Strength & Courage (The Night Horde SoCal Book 1) (23 page)

No. It was too fast.

That thought, once it moved around her mind and settled a little, gave Sid some comfort. She didn’t have to know the answers to any of these questions yet. It was too soon. And that meant that she didn’t have to make any decisions yet. They could proceed, be together, get to know each other better, and she could take her time. Because she’d had worries and questions before. She wasn’t even sure she wanted a life mate, outlaw or otherwise. She didn’t know how to negotiate those complicated dynamics.

And that seemed the first order of business. That would probably answer the question that the women had said was so important. Did she love him enough?

Maybe. It was too soon to know for sure.

Feeling stronger and more settled, Sid got up, brushed her teeth, and left the bathroom. Cliff was still waiting for her in the hallway. When she bent over to give him a love, the room didn’t toss about like a ship at sea—a huge improvement. “I need water. C’mon, fella, you want to go outside?”

On her way to the kitchen, she saw Muse, lying on her couch. It wasn’t a couch, really. More like a loveseat, and he didn’t fit. One leg was hanging far over the arm, the other was on the floor. His arms were crossed over his chest. He was wearing everything but his kutte and his boots, and he looked really uncomfortable. But he seemed to be asleep, despite her and the dog moving around.

She let Cliff out into her yard and went to her fridge to pour herself a glass of filtered water.

“You feeling better?”

At Muse’s softly-spoken question, Sid gasped and inhaled some water. While she coughed, he came up behind her and rubbed her back.

“That’s a no, then?” There was a smile in his tone.

She got control of herself and took another drink to soothe the scratch in her throat. “You scared me. I thought you were sleeping.”

He leaned his hip on the edge of the counter and crossed his arms. “Not much. Your couch isn’t a couch. And your spare room is nothing but boxes.”

“Why weren’t you in bed?”

He gave her a searching look. “Wasn’t sure I was welcome. After what we talked about.”

“But you stayed.”

“I need to keep you safe.”

Cliff barked outside the back door, and Muse went and let him in. There was a calm in watching this man do that mundane, homey thing, just walking across the kitchen and letting his dog in from the yard. He bent down and picked up Cliff’s water bowl from its stand and came back to the sink to dump the stale water and refill it with fresh.

As the water poured from the tap into the bowl, he turned and smiled, his forehead creased with affectionate confusion. “What?”

She must have been staring in some particular way. Unsure how to answer him, she said the thing she was feeling acutely right then. “I love you.”

He turned off the water and set the full bowl in the sink. Then he faced her and brushed his fingers down her arm. “Enough?”

“I don’t know. It’s too early for me to know. Everything is happening so fast—big things, one right on top of the other. I feel dizzy with it all.”

Cliff nudged Muse’s hand, and Muse took his bowl and put it in its stand. He stood and stayed where he was, the span of her small, cozybright kitchen between them. “What’s that mean for us now?”

She shrugged. “Can we just be like we have been, you staying here with me, but without making any other big plans? Like you said before—see where it goes?”

A smile lifted his mouth a little. “Yeah. That’s good. But Sid, you know some things now. I need to know if that could ever hurt me or mine.”

“I don’t know anything, really. You left me to make assumptions. But I’d never use any of that against you, no.”

“What about Demon and Tucker? Does what you know hurt their case?”

That had been one of the incredibly loud thoughts in her head last night. How did she deal with that? But she had finally decided on what seemed like a simple plan, and a real truth.

“You weren’t talking to a social worker last night. I was just Sid. Unless I see Tucker being hurt, I won’t use what I know in my personal life when I’m in my professional life. Everything I’ve seen tells me that Tucker should be with family. I’m trying to make that happen. You tell me that’s not a mistake, and I’ll believe you.”

“It’s not. He belongs with us.”

“Okay. Then I guess there’s only one thing left to know.”

“What’s that?” He came back to her and rested one hand on her waist.

“Do
you
love
me
enough to wait with me while I figure the rest of it out?”

His grin was full and sweet. “I drove a pink car last night to get you home. I love you enough to do just about anything.”

Feeling relieved and happy, Sid looped her arms around his neck, and he bent down and covered her mouth with his. God, he was a great kisser. His tongue did amazing things, in her mouth and everywhere else.

She pulled back. “Will you come to bed with me?”

Instead of answering, he lifted her, and she settled into her place around his strong body. He carried her back to the bedroom.

Cliff followed, then stopped at the doorway. As Muse laid her on the bed and stepped back to pull off his hoodie and beater, Sid saw the dog huff in disgust and turn toward the living room.

“I think Cliff is mad.” She got under the covers.

Muse looked over his shoulder at the open door as he unbuttoned his jeans. There was maybe nothing hotter in the world than this man, in nothing but jeans, his hands hooked in his fly. “He likes you. But he’s used to sleeping in my bed.”

She stretched on the pillows, feeling content and a lot better than she had any right to feel. “Maybe someday we’ll get a bigger bed. Room for him, too. Though a king would pretty much fill this room.”

He stopped and held her eyes. “You can’t have it both ways, hon. We plan or we don’t. Don’t play.”

“Yeah, I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

Shedding his jeans, he grabbed a condom from the drawer and slid into bed. Leaning over her, he brushed his nose across her cheek. “We could plan one thing.”

“What’s that?”

He waved the packet. “I’d love to get rid of these. I want to fuck you bare. I want to feel your slick pussy right on me. I want to feel your heat. I want to fuck you in the shower and the tub and any damn place. Goddamn, I think about that.” He flexed, and his erect cock pushed hard into her side.

Sid hooked a leg over his hip and drew him close. “Jesus, the things you say.”

“What do you think?”

“Will you get tested?”

“Our girls are clean. They get tested.”

She didn’t like to think about what any of that meant, and she didn’t trust it in any event. “Muse. Will you?”

He hesitated, but finally nodded. “Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll call my doctor Monday morning.”

He grinned and put his hand between her legs. “That’s my girl.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Muse shoved open the glass doors and nearly collided with a young woman pushing a stroller. He sidestepped and didn’t bother to take the time to acknowledge the near miss. As he passed the reception desk, he threw out a question to the nurse behind it, whom he recognized, but he couldn’t recall her name. “Where’s Rachel? She called.”

“I’ll page her.”

Muse nodded and headed down the hall. Just as he arrived at Carrie’s closed door, he heard Rachel behind him.

“Mr. Musinski!”

He turned. “What happened?”

“Pneumonia. It came on fast. She had just a little bit of an elevated temp when I left last night, and then about three hours ago it went into the stratosphere. The doctor checked on her about half an hour ago. I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Muse nodded and went into Carrie’s room. There were machines connected to her for the first time in years, different beeping rhythms in dissonance. Her skin was flushed, almost shiny with heat. Her chest was rising erratically, her breathing fast and shallow. And she was making a noise with her breath that lashed Muse’s heart each time, a wheezing moan that sounded like pain.

They had her propped up much higher than normal, and her head lolled to the side. Someone had shoved a rolled towel between her shoulder and her cheek. She was drooling. Her eyes were open, staring emptily into the room.

One of the machines looked like it was monitoring her temperature. If he was right, and if he was reading it right, she had a fever of 105.2.

He dropped the bedrail and sat on the side of the bed, as close to her as he could get. When he picked up her frail, curled hand, he hissed. Fuck, she was cooking. Oh, fuck.

In the first year after the wreck, she’d almost died several times. Since then, she’d had infections and illnesses a few times, but nothing major. She’d rested quietly since. Muse expected her to live her full life in this rest. He expected to be able to sit with her three times a week and talk to her and read to her and be with her. He expected to keep a little flame of hope alive that one day her eyes would focus and she’d call him Trog again. That the last words she’d ever say to him wouldn’t be ‘fuck off.’

“Don’t you fucking do it, Spud. Don’t you go.” He lifted that blazing hot hand to his cheek and held it there.

“Mr. Musinski.”

Without letting go of his sister, Muse looked over his shoulder at Dr. Chen, who’d been her doctor for the past two years. “What are you doing to help her?”

Chen stepped to the side of Carrie’s bed, just behind Muse. “We’ve introduced chilled fluids into her IV and we’re medicating for fever reduction. But...” he paused and checked her Foley bag. Muse watched and saw the dark brown, thick-looking fluid inside it. “She’s not responding, and her organs are starting to shut down. There are a couple of things we could still try, but they’re extreme and we’d need to get her to the hospital. And it might well be too late anyway. Or…”

Muse set his sister’s hand on the bed and stood so he could turn around and face the doctor full-on. He had several inches on him, and he pulled himself up tall to make the most of it. “Or what?”

The doctor didn’t seem intimidated. He stared right up at Muse, his glasses making his eyes look oddly large. “Or we could make her comfortable and let nature take its course.”

“Kill her, you mean.” Muse curled his fists tightly.

“No. I mean let her go to her natural end.” He pointed to the bag hanging from the side of the bed. “I know you know what this means.”

He did. Her kidneys were failing.

“I’m sorry. You have to make a decision, and you need to make it now. I can’t make it for you, but if you want us to do more, we need to move.”

He turned to his sister. They had to save her. She was still young, only thirty-three. She’d had such a fucked-up road, and she’d tried to make the best of it, but she hadn’t had a chance yet to do any of the things she’d wanted to do. She wanted to travel, but she’d never yet left California. She wanted a family, but she’d never even gotten close yet. She wanted a ranch with horses, but she’d only lived in apartments. She wanted, and she’d never gotten any of it.

And she never would.

He knew that. Every brain scan was more degraded than the last. There was little left of his baby sister. She would never have the life she’d wanted, that she’d deserved. Because he’d let her down. He hadn’t kept her safe.

He sat back down and picked up her hand. The temperature monitor showed 105.3 now.

“Mr. Musinski.”

When he tried to answer, his voice failed him. He swallowed and tried again. “Make her comfortable.”

Dr. Chen put his hand on Muse’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

Muse shook him off. “She looks uncomfortable the way she is.”

Chen picked up the bed controls and lowered the head. “We’ll lay her down a bit and get some of these machines off her. I’ll be right back.”

When the doctor left the room, Muse pulled his personal out with his free hand and dialed.

Sid answered right away, her voice bright and sweet. “Hey. I’m just getting out of the doctor’s. Guess what I’ve got?”

Muse closed his eyes against the happiness in his ear. “Sid, I need you.”

“Muse, what’s wrong? Are you okay?” He could tell from the sound of her voice and the sounds around her that she was outside, probably walking to her car. Keanu had better have been nearby.

“Can you come?”

She didn’t hesitate. “Yeah. Where are you?”

“With Carrie. San Gabriel Care Center.”

“Oh God. Muse, is she—”

“I just need you, hon.”

“I know where it is. I’m like twenty minutes away. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

Muse put his phone away. It wasn’t until the nurses had disconnected Carrie from everything but the heart and temperature monitors that Muse realized that he’d just called Sid to come and witness the worst thing that had ever happened in his life.

He opened the drawer and picked up Carrie’s tattered, decomposing copy of
Wuthering Heights
. He was five chapters from the end. They’d finish it together one more time.

Sitting on the side of her bed, he opened her favorite book and read:
I have paid a visit to the Heights, but I have not seen her since she left. Joseph held the door in his hand when I called to ask after her, and wouldn’t let me pass.

~oOo~

Sid came in while he was reading, but he didn’t stop, and she didn’t try to interrupt him. His love for her grew beyond measure when she simply came to the side of Carrie’s bed and laid her hand on his back, bending down to kiss his shoulder while he read.

She stood there, her hand on him, not seeming to move, until he lifted his eyes to his sister’s, open and showing the same blue as his, and recited from memory the last lines of the story:
I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.

Carrie had seemed no different while he read. She was still struggling, her breathing distressed, and still flushed with heat, but she held on, her heart monitor showing a steady beat. Now that he could study her again, though, he saw that the tone of her skin was turning from feverish red to orange. Jaundice. That meant her liver was going, too.

And her temperature monitor showed 105.4.

“Don’t leave me, Spud. Don’t you go.”

Sid’s hand moved on his shoulder, a light squeeze, and he remembered he wasn’t alone.

He turned to look up at her for the first time. “Thank you for coming. I’m…sorry.”

She took her hand from his shoulder and pushed it through his beard. “Shut up. I’m glad you called. I’ll be here as long as you want me to be.”

He hooked his arm around her waist and leaned his body into hers, to rest there for a second. When she wrapped her arms around his head and laid her head on his, the rock in his chest that was holding his heart in place heaved painfully.

“I found you here,” she murmured.

He leaned back, loosening her hold so he could look up into her beautiful, exotic face. “I thought you knew where it was?”

“No.” She shook her head and waved with one arm around the room. “I found
you
here.”

He looked around at Carrie’s room. He didn’t pay much attention to it anymore. It was her room; he’d made it someplace she’d want to be. Now, he tried to see what Sid was seeing. He’d put up a big bulletin board for all the cards she’d gotten. At first, she’d had more visitors than just him. Her friends had come to sit with her, and they’d sent cards and flowers. But then they’d forgotten her, dropping away one by one. Now, those cards were yellowing, and there hadn’t been new ones for long time, but he’d left them up.

He’d pinned on the wall a few posters for movies she liked. Muse’s next-door neighbors to the north were a family of five, with three kids. The oldest was twenty now. He’d been working at the Foothill Cinema since he was sixteen, and he’d been able to get his hands on lots of movie posters. Muse had made a few special requests, including one for a version of
Wuthering Heights
she really liked, with that Tanner Whozits guy as Heathcliff, and another for an old movie called
Truly, Madly, Deeply
, which Carrie had subjected Muse to more than once. In his opinion, it was the soggiest piece of weepy chickgasm he’d ever had the misfortune to experience, but she loved the fuck out of that movie.

In most ways, Carrie was a tough chick—too tough, even. But in other ways she was a total girl. She had a deep and wide romantic streak. There was a particular kind of love she wanted, the kind that made people crazy for it. Running up the side of her right leg was a line from a poem or something:
When love is not madness, it is not love
. She really believed that shit.

Muse had had to rescue her a few times from crazy assholes she’d thought had that kind of love for her, but those bad experiences had not cooled her on the idea that it was the only kind of love worth having.

Other than the cards and posters, and the big birthday greeting the schoolkids had made for her last month, and the nice sheets and comforter on her bed, the only other thing Muse had done was take a bunch of poorly-composed snapshots from their grandma’s photo albums, and some photos that Carrie had had in her apartment, and blow them up for frames. There were maybe twenty framed pictures of them together and of the few times in their childhood when things had been okay.

Looking around the room now, Muse realized that over the course of her years here, he’d almost filled all her walls. He looked at those photos, which he’d barely noticed in all that time, and saw what he was losing. What he’d already lost. What their father had taken from them both.

What Muse had let him take.

“Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.” He sagged, and Sid held him close again, her lips on his head.

“Would it hurt too much to tell me about her?”

He had no idea, and he had no idea what to say. But he wanted to try. Telling Sid about Carrie felt like a way to let these two important women meet. Setting Sid aside, he reached out and caught the arm of the chair, pulling it up to the bed. “Have a seat.” She sat, but kept her hand on his thigh when he stayed seated on the bed next to his sister.

“She’s tough, but sweet, too. She likes to think of herself as a badass, but put a furry critter in front of her—especially one that’s hurt or a baby—and she turns into a pile of sugary goo. She loves movies and books that make her cry. She says her very favorite kind of story is ‘love transcending death.’ She usually works as a waitress. She wanted to be a reporter—the kind that gets embedded with soldiers—but there wasn’t money for college, and her grades weren’t good enough for a scholarship or anything. She’s super smart, it was just hard to get to school and focus.”