Finding Serenity (28 page)

“Yeah well, ‘manager’ is a glorified term for water boy.” Mollie decides she likes the detective. He’s not hard on the eyes and unlike every cop she’s ever met, he isn’t an asshole who looks down on her. “I get that there’s something going on that you can’t talk about. I know Vivian Winchester and I know her boss. They aren’t saying shit.” Again Mollie nods, still unwilling to confirm anything. “If you tell me to back off, I will. I figure that’s coming from my boss any day now.”

“There’s really nothing I can tell you that you don’t already know, detective.” Ryan tilts his head and his eyes narrow as though he’s trying very hard to read her. “It might be a good idea for you to back off. I may not like cops, but I’d hate it if anyone else gets hurt because of me.” She nudges him when he frowns. “Even cute detectives.”

“Oh, I’m cute?
Man.
” His smile is impossibly wide now and Mollie can’t help but return the gesture. “Guess I still got it.” He winks at her and then leaves the chair, ducking to his desk to grab something out of his jacket pocket. Ryan nudges her toward the door, but doesn’t open it. “I’m about to do something that’s going to piss off your Marine. You don’t mind, do you?”

“Navy?”

“How’d you guess?” he says, before he opens the door and ushers Mollie out into the hallway. “Now, Ms. Malone, you remember what I told you, okay?”

She has no idea what he’s talking about, but plays along, getting a small thrill when Vaughn stands up straight, gaze moving between her and the detective. “Sure thing, Ryan.”

“You
know
you can call me Neil. Here you go,” Ryan says, giving Mollie a business card. He leans against the door jamb and that flirty, sweet smile returns. “My, ah, home number is on there, if you ever need to talk. You take care of yourself, Mollie and remember, my shifts ends at six. Anytime you want that drink, you let me know.”

It’s nearly impossible to keep her laughter tamped down, especially when she sees Vaughn hovering too close and the wicked glare he levels at Ryan. “Thanks, detective.” She motions with his card and slips it into her pocket. “I’ll see you around.”

Mollie notices Ryan lingering in the doorway and then Vaughn is at her side, arm on her elbow as he hustles her out of the precinct.

“What the hell was that?” he says, navigating around the lobby and the crowd of families and bail bondsmen who clutter around the front desk.

When they are outside, she jerks out of Vaughn’s grip and waits for him to open the passenger door when they reach his Jeep. “Nothing. He’s not the mole.”

“Like you’d know.”

She slams her hand on the hood of his Jeep. “What’s your problem?”

“Nothing.”

“That’s your favorite freaking word, Semper Fi.”

Mollie is buckling her seatbelt, waiting for Vaughn to start the engine and kick on the AC when she hears him mumble. “Flirting with that freaking cop.”

“Why do you care?” Vaughn turns on the engine and shifts gears, pulling out in front of two slow-moving cars that barely manage to avoid hitting each other. “And FYI, jackass, you don’t own me. You don’t get a say so in who I talk to or flirt with or have a drink with.”

He slams on his brakes at a yellow light, cars behind them cursing at Vaughn and laying on their horns. “The hell I don’t.”

“Yeah, and what gives you the right?”

“Since I was inside you last night!” Another horn, this time because the light is green and Vaughn slams his hands on the steering wheel. He pulls his glaring gaze from Mollie and peels out, speeding down the road as his grip only grows tighter.

“You have lost your fucking mind.” She won’t let him bite back a response, she won’t let Vaughn do anything but scowl and drive like an idiot through traffic. “News flash, dude, you don’t own me. No one does.”

“I know I don’t. I’m not saying—”

“Shut. Up.” Mollie can’t look at him. She doesn’t want to see the way his body is tensed with frustration, anger, she is not sure if she’ll be able to refrain from slapping him. “I never asked for any of this shit. None of it.” When she slams her fist against the dash, Vaughn releases a low, angry growl, which she ignores. “I didn’t ask you to invade my life and try to take over. No one controls me, Vaughn. Not one fucking body!”

“I know that!”

They are panting now, the lick of heat, of fury filling between them as the small stretch of downtown Cavanagh disappears and buildings lower, become spread apart the further from town they get. He is taking her back to the hotel on the tourist strip and Mollie finds herself counting the mile markers to avoid the awkward tension in the car.

“You hate cops,” he says, his voice lower, his temper mildly eased. “Why are you flirting with one if you hate them so much?”

“You’re serious?
Jesus.
”
Jealousy? That’s what this was about?
Logically, Mollie knew it wasn’t, she knew that the frustration, the desire, was all coalescing, that the detective is just the push that made Vaughn’s anger brim over. She tries to take a breath, to bite back some of her own frustration, but she can’t slow her heart rate, can’t figure out what to do with her hands as the silence eats up the minutes and the country lots around them. “Look who’s the kid now.” Stunned, and keeping some of her anger still simmering, Mollie shakes her head. “Never took you for the jealous type.”

When Vaughn reaches a four way stop with no vehicles around them and a small farm just across the culvert, he speaks, words coming out softer, breath easier, calmer. “I never have been before.”

Mollie wishes he’d held on to his anger a bit longer. She can’t take the tension in the stare they exchange or how Vaughn’s skin has grown pale. The moment lengthens until the only sound that can be heard comes from the small calf mooing at the farm and the weight of their breath fogging against the glass despite the low rush of the AC. When he looks away from her, foot steady on the brake and his forehead resting on the steering wheel, a small fraction of Mollie’s bitterness disappears. Then Vaughn rears back and punches his radio, fragments of plastic, dials and buttons fall next to her feet.

“I’m sorry,” he says, wiping the small leak of blood from his knuckles onto his jeans.

Ahead, the small calf stops grazing, glances at them once before she returns to the green snack at her feet. Vaughn stares out of the driver side window, uninjured knuckles on his mouth and finally, Mollie releases the rest of her smoldering anger. “Hey.”

He grabs her hand, on his shoulder, moves it close to his chest before he looks at her. And like lightening, he pulls her toward him, mouths touching, his fingers in her hair, on the back of her neck. She wants this moment to last. Really, she wants him to pull over and kiss her for hours, for days, but there is still a threat slinking in the shadows, still eyes watching.

Vaughn rests his head against hers, inhaling, she thinks, to catch a last few seconds before they are forced back to that hotel, but just then, tires squealing breaks through the steam and stillness of the cab, wrenching apart the moment. And before they can look behind them to see the cause of the squealing tires, they are slammed from behind.

Mollie’s head bangs against the airbag as it deploys and the car fishtails as they are pushed into the ditch by the side of the road. Head swimming, she catches glimpses of detail: the sight of a large fence post lying on the ground next to the Jeep; the smell of rubber, melted and burned against the pavement and then, they are slammed again.

“Mollie, you okay?” Vaughn’s hand on her arm and although she fights to bring things into focus, what she can make out is jumbled, blurry, and she feels unattached to her body. She is barely able to see Vaughn reaching under his seat and then she hears running feet, screams and the unmistakable crack of a gun being fired.

“Come on, you fucking assholes! I’m right here!” Three more shots and the car jostles.

And when Mollie next blinks, she sees through the windshield, Vaughn walking back to the Jeep and then the pool of blood darkening his shirt. His face is so pale, and the pain, the haze swimming around her head pushes her eyelids down and the world goes pitch black.

From the porch, you can see the clouds. The sky is painted purple with small strokes of yellow and orange rising above, setting a vivid highlight to mountain peak. It is where the Winchesters spent their summers, when the sun blazed too hot, when illness and violence became too much and a reprieve was essential. To him, this is heaven. Vaughn sips his beer, chair reclined as he watches those clouds, as he waits for Mollie to wake.

She is twenty feet away, but feels miles from him. This cabin is safe, secured by the guards Viv sent in to watch the property, two along the front gate and more than he can count around the other cabins that circle the woods. Still, he doesn’t feel as safe as he’d like, but then he doubts nothing will make his back relax, take away the stiff grip he holds in his fists. Mollie’s friends cluster around the other side of the cabin, whispering among themselves, offering theories, solutions that Vaughn finds ridiculous and their presence does nothing to lessen his anxiety. Nothing will until Mollie wakes.

He hears the squeak of her bedsprings and Vaughn turns around, looks through the large window next to her bed. He leaves the porch, slips into her room and sees that she is restless, fighting something he can’t see in her dreams. He can relate. She looks so tired, so battered and it takes everything in him not to sidle in next to her, hold her against his chest and tell her it was all a nightmare.

“Dad?” she mumbles and he knows she is still sleeping. There is small cut underneath that bandage on her forehead and her right eye is shaded with a bruise. When Mollie rolls on her side and her face brushes against the pillow, Vaughn is there, sitting on the bed, moving her unresisting body onto her back.

“Shh. It’s okay, sugar. You’re safe.” He wishes that were true. He wishes to God he could protect her the way she deserves. At least, he thinks, these are only contusions. At least they will heal. Vaughn winces when he shifts closer, pulling the covers over Mollie’s shoulder. His own injury was superficial, barely worth the ER visit, but Viv insisted and like a good little brother, he let her have her way. He’d barely managed to convince his sister that they would both be fine at the cabin. Still, that didn’t stop her from having a doctor come around periodically to check their injuries.

It took more convincing getting her to agree that Mollie’s friends join them at the cabins. Viv trusts no one, but these kids are Mollie’s family. She’d die for them. He trusts Mollie, more than he should, an instinct that he couldn’t really understand and he knew they’d never let him take her once word got around town that she’d been in a wreck. Especially not after what they’d all been through two years before with Autumn.

So, he explained, they’d been attacked. Mollie was in danger and it would be safer for everyone if they all took a trip up to the mountains. Besides, they could all really use a break.

“Daddy…” Mollie says again and Vaughn wonders what she’s dreaming about. What kind of dreams does the kid of a biker have? “No, Daddy, the magnolia.” She snores once and Vaughn smiles, loving how calm she looks, how content. “I like the white ones.”

“We’ll get you the white ones, Mollie. I promise.” And then Vaughn kisses her, soft, barely touching the lips he loves so much, before she falls back under.

Three blinks. On the fourth, Mollie’s eyes focus. She is on a bed; a large one with thick pillows and pale yellow sheets. She can move her limbs, wiggle her bare legs against the cool linen, but when she rolls over, a thundering pain whizzes against her head.

“Shit. Balls. Crap.” She reaches for her eye, which only opens a sliver, but stops when she hears Layla’s voice behind her.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Layla?”

“I’m over here, sweetie.”

Forcing her lids to open wider, Mollie spots her best friend sitting in a leather chair next to a fire. There are slate stones stacked the entire length of the fireplace, reaching the pine log ceiling. Her eyes focus, and with a few more blinks the blur diminishes. Mollie can make out Layla’s hair set high in a ponytail and the blue cover of the book she reads. “Hey.” She reaches out a hand, calling the blonde forward and some of the tension in her shoulders releases when she feels Layla’s soft, thin fingers.