Broken Wings (A Romantic Suspense) (10 page)

Uncle Rod nods. “Your mother threw them away, I’d stake my life on it. Now, what are you two doing out here? This place doesn’t even have a zip code. Don’t tell me you felt like a Sunday drive.”

Jack coughs. “I kidnapped her.”

Uncle Rod sits up. “What?”

I grab Jack’s arm. “I went along with it. We sort of got into trouble and we had to leave.”

My uncle glances back and forth between us. “Are you pregnant?”

“Not yet,” Jack smirks.

I punch his arm.

Uncle Rod laughs then suddenly turns serious.

“Yet?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not happening.”

He looks at me with a subtle smirk on his face. “Alright.”

My uncle rises. “You kids eat?”

“We had Wendy’s.”

“That’s not food, good Lord. Eat the cheese tray. Eat it!”

I jerk and start picking off slices of cheddar. Jack eats hungrily. Where does he put it?

My uncle sits down and leans back.

“You look like your mother,” he says, after a time. “Your real mother.”

“Who, me?” I blink.

“Yes, you.”

“Maybe, if she had half her face ripped off.”

“I always wondered how a spud like your father landed a prize like her.” He laughs sadly. “She was a real catch. It’s a shame what happened.”

“Dad didn’t talk about it much. He just said she got sick.”

“She did, too young. It took her hard. I’m glad you were too small to remember that.”

“I remember her a little. Not much. Just a feeling, really. Sometimes Dad fades a little, too.”

Jack moves closer and puts his arm around me.

“I never got to say goodbye to him,” I croak, pressing my hand into a fist. “It’s like he was just plucked out of my life.”

A shock of pain jolts up my left arm. I was trying to make a fist with both hands.

“I’m so glad to see you,” Uncle Rod says. “I was starting to think I never would.”

“I’m sorry I never called you, I just…”

“Sat in your room for ten years,” Jack sighs.

I nod. “The wedding was the first time I left the house in six months.”

“Wedding?” Uncle Rod says.

“Jessica married my father,” Jack says.

I nod.

“What? Nobody told me about any wedding, but I suppose they wouldn’t,” his voice takes a bitter twist, “I’m not
her
family. The gall of that woman. Well, he’ll learn his lesson. Your family has money, boy?”

Jack nods.

“There’s her interest in your father, same as my brother. She only cares about herself.”

“She’s been very supportive,” I say, though there’s no conviction in my voice. “She could have left if she wanted. She’s not even related to me.”

“Yeah, she could have left any time she wanted, and the money would stay with you. You were the heir, not her. Your father wrote his will to take care of you after your mother died, and so far as I know he never changed it. I never liked her anyway. I swear it wasn’t long before he died that he was telling me on the phone he’d been arguing with her. Something to do with you.”

“Me?” I squeak.

“Yes, some plan or other she had for you. She wanted you to be a singer or some foolishness. Like Britney Spears. Does she still sing?”

“I don’t think so,” Jack says, before taking another bite of cheese. He swallows. “Do you remember what he said about Jessica?”

“They argued, mostly about this training she had Ellie doing, and some kind of a diet.”

“I was on a diet, and she hired me a personal trainer.”

“Well, Keith told me on the phone that your mother said something to him about getting you a boob job.”

I snap back, blinking. “
What?”

Jack grabs my hand. “It’s okay, they’re big enough.”

I give him an annoyed look and shake my hand loose. “That’s crazy, I just turned sixteen.”

“You can get a boob job at sixteen,” Jack says.

We both stare at him.

“What? I know things. I went to college.”

“I’ll bet you did.”

“I knew a girl that had them that young. I mean knew as an acquaintance. Not like you know, biblically. Why are you looking at me like that, Ellie?”

Uncle Rod starts laughing softly to himself.

He stands up. “Enough about the past. We’ll talk more tomorrow. Right now you two need your rest. Where are you headed, anyway?”

“Arizona,” Jack says without skipping a beat.

I shrug and nod.

“Why?”

“I need to see my mom. It’s been a long time.”

My uncle nods. “Alright, you’ll be on the couch, it folds out. Ellie, there’s a guest bedroom upstairs. You’ll find some clothes in the dressers; they were your dad’s, but they’ll fit you if you don’t mind them running a little baggy.”

“Is that really necessary?” Jack asks.

“You’re not going to fornicate with my niece under my roof.”

“You’re right,” I say, rising. “He’s not. Where’s that bedroom?”

“Right up the stairs. You’ll see it. Jack, is it? Join me in the kitchen for a bit.”

Jack

I stand up from the couch and stall a bit, watching Ellie go up the stairs. The light clicks on in the guest bedroom and she closes the door. I follow her uncle into the kitchen.

“So. Ellie’s uncle.”

“Rodney. Call me Rod.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

He sets the tray of cold cuts on the counter and hands me another beer. This place looks like something out of a bad summer camp horror movie from the outside, but it’s all swank inside with cedar everything and granite everything else. It’s a chef’s kitchen, for sure. Copper cookware. This guy is serious about cooking.

He’s also serious about eating. I can tell by the looking at him that he can handle himself, though. He’s one of those guys who’s all muscle under a sheath of fat, with big, gnarly ham hands and a strangely graceful bearing. I keep that in mind as he glances at the knife block on the counter.

“So you’re
the
Jack. My brother mentioned you all those years ago. Said he figured on the two of you getting married. High-school sweethearts.”

I look away and try to say something.

“Don’t fill the air,” he says, handing me another beer. “I’m not stupid. I never had anything last, myself, but I know what it looks like. Feels like, too. Drink.”

I take a swig of his home brew, which is not bad, but then he’s pouring clear liquor from a decanter into a glass. He slides it over.

“Tell me you don’t have a still.”

“You look like too much of a fancy boy for white lightning. It’s just vodka. Now drink it.”

I tip the glass back—this is less a double and more a triple. It goes down smooth enough, but he’s poured another.

“Chase it with the beer.”

I take a swig. We repeat this process another couple of times, until the world is tilty. He sets my glass in the sink.

“That’s enough for you, you drive tomorrow. Now, let’s have it. What are you planning here?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have a plan. I’m just making this up as I go along.”

“Good, men plan and God laughs. You ready to tell me the truth?”

“What truth?”

“In vino veritas,” he says, hefting his glass. “I didn’t have any wine so this’ll have to do. Liquor is quicker, anyway. So let’s have it out. I know you were driving the car that night. Are you the reason my brother is dead and his little girl had half her fucking face burned off?”

“What? No!”

He seems a lot taller than I realized as he stands over me. A lot more sober, too. He downs his vodka like it’s water.

“Young kid barely knows how to drive in too much car, distracted, wrecks it. Bad wreck. I saw the police report. Car flipped three times. Amazing you made it out with just a broken leg while my brother died and my niece almost burned to death.”

“I wasn’t wearing my seat belt. They were. I was thrown out. My leg hit a tree. It’s a miracle I survived.”

“A miracle,” he says grimly.

I lean on the counter. Except it’s more of a slide and I end up sitting on the floor.

“It wasn’t my fault, I swear. I haven’t told her yet.”

“Told her what?”

I grab the beer off the counter and drain it. “The steering wheel stopped working. I think somebody did something to the car. I think my father was trying to kill us.”

Rodney steps back and looks down at me.

“You expect me to believe that?”

“I barely believe it myself.”

“You haven’t talked to Ellie about this?”

“No.” I sigh. “I don’t know how she’d take it. Maybe she doesn’t need to know. I… Her whole existence is about the crash now. She’s obsessed with those scars. It’s all she talks about.”

“Wouldn’t you be?”

I hand off the empty beer bottle and he takes it.

“Yeah, I would. It hurts me to see her like this. She was so happy. I could have done something. It was my fault even if somebody did do something to the car to make us wreck. I should have put it in neutral or
something
. I keep replaying it in my head over and over. I have dreams about it.”

“I’m sure you did everything you could. What possessed you to drag her all the way out here? Why are you going to Arizona?”

“I haven’t seen my mother since I was eight. I want Ellie to meet her. I don’t know. It made sense at the time. I just had to get her out of the house. Her cousin showed up and there’s no way she’d keep her mouth shut about me. If word gets back to my father, I’m up shit creek.”

Rodney nods. “You know they’ll be looking for you by now. You’ve been gone since, what, nine in the morning?”

“Maybe. My father and Jessica are on honeymoon. If Ellie’s cousin—”

“Not her cousin. I don’t have any kids and her mother had no siblings.”

“Well, Jessica’s niece… Fuck it, who cares. If she says something, we’re screwed.”

“Most likely they’re already looking for you. I don’t have a television but I’ll check the Internet and my police band scanner. Best you get some sleep.”

“You’re not going to turn us in?”

“Of course not. Jessica can go sit on a fire hydrant.”

He offers me a hand and drags me to my feet when I take it. I stumble a bit, a little clearer now, and watch while he unfolds the big couch into a bed. He tosses a blanket and pillow at the foot of the mattress and turns, disappearing through the kitchen.

I flop into the bed and splay out, not bothering with the blanket. My head starts to pound as I lie down. I scrub my eyes with the palms of my hands and flop my arms down, and hope for sleep.

It doesn’t come. I hear footsteps upstairs, but don’t open my eyes until there’s a creak on the stairs. A dark shape, lit by the moonlight coming through the tall windows, moves across the living room.

Ellie, dressed in oversized sweatpants and a long t-shirt, spreads a blanket over me as she crawls into the bed. She settles against my side, in the crook of my arm almost. Without thinking, I slip my arms around her.

Then I yelp.

“Jesus, your feet are cold.”

“Shut up. Don’t ruin it.”

“Ellie—”

“I said don’t ruin it. Go to sleep.”

She rolls over onto her other side, probably to take the pressure off her bad arm, and pushes back against me, her head propped in the crook of my elbow. I roll and put my other arm over her, and she doesn’t object.

My breath catches as hers slows, growing shallow and even as she slips into sleep. We’ve never slept together. I don’t mean sex, though I never got to home plate, either. I mean we never did this, just shared a bed. I wanted to but the occasion never arrived.

“Ellie?”

“I said don’t ruin it,” she murmurs.

“What is this?”

“I had a bad dream.”

I pull her into my arms. “You’re safe now.”

“Am I?”

I take a deep breath and bury my face in her hair. God, she still smells exactly the same. Soapy from a shower, but that scent she has is still exactly the same.

“Are you sniffing me?”

“Yes. Go to sleep.”

“Stop sniffing me.”

“No.”

Something else is happening. My hand is moving down her stomach, lower and lower, so slowly I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Ellie squirms on the bed, wriggling her ass against me, and I hear her let out a little noise that might be a silenced giggle.

“Jack,” she says.

She puts her hand on my wrist. I expect her to pull me away but she pushes instead, harder when my hand slips inside her sweats. A little gasp escapes her throat when I gently lift her underwear and slip my hand inside.

Ellie is burning hot between her legs, like she has a fever. So hot I almost pull my hand away as I work it between her thighs, gently probing with my fingers. She lifts her leg a little and then squeezes my hand when I find the sweet spot. A shudder runs down my spine and my cock stiffens at the feeing of her soft, slick pussy lips against my finger. I’m not sure if I push a little and enter her or if the way she rolls her hips takes my finger inside her, but I slowly press it in, feeling her pulse and shudder against me as my finger enters her body all the way to the knuckle.

“I’ll be quiet,” she says, very softly. “Do it.”

My heart pounding, I curl my finger gently inside her and then extend it again, reading the way her body twitches and tightens in reaction. I can feel the tension in this one spot—

“Right there,” she begs in a throaty whisper.

I oblige her. She likes it when I grind my palm against her, too. Soon I feel bold and slip a second finger inside her. She’s made my whole hand wet, she’s so hot. I freeze when I feel warm wetness around my other finger; she’s taken my first finger on my other hand in her mouth and she’s sucking it as I run the tips of my fingers inside her body. She moves in time with them, like a puppet.

I can feel her straining as she lets out tiny grunts and throaty noises almost like coughs as she holds back moans, and it makes my cock rock hard. I get even harder from knowing she can feel it grind into her ass as she rubs against me. I start to pump in time with her, running the underside of my shaft along her back through my clothes.

I have to stop before I explode all over her. I hold her tight and feel her curl up around my hand, drawing up into a ball. She rolls a little and then I’m halfway on top of her.