Remember Me (Defiant MC) (6 page)

Gray listened, nodding occasionally, asking pointed questions now and then. 

“What about the kid?” he asked slowly. 

“What about him?  I never fucking saw him.  He’s Jensen’s.” 

Gray rolled a short stick of
mesquite wood between his fingers.  He seemed hesitant to speak.  “You sure about that, Mad?”

“Jensen wouldn’t have stood for having something pinned on him if it was mine.  No, sorry, not ‘it’, ‘
he’
.  His name’s Miguel.  I guess he’ll be ten soon.” 

Gray sighed.  “Mad, people have reasons for doing what they do, no matte
r how shitty the excuse may seem.  You said he wanted her, right?  And sounds like he resented the hell out of you.” 

Maddox shut his eyes.  “The boy isn’t mine,” he managed to whisper.  He wanted Gray to understand that he wasn’t too much of an asshole.  He knew Grayson was a better man on his worst day.  But even at the reckless age of eighteen, if there had been even a possibility that it was his child growing inside of her, nothing could have persuaded him to ride off without a backward glance. 

Gray dropped the stick and straightened his back.   He was perceptive. “I see,” he said slowly. “It’s not possible, is it Maddox?”

“No,” he said with bitterness.  “Because I never fucked her.  My
brother
fucked her.”  Maddox laughed sharply.  “Now isn’t that some maudlin soap opera shit?”

Grayson saw through his pain and didn’t laugh.   “She still living there in, what was it called?”

“Contention City.” Maddox shrugged miserably.  “Yeah, as far as I know.  She and Jensen didn’t work out very long and they never got married.  He got hitched to some chick from Flagstaff a few years back.”

“Well, maybe your paths won’t cross,” Grayson said helpfully. 

Maddox smiled thinly.  “You don’t know Contention City.  You take a tiny corner of the world which holds fewer than three thousand breathing folks and there’s no avoiding anyone.  Particularly if that’s what you’re trying to do.”  Maddox shook his head.  All this talk about Gabriela and Jensen was irrelevant.  Let them see him coming.  Let them throw a fucking parade for all he cared.  He wasn’t going back for them.  He was going to see his father. 

Maddox stood and stretched and took a few steps into the darkness, reaching his arms towards the moon as a nearby troupe of coyotes began yipping.

“Hey,” Gray called. “So why is he called ‘Priest’?”

Maddox laughed.  “I guess because back in his day the old man was anything but.  Even my mother called him ‘Priest’.” 

Gray got to his feet and straightened out the spool.  “You leaving soon?”

“Yeah,” Maddox stared directly at the moon.  It was a curious orange color tonight.  “I’ll be out of here by daybreak.  Can’t say when I’ll be back.  Could be a few days, could be a few weeks.”  He felt uncomfortable with the timeline, knowing full well that it depended on how long his father clung to life.

“Mad,” Gray said, “you need to talk while you’re out there, you can always give me a call.”

Maddox smiled.  “I will, Gray.” 

They lingered in the dark for a little while and talked lightly about things which weren’t important. Grayson didn’t say so, but Mad knew he was eager to get inside and be with Promise.  They never got enough of each another.  Maddox’s trailer was only fifty yards away.  He could plainly hear how they never got enough of each other every day.  But he gave Gray a break, thanking him for being what a brother ought to be and then heading across the sandy lot to his own place. 

Maddox sat down at his own tiny table and lit himself another cigarette, looking around his living quarters.  It was messy and tasteless.  Once a finely bred attorney had sniffed it was “like being inside the mind of a sixteen year old pervert”.  But she’d taken off her hot suit in the middle of it anyway and let him ride her like a dog. 

Maddox didn’t really give two shits what his place looked like for his own benefit.   He kept the horny smut posters on the walls for effect, just like he would let his dark hair slide into his eyes as he cast sideways glances at the meat of his choice, waiting for her to squirm and invite him between her legs. 

  The hour wasn’t very late, but Maddox was sapped from the sun beating down on him during the ride into and out of Phoenix.  He stripped naked and jumped into bed, wanting sleep.  But the night wasn’t known for its mercy and memories weren’t known for their discretion.  He jammed his knuckles into his eyeballs and still saw her face.  And there was something else.  Maddox was suddenly harder than a motherfucker as he recalled the lusty times he’d almost had her.  His hand went low, rubbing the length of his dick as he remembered.

He’d had plenty of other lovers by that point but she hadn’t.  Gaby was almost shy the first time he unhooked her bra.  Then as he started to suckle those perfect tits she couldn’t seem to get enough.  Her fingers would wind through his hair as she pushed them deeper into his mouth, not objecting in the slightest the day he finally removed her panties.  She was so wet and so tight he didn’t know how he was able to pull back and stop.  But he’d felt her stiffen as his dick tried to find entry and he knew she wasn’t quite ready.  She’d heard the talk and seen him treat other girls with casual abandon.  He wanted her to trust him. And so he resolved to wait for that if it killed him. 

Instead what killed him was her willingness to believe the worst about him when it came time to make a choice.  She’d opened herself up to his brother.  It was only once, Jensen insisted, but they were both dead to Maddox by that point. When he found out there was going to be a kid in the middle of it all, he took off, unable to bear witness to their happy ending.

Maddox was still flogging himself but there was a fury to it now.  He was going come hard and in anger. 

“Shit, baby,” he gritted his teeth as the spasm took him, “
WHY?
  Fucking why??”

When it was done Maddox rolled over, waiting for his breathing to calm down.  Then he wiped his own semen on his thigh and fell asleep. 

It was still dark when he woke up but he resolved to be on his way.  After showering quickly and packing only as many belongings as could be neatly stowed on his bike, he quietly shut the door to the trailer. 

The crunch of the sand under his feet was incredibly loud as he made his way across the lot and over to the bar where his bike was parked.  Easing out slowly, not wanting to wake anyone, he reluctantly left Quartzsite and his boys. 

The dark coolness wouldn’t last long.  Already the eastern sky was beginning to lighten. Maddox accelerated on the Interstate. 

He was ready to go.

Con
tention City, Arizona Territory

1888

James insisted
that she call him by his first name.  Annika noticed how the city marshal relaxed once the wagon moved beyond the wild saloons in the heart of town.   He drove slowly, asking her questions and listening thoughtfully to her answers.  An occasional cough seemed bothersome to him as he kept turning his head away and making apologies.  Annika wondered if he was troubled by consumption.

For Annika’s part, despite her exhaustion and the approaching darkness, she was happy enough for the companionship to willingly
delay arrival at the schoolhouse.  Elsewhere it would have been terribly improper for a handsome single man to escort a young, unmarried woman, but she supposed driving beside James Dolan would make no headlines here.  Not if the spectacle she had just witnessed in the middle of town was any fair indicator. 

Except for confirming that he was unmarried, James had said little about himself.  Curious about the man at her side, Annika tried to prod him along. 

“There must be all kinds of reasons which bring people out this way,” she said, looking around at the varied collection of meager shacks and tents which dotted the landscape.

James coughed again and gave her a grim smile.  “Not many,” he said.  “Gold is what brings folks here.” 

“Is that what brought you here?”  Annika bit her lip over her boldness.  Mother had always warned her it was a distasteful trait in a lady. 

However, James didn’t seem to mind.  “My father wished to avoid the draft.  He said he didn’t scrape for ten years to come to this country only to meet his end on a battlefield for a cause he didn’t understand.  He had a pocket of carefully saved coins, a willing wif
e and three young sons.  Only now do I realize coming out here was for him a move of desperation.  The news of the Scorpion mine had already reached the east and gold fever is intoxicating to a man living in a dark city hovel.”

“The draft was in ’63.  You must have been very small at the time.” 

“Yes, I was barely four when we left New York.  Mercer was still in swaddling blankets.  We made it as far as Kansas and lingered for a year before moving on.” 

“You said three sons.  So you have another brother.”  It would be interesting to meet the man who was a cross between James and Mercer Dolan. 

“I did,” James said soberly.  “Sean was the eldest.  Kansas and a cholera epidemic took him.”

“Oh,” Annika shifted, grimacing.  “I’m sorry.  I lost two sisters when I was young.  Scarlet fever.” 

James seemed lost in the past.  The reins were slack in his hand and he stared dreamily into the distance. “Did you know that the Hassayampa River, when full, is prone to stagnation?  Breeds mosquitos.  Six months after our arrival there was an outbreak of malaria.  Carried off the folks lightning quick.” 

“How awf
ul,” she said, sadly thinking of him being so young and in such a strange, forbidding place.  “So then who looked after you and….”

“Mercer,” he finished.  “We turned out to be fortunate.  The most stalwart soul west of the Mississippi, Lizzie Post, had descended on the Territory bound to make herself a name, single woman or not.  She secured one of the early placers and made a fair penny off it.  Now she raises cattle on a small spread outside town.  Lizzie took us in and raised us.” 

It was a nice story.  Two orphan boys taken in by a tough lone woman.  “She sounds like a wonderful lady.” 

James laughed.  “She is.  Just don’t tell her that.  She’s a coarse one but that heart is richer than the deepest vein in the Scorpion.  I’m sure you’ll meet her sooner or later.” 

James Dolan appeared to be a good, upright man.  The unruly outlaw of a brother didn’t seem to fit him.  Annika wondered if he knew what Mercer really was.  If he did, then apparently he’d chosen to overlook it.  If he didn’t, Annika figured it was not her place to inform him. 

“Have you always been a man of the law?” she asked with interest. 

“No,” he admitted slowly.  “That mine is a powerful seduction.  I spent over a year heading down into that hole.  Took a chunk out of my lungs too.” He paused.  “I figure maybe I’ll live longer with the badge.  And even though it doesn’t bring as fat a dollar, it’s enough.  For a home,” he added carefully and Annika blushed, grasping his meaning. 

The sky was near
ly dark by the time they reached the schoolhouse.  It was less than a mile outside of town but it seemed the comforting lights were a world away.  Then Annika heard the crack of a gunshot from that direction and she was grateful to be removed from it. 

James lit a lantern and watched her doubtfully as she surveyed the single room schoolhouse.  The log walls smelled fresh and though there were no provisions inside, Annika was pleased.  She could well imagine presiding over a class there.  A narrow outhouse was perched several doze
n yards away, the telltale half-moon cut into the door.  The small neighboring building was to be her living quarters.  It was sparse, with only a rope bedframe and no mattress.  A large, terribly chipped wash basin and a single lantern were the only other fittings in the room.  James apologized for the crudity and promised it would not be for long. 

He placed the valise inside the room and observed Annika silently as she began to search through it, eager to locate some of the comforts of home. 

“Annika, are you certain you wouldn’t like to board with the Swillings?  At least until this place is furnished a little more satisfactorily.”

“No,” she insisted at once, feeling a deep and inexplicable pleasure over her new surroundings.  “No thank you, James.  I prefer to stay here.  That way I can begin seeing
to the school right away.  I expect children might be arriving tomorrow?”

He nodded.  “When word gets out you’ve arrived, then yes.  The parents of Contention City are eager and won’t waste time getting acquainted.”

Annika was satisfied.  “Good.  Then I’ll happily stay here.” 

James knew where the well was.
He filled a bucket and the washbasin and then awkwardly asked Annika whether she would prefer him to stay for a while. 

If she were being truthful, she would have admitted that she did wish
for him to remain.   But even with the lax propriety of Contention City, it wouldn’t be fitting.  She was keen on washing up as best she could and removing the torture of her whalebone stays.  She couldn’t very well do that with the city marshal hanging around several feet away. 

Before he left
, James brought something from the wagon.  “You know how to use it?” he asked.