inside hasn’t changed much. White bead board covers the walls, light wooden beamed ceilings with cavernous heights. The furniture is casual and tasteful, but the place has a lived-in appearance despite its style. I choose a spot on the khaki sectional sofa and kick off my shoes, tucking my feet up beneath me. Mikah sits a few feet away, spreading his legs wide and placing his forearms on his knees.

“So what’s up, Aunt T?” Mikah’s voice is deep and rumbly, and always manages to sound jovial and nonchalant at the same time. I envy the carefree way he goes about his life. It’s what I try to do, but mine is fake. His is real.

My aunt sits down across from us on a plush ottoman and begins wringing her hands.

I glance at Mikah.
Never a good sign.

“It’s about your father.”

Well, leave it to Tay to get right to the point. Just hearing those words cross her lips,
your father
, makes my insides begin to tremble, turning me in a mess of goo. I clench my muscles together, trying to get control of the shaking. Hot tears spring to my eyes, and I blink rapidly to try and keep them in
. Why?

Lately, he seems to be everywhere. I’ve tried to keep thoughts of him buried deep for years, but all of a sudden they’re popping back up to the surface again, dead bodies that won’t stay sunken.

“What about him?” I can’t disguise the tremor in my voice.

Mikah, his face hard and set, grabs my hand and squeezes it. I know what he’s saying without using words.
I’ll never let him hurt you again, Mea.

He thought he was protecting me all those years ago. But it would have made things so much worse. So I did what I had to do in order to protect us both…

I lay in bed, my sweat suit causing me to roast but also giving me a sense of false security. My knuckles are white, clenching the covers as tightly as I can. Each muscle is taut, and I’ve been like this for hours. Hours.

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Please, not tonight. Dear God in heaven, if you’re up there…if you can hear me? Please. Just not tonight.

I pray the prayer over and over again. I’m not sure why. It’s never saved me before. At this point, I don’t know what could save me. There is no longer anything behind my mother’s eyes. In the last year, they’ve gone completely vacant. It’s like she’s stopped living, but her body still functions. The kids at school don’t understand why my mom doesn’t come to stuff like the other parents do. They don’t get why Mikah and I never invite them over to play. And Daddy’s so controlling, we wouldn’t dream of asking to go to someone else’s house.

We’re the town weirdoes. And that’s the least of my problems.

The blackness in my room gives me no warning that the doorknob is turning. It’s silent, and I don’t know he’s coming until I see the sliver of light from the hallway. Then it’s gone.

Which means he’s in my room.

I can hear his heavy breathing as he stands there.

Watching. Watching. Watching.

I’m holding my breath, but the tears are already streaming down my cheeks.

My stomach is so tight it hurts, all my muscles coiled and aching from overuse.

You are strong. You are strong. You are strong.

When my initial prayer mantra fails, that’s always the next one. Because I am strong enough to handle this. It hurts, and it twists my thoughts into things dark and abysmal, but I am strong. I am in control.

When he grabs my ankles and yanks me around, flipping me so that I’m facedown, I scream. I never scream, he told me not to, but I can’t help it. This is new. He’s never flipped me over before. He pulls down my sweatpants and underwear and slaps my bottom as hard as he can. The sound makes my stomach curl. Bile rises in my throat when he touches me, spreading my legs apart. His weight crushes me, my face mashes into my pillow.

Then his voice is in my ear, and it’s like grease coiling around in a skillet. Slow, oily, and hot.

“Told you to shut your mouth. You like this, just like your mother used to. You’re gonna like tonight even more. Shut up, if you want to tell me how good it is, you whisper.”

I can feel him fumbling around, hear the ragged sound of his zipper as he pulls it down. And then he pounds into me, and I scream again.
Oh, God. I’m not strong enough for this.

Then my bedroom door creaks open. The light flips on, and there’s a sleepy eleven-year-old Mikah rubbing his eyes. Almost twelve, he’s halfway between a boy and a man. He’s tall, but gangly. His voice is just starting to change, and he’s outgrowing all of his jeans and sneakers.

Horrified that he’s going to see me like this, I hiss at him. “Get out Mikah! Go!”

My father doesn’t say a word. But he backs up off of me and rises to his knees.

Mikah doesn’t move. I watch as his face flits between sleepy, confused, horrified, and then finally to rage. Blinding rage that he can never come back from. He surges into the room, pulling my father off of me and throwing him to the ground. Standing in front of me, he gulps heavy breaths.

“You’re touching my sister! No…No! Fuck you, you bastard! Don’t you ever touch her again!”

“Mikah,” I whimper. “Please. You have to go.”

Because I’m afraid. I don’t know what this monster will do to my little brother now that he knows. I have to protect him. I have to be in control.

Our father zips up his pants and stares at us, his eyes moving from me to Mikah and back again. Finally, he turns and heads for the door as if nothing happened.

“You’ll both pay for this later. I can promise you that.” And then he’s gone.

We hear his bedroom door shut just down the hall.

Then Mikah flings himself at me. I can barely move I’m in so much pain. And the blood…the blood is all over my bed. Mikah goes for towels and he helps me clean up.

He sleeps with me in my bed that night. Just before we drift off, he murmurs beside me, “I’ll never let him hurt you again, Mea.”

I keep the thoughts to myself, but I know it’s me who can never allow him to be hurt.

The very next day at school, I go to my guidance counselor. And I tell her everything. It changes our lives forever.

Tay’s lip curls in disgust. She never met my father. When he and my mother married, he moved her away to Kentucky and she never kept in touch with her sister. We’ll never know if it was her choice or his, but Mikah and I had never met our aunt and uncle until the day they picked us up from the state care system.

And then my father was found guilty on all counts of child sexual abuse.

“He’s been an exemplary prisoner. He’s undergone hundreds of hours of therapy and counseling over the last ten years that he’s been behind bars. And now he’s up for parole.”

I just sit there. I’m not sure if
stunned
is the correct word. More like
frozen
. Chained to my seat. Distraught.

But Mikah, always needing to move, jumps to his feet and begins pacing the room. “How’s that possible, Aunt T? I mean, can’t we go and tell them there’s no way in hell that monster should be out of prison ever?”

She nods miserably. “You could. You could go to the prison in Kentucky in two months for the hearing if that’s what you want to do and plead for his continued containment.”

That’s absolutely the last thing I want to do. I never want to see his face again. I
can’t.
That will most definitely spin me out of control, and I can’t allow that to happen. Not while I’m in the same room with that man.

Mikah is looking at me like he’s ready to jump a plane to Kentucky right this second.

“I’ll…think about it,” I say quietly to Tay. She nods. She understands completely, I can see it written all over her face.

“Let’s go, Mikah.”

His mouth clenches tight, but he follows me to the front door and out to his souped-up Tiburon.

“That’s it?” he asks as he slides behind the wheel. “I mean… I’m with you, Mea. Whatever you want to do. But don’t you have more to say?”

I stare out the window as he begins the drive down the country roads back toward the shore that I’ve grown to love.

I have no words.