What the Hail Page 6

  I was eager to speak to her again.

  I’d watched her leave sometime during the game, but had assumed she’d gone to get a drink or something. But I hadn’t been able to spot her again anywhere in the complex.

  “She left before the game started,” Kennedy, Evander’s wife, answered.

  I looked over at her.

  “But hadn’t she come to watch the game?”

  Kennedy opened her mouth to answer, but Krisney, who was as far away from Reed as she could without breaking off from the group, answered before she could.

  “I asked her if she wanted to come. She said yes, but agreed only to stay for as long as she felt like it.” She hesitated. “Apparently, she was done.”

  My eyes twitched.

  “Baylor?”

  I looked over and down, turning slightly to the right to allow Adrienna to enter the huddle.

  “Hey there, Adrienna. You heading home?”

  Adrienna nodded her head, giving me a full-throttled smile. “My grandpa is coming to pick me up tomorrow. I have to be well rested, he said, because we’re going to Sea World in the chopper.”

  My brows lifted.

  “You are?” I asked. “That sounds like it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

  Adrienna’s grandfather was Ruben Kelly, the same man who’d given me the money when his son had nearly ruined my life.

  “If you say so,” she giggled then. “Grandpa still thinks I’m all of five years old. I told him that Sea World really isn’t something I’m interested in anymore, but he refuses to see reason.”

  “Your grandfather likes to remember that you are his daughter’s daughter.” Andie came up to her daughter. “You need to be nice to him, and act like he’s doing the best thing ever. One day he won’t be around anymore, and you’ll miss him.”

  Wasn’t that the truth.

  I grinned at Andie.

  It was a small world.

  A lot of years ago, Andie had been married to a good buddy of mine. A man who had died while we were deployed.

  I’d lost touch with her up until the accident that’d nearly killed me.

  Andie had come back from wherever she’d gone, and in that time Adrienna hadn’t been the only one to do some growing up. Andie had, too.

  Left in the old Andie’s place was this woman who I rarely saw smile unless she was watching her daughter succeed.

  “Not to interrupt,” Parker, another man that now worked with us butted in. “But Baylor, are you gonna need a ride or will you be catching one with one of your brothers?”

  I looked over to find Parker staring at me intently.

  What he wasn’t doing was looking at the woman at my side.

  His eyes were solely on me and not on anything else.

  “Nah, man,” I said. “House is about a half mile walk from here. I planned on hoofing it.” I paused. “Thank you for the offer, though.”

  Parker nodded and left without another word.

  “Nice of him to stay for the after-party,” Travis muttered to no one in particular.

  I snorted.

  “Y’all aren’t a very welcoming lot,” Rafe said as he grabbed his bag and slung it over his shoulder. “It takes an act of Congress to get you to do anything without your certain group of people.”

  With that, he left, too.

  Which didn’t surprise me.

  Rafe was another one of ours. He was new as well.

  When Dante had decided to call it quits with Hail Auto Recovery, he’d left a void that was just now being filled.

  With Rafe, Brock, and Parker stepping up, it’d given us the additional help we’d needed, and it was only recently that we’d each gone from working seven days a week to five.

  It was a breath of fresh air, if you asked me.

  “Who was that?”

  I looked over at Adrienna.

  “Which one?”

  She pointed to Parker’s retreating back.

  “That’s Parker,” I said. “He works with us.”

  She nodded.

  “Mom, did you see him?”

  I looked over at Andie, my grin widening.

  “Yeah, Andie. Did you see him?”

  She flipped me off.

  Laughing, I shouldered my own bag and ruffled Adrienna’s hair. “Have fun with Shamu. I’ll catch y’all later.”

  As I turned and started walking toward the parking lot, I heard my family’s jeering taunts behind me, egging me on to stay.

  I waved them off.

  “My fuckin’ knees hurt,” I told them. “See y’all tomorrow.”

  With that, I stepped off the curb and started in the direction of home, my eyes looking out for a certain woman.

  If I hadn’t been hurting so badly, I’d toss my bag into my yard and go see her. However, with my knee acting up with what was sure to be a pending storm, I knew walking wasn’t in the cards today.

  Driving was, though.

  So, after I showered, I got into my truck and drove the three streets over that led to Travis, Hannah, and Lark’s street.

  Why, I couldn’t tell you.

  I was just so fucking obsessed with her that I’d rather spend time with her than with my entire family.

  Chapter 10

  I love when I’m with you, and I don’t have to pretend I’m nice.

  -Lark to Baylor

  Lark

  I glared at Harold.

  “Listen,” I said, trying to keep calm. “I can’t afford to pay this ticket. If you give it to me, it’s not getting paid.”

  Harold continued to write.

  “I realize that you think you’re helping the neighborhood.” LIES! “But, everyone is getting to the point where they feel like it’s too much.”

  “I can’t have you parking in the street.” He handed me the ticket.

  I didn’t take it.

  Instead, I looked at him like the piece of slime he was.

  How could Sam, the man who had originally planned for me to come here, not know what a piece of shit he had for a contact here?

  Seriously, I didn’t think he knew. There was no way if he did know, that he would allow this to happen.

  “I’m sorry.” He walked to the car and slipped it underneath the windshield wiper when I wouldn’t take it. “But there are rules, and I can’t have you breaking the rules. Then everyone’s going to think that they can break the rules.”

  I just shook my head. “Harold, it’s not my car.”

  Harold didn’t seem to care, however. All he cared about was that there was a car in front of my house that was taking up too much of the road. Oh, and let’s not forget that I’d forgotten to register the car with him so he knows which cars belong, and which cars don’t belong.

  “I don’t believe you,” he said. “You’ve had two cars in the last month. How am I supposed to believe you?”

  I looked at him steadily. “If it was my car, wouldn’t you think that I’d be parking it in the driveway?”

  I pointed to the empty driveway behind me, and I would’ve continued to speak had a truck not pulled in moments after I said that.

  We both watched as the man in the truck—Baylor—got out and stood up to his full height. He took us both in, shook his head, and started forward.

  “What’s going on?” he asked, his eyes moving from me to Harold and back again.

  I ground my teeth together.

  “Harold gave me a ticket for someone else’s car being too far off the curb.” I pointed to said car.

  Baylor’s eyes went to the car, then to the other cars that were lining the road. Which happened to be centered around his brother’s house.

  “That’s Hail House and Hail Auto Recovery Employees,” he said. “We had a ball game up at the top of the road, and we met at Travis’ house and walked—well, they did. I didn’t. But these are all their cars. This one right here is Evander Lennox’s wife’s car.”

&nbs
p; Harold bared his teeth. “Well, then I’ll go ticket your brother instead.”

  He ripped the ticket off the window, tore it in half, and dropped it to the ground.

  I looked at the two pieces of paper as they floated to the ground, and then incredulously looked back up at Harold.

  “So, who writes you tickets when you are the one to break the rules?” I snapped, all of a sudden so angry that I couldn’t find the common sense to shut the hell up.

  Harold turned, his eyes narrowing.

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to judge, Miss Lawrence.”

  I clenched my hands into fists.

  The emphasis on my last name—which he was well aware wasn’t really my last name—was enough to put me in my place.

  I couldn’t fuck this up. Harold might be bad—no awful—but he wasn’t anywhere near as bad as my ex was.

  At least here, though angered, I would live.

  If my ex ever found me…that wouldn’t just be terrible, it’d be detrimental to my safety and well-being.

  My eyes went distant as the memories started to assault me one by one.

  The day I met Sal. How my life had changed in a matter of moments.

  How I’d thought I’d won the lottery when I married Sal, a fine, and upstanding police officer.

  Him being a police officer should’ve been a good thing.

  It wasn’t.

  He acted like he was a god. Like he could do anything just because he wore a badge.

  Fast forward five years, and I was at the lowest of my lows.

  I’d cut myself off from the rest of my family. I was pregnant again, scared, and alone as I tried to run away from a man who found it fun to beat the shit out of me just because he could.

  I didn’t make it. It’d been my fifth failed attempt.

  The moment he got me inside our home, he beat me.

  The last day I’d felt any semblance of my old self, I’d had another miscarriage.

  That’d been the last straw.

  I wasn’t playing around anymore.

  It didn’t matter if I died. What was the point anymore?

  I had no one. My family was all sickened by the sight of me—totally my fault. My friends thought I was a joke—again, my fault. My business associates hated me because I always called out sick, mostly because I’d been beaten so badly that I couldn’t stand up—yep, still my fault.

  It took me almost another six months to concoct the perfect plan to get away from Sal. Then three more months after that to put the plan into place.

  It was at the fourth women’s shelter I’d been to in less than forty-eight hours that I found Sam’s card. Well, it hadn’t been Sam’s card, but his organization’s card. It had been handed to me by some random nun who told me that my trouble wasn’t the kind of trouble that they could handle. And if I wanted to not only save my life but the lives of the other women in the shelter, then I needed to call the number on the card.

  I’d called the number.

  Less than eight hours later, I had found myself standing in the middle of Nowhere, Texas, staring at a man who told me he would help me.

  There’d been no catch, no promises were made on my part. Just a couple of really good-looking men, and two young women, taking the burden off my shoulders.

  “Lark!”

  It wasn’t the name that brought me out of my contemplation, but the worried cadence of Baylor’s voice.

  “What?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

  He looked at me worriedly.

  “Are you okay?”

  I tilted my head to the side in confusion. “What are you talking about? I’m perfectly fine.”

  I started to look around, noticing that Harold was nearly back to his own place.

  I breathed a sigh of relief. I was fine. Okay. Great.

  At least on the outside.

  But on the inside, I was a jumbled mess of nerves that was still unable to believe that this new life I was in was real.

  I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “…poppy...”

  My entire being froze.

  My breaths stalled in my lungs. My hands fisted at my side. My feet shifted to take flight. My heart started to slam in my chest.

  I was shivering, a fine sheen of sweat had dusted my face and chest, and there was a roaring in my ears.

  Poppy seed bagels. Goddamn those things.

  “Do you like poppy seed bagels?” he asked, holding up a brown paper bag. “I got some at the store.”

  I managed to shake my head. “No, I don’t like p-p-poppy seed bagels.”

  Lies.

  I loved them.

  Turns out, Sal doesn’t. How did I find that out? When he tried to punch me in the throat when he caught me eating one. He’d missed my throat. My jaw hadn’t been so lucky.

  He shrugged. “I have some cheddar asiago ones, too.”

  He handed me the bag, and my arm automatically lifted to take it.

  I looked from him to the bag, wondering if he saw my minor freak out moments ago, but he didn’t show any indication that he had noticed.

  So, I chose to ignore it and walk into my house.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  I skirted the bike, keeping my eyes on my feet as they propelled me up the front walk.

  “I came to see why you left before the game,” he said.

  My brows went up in surprise at hearing that he’d noticed me leaving.

  “How did you know I did that?” I asked.

  “Because I watched you walk away,” he said. “I kept expecting you to come back, but you never did.”

  No, I never had.

  I didn’t tell him that, though, and instead continued to walk through my house, knowing that he’d followed.

  “This is…nice.”

  I laughed under my breath.

  “This is garage sale finds,” I muttered. “The house came partially furnished from the previous occupant.”

  Well, partially furnished was more like fully furnished. She’d left everything but the food in her fridge. The stuff in her pantry she hadn’t bothered to take.

  Which left me wondering what had made her leave as fast and as recklessly as she had.

  Did someone catch up with her? Her past?

  Was she okay, wherever she was now?

  Those worries were just my general worries now. I was known as a worrywart—or used to be anyway.

  “Lark, are you sure you’re okay?”

  This time worry was in his voice again.

  I cringed.

  What the hell was going on with me? I hadn’t been this spacey in months!

  Then I realized why I was acting like this. It’d been Harold’s threats.

  Last week it’d been the threat of taking my house away. This week it’d been the threat of telling people I wasn’t who they thought I was.

  Sal wouldn’t need much. Just a tiny little nibble on a line, and he’d have someone here to investigate it.

  It wouldn’t take long from there.

  Sal had a lot of money.

  I liked to say it was more than Bill freakin’ Gates, but that would be an over exaggeration—but only barely.

  If he lost a hundred-dollar bill, he’d be more upset that the thickness of his wallet was throwing off his perfect posture causing him to appear less than the superior person he deemed himself to be then he would’ve been over the fact that he lost the money in the first place.

  No, it’d take more than the loss of a measly hundred dollars to have him worried.

  I once overheard him talking to his accountant who said that he couldn’t find ten thousand dollars, and Sal had just waved him off like he was an annoying flea. “Just mark it as a loss, and go from there.”

  Those words had haunted me from the day that I’d heard them.

  I could’ve taken that ten thousand dollars and lived off of it for the f
irst few months that I hid from him.

  I could’ve done a whole lot of stuff with that money.

  So much that it still made me angry to this day that he’d been so nonchalant about losing it.

  The asshole.

  Then, come to find out, he hadn’t ‘lost’ the ten grand at all. Sal had given it to some random waitress who he’d thought was excellent at serving him his steak.

  It hadn’t even been our waitress that he’d given it to, but literally, the woman that had placed his steak in front of him.

  “Lark.”

  It was the hands this time that brought me back to the present.

  “You’re kind of scaring the shit out of me,” Baylor said. “What’s going on?”

  I grimaced. “Bad memories.”

  He stared at me, studying my face, and then nodded once. “Have those myself.”

  I smiled, but the smile didn’t reach my eyes.

  He noticed that, too.

  “Why are you here?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Or at least, not for a long time.

  “I’m here because I want to be here,” he finally said. “I—”

  There was a commotion outside—a lot of yelling, screaming and word hurling—that had Baylor and I walking out onto my front porch.

  I wasn’t surprised by what we saw in the least. At least, not by the altercation that was going on in the middle of the street.

  It was the man that surprised me.

  I’d expected Travis, or maybe his wife to say something. What I hadn’t expected was some random man.

  A random man who was utterly, stunningly gorgeous.

  His hair was black, and his eyes were even darker.

  He was wearing a black t-shirt, dark washed blue jeans and a black baseball cap. His eyes were ahead, focused solely on Harold, who was being surrounded by three very upset looking ladies.

  The three ladies were yelling at Harold—well, yelling was probably too strong of a word. More like they were having a strained conversation that clearly had to do with the tow truck that was backing up to Kennedy’s car right that very second.

  Well, it was trying to at least, but Evander was standing in front of her car.

  His ass was leaning against the hood, blocking the tow truck from getting to the car, with his arms crossed tightly over his abdomen.

  I had a feeling that he wasn’t angry as much as he was waiting to pounce.